The Latest in Sandscour: Updating with the Armory Deck

Dynasty's marvel majestics are by and large regarded as novelties, but Sandscour Greatbow continues to hold strong as the most valuable of the lot - and for good reason. While not nearly as mainstream as Azalea's signature Death Dealer, the Sandscour Greatbow has continued to develop under the guidance of enthusiastic fans of its unique playstyle.

It's been 3 months since the last time I shared my list from the Pro Quest season, and since that time I took it to the Calling in Minneapolis. I opened strong with a win into Kano followed by a decisive win into Enigma, but from there I unfortunately paired into Riptide (fatigue), Nuu (wisely pivoted to fatigue), and Victor (fatigue) who all exploited the one gameplan I'd failed to solve in time and hoped the fresh Mistveil meta would have eliminated for me. While I was there, I was delighted to find I was not the only Sandscour Azalea in Minneapolis - and one had even made Day 2 of U.S. Nationals!

Following Minneapolis, I set aside Azalea for a bit to give my locals a break from the oppressive control they'd endured for months of testing. (Nuu is quickly becoming a favorite of mine, and Mara Faris reignited my love for Dash I/O, so I've been putting both through the paces.) But with Azalea's new Armory Deck come a suite of tools for aim-focused decklists like Sandscour, and I've got a fresh build ready to make the most of it.

Part the Mistveil hit the FAB world like a wrecking ball, completely rebuilding the meta after the steady numbers game that was Heavy Hitters. Prior to Mistveil, Death Dealer Azalea had been enjoying the spotlight, racking up Living Legend points in a way she'd never managed before. But the new Mystic heroes all represented rough matchups for Death Dealer - not enough to put the bow on ice, but enough to cool off the hype surrounding her. Even Brodie Spurlock opted for Zen at Pro Tour: Amsterdam.

But with Sandscour in hand, Azalea actually sees the Mistveil meta as relatively favorable. Red in the Ledger is one of the best counters to Zen in the entire game, and Sandscour gets to fire it more than Death Dealer does. Enigma's auras fall prey to Murkmire Grapnel. Battering Bolt can destroy Nuu's reaction- and instant-heavy hands. And the predominance of blues in all of their decks makes Barbed Undertow an easy call.

All of these arrows are available to Death Dealer Azalea as well, but Sandscour Azalea is all about finding the best arrow for the matchup and firing it repeatedly. Sandscour is a control deck, and if we're doing it right, our opponents never play a turn without us dictating the terms.

Of the three, Nuu is our hardest matchup, especially when our opponent is both capable of playing for fatigue and savvy enough to realize that's what they should be doing. Nuu takes advantage of our poor blocking - we focus on proactive defense through disruption, rather than the reactive defenses Nuu asks for - and many of our arrows don't impact her as much as we'd like. In the Nuu matchup, I recommend taking a slightly more aggressive posture, racing while also ensuring we land enough buffs to ensure they can't block out our dominated arrows.

It might be tempting to look to improve this matchup with generic tech like The Weakest Link, but our arrow synergies are so central to our play patterns that there's just no room for them. Trust the plan, and depend on the inherent strength of arrow disruption.

MST did give us one new card for the deck, but its role isn't immediately obvious. Prismatic Leyline is a yellow-pitch 3-block buff, which is already a rarity in the card pool. While it may look like a card whose value is locked to a go-wide strategy in a deck with more variety in its attack cycles, the true value comes in its real-world role during the game. The first time you see a Prismatic Leyline, it's a pitch card; this deck can usually run a full turn off a yellow pitch, and in games that go long, we're often starved for buffs in the second cycle. You know what else gets sent to the bottom the first time you see it? Blue arrows, which we're including in the deck solely for pitch fuel and to fulfill the arrow tag required to load our bow before activating Azalea to load a better arrow. In other words, the first cycle of the game organically sees our blues aligning with our Leylines, so that when we have to resort to firing a blue Infecting Shot, we're getting 6-7 damage out of it. And if that blue is a Bolt'n' Shot, we may even get a 2nd buff on a follow-up red arrow that really matters.

Not every Sandscour player likes the Leyline package - there's actually a fair amount of variety between builds - but in my eyes, it's part of the answer to the challenge that is fatigue, and completely indispensable.

Aim counters are one of the unique advantages of Sandscour Greatbow. While any Azalea can pay to add aim counters to arrows via Crow's Nest, Sandscour just gives them to us for free whenever an arrow goes from the top of our deck into arsenal. In practice, this - combined with our desire for dominate - led to a play pattern where we seldom wanted to fire arrows from hand (or worse yet, carried over from a prior turn). That changes with the Armory Deck.

Any conversation about the equipment found in this precon has to start with Sharp Shooters. I can say without controversy that this is a must-play equipment going forward - at last Bull's Eye Bracers has been dethroned! (Though they're still on the list for Arcane Barrier.) While an arrow loaded via Sharp Shooters still lacks dominate, it does come out with an aim counter, meaning we can play Judge, Jury, Executioner or Barbed Undertow from hand. Top it off with battleworn 1 for a bit of armor blocking that doesn't cost us our effect, and we have a new gold standard for the arms slot.

Similarly, I'm wildly enthusiastic about the upgrade that Flight Path represents from Snapdragon Scalers. While slightly limited by the requirement of an aim counter, the addition of battleworn 1 is well worth it - already I was defaulting to Perch Grapplers over Snapdragon Scalers simply for added block. Meeting in the middle with both block and free go again, Flight Path can save us a sideboard slot and give us that critical attack pattern pivot that can convert a 5- or 6-card offensive turn into a true powerhouse. 

If I have one controversial choice on this list, it's the complete replacement of Fyendal's Spring Tunic with Hidden Agenda. Feel free to keep Tunic in your sideboard if it makes you feel better, but my reasoning is this:

1. Both represent insurance policies against our hand coming up short of our needs for the turn. 
2. We have a fairly generous pitch curve already, and seldom need excess resources to make it work.
3. Tunic counters can sit for multiple turns waiting for a hand where I actually need that extra resource - and often when I do use it, the benefit is incremental and I had other options available to me.
4. Meanwhile, Hidden Agenda solves an entirely different problem: the facedown arrow, stuck that way either because I put it in arsenal at the end of my last turn or loaded it from Codex of Frailty. We lack ways to turn that card face-up, so the go-to play has been to Azalea that facedown card into a fresh topdeck.
5. Hidden Agenda also frees up one more sideboard slot by allowing us to drop Trench of Sunken Treasure, our 2nd Arcane Barrier equipment.

All told, this is a compelling argument to me, and I'm sticking my neck out for Hidden Agenda.

The two new actions from the Armory Deck also made it into the mainboard: Line It Up and Stone Rain. The former is the latest yellow-pitch buff that blocks for 3, which at this point are instant inclusions for Sandscour. It once again solves for facedown arrows, with the added benefit of adding an aim counter.

As for the latter, Stone Rain gives us our first arrow with dominate outside of Azalea's ability. Our deck absolutely loves dominate, as it's yet another way of controlling our opponents' choices; paired with a universally-disruptive on-hit (rare for a 0-cost arrow), this card skips the sideboard and goes right into the core. 

If you don't know this by now, Sandscour Azalea has been a passion project of mine. It plays exactly how I want Azalea to play: precise, intentional, controlling. It's also a niche deck without mainstream support, which speaks to my cute instincts as a gamer. You can expect to see continued updates on Sandscour Azalea here at the Rathe Times, but you can also approach me with questions on Discord (we have a Rathe Times Discord here, and I'm also on the main Flesh and Blood fan server as @saturnflight - Rathe Times).