Stupid Monster deck I've been playing

[s1eepy]

Stupid Monster deck I've been playing

This thing looks like it shouldn't win, but it has been . . . a lot.

Eredin
3x Alzur's Thunder
3x Manticore Venom
3x Lacerate
3x Epidemic
3x Swallow Potion
3x Fiend
2x First Light
Scorch
Commander's Horn
Decoy

2x open card slots; I've been using Geralt and Ciri for lack of better options.
I'd Prefer Yen and Avallac'h or to drop both of them and 1 Lacerate to instead run all three Crones to drop 21 and pass right away first round. Giant Toad and/or D-Bomb would also work.

Really straight forward play. You're taking advantage of Monster's creature retention and only having one creature out unless it's the last round or you're being sneaky with Decoy. If you have nothing to nuke or don't want to nuke anything: then use a Swallow Potion to make your opponent play another card. Given that your smallest creature is 8: you'll have an easy time nuking early big drops with Epidemic. You shouldn't have to worry about consistency much with this one; you'll have 5 sources for your bronze creature; try to make sure you're getting the Fiend off of First Light in your opening hand for sake of deck thinning; pitch the Fiends themselves. Keeping both First Light to start is safe against Dagon; use Eredin for frost decks and Decoy to save units that get hit by Drowners or at opportune times to shift card advantage. Just try to play efficiently and it tends to win often against most decks; has a hard time against medic heavy Skellige decks though, but not many seem to give it much trouble, and it could be built a bit better yet.

 

[4RM3D]

You should play Eredin first to protect your crones against scorch. You are still screwed with Igni though.

 

[s1eepy]

You should play Eredin first to protect your crones against scorch. You are still screwed with Igni though.

yeah, but it's not bad to get stuff like Igni and Scorch out of the way immediately. If you Crone, they Igni right away, then you First Light into a Fiend instead of passing and they've basically just blown their Igni for no gain. If they don't deal with the Crones right away, you pass and they've done their job moving you up at least one card.

 

[hidemu]

Interesting idea, just tried it out and worked like a charm. Althought I only had 2 alzurs and 2 decays so I had to use 3 gold cards

Thank JC he didnt have a scorch got my frog up to 40 and just kept destroying everything he put down. Fun stuff

 

[hidemu]

Phillipa just pwnt me tho

 

[gnarbrag]

It's nice to see people try out new strategies. Good job!

 

[mundo_nico]

I'm thinking that against control NR decks you will have a lot of problems, has been the case?

 

[s1eepy]

I'm thinking that against control NR decks you will have a lot of problems, has been the case?

There's a couple of decks that give it a rough time, but it also could be a lot better in some areas. Recently I've been working towards dropping Lacerate for Tremor. So far the biggest issue has been when my opponent is also running Epidemic. Next in line is a SK Skirmisher deck. What gets me in NR the most is Shani->Siege Tower. The damage isn't that bad; it's when there's lots of straight nukes and gold units that grow in power. I'm probably going to have to slot a D-Bomb to round things out a little. Shame how necessary D-Bomb is for countering a good number of decks.

 

[Sunsibar]

Some days ago I played against monster deck which was using practically only special cards. It was very confusing game I can't even remember how it ended. I had to scratch my head several times while playing.

 

[SarahGabriella]

Looks like a noob friendly deck. I approve.

 

[s1eepy]

So after another rigorous night of testing: I have it a bit more dialed in. not too much has changed:

Added: 2x Stammleford's Tremors, 1X Dimeritium Bomb, and 1X Manticore
-Dropped: 1x Lacerate, 1x Fiend, 1x Alzur's Thunder, and 1x Scorch

A few seasoned observations:
First off, you really really want to win the first two rounds with this deck. Play for a third if you have heavy card advantage or can pass super early round 2. Otherwise keep the pressure high.
Scorch and Igni aren't worth the slot. If any units are bigger than yours: you can D-Bomb to fix that, and against Skirmishers you'd rather hit them with Thunder than kill them.
I didn't think I'd like D-Bomb in here considering my use of Potions, but it's actually fantastic as a heal or counter to Weather.
My mind has changed about Geralt. He stays in for sure. The reason being: you want a big beefy gold creature to drop if you're going first. You want to tax them as much as you can before you have to play something they can target. This is how you beat Scoia'Teal and Radovid.
Ciri could be replaced with some other card advantage card.
I thought Decoy wouldn't add much to the deck; so unbelievably wrong I was. Since you have very few units: it is vital that you keep them alive. You should want to force your opponent to burn a straight nuke to kill any of your creatures; you won't need them to be very big to do this.
As a rule you only ever want 1 non-gold unit in play unless it's the last round or a vital situation.
The bronze unit MUST be a Fiend UNLESS you switch out Epidemic for something else. The biggest reason for this is the Crones. You can kill all three Crones out from under 1 Fiend without having to burn a Swallow; allowing them to play a smaller unit. You also want them to be on the same row as Eredin if you Horn.
Drop Eredin as your first non-gold unit. It is tremendously helpful if your opponent starts to think he's your only non-gold unit. This also allows you to reserve the option of Clear Skies.
I looooooooove Tremors in this deck. Amazing counter to Woodland Spirit and other small shit getting in the way of your Epidemic. Hilarious to Decoy your unit out of the way before dropping both of them.

Things I'm still working out:
Manticore is doing me more good than a third Fiend. It's nice to have a siege row alternative in-case of a dead Eredin, no Geralt, only Fiends, and Frost. Also hilarious to drop right after they scorch Eredin first turn like a noob.
Ciri does the job, but I hate throwing first round with this deck. I want to force out all of that nasty CC like squeezing a zit on round 1.
The biggest weakness the deck has is Epidemic. Swallow Potion, D-Bomb, and Decoy are great at keeping everything alive otherwise. Almost nobody runs more than two Scorch.
Once I have 3 of them: I'm going to try a build of this deck using Griffons instead of Fiends in order to play against Skirmishers better.
On the fence about trying Ghouls; I want 4 reliable gold units before I'd try this. D-Bomb hurts me more this way.
Currently saving for another legendary to try in here. Probably either Avallac'h or Draug. Maybe Ocvist. Borkh would be a waste for the same reasons as Igni. Yen is just a Tremor that hits golds. Triss or Zoltan might be alright.

 

[Archpriest]

Giant Toad is a must in this deck. I use Fiend only to feed him, Fiend is probably the most "Anna Kournikova" card in this game.
Avallac'h and Caretaker are also a must for this build, imo.
You should get obliterated by the weather decks though...

 

[s1eepy]

Giant Toad is a must in this deck. I use Fiend only to feed him, Fiend is probably the most "Anna Kournikova" card in this game.
Avallac'h and Caretaker are also a must for this build, imo.
You should get obliterated by the weather decks though...

I find I'm running quite a few more special cards than similar decks I've run into. Whether decks generally aren't that bad. It's pretty good at stalling them out and defending against the wild huntsman/rain/drowner combo. I like my units being in the front row for this reason. They can't skip the drowner, and it can easily stall 3 frosts. Especially if you don't show a Fiend until the very end. I'd slot the Toad in for the Manticore. I admit I'd like something more interesting than Fiend, but it's kind of the best for the slot by default currently.

What I'd really like is something like this:

Trash Gorger
[Bronze] - Monster - Rare
12 Strength - Melee/Loyal
>Remove a card in an opponent's graveyard from the game;
>If that card was a unit, remove that unit's strength from this unit;
>If no card was removed set this unit's base strength to 6.

 

[aspsnake]

I'm very impressed by the idea and will certainly check this deck out and experiment myself.

I bet that Radovid Control, Scoia'tel and especially Borkh should be a big pain.

I think once the patch and Dimeterium Shackles card are out, there will be a straight counter to Borkh and this will shine even more

I don't know if I like the Crones strategy, but what do you think about following cards:
1) Frightener - you play an enormous amount of special cards and this guy will be big. I mean - really big. If you get the last turn, you win. And as he's Silver, there's no risk in getting him from the First Light.
2) Operator - I know that he has a small strength and is a direct threat to your Epidemic strategy, but I bet that copying e.g. tremors is insane. It will be a useless card for your opponent, meaning it's not only producing a lot of strength advantage on the board, but also sort of virtual gain of the number of cards in hand, if you play it in the last round (after your opponent can play it in the first turn and not lose anything).
3) Draug - another activator for Epidemic and a big solid Gold card.
4) Imlerith - kinda same.

UPD: and any kind of spies/stalling seems like a good strategy for your deck in order to get that last turn. So, I highly advise to run already mentioned by you and others Avallach and Caretaker (this guy getting a Medic or Priscilla into Decoy is bonkers). Probably, trying to keep Decoy for spies (if you expect them) is a good idea too.

 

[s1eepy]

Draug is high on the list of cards I want to try. I just crafted Avallac'h, but he might be next.

I really like the idea of Operator->Tremor. I was trying to think of bad cards to give opponents. Seems an obvious choice in this deck.

Frightener would probably be solid. Haven't been looking at epics much tbh, def overlooked him.

In most decks Borkh isn't the worst thing ever if you're ahead when he's dropped and you have a good backup in your hand. Just pass and let them give you advantage if you force him out round 1.
Aglais with Scorch and Eithne. . . now that is a problem. Or even worse is when they nab one of the Epidemics with Aglais. Serious no fun zone.
Occasionally I drop a Fiend under Eredin as protection and bounce it with the Decoy at the end of the round if it survives. Also works a bit to make them over-extend on round 2.
For Radovid, as the deck is currently, I'm screwed unless I get Geralt in the opening hand or they get a really bad draw. With Geralt and Decoy you can usually bully him down round 1 if he doesn't scorch Eredin right away. This is where the Fiends lose.

You'll find that when facing Monster players: you'll really want to have at least 1 Tremor in case they play Woodland Spirit. The Foglets usually aren't that taxing, but when they come out with the wolves it mucks things up. Tremor is the only way to fix that with one card. I'm also fairly certain that a Nest deck can not win against this deck...not that they're all that amazing anyway. . . if only Shadows were Breedable, now that would be a deck.

Of the more common meanie decks out there: this is absolutely best against weather decks, and you're never going to face more than Igni/Scorch there; there's plenty of tools to handle the weather. Hang onto D-Bomb to use as a heal if you get thrown in the rain and watch your opponent sit there stunned for a second as they just wasted two cards setting that up; bonus points if you also hit their frost giant. You can be liberal with it unless you need to save it against a certain deck. It seems like a waste at times, but it's super clutch at others.

 

[aspsnake]

By the way, regarding Crones again, don't you think that Witchers might be more interesting here due to much better survivability vs Scorch and getting extra strength from potions?

 

[s1eepy]

A quick update: Swapping the Fiends out for Griffons has mixed results, but it is sweet sweet justice against Skelliga. It may be worth keeping them once I get better silver units.

 

[lpredrum136]

Today I just met a player with this deck. I still won, but perhaps because he doesn't have good enough cards like Toad etc and I was lucky to draw a lot of medics.

 

[Mr.Win]

This strategy is currently my main one for my monster faction. Works really well and is very effective! Unless the opponent has weather cards, scorch cards, or plays a lot of unit cards then I get screwed over

 

[mundo_nico]

I just try a variation (I don´t have all the cards) of your deck today. Pretty freaking funny I must say.