Swarm Creep deck discussion

[alplod]

To continue the discussion from here to prevent valuable thread from being derailed:

Decks working exactly how they're supposed to

I have around 10 or so different creep decks since creep has too much stuff to fit in one deck. The one in the screenshot was inspired by Akurane’s suggestion to use Lilithe for Creep decks instead of Cassyva. [deckLandscapeAbyssian] I would highly recommend tweaking that deck, since it has many obvious flaws that I won’t go into right now. The best thing I’ve found about using Lilithe over Cassyva (aside from the obvious Darkfire Sacrifice + Tormentor + Shadow Nova) is that you can Darkfire …

@phoinexflame, @moonkey and maybe @miguelosz. Oh, and also @akurane.

I find this deck very interesting, and plan to present my thoughts later.

My version here:

[miguelosz]

Seemscool Nocturne creep isn’t really my territory but I’m interested in what people come up with!

[whyb0t]

I’ve played it extensively. Has awesome highroll potential but the extreme drop in deck quality when you don’t draw Nocturn is miserable. 5/10

[alplod]

Here we have a subplan of recycling creep producing spells via Alcuin, beefy swarm with crown, and zoning. Lots of new options.

Really, everybody tries to avoid standing on creep now, that helps in development of swarm.

Deck matchups changed since the previous expansion, and since it’s dark horse, you can easily steal some wins now. 3-1 in S while tinkering.

[phoinexflame]

Adding Wraith Crown does probably improve the deck, now all of those wraithlings become much better at body blocking and they can actually do something. It also helps you stall, which is rather important in this deck.

Alcuin fugitive is super good here because he helps bring back all of your good spells, really almost anything he brings back is good accept for Shadow Stalk.

Once you get enough creep down you can just Munch any minion up to EMP (interesting fact about Munch: if you use it on a forcefield minion with their Forcefield active you will still get healed even though you don’t deal any damage). The only thing you can’t reliably Munch is an early Basilisk (unfortunately this deck auto loses to an early Basilisk, while Mid-game to Late-game Basilisks can be dealt with) so it is probably worth putting some actual Hard removal in if we can find room.

[alplod]

Magesworn also screws our deck pretty hard. But it’s actually predictable.

[alplod]

Dunno how to fit it, but the deck desperately needs at least some reliable early game and non combo creep generation. For the sake of consistency.

I’d say we should add at least 2 abysmal crawlers somehow.

[akurane]

In my personal opinion, darkspine elemental isn’t a huge necessity. Sure, it’s double damage effect can be nice, but in most cases you will have enough creep tiles for Abyssal Tormentor to be enough. I would definitely recommend fitting in both A.) Abyssal Crawler (can give you massive creep generation when unanswered) and B.) Cryptographer (solid 2 drop for Lilithe that also has synergy with DFC and Wraithling Crown).

As for replacements, I would probably do -3 Darkspine Elemental, -1 Shadowstalk, and -2 Wraithling Swarm for +3 Cryptographers and +3 Abyssal Crawlers (since there isn’t a lot of swarm pay-off outside of Wraithling crown).

I haven’t gotten the chance to play around with Alcuin Fugitive, but I can see its synergy with cards like Pluck. Chakram also seems like it could be a good alternative to Wriathcrown, although I am not sure exactly how strong one is over the other. Other cards that I would suggest looking into would be Abyssal Juggernaught and Desolator (big stats and a source of healing/burn/hand size). I also am not sure how strong I would rate yielding depths; its a cheap draw card and its condition isn’t too hard to achieve, although if you brick on creep generation you may end up making bad moves just to squeeze out 3 creep tiles from an Abyssal Crawler.

[oranos]

elemental is actually really good in creep decks now. it turns your plucks and novas and lures into more damage and its easily combod unlike tormentor

[alplod]

since there isn’t a lot of swarm pay-off outside of Wraithling crown.

Crown shouldn’t be treated as a payoff here, it’s more of another stall engine. It’s perfectly capable of lethal…in theory, but it distracts your opponent long enough to build some creep. Chakram doesn’t provide this effect, btw, but that doesn’t necessarily make it worse. I would probably tinker with it also, since actually the deck lacks AoE, which is usual for Abyssian.

Darkspine Elementals are a hard choice. On one hand they enforce zoning and awkward positioning if you already have some creep. They are 1/4 silverguard knight squire for 2 mana otherwise, if you weren’t lucky enough to start building your creep.

IMO, Cryptos < Wraithling Swarm in a deck without Furosa and with Crown. We don’t want just lots of bodies, we need lots of wraithlings, and any one counts.

Fugitive is good not with Pluck only. Munch, Nova and even BBS are valid recycles.

All in all, I have to say that my level of piloting makes it hard for me to win even many midrange matchups when I have an average draw. Versus minion based control decks it really shines. It’s hard to develop board when the board is actually hurting you. And highroll is often amazing.

I went -1 shadowstalk, - 1 wraithling swarm, +2 crawlers.

[terrarius]

Darkspine is like silverguard…wut

[humancalc]

Maybe meant the 1/4 Silverguard Squire

[alplod]

Dammit, I meant squire.

[phoinexflame]

@alplod, when do you usually use Wraithcrown? I recently got it and tried it out in this list but I can’t seem to get enough Wraithlings on the field to make any use of it

[alplod]

Even one is sufficient if your general is in no immediate trouble. Other than that, BBS body block and equip.

[miguelosz]

Yep run Forrest run