gameplan

For those used to playing Wanderer decks, this deck has a similar gameplan: make early trades, play defensively, survive till trial completion and get aggressive after that. The same advantages and disadvantages of playing a singleton deck apply: your opponent cannot guess what you have in hand, but you also might not have an immediate answer to a big threat.

Ox’s late-game payoff is somewhat stronger than Wanderer’s: whenever you summon a minion, it deals damage to a random enemy equal to the minion’s mana cost. Ox’s sudden bursts of damage can close out the game faster than Wanderer’s slightly buffed minions. However, completing the Ox trial is a little slower. You need to summon 7 minions of different mana costs, which means the earliest you can summon Ox is on 7 mana rather than 6.

reactive cards

Cards like bloodtear alchemist, maw, blistering skorn, fizzling mystic, dancing blades, sunset paragon and bonereaper have an immediate board impact when played and can help deliver that extra bit of damage to respond to threats.

Ephemeral shroud, lightbender and EMP are for dispelling walls or minions with annoying side-effects. Shroud and lightbender can also remove creep tiles, heal tiles, grow tiles or sand tiles.

Hollow grovekeeper can be fun to hold in hand if you know the opponent has big provokes (ironcliffe guardian, inquisitor kron) or frenzy minions (portal guardian, makantor warbeast) in their deck.

Eternity painter turns all nearby enemy minions into 0/2 pandas at the end of your turn.

Red synja can instantly destroy a big minion, like an EMP.

Dagona can eat up a big threat. It will spit the minion back out after it dies, unless it’s dispelled.

proactive cards

Battle panddo, wild tahr and thunderhorn are good when played slightly out of reach against decks that rely on a swarm strategy.

Celestial phantom is good against decks that generate big threats.

Impervious giago and inquisitor kron are good for gumming up the board and buying you time to complete trial.

Scroll bandit, archon spellbinder and magesworn are good against decks that rely on playing lots of spells.

card advantage

This deck does not need a ton of draw because it mostly only plays 1 minion per turn, occasionally 2. However, by 7 or 8 mana, it does start to run out of cards, so that’s where golden mantella, bakezori and calligrapher can come in handy.