Foreword: Reliquarian is a legendary neutral card. It’s ability “Forge” a friendly minion means destroy it.
You will get an artifact with a unique ability that depends on the faction of the minion you sacrifice. (previously though to be your general’s faction - which is incorrect)
The artifact equips automatically (it does not go into your action bar). These artifacts are unique and are not available in the Autarch’s gifts, Grincher, or “equip a random artifact” pools.
As for Abyssian’s Artifact: Your general gains +X ATK and if your general attacks a minion, steal X health from the enemy general where X is the ATK of the sacrificed minion.
More info in /sylvermyst 's post
Why Abyssian? Because the Abyssian artifact offers both defensive and offensive ability. With the guaranteed health steal and bonus attack we can easily sustain and remove their minion with ease. Furthermore Abyssian have the ramp that this deck requires - namely Darkfire Sacrifice and Arcane Devourer, this two enables us to play the artifact as soon as turn 3. There’s no other faction could do this. Lastly, Abyssian has the right minion for the job because many of Abyssian minions have huge attack (8) coupled with great ability as well (the attack value of the artifact ties directly to it’s ability). You don’t really want to get the artifact with the value below 4, do you ? But being Abyssian means it’s expensive, the deck cost is above 10k spirit since we’re running Desolator, Spell Jammer, Reliquarian, Revenant, Variax etc… which are legendary cards
Gameplay: Very simple: our aim is to sacrifice a Void Talon (6 attacks) Or Arcane Devourer (8 attacks) as soon as possible. The sooner we get the artifact out to play the more likely we win. It’s relatively easy for us to sustain into mid-late game since we have x3 Void pulse, x3 Deamonic Lure and x3 Punish for removal. Not to mention Desolator which heals and cycle it’s self.
Notes*: Darkfire Sacrifice last until you summon a minion. Arcane Devourer ability only last to the end of turn. The artifact doesn’t trigger when your general counter-attack. You can’t steal health back if you’re at 0 health.
Deck:
Cassyva:
Lilithe:
Maehv: No idea
Side Deck & Alternative choices: If you find the deck quite expensive then you could consider switching out some of these Card: Spectral Revenant for Cacophynos, since Cacophynos have 6 attacks and 3 health, it could survive a general hit and kill one nearby minion with it’s ability if you sacrifice him. Keep in mind that the artifact needs you to hit a minion to proc it. Spell Jammer for Vellumscry, you probably want to cast this spell on Gor or Jaxi, it will give you 3 cards right away plus one more card at the end of the turn. Be careful because if you’re hand is full you might risk destroying your cards and Desolator might not have spaces to come back. Betrayal could be considered but i find Necrotic sphere are more versatile since it out right destroy everything including force field, spell immunity and also prevent reaper of the 9 moon to pull out your minion. If you find no problem with buildings and obelisks you can switch out Nightsorrow Assassin for some other card of choice, Rust Crawler could be considered since you might run into Mantra Songhai, one man Vaath, artifact Sajj which run almost zero minion.
Gameplay Demo: https://youtu.be/49LBFiXdT3s