Duelyst Forums

Death knell deck idea

#1

Disclaimer: i wasnt around when the arcanyst expansion was released so i don’t know what was meta back then (and so what it worked and what it didnt) and i’m not an abyssian expert.

So, after burning all my spirit on a pantheriquarian deck (which after 10 matches i found boring/i got rekt most of the time) i was planning to try a death knell deck that should look like this

Can anyone give me his 2c about this or could give it a shot if he has the cards?

I’m aware that you should usually go with lili and use your bbs for darkfire sac or ritual banishing, buuuut considering that with death knell you should win lategame plus pings are always useful… I thought i could use the sphere/ooz/bbs/munch sinergy for some extra healing and little threats removal (since you should have not more than 3/4 shadow creeps i guess)

I guess that the gameplan should be something like… Poop cheap arcanyst /use removal and pings on early game, owlbeast sage/trinity wing on mid game and death knell/bju conjurer and his spawn in late game.

I know it could be a bit slow and have a poor start but i want to test if the removal and healing are enough to let you go into lategame without dying in the meantime and if cass is a viable choice.

Thanks for the attention.

Delete magmar.

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#2

I’m pretty sure that Lil and DFS are better than Cass with Arcanysts. For the reference you may look at @deathsadvocate’s Arcanyst decks. They are examples of rare decks that I don’t even want to fine tune.

That said, you may notice an absence of Night Shroud in those decks. The reason is Shroud being tempo negative in a deck for which it is already hard to compete in tempo, and unreliability of Knell/Shroud combo.

All in all, your deck looks pretty solid as is except a few choices:

  1. I would probably use Aethermaster in place of Ooze for additional synergy with Owl, Araras and Knell.

  2. Exchange smth (e.g. Alcuin) to include Breath of the Unborn to have some chance against Wanderer, Fault and Egg lists.

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#3

I think the main problem with your deck is the lack of spells. It’s also very hard to fit Cassyva synergy in with Arcanysts.

If you’re looking to use Knell competitively, I believe Lilithe is a better option. Sphere is a bad card regardless, and it’s extremely difficult to pull off Nightshroud against a halfway decent player.

I have a deck that used Nightshroud and Knell pretty effectively (I believe I played it to S rank during the first season of arcanysts) but I’m on mobile right now so I’ll have to share it later. Also, that was when Sphere was god tier and before Araras existed.

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#4

Ooze and sphere are there just to make munch able to kill something bigger than an egg, and the first is just annoying in general as p1t1 and the 2nd can always work as cycle (hopefully discounted with manaforger), but maybe it’s too gimmicky?

As for shroud i thought it was cool with death knell to win the game? Even though i think that playing it with an owlbeast on board and cast a spell after to make him ping-immune is not an easy scenario…

Thanks for the feedback guys!

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#5

I built the deck exactly as it is here. I played one game with it so far, and the deck felt pretty good overall. I was able to beat a high ranked S Vaath deck while doing 57 (!) damage toward the ultimate aggressor quest. I didn’t really like the creep cards. Ooze felt weak when I played it, sphere and munch just got replaced. It’s possible they would have been better in a more minion heavy match-up, but in general I think I’d rather just get rid of the creep package entirely. I’ll try to get more reps in with the deck before making any changes, though.

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#6

Thanks for testing man!
As i said i thought about the creep package just to have some extra healing and a bit of extra mini-removal, but maybe that’s too clunky to pull out

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#7

Sorry, i kinda missed this.
With trinity wing alone aren’t they enough? I thought that unlike songhai you don’t have to cast tons of cheap spells in one round in abyssian to make it worth… even though i’m not sold on prismatic illusionist (even though it provides you a board…)so I could swap it with breath of the unborn?

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#8

I definitely like Munch in theory, but I think the deck building costs may be too high. I’m not going to write it off yet based on one game, especially when my opponent only played like 3 or 4 minions during a very long game. My first impression is that we may be better off cutting those cards for more Arcanysts and stand-alone removal like Daemonic Lure or Necrotic Sphere.

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#9

Yeah Munch really shines as a control tool when you can consistently produce 4+ creep, for small minion removal that produces value there are tons of better things to use here like Spectral Blade or even Dancing Blades (although a bit awkward curvewise)

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#10

Lure is an Abyssian Staple, if you’re not using it, you’re doing something wrong :frowning:

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#11

Breath of the Unborn is okay. I don’t personally like it but it can definitely be effective. Spells are necessary in any Arcanyst deck - Arcanysts revolve around spells. Having an Owl on board and no way to buff it up feels pretty horrible.

Trinity Wing does make up for the lack of spells in your deck but isn’t available earlygame (for a giant snowballing Owl) and definitely isn’t reliable every game.

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#12

@cookedpoo yeah that was the first thing i thought i should probably include anyway. I thought of going munch and punish instead of banish and lure, but probably lure is too good to pass up.

@whyb0t mmmm guess i have to rethink my opinion on abyss arcanyst then. I thought that you relied mainly on cards like wing, shroud and death knell to win the game, since spell and thus owlbeast “only” makes your minion sturdier whereas on songhai they buff the atk with the pandacantrememberthename and on vanar you polarity them :thinking:

Guess i could swap alcuins and illusionists for lure and breath or necrotic sphere, but then 8 could end up with tons of removals and no board/arcanysts to resummon with knell/trigger night shroud :thinking:

Thanks again for the feedback!

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#13

If you’d like to follow a similar approach to the Vanar and Hai Arcanyst decks you mentioned, Furor Chakram can do a similar “cashing-in” for your board (and it’s a rare & Abyss staple). And Lilithe works even better also for this approach.

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#14

In most ArcAbyss decks (take this with a grain of salt, this is old meta) your two wincons were Owlbeast and Knell. In my experience you can never rely on Trinity Wing - it’s super powerful and a life saver but can’t pop off exactly when you need it against good players.

My deck actually didn’t even use Owlbeast - not because it’s bad, just because it didn’t seem thematic (my Arcanyst deck had Deathwatch themes). I think Furor Chakram is a great idea actually - makes me want to rebuild ArcAbyss!

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#15

Here’s AlphaCentury’s Chakram/Arcanyst list (though it is marked “To be revisited”):
https://duelspot.com/deck/arcana-of-the-abyss/

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#16

My Ben Swolobeast Swarm (budget list) might also give you some ideas on how to utilize Chakram: Miguel's Abyss deck and discussion space

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#17

Thanks!

Well, i guess that lili is just plain better after all. As @manamaniac pointed out, it takes too much in terms of deckbuilding cost to have ooz and such and you have too low in return i guess, even if i liked the idea of extra pings a lot, in a world where we don’t know if and when rippers will be nerfed. But dfs seem SO good since it can both ramp and spellproc for 0 mana, and chakram can be a win con on its own

What’s the general consensus on fugitive btw? It looks like a winmore card on paper, even though i can imagine it being pretty good if you have one of the dragon aspect in hand or a dfs, even though it still looks slow.

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#18

Fugitive is indeed slow for this kind of a list. It’s ok but not very good, there are better draw options to choose from.

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#19

Of course.

OF COURSE!

Even in a completely unrelated topic you just HAVE to squeeze in a nice little “Delete Magmar.” God I hate these forums.

1 Like
#20

Here, have a bit of this

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