[SF] Praxix - Under The Bridge

[Misanthropic]

First then let me start by saying there is a big difference between the stall decks we have all seen lying around and a real mill deck. This is NOT a stall deck. In fact this deck runs faster than most mid-range decks. This deck doesnt like long games, do not attempt to play it like a stall deck. This deck destroys your opponents deck before he can gain a strangle hold on the board and steals victory with AHiL. Yes I do mean 'steal'. Every game with this deck will be close calls, you will Almost never have control when its time to AHiL, your opponent will be upset with how you won.

This is a frustration deck. This deck is win or lose. There are auto-lose conditions for this deck.

Still here?
I like your style then, come, lets see the toys:

Praxix

Harbringer of the lost x4
Brimstone Devourer x4
Falseblood Cultist x3
Reactorary x4

Soul Reaper x2
Mind Control x3
Shadow Font x3
Bad Santa x2
Reverberate x4
Mimic x4
All Hope Is Lost x3
Crystal Shards x4

Deck Breakdown:

First, I rarely take this deck above 6 resources, with the constant discard every card is important.

Harbringer - Good drop for 2 (only play on t2 if no shards in hand) and bilateral discard. Makes a great meat shield and weapon breaker.

Brimstone Dev - Auto include for 'on discard' effect, Ill keep one in hand for FBC or sac.

Falseblood C - card draw and makes use of reactorary and devourer, Always sac multiples.

Reactorary - auto include for 'on discard'. Good 3 drop if you didnt pull a reverb.

Soul reap - Your pocket lulz card. Save this puppy for the very end, i mean all the way until you die next turn. This card will get you past those last couple turns. Never sac unless you pulled both.

Mind Control - auto include

Shadow Font - discard and board control

Bad Santa - there is almost never a reason to use this for draw, i often sac in the early game. It is here for the end game when your opponent is sitting on 6 cards in deck and 3-4 in hand. Bs + ability will put your opponent into ahil range. This is the most useless card here, easiest sacrafice and the first to go if you want to add something else,

Reverberate - The bread and butter, keep this and shards on board as much as possible, try to never sac. When this card gets full use it kills 6 cards for only 3cc. This card is what makes this deck possible. It offsets the natural card disadvantage created by most of our other cards. Expect a very difficult game if you cant get this out, keep it out, and trigger it.

Mimic - this card works so well here. Prax will always end up tossing something you want out. Mimic can retrieve your soul reap, it can pull ahil out of the trash, it can keep reverb out longer, it can even bad santa. Never sac, this card changes late games.

AHiL - The wincon, the reason we play this deck. It take two to win. Never cycle down to bottom of deck against another prax.

Crystal Shard - activates reverb and you might be surprised how happy some players are to help you mill them down by clicking this thing.


Strats n such:

T1 - sac
T2 - shards/harbringer
T3 - reverb/reactory
T4 - fbc/font
T5 - mc/etc.

I call this a rush mill deck. You are not sitting around waiting, you are proactively destroying decks. Your goal is to destroy the deck before it can get established. Forcing discard on spelleaters or kings pride is your goal but its better to just race. If given a choice of forcing discard or killing an enemy ally, it is almost wiser to force discard in this deck.

The deck is 40+1, I personally prefer consistant opening hands. It is too important to get a reverb and shard down early to risk adding more cards.
We can handle up to 60 card decks with no problem. 70-100 sadly are almost auto lose, without er you just wont have the tools to destroy that many cards fast enough. 110+ move back into victory range, if you can keep early board and get em into poverty mode the variety will help kill em.

Elementals are a headache, easily the most mill counters, we also dont carry er so beware of this.
Mages are no problem if they rely on burn, rush mages are our auto-lose (you can win but you need luck)
Rogues depend on the deck, they can make life hard if they steal your cards, hand destruction rogues will destroy you
Warrioirs/priests allied is just a race that you will usually win, solo can be fun smart play can overcome them, solo enchantment priests are auto win, just never drop allies.
Wulven tribal are evil, only a lucky shutdown will keep you alive to the end.

Keep reverb out at all times. Shards, harbringers, and your ability will trigger a reverb so be sure to space these out so that every turn is killing two of your opponents cards.

Keep allies on the board, you wont control the board with what you have but it will be a decent enough meat shield and fuel for late game soul reap.

Dont forfiet the board but dont stress if you lose control of it. Save Mind Control for heavy hitters.

Save your ability, there are plenty of ways to mill, dont rush the ability. You have enough allies that you can get a pretty reliable damage output.

Optional Cards (replace BS, i do not recommend going over 42+1 ):

Eternal Renewal - some games cant be won without one
Wave Collapse - neuter an enemy and possibly pull a dev/react
Energy Disruption - very useful to clear board but requires 7 resources (10 if you plan to reap same turn to counter the 5 health) late game only, if you need it early game your proly fighting the losing fight anyway
Living Armor - late game stall for one or two more turns
Darkforge Knife - Preybird reminded me about this, I personally dislike this card but it fits the gimmick well enough to include here.

Tl/dr real mill, real fun, real troll


You will never have a game where you can say you had it won from the start. You WILL fight to win every time. You will, however, win plenty enough to make it worth it. Play smart, play slow, math is your friend.

WARNING: This deck will cause an emotional response from most of your games. There are plenty of good sports who lol and say gg but there are exponentially more who will fill your inbox with love letters. Dont say I didnt warn you.

Concerning TD:

In certain decks I love this card, some awesome combos come from this. Troll Prax hates this card.

Number one reason I dont run this card (or any other uncontrollable self mill in this deck) is this deck relys on certain cards to win. It is completely possible to get a bad draw and lose the game because you milled off your last soul reap or one too many Ahil. All discard in this deck can be 'turned off' you can stop self mill at any time to 'catch your breath'. TD once played cant be turned off unless you build in another card (arthyles crypt) to stop the discard.

Second Reason is that in some games you fail to keep rev on the board and can mill yourself harder than your opponent. Forcing you to 'stand' on a full hand to prevent fatique (remember I dont run renewal with this deck).

Third, turn four is the first time you really get to make your first move. With perfect draw youve done nothing but cycle down an ahil, drop and draw on shard, played rev and drawn again. Turn four is the first time you get to actually do something to answer the board. Only in rare cases does this deck resource over 6 which means no matter when TD shows up it eats a full turn leaving no control options for the two remaining resources.

It just doesnt fit unless you change the deck and this deck is balanced to mill as fast as possible, adding new combos just slows you down and a slow troll is a dead troll.



Concerning 'Nerd Poles' (80+ decks):

This deck hovers at 250 for me. While I did have trouble with nerd poles for a while they have died down alot. When I do get em I have a choice, try to win via aggro or drop the game and roll again. Some decks suffer greatly from too many cards and end up top decking very fast. If you know the class is going to need draw and doesnt topdeck well give it a go. Well placed mind controls, brimstones, and cultists can with you the game, pace yourself to use soul reaper twice. If destiny draw activates and your opponent fails to catch their draw machines you can pull it off. Sadly though, with ahil as our wincon too many cards are just too hard to clear.


Concerning matches vs other elementals running ER

Yes, this is annoying but can be oversome with a bit of luck and timing. Whenever you match up against ele watch the graveyard. If you see an ER (75% of the time you will see one) start planning. Never sac santas in an ele duel. The trick is to push him down without him popping er. If they are playing on 1-2 in hand with 9 in deck and you save a shadow font, mimic, and bs you can steal the win. Alot of ER players when facing mill will wait until the last minute to pop ER, vs prax and ahil they do this often around 4-6 cards. If you can blitz them in the end with harbringers, santas, mimiced santas, and your ability you can in theory mill 10-11 cards in a single turn (bs x2, ability, harbringer) if you are lucky and deck yourself with the saved santas youll pull up your ahils and trollface.jpg. This is the time to resource over 6, the more you resource the bigger your final push can be (without sf the above combo is only 6, with sf its 10, using mimics its 12, I aim for 10 vs elementals unless I know Ill need to mimic my santas)


Remeber Troll Prax doesnt play fair, he lets you think your gonna win, he looks like he is going to die on your next turn only to bounce back to full health and loop you to rage heaven. Play careful, play slow and thoughtfully. This deck is the comeback king but you have to play your opponent, not your opponents deck. Watch the graveyard for clues to what he has in hand and for trollol mimic moments. Keep reverb out and proc it every turn. Never sac a mimic or soul reaper. Keep one ahil or mimic in hand at all times. Serena is horrible creature. Nerd poles are nerdy.

[Preybird]

Darkforged Knife would be a good addition. I played with this style of Praxix before the AHIL buff and it works but yeah, always a fight.

In a deck like this with a lot of unilateral draw AHIL loses a lot of power as you can't loop them as effectively.

[Misanthropic]

Darkforged Knife would be a good addition. I played with this style of Praxix before the AHIL buff and it works but yeah, always a fight.

In a deck like this with a lot of unilateral draw AHIL loses a lot of power as you can't loop them as effectively.

The knife could help but I found the discard too variable. I prefer using those resources on a font or another reverb.

I have no issue in getting the AHiL to loop at all. If I pushed it down Ill keep a bs or mimic a bs to pull it up otherwise I keep them in hand.
Perhaps explain how the unilateral draw can cause issues because I havent had one but perhaps someone else will.

[Preybird]

The knife could help but I found the discard too variable. I prefer using those resources on a font or another reverb.

I have no issue in getting the AHiL to loop at all. If I pushed it down Ill keep a bs or mimic a bs to pull it up otherwise I keep them in hand.
Perhaps explain how the unilateral draw can cause issues because I havent had one but perhaps someone else will.

The idea is to have a situation whereby your opponents deck is empty and yours only contains AHIL so you can loop almost ad infinitum. If you have too much unilateral mill you will wind up with 10 or so cards left which means you can't loop them, as they go to the bottom of your deck and it'll be a good few turns before you pick them up again.

[Misanthropic]

I can see your point.

With all the discard I just always deck out first. I have yet to be in a game where I had too many cards left. Maybe I dont have that problem because of the fact I only run 41?

Keep in mind that while I say bs can be replaced it stays in my deck for the end game hand manipulation.

Anti-matter could be swapped in to help self mill but I have yet to encounter a problem with me having too many cards.

Everyone plays different however so Im sure this feedback will apply to someone so it is appreciated (Sincerely trying to be, well not me, for this guide, so thx)

[Hollow Humanoid]

I enjoy a good Praxix mill deck but I almost always use Praxix with undead creatures and Gravemonger. Would it be possible to see some of your replays by providing your in-game name?

[Misanthropic]

I enjoy a good Praxix mill deck but I almost always use Praxix with undead creatures and Gravemonger. Would it be possible to see some of your replays by providing your in-game name?

I completely agree that gravemonger is powerful with prax but this deck isnt trying to control the board. There just arent enough allies to keep gravemonger alive to do work. He ends up being an expensive meat shield. Gravemonger is a great card, but not here.

I can private message my ign if replays are that important to you but given my personality it is usually best for me to keep these things seperate and away from the public.

[Hollow Humanoid]

If you feel strongly about not providing your in-game name for personal reasons than I can respect that. I do not have all the cards that you are using, so I will test this deck out in the test servers with bots. And about Gravemonger, yes I know that from experience, which is why I have only 2 of them. They are usually sac'd if I ever get them early in my hand. Now I am off to try your deck out.

[FDL]

With all the discard I just always deck out first. I have yet to be in a game where I had too many cards left. Maybe I dont have that problem because of the fact I only run 41?

I also run Darkforged Knife and I always mill my opponent first. Usually in around 8 turns.

My deck plays similar to yours, but the numbers are a little tweaked. Main differences are Wave Collapse over MC (cheaper and triggers Reverb), Krygon over BS/Soul Reaper (helps to clear the board) and Knife over Mimic. It's actually possible to mill over 20 cards by turn 6 with Praxix (a thing of beauty!).

Nice write up.

I might have to try some Mimics...

[Misanthropic]

I also run Darkforged Knife and I always mill my opponent first. Usually in around 8 turns.

My deck plays similar to yours, but the numbers are a little tweaked. Main differences are Wave Collapse over MC (cheaper and triggers Reverb), Krygon over BS/Soul Reaper (helps to clear the board) and Knife over Mimic. It's actually possible to mill over 20 cards by turn 6 with Praxix (a thing of beauty!).

Nice write up.

I might have to try some Mimics...

I love wave collapse and seriously considered replcaing the MC with it. Its a tough call but ultimately did keep the mc mostly to help break weapons and armor.

I do like the idea of the knife and may give it another chance but I was only getting it to trigger once and felt it was a waste.


One thing I want to point out is that I enjoy this deck for the 'Surprise! You lost'. Watching my opponent slowly pick me away as his deck dwindles only to have me pop back to full health and then create an unescapable win condition. Thats what makes this deck fun for me. My goal is to create a situation in which my opponent feels secure in victory only to have it crushed (Alot of the people I played actually Gg'd me early knowing they had lethal after my turn. Instead I would complete milling and just before the final AHiL drops I reply 'Yes, it was'.) Yes, Im 'that guy' but maybe this will help clarify some card choices I made.