Metashaker deckbuilding contest #10 results

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#1

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For the past two weeks you have been sharing your awesome ideas for the decks with us. Now the time has come to conclude which ideas are the best.

This time the task was to make use of ranged keyword — a mechanic that does not see much play on the ladder and competetive scene. We will start by analyzing the mechanic and then provide a few deck examples — our Metashaker finalists! Alright, let’s begin!

Ranged — Keyword Analysis


The ability to attack enemies from afar without taking damage back is very strong. The game of Faeria focuses on board control, the player who places his creatures in the right position where he can attack enemy creatures has an advantage. This is why mobility tricks like [Card=4]Syland Horsemaster[/Card], [Card=293]Flash Wind[/Card] and [Card=134]Sagami Grovecaller[/Card] are valued so high by the players as well as creatures with jump and charge like [Card=310]Windstorm Charger[/Card] and [Card=83]Triton Warrior[/Card].

But ranged might be very strong not only because ranged creatures have massive area they control but also because they don’t take damage back whenever they attack from afar — like if you cast [Card=15]Safeguard[/Card] every time you attack. Sounds too good, right? The mere presence of ranged creatures on the board forces your opponent to change his entire strategy including developing lands to respond to this threat.

However, the strong points end here. Since ranged is that useful, ranged creatures naturally are very weak. The 4 faeria 2/2 with ranged [Card=2]Hilltop Archer[/Card] might be able to do some work only if he won’t be removed immediately which can be done countless number of ways: [Card=241]Seifers Wrath[/Card], [Card=306]Soul Drain[/Card], [Card=370]Deepwood Stalker[/Card] and many others. Other ranged creatures are not too much better, the only exceptions are [Card=309]Windstorm Archer[/Card] and probably [Card=503]Yakkapult[/Card] which requires 6 lands and is kinda slow. I have only mentioned removals from hand but there is a bigger problem. With their low stats ranged creatures are extremely vulnerable in close combat and once your opponent develops lands close to you and starts summoning his creatures there your archers may become useless.

To sum up, ranged creatures may be extremely effective in the right deck and hands but playing them involves very high risk. If you want to expand on this topic, I suggest you to read Aquablad’s Oversky Card Spotlight — Ranged Creatures where he ranks his top 5 ranged creatures and attaches a deck list to each one.

Now we proceed to the contest results! There were so many different good decks this time that it was very hard to choose the top 3 — and here is what we have come up with. Meet the Metashaker #10 finalists!

Ranged Rush


The first deck is made by Reath. It’s strategy is to play a ranged creature in front of your orb and start hitting the enemy orb as early as possible. [Card=2]Hilltop Archer[/Card], [Card=42]Siege Engine[/Card] and [Card=206]Boulder Thrower[/Card] all can be played on turn 2 (gain +1 faeria instead of building a land if necessary). Keep your archers alive with green buffs. As soon as your opponent develops lands close to you, you will be at a disadvantage. However, by the time he manages to do so he will most likely be at low health which enables you to finish him off with [Card=225]Flame Burst[/Card], [Card=335]Rebel Slinger[/Card] and [Card=241]Siefers Wrath[/Card] making up for the ranged creatures weakness.

For the 1st place Reath recieves 5000 gold. Congratulations!

GB Enchantment feat. Yakkapult


The second deck is made by GNU_Linux and it is a GB Enchantment deck with the addition of [Card=503]Yakkapult[/Card]. GB Enchantment decks usually tend to play defensively summoning their healthy creatures in the back and threatening the opponent with a possibility of playing [Card=93]Gabrian Enchantment[/Card]. With the addition of Yakkapult you can now start pressuring your opponent much sooner. Your opponent will struggle to break through your healthy creatures to kill your Yakkapults so you can easily launch yaks to the enemy orb. You can also use [Card=175]Elderwood Embrace[/Card] with Gabrian Enchantment to buff your ranged creature to 9/9 for a two turn kill. Yakkapults perfectly fit in the deck being a great win condition for it whereas the rest of the deck fully supports the ranged creature covering its weaknesses.

For the 2nd place GNU_Linux recieves 2500 gold. Congratulations!

Yellow Rush


The last deck is made by Ramora and features [Card=255]Oradrim Sagittarius[/Card] in Yellow Rush. The description of the card literally screams “I am made for Yellow Rush!” but making a deck with it right is not that simple. Haste creatures work really well together with the archer to gain most value out of its ability. Since you have a lot of small creatures that deal 1-2 damage to the orb including Sagittarius himself, [Card=295]Zealous Crusader[/Card] is a great addition to the deck. [Card=518]Manta Rider[/Card] is also a good choice because his stickiness to the board may help you trigger Sagittarius’ ability and [Card=252]Khalims Prayer[/Card] an extra time. Besides, its 3 desert requirement works well together with ranged creatures. Usually by the time you develop a 3rd desert you don’t have any good spots for the land — 2 lands near the opponent orb might be enough. However, in this deck the 3rd desert is not wasted since you need one in front of your orb to summon your archers there (technically it’s not the 3rd desert but 1st since you should probably open with the desert in front with this deck).

For the 3rd place Ramora recieves 1000 gold. Congratulations!

Honorable Mentions

Closing words

Thank you everyone for sharing your awesome ideas! While we are taking a small break make sure to take part in other contests: If Yaks Could Talk and Custom Card Creation Contest.

That’s it for now. See you later! Check the news on the Hub or offical Faeria discord #tournaments channel if you don’t want to miss next Metashaker!

1 Like
#2

I don’t know how you picked the “Ranged Rush” as first place. I won at the first game barely, “beginners luck” and than for 7 times I lost the game against, red combat, yellow rush, dreamer deck, blue red deck.
Aquablad showed much more stronger decks in his video.
Nevertheless thank you for this article.

#3

There were more factors on determining the winners besides how strong they were. Here’s what was listed in the announcement article:

  • The amount of synergy and possible interactions the given card has with the other cards in the deck.
  • What role the given card fills in the deck, how efficiently it does so.
  • How original and fun the deck is.
  • The overall deck viability in the current meta.

I’m sure the ranged rush deck wasn’t chosen because of how strong it is, because it’s pretty weak. It loses if your opponent has removal or a transformation for the ranged creature within the first few turns.

I didn’t create it with the intention of making a very strong deck. I enjoy making decks that play interestingly, especially ones that win with rarely used strategies. It’s not completely unviable though, I won a decent amount of matches while testing it.

It’s unfortunate if you got the impression that it would be strong because it won, but the Metashaker is more about making interesting decks than strong ones, so the winners aren’t necessarily strong decks.

1 Like
#4

Thank you for your reply.

#5

I am surprised Ranged Rush won as well, but more for the reason that that deck is quite old and I’ve seen that very same list being played months ago. And indeed, it’s not that effective either.

GB Enchant is very strong deck, I faced it twice with Red Combat and I can say that I lost twice too. Not that original either as GB enchant is also around for a long time (though used to be based around Apex Predators), but be damned if it isn’t effective and it adapted well for the changes across the meta.

Sunekichi’s deck is also very interesting, I really like it. Sadly I neither have the cards nor the memoria to craft them, which annoys me because I’d love to play this deck.

My own deck, Sky-Yakkapult, does decently versus the Tier I decks (defeating Yellow Tempo most of the time and having a surprisingly decent matchup vs Frog Tosser and Red Combat) but gets its ticket punched in by all sorts of meme decks, from Krog Bargain to Orosei, to the point it’s quite amusing, and my deck doesn’t focus anywhere near as much on Ranged as it does on Salamander and Gift of Rakoa synergy, so I really don’t mind not winning myself.

#6

Metashaker deckbuilding contest is inteded for a broad range of players, from newbies to pro players. For this reason the deck’s perfomance on the ladder is the least important factor for the jury. If we were to judge decks by thier playability, then we would most likely rank hunter’s Yellow Archers list #1 with which he reached #1 god rank this season.

Instead we value decks that focus on the given cards (ranged this time) taking into consideration their pros and cons. Ranged Rush in my opinion does it better than other decks because its’ entire strategy is based on using ranged’s strength (hitting the orb early game before opponent is able to respond) whereas covering it’s weaknesses (finishing the game with direct damage when ranged creatures become too vulnurable).

It appears though that Ranged Rush is not successful on the ladder. However, I personally didn’t expect it to be in the first place. It would be a miracle if ranged would suddenly become competetive. Although the deck doesn’t work well enough in practice, we appreciate the core idea of the deck.

I hope you guys get the idea behind our decision. I admit that it might not be the best one but we try our best. Thank you for your support!