Articles

Corey Burkhart

We’re in the thick of the Realm Championship Qualfier season, and I hope everyone is enjoying it. It’s one of my favorite times of the year for trading card games because I’m able to travel to all these different hobby stores and card shops to play. I’m able to meet people from up to hundreds of miles away who love the same game I do, and I am able to get some games in.

One of the classes that I’ve played the most in these Realm Qualifiers over the years has been Warlock. Warlock has been underrepresented in the current Core format, but with the help of the Dungeon Decks, fel-lovers have some tools to work with. I’m not talking about the ability they picked up, but a certain location that I’m really starting to appreciate: Shadowfang Keep. Take a look at this deck that I’ve been working on recently.

Hero: Kalia of Silvermoon

Allies: 36
4 Telor Sunsurge
3 Alecia Hall
3 Jex’ali
3 Obsidian Drudge
4 “Fungus Face” McGillicutty
3 Edwin VanCleef
3 Vanessa VanCleef
1 Anastina, Herald of the Fel
1 Thrall, Warchief of the Horde
4 Mazu’kon
4 Cairne, Earthmother’s Chosen
1 Al’Akir the Windlord
1 Alexandros Mograine
1 Archmage Argual

Abilities: 14
3 Summoning Portal
3 Fel Blaze
3 Fel Summon
3 Fel Covanent
2 Demonic Corruption

Locations: 4
4 Shadowfang Keep

Quests: 4
4 Seeds of Their Demise

The problem with the Warlock class before the Dungeon Decks was the speed. Grand Crusader could kill you before you began killing off their allies. Devout Aurastone Hammer decks would accelerate out their Dulvar, Hand of the Light, or Saurfang the Younger, Kor'kron Warlord before you had the opportunity to destroy their fragile weapon. Now, with the help of Shadowfang Keep, everything is different. You can keep up with and even out-race some of these decks, with a little change to how you use your allies.

Shadowfang Keep requires you to sacrifice one of our in-play allies to essentially gain an additional resource for the turn. Knowing this, you want to already have an ally in play, or you want to make some allies for free. To ensure this, I suggest not playing out allies like Telor Sunsurge and Alecia Hall until the turn before you want to use Shadowfang Keep to power them out. For example, to play an Archmage Argual on turn 7 instead of turn 8, play a Telor Sunsurge on turn 6 along with another ally, ensuring one survives so you can steal their guy with the Archmage. A much simpler and better option to gain a resource is to hold onto any Cairne, Earthmother’s Chosen you draw. What this allows you to do is to “cheat” a resource for the turn by playing ahead of the curve. Normally with this deck I tend to hold onto a Caine, Earthmother’s Chosen to power out a turn three Edwin VanCleef or turn 5 for an amazing turn 5 Thrall, Warchief of the Horde or Mazu’kon to take over the late game, which this deck definitely is great at.

Like most Summoning Portal Warlock decks, this one really wants to go to the late game, and I don't mean like the Ooga Booga Grand Crusader late game. Turn 8 is generally when you start killing people with this deck because of all the awesome powers on your high cost allies. I wasn’t able to pack everyone that I wanted to play in the deck, but I’m packing most of the best allies I could fit in the deck. Anastina, Herald of the Fel, is one of the more obvious inclusions because we have too many allies to play something like Invoke the Nether. You can try and play both, but I’d rather just play a very healthy ally such as Anastina, who I can sacrifice to my Shadowfang Keep later to power out someone like Alexandros Mograine. Speaking of Alexandros, on the surface he looks pretty solid for a seven cost ally, but trust me, he’s even better. The weapon Alexandros makes when he dies alone is worth it enough to include one of this ally in any deck where he can be searched up or accelerated into play.

Cards being destroyed was a big theme of the Twilight of the Dragons set, and it's the same with this deck. When you have a card like Shadowfang Keep, you’re paying a pretty steep price to gain only one resource a turn. Normally, I would be against giving up an ally to get my six cost ally into play, but when that ally has an effect when it is destroyed, I’m way more willing to make that trade. 15 of the total 36 allies in the deck have an effect when they are destroyed, and every one of them is very powerful. The Obsidian Drudges and “Fungus Face” McGillicutty are becoming very common options to deal with the common equipment and abilities of the format. Edwin VanCleef’s destruction effect is actually way better than anticipated, and I cannot stress enough how amazing it is to cheat a five cost ally, in the form of Vanessa VanCleef, into play for free that sometimes also manages to crush an opposing ally. It's also hard to overlook that the two tokens that Edwin makes are great to sacrifice to the Shadowfang Keep. Like Cairne, Earthmother’s Chosen, they’re free resources!

All in all though, nothing beats sacrificing a Mazu’kon. When a Mazu’kon survives the opponent’s turn in this deck it is very difficult to lose because you can hit them for six with the ally himself, and then turn Mazu’kon into a token in order to smash them with that token as well. One ally that you won’t want to sacrifice, but if the opponent tries to kill it you will want to sacrifice the ally it steals, is Archmage Argual. The Argual is pretty amazing. I’ve sacrificed allies he has stolen before to Shadowfang Keep, and I’ve even been looking around for other possible allies to sacrifice or have in the deck to search up with Shadowfang Keep that have a similar benefit.

Before adding Anastina, Herald of the Fel and Vanessa VanCleef to the deck, I was playing with Baron Ashbury and a full set of Timriv the Enforcers to clean up the mid game. In combination with Fel Blaze, Timriv was great to shut down the offense from Grand Crusader, but he was a little slow, and didn’t work on his own. But he still is a very solid option you could work with. Another ally that I haven’t had room for but I really want to try out is Lord Godfrey. I originally cut Godfrey because he doesn’t have an ability when he’s destroyed, and his two attack is really weak for a six cost ally, but he brings a ton of fleshy friends to join the fray at the start of each turn. But again I don’t want to trust my allies living through an opposing turn at turn six. The other big consideration in the deck was Ozumat. In my opinion he’s a great ally, but every time I had a chance to play him there were just betters play I could make like playing a Thrall, Warchief of the Horde. Speaking of Thrall, I did consider playing Thrall, Guardian of the Elements, but never actually tried it out myself.

If you’re daring enough to try out this style of deck for an upcoming RCQ let us know in the forums how the Guardian of the Elements works in this deck.

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