BP Wreon's "Divine Serenaty" (Age of Enlightenment Deck)

**Raphael Majere** · 12-13-2013, 08:31 AM

Raph says: "This is my favorite Serena deck of all time; It's by Wreon and he has kindly allowed me to post this. My own tweaks are on the following post. All the words on this post are his and I made minor edits to wording. The deck post was made on May 31, 2013 at 4:36pm at the BP Guild, and I have been playing with it for 6 months now."

What is that smell...?

Serena

was once the worst hero in SE, along with Baduruu

and Ter adun, as a result, her exposure in SE is significantly lesser than the human warriors, the mages and zaladar. The lack of exposure created a strange consensus on how she works, as more often than not, she was only being played in "fun" decks and other testing matches.

DP brought by several new toys for Serena

. CotC Serena

's draw is awkward at best. IGG

breaks momentum when cast, and is often targeted quickly by the professional SE community which knows that IGG

means everything to the rouges. With DP's introduction of the squire, both humans and shadow classes now have straight forward methods of handling IGG

.

What does this mean for the future of Serena

? To me, it means progress.

I give to you my Divine Serenaty (awful/irresistible play of words, I know)

Draw Engine

4x IGG

Recyclables

3x Night Owl

3x Fan of Blades

2x Lily

Rose Cult
4x FFM

Fatty March

3x Sandworm

/brax soldier
2x aeon
3x CoI

Handlers

4x Assassinate
4x Stop thief

4x Ankle Breaker

Shields

2x spell-eater bands
2x Black Garb

Forgive the random classification of cards, but this is how I would want to present this deck.

In response to the lack of draw, I decided that every card that I use shall have decently high value and synergy. All the recyclables have a cantrip effect, and FFM just helps with the quality of cards.

The theme this deck is also going for is a breakaway from the classic aldon/jasmine style, simply because the removal of 4hp allies have been prepared in almost every deck. Every ally in this deck is meant to stay on board, and by virtue of their inbuilt abilities, they are generally able to protect themselves.

CoI: has a severe napolean complex (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_complex) so I placed him as a fatty, he seems happier now. Has excellent survivability against almost all decks, and has decent late game capabilities. Chosen over NS for better overall survivability, 2cc 3/5 is an excellent drop behind aeon

Night owl: inbuilt cantrip + stealth during hard times. Night owl's main goal is to be a lure of abilities. If your opponent uses a single card to handle night owl, his job is complete because he would effectively have given you a one card advantage. I take extra efforts to get rid of dmt/ma before ever playing night owl.

FFM: the glue of this deck. His ping is precious when combined with AB

, his hp is almost fatty level and I use his synergy with assassinate to recover board very often. He tends to lure heavy duty abilities at him due to his high hp, but usually he does his job before being removed. He acts as a meat shield for the fatties (receives the punishment simply because he came first)

Lily: I am curious about her rose cult. Other than that, she is great card value to return AB/IGG

/Fan/BG. An interesting thing to note is that a revival of Fan means additional draw, which means even more card value. Used primarily for recovering AB

Sand worm: hardest ally to kill in SE, in my opinion. Most people can only incapacitate it, which usually leaves sandstorm as an assassinate option. I also like that Elementals need to waste MC on him, and he only deals 2 damage to Serena.

Brax: I admit that I don't include him in my main deck, but he is interchangeable between SW when the meta of haste is more prevalent.

Aeon: the bane of many decks, few decks can handle aeon if they have no board. A surviving aeon almost always spirals into an uncontrollable ally rush. Aeon

+ SW lock usually spells defeat for all mages and most decks.

ASSASSINATE :assassinate is an excellent card because it kills any ally, and auto synergizes with IGG, as long as you can fulfill its condition of exhausting an ally. FFM is obviously my favorite ally to use in conjunction. However, this deck's allies were all built to support assassinate, so it gets max coverage.

The rest don't really need to be explained, but as I'm sure you noticed, there's tons of synergy throughout the deck. It's innate card quality + Serena's ability often means that you will take board eventually, but more often than not, by the skin of your teeth.

SEB, as a result, has made it to my main deck. Forget the average Mage counter, as a shield alone against the likes of amber, every hp blocked is key to survival. Having said that, let me admit this deck's weakness: rush.

A rush deck will win this deck if it gets that t1-3 draw. The problem is that even with weenies, Serena is still incapable of protecting/assisting her weenies to make them stand against the likes of early game kings like BB, elad, zaladar and Boris

.

Therefore, my approach is to forgo the early game and master the middle and late.

Please excuse my bad breath!

Serena gameplay:

Win condition: serena wins using two methods, throat and card value. While serena's cards are not the ones with the most dazzle dazzle, a lot of them have innate card quality which allows her to survive with/without a card engine. When she attains board, her SE ability weakens the opponent's ability to return to the game, making her one of the best finishers in the game. Her SE ability also destroys last minute strategies like Soul Reaper

, as they can be prematurely discarded or forced to be cast early on fear of being discarded.

Niche: serena's niche is, contrary to popular belief, against ID users. Serena is the only weapon user hero which is not countered by ID because her SE ability only affects the weapon on the turn it is used, and bears no real fear of weapon control because her decks are usually built in preparation to replace her weapon. The second reason is because she utilises too many items/weapons for an ID deck to handle, you simply cannot destroy all the AB

, for it allows my IGG to stick. You can destroy IGG, only to be blocked by BG. You get the gist.

The secret to Serena is in her allies. Serena cannot win a game based on her weapon alone, which is why I built the deck to maximize the probability of allowing an ally to stay in play. If faced with an allied rush that annihilates all her allies that hit play, she will lose.

The gamble shot: Serena's other hidden skill is her gamble shot. I call it her gamble shot because it's often a gamble between 2-3 cards. There are times when you can guess/predict/estimate what is in your opponent's hand, key cards like Weapon Destruction, or any other game changing class cards like Tidal Wave

, MC. There are times when I will take the gamble and ignore the board for a turn just to take that gamble shot and have a chance to remove that key card.

Sometimes its not so much luck, more like probability. The average user will store 1 weapon destruction card in hand, and will hold it for 5 turns till my AB

hits play. Before my AB hits play, he would have resourced 5 times, and played 3-4 cards already, making his total hand size to be 2-3. At 2-3, the probability that you will hit an ID is extremely high.

I have also employed this strategy to kill off zhanna by correctly guessing her Tidal Wave

in hand, which tides the game towards your favor by a lot.

The queen of poverty mode: Item destruction + Serena's SE ability = no draw engine + low hand count. Apart from the warriors, almost every other class relies on items for their draw engine. As a result, it is often a sign of doom for your opponent when they realize that they are top-decking to stay in the game.

Throat/board balance: There are times when Serena is unable to force her opponent into poverty mode due to her need to secure board first, and is never able to truly establish board due to a constant influx of allies + ally control from the opponent (warriors are the best at this). This often calls for a throat/board balance.

Take note of the following:

AB stuns an ally for 1 turn if you strike first, and "two" when an ally attacks into an AB.
There are some methods of removing disable in the game, while not too common, must be taken into account when facing an unknown opponent: Paladin of Unaxio

, Rejuvenating Ritual, Jericho

's SE ability and Healing Touch

. Always adjust for the probability of them occurring.

With those thoughts in mind, balance your board/throat damage. For example, you have a lily and an AB in play. Your opponent has a jasmine in play.

My favorite method of handling would be to AB Jasmine

, and lily to hero.

If the opponent does not cast another ally, I would next go lily to jasmine, AB + Serena's ability to jasmine.

If he does, I will go lily to jasmine, AB to new ally.

This allows you to do two things: manage your SE ability to opponent's hero timing, and also allows you to time your IGG. For example, during the AB+ lily vs Jasmine

situation, I have IGG + Sandworm

in hand. First, I cast sandworm, since nothing is going to die this turn. Next turn I drop IGG for the draw, getting a decent value for the igg even if its destroyed the next turn.

I always tell myself this: If one of my cards does something useful before dying to another one card from my opponent, I am winning the card value war.

**Raphael Majere** · 12-13-2013, 08:31 AM

What is Age of Enlightenment:

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....-Enlightenment

Wreon's profile:

http://www.shadowera.com/member.php?16510-wreon

Raph's tweaks to the Serenaty Deck:

- 2 SEB, + 1 NO, keeping the deck count to 40 cards.

- Allies: instead of 3 worms, I have 3 Raven

/Brax, depending on the prevalence of portal/haste decks in meta.

Master Wreon in Action: