The Shifting Metagame
We left the previous season of Constructed tournament play with Control Dash and Midrange/Tall Dorinthea holding court, with Rhinar as solid contender. Rhinar is likely to maintain his position near the top, thanks to new tools from Levia's Brute ties and organic answers to Chane and Prism. However, Dorinthea gained very little from Boltyn's presence in Monarch; Dash wasn't even that lucky, and likely didn't even pick up a generic. Meanwhile, Monarch's new crop of heroes are angling for some time at the top. In particular, Chane and Prism are rapidly developing into top meta contenders.
Why Champion Chane?
It's commonly repeated in TCG circles that aggro decks perform best in a fresh meta. And while a brand new build with lots of decision points isn't quite the mindless and reliable formula conventionally sought for that role, Shadow Runeblade succeeds in places where other aggro decks have come up short.
Historically, aggressive decks have struggled to block while maintaining pressure in the Constructed format. But due to Chane's unique gameplay, he doesn't have that problem. Because he can play cards from the Banish Zone, and because his Soul Shackles feed the Banished Zone each turn, Chane can block with up to three cards, and with a single blue pitch he can still attack two to three times on his turn. This is especially true in the late game, when Chane has four or more Soul Shackles.
Before I present the decklist and dive deep into the cards and matchups, let's take a moment to consider common misplays and misconceptions when it comes to Chane. That way, when we come to any of these cards in the deck discussion below, you'll have the proper understanding of them.
Chane's Hero Ability:
- This is an action with Go Again, so it must be used before you play the card you want to give Go Again.
- That card must be a Runeblade or Shadow card in order to gain the Go Again.
- This ability breaks the chain (ironic right?); therefore any equipment that was blocking goes back to their zones.
- Pace yourself with Soul Shackles! You want to get three as soon as possible, but after that you only want to use the ability if it will have a large impact on your turn. Having too many too early will cause you to deck out in a lot of matchups, while straining your ability to clear your Blood Debt.
- That said, if your opponent is at fifteen or less health, shackle every turn and finish them off!
Dimenxxional Crossroads:
If you read the text carefully, you will notice that, while it's looking for cards to be played out of your Banished Zone, it's checking if you've played that card type already this turn from anywhere. This matters a lot. For instance, if you play Dimenxxional Gateway and banish a Seeds of Agony, then play that Seeds of Agony from the Banish Zone, it will not trigger Dimenxxional Crossroads, due to your having played a non-attack action (in this case, Dimenxxional Crossroads) already in the turn. So be careful when ordering your plays, as the Crossroads damage is key to winning a lot of matchups.
Soul Reaping:
This card is crazy, which is why they gave it the Legendary keyword (1 per deck) and didn't put it in the Runeblade card pool (so Rattle Bones cannot recur it). You will never pay the 6 resources it purports to cost, because you can Banish X cards from your hand instead. For every Blood Debt card you banish this way, you gain 1 resource.
Blood Debt & your Banished Zone:
Don't feel pressured to play every single card with Blood Debt from your Banished Zone every single turn. Sometimes you have a better line of play using cards from your hand. Other times, saving a little bit of Blood Debt for next turn can bring together the pieces for a huge tempo swing, or even Eclipse! The exception, of course, is if you have Dimenxxional Crossroads in play; we want to preserve that card at all costs.
The Decklist
Weapons
- Nebula Blade (1)
- Reaping Blade (1)
Equipment
- Arcanite Skullcap (1)
- Carrion Husk (1)
- Crown of Dichotomy (1)
- Fyendal's Spring Tunic (1)
- Grasp of the Arknight (1)
- Snapdragon Scalers (1)
Loadout
- Art of War (Yellow) (3)
- Bounding Demigon (Red) (3)
- Bounding Demigon (Yellow) (3)
- Dimenxxional Crossroads (Yellow) (3)
- Dimenxxional Gateway (Blue) (3)
- Eclipse (Blue) (1)
- Enlightened Strike (Red) (2)
- Fate Foreseen (Red) (3)
- Fate Foreseen (Yellow) (3)
- Ghostly Visit (Red) (3)
- Ghostly Visit (Yellow) (3)
- Guardian of the Shadowrealm (Red) (2)
- Invert Existence (Blue) (3)
- Mauvrion Skies (Yellow) (2)
- Mauvrion Skies (Blue) (3)
- Meat and Greet (Red) (3)
- Razor Reflex (Red) (2)
- Remembrance (Yellow) (1)
- Rift Bind (Red) (3)
- Seeds of Agony (Red) (3)
- Seeds of Agony (Yellow) (3)
- Seeds of Agony (Blue) (3)
- Shadow Puppetry (Red) (3)
- Shadow of Ursur (Blue) (3)
- Soul Reaping (Red) (1)
- Unhallowed Rites (Red) (2)
- Vexing Malice (Yellow) (2)
- Vexing Malice (Blue) (3)
Strategy
Constructed is all about pacing yourself and efficiently blocking while still outputting a lot of damage. Chane does this through his ability to play cards from the Banished Zone. Your goal is to get to three Soul Shackles as early as possible, then stay around three to five until the opponent is at fifteen or less life. At that point you can just start Soul Shackling every turn to feed your Banished Zone and finish them off.
Card Choices
Many of the cards on the list need no explanation. They are simply the nuts and bolts that hold the machine together, uninteresting in and of themselves. But let's examine a few of the main pillars and cards of interest.
As a Legendary, Eclipse is the card everyone wants to pull off. This deck isn't build around summoning Ursur, but it definitely can. For most of the game, Eclipse is simply a blue pitch; but if it gets banished along the way, you can set up for a turn to pull it off. All it takes is three or four Blood Bebt cards in the Banished Zone and two or three in hand. The easiest way to do this is to leave some in the Banished Zone. Taking some Blood Debt life loss is worth the payoff of this card.
While many have been critical of the value of Ursur, my testing has shown it to be pretty impressive. The reasoning is this: on the turn you pull it off, you almost certainly forced your opponent to block with most of all of their cards across your 6 Blood Debt actions. This makes their next turn pretty lackluster, and most likely they won't be able to kill Ursur. If they didn't block, then they took a bunch of damage, which is also great for your aggressive gameplan. And now they'll most likely spend their turn killing Ursur, giving you a turn with a full hand of cards. Its a win-win situation.
Art of War has always been on the cusp of being very strong, but in Chane it is astonishing. All of the options are useful in the deck. If you have plenty of Go Again on your turn, the +1 helps deal more chip damage. If you are lacking Go Again, then the second option is an obvious choice. Banishing an attack action to draw two is effectively card advantage, due to the fact that the card you banish is most likely playable from the Banish Zone. In any case, you're looking at a turn with huge damage output.
I honestly think Dimenxxional Crossroads is the most important card in the deck. We are all about dealing chip damage over the course of the game, and Crossroads does the majority of it. Crossroads also triggers your arcane damage effects, and is a non-attack action with Go Again. On a turn starting from no Runechants on board, you can pitch two blues for Grasp of the Arknight, Dimenxxional Crossroads, and Nebula Blade for a simple and solid combo that sets you up well for next turn.
Shadow Puppetry does everything you want: it's free to play, it's a non-attack action for Runeblade combos, and it tricks out any attack action with Go Again, +1 attack, and an on hit effect that, as Chane sees it, functionally draws a card. (All banish effects are essentially card advantage to Chane.) Combo'ing Puppetry into Enlightened Strike for 8, or 6 with a card draw, is one of the best plays you can make- closely followed by Puppetry into Soul Reaping! Good non-attack action Go Again enablers are important to steal momentum with three, four, or five attacks.
I'm completely serious when I say that Unhallowed Rites is one of the most important attacks in the deck. The conditions required to play it from the Banished Zone can occasionally stymie you, but it doesn't come up often. Its payoff is worth that annoyance, as recurring Seeds of Agony is priceless.
It took me a little while to see the potential in Dimenxxional Gateway, but now I wouldn't play without it. It does three important things for the deck. First, it deals Arcane Damage, which can trigger cards like Meat and Greet and Piercing Shadow Vice. Second, it's a Non-Attack Action, which enables the use of Unhallowed Rites and Bounding Demigon from the Banished Zone (as well as triggering Nebula Blade). Finally, it banished a card, adding it to Chane's options for the turn.
Shadow of Ursur's ability to banish a card from hand is surprisingly useful, especially for cards like Bounding Demigon which gets a +1 when played from the Banish Zone.
Invert Existence is amazing, but due to some decks not running both of the card types it's trying to banish (attack actions or non-attack actions), it maintains its place as a sideboard card. Its main uses are for causing extra Blood Debt damage versus Shadow heroes, dealing Arcane damage at instant speed, and banishing annoying cards in response to them being recycled. Notably, if Azalea has a cult following in your area, you can prevent her getting back Remorseless, Sleep Dart, or Red in the Ledger with Memorial Grounds.
Matchups
The information requested of me the most is matchup strategy and how to sideboard, so let's do a deep dive into the matchups with the predicted meta.
Chane Mirror:
+3 Invert Existence
+3 Yellow Fate Foreseen
-2 Guardian of the Shadowrealm
+1 Crown of Dichotomy
Depending on the version of Chane the opponent is playing, your playstyle against them might change. The main strategy here is to win the race by having more effcient turns and distrupting theirs. The way to do that is with Invert Existence; playing Invert when they are out of Action Points but before the end of the turn causes them to both take the Arcane damage as well as additional Blood Debt life loss. Also, by dealing damage to them on their turn, you can destroy their Dimenxxional Crossroads.
Prism:
+2 Remembrance
Depending how the Prism has built their deck and sideboarded, they could vary greatly on their game plan. Some will be very defensive and try to get you to fatigue, which is where the Remembrance comes in. If they are going with a more trade-oriented plan, knowing you don't have attacks with six or more attack, then your sole focus is to block efficiently and attack as hard as you can. Prism is hand-hungry, desiring to get two big Phantasm attacks per turn- so if you can get them to block with one or two cards, their damage output is reduced significantly.
Dorinthea:
+3 yellow Fate Foreseen
-1 Eclipse
+1 Carrion Husk
From the previous season, Dorinthea is one of the top two strongest decks. But luckily for us, we have a great matchup against her. That's mainly due to Carrion Husk and being just as aggressive on damage as she is. Carrion Husk gives you a free turn at any point in the game to steal the momentum, usually when they are at twenty or less health. You get to beat her at her own game, which feels great- but you still need to block efficiently. My go-to strategy is as follows: I won't block any Dawnblade attacks for 3-6 with no Go Again. This forces them to use a Glint without Reprise or their once-per-game Refraction Bolters to get the second attack. Then you can more easily block the second attack, or just take it and hit them even harder on your turn. Even when Dawnblade has Go Again, if you have a really strong hand, just take it all and don't give them Reprise bonuses. But while Steelblade Supremecy is in play, block like your life depends on it!
Dash:
+1 Remembrance
-2 Guardian of the Shadowrealm
+1 Reaping Blade
This is a favorable matchup for you, as your go wide strategy drains cards from their hand, making it hard for them to keep up and still keep a blue pitch in hand. They might try to fatigue you, which is why I toss in a Remembrance.
Rhinar:
+1 Carrion Husk
Go hard in the early game, and if you notice they are turtling up then start slowing down and play for the chip damage. Use Husk to steal momentum in the mid- to late-game.
Bravo:
+2 Remembrance
+1 Reaping Blade
Overall, Bravo presents a somewhat tough matchup, but with Remembrance you will usually not get to fatigue. Reaping Blade, of course, does a lot of work by preventing healing.
Levia:
+3 Invert Existence
+1 Carrion Husk
Use Invert Existence to mess up their graveyard banish turns or to just get blood debt cards in their Banished Zone during your turn. Use Carrion Husk to steal momentum in the mid- to late-game. Other than that, just hit them hard every turn you can.
Katsu:
+2 yellow Fate Foreseen
-2 Guardian of the Shadowrealm
Flik Flak is very strong against you. If they are going defensive with Katsu, just pace yourself and try to win through chip damage and Dimenxxional Crossroads. If they are playing an aggro Katsu, you have to race them while blocking very efficiently because they can just shuck Flik Flaks at you on their turn.
Ranger is as close as it gets to a counter to Chane. Sleep Dart, Remorseless, and especially Red in the Ledger are all very strong against him. Recurring those attacks with Memorial Grounds makes life miserable. Lucky for you, they tend to be more midrange, so your aggressive gameplan puts a ton of pressure on them. Use Invert Existence to get rid of those nasty attack actions (even if you have to banish two of them and miss out on dealing arcane damage) and Carrion Husk to block a big dominate attack.
In conclusion...
Chane is a very strong contender in the new Monarch Constructed meta due to his strong inherent mechanics and solid matchups against the top decks currently in the format. Like the shadows he's bound to, Chane is very flexible in both how you build him and how you play him. Enjoy testing the new addition to the Runeblade class and let's prove his power together!
