Kaleos - Arcanysts are unearthed. Again

[alplod]

Well, here’s the deck. Still a work in progress though.

Firstly, I really like Scroll Bandit. I can even say, that I dreamt of it. Even proposed it: Fan Card Design Hub: Submissions (Updated 10/31) (see spell thief, you will probably find some similarities).

So I decided to make arcanyst deck, which uses lots of unconventional card draw mechanics. Xho and LFox are already used often in a number of decks. Then add the newbies - Scroll Bandit and Mind-Cage Oni, and also SparrowHawk, which comboes well with the Bandit. These guys make you have plenty of random spells in hand which are nice with Owlbeast, Chakri and Kindling. Conjurer is in the test phase, I found myself having lots of spells but not so much minions, want to see how it goes with him.

If you manage to have at least one of your draw engines alive each turn it makes for wonderful, undescribable turns. Undescribable since you don’t always know what you get.

I’m currently in silver, since I didn’t play for several months. In silver this deck works perfectly, but everything works perfectly in silver, so at the moment I don’t quite know what happens in gold or diamond.

Curve is rather low, so you should have moderately agressive start and gain tempo early. If you will manage to do it, the deck often wins on 7-8 mana with sheer damage. If you don’t - you will either manage to regain tempo with all those random spells or you will be buldozed - random spells can be crap.

Still the deck may be a pile of crap as it is, since, again, I haven’t tested it anywhere except silver. Pure fun, however.

If one wants more random spell fun, Alcuin, Mindwarper, Calligrapher and Joseki are always ready for action.

Any thoughts, guys?

EDIT: The last version of the deck is here:

[barsik]

Well it looks like very interesting for sure! At the first glance it seems to be a tempo deck with a lot of card advantage, but with a control midgame. You probably have to decide what you really want to achieve (i know it: you want the spell draw ).

Xho is not the best card after turn 3, as it isn’t very good with arcanyst, you have to wait a turn or two for the spell draw.
Ghost lightning looks very situational without lance or eight gates, and you have gotatsu for pings.
Also phoenix fire shall be included in my opinion, because the fox will mostly work as a removal bait or only at later turns.
You have 3 copies of killing edges, but you probably won’t be able to use it that much. Your only reliable bodies are the scroll bandit and mind cage onyx in the early game.

However, my opinion is only based on the list, i did not tryed it myself on ladder, so i could be wrong on some points.

[alplod]

What should I use instead of xho then? Katara?

[barsik]

Katara is good with kaleos, mds, jux and killing edge but is not arcanyst, and it is more of an aggro card. Again you shall decide what to build.

[reignzu]

Remove all Xho and 1 card, Add 2 Katara and 2 Flamewreath. Since you play Kaleos and Dragonseal. Believe me Flamewreath is Beast!!
Remove Ghost lightning, add phoenix fire. Phoenix is vital for songhai, you cant depend on Fox since it can be dispeled.

You play arcanyst tho. I have a trick to wipe all big threat enemy minions easily, you only need Flamewreath+Deathstrike+Blink plus extra Dragonseal/Juxta spam if you have them in hand. Booom 1 hit. But you need to play control/late game since it need alot of mana.
And onyx Jaguar for buff.

[alplod]

@barsik, @reignzu

Ghost lighning is there for occasional lilithe swarm counter. Also, it’s cheap, which is a necessitity in arcanyst deck.

Flamewreath, while nice, is too expensive. I do already have too much of 4-drops, and aiming at arcanyst synergy I can take neither owlbeast nor kindling out.

You probably have to decide what you really want to achieve

Probably, more aggro oriented arcanyst list is what I’m looking for. So Katara will probably fit nice. Midgame of this deck is too dependant on earlygame anyway, thus I should try a bit more aggro.

Still I’m not convinced of adding phoenix fires. But we’ll see)

[barsik]

Post your results here!

[alplod]

I will as soon as I hit gold. Tomorrow, probably.

[fusion23310]

I’d take out xho for a manaforger, while its not a very aggressive option, from what I’ve seen Arcanyst Songhai doesn’t have the greatest early game and then takes off like a rocket with kindling later in the game with some spells to create more than 25 damage in one turn at times. I’d also get to 3 kindling and 3 Inner focus as being able to inner focus kindling makes all the difference.

[alplod]

Oh, I really forgot about IF since it became 1 mana. I should try it.

[akurane]

This is the deck I have been using in diamond so far, going 6/8 so far.

[alplod]

I have zero painters. Is OBS a satisfying substitute?

[isgopet]

>Kaleos, Jux, Killing Edge and kinda MDS

>No Katara

> mfw

[alplod]

I’m totally OK with that))))

[akurane]

I would say so, yeah. I like painter due to it’s AoE ability, but I think OBS could work well, especially with it’s spell synergy. You may want to tech in a couple of lightbenders as well thought to help in obelysk matchups.

[alplod]

Climbed to gold from silver 19 rather fast. This is the deck I’m using right now:

Tried to fit phoenix fire instead of lantern foxes, but LFoxes still seem superior for me. It’s a delay for using PF for sure, but still it’s a threat on the board.

Also tried to use PF instead of OBS, but almost any magmar and cass prove that this decision is wrong.

Got rid of xhos, use manaforgers instead. Ghost lightning also had to go in favor to inner focus.

Currently I’m not satisfied with blue conjurers, manaforgers and inner focus(still in most cases better than ghost lighning). Also, no crowd control, so I often get in trouble with Lilithe and Arcanyst Vanar.

Will think about it later.

[barsik]

OBS is a better removal then PF for sure, but i PF can be a usefull removal in early game, and a burn spell in late. It shall work good, may be try to replace IF with PF?
Also blue conjurer is more of a late game minion. What about sparrowhawk? It looked like to be a very nice combo with the arcanyst bandit and manaforger.

[seraphicreaper]

I had some fun and silly thoughts. First off, thoughts where you can look to make more room:

-Juxtaposition x3: doesn’t really feel suited for this deck and I think you could take it out. One possible swap would be for Mana Vortex.
-Inner Focus x1-3: If looking for room, I’d consider removing 1, as it’s a dependent card that doesn’t seem too necessary outside chakri and maybe scroll
-Killing Edge x1: Similar to IF, but more flexible.

Considerations to put in:

Prismatic Illusionists - Potential swarm with growing stats with Kindling.
Sparrowhawk (back in, since I saw you removed it) WITH Obscuring Blow. I think this combination brings more damage into your deck, synergizes with a free MDS and backstab combo, which additionally preps up a future play of another Killing Edge target. This also assists in maintaining card advantage both immediately (free MDS) and in following turns (Killing Edge on Obs. Blow targets).

[barsik]

I like the addition of obscuring blow, it enables the sparrohawk-arcanyst synergies. Definetly a thing to try out!

[alplod]

@barsik, @seraphicreaper

Obscuring is a really nice option, I will certainly try it! But then juxtaposition is must have, as it seems. I had mana vortex in my early builds and it didn’t play too well for me.

IF is a soft spot, I probably try some PFs in place of them later.

Speaking about sparrowhawk…it’s body is too weak without owlbeast buffs, and one should already have some arcanysts on board when playing it. It’s not an early game card, it’s a combo card, thus it’s usually a dead draw early on.

Not sure where to fit illusionist. TBH arcanysts is one of my favourite deck archetypes, so I grew rather tired of illusionist being in most of my decks. Not using it is not a matter of optimisation, but of personal preference)