Hi,
i was looking for a new faction to start and while i was building an argeon deck i found variax and…well looks like abyssian is my second faction now.
Since my vet experience made my very hateful against cassyva, and since i rode all the comments about variax and how it’s not really this strong and all that yada yada.
So i was pretty excited to build a variax swarmy deck.
Now, i’m on a tight budget. I pull it of with a bunch of common cards, a sojourner and the rise of bloodborne expansion.
I know obviously that this is not optimized. I’m asking for constructive comments on the deck and a “to-craft-list” (starting with darkfire sacrifice 
)
So here’s the decklist:
Some cards i choose and why:
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Punish: while ritual banishing is better, punish has the little mana cost advantage letting you cast it early while building a board (your general take some damage but it’s pretty good).
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wood-wen: since we are trying to pop variax, it’s a good bait and it slows down the enemy play (like giving provoke to a wraithling and see your opponent waste the turn because of that)
And anyway if you draw variax too late you can play both to have a 7/7 provoke and a 2/2 to cover up your pretty bum. -
breath of the unborn: this is here just as a ranged minion removal and a bit of aoe help since grasp is not always that easy to trigger (and helps against some other swarm decks).
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necrotic sphere: this is more a tech card against lyonar but it’s often a good 6 mana play the turn before variax (it gives you board and usually lets you breath).
Oh, i almost forgot: it works against mechazor.
Toughts on variax: abyssians players are right, it’s really slow without ritual and on precedent versions of this deck was really easy to be outbursted before turn five and/or be forced to play reactively on 7 mana while having variax.
It isn’t difficult to draw it if you replace every turn form the start, 5 turns means 5 cards drawed and 5 replace more 2 replace and the 5 cards on game start that is like 16/17 card cycled without sojourner.
Now the swarm is taking all the hit to let you have some breath.
How to play the current version of the deck:
Play it safe safe safe since you don’t have a lot of healing, often enough you’ll end up letting your enemy take all the mana spring sadly, but if he waste turns on that you are good and the godly amount of removal you have can save you from almost everything.
That said replace ALWAYS until you get variax (since there’s little draw and more hurts the deck’s early balance a little), then, and only then, you are good to play as you wish, DO NOT replace it if you draw it on turn one it’s not so difficult to keep it in your hand until the fifth turn (and 7 mana).
Your goal is to drop variax while having at least 15 hp or so, the early swarm isn’t your wincon(sometime it is, but requires a bit of luck and bad draw/play/positioning of your opponent) is your bait to save your general from aggressive decks like aggromar or songhai and especially lyonar (be aware of makantor and play more safe against lyonar since they have tempest and more aoe than magmar).
On a side note: i playtested this deck for a week and something, i never played against vanar. I really have not idea on how to behave against them.
Edit: some grammar mistakes.
