Hello! Today I want to talk about how to draft a Combrei deck. Here is an example of a Combrei deck I recently went 7-0 with (you may recognize the image from a previous post):

Combrei’s advantage over other factions is it has the largest units. Awakened Student is the poster child for Combrei in draft. It will usually be the largest unit in play at any given time because it grows as the game progresses. Time has a number of large units such as Xenan Guardian, Towering Terrazon and Amber Monument. Here, they are paired with Justice’s effects to make units bigger like Inspire, Paladin Oathbook, and Gilded Glaive.

When building your deck, you must consider what your plan is and how your opponents will try to deal with that plan. If your plan is large units, their options are use removal, double block, or chump block and race in the air. Most draft decks only have a few removal spells, so as long as we have a sufficient number of threats, we will be able to soak up a couple removal spells in each game; Friendly Wisp also helps us in attrition match-up if we are patient with it. Against double blocking, we want to have a few tricks available, in this case, Finest Hour and Teleport. Against flyers, we want to have some flyers of our own, usually Towertop Patrol, but in this case we are lucky enough to have 2 Silverwing Avengers.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Dispel functions as removal and an answer to flyers when your units are bigger than theirs. Predatory’s Instinct can be early removal with Awakened Student or kill anything in the late game with Towering Terrazon/Xenan Guardian.

Combrei decks reward understanding combat. If your opponent has a 2/3 and a 3/3 and you have a Towering Terrazon in your deck, should you attack? What happens if you wait? This is a complicated question that requires a lot of context to answer. Here are some things to consider in that situation. How many combat tricks are still left in your deck? If you have some, then waiting might be right because you will make those cards better draws. Are they playing Shadow with access to Rapid Shot and hard removal? If so, waiting gets much worse. What is still in your hand? Are you trying to stall the game until you play Forth-Tree Elder or ultimate Xenan Guardian? What are the life totals? If they are ahead on life, what happens if they don’t block and attack back? That might be ok if you have a Scorpion Wasp, but its much worse if you have a Friendly Wisp.

During the draft portion, keep in mind what the deck needs. With Combrei, there is no set pick order. Depending on what you already have, you might take Towering Terrazon, Bold Adventurer, Dispel, or Towertop Patrol ahead of the others on that list. Look at the above list and get a sense for the ratios, the power curve, etc.

Here is another example, this one went 7-2.

This deck is more aggressive than the last one, with 3 Finest Hours and 4 Awakened Students. The 3 Brightmace Paladins can help with racing when paired with the Calvary, Daggers or Safe Return. One interaction that Combrei gets is Safe Return + Predatory’s Instinct. When the unit is replayed, it still has Killer and can kill something else. I don’t always run Safe Return, but when you have several good interactions (Copper Conduit, Brightmace Paladin, Crownwatch Calvary, Desert Marshall) it is worth including.