Queen Serene

[cliffordcan]

Hero: Serena

44 cards with Hero.

Abilities:
Assassination X3
Stop, Thief! X4
Retreat! X4
Elicit Information X4

Items:
Night Prowler X1
Loom of Fate X3
Thoughtripper's Cutlass X4

Allies:
Skilled Ironmonger X4
Champion of Irum X2
Eleanor, Princess of Ellos X2
Midnight Sentinel X4
Night Owl X4
Lyra Blackrose X2
Oliver Fagin X2

I love this deck. I have tested it a bunch, but don't get enough time in any one season to have a good standing. It is very fun to play and by the time you steal a few cards, the opponent usually rage quits, even if it is still anyone's game.

I needed a Serena deck without IGG, because in DP everyone knew you just needed to destroy IGG to wipe out any Serena deck. They were right. So I gave up on her. Now with Cutlass, she can thrive without IGG.

In this deck T2 is crucial, if you can get and keep the board up to T5 when you start stealing cards and ruining their hand, then you have won.

Loom of Fate: A great card for Serena. If you can use your Shadow Ability and their hand is empty? Use this, now you have a card to steal. Also, if you don't have a Cutlass in your hand use this until you do to get it, giving them draw is worth the total destruction to their board and hand. Remember not to use it unless you are attacking their hero, you get the card drawn from killing an ally. Never give your opponent a card unless you have to to try for the Cutlass, if you have 4 resources left and you already control the board, don't use it in hopes to get a 3 drop, let them top deck, you want to destroy their hand. This is not your draw engine!

Retreat!: Good in a few ways. Do they have an ally out and no cards in their hand? Retreat! them and steal it with your Shadow Ability. Even if they have a few cards in their hand and you might want that ally, gamble it. Also this deck is weak to fatties, best way to deal with them in to Retreat! them and steal them. If they have no allies then Retreat! Mid Sen and keep buffing your allies.

Elicit Information: Your draw engine. It is not a popular card, so your opponent wont worry about destroying it. You may think it's not enough, but you have some pseudo-draw with Night Owl and Loom of Fate. Every time you use your Shadow Ability you draw 2 cards. Kill an ally with Cutlass, draw a card. Have Lyra out, they use their Shadow Ability, draw a card. They have a discard deck, full hand the whole game. Best combo: you both have 0 cards, Loom of Fate, each draw one, Shadow ability with Cutlass, steal the card they just drew and draw a new card. 3 cards in your hand now.

Night Prowler: Just icing on the cake really. If you get this out T6 going second and able to use your Shadow Ability!!!!! That is two cards stolen and 2 cards drawn with Elicit Information!!!! The reason I don't have more is that it is not vital to win & most hands are running low on cards by T6, but Loom of Fate can help with that.

Lyra Blackrose: Not a vital card, but it helps you to draw if her ability is tripped. It is not a good T4 drop UNLESS you have no Elicit Information AND they will use their shadow ability next turn. She is best played late game(when you have Elicit Info on), right before the second time they will try to use their ability. This will trip them up because they don't have a lot of cards in their hand to get rid of her at this point and will use their Shadow Ability to try and kill her, or not use their ability until she is gone. Some ppl even play Crippling Blow on her!

Midnight Sentinel: This helps you keep the board and gives the opponent a target you don't care about. It is a red herring. For whatever reason ppl love to waste a ton of attacks and cards and abilities on these guys, it is awesome. The main thing is getting a T2 drop Ambush and +2 health. That means with CoI you have 2 1/5's on the board with Champ able to grow and has ambush. With Skilled Ironmonger, you have a 1/2 & 2/5 with ambush. With Princess you have a 3/3 with ambush who cannot be attacked and a 1/5. This gives you serious board presence and keeps your opponent busy while you set up Elicit Info + Cutlass. Also the Ambush helps to kill stronger allies with Serena's ability. Also, they eat up enemy weapons if you need them to.

Ideal Hand going first:
T1: Loom of Fate
T2: Princess/Skilled Ironmonger (T2 is vital for this deck)
T3: If ally is still on the board: Midnight Sentinel
If T2 ally is gone: Night Owl
T4: Elicit Information
T5: Thoughtripper's Cutlass & let the fun begin.

Ideal Hand going second:
T1: Loom of Fate
T2: CoI/Skilled Ironmonger (T2 is vital for this deck)
T3: If ally is still on the board: Midnight Sentinel
If T2 ally is gone: Night Owl
T4: Elicit Information
T5: Thoughtripper's Cutlass & let the fun begin. you have 5 SE at this point so can use your ability twice in a row!!!
T6: (RARE) Night Prowler and ability!!!!! Game over!!!

[Gondorian]

Hiya. That's a nice write-up. Glad you are enjoying the revised Cutlass. Sounds like you have been playing a while, but only just joined the forum. Welcome!

[cliffordcan]

Yes, I've been around a bit. I've stalked the forum long enough and finally had a deck others weren't posting variations of.

[Lightning Fury]

Yo! Welcome to the forums

Have you considered using IGG as a draw engine? Elicit information can act as a substitute, but you have to wait for your ability every time you need to draw cards. And it is dependant on you having a weapon or Lyra in place. And they both cost 4cc. And I would really consider using Nightshade over Ironmonger if you are using Midnight Sentinel.

[cliffordcan]

Yes, the whole purpose is a Rogue deck without IGG, I was tired of the tempo loss and most players know that if you shut that down Serena is done for.

[f0gbring3r]

Using elicit information still gives you a tempo loss. I find backstab, night owl (which you already have) and repaid in full as draw engines that are a bit faster than IGG and elicit information. Not sure about having only 4 cutlass, if you don't draw a cutlass, the effect of elicit information will suffer, since lyla + EI is very hard to pull off. I've played with Lyla and she's just too slow. I haven't played with EI yet and I'm not sure how good it is, but it seems like you need combos to pull this off and that's just too complicated. Also, where is the black garb?

[Cosmic Giggle]

This is a pretty interesting deck to play with. Out of my first 7 games I went 4W-3L. 2 of the wins were against players with 300+ rating, so it can run with the big boys. However you run into a very similar situation you mentioned about IGG, except now with Cutlass. The majority of players expect Cutlass on t5 and are prepared for it. I don't think you really need Ironmonger since Cutlass rarely lasts that long. Ironmonger is much more useful if you're also going to use Black Garb. But with the Retreats and Assassinations I don't think you need Garb. As Lightning Fury mentioned I would replace him with Nightshade since he combos well with Sentinel. Also he has a decent chance of surviving more than a turn. I really struggled once I lost board control. The only other card that has a chance of lasting more than a turn is Night Owl. Without anytihng on the board, Assassination is useless.

2 of my losses were against mages. I can see them being a big pain in the arse. I'd probably throw in a Spelleater Bands. And I'm very iffy about Loom of Fate. I really don't like making my opponent draw. Every time I used Loom I felt like I was tipping the balance in favor of my opponent. There was only one card I was really looking for, Cutlass. Maybe you could try switching Loom with Aldmor Conduit , which would combo with Lyra Blackrose and then Elicit Information. I know, it's a long shot. Also I would suggest a couple of Lily Rosecult to retrieve a destroyed Cutlass. Since it's your only weapon and an integral part of your draw engine, it's been pretty critical to have on hand.

[bobrossw]

interesting - this is sort of like the concept deck I was contemplating back before the cutlass change was introduced. I like the night-prowler / cutlass / loom of fate combo. I'm wondering how often you can pull it off. Obviously, when it does work, that's GG, but it can be very hard as Serena to lock down the board by T5 and you're missing some of the tools I'd typically use to help do it, like Back Stab.

I'm excited about this and intrigued, and going to think about this a bit more before judging.

I just watched two of your games, and I think I get why you said IGG was a tempo loss - you have a very aggressive play-style, often going for the hero when you could be taking out allies. IGG encourages taking out allies, which slows down the game (since you're not killing the hero), but it's not technically a tempo loss. Tempo refers to how far ahead / behind your opponent you are in terms of your ability to do things...so the tempo loss people complain about with IGG is wasting T4 casting it, you're doing the same with Elicit info. What makes up for that is your aggressive early board presence (assuming you don't lose it, which is totally possible in certain matchups).

[cliffordcan]

The main thing is that you are all good players and you probably wouldn't think twice about destroying EI, which means I have a draw engine I get to keep. IGG to any good player is their #1 target. Loom of Fate "helps" the other player. So I have a deck where I can fly under the radar with my draw. See my game against OZONF (292), my name is CLIFFORDCAN. I had no trouble with draw. I got the EI, Night Prowler, Loom, Cutlass combo, but had too many cards in my hand for it to work!

Loom is only for making sure you have a Cutlass and making sure the opponent has a card to steal. Try it with or without changes and tell me your IGN so I can see.

[cliffordcan]

Just destroyed a mage in my last game. Stole his Aeon. Got the combo for EI, Cutlass, NP & Loom. Check it out. No trouble with draw. IGN: cliffordcan