Will be streaming and at least going over the first list in about an hour from when this is posted. I will go over the other two if there is time and a desire for it. You can catch the stream here: https://go.twitch.tv/d3athsadvocate
Slaie: Artifact Shroud, Competitive.
Long description of deck.
A mostly solo deck where you slay things with Faie.
Loosely based on my Faice deck which I have had a lot of success with, but I just do not enjoy aggro so I set my mind to retool the deck for a more midrange to lategame deck. It has performed quite well and I have broken the top ten with it briefly. I initially had it rated as S due to some incredible streaks I got with it, but between dispel, bad draws, and the difficulty of piloting it I have dropped it to competitive.
The core of the deck is all about abusing Concealing Shroud and Artifacts, which in this dispel light meta has proved to be very effective. You can chain multiples of them together with alcuin or follow one up with a Grove Lion. And thanks to Shroud/Lion your well prepared for any aggro or high burst matchups which is traditionally what vanar struggles with.
The deck is really well stocked with aoe sporting Frost, Thunder/Shim, and Coldbiter giving you really powerful counters to swarm and to both azure vet and flawless vanar. Combine that with ccold, cryo, sister/bbs, and the ability to remove things with artifacts leaves your opponent having a tough time getting anything to stick.
Cryogenesis is a really underplayed card, combine it with a couple copies of Snow Chaser and you have an insane card advantage/removal engine, thanks to snow chasers effect and the second copy you can just about always replace to keep at least one in the deck to be drawn with cryo. I only run cryo at two because the deck was a bit cramped on room and between coronas cycle and alcuin card advantage is usually a non issue. I tried a couple combinations of a various number of cryo and other vespyrs but I think I hit the sweet spot with the current package as before the deck would sometimes either struggle with card advantage or have the opposite problem and burn cards.
While the walls from white asp are rarely actually useful they force your opponent to play awkwardly, and sometimes they come in handy thanks to corona and hearth sister. But a really cool trick is if you kill things with coldbiters effect while you have white asp equipped, you will indeed get some walls.
Even with dispel in the mix though you can usually get instant value off of any shroud you cast, its the backbone of the deck so you almost never want to replace it, you mainly want to chain shrouds together early on to abuse artifacts as opposed to the usual shroud tactic of chaining them together towards the end of the game to prevent lethal. While preventing lethal is always a valid option, dispel makes it a risky tactic to crutch on to much. Its a tough deck to play with some really odd quirks since it plays passive at the start, kicks into aggressive mode suddenly, and then might shift back into ultra passive towards the end, if people run away from faies invulnerable onslaught, letting you just BBS them down. You really need to know your match-ups and plan ahead with your combos.
The deck sports loads of control, card advantage, and tons of neat little tricks. Its really fun and a really well suited to counter the meta. I had tried similar builds in the past, but dispel was much more common then, and it didn’t have the extra backbone the shim/thunder package has added to vanar. So right now the deck is pretty top notch, but if dispel becomes to common again the deck could start to struggle.
Murder Bot: OTK Artifact Flying: Competitive/Gimmicky
Long description of deck.
What do you call a flock of crows? A murder. That and the fact that this deck can let our favorite bot general murder someone out of nowhere and I think its a clever name.
The azure combo has proved to be a very effective tactic and is small enough to slip into most archtypes. The combo works by including three dragon larks and three skywings (our crows) and thanks to skywings reduction effect it allows you to puke out all of them in a single turn if you have six mana available as early as turn one with globe abuse. This has the added benefit of thinning out your deck making putting together other combos or finding tech much easier. You don’t usually want to run any more flying minions then that since it will mess with the consistency.
The other combo in the deck revolves around pulling a massive burst, and often an OTK, out of nowhere, with a combination of cheap artifacts, Auroras Tears, and Time Maelstrom. At 8 mana you can throw on two Staffs, Auroa, and Maelstorm for 20 damage. Usually you try to have an artifact or two equipped already before trying to combo which can let this happen much sooner, and or be an even higher burst, and Ankh lets you pull it off from almost anywhere. You also have the option of just using combo bits to clear big minions instead of going for a big burst, but you have to use your best judgement there.
Then we toss in the basic golem package to provide ramp and draw power. That extra globe from celerbrant can lead to early Azure or Artifact combos. Beyond the combo Sajj can get a ton of mileage out of Sickle and Wildfire Ankh. Combine that with a couple vetruvian staples and its a very effective deck.
While quite competitive its gimmicky due to the artifact unfriendly meta, the fact that you can draw poorly on occasions, and that the meta has adapted to be able to deal with the azure combo. All that being said the deck can highroll like crazy with early azure combos or use sajj as a solid control and stall engine until you can win out of nowhere.
Anti Queen: Competitive/Gimmicky
Long description of deck.
My UP update to my Return of The Queen deck, its somewhere between splice and my more traditional queen vaath deck. It is a fun take favoring a whole bunch of anti meta tech over the drogon package, it also fits kujata for another way to get turn two lavalashers or early magesworns. Its not strictly better then the original list since its very dependent on the meta, and its hard to argue with the raw power that drogon adds. But unlike splice its awfully nice to not have a bunch of counter synergy with magesworn. It has more two ofs then I like, especially since it doesn’t have draw, usually I am a 3x advocate, but all of the two ofs are too situational to run at three, and the deck wanted a lot of tech.
Vaath, the (Drag)Queen of the Dragons, tending to her brood of eggs. Unfortunately with C-burst going to 6 mana there is no longer really a brood of eggs as it has been replaced by Valknu. There was a very brief window when this was a proper S rank list, but then C-burst and thumping got hit dropping the decks viability. Its still quite strong, but now lags behind a more proper control list.
The deck uses a control shell with a lot of anti meta tech and then we add in Morin-Khur and Valknu for some powerful combos. It also includes the basic golem package with ragebinder who has a little extra synergy with Khur and egg morph. Its pretty safe to replace Valknu until late game because you never want to use it unless you can combo it with Egg Morph at 8 mana, Khur at 9 Mana, or if you already have Khur equipped.
A small FAQ regarding Valknu. He is summoned just like any other minion nearby a unit you control. He copies Vaaths current attack/health including artifacts when he hatches. He does indeed gain the Egg hatching ability of khur. If dispelled he looses all abilities and bonuses.
While Valknu is not as powerful as old C burst, I do rather like the lack of rng, he can basically extend the reach of Vaath so if Vaath is really huge but your opponent stays out of melee Valknu can come to the rescue. The longer the game goes on the bigger Vaath gets and therefore the better Valknu gets. Its a surprisingly competitive deck and it is a lot of fun.
I have made it to S rank for many seasons now, with frequent top 50s when I have the time to play competitively and occasional top tens. I like to stream when I can and share some of my stuff each week. You can check out the rest of my stuff here:
https://forums.duelyst.com/t/deathsadvocate-s-master-thread-unearthed-prophecy/11337