Brome, The Warlord
Perfecting Lyonar Surge Swarm
Strategy
So we’ve all been (rightly) talking about how Unbirth and Deceptib0t and Thunderhorn and Flawless Reflection and the entirety of Magmar are way off the charts, so let me be the one to re-state the obvious, but understated. Surgeforger is busted, and it’s busted bad. I actively resent that my favorite Faction has been completely decimated to the point of uselessness save for this one deck, but I can’t find a way around that fact for the time being, and because I don’t enjoy only getting blown out consistently as early as low Gold I quickly spent the Spirit I needed to start playing an early version of this deck. If the other stuff wasn’t so broken people would be lining up to shit on this deck because so far it has been crazy strong to the point that Tempo Lyonar at its apex is a joke compared to the raw “win the match on turn three” power my version of this deck can pump out. So if you want to play the only Lyonar deck that can even approach Tier 1, read on.
The Warlord deck is a swarm deck and similar to the one several others have already posted and discussed. I want to expand on that discussion by not only showing off the deck but talking more deeply about its ins and outs as I see them.
Your win condition is simple: develop an early lead on board, maintain it and buff everything to end matches quickly. You spew out as many cheap minions as you can, and you buff them to insane power levels with Warblade, Empyreal Congregation and the terrifying might of Surgeforger. You refuel your hand with a big Fealty play as soon as you need to (once per match tends to be enough) and Bloodtear Alchemist and Holy Immolation let you deal with things that require an instant answer but your minions can’t reach.
Repulsor Beast deserves its own little paragraph because it. does. work. in this deck. Its stats are acceptable because of all the buffs you’re handing out and trust me: you’re going to appreciate that OG a lot. The obvious application is to get body blockers out of the way but it’s as–if not even more–valuable as pseudo-removal that lets you reliably dispose of back-line threats before they get to do anything.
Notable Exclusions
- Shiro Puppydragon seems like a natural fit for a swarm deck, but I find it’s effect tends to be too slow and its body not impactful enough. It’s a decent pick but other picks just seem more useful more of the time. I found myself just consistently replacing it when I ran it.
- Auroara would seem tailor-made for this deck, but I don’t own it and I haven’t tried it out. Watching replays and reading discussions I get the impression that this deck doesn’t need one singular big beater to do well, and denying the opponent one big juice BoA or CC target that hasn’t done anything other than get beefy doesn’t seem worth it, compared to my other options.
- Vigilator had a spot in my deck until I realized Repulsor Beast’s potential and just stopped playing it. I tried it to deal with Magmar but honestly: Magmar doesn’t leave your board alive long enough for its effect to do significant work anyway. I might try it out again, but I like having only 3-ofs in this deck so far and I wouldn’t know what I’d cut for it.
- Skywind Glaives is a great card for this deck but after I cut Shiro and Vigilator I realized I was just replacing this card every time. It started seeming like a win-more card and I benefited more from a third Alchemist and Congregation.
- War Surge is Lyonar’s other big group buff, but it’s only really good when I already have a big board. Congregation puts me over more breaking points and because of Conscript and Fealty I’m running my stuff close to me already anyway, so the global effect isn’t as important.
Key Insights
Now that you’re familiar with the cards and the way they play, let’s get into that deeper insight I was talking about. Some of it is deceptively obvious, in the sense that while you knew about it, you didn’t really know about it, you know?
- You are the Danger: To win, you need to be the one to force the action. It’s your job to set the pace of the game and your opponent’s to react to what you’re doing. A lot of decks allow for a back and forth between you and your opponent, but this deck requires you to be pushing the action and that demands a shift in mentality. You maintain your board and you clear theirs, that’s how you win.
- Board Presence > Chip Damage: Some people might think aggressive decks just go face, but this deck absolutely cannot afford to do that. You should find yourself holding attacks back a lot of the time because dealing damage also means taking it, and taking damage means you risk losing your minions. You don’t have a way to come back after your momentum stalls, so you only want to start trading your minions into the enemy General when you feel confident that you’re about to win. Until then, force your opponent to both smash their head into your stuff and spend resources to get rid of your threat. If they succeed, their turn is over and you still have several minions alive. If they fail, even better for you.
- Positioning is Everything: I’m not joking. This deck requires absolutely masterful levels of placement on your part. It’s amazingly easy to mess up your own access to a certain tile, fail to surround the enemy General for a big finisher, leave them room to escape, or to instead play into common answers (Thunderhorn, Warbird, Grapnel, Betrayal etc). You’ll be spending 80% of many of your turns just thinking about how to avoid screwing yourself over with positioning if you want to do well with this deck.
- Control the Action: You want to give yourself a lot of things to do each turn, and make it next-to-impossible for your opponent to do anything. If they play minions, you destroy them. If they equip Artifacts, you destroy them. If they want to move, cut them off. Make it as awkward as possible for them to deal with one threat, let alone your entire formation.
- Know your Enemy: Your deck may be proactive, but your mind needs to be reactive. For every single turn you need to be raking your brain for every possible effective response your opponent might have to your actions. Tailor your attack pattern to suit the opponent. Look at their Faction, General and opening move to determine how best to proceed. Create a spreadsheet with every strong answer they might have at each possible Mana level. Trade in your damage if you’re expecting AspectHorn, buff if you’re expecting Grapnel, refuel if you’re expecting Gates Lightning etc etc etc. There are so many ways for you to mess up your momentum, so play smart and don’t get cocky.
- Buffing for a Kill: A lot of matches end because you play Warblade or Congregation to buff everything you’ve surrounded the enemy General with. But, because you have a horde of minions, it’s very easy to forget that a buffed minion might survive combat with the enemy General while an unbuffed would not. Don’t automatically reach for that buff before considering whether or not you’ll be able to reach the enemy General at all if some of your minions don’t die off trading face.
- Don’t Replicate Thrice: Replicant is a great card, but don’t summon the third one if you don’t absolutely need to. Replacing to find something more useful is going to be more beneficial like 90% of the time.
- Surgeforger is Support: And finally, don’t see Surgeforger as your win condition. It’s amazing and can finish matches by itself but its real strength lies in handing buffs out to your other minions. Treat it as a support unit instead and play it out of enemy reach to try and buff at least two things on the turn you summon it. If the enemy plays removal on it: good. It cost you three mana and they just spent their turn controlling only one of your minions.
There are a number of things I really really love about this deck and some that I really dislike about this deck, either in terms of strengths and weaknesses or just my personal preferences. Let’s call them the Beautiful and the Horrible.
The Beautiful
- Consistency: This deck is crazy consistent. Between Dreamgazer, Replicant and the absolute majesty that is Fealty you’re virtually always going to draw the cards you need when you need them. Because the curve is so low and because all your cards are 3-ofs you’re extremely likely to get a running start every time and almost anything you draw is going to be conducive to your strategy.
- Efficiency: Your low, low curve and the ability to consistently hoard (almost) all of the Mana Springs lets you pull off some amazingly unfair turns and spend every last drop of your Mana every time. There are very few “awkward” turns where you can only do one sub-optimal thing at a time.
- Skill: This is a very high-skill deck to pilot. You need to put a lot of thought, effort and practice in to get good at playing this deck and avoid screwing yourself over without realizing it, and I’m only starting to get into that process now.
- Power: The deck is just strong. It feels nice to have a chance to win a lot of the time, and there’s something addictive about flooding the board with four minions on turn 1. When you win, you feel like you built up this unstoppable force that’s steadily advancing on the enemy and if you (occasionally) lose you lose hard, in crushing defeat. It’s an enjoyable, binary experience a lot of the time.
The Horrible
- Board Clears: The right board clear at the right time is devastating to Brome’s company. If you fail to dodge a Plasma Storm or an Eight Gates Ghost Lightning it can really destroy your chances of building up the momentum you need for a victory. Or if your P2T1 gets sabotaged by an early answer like Deceptib0t Protocol.
- Chasing Runners: Duelyst has a board, and that board can be used to just run away for a few turns. It’s all part of the game but it can be really frustrating to have this gigantic swarm of threats but just fail to connect with anything until you get decimated by Aspect Thunderhorn or Mantra or something similar. Thank Makantor for the Crestfallen because they really help out on that front.
- Binary Outcomes: One mistake can cost you any match. There are some key windows you need to be able to navigate, and failing to do so well can make your whole house of cards tumble down. It’s very punishing.
- Few Answers: While not usually a problem there are some instances where you really miss having a dispel or Lasting Judgement handy, and failing to deal with a comeback card leaves you very helpless.
- Selling your Soul: And finally, this deck is cancer. Playing it makes you a bad person who makes the game worse for everyone who’s just trying to play a fair deck. I lose to a wonderful new Vespyr deck every time with my useless Zeal deck but I just roll over it with this swarm build and I feel bad for punishing someone for playing a good deck that’s actually healthy for the game.
Troubled Matchups
This deck is good at dealing with almost everything aside from Tier 0 Controlmar (but then, what is). If you get your momentum going quickly you’ll beat anything unless you let yourself get punished by Thunderhorn. I complained about Shidai Spellhai before and while the matchup is very tense I’ve won most of those as well.
Please post your thoughts and decklists below, I hope you enjoyed the effort I put into this.
I look forward to seeing what’s next from you.
. At what rank are you playing this? Really interesting to see a swarm build morph into a late-game Titan deck.