Hexploration – Pet Cemetery

Welcome back to another Hexploration article. If you are unfamiliar with Hexploration, this article series attempts to find new strategies and decks for the HEX constructed format. I try to bring you decks that have potential instead of just random decks. I want to provide you with deck(s) that you can build and, at the very least, climb to Cosmic with. The last article I wrote was on Eyes of the Heart, Merry Caravan, Exalted Pathfinder, and Wildlife. That was in December. Since then people have taken the deck and made it into a Tier One deck, mostly by changing the champion from Nineveh to Balthasar. I am telling you all this because the deck I’ll be talking about today is a wacky deck, one that is very fun and has a ton of potential. Let’s take a quick quiz to gauge if this deck is for you?

Do you like stitching your dead pets, family, or friends back together and pretending they’re alive?

Maybe you don’t discriminate and just stitch together anything that’s dead. I mean, why bring one back when you can bring back all the dead?

Do you enjoy long walks in dug up graveyards feeling the crunch of bones and gooey rotten flesh between your toes as you stroll in peaceful darkness?

If you answered yes to zero or more of these questions, then boy do I have the deck for you! This is a deck where you’ll have opening hands and think, “This is the best opening hand I’ve ever had the pleasure of opening up with.”

It all starts with a strategic champion choice. Lord Blightbark is not the only person that can bring back the dead… so can our prophetic lady, Blue Sparrow:

Mordrom’s Gift socketed with Major Sapphire of Clarity

That’s a lot to take in. I promise the deck works better than it looks on paper. I got the inspiration for this deck after the temporary banner nerf to Haraza while Mono Blood decks were the best in the format. I wanted a deck that didn’t mind discarding cards, sacrificing troops, and had a better end game than Mono Blood. And of course, I wanted to use Psychic Ascension, one of, if not the best, late game cards in HEX.

When I initially asked myself which deck doesn’t care if its troops die or if it discards a few cards, I originally landed on Deathcry decks. However, Deathcry decks had a challenging time beating Ruby/Wild decks with Return to Cinder and Pyrestrike. They also tended to just fold to Bride of the Damned if you didn’t have an answer. This is when I started thinking about reanimator and Mordrom’s Gift. I wanted a ton of value so I could grind out the grindiest of decks. Runeseeker on turn six to bring back a discarded Psychic Ascension was alright, but I wanted to do it faster. Faster, I say!

This happened on turn four. I had a Blightwater Ferryman that brought back Runeseeker which in turn got back a Psychic Ascension. At that point I was sold and just wanted to start working on the deck and tuning it.

Working your Blood Magic

The deck wants to put big troops and Psychic Ascension into its crypt as quickly as possible. Blue Sparrow is the default champion here because of her charge power. Things like Theorize and Change Course are also helpful. Runic Passion also works, but it is random (though I still play Runic Passion on turn three blindly to just fill my crypt). Turn four is the turning point for this deck. On turn four, you’ll want to either be able to Mordrom’s Gift something back to life or Massacre the board. By doing this, you should buy yourself enough time to get to six shards. When that happens and you’re able to just start playing your troops for insane value, you will bury your opponent alive in card and battlefield advantage.

A great necromancer knows not only how to stitch bodies, but plans to

The deck has a lot of going on and a lot of synergies. Let me help you out with some.

Try to Runic Passion when you can activate your charge power at the same time. By discarding one of the cards drawn by Runic Passion, you’ll essentially net a card.

You don’t mind discarding over half your deck, but sequence your discard. Always discard the troop you think you’ll need most in the matchup over your Blightwater Ferryman. Do this so if your opponent interrupts or Withering Gazes your Mordrom’s Gift, you can still bring back the troop you discarded with Blightwater Ferryman.

Don’t forget you can activate your Rotpaw Gang from your crypt. This is important if you need to rebuy an Eternal Seeker or if you want to trigger your Blightwater Ferryman’s Deathcry.

Rotpaw Gang is both a Shin’hare and a Vennen. This means that your Mistress of Bones can grab Runeseeker, Yazukan, and Rotpaw Gang or Runeseeker and both your Rotpaw Gangs.

Don’t be afraid to Runeseeker a Mordrom’s Gift with nothing else in your crypt if you’re holding a Change Course. Just put a stop on your ready step and, before you draw a card, play Change Course. This will allow you try and put a troop in your crypt before you revert your Mordrom’s Gift that has been Mysterious Runed. If you have no troops in your crypt and Change Course finds shard, shard, Eternal Seeker, taking the shard will still allow you to bring back the Eternal Seeker.

Leftover Entrails

A good deck is only as good as its Reserves. Ours has four Aegilus to combat aggressive strategies and shards that just have a hard time dealing with Aegilus, most notably Wild, Ruby, and sometimes Diamond.

Withering Gaze is something I do *not* bring in against Blood decks with hand disruption. I do not want to battle their hand disruption with my own, I’d rather just have threats. Withering Gaze is for control decks packing interrupts. It’s a wonderful way to clear the way for a Modrom’s Gift or a mid-late game Psychic Ascension in that instance.

Blight Knight is for candles since they have an extremely tough time beating it while it’s in play.

Stalking Quarry is for socket decks. That matchup can be difficult if they draw their cards in order and have Runebind to protect them. Stalking Quarry and Massacre should help a lot against most socket decks.

The extra Eternal Seekers are just for when you need to deal with pesky opposing cards that you normally can’t interact with. These are usually constants or artifacts. The fact that we can play Eternal Seeker when we have seven resources is the reason I’m not playing Grove Warden.

Perfect work is never finished

I’m still testing this deck and tuning it. You shouldn’t be afraid to try different things, I highly encourage you messing around with the numbers, and before I go I want to mention that I have tried a few cards myself:

Ruinforge Rummager – Rummager was okay, but at the end of the day it weakened your Blightwater Ferryman too much. This is also true for The Librarian and Skittergear Gang.

Impulse / Gain Ground – I’ve tried both of these cards. I did not like Gain Ground. Impulse was good and might find its way back into the main deck.

Mirror, Mirror – This card was very good when you had targets. It had powerful synergy with Runeseeker, but I found that I would rather just get Psychic Ascension or Mordrom’s Gift when possible.

Heart’s Whisper / Alchemite – I haven’t been able to test these cards enough just yet, but if I played them I would cut the Runic Passions for them.

These are most of the cards people think about when they think about a Reanimator strategy. Depending on how the metagame evolves, you’ll want to change your troop numbers around. I could see a world where you’d want the full playset of Eternal Seekers.

Again, this is a fun deck that has a lot of potential. It is one you can use to get to Cosmic too. I highly recommend it if you enjoy playing big spells or just laughing when your Blightwater Ferrymen chain each other into a Runeseeker that grabs back a Mordrom’s Gift or any other action you might want.

Before I go, I do have some recorded Twitch matches with this deck. Gather ‘round and see it in action!

Make sure to follow my twitch channel to see some of these decks in action along with new decks I’m working on. Twitch tends to get a first look on my brews, so stop on by and say hi!

Alright, that’s a wrap. Enjoy raising the dead~

Ali Aintrazi

@Alieldrazi on Twitter

My Twitch Channel

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