Primed to Fight: Skirmish Season 11

After a long competitive season it’s time to kick back and have some fun with the more casual event circuit known as Skirmish! We have Blitz and Living Legend as the formats for the upcoming season eleven. Are you not sure what heroes to play? Don’t worry! I’m excited to share a Terra and Viserai, Rune Blood deck to give you some inspiration for the season to come.

Terra

Blitz received quite a shake-up in the latest Banned and Restricted Announcement. With the new unban of “Crown of Seeds”, it’s obvious to start looking into the earth heroes and how this impacts them. Verdance, Florian and Terra could all use “Crown of Seeds”, but historically it’s been best suited in fatigue decks that can use “Crown of Seeds” to block more damage and pitch stack power cards for later. I believe Terra is best positioned to be the fatigue deck in Blitz going into next Skirmish season, so let's take a look at what makes Terra so good. I’ve asked our 2024 Swedish National champion and fatigue devotee, Joakim Gustafsson, what a Crown of Seeds Terra could look like.

The equipment suite is what sets Terra apart from the other earth heroes the most. Having access to a “Rampart of the Ram’s Head” provides more outlets to block more damage, if we have pitch floating after pitching a blue for “Crown of Seeds”. This combination is what drives the core game plan of the deck, by pitching for blocks with our shield and activating “Crown of Seeds”. That way we keep our life totals high without losing cards in our deck. Tunic is also a great way to pitch for “Crown of Seeds” to gain an extra card in hand before making further blocking decisions. Just make sure to always keep a card for arsenal at the end of your turn to continue usage of “Crown of Seeds”. In the earth deck most of the earth cards block for two, so getting extra prevention and block from “Crown of Seeds” and “Rampart of the Ram’s Head” is extra useful to help compensate.

“Count your Blessings” is the new staple since Rosetta for all fatigue decks these days so no surprise we see that here. Costing two resources, it fits really well to play both a “Count your Blessings” and activate “Crown of Seeds” off of one blue pitch. So it’s a perfect fit for this deck. Terra also has access to “Felling of the Crown“ which can create a big tempo swing if our opponent has an off turn, forcing a card from our opponent's hand. The blue “Fruits of the Forest” is also a very versatile card. This can help us put earth cards in our graveyard to fuel the decomposes more easily, while at the same time giving us extra life, or is a blue pitch we can pitch stack later in the game.

Terra's ability gives us access to extra disruption. If we generate a Might token on the turn prior with Terra's ability, we are then able to attack with cards like “Command Respect” and “Concuss”, with annoying on-hits at very awkward breakpoints for our opponent. How does a “Command and Conquer” for seven sound? Amazing! Depending on which side of the table you’re on of course. Disruption can be really powerful against decks that try to keep full hands in order to push damage over our potential blocks. And the best part is that you only need two cards to play them out since they all can be played off of one blue pitch.

Viserai, Rune Blood

My Runeblade heart couldn’t possibly write an article without including one. Viserai is slowly (if not already by the time this is published) reaching Living Legend status in Classic Constructed and has been my deck of choice for the Road to Nationals season. He received new tools to enable an even more aggressive gameplan, which resulted in a few top8 finishes in the latest Living Legend tournaments in Chicago. One of the decks we’ll look into today is from Christopher Iaali, finishing second in the Living Legend Battle Hardened in Chicago, December last year. He’s also played Viserai in Battle Hardened: Columbus and Battle Hardened: Osaka, all recent Living Legend events.

Viserai used to rely heavily on “Mauvrion Skies” to generate Runechants to power their turns. But it only generated Runechants when you hit your opponent, and your opponent would always try to block your attacks to deny you the Runechants. Since Rosetta was released, we instead play “Malefic Incantation”. This guarantees Runechant generation whenever we play an attack, and together with “Runerager Swarm” it enables a more aggressive gameplan. We typically see both red and yellow “Malefic Incantation” and a full rainbow suite of “Runerager Swarm” played in most Viserai decks today to create a great core. And we compliment the deck with cards that have natural go-again and get discounted for every Runechant we control, since we are a lot more consistent at creating them. “Deadwood Dirge” is also another great Runechant generator. Together with Viserai’s ability we get around the lost Runechant we destroy to generate 3, as Viserai will create one extra, so it’s basically a Read the Runes with go-again. Bonus is that you can target and destroy Inertia, Bloodrot Pox and Frailty tokens if you happen to have them.

In Living Legend, Viserai (and Runeblades in general) has access to arguably the most powerful weapons in the game. With “Rosetta Thorn” your primary game plan with this deck is to play one non-attack action and one attack action with go-again every turn to finish with a weapon swing for “two and two”. This pattern requires a minimum 3 cards, but can turn even more powerful the more cards you get to keep. We are also allowed to run the mighty “Bloodsheath Skeleta” that typically goes together with a more Runechant stacking game plan to send off a big “OTK” turn. So having that game plan available gives us more flexibility into slower decks. We also have the gone but not forgotten “Duskblade”. In this deck we use it against fatigue and “Count your Blessings” to help push more damage over any potential life gain or blocking capacity.

For our sideboard, the most common decks in Living Legend are of course Bravo, Star of the Show and Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light. We also have to consider “Count your Blessings” that also got released in Rosetta, which in Living Legend you can run all 9 copies of. We have a very interesting combo with Talisman of Cremation to help combat the Blessings. Together with “Rattle Bones” you banish a card that you can play, which satisfies the condition of our Talisman, and we get to banish all Count your Blessings from our opponents graveyard.

Lead the Charge is one of few ways to work around “Arc Light Sentinel”, so make sure to stick one in Arsenal against Prism to be ready when they present an Arc Light. Sink Below is to help protect ourselves in the Starvo matchup. Consider using it on their “Winter's Wail” to avoid Frostbites. But also remember that some of your cards like “Amplify the Arknight” and “Rune Flash” can be discounted enough to pay for the Frostbite. So if you have 4 Runechants and 1 Frostbite, playing one of the mentioned cards will not require you to pay for the Frostbite as the cost will be zero.

I hope this article has helped inspire you to maybe try something new for the upcoming Skirmish season. I want to thank Joakim Gustafsson and Christopher Iaali for inspiring me when writing this and providing great input for their respective decks.

Best of luck, remember your triggers and have fun!