It’s Event Season, it’s a new reason to brew! Five new legendaries are going to be playable in this weekends new event (build a 75 card, Omens faction paired deck, and they’ll slot four gorgeous legendaries right in), and there’s barely enough time to design hot nonsense for all of them. Perhaps you’ve seen Aid of the Hooroo?

This monstrous ultimatum at a monstrous cost is clearly designed to be cracked wide open in deckbuilding. A wise owl might suggest that this card is ripe to be cast with Herald’s Song and West-Wind Herald, perhaps discarding Privilege of Rank to help get power to hard cast it from time to time off Marshal Ironthorn. A wise owl would be right! But here at Eternal Brews, we are not always about the wisest plan. What we are about is the most interesting, the most fun, and the most unusual-while-still-just-on-the-verge-of-viable. For example, if you’re going to get four copies of such an awesome spell, why bother with any other type of spelling?

Can’t Spell Hooroo

4 Permafrost (Set1 #193)

1 Cobalt Acolyte (Set1 #212)

4 Copperhall Bailiff (Set1001 #5)

4 Eye of Winter (Set1 #210)

3 Icebreaker (Set1 #216)

4 Spire Chaplain (Set1 #154)

4 Valkyrie Enforcer (Set1 #151)

4 Auric Runehammer (Set1 #166)

4 Jotun Hurler (Set1 #227)

4 Marshal Ironthorn (Set1 #174)

4 Jarrall Iceheart (Set1 #239)

4 Eilyn, Queen of the Wilds (Set1 #245)

12 Justice Sigil (Set1 #126)

11 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)

4 Hooroo Banner (Set0 #57)

4 Seat of Order (Set0 #51)

There’s two star plans for Aid here, and neither involve “casting” per se.

Good ol’ J to the Double R, Double L, Double A in the Double O faction – what’s that spell? Absolutely nothing! In fact, if you run this deck in a vacuum, there’s not a single spell for Jarrall Frostkin to draw. But run him with Aid of the Hooruru, and you’ll see one single solitary spell draw: an every-time 12 damage mega-bomb that wipes your opponents entire board without even being cast. Jarrall’s a tricky beast to maneuver across the finish line, but the promise of two one-sided board wipe cards with different conditions – Ironthorn’s in here too – is too rich not to take up the challenge.

Jarral’s big enough and fat enough to deal with almost anything your opponent has to offer, up to and including Sandstorm Titan. Cards like Elders Feather and Cobalt Acolyte can steal a victory, but the current version we’re running enjoys taking advantage of stun effects and the power of Icebreaker to clear a path. We rely on the slower nature of no-hybrid aggro decks and the promise of a suite of 79 card control decks to set up Eyes of Winter and slow the game to a crawl, climbing up towards 8 (and then, 12) power with Ironthorn and Spire Chaplain as fixing. We weigh heavy on power – Seek Power is the worst card to be missing from this spell-less deck – and try to pick hands that contain 3 or more whenever possible.

Still, there’s a lot of non-spell control cards to help us out. Copperhall Bailiff is an anti-Praxis star that dismantles most aggro strategies at birth and also pops a variety of Hooryu Aegis. Enforcer’s always been one of the better three drops in the game, Runehammer one of the better fours, and Permafrost maybe the single best effect you can get out of a 1-cost card. A suite of less-playable ranked cards that have a little more fun in this meta help out, with Icebreaker clearing up the board state.

The second combo here is Jotun Hurler and Eilyn, and if you’ve seen me play Eilyn decks or found LightsOutAce’s decklist here on the site (a deck I affectionately call Eilyn’s Ace In The Hole) you get what’s happening here. Without adding a spell to the deck for Eilyn to cast or Jarrall to find, Jotun Hurler gives you a spell based activation for Eilyn. Just play her at 9 power and immediately snowball the game out of control with an instant Aid.

I played with the balance a lot, but some sideboards to consider: Stalwart Shield as a 1 or 2 of for proof against Permafrost, one of the more common removals in Skycrag and HooRue. Valkyrie Wings, Elders Feather and more Cobalt Acolytes all go even deeper on Jarrall, and Yeti Snowslingers take advantage of all that flying buffery to go deeper on Eilyn. If you want to legitimize the deck a little more but deal 12 damage a little less, cards like Crystallize and Harsh Rule make a happy medium between the two, and Protect may save Jarrall enough to be worth the occasional horrid whiff (which is still, at least, a card draw and a token sweeper).

We prepped this deck for the Event, but I’m most excited about such shenanigans getting their due in Omens. Stick a Morningstar on a Jarral when Omens comes out, toss down a Calderan Gunsmith and watch as every single unit he hits with his call for Aid splashes damage directly into the face. Truly, the jank Eternal.

On to slightly more serious fare:

4-Clawed Power Sink

4 Grenadin Drone (Set1 #5)

4 Initiate of the Sands (Set1 #74)

4 Torch (Set1 #8)

4 Find the Way (Set1 #513)

4 Temple Scribe (Set1 #502)

4 Amber Acolyte (Set1 #93)

4 Assembly Line (Set1 #29)

4 Secret Pages (Set1 #81)

2 Ancient Lore (Set1 #105)

4 Xenan Obelisk (Set1 #103)

4 Mystic Ascendant (Set1 #116)

4 Claw of the First Dragon (Set1 #59)

4 Kaleb, Uncrowned Prince (Set1 #61)

6 Fire Sigil (Set1 #1)

7 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)

4 Praxis Banner (Set0 #59)

4 Seat of Impulse (Set0 #54)

4 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)

For he who says that Moment of Creation is a bad card, I say to thee, nay! It might be an unexciting card, as cards that make vanilla units often are – but two big dudes for eight does actually have a lot of potential in Praxis, where there’s mounds of support for exactly that kind of nonsense. As an ultimate spell that at the very least tops out the Vault of the Praxis curve with yet another double-dip, Moment can generate serious beaters at a rapid pace. Most notably, Find The Way – a card that most people should be running in Praxis anyways – fills your void to the brim with spells while filling your hand to the brim with power.

We managed not to also put Trail Stories in, but… it was a close thing. Just look at that synergy! It’s deliciously awful.

Big Praxis is going to be a very real archetype come Omens, so let’s get a taste of it now with some fun ramp times. This deck is a mostly-real tokens mix I use to ladder, although I cut cards for Secret Pages and some fun targets to ramp to. A power every turn is the name of this decks game, and it can do that while ramping, playing units, torching threats, and maybe even setting up an Obelisk or two.

The basic goal here is Claw of the First Dragon by turn 6 or 7. At that early a date, Claw will either stabilize or completely win a board. The entomb is more powerful than the statline – it fills your side with itty biters with a host of effects, from becoming full fledged monsters of their own (Pyroknight and Valkyrie Aspirant) to supporting your flooded out hand (Blind Storyteller) to burning your opponent for that last bit of health (Ticking Grenadin and Hellhound Yearling) to killing you outright (that is clearly a sword, Knifejack). Regardless of the tokens individual text, they set up a mighty amount of value with Xenan Obelisk, and a merely stunning amount of value without. When all of that is paired with a midrange removal weapon that gains you some effective health in a tight spot, it’s almost never the wrong choice for the slot.

Typically I play this deck a little lower to the ground with Marisen’s Disciple and Rally, but I found that in testing with Secret Pages and Find the Way, getting to eight was so reliable I needed more things to play at that cost. Ancient Lore helps get you out of flood situations and find power in brief droughts, Mystic Ascendant capitalizes on your power and fast spell ramp beautifully, and Kaleb replaces Rally as the decks capital buff spell.

Kaleb’s definitely the fun-of (whereas Claw, while similarly hilarious, is actually quite good) and the most easy card to cut in this deck. Switching back to Rally or capitalizing on Carnosaurs are both good options. Still, he plays well with Grenadin Drone and Assembly line as a Rally that rarely costs card advantage. You will often find him drawing multiple cards off of Cuirass and Katana and occasionally hitting something magical like Steelfang Chakram – when he doesn’t kill your opponent outright, of course. In testing Kaleb performed pretty spectacularly against Armory – and every time he was played was certainly a spectacle. We have a little video up on this one if you want to check it out.

We’re out of time, but the fun’s just getting started. It’s late at night on a weekend, and everyone’s decks are seventy-nine cards with four copies of expensive legendaries. The call to jank arrives. Will you answer it? Hooru could it be?

Til next time, thanks for reading!

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