Some tournament gameplay for Bottomless in the first couple games, and a match with Hive Mind at the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI8zyt55T14
Bottomless Abyss
This is the deck I have taken to #2 on the S rank ladder, I have also done really well with it in tournament play.
Its been awhile since Big Abyss, much less Lillith, was meta, but unearthed prophecy has brought back the archetype with style. 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 Vorpal Reaver, and Revenant, alongside a few other targets that have changed out a lot over time. With Unearthed Prophecy we got two new cards, Phantasm, and Desolator.
Phantasm is a natural compliment to the big abyss playstyle as the most efficient way to play him is to limit the targets in your hand to only ideal ones, other then desolator pretty much everything else in the deck is a perfect target being either massive already, having rush, or celerity. It also limits the the total number of minions in the deck as well in favor of spells and spectral blade making it more likely Phantasm will be hitting the same target multiple times.
Desolator helps condense our slots providing healing, card advantage, and ping all wrapped up in one card. Its also a great darkfire sacrifice target…even if you just want to simply recast it.
While it may look a little light on opening plays its not, phantasm, inkling, sphere, or blade are all great turn ones. The deck sports spectacular healing with blade, desolator, and void pulse, which also lets it pretend to be an aggro deck when it needs to be or wreck other aggro decks, but normally you want to play the late game. EMP is a wonderful counter to a lot of this meta and thanks to darkfire you can get him out on time to actually help out. Emp along with grasp are wonderful tech cards but are a little overkill at 3x so I kept them at two along with voidpulse to make room. Between the decks two cycles, a high curve, and desolator, card advantage is a non issue.
The general gameplan is to try and replace hard for darkfire that way you can hopefully drop a turn two vorpal, or hold onto it and drop one of your seven drops with a globe. Even if you don’t manage to find a phantasm or an inkling to sacrifice early, lillith has got your back her bbs coming online at the exact time you can combo it with darkfire to ramp out a big minion. You always want to dig for early phantams, If your agaisnt Vanar or Mechs you tend to want to dig for emp, if your against swarm you dig for grasp, if your against vet be aware of mirage if your thinking of using revenant. If your against songhai, or a deck looks like aggro dig for your healing. Lure is an ideal removal vs factions without re position card, and usually a safe replace against those that have a lot like songhai or vanar.
It can be a little tough to pilot but it is a very powerful deck that is really well teched for the meta without any particularly bad match up. It may not be very fancy, but it is certainly effective.
Watch the Master
This deck is all about Death Watch and The Grandmaster.(Thus the name.)
An update to one of my old Variax Decks. While Variax has fallen out of favor since its nerf, the meta has slowed enough that she is yet again viable, and not just viable, but a great way to combat some of the powerful late game decks running around.
The deck has one of two primary objectives, either pull off a turn two vorpal reaver, or your grandmaster a couple turns later. You should allways aggressively replace for darkfire and either grandmaster or vorpal, between doing that and the cycle provided by sphere and inkling you can pull off one of those two things pretty consistently. The deck also sports a decent number of ways to get wraithlings making Variax extra potent.
So beyond its basic gameplan we have furosa/crypto for another way to potentially pull ahead in the early game, we have the classic priestess and dancer in order to capitalize on our small swarm, we have great healing with desolator and dancer, and aoe with thunderhorn who is extra potent when combined with lure which adds to the decks great removal package.
It has enough healing and answer me now threats that you can deal with aggro, and thanks to your grandmaster you can match anyones late game even Vanar or fault vet. Card advantage is well covered between its medium curve, its cycles, and the fact that once your grandmaster hits your hand hardly matters.
It opts out of abyss’s usual favorites win cons like Revenant/Phantasm because it needed room for tech and its pretty good at closing games, or Cresendo/Grimwar since it just doesn’t have enough swarm generation to make those consistent. Its a powerful deck that takes initiative early while having a phenomenal late game and an answer to most problems.
Edits:
As much as I love good old Shadow Dancer it has just felt a bit slow and hard to set up lately, 3x variax also feels like overkill, I am trying out an even lower curve shifting its healing from dancer into void pulse, and wanted to fit bender, and going to 2x variax and bender to fit 2x grasp.
Hive Mind
I call it hive mind as it is a swarm deck that assimilates other things into its collective consicience.
While a bit of a gimicky deck its surprinsgly effective, the idea being you can abuse Zen’rui thanks to Void Steal and Blood siren, both of which also benefit artifact usuage. While the decks curve may seem a little low for darkfire, when used to get Zenruai out early its a huge tempo swing, alternativly it makes for a really potent combo with Mindlathe or desolator.
Next we have my Favorite card of the Set, Mindlathe. Man this card does a lot of work and there are so many crazy things you can pull off with it. My favorite is using it then darkfire sacing your opponents minion. Remember things with dying wish or stuff like eggs become yours when they die. While you usually want to avoid equipping it until your ready to use it so that your opponent wont know to play around it, it can be used defensively to take pressure off you if you need to, since you do indeed get a turn with your opponents minions when they attack you on their turn. It also combos really nice with Demonic Lure.
It has the tradational swarm tech+grimwar, but then opts for voidsteal over one of the other usual deathwatch picks since its a surprisingly solid card that has a bunch of extra synergy with this deck. Its a pretty aggressive deck that can match most aggro decks paces, especially with some healing provided by desolator. Between its two cycles, desolator, and the fact that it can close out games very quickly card advantage is not much of an issue. It can end games before late game decks can really get going and also maintain enough advantage to go late game if it needs to.
Its a surprisingly powerful deck that is a ton of fun, it has a rather unique approach that will catch a lot of people off guard.
Edits:
Trying out Bloodtide Priestess over Wraithling Swarm.
I have made it to S rank for many seasons now, with occasional top 50s when I had the time to play competitively. Since I have not had time to start streaming like I want, I figured I would just share some of my stuff each week and get my name out there so the community knows me a little better for when I do eventually get around to it. I have a lot of new stuff I plan to put out, and will get a new master thread up for the expansion when I can, in the mean time check out my previous thread:
