New patch! New cards! A whole new dervish, even!

SISTERS ARE HERE, and they look good! And whenever there’s a new patch, new ideas and new spins on old ideas are not far behind. If you’re familiar with my deck building shenanigans pre-blog you will know what to expect – mostly off-beat deck ideas intertwined with comments on the new cards. Let’s jump in!

Starting softly – with a Zirix deck from way back, when Sajj didn’t exist.

Yes, looks like an abomination – pretty much as expected. Sand Sister Saon isn’t here, and that’s because as much as I wanted to make a list with every sister, the change from Wind to Iron Dervish really tickled the Inner Oasis in me. There are various ways to make a deck that utilises Oasis – dervish heavy with Obelysks, area buff versions with Mirkblood/Locke and then versions that look at supporting other win conditions. This one runs Jax and Illusionist – and the reason is a shout-out to Portal Guardian. Pandora is both good late-game and essentially an obelysk for Portal G.

What happened in one game was –

7 mana turn – Portal Guardian (3), Prismatic Illusionist (3), Iron Shroud (1)

what I get – 2/2 Dervish, 2/3 Illusionist, 2/1 Illusion, 3/6 Guardian

not bad for 7 mana is it, considering my next turn would be Inner Oasis.

Of course, getting here is more of the issue with a deck like this, so it works for board early with six 2/3s, 2 Repulsors, 2 (possibly 3) Shieldmasters and while not here, I even tried my pet love-hate spell Sand Trap. No Zen’Rui as of now – but might well be necessary.

Saon is at first glance, heavily aimed at assisting Sajj decks. It is not a frontline minion – it stays back and allows Sajj to remove those X/3 2 drops cleanly (+1 atk is valued at a card and 0 mana for Lyonar, so getting a body along with that effect is pretty neat) and of course with Psionic Strike Sajj takes out a full Shieldmaster/Suntide Maiden/Hailstone Golem/Dancing Blades [and perhaps importantly from now on, Earth Sister Taygete!] so really Saon is actually a pretty good, if understated card. Take healing minions and ideally 2 Wildfire Ankhs with your Saons.

On to Sworn Sister L’Kian – 2 random cards from your faction with a 2/4 body. A bit like a Spelljammer that lived two turns, but with higher variance. Expected value depends on how useful your faction cards will be for your current deck plan, and as such I would find it more useful in all-round decent card pools like Magmar, Lyonar and Abyssian (incidentally none of those factions really want more 4 mana cards)! I find a single copy in most control decks will not be out of place, as it still increases your hand and allows for pseudo-card draw via Replace. Solid card with a weak body, but it does its job. I expect to see it in a lot of decks.

Moving to another card I had a love-hate relationship with – the old Vindicator. If we omit the interaction with MECHAZ0R! I actually think it was quite interesting in itself – but as many have noted, design limitation is a thing, and it was quite stark in the current patch with the introduction of Earth Sister Taygete. As such, we get a new Vindicator, one with particularly pointed synergy with Starhorn. This minion is basically a 3 mana 3/5 with grow: 2 (often more) and can be quite the problem as soon as 1 turn elapses after it is summoned. The turn it is played it is vulnerable to the standard fare of 3 damage cards such as Sabrespine Tiger, Phoenix Fire etc but the window is pretty small so it is more likely to be a dispel target, allowing other dispel worthy minions such as Taygete, Silithar Elder and Spirit Harvester to be threatening.

This continues on the dubious route of having fun, but remembering to breathe and try to win at some point. As the story goes, I was fascinated by an (expensive) terrifying opener –

Player 1 Turn 1 Flash Elucidator Amplification -> take middle Mana Orb

That’s 4hp off you and 3 cards invested into a 7/6 Elucidator in the centre of the board. If your opponent can’t do something about it that turn, they will probably take a hiding from it. You could do it with old Vindicator too (resulting in a 3/5) but now, it becomes a 3/5 and continues to grow! Flash Elder is of course also possible but rare with only 1 copy. Now with Spelljammer, Blaze Hound and Seeking Eye, Vindicator and The High Hand become great dispel/removal threats on their own, and Elucidator or Bounded Lifeforce can be used as potent finishers. The deck also lends itself to such unexpected starts as

Player 2 Turn 1 Flash High Hand somewhere menacing

And usually a 7/6. I don’t Amplify as Player 2 to conserve some hand options, while as Player 1 the point is to drive the opponent on the back-foot straightaway. Other fine moments involve the extremely common Vindicator + Seeking Eye, a 4 mana 3/5 that will become 5/7 at the end of the opponent’s turn. Basically it’s a simple concept – try to get the snowball rolling before your opponent. All the extra draw helps, and using cheap spells like Flash and Amplification deplete your hand just enough to not worry about burning cards, and even then the deck isn’t designed with a single strong win condition so even losing a card here or there doesn’t hurt so much. To make the deck more durable and less gimmicky, dropping Elucidators for more controlling elements or Elders/Pandoras or Archons (yes I said Archons – delaying Cassyvas will soon need to be a thing) can be used.

I mentioned early dispel/removal baits – this is because now Magmar has one amazing card they’d rather was not dispelled.

Arise Earth Sister Taygete, Moulder of the Metagame.

In the long lost days of Alpha, there was a 4 mana 5/5 Vespyr in Vanar, Iceblade Dryad. Vanilla but useful. Now we have Taygete which is that and more. If Taygete attacks a general (or a 2 attack minion) with no other units around it – it deals 5 damage and takes 2 – an effective 5/5. When other enemy units are nearby, the value is already high. It trades cleanly with Shieldmaster as a relevant same cost minion, and in general if you want to deal 5 damage in one go to Taygete, you’re probably going to lose whatever minion gets to deal it. I think we can all see why we have a new Vindicator already, a playset of Taygetes would be Makantors 4-6 in the deck. As it turns out, even without any way to gain Rush, a 3/5 body is pretty strong by itself if dispelled, and the effect is scary at all phases of the game, even synergising with other niche self-damaging cards like Kujata, Kinetic Equilibrium and Flash Reincarnation. Expect to see Taygete in near enough every Magmar deck, and a fair amount of mid-range Magmar on ladder as well.

The third and final deck is going to be no surprise as once you see a minion that assists Infiltrate as a concept – we throw in our infiltrators and try to make it work. As a smart man once said, never go full Infiltrate, so I am not going with Spirit of the Wild (and by extension Frosthorn Rhyno), instead bringing the usual Tigers for the victory push.

An infiltrating spin on a fairly simple to grasp setup. (Deck has 5 Sisters so its actual spirit cost is 2030) – the usual card choices are available and are personal choices, such as Ephemeral Shroud’s growing body vs global range of Chromatic Cold vs multi-targeting of Lightbender for dispel and triple Repulsor vs splitting 2-2 with Hearth Sister. I’ve gone with L’Kian for draw over Sojourner because even with one Kinetic Surge, Sojourner is in range of Zen’Rui and the draw is over time. Avalanche is of course a lot simpler choice in this deck, since at the sight of the first Wind Sister Maia your opponent will avoid their half of the board like plague, and then they have to choose between one of the two evils.

Maia herself, is very much like Kara. Simple effect, whereby the deck choices write themselves in to the list. The biggest stats on offer from any sister, even a single proc basically gives you a 11 stat total effect, which while not as flashy as Taygete, is quite comparable at the floor and middle expected value of both cards. Maia allows for a new addition to reach for Kara, allowing Wolfraven to be a choice. If you get Maia’s effect and a Kinetic Surge on Wolfraven, it is a 3/6 Flying for 3 (occasionally going up to 6/6) that can reach anywhere on the board. Not a card for every deck, but with its body and the usual stat buff shtick that Kara decks enjoy, a playset of Maia going in with just 3 Cloakers and Snow Chasers might not be a bad inclusion in them. Faie could care less, of course!

Storm Sister Alkyone is a good body and a decent effect, mainly focusing on removal rather than face damage, in my opinion – Ghost Lightning, Twin Strikes and Phoenix Fire all hit for more. The obvious problem is that a jump from 1 to 2 dmg for Ghost Lightning does very little in practice. Twin Strikes on the other hand is a great boost – 2 dmg to 3 dmg is pretty big as a lot of X/3 2 drops exist. Then again 3 to 4 dmg for Phoenix Fire is not as exciting, and Spiral technique going to 9 is cute but usually not a consistent thing to aim for. The main use of this card is likely to be as extra Four Winds Magi for your Phoenix Fire recycling decks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Alkyone, but I don’t expect huge splashes.

Shadow Sister Kelaino is a nice replacement for Emerald Rejuvenator in Cassyva decks – Novacentric decks don’t particularly like healing their opponents – and I expect to see it in them. Lilithe decks should continue utilising Shadow Dancer as it fits better with the gameplan for swarm-friendly healing. Kelaino benefits from Abyssal Scar, Bloodtear Alchemist, Dancing Blades, Breath of the Unborn and Void Pulse among other cards, and actually Cassyva decks as a whole use these cards more than Lilithe decks as well. Solid card, and though it is a Zen’Rui target, I expect to see it gracing the battlefield often.

Sun Sister Sterope is a curious curious design. To my Lyonar eyes, there is only one deck I would add it to, and it isn’t Healyonar, it’s LyonArcanyst! True Strike is not a particularly threatening card, and so the primary effect is not a winner by itself, and neither is a 4/4 body in Lyonar who like higher health pools. The secondary effect is the provision of pseudo-draw which is extremely useful for Lyonar – replace the True Strike and use what you get. The 4 slot in almost any Lyonar build of note is however, extremely contested – Arclyte Regalia, Holy Immolation, Shieldmaster, Dioltas, Suntide Maiden, Emerald Rejuvenator, Decimate and then the niche Sunriser, Owlbeast Sage, Young Flamewing – where do you fit this in?! Suffice to say that I will be surprised to see this on ladder very much. There is however something about Sterope you will probably have heard no one mention, since we aren’t in tournament mood yet having just entered the patch and that’s normal. I would run Sterope in any game where I am going against a known Abyssian or Songhai.

Confused? Look at Sterope’s effect – it benefits the most from chip healing effects that trigger on the opponent’s turn, that way we don’t burn our cards at the end of our turn. What cards excel in multiple procs of chip healing? Four Winds Magi, Shadow Dancer and now, Kelaino. Conversely Magmar and Vetruvian heal in a 5-8 health burst once or twice. The bigger thing is that both Four Winds and Dancer have 4 hp – so if your opponent used it well, you already have the ammo to kill both of them, that is 2 True Strikes! The best use case for Sterope, ironically enough, are both where the enemy minion does a great job of healing, and seeing a Sterope go down will likely deter one of these minions being played on the turn after, or force removal on it. Expect to see this card, therefore, in tournaments as a tech choice.

Personal Ladder Tiering (because who doesn’t like making tiers) –

1 – Taygete

2 – L’kian Maia Saon Kelaino

3 – Alkyone Sterope

Until another time, folks!