Syndicate Salamandra self-poison decks

[Messyr]

I'm wondering, was there anyone successful to build a working (or rather competitive) Salamandra self-poison deck so far this expansion?

This was one of the more interesting ideas in my opinion, with or without the memey Salamander board wipe combo - however, nobody seems to play it at all. Zero Salamandra decks on ladder, even the streamers seem to avoid it for now.

I was giving it multiple tries, but something seems missing - like one key card that would link the others and would enable this to be efficient. Lots of useful and creative cards, but compared to the amount of management and control this requires the points just don't seem to be there. The factions prime card Fallen Rayla has potential, but does not support this concept at all directly (I know it CAN work with veil, but quite honestly, the Salamander combo is not something that you can reliably achieve on ladder).
I'm having success against Viy ironically, but almost any deck with some control can disrupt the concept effectively. At the end of the day, every poison applied to an ally is one less landing on a potential kill target.

I'm very sad to admit that this concept (with these tools to support it) seems to be a miss in this expansion so far.

- If - for example - the Location card could move up to 3 poisons with it's order ability, it would be more viable as a tactic.
- What is also missing in my opinion is a unit that auto-poisons other units that are placed next to it - this sort of self poison would enable the deck to direct at least a good portion of it's poison applications to enemies instead while keeping allied units poisoned simultaneously.

How do you see this? Any success with this archetpye?

 

[DRK3]

I havent played much in ranked, but on casual i hardly ever find it - i think NR and SY are the least played factions for now, although that doesnt necessarily mean they're the worse.

Clearly this self poison archetype is a bit trickier to pull off than most decks, that's one reason.
Also, i think Fallen Rayla is not that good, and 2 of the 4 new SY bronzes are trash, the good ones are the self poison ones.

I have played it a bit but to be honest, i saw the self poison deck be played better by the few others i faced that were running it, and i learned from them.
For example i was using Freakshow to kill my salamander so i could Renew it, but its way more efficient to just use that bronze that kills one of your own units/artefacts and gives you coins.

Also, i think its best to play for enemy poisons on R1, self poisons on early R3 then finish it off with salamander wipe.
Those self poison bronzes that purify themselves are the best, since they can survive the double salamander which is done at the end of a round, they even get bigger with it.

Finally, i disagree completely with your suggestion for the location card, its probably the best of all location order abilities, its basically a Maraal that cant be countered (unless they heatwave it, which is unlikely), if you do the double salamander, this order ability will also let you kill the enemy unit played between salamander turns.

 

[ThorgerWolff]

I had marginal succes with a Igor the Hook - Abomination combo with the location. Before the WoW expansion I've played selfpoison decks with the addict, trafficker, redanian, fisstech and/or hounds and had similar succes. This meta shifted towards NG in the end and it always carries poison cards which is unfortunate for SY selfpoison decks.

Maybe more veil? I personally think the Salamander - Syanna/Renew - Bleinheim - Rayla decks are slow tempo and very bleedable. I also think the synergy with Off the books leader ability is off, especially Rayla.

I both agree with OP and DRK3 about the location. A) i agree with DRK3 that it has that Maraal power and Salamander synergy. B) I also agree with OP, the card ability could use a boost or the whole archetype of selfpoison needs some better bronzes with veil possibilities. Well the location can kill the salamander, that's ok.

I don't like the Lackeys, should be more like 'give boost to unit, bonded: give veil' or something similar. Or boost like townsfolk, jajaja!

The non-mage mages tribute 3 instead of 4? I like the row damage part.

The failed experiment, nomen est omen. Maybe with tatterwing, like procession and tatterwing?

I do like the Salamandra Abomination bronze and Stolen mutagens has veil option, maybe veil gets coins too instead of boost?.

The artwork is sweet!


On syndicate:

Why does Pirate Cove leader ability draw Sea Jackal which has hoard synergy?

Why does Ferko have to be a crownsplitter, just like Bloody good friends, this doesn't Collude well.

 

[plastiq33]

Ive been playing the renew version with salamander and oddly enough I have no problems with tempo round 1 but a bunch of trouble drawing all of my combo pieces for round 3. I definitely think that there is a way to do make this archetype work without trying to wipe the entire board but no one has figured it out yet. Also nilfgaard being popular on the ladder makes this worse by association but I have won a couple games against them.

 

[Messyr]

Ive been playing the renew version with salamander and oddly enough I have no problems with tempo round 1 but a bunch of trouble drawing all of my combo pieces for round 3. I definitely think that there is a way to do make this archetype work without trying to wipe the entire board but no one has figured it out yet. Also nilfgaard being popular on the ladder makes this worse by association but I have won a couple games against them.

I'm afraid this is not really about "not being able to find it out". Fact is, everything the self poison deck does (if we do not count the exodia board wipe combo) is done better one way or another by another deck variant. The idea is fine, the pieces of the puzzle are good, but it is like you would by missing the final 20% of those pieces. The deck has potential, but is just not fleshed out at this point.

 

[DRK3]

Ive been playing the renew version with salamander and oddly enough I have no problems with tempo round 1 but a bunch of trouble drawing all of my combo pieces for round 3. I definitely think that there is a way to do make this archetype work without trying to wipe the entire board but no one has figured it out yet. Also nilfgaard being popular on the ladder makes this worse by association but I have won a couple games against them.

Salamander is infamous for its double versions, that result in a board nuke - the Syanna version and the Renew version.
But there's the single Salamander version too, which i believe its the one the devs team envisioned when making the card, and its the boring version:

Use single poison cards (SY has at least 6, plus the neutral ones), then use Salamander to finish them off at once. There is the risk of them being purified, but only Kalkestein and Siegfried can do several purifies at once, its unlikely. Its more risky to do this vs MO due to consumes.

This strategy works well vs decks that only play single units each turn, which there arent too many in the current meta, hence why its kinda weak.

 

[plastiq33]

Ive had some success with this homebrew self poison deck, try it out and let me know what you folks think.

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It took all the self restraint I had to not include the fisstech addicts but I needed another spender/ way to gain coins.

 

[plastiq33]

This is a copy paste from a post I made on reddit.

Ive been messing with self poison a lot this season and I am convinced that it only needs a few tweaks to make it competitive. I've noticed some anti-synergy between some of the cards in the archetype and I thought wretched addict in particular doesn't really make sense to include in the decks. The main reason is that the benefit of self poison is not it puts out a lot of points (which it can) or that it has some great control tools like using salamandra hideout to reflect a poison back at your nilfgaard enemy but that if your enemy is playing poison there are lots of cards that you actually don't care if they get poisoned. For example I'll put Roland behind by azar scarab defenders and in lots of cases nilfgaard players will only be able to poison the beetles, which gives me coins every turn. In the case of wretched addict this is not the case, you only get benefit from it when it is poisoned and if it is poisoned once you get no benefit at all. The fact that this card will die after you use a salamander also makes it kind of useless in this archetype. My thoughts behind this redesign is that it gives you a benefit even if it gets poisoned by either you or your opponent and that it gives self poison another way to get coins which helps set up for your salamander. Also, it is more lore friendly because an addict doesn't exactly get stronger from being addicted but they will do whatever they can to keep buying and so you will get money from them. Its a minor tweak but as I said I think self poison just needs some minor tweaks to be competitive.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

On syndicate:

Why does Pirate Cove leader ability draw Sea Jackal which has hoard synergy?

When Pirate Cove was launched CDPR explained that they wanted to make the game more linear, and for the players who don't understand how to play this game there is an autopilot option to spend coins at the end of a round.

 

[DRK3]

This is a copy paste from a post I made on reddit.

Ive been messing with self poison a lot this season and I am convinced that it only needs a few tweaks to make it competitive. I've noticed some anti-synergy between some of the cards in the archetype and I thought wretched addict in particular doesn't really make sense to include in the decks. The main reason is that the benefit of self poison is not it puts out a lot of points (which it can) or that it has some great control tools like using salamandra hideout to reflect a poison back at your nilfgaard enemy but that if your enemy is playing poison there are lots of cards that you actually don't care if they get poisoned. For example I'll put Roland behind by azar scarab defenders and in lots of cases nilfgaard players will only be able to poison the beetles, which gives me coins every turn. In the case of wretched addict this is not the case, you only get benefit from it when it is poisoned and if it is poisoned once you get no benefit at all. The fact that this card will die after you use a salamander also makes it kind of useless in this archetype. My thoughts behind this redesign is that it gives you a benefit even if it gets poisoned by either you or your opponent and that it gives self poison another way to get coins which helps set up for your salamander. Also, it is more lore friendly because an addict doesn't exactly get stronger from being addicted but they will do whatever they can to keep buying and so you will get money from them. Its a minor tweak but as I said I think self poison just needs some minor tweaks to be competitive.View attachment 11166911

Players have been complaining how SY is weak and how bad is self-poison...
These players are too used to autopilot metadecks, and probably never tried self poison BEFORE WotW.
Self Poison might not be great, but its way better and more viable (although much harder to pilot than most decks) than it was before that expansion, and that translates to the cards.

Like you said, wretched addict is just awful, and the new self poison units are better in every way, no reason to include addict anymore. And using the defender with self poison is great, specially because NG which is the most control heavy faction with locks and Yen Invo, will struggle the most against the scarabs protecting your key cards, and also count for salamandra units in the salamander ability.

So yeah, addict should definitely be buffed/changed in the upcoming patch.

 

[ThorgerWolff]

Love the nice buffs to Mme Luiza, the lackeys and the salamandra mages. I didnt try the rayla, experiment and abomination yet, any luck?

I don't understand kurt's bounty for lock alter, will this be for an upcoming update with more bounty?

 

[Madlax1992]

The reason why self-poison is not necessarily crap, but rather underwhelming is 1) NG Poison 2) A lackluster bronze/gold package which needs a few tweaks to properly synergize and 3) It requires way too much setup and even with a proper setup, it is very binary.

BushR made a few videos with SY self-poison in combination with Syanna and the amount of setup needed to actually win a game with this archetype is unreasonable. Even for a meme deck it is frustrating. The Renew alternative for Salamander is not any better. This archetype lacks consistency and as such, you won't get to see many people playing it, unless they wish to experiment or try something new/different. It could become better, but it needs not only a rework of old self-poison cards, but also an influx of new, a couple of more bronzes/golds so that you have better and more varied options to properly build around this archetype.

Gellert-Roland combo compliments itself. Salamander is a decent but binary finisher. The Hideout is definitely great, but will remain forever unused if the archetype remains as it is. Failed Experiment and Salamandra Abomination are good bronzes, but not enough to carry the archetype alone. Stolen Mutagens (Blue) is good too. Fisstech Trafficker and Mutated Hounds were used in a few SY decks that relied on poison for control. The first would be good in self-poison, the other would work best against the opponent IMO. Wretched Addict is crap and Back-Alley Chemist could make a good combo with Abomination (poison +2 boost which is not bad for a 4p card - can play for 8!).

 

[ThorgerWolff]

I miss SY lock card ...

 

[plastiq33]

Just wanted to throw it out there that with a) NG ball decks not being very meta and b) the wretched addict buff the self poison decks feel really good right now. Been playing the most recent deck posted by spyroza and while it definitely isn't tier 1 it feels great to play and has a lot of interesting tool to go toe-to-toe with most meta decks. Give self poison another shot if you have tried it in the past and haven't had success with it.