And here is the master list complete with long winded posts on each. I never make a bad deck, I put a lot of work and love into each one, many will never be tier one, but they should all at least be quite playable. Keep in mind this receives frequent updates, and again is not a tier system. I personally dislike Aggro, Burn, and swingy RNG so you wont see much representation for those even if they are top notch.
If you copy everything after the # on the bagoum links it works as an import code.
Lilith:
Summary
Bottomless Abyss: Ramp, Highly competitive.
Summary
Its been awhile since Big Abyss, much less Lillith, was meta, but the current incarnation is very well suited for the meta. I call it bottomless abyss because well…that would be a pretty big abyss.
Big Abyss is an old and simple archetype that revolves around ramping out abyss’s powerful late game minions like Vorpal Reaver alongside a few other targets that have changed out a lot over time.
Gibbet, your healing units, and yes even inkling are all great globe contestors to try and go for that turn two Vorpal. Because your planing to dfc the body on your opening play really doesn’t matter.
Furor Chakram is pretty much an auto include for Lillith now, it provides some much need aoe and is extra nasty with vorpals dying wish. It is also pretty nifty with Spectral Revenant allowing it to proc its effect multiple times for an insane burst. Between that and thunderhorn you have a decent chance vs brome and other swarm decks.
The deck has a healthy amount of healing, and a lot of control tools. Between its very heavy top end, desolator, and inkling it does fine on card advantage, leaving you with a well rounded deck prepared for most matchups.
Necromancy: Arcanyst Variants, Highly Competitive to Competitive/Gimmicky.
Summary
Dedicated Arcanysts: Highly Competitive
http://www.bagoum.com/deckbuilder#MTozMDEsMzoyMDA1OSwyOjIwMDcwLDM6MjAyNzIsMzoyMDA1MiwzOjEwOTkzLDM6MTExNTIsMzoyMDA0OSwzOjEwMzAyLDM6MTAzMDMsMzoyMDA1NywyOjEwMzA2LDM6MTAzMDUsMzoxMTA5NywyOjMzOA==
Unbirth: Competitive/Gimmicky
http://www.bagoum.com/deckbuilder#MTozMDEsMzoyMDA1OSwzOjIwMjcyLDM6MjAwNTIsMzoxMDk5MywzOjIwMDQ5LDM6MTAzMDIsMjoyMDM0OCwzOjEwMzAzLDI6MjAwNTcsMjoxMDMwNiwzOjEwMzA1LDM6MTEwMTEsMzoxMTA5NywyOjMzOA==
I call this deck Necromancy because it can raise an army from the dead, or stitch together a massive abomination out of a pile of corpses.
The first version is the Trials of Mythron update to the old archetype finally having a proper set of two drops, oher then that not much has changed for the deck. The second version sacrificed a bit of consistency all around to fit a fun gimmick with Unbirth that can be pretty devastating when it works.
For those that don’t know how Abhorrent Unbirth works, it destroys all minions on your field, and summons one giant abomination with all the combined stats of the destroyed creatures as well as their keywords, but you need to make sure you get rush on him or its just to risky to play, and in this decks case our rush source comes from the Spell Sparks that firestarter spawns.
Arcanysts have fallen out of favor for awhile, but they are still a very solid archetype, the oldschool ability of Owlbeast or Prismatic to snowball out of control when combined with abyssians array of cheap spells is classically powerful. Trinity provides card advantage and more spells to abuse your spell procing minions and Bond even works with Death Knell, the crown jewel of Abyssian Arcanyst decks, who can bring back every-single destroyed arcanyst for a truly spectacular end game finisher.
The Arcanyst engine alone is solid, but it is really well complemented by Unbirth since Firestarter is an arcnyst and is super key in using unbirth effectively. You can either try to set up an early combo if you manage to get a decent field to stick, or for a truely epic finisher you can play Unbirth the turn after Deathknell brings back all your dead arcanyst including firestarer for truly insane abomination, my record 35/310 with rush.
Darkfire sacrifice really helps to speed up the deck, although you don’t usually want to use it with deathknell since you want to make sure to be getting a lot of spawns out of it but it is an option. Mainly its used early game with trinity in order to proc that effect and usually have the mana to spare to even cast some of those spells right away, and sometimes you use it to combo a firestarter an unbirth in the same turn. But darkfire and a few others are situational so they are all kept at two to make room and to keep the curve from being to low.
Its a very effective deck that has a lot of threats, decent card advantage, healing, and a healthy amount of answers.
SWARm Competitive
Summary
A swarm deck featuring grimWAR, and also a shoutout to my old horsemen series.
Its a pretty classic deck, swarm the field, play death watch, win. There is a lot of micromanaging to be done, and you always have to be careful not to overextend into a field wipe. Don’t be to greedy with your win cons, you have quite a few of them, its just fine to cash in a small swarm instead of risking loosing it all. The only thing that has changed for it since the last expansion is gibbet replaced sphere of darkness.
Grimwar is the decks saving grace, it simultaneously makes it really hard to clear your field and provides a powerful win condition. This is a very AOE prevalent meta, making hyper swarm a very tough deck to play. But I have tweaked it to be as resistant as possible to AOE, while still retaining its lightning fast gameplan.
Nine cycles will give you good resilience to field wipes and help in digging out Grimwar, cresendo is another classic, and Chakram can do a ton of work. Instead of picking most of the classic swarm tools like priestess or dancer we are favoring the bloodbound mentor as it provides card advantage and dodges rebuke, two things that help with resiliency.
Its a very powerful deck, but Brome Swarm is making people run a lot of aoe and thunderhorn is absolutely everywhere so it can be a bit tough. Despite its resiliency it still suffers from the usual polarized match up effect of “Do they have good aoe? Yes, you probably lose. No, you probably win.” and thus why it only gains a competitive rating despite its raw power.
Dying Wish Ramp: Competitive
Summary
Abyss got two new very neat tools, Gibbet, and Carrion Collector. Collector being a great opening play that ramps the majority of your deck and is great sacrifice fodder, a fun play for your opening turn as player two is to drop him on a globe, darkfire, and Reaper. Gibbet being a nifty little zone control tool and an amazing globe contestor. You want to play him defensively but close because his ability does not work on counter attacks. He will make your opponent play awkwardly, can be used as a mini combo with lure, and is decent sacrifice fodder.
Now that battlepets are out of the pool and he has gained a few more powerful targets, Grimes is now actually quite good, and since we are running carrion collector he fits in nicely. Plus six is the magic number for those turn two darkfire plays. In fact Grimes is often better then vorpal in certain matchups like vs Vet where its very hard to stick a single large body.
Furor Chakram is pretty much an auto include for Lillith, and its extra important due to the meta requiring AOE to stand up to Strategos decks and it is extra nasty mixed with reaper. While it conflicts a little with EMP, EMP is a powerhouse that gives you a good answer vs Ascension Sajj and the like, plus its good to have some form of dispel in a deck, EMP is a bit slow outside of ramp lists, but darkfire goes a long way.
The rest of the deck is packed with healing, control, and cycles, leaving it a well rounded and effective deck decently prepared for most match ups. But unfortunately the meta is filled with transform based removal and not having a lot of AOE can be a real struggle keeping what could otherwise be a really powerful deck down.
Sacrifice Focused Underlord: Competitive
Summary
Loads of sacrifice effects to be to get Underlord out consistently and in a reasonable amount of time. Consuming/Echos have their classic combo with sarlac but are also quite potent with bonecrushers intensify. Lillith BBs and Sarlac provide excellent sacrifice fodder for the other effects and are very nice with Chakram.
Its a decent deck with great sustain and a lot of control tools and a very scary late game, but its pretty hard to keep up with some of the crazier things from this expanasion leaving it competitive but lagging behind a bit.
Variax Control: Competitive
Summary
Variax is a fun card, once upon a time it was the king of the lategame, but times have changed and it has a lot of compeition. Luckily between the meta being just slow enough, and the deck having enough control tools to stall out vs just about anything it can perform well.
Its got its aoe covered with chakram, necrotic, and thunder, lure combos with gibbet and thunder, its got dispel, its got healing, its got a touch of card advantage and an excess of control.
One big thing is you will notice I am not including anything beyond six mana in the deck, even going for bender over EMP, because you always want to be able to play and BBS. Course EMP is strong enough to never be a bad pick either, but IDK if it fits here.
The deck can certainly win with chakram and midgame value, but its primary goal is Variax ASAP, then usualy holing up in a corner and slowly overwhelming the board. Its a sollid enough deck, but its a bit of an ancient relic of the past and has been powercreeped out of being anything more then just compeitive.
