Venturing into Vynnset: Builds for All Budgets

Runeblade's place in Classic Constructed is solidly in flux right now, with Briar soon to join Chane in the pastures of Living Legend. With her goes the Rosetta Thorn, a weapon that Viserai has come to rely on, which means the OG Runeblade is going to have to go back to the drawing board to find a new winning formula. Who can we look to in this, our darkest hour, to lead our Runeblade army against the likes of Lexi and Dromai?

The Demonastery wisely chose Vynnset to lead their army; and though she has been a little shy about joining the fray in Classic Constructed, it's apparent that there's some real power behind the wielder of the Dimenxxional Gateway. The natural inconsistency inherent to Runeblades, combined with her own delicate balancing act with Runechant generation and storing cards in banish, has scared off many players who fear that which they cannot understand.

There is no better time to get into a hero whose potential has yet to be fully realized than before it inevitably happens. And with Vynnset being so new, you can maximize your time with this deck investment, as she has yet to start her journey towards Living Legend status.

This starter list consists of only commons and rares in the main deck, with a few indispensable majestics in the equipment suite. The deck is elegant in its simplicity, sporting 9 copies of Deathly Wail, Envelop in Darkness, Mauvrion Skies, and Vantom Wraith.

The goal is to send a rune gate attack nearly every turn, using either Deathly Wail or the combo of Mauvrion Skies + Pummel to threaten a double rune gate turn. Pummels give the deck access to some key disruption and a way to extend a lead or catch up a bit if you're behind).

Beseech the Demigon gives us a Nimblism-esque buff for our rune gates. Deathly Delight gives us access to some life gain while being another efficient gate at 2-cost, and Vantom Banshee hits the nice breakpoint of 7.

Flail of Agony and Scepter of Pain are our dual weapons of choice, regardless of budget. Flail providing us a way to pay life to trigger Vynnset's on-pain abilities is irreplaceable, as there isn't another on-board source of self-damage in the game. Grimoire of the Haunt should generally act as a fancier looking Arcane Lantern, but in very late game situations can be used in conjunction with Read the Runes to do a Revel in Runeblood impression.

Nebula Blade also makes the list as a weapon that can threaten a higher damage amount and still threaten to leave us with a Runechant; this will generally be used against opponents that are going to try and fatigue us.

Vexing Quillhand is the most powerful equipment this budget build has access to - by a pretty wide margin - and, despite being the most expensive card in the initial list, it's affordable as well! It should act as an emergency button for when you find yourself in the situation where you have a rune gate to play but a shortage of Runechants. You should only ever pop Quillhand when you absolutely must in order to maintain any sort of offensive pressure, or when you're pushing a surefire lethal with a late double gate turn.

Aether Ironweave and Sutcliffe's Suede Hides have been staples of budget Runeblade lists since their release, and each of them will do an admirable job for you while you wait to upgrade to their legendary counterparts.

Hope Merchant's Hood is the most interesting budget equipment inclusion, as it can rescue Vynnset from awkward gate-less hands by letting you redraw your hand. Ebon Fold is a nice flex spot, as it can be used as defense against Wizards as well as a way to get an extra rune gate into our banished zone against opponents who are playing very defensively.

All in all, this budget Vynnset deck is capable of some powerful turns, and the equipment suite can each help you pull of the fearsome double rune gate turns. This whole deck can be put together for under $20 (before shipping), but what if we want our Vynnset to pack even more punch?

This first step in our upgrade path is all about adding extra payoff for utilizing Vynnset's ability. Widespread Ruin resembles card draw for Vynnset, and as a 6-power 2-cost rune gate, allows us to play very aggressively. Widespread Destruction gives us our first taste of non-Pummel disruption, and the first time you Pummel a Widespread Destruction to take two cards for your opponent, you'll be hooked. Funeral Moon is a nice role player that helps us maintain Runechant count to keep rolling out the gates while keeping our blood debt count high.

The Widespread pair will replace yellow Vantom Wraith and red Rift Skitter, and the Funeral Moons can push the Read the Runes out of the picture.

In Flesh and Blood, you usually can't put a price on consistency, but that is exactly what we're going to do with our first legendary purchase for the deck. Grasp of the Arknight has been the staple Runeblade arm equipment since it was printed, and for Vynnset it forms an impressive duo with Vexing Quillhand. This may seem like an odd choice for the first legendary for us to pick up, as Quillhand is so strong, but I'll stand by it being the most important first acquisition.

Fatigue is a popular strategy for certain heroes to employ into Vynnset, and when games go 15-20 turns long you're bound to miss a Runechant threshold more often than when you're playing shorter games into Lexi or Fai. Grasp gives you a resource sink on turn 0 that doesn't let the opponent mulligan any cards, and keeps your 2-cost rune gates live well into the late game when you've spent most of your best Runechant generation.

We make room for Grasp by cutting one of the yellow Deathly Delights, as that card is just there as the next best 2-cost rune gate.

Here we add more juice to the main deck. Shadow Puppetry can push our 6-power gates up to the nice breakpoint of 7, while enabling Vynnset's second ability and threatening its own very powerful on-hit effect. Shadow Puppetry will replace the three red Putrid Stirrings for us.

Widespread Annihilation gives us a blue popper that is an incredibly powerful rune gate with the floor of a blue block 3. Annihilation just checks all the boxes for us and will push the Vantom Banshees out of the list.

Dread Triptych is the most marginal upgrade of the bunch, as we're sacrificing a touch of consistency for top end power. Spellblade Assault will always give you two Runechants, but the first time you send a Mauvrion Skies-powered Dread Triptych at a Miragai, you'll be glad for this change.

If things are going according to plan, Vynnset will deal a fair amount of damage to herself over the course of a game. This step firmly falls in the category of self-preservation. More armor means less damage taken and more on-hits prevented with fewer cards from hand. Crown of Providence's sink ability isn't quite the wheel of Hope Merchant's Hood, but I think the defensive stats are worth the sidegrade in effect. Dyadic Carapace also lets you coalesce some sideboard spots and give you a very solid equipment suite into Wizards and opposing Runeblades.

Ironweave is the cut for this one (though Ironweave's effect is strong enough that it could still warrant inclusion in some lists!)

One of the last main deck upgrades, Art of War is an extremely flexible tool that does a bit of everything. 
Want to banish extra cards? Art of War.
Short on go again? Art of War.
Need a combat trick to force a Mauv Skies hit? Art of War.
Arsenal a popper against an Illusionist who is now forcing you to block? Art of War.

We're here to play offense, not defense, so ditch the Sink Belows for the Art of Wars.

Spellbound Creepers is the last essential equipment upgrade, and it comes with one last main deck upgrade as well. Creepers forces opponents to spend cards blocking arcane on subsequent turns to prevent us from continuing our instant speed shenanigans. Sometimes though, they can't prevent the arcane, whether they are strapped for resources or if we had a Shadow non-attack action to force it through, in which case we can get a second or even third use out of them! The Blade Break 1 is just gravy for us, but at the same time it has been the deciding life point in matches for me before, so don't underestimate it. Suede Hides is a fantastic budget option, but it gets the axe in favor of Creepers.

Revel in Runeblood could certainly be an inclusion prior to this point, but I included it here because Creepers really allows Revel to go into overdrive. If you get rolling, Creepers + Revel is a go again and unlocks any rune gate we could possibly have in banish. I haven't figured out exactly how many copies of Revel is correct in a deck, but I've been liking two, so we'll replace one Beseech and one blue Mauvrion Skies with our last new majestic.

It wouldn't be a budget-oriented article without talking about the oldest chase legendary in the game, would it? Fyendal's Spring Tunic is the least essential upgrade for this deck, but it can be very valuable for Vynnset in longer games. Envelop in Darkness takes a card to pitch for it, but with Tunic available, you can block with that spare card and save 2-3 life. If you can make that sort of value play at least two times in a longer game, Tunic has saved you 4-6 points of life and given you a ton of value for your trouble. Tunic+Creepers+Revel is the worst nightmare of opponents that are trying to play a longer game against Vynnset.

We make room for Tunic by cutting Ebon Fold; Tunic is likely to be relevant in more matchups, but your mileage may vary.

And there you have it! A fully powered Vynnset deck for less than $800, with over half of that price tag coming from the last few steps.

Notable Absence: Carrion Husk ($115)

If you need more evidence that Chane, and not Husk, was the problem, then look no further. Without Chane's closing power or Levia's ability to simply turn off blood debt, Carrion Husk carries a very real cost to run it. It could end up incorporated into future lists depending on how long you expect certain matchups to go, but I have felt better not having it in the current meta. Carapace is much more "free" for us to run in that slot.

Optional Inclusions: Oblivion, Requiem for the Damned, Tome of Fyendal ($16)

Oblivion is a very cool card, but not one that I've really wanted right now. That said, I suspect in future metas I might be more interested in summoning my new patron demon.

Requiem for the Damned and Tome of Fyendal represent another avenue of exploration in Vynnset: building a deck that can really take advantage of Eloquence tokens. Requiem pushes Tome of Fyendal and Read the Runes into overdrive, but I haven't found a configuration of this sort of deck that I felt worth testing just yet. If that seems like the sort of puzzle you'd enjoy cracking, there has never been a better time to pick up a set of Tome of Fyendal as they're currently under $4 apiece!

Vynnset is new and still has plenty of players (myself included) looking for the "right" list for CC. As much as I'd love to give you the perfect 80-card Vynnset deck to carry you through your next event, I can't claim to know the exact 80 you need. Instead, this upgrade path has shown you what I think are the most core essential cards for Vynnset in the format.

There are many ways you can build Vynnset, including defensive versions that run a bunch of defense reactions or versions looking to go very tall with 6 copies of Putrid Stirrings. I even have a friend who has built a version looking to fatigue opponents offensively utilizing 9 copies of Vile Inquisition! There is still a ton of exploring to be done, and there is no better time to start learning what the newest Shadow Runeblade has to offer than right now. Happy Runechanting!