Credit

An adaptation of a deck concept created by Miguel, on the forums.

Concept

This has been my go-to meme deck for the past little while. It plays mostly like a top-heavy midrange Faie list. The early game is weak, but you have tools to stall and ramp into powerful mid-game catchup options. Once you get to the late game, you have access to combo finishers like Lady Locke + Luminous Charge and Razorback + Jax/walls/Night Howlers.

Looking closer, you’ll notice an interesting deckbuilding restriction: nearly all the minions have powerful opening gambits but poor absolute stats for their cost. Therefore, using Aspect of Ego on these minions gives you, on average, a massive stats upgrade for only 1 mana. And since transformations are chosen from among the full pool of minions (not just in-faction and neutral), you’ll get to see a lot of cards you’ve never played before! This leads to a ton of fun interactions coming from transformed minions, and every game has the potential for something new.

Ego Transformations

The best things to Aspect are Malicious Wisp (to deny mana) and your 5+ drops (for the best stats increases). Mana costs 6 and 7 give the best value. For the three highest mana costs below, the minion we’re transforming from already has the worst possible stats relative to its cost, so anything is an upgrade (although it is possible to Ego a nontoken minion into another instance of itself). However, the deck does have minions of almost every possible mana cost, and there are scenarios in which you’ll need to transform any of them. Below I’ll list each mana cost, the minions of that mana cost in the deck, the total number of nontoken minions of that cost in the game as a whole, and some commentary on what you might see when using Aspect there.

1 (Walls, Mini-Jax)

20 minions. This comes up when you need to squeeze the last point or two of surprise damage out of a leftover wall. You have about a 3/8ths chance of getting a 2-attack minion, 3/8ths of 1 attack, and the remaining 1/4th are minions that can’t attack right away (Battle Pets or Swamp Entangler).

2 (C. Wisp, Hearth-Sister)

92 minions. This very rarely comes up, but it’s worth noting that in an absolute emergency, you do have a slim chance of spinning a 2-drop into the 10/10 Biomimetic Hulk.

3 (Locke)

123 minions. Also rare, but more often than not you get a slight stats upgrade here, so it can be used on an active Locke to try to get a couple of extra points of damage.

4 (M. Wisp, Razorback, Elemental)

101 minions. The stats are actually pretty likely to drop here, but it can still be worth it when you’re transforming Wisp to permanently keep the mana crystal. Highlights: the legendary build minions (Gigaloth, Gate to the Undervault). Worst: a vanilla 1/1 (Calculator, Mirage Master). Watch Out: Sunbreaker (downgrades your BBS into Tempest, which is generally worse for you than Warbird).

5 (Paragon)

71 minions. Highlights: some big provokes (Ironcliffe, Exorcist, etc.) and the largest ranged minions (Mortar-Maw, Cannoneer, etc.). Worst: a vanilla 2/3 (Ash Mephyt, The High Hand). Watch out: Capricious Marauder (a 9/9 that can switch sides on you), Hamon Bladeseeker (hits you for 2 on upkeep).

6 (Jax)

44 minions. Highlights: some sweet value cards (Armada, Prominence, etc.) and more big provokes (Aymara, Elyx, etc.). Worst: a vanilla 1/1 (Project Omega). Watch out: Magesworn (shuts off many of your spells).

7 (Reliquarian)

30 minions. Highlights: More provokes (Ancient Grove, Peacekeeper, etc.), value generators (Calligrapher, Silithar Elder, etc.) and “healing” (Grandmaster Z’ir, Indominus). Worst: a vanilla 3/3 (Reliquarian itself). Watch out: Unstable Leviathan (can potentially damage you on upkeep).

8 (Embla)

11 minions. Half the time you just get a mild stat buff into a new vanilla minion, but you can also hit some nasty finishers like Grandmaster Nosh-Rak or Spectral Revenant, or really big value engines like Juggernaut or Khymera.

Tips

It’s usually best to save your BBS until after using Aspect in case you get a minion with Blood Surge or a spell trigger (although on 6, you can potentially hit Magesworn). For certain mana costs, the same could apply to replacing (White Widow, Kron) or attacking with a minion or your general  (Coalfist, LeTigress).

Transforming a minion usually won’t change its state of activity. This means that it’s better to transform an active minion, so as to get an immediate hit from the new transformation. However, your high-cost minions are also very fragile, so often you are forced to transform a new minion when it’s in danger of getting killed before your next turn.

The exception to the above rule is that transforming a freshly-summoned minion into one with rush will make it active. You may need to gamble on this to get you out of an emergency situation. Similarly, sometimes you may need to Hail Mary a fresh minion for a provoker.

Although you rarely want to use Aspect on enemy minions, it does work as an emergency source of removal/dispel against decks that have buffed or very important cheap minions. However, using it on anything that costs 4 or more is extremely risky and should be avoided if at all possible.