A few players asked me what type of decks I used this season in my climb to godrank.
From rank 10 → 3 I used “Red Collector”. A red-controll deck with three Bone Collectors, a couple of Syland Horsemasters and Seifer. Note that I didnt run Flame Burst, I felt like it wasnt really strong enough in the current meta. I always kept firebomb in starthand because 70% of the time my opponents open with Luduan (blue) or Dune Drake (yellow). The Lord of Terrors were sometimes hard to get value from, but when you do (with help from horsemaster) it feels amazing.
The Monogreen deck was used from Rank 3 → God. I had very few losses with it but I was pretty lucky with draws/matchups. Just build towards one side (same as your opponent if you are player2) and drop big creatures and win
Any advice on how to play vs different setups as mono-green? If I play aggressive I find myself getting counter-rushed a lot, even with life gain. And I constantly feel faeria starved.
Syland Horsemaster is obviously a good card, I just don’t click with it, as well. I’m running something similar with Ruunin and looking to probably toss a Ruunin’s shrine or two in.
I always build towards one of the sides on turn one, its very important because if you build forward on turn 1 you will delay a horsemaster play to take out their harvester by one turn.
Drop Living Willows far back to harvest. Only use FTF on it when you can play enough creatures aggressively, sometimes this takes an additional turn because you need to step away f rom your forest or create a new one, in that time its better to let LV collect one extra Faeria.
Dont just rush opponent, make sure you collect the Faeria while going towards your opponent.
Build pretty much only forests unless you get a horsemaster play.
Save explore to help with horsemasterplay.
If your getting rushed, try to use their lands to sprint across the map with horsemaster.
Heh, as you can see, horsemaster is important
And dont just go face just because you have the opportunity. Often times its very important to take the initiative in fights, to prevent MP, Aurora, buffs etc.
Advice as mono-green ? Depends on what you face. In a nutshell, fight for the wells your opponent is trying to conquer, push forward if you have an opportunity. But don’t rush except if you think your opponent has a greedier deck than you.
“If I play aggressive I find myself getting counter-rushed a lot, even with life gain”
-> Two answers to this :
Life gain is not a tool against rush or aggressive style, merely against burn, or to earn 1 desperate turn in a race scenario.
Having a counter-rush scenario means that one of the players made the wrong decision. Basically, if your deck is slower, you play to gain time, so mostly defensive and countering whatever your opponent is trying to set up. If your deck is quicker, then you’re on the offensive and your opponent will assume the other role. The hard part is to identify which deck is slower. Now, of course that’s not something to follow, and you can perfectly beat a rush at its own game from time to time, but on average, he’ll beat you much more often. That advice is not only for mono-green, btw
So just curious J0k3se, do you try to change it up every season with each of the new patches or do you go by some other means of trying out new deck ideas each season?
The red list I used in season7 is pretty much the same list I showed people during my Faeria Coaching I like to try new things, one of the most fun I have had in Faeria lately is the Blue Nightmare deck before it got nerfed. Dream Reaver is still good, but I havent really used it since the nerf - I loved the combo-style play so when I couldnt do that combo anymore, I tried to come up with something else (Plague Ursus).
Season 6 I was trying to play heavy control (the red list) because it was good against that meta, and I added a Bone Collector because it can grow quite quickly and is unexpected (also, really fun). And I just wanted to say I climbed to godrank with a Red/Green deck (RG was very weak then) ! The green list was just a variation of things I faced on ladder that seemed strong, not much innovation there at all (and Oak Father didnt have slam at that point).
I am actually really enjoying the emergence of Green/Red as that was one of my favorite starting Codex Combinations from when I first started playing. Including Bone Collector (Only 1 Forest!) to a red deck is so hilarious! Got to watch your feed for a while and got to see all your decks in action.
! The green list was just a variation of things I faced on ladder that seemed strong, not much innovation there at all (and Oak Father didnt have slam at that point).
