now, i don’t want this to come off as a nerf x card cause it’s so op thread, but I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the guardian recently. It’s a card that forces you to either a. have direct removal in hand b. trade all your things into it for damage, which is hard because it has 10 health, or c. lose the game. It just forces bad trades and presents your opponent with a thing the MUST remove or they lose. and all for the cost of 5 mana. so, the big question is, what can i do to counter it. I play a lot of abbysian and vanar with occasional magmar mixed in. thanks in advance 
How am i supposed to fight ironcliffe
Removal in hand is the only option 
Abyssian has Daemonic lure and Dark transformation. You can also use a repulsor beast or Ritual Banishing
Vanar has Hailstone Prison/Fox transformation/Polarity + tiger
You can use repulsor beast or dispell it and run away.
Or put another provoke in the way to get more times to have a removal.
yeah, that kind of sucks. i really think they should’ve nerfed it just a little bit with the draw one change because it’s so demanding of removal
I main Lyonar and it’s pretty rare when an Ironcliffe Guardian alone gives me a win.
Luck is always here, it’s a card game after all.
Every faction has powerfull cards, the ironcliffe Guardian is one of them.
2 Likes
I’ve been trying to make a decent Lyonar deck for a while, and I recently did Gauntlet and got 3 of them. I wish they were as dominant as OP believes. They are good, because of stats and airdrop, but in the end, it’s just a meatbag with provoke, and you handle it like any other.
if they have divine bond it’s a pretty big threat. and every lyonar player i’ve run into, including myself, always seems to have one when they play him
Well, it’s a combo, and all combos are hit or miss. Every opponent I play against seems to have some sort of answer to Ironcliffes… DB of course is an issue on its own, but every faction has to have some good cards.
Divine Bonds currently not appearing in Gauntlet might’ve had something to do with it too 
Pretty much the only thing you can do is replace aggressively for hard removal from the start of the game (for abyssian, that is usually daemonic lure, repulsor beast, ritual banishing, or my personal favorite, dark transformation). If you’re unlucky enough to not draw into anything and for them to draw ironcliffe and potentially a DB, then there’s nothing you can do about it. Take your loss in stride and play another, luck is a part of every card game.
Save hard removal for the guardian or try to destroy it before the buffs get handed out. In other words, make sure you have at least one removal in hand when fighting Lyonar and always save it for the guardian. It’s the best card in the faction tbh.
If you have a board you can also just kill the iron cliff or at least damage it enough so that divine bond doesn’t do much.
I always have trouble to understand why people still complain about ironcliff +divine bond, this combo is strong but it gives you an entire turn to react to it and there is plenty of answers. Compared to tiger +surge, shadow nova or spiral Technic, ironcliff/DB at least can be countered.
Abyssian has demonic lure, sacrifice, and the card that kills it and leaves a wraithling on the board (forget the name)
Vanar’s single best spell against it is Aspect of the Fox. I have 3 of those in my deck and they’re amazing.
Dark Transformation, sir