TJ dubdub's God's Eye Runner Up Lance

[TJ dubdub]

This deck is already posted in the tourney thread here and also the main deck was posted on the official SE Facebook and Twitter pages, but I figured I would do a write up on it here.


Lance is one of my favorite (and probably my best) heroes. Ever since I reached my personal best rating of 386 last year I have been tinkering with him trying to find the best builds for the variety of metas in QM and the tourney scene. Lance has a few major issues. One of them is Mind Control. The card can basically just win the game for your opponent. But with the recent soul reaper ban the card see much less high level play. Another big issue is tanky allies like fort wisp and sandworm. Also Brax soldier is a pain. But with the new cards we got Dhalia. She is an immediate answer to both and gives us a 5cc 4 attack ally which is a decent haste target. She is one of the most underrated card in the LLP2 imo. With all that said I think Lance is in a pretty good spot right now. Here is the list:

Hero: Lance Shadowstalker

Allies (28):
4x Masked Bandit ~200g
4x Night Owl ~100g
4x Sword Thief ~300g
4x Tainted Oracle ~450g
2x Braxnorian Soldier ~100g
2x Dhalia Blackrose ~400g
2x Eriss Fateweaver ~1000g
3x Nathanias, People's Champion ~1000g
2x Oliver Fagin ~660g
1x Kion the Magnificent ~3200g

Abilities (5):
1x Assassination ~100g
3x Stop, Thief! ~200g
1x Anarchic Looting ~300g

Items (6):
4x Anklebreaker ~400g
2x Dagger of Unmaking ~600g

40 cards ~ 18720g

Sideboard:
Allies (2):
1x Eriss Fateweaver ~1000g
1x Nathanias, People's Champion ~1000g

Abilities (4):
2x Sinkhole ~400g
2x Anarchic Looting ~300g

Items (3):
2x Ill-Gotten Gains ~200g
1x Dagger of Unmaking ~600g

Locations (1):
1x Yahari: Valley of Doom ~400g


The format had public decklists, side boards, and bans. You can read more about it in the tourney thread. My thought going into the tourney was to be resilient to whatever my opponent decided to ban. If they banned my draw allies, I had IGG or more looting to replace the draw. If they banned fatties, I had 2 to bring in. I had 1 dagger so i would always have at least 3 weapons. I think this is a better strategy overall in a format like this than trying to have a bunch of tech cards. I did bring a few though. Sink was because i was a little concerned about attach priest getting a great start and running me over. Yahari is generally just a great card in a lot of mus. I brought it almost every round and have made room for 2 in the main deck after the tourney.

With this deck you just have to realize you will probably be behind in the early game. The low cc allies are more about soaking up damage and drawing cards than trying to keep board. This is part of the reason for using bandit over knight, they aren't that much different normally and bandit can attack brax. It seems like a stretch, but you would be surprised how often it matters. You start to turn the corner on t5 when you drop a weapon. After that your threats are much bigger than theirs and most decks don't have enough answers for that many fatties. It also has a ton of tech with rogues naturally being great vs items and having Eriss for attachments and support abilities, making it a great choice in any stall meta.

Tips:
-Generally you aren't going to be the aggressor, so using the hero ability to hit face is normally not the right thing to do. You want to control the board and chip away at their health until they run out of answers for your fatties, then you finish them off.
-Oliver is incredibly good when you are behind. Normally can take 2 allies off the board the turn you play him. Nathan is better when you are even or ahead.
-Don't be afraid to save up your ability, I see a lot of players that want to use the ability as soon as they get to 4 even if it is on a low attack ally, avoid that at all costs.

Possible changes:
-Like I said, I added 2 yahari to the main for another tournament. I dropped 1 Nathan for 40 + hero
-Bandit can be changed for knight if you prefer
-In certain metas you might want 2 looting and 2 thief

Things to avoid:
-I think the fatty base is pretty solid, allies like Raven and Thunderstrike are appealing, but this is the wrong build for them
-With Dhalia I think 6 weapons is probably as low want to go, could go up to 7 if you want.
-I like to avoid having 4x of unique allies in this deck, so if you were to add another fatty or need to replace kion if you are new and he is too expensive I would go for a 3rd Oliver or Eriss.

I lost to a A1 High There 3-2 in the finals. He was playing a hunter ally Skervox. All the games were really close and most went for 20+ turns. Congrats to him for the win! If you have any questions about the build I am happy to answer. Also feel free to PM me on Telegram about anything with the game.