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Kaleos Arcanyst Brew - Kind Control

#1

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Cheers to the new expansion! I hadn’t been playing Duelyst much since RotB launched, but I came back right in time for Ancient Bonds. And boy are these new cards super fun to play with. This is my latest creation, “Kind Control” Kaleos. As the name implies it’s a control deck that utilizes Kindling and other Arcanysts as a wincon.

So, a short exposition on two “odd” card choices. First, people have been wondering “why Kindling over Owlbeast or 4WM?” My answer: Kindling is far more threatening. Pre-expansion, I played a deck very similar to this one but with Owlbeast and none of the new cards obviously. Owlbeast is still great, but he doesn’t necessarily win you the game. Owlbeast+Chakri is the most potent combo of old arcanyst decks, but that’s now highly vulnerable to things like EMP and Enfeeble+Skorn.

Kindling, however, encourages you to make immediate turn-ins on your Arcanysts. If your opponent can’t clear your board, he’s in a world of hurt. Kindling pretty much turns your minions into Chakri Avatars. The obvious choice of Kindling over 4WM is the increased synergy of Kindling with this deck. Trinity Wing becomes a flying bomb, Manaforgers can’t be ignored, Chakri Avatar will OTK you, and Scientist becomes a wincon…

And onto that second odd choice: The Scientist. To be honest, at first he was the only justification I had for running Kaleos over Reva (this has changed, but yeah). The more I play with him though, the more I’m convinced that he’s viable. Other than Spiral Technique, The Scientist is our only “win the game” button so to speak. If he sticks you’re guaranteed to get card advantage almost immediately, and you’ll often just swing for 10-12 pts of damage due to Kindling. Overall I’ve been more impressed with him than I thought I’d be. I tested Calligrapher instead of Scientist and I actually prefer The Scientist.

Now, onto the normal cards. Manaforger: At first, I didn’t like this card. It’s a bad topdeck (and in a control deck, you want most or all of your cards to have high impact), it doesn’t contest board, and it’s effect was generally not very useful. Until I put Trinity Wing and Kindling in the deck, that is. This card is a ridiculous enabler. Consider: You play a Manaforger T1 with Lantern Fox or Kindling in your hand.

Well, now on T2 you can make several plays (1) Lantern Fox on mid or side mana tiles and phoenix fire opponent’s minion. (2) Move Manaforger to side mana tile and Lantern Fox on other side mana tile, OBS opponent’s minion. (3) Move Manaforger to side mana tile, play Kindling on other side mana tile, then Phoenix Fire opponent’s minion. Of these (1) and (3) are some of the most powerful turn two plays in the game, comparable to the old Lantern Fox + Inner Focus + Mana Vortex + Phoenix Fire combo on T2.

Additionally: Manaforger enables Trinity Wing. Consider: You have a Manaforger on the board and you have either five mana or four mana and access to a mana tile. You can now play Trinity Wing and cast a spell in the same turn, which can provide pretty decent tempo with the 2 damage spell. Or if you’re on seven mana, you can play Manaforger and Trinity Wing plus one of the spells you get. Not as good as the Kindling combos IMO, but still pretty decent. All in all, I’ve been having fun with Manaforger as you can probably tell.

Battle Panddo: Tech against Swarm Lilithe & Gravity Wells. Also generally pretty good for control as it baits out dispel and functions as a ping.

Dancing Blades: Strong tempo play. I think you could do without this, but I like having the huge body as a threat in case I can’t draw any of my other removal spells or big cards. Additionally, this is pretty sweet in Kaleos thanks to Blink extending your range. (If you DB something far away, you don’t have to worry about the DB taking 10000 eons to get back into the fight.)

Trinity Wing: I’ve already expounded quite a bit on this card’s synergy with the deck. But even by itself it’s really good. We don’t need to run a ton of draw in the deck because of this card (and The Scientist). Plus, all the spells you get from it are highly beneficial to our deck (damage can be used for control, general buff can be used to dissuade opponent from attacking us, and healing is self explanatory). Also, if you tuck this in the corner and follow it up with a Kindling you can get some surprise lethals.

Ghost Lightning: Again, swarm lilithe / gravity wells tech. Also theoretically massacres the dumb Magmar Juggernaut lucky hand if you have an OBS.

Onyx Bear Seal: Almost 100% necessary for the new meta. Songhai just doesn’t have the tools to deal with many of the new cards other than OBS. And again we’re playing Control so…

Spiral Technique: Highly useful for finishing games. I’d maybe even cut one Battle Panddo to run two Spirals. The amount of times you’ll be wishing “if only I had a spiral…” is surprisingly frequent.

For reference, I’m currently at Diamond 4 with this. I’ve been refining it for awhile and will be doing some more work on it (may record some gameplay as well). This has some rough edges and a lot of flexibility in general. Overall though, the deck is tons of fun.

9 Likes
#2

Cool deck there, I’ve been wanting to try arcanysthai with the new cards, but I’ve been to busy having a Blast with Sajj for now. Though if I get stuck in end diamond or make it to S-rank this season I’ll be sure to check it out :slight_smile:.

Since this is a control deck have you considered Deathstrike seal for the combo with Battle Pando?

#3

Cool deck, but why don’t you run juxtaposition? Such a versatile spell, seems like it would fit this build nicely.

#4

I’m not a huge fan of Deathstrike Seal in Kaleos to be honest. I like it more in Reva since you can put it on the Heartseekers so it’s less combo dependent.

You could run Juxtaposition instead of Ghost Lightning, that’s what I had in the deck before. I prefer Ghost Lightning since it helps more matchups. Juxtaposition is nice but I think it’s more impactful in backstab & aggro decks.

#5

It’s like I’m writing my own NTR story with sajj now a days… Feels good man

1 Like
#6

I think I played a deck similar to this, minus the Dancing Blades. Not too sure though, dude instaconceded when I flashed out EMP.

#7

Haha, probably wasn’t me-- I’ve never had EMP played against me. That said, I don’t think EMP alone really stops the Songhai Arcanyst strategy. It dispels the stuff but does nothing about the bodies, which Kindling and Trinity Wing can still utilize. (That’s also a reason I like Kindling over Owlbeast, Arcanyst bodies are still dangerous when dispelled)

#8

You lucky bastard :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#9

Arcanyst bodies are deadly, aye.

Turns out Golem bodies are deadlier though :stuck_out_tongue:

#10

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that during early game u lose initiative, since your 2,3-drops are not very threatening. How do u manage to regain the board and how early?

I’m running list with similar idea but with lower curve and have problems with early golem aggro, namely vet.

#11

Typically this deck wins by just applying constant pressure. Early game I always try to mulligan for either Manaforger or Chakri. If I get Chakri, my opponent is forced to answer it which usually puts them behind. If I get Manaforger, they usually don’t answer it which allows me to get ahead with a discounted spell.

If I lose initiative or think I might lose it, I always search for Battle Panddo, Onyx Bear Seals, or Lantern Fox. OBS allows me to deal with the bigger issues if I need to. Battle Panddo / Lantern Fox can put you ahead with their effects.

Mid game I start laying down the bigger threats. Kindling demands an answer but usually can’t be removed cleanly, so playing it can also put you ahead. Trinity Wing also demands an answer and it gives you the 2 damage spell so you can gain a bit of tempo. Dancing Blades is almost a pure tempo play; remove something the enemy has and put a giant body in their face.

Late game it’s typically time to start trying to push for the win. This is actually where I seemingly have the most trouble, I often can’t finish my opponent off. Spiral Tech / The Scientist are often useful for pushing towards the win.

This deck is best when you can play your threats. If your opponent has a board but it isn’t necessarily threatening it’s probably best to just develop your board instead of going for removal.

1 Like
#12

fun deck! Loving all this kaleos love. His stock definitely went up with all the heavier curves on ladder.

#13

Updated the deck!

Dropped 2x Dancing Blades and 2x Ghost Lightning for 3x Owlbeast and 1 extra copy of Spiral Technique.

The Ghost Lightning drop actually kinda hurts because it’s less spell procs, but generally Lantern Fox and Trinity Wing generate enough spells to make up for it. I found Dancing Blades was unnecessary as I had better plays 90% of the time.

Added in a spiral to help with finishing the game. This deck had slight problems with some control matchups and the extra spiral helps a ton. Spiral also punishes aggro decks that go too hard and typically just straight up ends the game on 8 mana.

Next, Owlbeast. I had the thought of playing Kindling and Owlbeast before, but didn’t go for it. But now that I’ve made the change, the deck feels way more potent. Sometimes you just don’t draw Kindling so Owlbeast fills the hole. Plus it’s an additional Arcanyst for Trinity Wing (and the health buff on Trinity Wing is also pretty good). Then of course there’s the games where you get both and steamroll your opponent.

Oh: I also swapped out Azure Herald for Healing Mystic. I feel like Healing Mystic fits this deck a lot better because of our minion’s health thresholds. It serves to make the deck even more robust in case we get Kindling but not Owlbeast (we can just heal our minions after they attack so they can’t be removed easily). Plus Healing Mystic on Battle Panddo or Lantern Fox is solid. Just a better fit all and all.

2 Likes
Songarc - Wanting improvement suggestions
#14

good catch on the healing mystic on lantern fox. I actually haven’t thought of that. How were the matches so far in diamond too? I am actually struggling a lot with reva since the nerf and I honestly feel that i’d be back to silver if not for rank safety net :smiley:

#15

Play tested this quite a bit and it is indeed fun. One of the problems i saw was my hand often gets bricked with a lot of high to cast minions that its sometimes hard to play trinity wing.

Have you considered aethermasters to replace healing mystics? Couldnt try it because i dont have any :stuck_out_tongue:

#16

I have tried Aethermasters, they’re not bad. I think you could really play any two drop you want in place of Healing Mystic honestly.

As for having a lot of high cost minions, yeah, that’s actually been my aim with the deck. The goal is typically to have one two drop and for the rest of the game you should be aiming to play three mana or more minions. This deck doesn’t have very good 2+2 mana plays (that is, combinations of smaller minions / spells) and the power is concentrated more towards five+ mana plays (Trinity Wing + Discounted Spell, Owlbeast + Phoenix Fire, Scientist + MDS, etc).

As for how the deck has been working for me, well :smiley:

Not a huge sample size but these are the games I’ve played with the updated deck. Only game I lost was swept from me. I had a 10/9 Owlbeast and a Kindling on the board and my opponent had 1 card in hand. Lo and behold, it was Obliterate and he played it for exact lethal.

I think for the rest of the games I had an easier time. Some of them I actually missed my turn one plays and still came back for the win.

1 Like
#17

Got S-Rank earlier today.

The latest version of the deck went from around… Diamond 3(?) to S-Rank. Overall, it had a 70% win rate (26 wins, 11 losses). Pretty decent as I did face a lot of S-Rank players on the ladder. Typically I’d get S earlier in the month but I didn’t have as much time to play.

I’ll probably record a video of some replays of this deck if I have the time. A lot of my decks are pretty unorthodox and aren’t very straightforward to play. Since this is more of a control deck, that’s probably even more true. As the deck’s name suggests (or so I think it does), this isn’t a 6-7 mana lethal type of deck. This typically succeeds in outvaluing your opponent by forcing them to vomit all their removal/dispel and eventually having one of your synergies / big threats stick to the board.

Hard removal is the only real way to safely dispose of the arcanysts we’re running. The way this is setup, Kindling + Owlbeast will turn any arcanysts, even dispelled, into bombs. Plus Trinity Wing is excellent for capitalizing on dispelled bodies as well. There’s not enough Martyrdoms, Punishes, and Aspects to get rid off all of your stuff. This deck has a good “critical mass” of 4+ drops so that you’re basically guaranteed to have at least one in your opening hand and you should be able to draw into more fairly easy.

AoE isn’t even super effective against this. The cards that you mostly have to watch out for are Sun Bloom, Lightbender, Enfeeble, and EMP. Lightbender and Sun Bloom are fairly easy to play around with Kaleos, just do the diagonal positioning and make sure your Owlbeast is always separated from the rest of your minions. You can also capitalize on Blink to position places you otherwise might not be able to.

If you suspect your opponent is running EMP, trade your stuff early or keep a Owlbeast/Kindling/Trinity Wing in your hand so you can still use the arcanyst bodies. Last, there’s not much you can do about Enfeeble. You just have to force your opponent to use it and hope you draw more threats. Faie matchup is basically just a coin toss whether or not they have the right removal at the right time.

You win by constantly laying down threats while efficiently dealing with your opponent’s via. minion trading or ramping spells w/ Manaforger. Onyx Bear Seal is also very good on late game threats (it’s a 1 for 1, but if used on a Meltdown for instance, you only paid 3 mana to remove their 7 mana minion). If all else fails, you have 2x Spiral Technique at the ready.

Arcanysts are probably my favorite archetype right now. I’ll hopefully be coming up with some new decks soon, though I think this is probably one of the better decks right now if you actually want to play Kaleos.

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#18

I would love to see some replays

#19

wow that’s a nice build, gonna give it a shot sometime…

#20

How has the scientist been working out for you? Do you think that Grandmaster Zendo or Calligrapher could be good alternatives?
Also, congrats on reaching S~