Primordial Knowledge – Pathfinder Control

Recently I had the distinct pleasure of helping Hex Entertainment develop one of the game’s very first Signature Decks. These decks are intended to offer unique and interesting entry-level strategies at an affordable price. Today I wanted to dive into the Pathfinder Control deck I designed to discuss how to play it, which cards to play in the reserves, and how to upgrade the deck.

Signature Control

I was particularly excited to design a Pathfinder Control deck for the new Signature Deck series. The deck is especially affordable for a control deck and centers around a unique combo which highlights some of the coolest things you can do in a digital card game like Hex. In order to execute the combo, you need to Prophesize Starlight Pathfinder and target it with Replicator’s Gambit. Since the Starlight Pathfinder is Prophesied, you will be guaranteed to draw the copy which was shuffled into your deck by Replicator’s Gambit on the following turn and play it to put seven troops on board. Whenever the gambited Pathfinder dies, you can use Winter Moon’s charge power to recycle it and draw it again on the following turn for even more Coyotles.

This combo is more than enough to overwhelm the majority of opponents, and can even end the game fairly quickly if your draw offers you an early combo. Let’s take a look at the list out of the box and discuss how each card serves to either facilitate or support this strategy.





In order to ensure that our Prophecy cards hit Starlight Pathfinder, we play no other troops. This means that Lanupaw’s Sight and Harvest Moon effectively draw you an extra card and set up your combo. It is important to see at least one Prophecy action early in order to build early card advantage and set up your combo. We only play two copies of Starlight Pathfinder as it is an actively bad draw when not drawn for free from its effect since it is merely a three cost 2/2 without Prophecy. Again, since it is the only troop in our deck, our Prophecy effects will always attach to it and we will see Prophesied copies of it in as many games whether we play one, two, or four copies of the card. It is possible to get away with playing one copy of Starlight Pathfinder, but I feel the second copy is important for hedging against void effects or cards which can take your cards from the crypt like Steal Intel or Kraken Barrel Cheddar.

The rest of the deck falls into two buckets: card selection and threat mitigation (mostly in the form of removal). Arcane Focus, Change Course, and Lanupaw’s Sight help find Replicator’s Gambit or the answer you need to survive a specific board state. Totem Trap, Harvest Moon, Lullaby, Bring To Justice, Countermagic, and Clash of Steel help you survive long enough to assemble and unleash your combo. Clash of Steel in particular stands out as an excellent Herofall card to add to the Pathfinder deck. This deck rarely has more than one troop in play until it is winning with the combo, meaning Clash of Steel is nearly always safe to play and will often be devastating to your opponent. Even once you deploy the combo, you are generally ok voiding the Pathfinder replicas in a desperate situation. Clash is particularly good in the current meta since many of the meta’s best decks rely on deploying a lot of troops.

Totem Trap is included specifically to combat hyper aggressive decks like Mono Ruby. Its low resource cost allows you to play it alongside other cards in the same turn and makes it a great piece of removal to recycle with [champ]Winter Moon[/card] for card draw later. If you find yourself running into too many Mama Yetis and Crusaders, Repel is another reasonable Diamond removal action to play instead. Bring To Justice lets you take out the big threats. Underworld Crusader got you down? Time to bring him to justice! Countermagic serves a similar role, but can also protect your combo from removal. Lullaby is best used to prevent a lethal swing or to reset Rune Ear Hierophant or High Infinitrix buffs. Harvest Moon is primarily played for its ability to Prophesize troops, but goes a long way toward keeping you alive against aggressive opponents.

Bring In The Reserves

Understanding your removal is important for creating Reserves for Pathfinder Control since many of your changes will consist of modifying your removal to combat the current match up. A good, budget Reserves could consist of the following:

3 Verdict of the Ancient Kings

1 Halt

1 Bring To Justice

3 Nature Reigns

4 Repel

2 Pride’s Fall

1 Oracle Song

Reserving with this deck is very challenging since it relies heavily on the specific composition of your opponent’s deck. It’s even hard to say that specific cards should always be sided in specific match ups. For example, Pride’s Fall is very good against variants of Mono Ruby which play Mama Yeti since it is too big for Totem Trap to remove and its Speed means you’re taking five damage before you can Bring To Justice. However, Totem Trap is by far your best removal against other variants of Mono Ruby. Whether you bring in Pride’s Fall is entirely dependent on the specific build of Mono Ruby you are facing. Similarly, Pride’s Fall is typically very good against Blood and Wild; however, Repel may be preferable if a Wild deck plays Dreamweaver Ancient.

Let’s look at how we Reserve in some of the more popular match ups.

VS AGGRO

BRING IN: