Thankfully,
@Easha has written a set of comprehensive guides about our intro decks and how to improve pre-constructed decks - we are extremely happy that we can share them here with you. Please make sure to also read the
general overview in addition to the specific guides.
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My name is Easha Dustfeather, member of the Lodge of Sorceresses and co-author of the Glittering Girly Gwent Gaming blog. As author of the starter deck guides I already explained how to play the free starter decks provided to every player. With the addition of pre-constructed intro decks for sale in Shupe’s shop, I decided to write a guide for them as well, just like I did for the Syndicate starter pack deck.
It is meant for players who just started the game and decided to buy those intro decks. This guide explains how to improve and use them.
The deck’s Stratagem
Urn of Shadows has been replaced with
Tactical Advantage. Tactical Advantage guarantees you five points, while the urn could only do that if used on
Harpy Egg. In all other cases you get less value.
While the deck still focuses on Deathwish units, some of them have been removed in favour of a second strategy: Tall units and consuming them from graveyard.
The monster faction is known for their strong short rounds where they can burst out a lot of points in just a few cards. Try to win round 1 and
“bleed” during round 2.
Bleeding as strategy means playing out round 2 so your opponent has to commit their good cards to keep up – unlike you they cannot pass so you dictate the length of round 2. Do not confuse it with the status effect of the same name.
You should win a short round 3 against most other faction decks you face, so try win round 1 and bleed during round 2 in order to assure such a short round 3 where you have an advantage.
Consume and Deathwish
This deck combines Deathwish units and Consume effects to trigger the former.
Each on its own is rather lacklustre, but if you combine the two and Consume the Deathwish units you can get plenty of points. For this reason you need to have both Deathwish cards (
Werecat,
Harpy Egg,
Endrega Eggs,
Bridge Troll,
Foglet,
Dettlaff: Higher Vampire) and cards that can trigger their effects (
Abaya,
Kayran,
Barghest) in your hand, so mulligan accordingly. Make sure you enable the Dominance effect of Barghest, so you can use its Order effect as well.
Your leader ability
Overwhelming Hunger is part of the latter group, granting you 3 more Consume options. Preferably use Kayran and Barghest first if you need Consume effects and your leader ability only if you have to.
Aim for a short round 3, you can play a huge amount of points using Dettlaff: Higher Vampire together with the Consume effects (of your leader ability).
Thinning is winning
Thinning means playing a card that draws another one from the deck which reduces the number of cards remaining. This helps with your deck’s consistency in later rounds, so you it is more likely to draw what you need. For this reason thinning should be done preferably during the first round.
This deck contains two thinning options in
Wild Hunt Rider and
Foglet. Only keep one copy in hand so its effect can fetch the other one from the deck. If you already used some of your mulligans and have only one left, using it can be risky. You might draw the second copy of them, so it is usually safer to avoid this and keep your current hand. If you end up having both copies in your hand, this is called
“bricking” cards.
A bricked card cannot be used to its full potential and usually plays for much less value. Naturally, this should be avoided as it might you lose the game.
If you expect your opponent to use Locks, use Foglet’s Deathwish in the same turn you play it so your opponent cannot disrupt it and bricks the remaining Foglet in your deck.
Wild Hunt Rider can be played on an empty board, as it counts itself as highest unit. Get them out as soon as possible before your opponent can get a higher unit and block their Dominance condition.
Consuming from the graveyard
After you played your tall units in one round, you can utilise their strength once again by Consuming them from your graveyard. This makes your graveyard a pool of pseudo-
“carryover”. This means using points you set up earlier in later rounds.
Ozzrel should be used on
Old Speartip: Asleep, unless your opponent has a unit with higher base power in their graveyard. If tied, use your opponent’s unit to deny their potential graveyard interaction.
Ghoul can be used only on bronze cards in your graveyard, which makes
Ice Giant its most efficient target. As both Ozzrel and Ghoul need targets in your graveyard first, consider to mulligan them away in the first round. If you need more Consume effects, you can replace one Ice Giant with
Barbegazi.
Ozzrel and Ghoul grant you good value in a short round.
Other cards
Use
She-Troll of Vergen in a round where you want to trigger a lot of Deathwish effects. If you expect your opponent to do four damage, play the She-Troll and use a Consume effect – either your leader ability or Barghest’s Order ability – at once to bring her up to six power. It is still vulnerable to movement effects.
The Beast synergises with a Kayran or Barghest that consumed several units and has a huge power for this reason. Make sure to play it when there already is a unit with more than four power so it grows to six at once which makes it much harder for your opponent to remove it.
