Anybody Around Here Know of a Good Storm Kage Deck? +Theorycraft

[yerboijosh]

Hanging round the discord and got me to dusting some good legends for Storm Kage. There has to be some lurker around here who has the greatest Kage deck and never tells anyone. Feel free to theorycraft the most utter trash (or great) decks below because I’m gonna try every one I can afford.

First Theorycraft- Kaleos

(Thanks to owlnocaps on Discord for inspiring this decklist!)

General: Kaleos is in here to because positioning is crucial to get max value out of your minions.

Spells:
3x Phoenix Fire- Always good, versatile damage.
3x Juxtaposition- Good to get your bigger minions into position, can help proc your Battle Panddos, Lantern Foxes, Kage, or Sojourners.
3x Onyx Bear Seal- Very good, hard removal. Needed in almost every Songhai deck. Was originally Hamon Bladeseeker but I deemed the removal more important.
2x Mist Dragon Seal- Same as Juxtaposition, can get procs and maybe a crucial buff to trade or set up for lethal.
3x Killing Edge- Good finisher combined with Zendo, buffs minions to make good trades, and can always hit face with Kaleos BBS.

Minions:
3x Celebrant- Good ramp card and 2 drop, can be used to ramp into Primus to keep your opponent locked down for future turns.
2x Cryptographer- Used to reactivate your BBS at an early turn, good for getting your early minions into a good position or reach opposing back-line threats.
2x Shiro Puppydragon- Gets your minions better trades, usually at least a dispel magnet, if not removal target for the opponent.
2x Battle Panddo- Keeps opponent’s swarms at bay, opponent usually doesn’t want to trade face because it’s a lot of (6) damage for 2 swings. Good HP and can make good trades with the bonus 1 DMG. Could potentially be switched out with Ghost Lightning.
2x Lantern Fox- A very good value generator for Songhai, generates Phoenix Fires for keeping your opponent’s board under control.
2x Sojourner- Another card drawer, gets dispelled often and if it doesn’t gains a good amount of value. Can be buffed to become a pretty big threat because of its high HP pool.
2x Primus Shieldmaster- Used to keep your opponent in place while you control their board, often and anti-ramp card and removal target. Can be buffed like Sojourner for a big threat.
2x Sworn Sister L’Kian- More of a late game card draw as it’s effect happens on-summon. Can pull some pretty good cards (and some pretty bad). Bad cards can be replaced for something better.
3x Geomancer- Turns your BBS into Phoenix Fire, used to keep your opponent’s board under control until you get to Kage. Your BBS can be used with crescent spear to widdle down your opponent from a distance.
1x Grandmaster Zendo- A potential finisher, pretty much always 4 guaranteed damage. Your opponent then has to worry about clearing it or taking at least 4-8, plus a potentially huge burst with Killing Edge. Zendo can be used to re-position your opponent’s general so you can set up for clear or more damage.
2x Storm Kage- The whole “Meme of the Deck”, Kage is here for late game clear. With late game being so “Answer or Die” Kage is here to clear some of your opponent’s big minions. Unfortunately, he’s pretty slow having to wait a whole turn to combo Kage Lightnings, but can be devistating to your opponent’s board if he doesn’t draw out a removal.

Artifacts:
2x Crescent Spear- Honestly I don’t think this card is good at all combo-ed with Kage Lightning, I just wanted to meme it up. However, it can be good with all the Phoenix Fires you get. If I’m being honest, I believe that two copies of Inner Focus would be much much better in this deck for competitive.

TL;DR-

1. ControlHai
2. Lots of draw
3. Combo high HP minions with Killing Edge
4. Relies on positioning
5. Kill your opponent with Zendo or Phoenix Fires + Crescent Spear

Thoughts would be appreciated!

[whyb0t]

Go find Jogda on Twitch, never seen a better Kage deck than his.

[yerboijosh]

Love his stream, definitely gotta look into it. Maybe need some eight gates while I’m at it.

[phayze]

@whyb0t is right, Jogda is likely the only one that has made a Kage deck work. (I like 8G8S too, so I’ve been looking into crafting them)

[seraphicreaper]

Craft crescent spears before 8 gates if you’re thinking of it. I have 8 but no crescents. Having used 8’s plenty, it’s a costly card since it requires as many dmg cards as possible to be played on the turn.

Meh gains on PF (considering if the draw was just PF than 8), I like it with ghost lightning, works well with twin strike, but again, the mana cost will likely mean you’re not following it up with minions to the board.

Another Songhai main may say differently, but I always look to help anyone avoid legendary buyer’s remorse.

[phayze]

I’ve had 3 crescents for a while now. Got all 3 of em from orbs. I also have already collected all the Vetruvian legendary especially so I’m just looking into some of the more eccentric legendaries from my secondary faction.

[jon678910]

Koan of horns, the ultimate meme.

[yerboijosh]

Yeah, everything in this deck was made with what I have in my collection. I have used spear with ghost lightning and twin strike before, my favorite play is having crescent spear+ twin strike in my opening hand.

1. Go first, get twin strike and cresecent spear in hand
2. Play a 2 drop
3. Opponent plays double two drop (hopefully Lyo)
4. accelerate into crescent spear and twin strike
5. ???
6. Profit.

Once you get that combo down, it’s really hard for your opponent to come back, especially since twin strike draws a card, you have a body on board, and you have spear equipped.

[whoshim]

Here is what I have used:

The idea behind the deck is that everyone expects Songhai to run lots of spells and just a few minions, so they work hard to remove the minions. This buys you time to get to the late game. Eventually you will have Phoenix Fire as your BBS and can drop Kage.

I chose Reva to get even more minions on board for the opponent to try to deal with. The BBS gets changed eventually anyway, so I feel Reva gives better value overall.

However, I do have to say that I haven’t played this since Ancient Bonds dropped, so it could use some updating. I had some moderate success with it in Diamond/S rank about two months ago.

[yerboijosh]

4 Winds seems kind of weak in that deck. Is it just used for removal bait?

[johnbob78]

Why not Kaleos? With a deck this minion heavy, his teleport ability would be a lot more reliable.

[whyb0t]

Crypto with Kaleos? Besides, not exactly a backstab or buff deck, and most of his minions are weak and cheap. I doubt he’ll have heavy threats out of range to tp in

[yerboijosh]

Through play I’ve discovered crypto is more useful for combo-ing late game to “Refresh your Phoenix Fire.” You can get some pretty good burst, so I decided to leave it in there. Unfortunately PP + crypto + PP + crypto + PP is 10 mana, so you miss out on a fair bit. Ultimately it helps with clear or can be a finisher (PP + crypto + PP + KE on an existing unit [9 mana].)

[whoshim]

4 Winds seems kind of weak in that deck. Is it just used for removal bait?

Yes, 4 Winds is removal bait. If my wincon is Kage, I need to make sure that he has a good chance of sticking when I play him. Backing up and playing 4 Winds usually draws out the opponent’s best removal.

Why not Kaleos? With a deck this minion heavy, his teleport ability would be a lot more reliable.

I am going to be changing to Phoenix Fire partway through the game. Given the 1 or 2 uses of the BBS before I switch to PF, I find the 1/1 ranged unit causes more problems for the opponent.

However, like I said, this deck has not been optimized for the current meta, so it is most just an idea of something that wasn’t too bad at high levels before Ancient Bonds.

[whyb0t]

Of course that’s why it’s in there, but with Reva it’s also not useless in the early game.

[seraphicreaper]

I’m always down to work with Songhai shenanigans.

[details=Full Deck Build]

[/details]

I can’t think of any substitutions besides Ephemeral Shroud if someone doesn’t have Onyx Bear Seal (which could be debated to be better for circumstance).

Comparisons between your (@yerboijosh) deck verse this one.
+Better synergy with Storm Kage
-More spell focused/reliant
+Quite flexible in deck building. If there’s some cards you dislike or would take alternatives to, there’s many choices.

Deck Playstyle:
Odds are that the aim would be in pacing your cards early game (have lantern fox?). After early game with crescent spear, 8’s and/or Sister, can really start getting good value out of your spell cards. When Storm comes around, all your cards will naturally synergize, ideally leading to a decisive lead. Note that Storm Kage provides no clear-cut win condition.

Odds are you can’t afford the deck, but could still choose to develop one with the overall concept.

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Evaluating YOUR Deck

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Your deck seems all over the place with absolutely no direction. If the goal is for Storm Kage memes. I DEFINITELY recommend the following:

REMOVE
-Juxtapositions; your deck doesn’t need it that critically. Better cards could be utilized.
-Sworn Sister; your deck doesn’t need this much draw. (Lantern, Sojourner, AND Sworn Sister.)
-(Optional) Mist Dragon Seal; this depends on if you want to be more of a spell or minion-centric deck.
-(Optional) 1-3 Killing Edge; I suggest removing 1 due to buffs being conditional (requires minions to be present).
-(Optional) Puppydragon, if spell-centric.

ADD
+Masks; early game is free ping damage. Late game with Storm Kage can become a nuisance for opponents. Will always hold value if your deck is spell-centric. (Never be a dead/burn card.)
+Consider Manaforgers and/or Abjudicators; again, if spell-centric.
+Twin Strike. Often a crappy card, but with cards like 8gates, manaforger, crescent spear, and Songhai Sister, it actually carries weight really well.
+Ghost Lightning. Underrated, and additionally so if holding previously mentioned cards. (Likely 2 of is fine, depending on the factions you see most.)

Just a rough start, but hopefully you see a variety of potential by choosing to focus your deck towards more of a minion or spell based deck.

[yerboijosh]

Upon playing the deck, I realized:
-That Shiro was pretty trash (honestly just too slow to do anything).
-Hard to control swarm without a Panddo combo (IF).
-Not enough spells to reliably proc Kage.
-Definitely considered Manaforger and Abjudicator, though I usually favor the former.
-My two drops were kind of bad.

Upon further evaluation, I came up with something like this:

I’ve always been a bigger fan of the SpellHai variant over minion-based. I did what I could with my collection to come up with this.

General-
Reva: Reva’s BBS allows her to put small threats on the board which are removal magnets. Her BBS has some good early-game synergy with Cryptographer. Considering this is Spell-Control, I figured the teleport Kaleos offers wouldn’t be very important.

Minions-
3x Manaforger: A nice T-1 play with a nice effect, can be used to combo more spells together to buff your Chakri.
3x Chakri Avatar: Really Chakri is in the deck not to get huge bursts (No TP) but to get good trades on your opponents minions early game. Huge dispel target for your opponent.
2x Cryptographer: Really only in the deck to combo early with Reva. Can also be used to control late with Phoenix Fire BBS.
2x Lantern Fox: Usually gets 1 Phoenix Fire, and if not, it at least pulls a dispel. If not answered it is a value machine, and a good 3 mana play.
3x Four Winds Magi: Four “Wins” is here to combo with all the spells you will be drawing. Very nice ping and healing effect, and devastating if unanswered. Good 4/4 body.
2x Loreweaver: Really my first time using this guy, I really don’t know what to expect. Obviously has good synergy with spells, and can help activate things like Chakri or Four Winds. Most of the spells in this deck you would rather have 2 than 1, so I figured he would be a good fit. Not to mention he literally draws cards out of thin air, so if nothing, you can replace back into your deck.
3x Geomancer: Pretty much the only consistent minion besides Kage himself in the two decks, he is a good fit in the deck because there aren’t really any other 5 mana minions you’d want to play. His effect is very nice late game and the 5/4 body can make some decent trades.
2x Storm Kage: Well, we know why this guy is here. We want the opponent to burn all their answers early so they don’t have one for Kage, and then we can go off with board control. I made sure to have more spells that can activate him this time around.

Spells-
3x Ghost Lightning: Honestly one of my favorite spells, I’ve used it in almost every Songhai deck since the beginning of time. Wrecks Abyssian, and when combo-ed with one or even both Spears can be a huge board control tool.
3x Phoenix Fire: When people ask me what my favorite card is, I always point to this. It is so incredibly flexible and can be gotten in a number of ways. Good for control or face.
2x Killing Edge: Can be nasty on a Chakri or Fox, and helps trade up into large minions. Lots of damage with this thing and Heartseekers.
3x Onyx Bear Seal: Really the only true removal for Songhai, it is an incredibly useful spell. These come in handy for things like Juggernaut where Kage Lightning doesn’t do the job on its own.
2x Twin Strike: A good control option, draws you an extra card at the end of turn which I find very valuable. Nice when used in conjunction with Spear.
1x Spiral Technique: I couldn’t really find a spot to squeeze a second one of these babies, it’s just a nice surprise finisher. People don’t really expect Spiral Tech nowadays, though I have been using it as a finisher in many of my decks.

Artifacts-
3x Bloodrage Mask: Really nice ping, can lead to huge bursts when combo-ed with Four Winds. Super annoying early game for the opponent.
2x Crescent Spear: A very nice control option when played with Twin Strike, Ghost Lightning, or Phoenix Fire. I wish I had another.

All considered-

1. I wish I had more options for “Spell Damage” in my collection (Alkyone, Eight Gates).
2. Why 3 Ghost Lightning, especially with Loreweaver? Well, I do think that this spell is actually very good, and I am always very paranoid not to draw it when I need it most. I suppose a 2-of could be run viably, but this is just what I prefer.
3. What is the Win-Con? The way to victory in this deck is to whittle down your opponent with Masks, Four Winds, and Phoenix Fires. Use Spiral Tech as a conditional finisher (A.K.A when drawn).
4. Use all removal bait early game so your Storm Kage can survive when you need him most, late.
5. The one drawback to this deck is there is no ramp. I think this could be better if we still had old Mana Vortex (But Celebrant will have to cut it). The ramp here is to use your spear to get more damage than should be possible on curve.
6. I’m not sure how Loreweaver will pan out in this deck, I’m envisioning it as a late game draw tool rather than a 4-drop.

Anyways, Storm Kage:
10/10 Craft again.

[seraphicreaper]

I realllllly like your updated deck. Personally I’d favor away from Killing Edge. Also curious how swapping Crypto’s with Celebrants would pan out.

Have you tried your updated deck? How many games, against who, how do you feel about the deck? I’m really curious. Great update!

Edit: Also, if you wanted to squeeze in another Spiral, take out 1 Manaforger. Manaforger will just be a burn card more or less if you happen to draw it mid/late game.

[whyb0t]

I don’t think you should, but if you decide to run Abjudicators there’s some fun stuff you can do… like reduce the cost of a spell, replace it, and if you draw it back with Loreweaver you get a duplicate of the reduced cost version

[yerboijosh]

I’ve only played a few games so far… Maybe four or five. From what I’ve seen the deck can be good but has too much trouble with face-monkey decks. I think it has potential to be good, I just have to play around with it some more, adjust the number, you know. All games are being played in Gold right now because Diamond is hard to reach with the decks I have been playing (Dance of Memes Starhorn and this).