Elestrals Clash! Early Access - What to Play on Day 1
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Introduction
Elestrals Clash hits Early Access on July 29th, and as someone who has been playing since the release of Beta, I am excited. The client has moved leaps and bounds since the beginning of the Closed Beta between various UI updates, a severe overhaul of the available cards, and a ranking system that many are bound to rush for on Day 1 of Early Access to be the first to the top.
If you’re looking to get to that coveted position, you’ve come to the right place. While Clash is close to the standard card pool, there are some cards that are just simply not available that drastically affect what strategies are playable. On top of that, we’ve got a new banlist that’s going into effect the same day as Early Access start, so the meta will be in a state of upheaval on all ends. Hopefully these suggestions can help parse the coming storm, and to give a diversity of options for you all, we’re going to focus on one option per element, so let’s dive in.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
If Waspivy has 1 supporter, it’s me. If Waspivy has no supporters, I’m dead. I’ve made it no secret that for the longest time, I LOVE playing Waspivy. Well I’m happy to report that with the cards from Firestorm, the deck got a lot better compared to its stagnant status in Moonrise, and that’s primarily thanks to Volcaries Champ. With Volcaries effectively making your Poisoned Tunics free, its far easier to trigger Cyanectar and ascend into Wasp, especially off the back of Argo, which now is a 2 for 2 in terms of raw spirit economy, making your combat trick effectively free and most likely gaining you serious amounts of tempo.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
Shock of all shocks, Fire Artifact is basically all here for Clash with the only major missing link being Ashrabbit. Your goal is the same as it has always been with this deck: use your spirit efficient methods to push heavy amounts of board presence to snowball and take control of a game. Now this particular deck has struggled coming into Early Access namely thanks to Kindleo now being limited, but at 1 it is still searchable with Smoltuga at the end of the day, so it’s not the worst case scenario.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
Admittedly this is a not great idea, but also it’s so funny that it makes up for that fact. While Water’s game plan strategies are a bit lacking in Clash’s card pool, SOMEHOW Glauby Champion made it in without Majesea Champ, so we’re going to roll with it. The main conceit of the deck is you are going to stick Atlantis and force pressure until the opponent can’t do anything about it anymore. This is mainly accomplished through Glauby Champ, who can search either Atlantis to become a 7/10 or for Rise from the Depths if the stadium is already online, allowing you to recover back the Elestral you ascended over. This is an earlier Clash Swolelax brew that I vibe with hard, and I feel you will too.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
I’ll admit, I may be pushing a bit hard with this one, but honestly I just love the bird. This is a modified version of my recent top 32 list from the CardsHQ Open, and a lot has changed. Namely we’ve had to drop the Werepup package and a Hurricane, replacing them with a Titanostrike package, an Arcalith, and PTAs. Is this the most refined version of Volt for the new meta? No. Is it still one of my favorite decks? Absolutely.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
Why fix what isn’t broke? Julian’s Top 4 Pig Terror list from the CardsHQ Open may be missing Monsoon in Clash, but everything else is still intact here. The deck’s game plan is fairly simple, push board pressure via combat. That can mean winning combat with Soarlet to get to Chrysoar or losing combat with Hydrake to get to Penterror, but at the end of the day, you are going to be swinging in for the advantage pushes.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
Leave it to Justin to unveil a new Frost option the very next opportunity after my last article. Bear Bomb is a more recent strategy that aims to turbo through your deck as fast as possible in order to build the 2 card combo of Ursicle and a bear rune. We play the Ursicle to search for whichever option we’re missing (Hibearnation or Ursa Den), play the Ursa Den, Hibear 2 spirits onto it, and use it to cast out Majursa Champ from deck, nuking 2 cards and putting on intense pressure. This is backed up by the Kryovyrn line, which we’ve discussed in my last article. This is a pile that takes some practice to master but can be very rewarding if you put in the time.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
I fully admit, this is the deck that I am the LEAST sold on in the pile, but if Solar is your go to element, I have truly heartbreaking news. Solar isn’t that great in Clash right now. Between the missing key element pieces like the Celestleo line and the remaining Champions of Apollo, Solar’s options are extremely limited. The list you see above is an MG1 list from the Elestrals Discord, and honestly its about as good as you can get with Solar right now, being primarily a Tornadjinn deck alongside an Ethereal toolbox, with Exaltus able to search most options, from Plucky Champ and a Lyre to Lustragon for an endgame boss.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
This might be a little counter intuitive, given that part of the reason the deck had been so good was on the back of the tools that just got limited or banned, but Drakking is still a solid option going into this new space with a little retooling of options. We’ve added in Titanostrike Champ to help with the pesky backrow, Gnawbie to help put on the Lunar pressure, and slightly lightened the backrow load with the looming threat of Hurricane not nearly as prevalent. With many decks looking to win combat reliably once again, Drakking is the perfect option to snowball it in your favor. As a note, I would be suggesting Lunar Aggro in this slot if I could, but with the banning of Lycavoid Champ and no original Lycavoid in Clash, that strategy is just not present.
Main Deck
Spirit Deck
Okay enough fun, lets get down to the real reason most of you are here. The slop pile. So 5s is still probably the best consistent option if you’re looking for the best deck out there, and without a significant overhaul to how card design is pursued, I truly don’t believe that’s changing anytime soon. This list aims to do 1 thing: win combat and snowball. You have 3 different Elestral lines to accomplish that in Soarlet Champ, Gnawbie, and Vysceris, with auxiliary pieces like Titanostrike Champ and Astrabbit to help in the in-between and to clear the way for the others. If you’re simply looking for your day 1 climb deck, this is going to give you the best overall results.
Conclusions
Clash presents us with an opportunity. It is easily one of the most enjoyable online TCG clients I’ve used but has a lot of room left for improvement. With the card pool growing constantly, my list of decks to play is bound to change (it may even change before this goes live depending on what cards get added with Early Access) but that’s part of the fun of it all. I think the biggest benefit of Clash being so accessible for everyone is going to be that you CAN experiment with all sorts of different decks, so I recommend giving all of the lists above a try. Who knows, you might discover a new favorite strategy.
A primer going over the various options when building Frost for the Firestorm metagame, discussing 5 different options for deck building.