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1 Lord of Bane
4 Powder Eater
1 Sphinx
2 Frost Beast
4 Stymphalides

4 Aura Blade
4 Storm Armor

2 Capture
1 Comet
2 Crusher
1 Drain Magic
4 Fat Body
4 Mutation
1 Polymorph
2 Reincarnation
1 Relief
2 Senility
3 Spirit Walk
2 Telegnosis
2 Trade
3 Wind of Hope

Okay, this is the very first HoF-level deck that I ever built. It's very near and dear to my heart and, next to Freshness, probably my favorite deck to play. It's also the only league-competitive Powder Eater-based deck I have seen in usage.

The major innovation of this deck - actually, like many decks I enjoy making - is its speed. Almost everybody who makes a Powder Eater deck gets bogged down in this line of thought:

1) Get Powder Eater on the board
2) Pump it up with Fat Body and Mutation and possibly others
3) Get some Phantasm going
4) Cast Lunatic Light
5) Start taking everything over

I mean, it's so tempting! Your very own 100/100 creature, and many many more to come. The problem with this thinking is two-fold:

1) It's slow as heck - even best case scenario, PE, Fat Body, Fat Body, Fat Body, Fat Body, Mutation, Phantasm, Lunatic Light - that's five turns. Any smart opponent is going to be gunning for an early PE as soon as they see it.
2) It's extremely vulnerable to Trade. One Trade, and your opponent now has his own army that can kill your Powder Eaters.

This deck improves on that in two ways: it drops the fancy Lunatic Light tricks. 4x Fat Body, 4x Mutation - that's all you need. You want to just get to 0/60, 0/80, or 0/100 as soon as you possibly can. Wind of Hope is fantastic, because it is the only card in the game that actually gets you a drawing advantage in just one turn. Find takes two turns to give you a card advantage. WoH, you get two cards, possibly discarding only one. Anybody who has played Magic the Gathering knows what a huge advantage an extra card or an extra land is.

But, 0/100 you say? How the heck can a 0/100 creature do anything besides sit there? That's the second improvement, and it's simple: Aura Blade and Storm Armor. Aura Blade gives you +100ST on your attack - since you're moving a PE, that puts you at 110/100. Storm Armor is, of course, awesome, but it serves a dual purpose: keeping those early Powder Eaters alive. How? Stymphalides. Not only is he a pretty decent creature - 50/40 for 90G, penetrates B/Y, and can weapons and armor - but every one on the board is another 15/15 boost for those PEs. Get them down early. Get them down often.

Of course, the other awesome thing about 0/100 PEs is that they're not worth Trade-ing for. Sure, they can nab one of the many 0/100 PEs on the board, but they can't kill you - they can't even harm you. But with a little Aura Blade / Storm Armor action, you can certainly kill them in retaliation.

Basic strategy? Get a PE down as early as possible. Hoard every Fat Body you draw and no more than one Mutation early on. With WoH you might find yourself discarding cards: that's okay. As soon as you're about to make the first loop past your PE, blow it all! Fat Body, Fat Body, Fat Body, Mutation. Roll and move it. Now you've got two 0/80 creatures down, and that's hard to stop. Next time past, hold onto a Spirit Walk and wait right until you're about to pass to cast it - because nothing is worse than seeing a 0/80ish PE with Spirit Walk get paralyzed while it's still a baby. Pass, and spread far away. At this point, you're nearly impossible to stop. Keep pumping those Fat Bodies and Mutations as you draw them.

Other key combos:

* Trade + PE. Obviously! I generally throw my 1/1 PEs down as I get them - it's good Storm Armor fodder at the very least - and they're very satisfying to trade away. Or just find the weakest one (generally the board will be a mix of 0/60, 0/80, and 0/100) and trade it away.

* Senility + PE. I use this combo a lot and it can turn even a weaponless weakling 0/20 PE into a fluffy assassin. How? Well, I often find that an opponent just sits there on one territory, hoarding their Counter Amulets and making life rough for you. Use Spirit Walk to move next door, and, as you're about to pass, cast Senility. Move your PE and the land is yours.

Capture, Comet, Crusher, and Drain Magic are in there because, sometimes, when things just aren't rolling quickly enough (which happens one in five times or so), your next best bet is to make their deck go slowly. They're also particularly good against those pesky Land Transfer decks.

Typically, this deck would be played on large stages, preferably one area. Two is okay - pack an extra Relief. Three areas, or small stages… just not a great fit.

Oh, and why AngryEyes? Because the green puffball is my favorite!

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 May 2013 08:48