Next level Darkclaw

[imanujakku]

supermof's excellent tutorial on how to kill darkclaw got me to thinking about how to speed up darkclaw's kill clock and instantly thought of deathbone. i didnt have the cards to build so i have kept playing gravebone and today i played Tasker who apparently had the same idea.

i dont know his entire deck but it was 52 cards so im thinking it went something like this.

4x bazaar
4x regeneration
4x What big teeth
4x Speedstrike
4x bad santa
4x rain delay
4x Deathbone
4x Plasma behemoth
4x Now your mine
4x Rabid Bite
4x Lone Wolf
4x Captured Prey
4x Full Moon

he played a resource every turn which is not something id seen a darkclaw player do but this makes sense if you are going to be using plasma B. at the end. he played fairly standard otherwise hitting my hero and killing 1 health belladonnas but when crunch time came he dropped deathbone. i was forced to swing into it with a lone wolf saving him a little damage because i could not afford to let deathbone ping me for 2. then he dropped a plasma behemoth. no worries ill kill it and then...rain delay...ouch. now im forced to choose. use the fireballs ive been saving or take 4 on the chin from the behemoth. i take 4 on the chin and kill behemoth with creatures the next turn.

game continues and with less than 10 cards cards in my deck and only one full moon burned i had a feeling it was over and he repeated the behemoth trick with rain delay and full mooned the very last turn which didnt matter because i had him at 16 with 12 resources but only had 3 fireballs having burned one earlier.

ive seen a lot of ally less builds going but the deathbones and plasma behemoth seem like a much better idea than just relying on decking damage and darkclaw pings. plasma behemoth forces people hording direct damage and playing slowly to avoid drawing to have to at the very least burn tempo, cards and resources that would have otherwise been directed at darkclaw.

im not sure i would have 52 cards in my build mainly because i would be scared of not finding something vital but it seemed to work. i would have been interested to see what had happened if he had missed bazaar.

[imanujakku]

ive cut the plasma b's and deathbones down to a couple each though. lost a couple of times to eladwen and nishaven decks that had more cards than mine. no real good answer for aeon wearing reinforced armor which is what the bigger eladwen and nishaven decks seem to be trying to do.

cmon people 30 cards is what you want to be using not these 55 card monstrosities that take forever to mill

[Kadun]

ive cut the plasma b's and deathbones down to a couple each though. lost a couple of times to eladwen and nishaven decks that had more cards than mine. no real good answer for aeon wearing reinforced armor which is what the bigger eladwen and nishaven decks seem to be trying to do.

cmon people 30 cards is what you want to be using not these 55 card monstrosities that take forever to mill

Haha, my Darkclaw lost to a 72 card Eladwen. I figured I did not have a chance, but played the whole thing through. I would guess he had over a dozen allies on the table by the end.

[imanujakku]

i dont really think making darkclaw bigger is the answer. its hard enough to find your teeth, lone wolf and speedstrike as it is. im just going to hope that these huge eladwen and nishaven decks get spanked enough by smaller eladwen decks to make them take some cards out.

[arebelspy]

So what's your 30 card list look like then imanujakku?

[imanujakku]

30 card darkclaw? I wouldnt try to run 30 card darkclaw especially with aeon poppin up in every deck now. My current list is 48 and could be cut down to 44 if i went no allies.

So far neither plasma b. Or deathbone have been great but i do like how deathbone can get in a couple free hits when your oppenent knows if he lets lone wolf tick he wont be able to win. Plasma b is just too expensive and is not tough enough.

[arebelspy]

oh.. your previous two posts were:
"cmon people 30 cards is what you want to be using not these 55 card monstrosities that take forever to mill"
and
"i dont really think making darkclaw bigger is the answer. "

[supermof]

my darkclaw was 45 cards i believe? It's about the same as the deck you listed in the first post, without the deathbones and plasmas. But like you said, by the time you can play plasmas, it's only effective if you have rain delay (eladwen + ally two shot kill). And only then will you get 1 shot off with Plasma before he dies the next turn.

I guess my darkclaw strat was slightly different than everybody elses. My idea wasn't to just survive the attack then wait till he draws out, but to go through my deck quick and get my ideal hand FOR the attack. Most of the time my hand near the end of the game is 2x rain delay, 3x full moon, 2x Rabid, and around 10 cards left in my deck. Since using the Eladwen vs Darkclaw strat, I realized I needed to survive more than 3 rounds after the attack. So alternating rain delay and full moon (full moon first in case of fireball + rabid, rain delay, full moon + rabid, rain delay, full moon), you regen 12hp. Say you're at 10 hp after the attack, you're back at 22. Now in those 6 turns, you'd need to have either picked up 2 regens or 2 more stalling cards, otherwise the game is still quite close.

I'd say running with a smaller deck with Darkclaw is more beneficial but slightly more cards than the average deck in case you draw out of cards first, or you won't regen anymore hp.

[imanujakku]

oh.. your previous two posts were:
"cmon people 30 cards is what you want to be using not these 55 card monstrosities that take forever to mill"
and
"i dont really think making darkclaw bigger is the answer. "

oh the first one i was referring to the bigger eladwen/nishaven decks that seem to be popping up not darkclaw.

[revZloco]

Actually, another Darkclaw trick I started using (much like the 3 Fireball Eladwen end strike) is the 4 Bad Santa strike. This is the primary reason most 30 card Mage decks struggle against me, I wait until they are decked, and with 8 resources deal off 12 points of card-drawing furry, who said the shadow side doesn't have any direct damage cards!