The Showstopper (Part 1)

Guardian is a patient class. We wait for the perfect opportunity to swing the tempo in our favor, gaining value through persistent auras and swinging in with massive dominated attacks with disruptive effects when the time is right.

Today, I'm presenting a toolbox build, with many different tools you can swap in for different matchups to create a more streamlined and tailored strategy. Unlike Blitz, where the Ira matchup is a nightmare, Guardian doesn’t have a truly awful matchup in Classic Constructed- making it a great class for players willing to put in the reps and learn the ins and outs of each matchup.

We build around the 3/3/3 concept. MOST cards in the deck should pitch for three resources, cost three resources, and defend for three. This concept is crucial for turning on bonus effects like Anothos, Blessing of Deliverance, Stamp Authority, and Stonewall Confidence.

We are built for durability, surviving an onslaught of blows and keeping enough in the tank to be able to hit back hard at that one crucial point in the game to turn things around and keep our opponent on the back foot.

The crucial point often occurs 5-6 turns into the game, when you have thinned your own deck by blocking with ‘low-value’, non-threat cards and thereby increased your threat density. Cards like Crippling Crush, Righteous Cleansing, Mangle, Spinal Crush, Exude Confidence and Pummel represent the major offensive threats we can present to our opponent. By thinning the deck of non-threat cards and biding our time, we can increase our chances of following one threat up with a second on the very next turn, not giving our opponent a chance to catch their breath and retaliate effectively. 

When you identify the crucial point, your life total/armor should be healthy enough to take a big hit and keep the hand of 3-4 cards that you’ll need to launch your counter-assault, swinging the game's tempo in your favor.

We run a relatively streamlined list of equipment with eight total pieces.

The core setup is Arcanite Skullcap, Tectonic Plating, Crater Fist, and Ironrot Legs. When we optimize Arcanite Skullcap blocks, this setup provides a staggering 10 points of defense that we can use to our advantage- one of the densest set-ups across all the classes.

Tectonic Plating provides the best of both worlds for defense and utility. Carrying a Seismic Surge token from turn to turn enables plays that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, and helps us set up a 6 power Anothos swing with ease.

Arcanite Skullcap is best-in-class defense in the helmet slot. When used perfectly, it will block for 3 total damage (more with Forged for War).

Crater Fist gives a great mix of utility and defense. Most of the time it's a block 3 equipment, but block 2 and +2 damage is significant if you can hold it up to the end of the game.

Ironrot Legs is nothing fancy, but the extra 1 defense can make all the difference in close games. Here’s to the day we get some cool Guardian equipment for the leg slot.

Against Prism, swap in Time Skippers to blow up two auras at once and avoid falling behind.

Against Viserai/Chane, swap in Nullrune Boots to deal with the influx of arcane damage.

While Kano players are few and far between in CC, they will show up and you don’t want to be caught with at least three pieces of Nullrune if you are facing one down on the other side of the table.

Auras provide ongoing value beyond the moment we play them. Blessing of Deliverance, Stamp Authority, Stonewall Confidence, Seismic Surge, Show Time!, and Towering Titan all provide ways to create and maintain incremental advantages. Forged for War gives us extra defensive power on an already powerful set of equipment in go-wide matchups where our opponent likes to pressure us with many small attacks.

As I mentioned in the opener, we build around the 3/3/3 concept, which will better empower and enable crucial bonus effects from some of our auras like Blessing of Deliverance (which may certainly be one of the best cards in the deck), Stamp Authority, and Stonewall Confidence.

Look to play out your auras whenever possible, but balance it with how much damage you are taking. Guardian is more efficient with blocking cards from hand than many other classes, since most of our cards block for three.

Look to use your first turn to play out Auras, so as to set yourself up for a good 2nd turn without giving your opponent the option to mulligan. The dream is to play both Blessing of Deliverance and Stamp Authority on turn 1, then sliding your last card into Arsenal and drawing up 5.

Crippling Crush is the most powerful offensive attack we have as Guardian players. 11 damage (especially when dominated) with a turn-ruining crush effect means we can force our opponent into a corner. Store the first copy you hit in Arsenal and look for the perfect opportunity to play it out- it is often not correct to play it right when you draw it. Look to wear down your opponent and remove some of their armor, so you can all but ensure the crush effect will hit. Another great setup for Crippling Crush is to play it without dominated when you have the red Pummel you can throw on top to pull it to 15 damage + an additional discard.

Spinal Crush provides a great tool against the many go-wide decks in the format. Sideboard this in against heroes like Boltyn, Chane, Dash, and Katsu. It’s even effective against Dorinthea, who often likes to set up powerful attacks with go again actions prior to swinging in with Dawnblade.

Righteous Cleansing is another big source of damage that represents a great target for dominate to close out games. The on-hit effect gives us a read on what our opponent will be able to do with their next hand- after we strip 1+ cards from it. This card's effect is more meaningful with deep game knowledge of what each deck is trying to do.

Mangle is a low-cost/high-damage attack that can strip our opponent of powerful equipment that provides ongoing value after it has fully-blocked out. Target equipment like Scabskin Leathers, Tectonic Plating, Braveforge Bracers, Grasp of the Arknight, and temper equipment that has already blocked once. In my opinion, this is a seriously underplayed card, since it can be played with only a single blue pitch when you have a Seismic Surge token.

Play Rouse the Ancients from arsenal. We are built to optimize the use of this card for big turns where we want to push through a bunch of damage or strip cards from our opponent’s hand. This is normally in the form of Rouse the Ancients for 7 damage with go again followed up with a 6 power swing of Anothos.

There’s a reason we run six copies of Pummel and they very rarely get sideboarded out. Pummel is one of the best sources of sneaky damage we can threaten to our opponent. It’s good when we have it in hand, and it’s good when we don’t. I’ll show you some ways to get the most value out of this fantastic card in the lines of play section of the article.

Exude Confidence does a great Command and Conquer impression in our Guardian list. With our sky-high blue count, we can threaten some impressive damage while all but ensuring our opponent can’t play instants or defense reactions to the hit when we have a hand of cards supporting the attack. Exude Confidence is a scary card to see coming at you from the other side of the table. It’s hard to block efficiently, and hits hard if you underblock it. Look to play this from arsenal with a hand of blues to threaten 12 damage. The raw utility and power of this card in our deck is only mitigated by the fact that it is a red pitch and only defends for two. Three copies was a little too much, but two feels amazing in many of our matchups.

Sink Below is a fantastic defense reaction for us as Guardian. In matches where we want the card in the deck AND run a higher ratio of red cards to blue/yellow, it gives us the opportunity to draw into an extra blue if we hit two red cards in the same hand. When played from Arsenal, it allows us to better protect our cards in hand while keeping our life total high.

Use Fate Foreseen as an additional source of defense against go-wide strategies, and use the opt to gain some information and potentially move around a card.

Staunch Response provides some defense in matchups like Brute/Guardian/Warrior, where our opponent will be coming in for some big damage. It is ridiculously efficient to play this card from Arsenal and block 10 for two cards from hand.

Unmovable is a three-cost blue pitch, so it enables many of our other cards in the deck and provides utility in many different matchups. This will usually stay in the main deck for the pitch/resource cost alone.

Remembrance allows us to shuffle additional copies of cards back into the deck. Usually, our primary threats like Crippling Crush (plus whatever other cards are relevant in the matchup) and red Blessing of Deliverance are our primary candidates. Remembrance is as fantastic in CC as it is in Blitz for Bravo. Unfortunately, it cannot block- but the rest of the deck is built around this reality. If it shows up early, you can always pitch it.

Show Time! gives us a great opportunity to fetch our primary threats. Aim to put the attack you fetch into arsenal. Block with an extra card from hand and lean into the probability that you will draw the blue pitch you need off of the effect’s draw on your next turn. This will help you protect your life total while also readying to launch your counterattack and swing the tempo back in your favor.

1. Block block block. We are fine blocking nine and swinging back with Anothos for four, especially in the early game. This will thin the deck and increase our threat density for when it matters.

1. Know your Anothos lines. These are bread and butter for Guardian.

1. Keep your life and armor healthy as long as you can. This will allow you to take a bunch of damage and block out your opponent while holding up 4-5 cards for a massive swing in tempo with cards like Crippling Crush.

1. Don’t be afraid to lose Towering Titan if your opponent has a massive turn or invests a lot to disrupt you. They are going to go all out and try to pressure you hard if they have the cards/equipment to do it. Sometimes you won’t be able to capture the value from setting it up and that’s okay. If it means dropping a ton of life, then it often isn’t worth the bonus damage. If your opponent blows through their utility equipment and spends a lot of their resources, it’s okay to just block it out and take that advantage rather than swinging in with a big attack from Towering Titan.

1. Look to use Pummel on your attack action cards (undominated) to strip cards from your opponent’s hand while still pushing the crush effects through. Even if they fully block the base value of the attack, a red Pummel will enable Crush and force them to discard an additional card.

1. Play out as many Blessings of Deliverance as possible. The value and life gain you can capture can make all the difference in the mid- to late-game when you need to close things out.

Good luck out there as you explore the duality of Guardian, pairing high defense with staggering offense at the flip of a switch. Be patient, practice, and learn what your opponent’s deck can do so that you can tailor your strategy to beat it.

In Part 2, I'll take you through the specific matchups, with guidance on sideboarding and shifting strategies. When you're ready, click through to continue to Part 2.