Decks to Play - Clash October Update
Published
After a lack of significant updates in September, we saw a MASSIVE update coming into October, not only bringing 20 new cards to the pool (including some from Lifestream) but also a Clash Exclusive Banlist update, aimed at balancing out the unique card pool compared to the proper TCG. With that in mind, we’ve got a lot to cover today, so let’s hop in.
Banlist Updates
These changes do a ton to the common deck building practices of Clash, so lets break them down into groups:
The Staple Hits
Main Deck
All 5 of these are aimed as hits to the most commonly played cards that appear in most decks on the ladder (with 1 notable exception missing). Astrabbit and Galaxea Champ have been the cornerstone of the Firestorm Metagame, as by sticking a rabbit turn 1 to generate advantage, you can turn it into an offensive threat the following turn with Galaxea Champ, who also doubles as one of the most reliable outs to almost every threat in the game.
Ambrosia, Poison Tipped, and Shield have been staples of the meta since base set, and hits here do promote other options like Altar, Tsunami, and Pandora’s to see more usage in decks as we move forward. Notably Gorgon’s Gaze is a card that you’d expect to be in this same batch, being the most powerful of the staple runes, but the card is going to be FAR more important to the game as we move into Lifestream, being one of the only cards that can stop many of the decks in the upcoming meta, so leaving it at 3 for the time being makes perfect sense.
Stacking the Odds Back to the House
Main Deck
Because of Clash’s limited card pool, there are 3 decks that have specifically become a thorn in many player’s sides, and the first of those is Blizzstrix. Cedarsaur now being at 1 takes most of the burst damage teeth out of the strategy, as you’ll no longer be threatening multiple 6/8 bursters under Mountains off of any given mill. Narpoon to 1 hurts the other side of consistency for both this and the next deck we’ll be talking about, which is a bummer for frost decks in general as there are some interesting directions it can take with the new pieces, but that’s hampered hard with this hit. Still a necessary one though.
Please Defuse Your Bombs
Main Deck
These 2 hits, in combination with the hit to Narpoon, effectively kneecaps the Bear Bomb strategy by neutering its consistency. With the combo pieces now at 1 each, you’re less likely to draw 1 alongside your Ursicle, meaning that you’ll have to spend multiple turns searching the combo on average compared to before. On top of that, Hibear no longer can be used for stabilization as if you do, you’ll lose access to the bomb, taking another tool out of the deck’s arsenal. Narpoon to 1 also hurts here because you’ll mostly have to draw the Ursicles that you want to search with now, which also means that in many cases, a Gorgon’s Gaze on an Ursicle can just end the game on the spot. The deck is still playable, but a much heavier risk than before to be certain.
Taking the Swing Out of Combat
Main Deck
It’s no secret that most of the best Elestrals in the game since Base Set have been those that can snowball advantage off of a single combat victory, and none have been more prolific that Vysceris. Even with its previous semi-limit, Vysceris stood as a power play for most decks thanks to its ability to snowball from 1 5 into 2 6s, which only got stronger with the release of Vysceris FST to take the place of the 3rd Vysceris in your lines. A limit here should completely remove Vysceris from lists outside of decks that can specifically search it, such as Antitan or Rummagem toolboxes, as the risk of drawing the brick first is now far greater.
Soarlet Champ may be newer on the scene that Vysceris, but its advantage pushing is much more unique in that even drawing the brick isn’t much of an issue as its search could always be used on another copy of itself. This is no longer the case, as being at 1 means that it effectively has no benefit of use over the previously popular Gnawbie into Doppelgator line, which I strongly suspect will be making a resurgence off of this hit, though it already was returning thanks to its ability to clear the Bear Bomb after it had gone off.
Impact
Honestly this banlist is bound to shake up the ladder as a whole thanks to kneecapping the most prolific decks on the ladder, and that is bound to bring in a wave of new players once again, which is always a good sight to see. While the game is at this state of not every card being available, a separate banlist is a solid way to keep the game fresh alongside new card additions, and this first set of changes does give me hope that we’ll see strong maintenance on the game moving forward.
New Card Pool Additions
Completely blowing my expectations for what we’d been getting this month out of the water, we’re seeing 20 new cards be added to the pool, including a handful of new cards from Lifestream. The dev team has them sorted into different categories already for us, so lets dive into them one by one:
Shockingly Fun Guys
Main Deck
Starting off strong here, we’ve got the entirety of the new Thunderstorm strategy from Lifestream (plus Sparkitt). Funglow FF1 and Brontoglow – Supercharged form the backbone of a meta strategy that has been theoretical for some time known as 6s, which previously was conceptualized around stockpiling Thunderstorms to spam out a bunch of Brontoglow all at once, but now with a new Thunderstorm card and a better Brontoglow, the deck can finally leave the realm of theory.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
This is my current build for Thunderstorm. Your goal here is to stick a Funglow and follow it up with at least 2 Thunderstorms to generate massive swing advantage with Brontoglow – Supercharged, which thankfully with the new stadium actively refunds its own cast, which is fantastic. Titanostrike MR1 also makes a return here, as its pop effect is now both easier to trigger and is refunded by the Stadium too.
I’d actually consider going up on the stadium counts / adding in Jolten to this list, but so far it has performed well as is. While I do think there’s a better fit in the main deck in place of the Water Pieces and the Arcalith, unfortunately without a specific random card from Lifestream this is the better option. You can also look at replacing some of the water stuff with a Gnawbie / Doppelgator line if you’re so inclined.
Sparkitt Champ is also here, but we’ll cover him in a bit, don’t worry.
Foretellers
Main Deck
Solar received about half of its new support from Lifestream with this batch, and while it is an incredibly powerful batch, Solar is in a bit of a weird spot right now. Because of the holes in the card pool, most of the cards that Solar needs from sets dating back to Daybreak are missing, on top of some of the truly key pieces from Lifestream like Corvishine Champ, but even still we can play a powerful solar comp now thanks to easily their best card from Lifestream: Solar Burst.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
While I do think the Solar deck is powerful, the version that I know will be the most powerful is still not available to us to use. So let’s start with the fact that Solar Burst is one of the best cards in all of Lifestream. I admit that I heavily discounted the card as solely a Mill Solar enabler at first, but in testing this is effectively Earthquake on steroids, and as such any deck that wants to use solar is going to need to play a critical mass of Solar cards to utilize the rune effectively.
Right now, a modified version of the previous Solar Stat Swap deck would be the way to play it, with 4 2 drops that can also enable your Solar Burst to hit higher powered targets. If you’re looking to play Solar on this patch, this is probably the way to go about it. Novacore is an insanely powerful drop, Helialith is still a nuisance to out, and this is one of the only decks that can fully capitalize on the current state of backrow thanks to Guardian of Light.
Speaking of which, you may notice a lack of Ambrosia here, and that is intentional. Between Khafmel, Plucky Champ, and Guardian of Light, you have enough healing to sustain yourself through most bursts, and the need to cycle specific spirits back to utilize a variety of elements isn’t necessary here because of the high solar count. Give it a try and see for yourself just how good a 1 cost Earthquake with upsides can be.
Envoys of Hermes
Main Deck
My favorite cards from Firestorm are FINALLY available in Clash with new support in tow! The Hermes pieces are some of the strongest enablers for a variety of strategies in the game, as I’ve previously covered in my Dissecting Divines video over on Casters Corner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex0xb_9jS9M) and as such there’s multiple directions you can take your Hermes experimentation, but for me, with the lack of Carryoff MR1, there’s only 1 direction on my mind.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
I’ve long been the number 1 supporter of the Hermes Voltempest deck, and honestly with what was added to Clash, this is the BEST possible time to play it. We have the full Hermes line access, including the new Avialith, who is one of the best enablers you could ask for, Sparkitt Champ who gets you your Zeus reliably, and no one’s fully prepared for it as most of the extremely high power strategies are not quite here yet. For those who’ve missed my previous TEDTalks on this strategy, you can use Hermes / Carryon Champ to access Voltempest on turn 1, then back it up with Trickery to insulate it. We’ve also upped our Voltempest counts as with Avialith Champ, we have far more uses of Hermes than we had before, so if we need a turn or 2 to set up pieces, we can always dump a Volt early and threaten a Trickery of Volt into Volt.
Legitimately this is one of the best times I’ve ever seen to pilot this one, so give it a shot before its too late.
(Not So) Hot Ones
Main Deck
I’ve gone on the record that I’m not too excited by these specific cards, and sadly that stays true going into Clash, even with the lower power level. Leonite Champ still loses to Poison Tipped Arrow, there’s no Blazerus available to do the Blazerus OTK deck, and while I do expect that Hestia will have some utility thanks to Spiders creeping in as a rogue level option, I don’t believe that Leonite Champ will be a part of that.
Kindleo Champ on the other hand does seem to have some application for Hestia decks, so I’m not as quick to discount it out of this format, but its going to take a very specific deck to be utilized effectively.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
Full disclosure that I do not believe this deck is going to be the one to do it, but it is a funny one. Kindleo Champ provides a benefit to being a stepping stone up to Flarachne Champ, which in turn is your win condition to sit on her long term. Once again, I do NOT think this is a deck to use right now, but it is a fun 1-2 game play just to try out Kindleo Champ. Regardless, I suggest just skipping this one entirely.
Phrostphall
Main Deck
Giving us Emphrostix Champ before any of the other Khione support is an interesting choice to say the least, but unsurprisingly the Khione deck is just not playable right now, so we’ll skip it for now. Morphrost Terror and Chimera however are a very different story, as they do enable us to do a more powerful dedicated Morphrost strategy now.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
This is a first draft of what that kind of strategy can look like, and while there is a lot of potential in this strategy, it is missing that X factor that will push it over the edge. For the moment though, its an extremely potent swarm deck. Lycan Form gives you access to effectively anything you want in Morphrost, and Khione is here to serve as a recycler for your Lycans and Batts to enable further swarming potential. There’s definitely something here, and while I’m positive this build isn’t the best version it can be, this is an excellent starting point.
Where did this Hopperoo come from
Hopperoo
Admittedly, Hopperoo is not a deck maker on its own, but there is a specific deck that he does enable, so let’s make Log happy and talk about Antitan.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
Admittedly, the Lifestream version of Antitan is currently unusable thanks to Cyanectar Champ and PTA – Artemis’ Arrow being missing, so were effectively playing a modified list from the previous Firestorm version. Many tools have been lost in the limits, but from the ashes we gained Hopperoo, who can tutor up your earth pieces or is, at worst, a 1 damage ping-out. Probably not worth experimenting with until we get the Dionysus pieces if I’m being honest.
Conclusions
This update was massive and gives me hope that we’ll be seeing more updates like it in the future, as we need something like this coming out at least once a month to keep interest in the game. We’ll have to see if the Pixelborn team can deliver on that, but personally I’m hopeful. Happy Casting!
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