What do you mean “egg rag is a thing”?
Have you never gotten hit by a Ripper + buff or Ripper + Wild inceptor + buff instant 10-20 damage combos?
The toxicity of egg rag is higher than Ziran and Fault, right after Wanderer Rag.
Ziran is so satisfying to play!
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Deathsadvocate won’t like that at all 
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Huh, I’ve never actually met one. All I see are Wanderer, Trial or DW Maehv, Aggro Zir’an and the occasional meme deck
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Egg rag has a pretty high skill cap, but it is pretty blatantly over the top and has a half dozen variations. The big top four have been featured heavily in all the major tournaments. Ziran also has a surprisingly high skill cap but it also has a fairly low floor while being blatantly over the top.
Most Trials/Dying wish lists are usually highroll decks that steamroll people with zero effort or lose badly. But the appeal of easy games, devastating victories, and a fun theme makes them very popular. Where as the higher skill cap lists are played by the smaller minority of people that have taken the time to master them.
…and Wanderer is all of the above, highrolly, top deck RNG bs, easy games, op, with both a low floor and high ceiling skill cap.
@atrestia please no.
@unktrial1 personally I do not find Egg rag to really be toxic as it is a highskill cap deck with a lot of counterplay, however it is pretty blatantly overpowered.
Toxic decks for me in order of most toxic are Spellhai>Wanderer>Burn Ziran>Khanumkha.
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I find SoloHai a lot of fun and have been mastering that recently.
Naturally, since I main Vet, I’ve been looking for Vet decks and I ended up with FaultKha, tried it, didn’t like it. Felt slow and boring, was told to look into Reliquarian Vet which I might do at some point (when I can afford to make Reliquarians)
What do you think of ReliqVet and are there other vet decks you would recommend?
I have a soft spot for SimCity Zirix and Combo Sajj and anything that runs Ciphyron I am willing to give a try. I have tried a little of the replace Ciph list and it’s definitely fun but I’m not sure if it’s competitive enough.
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Feel free to check my masterthread, always glad to steer people away from burn:
I am slowly getting around to updating it again. I do have a Panther/Reliq list up there, but it is mostly a meme. Few other things that might suit your taste that are currently in it:
“Sand Andreas” Zirix is a sim city/fault hybrid list. It is a lot of fun and crazy strong.
Combo Sajj is alive and well, but still remains a tier 2 deck due to the large amount of counters in the meta and it has high skill cap, see my “One Shot Robot” and “Ascension” Sajj.
Big Ciph is really solid and straightforward.
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Egg rag’s toxicity is pretty infamous. Even the people who created the egg decks are feeling queasy playing their own decks. Take a look at these descriptions:
https://duelspot.com/deck/egg-ragnora/
"Honestly, the deck is pretty toxic and can win any matchup because you can deal stupid amounts of burst damage at just about any point in time. "
https://duelspot.com/deck/raggro/
“Rippers are stupid. Having a BBS that is an answer or die threat is quite good, as it turns out. Ragnora also has access to the world’s stupidest burst combo, egg+hatch+Greater Fortitude on 6 mana for 10 damage. And it turns out that burst combos which deal 2/5 of a genreal’s HP work best in aggro.”
https://duelspot.com/deck/tier-1-5-budget-otk-rag-s-rank/
“So this deck began as a way to ease myself into the whole “budget to S-rank” climbs many S-rankers do to pass time. “Ease” was an understatement. Budget Ragnora tore up ladder, carrying me from bronze to ~rank 3 at which point I switched to faie for the majority of the remaining climb because even on a budget, rag was broken, fighting constructed decks on equal turns and cheesing veterans and noobs alike out of existence”
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There is a big difference between toxic and overpowered. While they often go hand in hand this is not always the case. None of the various Spellhai decks are overpowered but they are extremely toxic. Rag is the opposite.
Toxic=A lack of significant counter-play, interaction, solitaire style play, and or unhealthy RNG. Egg Rag pings basically none of those. That being said he has by far the most raw power of the top four, which gets evened out with the others due to various counters, lots of counterplay, and probably the highest skill cap.
Extra Ironic due to the fact that Burn Ziran hard counters him and he has an abysmal win rate vs her. Excess pings/aoe makes killing eggs easy, the ease of buffing her atk makes ripper combos useless, and her speed makes lategame options like finality and or extinction not really feasible. And she does not even pack provokes which is another common way of dealing with him.
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I’m sure we can agree that unconditional out of hand damage is toxic.
One of the most common toxic combos in this game is Decispikes. This does:
a 8 mana, 2 card, 1 bbs, 11 damage, 3 self damage.
Egg rag has egg+hatch+Greater Fortitude combo. This does:
a 6 mana, 2 card, 1 bbs, 10 damage, 0 self damage.
The toxicity of egg+hatch is as bad as, if not worse than, Decispikes.
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I do agree that unconditional out of hand damage is toxic. I do agree Rag and Rippers are very over powered. I do agree that Decispikes is Toxic, HOWEVER it is the least toxic of out of hand bursts.
Also both of these have major conditions and counter-play unlike proper burn. The hatch combo can be stopped dead in its tracks by something as simple as good positioning, a general atk buff, or provoke. Not even remotely toxic, but yes extremely overpowered. Hatch cards, Rippers themselves, or his support need to be taken down a peg for sure.
Decispikes is pretty gross, however if it does not kill it can be punished severely for feeding cards to the opponent, and if you apply pressure and get Starhorns health low it can not even be used. Spikes is something I would want addressed but only after all of the actual zero counterplay options are first.
You have managed to list the two most conditional out of hand bursts with the most counterplay.
Compared to Eight Gates, Mantra, and any point and click burn like Beam, these are practically healthy.
But all of the top four need to be taken down a peg for different reasons.
Wanderer for being unhealthy crapshoot RNG AND being Op.
Burn Ziran for uncounterable out of hand burst.
Rag for simply being Overpowered.
And Khanumkha for being, again, uncounterable out of hand damage, and that warps the meta so much by removing General ATK buffs that it has removed both Rag and Zirans natural checks and balances.
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Hey, I remember running into you
Don’t listen to all the people saying you shouldn’t play X or you shouldn’t play Y. You should play whatever the heck you want. Nobody has any right to dump on your happiness when you’ve worked so long and hard to earn S-rank for the first time.
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Oh for sure, all my personal griping, philosphy, and some derailment aside I did want to emphasize:
I would obviously prefer to see you be a non burn player, and would love to help out should you ever pursue something else.
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Once you look past Fault, Vetruvian actually has a bunch of fun and powerful decks. This is mostly because the omnipresent deck core of First Wish, 2-cost Golems, and 5-cost spot removal is already strong enough to win a lot of games, so you can throw whatever you want together with it and have success. In fact, it seems like the most popular Vetruvian decks right now are various builds of Zirix/Ciphyron Midrange, which is literally just this deck core plus generic strong midcost minions without too much concern for synergy.
As far as I know, this could refer to one of two different decks: Dying Wish Vet and AlphaCentury’s Patheriquarian Vet. Both are fun to play to be sure but require high spirit investment into cards that aren’t commonly played outside these specific decks, so you need to think about what you want to focus on in advance.
MrMana’s DW Vet
Pantheriquarian
Other good Vet decks:
Aggro. I’m partial to low-curve builds with Zirix like the one below, but Sajj builds like the ones found here with the Accumulonimbus + Fireblaze combo finish look interesting too. These decks also tend to be relatively cheap spirit-wise, as is the norm for aggro.
Swarm. This is a good one to pick up if you just want to try something different for a few games since it offers an unique experience for Vetruvian, and you probably have all of the cards already.
AlphaCentury’s Spinecleaver Sajj. Sajj has always been the black sheep of Vetruvian, but this list does a good job of being competitive while still feeling like an uniquely Sajj deck.
PhoinexFlame’s Ciphyron Golems. I’ve always had a soft spot for tribal decks, and this is one of my favorites. It feels like it has the tools to compete in any matchup.
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I really love the discussion here so far.
I was able to pick up one of the decks discussed here “raggro” and wow it’s really fun.
It doesn’t feel as strong as Ziran but still a blast when you get those bbs+hatch+greater fortitude combos!
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He just falls farther and farther, is he beyond redemption?
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Thanks for these! This will definitely give me something to do when I have the time to play dooly again
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This brings back memorys of an old discussion-
Are you sure that “toxic” has 1 set definition ? I think it is very subjective.
To you stuff without any counterplay is toxic
To me stuff that is OP is toxic-even if it has alot of counterplay
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It can certainly be pushed into subjective territory, but I was trying to make an important distinction between overpowered and problematic. There will pretty much always be something that is overpowered, but there does not have to be “toxic” things. One really should not even be present in the game, the other might need a small adjustment.
And if you can hard counter something across all factions how strong it is really shouldn’t matter. Although in this case it Rag has gone a bit to far, and I also agree it should be addressed.
It is perfectly valid to take more an issue with Op things rather than things that lack counter-play, but in that case we fundamentally disagree on design.
I was doing my best to explain why I do not find Rag toxic and take more issue with the other examples, rather then debating the philosophical interpretation of “toxic”
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Aggro Ziran is fun and all but a control oriented version is also just as satisfying.
After struggling to get passed rank 1 with my usual deck I switched to a more control style deck with Aperion’s claim, War Excrocist and a couple of provoke minions and I was able to easily get there with 5 back to back wins!
Starting to fall in love with this general.
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