Overview

Did you know that some Battle Pets are tokens? It’s true; you cannot craft Battle Pets like Dex, Fog, and Oni, and the only way to play them is via Battle Pet generating cards like Razor Skin or Fighting Spirit. If you are aware of this, the goal of this deck should be abundantly clear: using Battle Pet tokens to complete Nemeton’s Trial. 1 mana Battle Pets tokens serve as excellent engines for Nemeton and can pack quite the punch once the Trial is online. Other than that, the deck plays like a fairly standard Nemeton list. Play Walls, play Nemeton, and win.

How to Play

When playing this deck, your main focus should be completing the Trial as fast as possible. That is the primary win-con of the deck, and the reason the Battle Pets are there. Snow Rippler and Gold Mantella are the Battle Pet generating cards of this deck, and even getting a single Battle Pet token from them gives you a substantial head start in Trial progression, as all Battle Pet tokens are 1 mana. Please note that they don’t always pull tokens, however; they sometimes can pull a non-token Battle Pet. If that’s the case, simply replace it. The rest is relatively straightforward. If you have ever played a Nemeton deck before you should have a pretty clear idea. Play tokens faster than your opponent can remove them, and that’s game.

Here’s a quick tip: always play the more fragile tokens last. These tokens include Illusions, Gravity Wells, Treants, and so on. This is because the earlier a token is played, the longer it will have to survive. Obviously, it’s difficult for smaller tokens to do so. Same applies to the Battle Pet tokens pulled by Mantella and Rippler; you should save them for later. You can’t control Battle Pets, so you don’t know when they’ll go flying to their doom.

Possible Techs

There’s really no single standard Nemeton list, so players are free to customize the deck to their liking. Here I will detail on the potential cards techs and replacements you can run to fit your playstyle better.

Wintertide

Wintertide is an extremely solid token generator. You can take out some of the Wall spells for some of these. It has great synergy with Kara’s BBS as well. However, it is a little expensive, and for Trial-completing purposes, cards like Gravity Well are superior.

Protosensor

Build minions in their Building form are tokens, which is why this deck runs Rescue-RX. Protosensor is another low-cost Build minion you can consider, although Rescue-RX is considered to be stronger. If you want to make an already spicy list spicier, add Protosensors instead of Rescue-RX. Protosensor has Airdrop, so it’s good at grabbing tiles and denying areas.

Moonlit Basilysk

Like Dowager, Basilysk is a token when untransformed. If you want to run Basilysk, take out 1 Dowager and only run 1. This is to add an element of surprise to your deck and make your Sentinels even more unpredictable. It’s also a fairly strong card on its own, transforming into a solid 5/5 and being quite troublesome to play around.