Latest Brew – Legion of Boom

Wurtil here again!

While the addition of Primal Dawn to the constructed format will change the metagame in unknown ways, Armies of Myth is still here! If anything, the metagame has continued to stay wide open as players look for small edges against the field. Winter Moon still remains the prevalent force that influences every deck to some degree, but it is by no means dominant as we continue to see the rise and fall of many archetypes both new and old.

Barring some incredibly powerful card we have yet to see being printed in Primal Dawn, it is safe to say that likely the format will continue to remain wide open after the next set release as players will flock to either upgrades on existing archetypes or to unrefined new decks. That being said, let’s talk briefly about what you want to be doing as a general lesson in wide-open formats:

1) Be Proactive!

If the field is fairly narrow and predictable, that is a great time to be digging for the right 75 cards that can be a solution to what ails those specific challenges. The opposite is also true. When everyone is fighting along different lines, instead you want to be playing a strategy that will go for your opponents’ throat. This doesn’t necessarily have to be an aggro deck, but it does need to put an average opponent on their back foot in the first few turns of the game and force the opponent to interact with you. It is obvious that Quash Ridge Tusker is a proactive card, but Azurefate Sorceress in many iterations can also be a very proactive step towards victory. Whether she threatens lethal damage from your next troops or burying the opponent in both real and virtual card advantage with Spellshield and card draw, she represents a very real threat that the opponent must deal with.



2) Do Something Powerful!

Our Azurefate Sorceress example above also is an excellent example of deckbuilding with synergies in mind such that you can do extremely powerful things with your cards as you sequence them out. A Blood Diamond Midrange deck might have many answers for the right opposing set of cards, but it doesn’t have the raw power of something like Azurecannon or Benvolio Burn. In a narrow metagame Blood Diamond might be able to predict when maindeck Cerebral Domination can ruin most of the field, but when you can expect to face 5 or more different champions in each Gauntlet run then you want to put the onus on the opponent to have the right answers. Whether your powerful effect is Brood Baron out of Vennen or Soul of Battle out of Mono Ruby, aim to play cards that the opponent must account for.

3) Remember Your Fundamentals!

The counterweight to the first two bullets is that you have to remember to not skip the basics. It can be tempting to build a deck that looks to run over the opponent with some cool interactions, only to realize that the thresholds are a mess. If you eschew a typical curve, you need to have a good reason for doing so and a plan for fixing matchups where playing to a curve matters. Many problems can be fixed simply by going back to deckbuilding 101 and giving your list a quick pass from a different perspective.

Those lessons in mind, let’s look at one such strategy we could apply to our current environment. Winter Moon and Vennen seem to be the flavor of the hour, but even then they don’t amount to an overwhelming percentage of the metagame. We’ve explored anti-Winter Moon strategies before, and typically the best thing you can be trying to do against them is threatening them with huge damage chunks early and often. Resilient threats also can be a big problem for them. That means we’ll likely be looking for some Ruby deck that can push the Ruby Gem of Destruction, and for resiliency we can look towards either Sapphire for its powerful individual cards or towards Diamond where Rutherford Banks continues to be a great solution towards interrupt heavy decks.

As for Vennen, it hasn’t quite had enough time in the spotlight for most hate strategies to fully develop. Vennen also hates being subject to the same combination of damage and resiliency, but there also some unique aspects we can take advantage of against them. Vennen typically prefer to play out their Azurefate Sorceress after Phenteo the Brood Priest has set them up for an instant-kill, but often they will also just toss her out in hopes of hitting some incidental Spiderlings if Phenteo hasn’t been getting work in. If your deck can take advantage of even a small amount of being buried, it can be a boost. Likewise, incidental ways to clearing a board of Spiderlings is also helpful. These two effects aren’t typical in the metagame right now, but we have the technology to bring all these threads together:

Presenting: The Legion of Boom!

Champion: Rutherford Banks



Heroic Outlaw equipped with Major Ruby of Destruction and Minor Ruby of Ferocity

Proactive? Check, as we have a decent curve of beaters that will easily snowball out of control thanks to Inspire. Our top end of Royal Falconer, Legionnaire of Gawaine, and Heroic Outlaw also each provide a slightly different way to win games while each also being individually powerful proactive threats in their own right. Falconer with Inspire will crush decks without access to a sweeper effect, Legionnaire can BE your own sweeper that happens to be on a great body, and Heroic Outlaw can act as a mini-Rootfather and kill opponents out of nowhere (or be inspired by Jags and then basically for most purposes it acts exactly like a Rootfather!)

Powerful? Jags the Blademaster can let Legionnaires clear away even Wild’s best fatties or let Heroic Outlaw kill from almost any health total. Rutherford Banks continues to show his versatility, as here he can bring back troops for a second round of being inspired, so if you thought the troop was tough the first time you will cringe when it comes back for more. Blessing the Fallen makes things even nastier as the combination of Banks and Blessing can easily create situations where you get multiple Jags, Ruby Pyromancer, and Protectorate Clergyman inspirations onto a single troop. Bringing back a Royal Falconer might not seem scary from most decks, but when it means your Falcons can easily threaten lethal in one swing thanks to all the inspiration piled upon them and their master.

Does it skip out on fundamentals? While being probably a bit too three-drop heavy, it does stay in the limits of what you would look for out of your curve while also having very few issues with hitting its thresholds. Seven two-drop troops (8 if you count Soul Marble), 10 threes then followed by your staircase of game-winners on the top is fairly standard for a midrange deck that leans towards the aggressive side of things. As far as thresholds go, only the Solitary Exiles out of the reserves and Rutherford Banks’ charge power require double threshold to achieve, which keeps the deck humming.

The Legion of Boom checks all the boxes, and then it also brings some powerful anti-Vennen interactions to the table. The namesake card of the deck is great at clearing away Spiderlings at the drop of a hat, and thanks to Rutherford it can both avoid Countermagic or come back to do it again after they remove it. On top of that, Blessing of the Fallen works perfectly fine in this deck without being buried, but if your opponent gets forced into dropping an Azurefate game 1 and burying a few cards then they could be handing you the game if too many Jags and pump inspire troops enter the crypt.

As far as playing Legion of Boom, it operates in a fairly straightforward manner. The only shift you might need from your typical deck is to recognize that when you have a Blessing of the Fallen then you can start aggressively trading your inspire troops or even sending them on suicide missions if they can help deal a few extra points of damage. The deck almost always wins thanks to a finishing blow by one of your 12 primary threats, with the remainder serving to soften up the opponent or take down the really slow control decks.

Matchups

Legion of Boom operates like many midrange decks in the space between the rest of the format, and as such it often is required to shift roles between the aggressor and the control deck frequently.

Winter Moon and Vennen often see it trying it trying to get in damage early and often. Legionnaire itself is a fantastic answer to a Spellshielded Azurefate Sorceress like the ones out of Koma’s Invitational winning deck, and Blessing of the Fallen is a good way to keep gaining value against the sweepers both decks can put out. Most games play out favorably as you try to push forward damage with your early troops, then drop a Blessing or just a couple of your finishers and end the game. The exact type of Winter Moon build will dictate how you handle reserves, but the key to remember is to bring in Burn if you fear Carnasaurus and Brown Fox Scout while instead bringing in the Shrine/Cerebral package if you think they will be trying to grind out a long game with their actions.

The Wild ramp decks are not your favorite thing to see, as Crocosaur is a worse sweeper to face off against than Extinction in most cases and your Legionnaires are nowhere near as likely to destroy the really important troops in the matchup. On the play I like to bring in the Burns and lower your curve to try and kill them fast, but on the draw instead you should look to go with the extra Solitary Exiles and the Charge Colossus to grind them out.

Blood control is where Blessing can really shine, as it can turn off the advantage they hope to gain from a deck full of removal and discard. Their troops are also small enough that really it only takes a Jags plus one other pump inspire troop and then your Falconers and Legionnaires can deal with most troops they can muster (and deal with them twice over thanks to Rutherford Banks!). Don’t look to change too much in this matchup, but be sure to bring in the fourth Blessing.

Ruby aggro is kind of tough game 1 but gets better once you can switch out Blessing and some expensive 3/2s for more cheap cards and damage actions. Also be sure to switch Outlaw to all health gaining gems. You have a decent shot of getting to play one for free in the matchup, and while immediately gaining health means you won’t get chain Outlaw chances it should give you enough health to buy time to play the remaining ones in your hand.

The rest of the field is an amalgamation of various midrange decks, each of which has a slightly different spin. Don’t shake up your deck too much; you start with 17 inspire troops, and going below 15 starts to get dicey for how strong Blessing and Legionnaire feel. If you see any small advantages to take like Shrine versus Benvolio Burn or Burn versus Azurecannon then take them.

Forward Unto Primal Dawn!

I’ve got a few spicy Primal Dawn brews that I can’t wait to unleash in the coming weeks. Let me know in the comments if you would prefer to see a deep dive on a couple decks or if you want a brew-a-ganza dump once we see the first light of our new metagame.

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