Intro
Other than Dralamar decks, Light dominated the weekend ranked. After seeing write up his deck, I was definitely intrigued. Traditional light decks have a problem going second. Without blitz on their creatures or relics, they don't have many tools to pull off momentum swings. I decided to take inspiration from his deck and put my own spin on it.
The Deck
The deck is still very much in flux, but it has some important changes already.
Deck Code:
GU_1_3_CDFCDFBCYBCYCABCABICCICCCFXICOICOCCJBEXBEXCEdCEdCFbCEcCEcCAGICbBGPBGPCCGCETCETCCrCCrCAVCAV
As you can see, the deck is currently limited by my lack of new CSR cards. Here's what it would be if I had them all:
Deck Code:
GU_1_3_BCYBCYCABCABCDFCDFBEXBEXCFXCFXICOICOCEdCEdCFaCFaCFbCFbCEcCEcICbBGPBGPCCGCCrCCrCETCETCAVCAV
A lot fewer singletons. This is obviously putting in some of the more popular cards from the Control Light archetype, but it still borrows core components from Yami Yugi.
Deck Synergies
The most obvious thing this deck has going for it are creatures that double as removal spells.
- Archers help contest early board states, but they stay relevant late game to remove ward and protected.
- Munosian is most helpful early
- Feral Shapeshifter has surprised me. If you have Highborn Knights, you should run those of course, but the ping + hidden works really well. It complements Canonize nicely.
- Aether Vanguard is effectively a 4 mana 4/4 with a built-in Starshard Bolt. Even better, it can be split over two targets. (Sadly, it will not pop both ward and protected on the same target.)
Judge Envoy is a great card (as you'll see in one of the gameplay vids). By itself, it eliminates threats but leaves the board clogged with a 0/X creature. It can also works well with:
Munosian infiltrator only works on creatures that cost 3 or less (thanks for the reminder !). Light's Levy and Onyx work on any creature but are blocked by ward. The right mix might be 1x Onyx and 1x Munosian, but is definitely meta-dependent. Light isn't going to play a lot of 1 strength creatures, for example.
Buffs
This deck doesn't run Prayer of the Desperate. Instead, it runs 2x Canonize:
PoD pays off when you have board control. Canonize helps you get board control. PoD does combo really well with Zealous March, of course, so further play testing may shift the deck to 1x of each. Playing any of our 4/5/6 mana cards followed by a Canonize is really strong. Feral Shapeshifter in particular is fantastic. Your hidden creature becomes a 7/7 protected. A monster.
This deck doesn't run any of the win-going-first cards like shieldbearer, felid jannisary, pacifist, etc. These cards are all terrible if your board is empty.
Play Guide
Mulligan
- Cudgel
- Pyramid Warden
- Light's Levy
- Other 1 and 2 drops
It's basically the same priority going first or second, although Sailweaver is a bit better going first. On the topic of Sailweaver: I'm not convinced either way, but Planetar Acolyte may be a better opener. A 2/2 body (even with ward) is trivial to clear. Planetar gives you the blessed effect immediately. If you get a zombie, that's huge, but even 6 favor is really solid. On the other hand, Sailweaver's ward can be really beneficial later in the game to survive Rapture, The Hunt, etc. Once he survives, you hit him with Canonize.
Main Strategy
While this is called "Control Light", it's really more of a mid range deck. As such, you have one primary objective: control the board while slowly working in face damage. You want their board clear first and foremost.
Gameplay
I've got 2 games going second against aggro war (and a third against nature). Going second against hidden deception is probably the hardest matchup, but aggro war is a close second. These games show off this deck's ability to go second.
In this first game, my deck still looks more like Yami Yugi's. At 5.5 mana, things look grim. I have an empty board. They have a full board. It was a close one, but I managed to pull it out. Rewatching, the blessings from Planetars were huge. Maybe they stay even in the final deck after all.
In the second game, I've put more of my spin on the deck. This time, by 3 mana, we've got board. It changes hands a few times, but we easily reach our pay-off cards at 5/6/7 mana.
Neither game is trivial, but this deck performs a lot better going second due to the large number of surprise roar effects. Judge Envoy in particular.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows. In this game going second against a blinged out nature deck, I'm never able to swing the board. We make it to 8 mana without ever seeing a Judge Envoy or Zealous March. Our opponent has back-to-back lightning strikes to answer our hidden creatures. RNG be like that sometimes.