Struggling with deckbuilding

[Nitpicky]

Hi there, I’ve been playing Abyssian since Open Beta, coming back to the game every 6 months testing things out and then leaving. But since I came back in July, I’ve been hooked to the game, and now I’m here to properly build a deck.
For the past years, I used to play with a swarm deck archetype, but seeing the “recent” release of Maehv & Xor’Xull, I decided to swap to them. The thing is, I LOVE Mechas, not only those in Duelyst, it’s just that I do love them, so I adapted my deck to include some sort of a Mecha-lethal playstyle.

But, by mixing different playstyles, I’ve encountered issues : I haven’t any control over the board, swarms & wanderer decks are too hard to play around. Even if I’ve played “for years”, I’ve limited knowledge about this game, it changing everytime I come back.

So, I need to ask you : How do I improve it? What do I need to remove? What I need to add? I aim to have a kind of acceptable board presence early game & then a strong late game with almost no way to loose. Do I need to change my general? OR do I need to completly change my faction?

[phoinexflame]

One of the glaring issues with your deck is that you have too many one ofs and two ofs. Generally you want to have most cards at 3x copies and reserve 2ofs for situational cards and one ofs for highly situational cards (and Mythrons).

Another issue is your deck seems to lack a clear focus. Right now it looks like you aim to win with Xor, but tried to put some mechs in there without any synergy which likely does more harm than good.

And finally, some of the cards you use are just pretty bad, Omega and Alter Rexx in particular stand out.

Also, @deathsadvocate is a good deckbuilder, If you want you can look at his thread to see what some well built decks look like.

DeathsAdvocate's Master Thread: Eternal Trials of Mythron

Master Thread With Rotations gone I had a ton of updating to do both to my decks during rotations and the ones right before rotations. Still tons of work to do, but this is a good start. Here is where you can find all my most recent deck lists for this expansion. It is a lot easier to just collect and do updates in one space rather then making many different threads as I have done in the past. So I am just going to start small and expand slowly, so be sure to check back for regular updates, bo…

[deathsadvocate]

This should help you with deck building as well as basics/staples.

DeathsAdvocate's Budget Guide: Trials of Mythron Update

Need help choosing a faction and working within a budget? I am here to help. Choosing your faction comes down to play-style and theme preference. Each faction has their own flavor and leans towards either control, aggro, midrange, or combos. While most factions can play all of those basic archetypes the faction as a whole or the individual general tend to be geared more towards one.

My summary of factions.

Abyssian: The necromancers: They summon hordes of wraithlings and love when they die wit…

You have likely been playing long enough that budget is probably not a huge issue so my master thread is also relevant.

Although abyss has been struggling a bit lately, but you can still do pretty decently.

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You really need to pick a focus.

The most successful mech deck I have:

DeathsAdvocate's Master Thread: Eternal Trials of Mythron

I have tried out a more traditional swarm approach with Abhorrent Unbirth, but between Metaltooth being his favorite partner and the recent nerf to their interaction, I figured I may as well go all in on the mech plan giving us a solid back up plan that wont fold to this AOE prevleant meta. We pack our own Aoe thanks to Furor Chakram, which also serves as a powerful win condition, which is another card that absolutely loves metaltooth.

For those that dont 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. Although now you need at least one other mech on board to get rush off of metaltooth but thats not to hard considering we have a lot of them. Oh btw yea the abomination steals temporary buffs like Chakram, and then Chakram buffs him as well after he is done forming.

Early on you tend to want to dig for cheap mechs to start your progression, finding metal tooths and one copy of chakram is usually a fairly high priority, Unbirth can be hard to set up sometimes so it so I sometimes replace it early or when it does not look feasible. Its a bit tricky to get the hang of knowing when to focus on mech, how to set up unbirth, and when to just switch gears into more control with desolator spam but its pretty rewarding once you figure it out.

Between its cycles, and desolator for emergencies, card advantage does not tend to be an issue. Its a very fun, and very competitive deck, although its a bit meta dependent on how good it is.

And if you want to go for trial you gotta commit pretty hard:

DeathsAdvocate's Master Thread: Eternal Trials of Mythron

Underlord Xor is such a neat card, when it was spoiled I was certainly hyped. Before the most recent patch it was really tough to get it out at a reasonable speed. But with Drain buffed, Gor returning to us, and the neat synergy of the alcuins and darkfire this deck can really push out Xor at lightning fast speeds. Mix multiplying Sarlacs and unkillable shadowdancers together and you have something pretty deadly.

Aside from gor the deck is also pulling out another largely forgotten shimzar card, Inkhorn Gaze. A card that was never bad, but just never really made the cut. Its really good here because not only is it removal in a pinch that maintains our card advantage, but it can also just be used to hit a sarlac/gor to progress your trial.

This list really focuses on getting xor out fast boasting an impressive 12 sacrifice cards on top of maevs BBS which can be spammed with crypto, and of course the sacrifice effects are multiplied even further by the Alcuin brothers. Combine that with a powerful control suite, a good chunk of healing, and quick xors and the deck is actualy pretty good at closing the game out.

Azure Shaman is the real back bone of most Maev decks due to how it works with her BBs. Not only will it buffs things it dies around but it will also buff the newly created husk for a staggering 4/8 for the cost of three mana, and in a pinch you can use your other sacrifice effects on azure as well.

Sarlac and or Gor tend to be fairly high priority finds as with out them you tend to run out of sacrifice targets. In general remember that your a xor focused deck so digging for sacrifice cards is usually worthwhile. Learn your matchups for when to dig for removal, aoe, and or healing and you will stand a decent chance vs most decks.

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@phoinexflame looks like you beat me to linking my thread

[bepoest]

This list is both beautiful and horribly broken. It reminds me of the movie “Annihilation” with Natalie Portman.

Both Mech decks and Xor’Xuul decks demand an almost complete dedication to the strategy, as you can see in @deathsadvocate’s examples.
Combining the two is very likely to end in very underwhelming performance, I’m afraid.

This requires more thinking.

[juprup]

Hey!

All you need is to put q’orrhlma’a,
Nightmare operant and alter-rexxtogether for infinite MECHAZ0R!s

[alexx55]

Hey, I think i played against you yesterday, you heavily missplayed with silver and I blew you up with obliterate, am I right? Anyways, I dont think Mechs are the way to go, atleast add 2 more sarlacs for the deck, they are insane

[alplod]

At least this deck has proper early game unlike many other inquires we see here.

As far as I can tell, the concept itself is close to being completely unplayable. That said there’s no reason not to try making it at least barely playable. I’ve done a couple of hybrid lists myself, and will probably think a bit about it and present my view soon ™.

Edit.

Well the deck is here for better or worse. Got rid of expensive mechs that do not fit Trial well, added the probabilty of the early finisher with Rush Unbirth, added some draw.

I want to stress, if you are going Trial you should have replenishable sacrifice meat: Gor or Sarlac, ideally both. But here we have lots of cheap minions so I tried to omit some of those to include more mechs.

I will probably test this thing myself at some point, but as of now it’s just a draft.

Ask any questions regarding my choices.

[Nitpicky]

First of all, thanks for the help ya’ll!
Too bad I can’t really mix those currently, but hey, I’ll improve my dying wish/Xor’Xuul for the moment and work around that weird hybrid alongside it haha
@alexx55 it has 100% chance to be me lmao, it happened twice to me yesterday (one that I couldn’t help, but the other one was purely trolling, and I’m sure you were my opponent that game). Sorry for that outcome, I was just toying around the amount of late game power I could achieve!
@alplod yup, I can’t find a good balance for sure. I have somekind of a great early turns pressure, that fall off pretty quickly but then I have an incredible late game (with other versions of this deck tho). My goal isn’t to make a broken list whatsoever, it’s just about to make a list that I enjoy and that can be somewhat playable, maybe I’ll achieve it?

For the moment, I’ll be focusing on getting more Sarlacs (I only have one, and it’s one of the first cards & legendary I got in this game haha), and removed Alter Rexx (barely usable) & Project Omega (most decks have removals, he only was usable when I had both Mechaz0r & S.I.L.V.E.R on board). I have yet to find mid-game threats (other than Azure Horn into Malice + Furor Chakram) to replace some of my early game cards that don’t have much use, I dunno, have yet to test it out.

Edit : Does Inkhorn Gaze counts towards the trial? I cannot see any clue about it anywhere

[alexx55]

Wait, Unbirth progresses trial…

[alplod]

Yep! That’s what I like most about this concept

[alexx55]

late game power

Alas, Greed can be both a grace, and a downfall.

[alexx55]

Im testing this as soon as I can(does the abomination retain its stats after xor trial or does it become 1/1m

[alplod]

Never tested this, bro, but I guess it’s just 1/1.

[alexx55]

I kinda wanna remake my OG Unbirth Lili, but now I have options…

[alplod]

Does Inkhorn Gaze counts towards the trial? I cannot see any clue about it anywhere

Anything that can kill own minions does. Even Cass BBS.

[Nitpicky]

It’s just a 1/1 without any keyword, but with Project Omega you respawn it with all his buffs, that’s why I took him in the first place, combining Blood Echoes x2 into Abhorrent, finalizing with somekind of a rush/ranged demi-god abomination (but indeed, it happens once in a blue moon)

[alexx55]

Looking at your deck, most of the minions could be replaced with Mechazor summoning minions (atleast with Helm/Wing/Cannon)

[Nitpicky]

One older version of it had less minions needed for trials but more mechaz0r minions, but due to how conflicting both were, I opted for a more trials dedicated deck, keeping in priority Replicant for his draw ability & metaltooth due to his rush (something with rush on a finished trial board can almost respawn & be played infinitly)

[alplod]

There’s actually almost no need for Abhorrent post Trial. If you managed to summon Claw with rush after Trial, it’s actually gg already.

Speaking of echoes - I don’t like the use of echoes in Trial decks much (except for some fringe meme cases). The main point is being able to archive Destiny in the first place, and for this purpose the card is too expensive, while providing no instant value unlike, say, Ritual Banishing.

[deathsadvocate]

Inspired to try and make the hybrid list work.

Here is my rough draft:

http://www.bagoum.com/deckbuilder#MTozNTUsMzoyMDA1OSwzOjIwMjI2LDM6MTkwNTAsMzoyMDA0OSwzOjExMTIzLDM6MzUxLDM6MTExMjYsMzoyMDM0OCwzOjIwMDU3LDM6MTkwNDUsMjoyMDMzNCwzOjMwMDM5LDM6MzE4LDE6MzU3

I really want to cram tiger in here to, but I do not see a spot yet.

(Inkhorn is in my standard version, and yes it works for the trial. I did leave ya a decent explanation of the list )