Armory Decks at Home: Vynnset

Welcome to the second installment of the Armory Deck at Home series, where I will be designing custom Armory Decks for the heroes of Flesh and Blood. Each deck will be limited to a budget of $60, balanced alongside LSS’ official Armory Decks, and built to introduce new and experienced players alike to their next hero. For this installment, I’ll be featuring the Shadow Runeblade hero Vynnset, Iron Maiden.

Runeblade is a deep and complex class that introduces players to the nuances of sequencing and storing power for later spike turns. Runeblades are the perfect blend of physical might and arcane prowess; by melding together attack and non-attack action cards, they can output the best offensive and defensive value in the game. However, they require stringent conditions to play out their turns. This means that one bad draw or piece of well-timed disruption can ruin their gameplan. Runeblades will win the game by building up to a massive turn where they throw an overwhelming amount of physical and arcane damage that the opponent simply cannot block.

I’ve selected Vynnset over the other Runeblades for her flavorful mechanics, low barrier to entry, and unique play patterns. Vynnset’s gameplay is built around using her hero ability to banish attacks with runegate from her hand to create a runechant, then attacking with the runegate attack for free - provided she has runechants equal to the attack’s cost. Many of our runegate effects get stronger or gain additional benefits if we were able to self-damage ourselves. The easiest way to do this is through Vynnset’s hero ability, which allows us to take 1 damage when we play a Shadow non-attack action (NAA) card. Vynnset has to strike a balance between consistency and building towards her power turns where she attacks with two runegate cards in the same turn. Let’s get into the decklist to see how we are accomplishing this.

Let’s start with what starts in play. Our equipment suite is designed to maintain consistency in the list and help enable our powerful, double runegate turns. Flail of Agony and Vexing Quillhand give us ways of making runechants, with flail also being able to self-damage and turn on the extra effects from our runegate attacks. Sutcliffe’s Suede Hides can give an attack go again, Ebon Fold will help put two runegate cards into our banished zone, and Aether Ironweave will give us the resources necessary to throw a runegate attack from hand if we can’t get it into the banished zone. Since Flail is one-handed and we don’t need two, we run Bloodied Oval to provide a little more armor block. 

Much of the learning curve of this deck will lie in when you use your equipment for maximum impact in the match. Use it too early, and you may not have your consistency piece to finish the game; wait too long, and you may fall too far behind for it to matter.

Our turns will always begin by banishing a card from our hand. We want to target our attack action cards as often as possible as each of them are playable from the banish zone. Our 2-cost runegate attacks are Vantom Wraith, Deathly Delight, and Widespread Ruin. These are the main attacks in the list, since they require the least amount of runechants and are often the second runegate attack in a turn. Use them to provide consistent pressure against your opponent.

Our 3-cost runegates require more runechants, but provide much more powerful effects. Deathly Wail is the only card we run three copies at each color of because of its ability to generate runechants. It will either generate the runechants we need for our next attack in our double-runegate turn or provide us with the runechants we need to make sure we can attack next turn. Widespread Destruction will banish the arsenal of each player that took damage, providing some very real disruption to the list.

Our last runegate attack is Widespread Annihilation, which is the most difficult attack to throw since it needs 4 runechants! However, it has the strongest effect as when the combat chain closes: it will banish a card from the opponent’s hand. In the list, I also have Bounding Demigon and Shadow of Ursur. Both are playable from blood debt without needing runechants, making them important pieces for off turns. Shadow of Ursur has the added benefit of being able to fill our banished zone, and is most often played in the middle of our double runegate turn. Beseech the Demigon exists as a way to pump up any of our attack action cards and activate Vynnset’s self-damage ability to guarantee our attack’s effects get maximum value.

Now that we know what attacks we have, let’s go over how to make the runechants we need to throw them. This list runs Deadwood Dirge, red and yellow Malefic Incantation, and Read the Runes to generate the critical mass of runechants needed to make the deck work. Deadwood Dirge gives us very efficient 2-card hands by turning one runechant into three for most of our runegate attacks. Malefic Incantation, on the other hand, can only provide one runechant a turn - but does so after we throw an attack. That runechant can be carried into the next turn, allowing us to play higher cost runegate attacks, or used to fuel our second runegate attack. 

Read the Runes stands apart as more of a set up card. It is best used to stack runechants against blue heavy decks. It’s often best practice to make sure you have a runechant going into the next turn. This does two things: first, it allows you to block with three cards while still attacking with a 2-cost runegate, and it gives us access to Reduce to Runechants for free - which blocks four damage and makes a runechant.

I’ve mentioned multiple times now how important go again is to this list, but in reality we’re only running nine cards that give our attacks go again. Red and yellow Mauvrion Skies are the main source of go again that also give us some extra runechant generation on hit. You can use these runechants to fuel a second runegate, or simply leave them to carry over into the next turn. Our other source of go again is Shadow Puppetry, which gives +1 power and the ability to banish the top of our deck on hit in addition to go again, helping us find that second runegate attack.

We also run some interesting 1-of cards which provide some fun play patterns around runechants. Runeblood Incantation provides additional consistency by generating a runechant at the start of the next three turns. Requiem for the Damned is a Shadow non-attack action card with blood debt that makes an Eloquence token. In this list, it will primarily be used as a way to give Read the Runes go again. Because it can be cast at instant speed, it provides lots of tricks.

Finally, we have the Vynnset specialization: Oblivion. With six runechants, Vynnset opens a portal to iArathael and summons Nasreth, the Soul Harrower! With Nasreth on our side, we have a way to attack for 6 each turn that doesn’t pop runechants. Now, every turn can be a double runegate turn with the added benefit of letting runechants carry over into the next turn so we can do it all over again. Or we can use our whole hand to block and still attack for six! This is so powerful that opponents will often spend their entire turn attacking to kill Nasreth, giving us the space to set up another burst turn. You can get to six runechants by stacking Malefic Incantations, so you make a lot of runechants after a Deathly Wail attack or by taking an off turn to play Read the Runes.

The lack of arcane barrier in official Armory Decks makes matchups one-sided in the favor of Vynnset. To balance the playing field, the decklist comes with a set of nullrune equipment in your inventory that you can hand out to anyone who you happen to play against without arcane barrier. Because each runechant deals one arcane damage, each opposing hero will only need one piece of nullrune equipment to efficiently prevent Vynnset’s arcane damage.

Go First to set up runechants, get a runegate in banish, and/or arsenal a go again piece.

Be Wary of breaking your equipment too early. You’ll need it for big turns to take the tempo and push for lethal.

Stay at a Higher Life Total to leverage Vynnset’s self-damage clause to maximize the effects of your runegate cards.

Avoid Pitching to maximize the value from each hand. If you have to pitch, make sure you're fully utilizing all of your pitch with equipment abilities.

I hope this decklist proves useful and informative to anyone looking to get into Runeblade, the Shadow talent, or introduce their friends and community members to the World of Rathe. I’ve enjoyed making this decklist and I plan on making more in the future. If you want to see more from me you can catch my work on the Pitch It To Me Podcast where my co-hosts and I discuss the past, present, and future of Flesh and Blood Design. You can follow us @pitchittomepodcast on Bluesky, Instagram, Youtube, and our website: pitchittomepodcast.com.