This lineup's main goal is to prey on aggressive decks. With decks running Harpy + Deathcurse, Fireblast + Mutant, and the usual Valor suspects in addition to some Order AoE cards in Radiance and Arrow Barrage, you have a good lineup to take out decks without staying power. You can stop most aggro starts (though sometimes you might struggle against the really fast starts and hyperaggressive decks like demons) and grind the opponent out through your value cards. Unlike the more common lineup of W/R Zash, Valor, and Mono-C, this lineup is more balanced as New Horizons speeds up the Mono-C deck when going to W/C and Molten Passageway brings R/D close to W/R's speed while also making it less vulnerable to Curse of Rysha from Mono-C. In both of the last 2 Masters that I've run this lineup, each of the decks was banned at least once, something that is not very common I've found with lineups.

Because of the defensive nature of this lineup, it will struggle against New Horizons decks and anti-control decks like Shamans, so these should be your top priorities for banning.

Specific Deck Comments

R/D Zash (Full deck tech coming soon linked here!)

While this deck can run 3 Mutants and would usually run Prinha or Khar and might not even run Mistress, in order to better beat Aggro, I've been running 4 Mutants, Northern Wanderers at the 3-mana 1-level slot, and 2 Mistresses. Mutant is amazing at picking off 1 HP creatures and can combine with Fireblast later to net two kills off it. Northern Wanderers is better than Prinha or Khar on turn 2-3, so it earns the spot over them. Mistress is a fairly decent turn 3 play against aggro killing an opponent's creature and making a 3/3 that will usually threaten to kill whatever your opponent plays on the next turn, especially when combined with Mutant (and get those double kills against Deathtrap!). Other than that, note that you only have 1 Dragon as it's frankly too vulnerable to Parallel Evolution and you shouldn't have to play against New Horizons so you don't need to rush the burn out. S

Some flex options include shifting the Fireblast/Cannonade split to 2/2, adding Vampiricism by cutting a Matriarch or Detonate/Fireblast, and changing the Helm to a Cataclysm.

W/C Nefaros (Full deck tech coming soon linked here!)

This is kind of a middle ground between Reanimator and straight control. You'll take the quick reanimates when they pop up in your hand, but in general you'll expect to get to Bezarok through good old New Horizons. The deck only runs 2 Catacomb Keepers as losing 3 life is not ideal against aggro, so you only want to play it with the Tainted online if you're going to get to Reanimate Bezarok the same or following turn. I used to have 3 but traded 1 for a Djinn as Catacomb Keeper was the primary drawing card in the deck. Your removal strategy is going to play similarly to Mono Corruption's removal strategy, though you can lean more on Harpy as you're targeting aggro and you're playing 3 of them plus 3 reanimates to get them back the turn after they get killed. Later in the game, Bezarok is on the table to kill off 2 level-2 creatures or 3 level-1 creatures.

Example flex options for the deck include adding another Haunt if you really want to beat Mono-C by cutting a Deathcurse Shaman/Noxious, adding a Mesmerizing Spirit or two for a stronger matchup against the draw light aggro decks by cutting a Deathcurse Shaman/Djinn/Catacomb Keeper/Consume and a Bezarok, adding another Tombs for Mono-C by cutting a Deathcurse/Noxious (though note Tombs is very weak against aggro decks, especially when you have to go to 3 levels to play it), and an Ancient Wisdom over the Djinn. There is also the option of switching out Deathcurse for Voidtouched Subordinate as it is hurt less by Innkeeper, lets you run a copy or 2 of Parallel Evolution which can be surprising, and gives you some self-mill.

Being great at establishing board presence, Valor naturally beats the more aggressive decks of Spellweaver. To help combat the decks that try to take the board faster, a couple of Arrow Barrages can go a long way, especially in the mirror. I chose to run 4 Elite Vanguards to maximize feeding the Soldier shrine, but I kind of feel like one of them should have been a Felix. I also wish that I had my normal 1-of Landslide too, especially against Shamans. Holy Radiance is much worse than Arrow Barrage in this deck, though sometimes you need to kill some x/1s, most notably against Coronis D/C.

There are a lot of flex options for Valor. The most notable are probably Felix for the mirror, a Saluxio or 2 for non-Fireball decks, another Mortar for the mirror, a Landslide for aggro that relies on 2-mana cards, and a Tren or 2 for Mono-C. Potential cuts include the 4th Vanguard, a Mortar, Bark Convoy, Holy Radiance, a Diogen, a Timea, and the Dwarven Spellbreaker.