I made this graphic myself from cobbling together various GU screenshots of card art.
Light Atlanteans: BOTC, but with every atlant.
Yes, it's a overheal light deck with BOTC. But I've been told it is more fun to play against than the norm, there is an interplay of bodies and removals not just Lysander sitting all by himself tossing spells left and right. Sadly cards like heiragon and prophet of progress require blade. It wouldn't be a deck with every atlant without these cards.
How does it play? What does it do?
This deck uses it's creatures as both board presence and to facilitate additional healing. Against matchups like Ramp Mage, Carvings, or BE you can be quite the nuisance, since both your board acts as a threat AND increases your survivability. Additionally gilded anomaly can delve you whatever spells you desire for further teching options outside of the base list.
Against Bomb Dragons you actually have enough healing and board presence to the point where the enemy has to prioritize board or face (which is rare for bomb dragons). This archtype does not fair the best into deception, and is "atlant only" so doesn't utilize any vespid combos or infinite madness for endless boardclear. Despite that this deck is very versatile at all stages of play and is a very fun deck I break out every now and then. It took a very long time to get the mythic numbers on the deck at the time (each match tended to be roughly a half hour) and over the course of roughly 50 matches I averaged a low 60s winrate. Felt pretty good, worth doing a video. So here it is lol.
Talking Tidbits: Light Atlanteans as an Archtype
This archetype has a few variations that work decently, but this is the only one that uses EVERY light atlant I have found to be viable (or close to with new DA tech etc.) You can also build more aggressively or into a more "control" orientation aswell. Sadly numerous Atlants are shackled to BOTC so it is unlikely this deck can be run without that card. The deck is fun to play and has interplay for the opponent so isn't quite as obnoxious as Chosen Prophet of the Blade, Tithe Vespids, etc.
The aspects I liked and disliked: I liked that the healing was attempted to be weaponized. I disliked how various light atlanteans are tied to BOTC and it keeps them from being built outside of the ToF BOTC shell, but we'll see. It is also unfortunate that the God HP is merely acting as a milestone that facilitates abilities activating (ie 80 hp I win the game and etc.). It would've been cool to see light atlanteans that used god HP or allied unit HP as a resource to activate abilities or proc things etc. there is a lot of missed potential here that is close to something interesting. Heal light merely being "stall until the game ends" instead of a use of healing as an offensive resource I would say is the one main overall problem with the archtype as a whole. Along with the tribe/archtype being pinned to ONE legendary relic (that sortof sucks). Health doesn't feel like a resource with BoTC but moreso a win condition where all that matters is making your HP go up not how it's used, a lot of potential skill expression was missed here blindering the archtype to "heal pass" sort of dynamics. Cards like "Altruism" etc. are more the trend I was hoping to see as sets expanded and less "mostly creatureless healspam" or "vespid tithe collector".
Cheers everyone. I hope you all are having a wonderful week out there. Thanks for all of the continued support. You all rock. With a new set coming I wonder if a rework of atlanteans in this tribe will ever happen or if we get some anubians coming out of the woodwork etc. but it would be nice to see something other than vespids.
