AardvarkPepper's Budget Feln (Shadow/Primal)

A cheap yet fairly effective common/uncommon midrange Shadow/Primal deck. Warning: Requires good knowledge of the game to use to best effect.

Decklist and Key Failure Percentages

Warning: This deck requires good knowledge of the game to use to best effect.

4 Levitate (Set1 #190)
4 Permafrost (Set1 #193)
2 Annihilate (Set1 #269)
4 Backlash (Set1 #200)
4 Dark Wisp (Set1 #264)
4 Gorgon Swiftblade (Set1 #377)
4 Lethrai Ranger (Set1 #270)
2 Rapid Shot (Set1 #259)
2 Vara's Favor (Set0 #35)
4 Venomfang Dagger (Set1 #263)
4 Gorgon Fanatic (Set1 #375)
4 Trickster's Cloak (Set1 #369)
4 Deathstrike (Set1 #290)
4 Stormcaller (Set1 #224)
1 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)
4 Cobalt Monument (Set1 #418)
4 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)
4 Amethyst Monument (Set1 #426)
4 Feln Banner (Set1 #417)
4 Seat of Cunning (Set0 #62)
4 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)

Shiftstone Cost: 10400 (all commons and uncommons)

https://eternalwarcry.com/deck-builder?main=1-190:4;1-193:4;1-259:2;1-251:2;1-200:4;1-264:4;1-377:4;1-270:4;0-35:2;1-263:4;1-375:4;1-369:4;1-290:4;1-224:4;1-187:1;1-249:4;1-426:4;1-418:4;1-425:4;1-417:4;0-62:4;

Key Probabilities of Power / Influence Failure & Comments:

Probability 2 or more power by 2nd turn when going 1st: 82%. This deck relies on a lot of 2 drops, failing to have at least 2 power quite soon means almost certain loss. Influence is not a problem early, but a player must remember the deck requires at least 1 Shadow and 1 Primal quickly in most situations, then by 4-drop wanting 2 Shadow for Deathstrike, and 2 Primal for Stormcaller.

Probability 3 or more power by 3rd turn when going 1st: 70%. The deck begins by trying to put out Lethrai Ranger or Gorgon Swiftblade (in that order of preference) then putting on a Trickster's Cloak to quickly get a 6/6 or a 4/5 Deadly Quickdraw that puts a clock on the opponent. The deck then tries to draw, putting out Gorgon Fanatic in preference to Dark Wisp, then using removal or stunning so Gorgon Fanatic can hit. Dark Wisp is used as a blocker that draws cards, but can also be equipped with a Venomfang Dagger to create an expensive but card-for-card effective blocker against large enemy minions.

The deck runs a lot of 4-drops and up, but it has some draw power in the form of Dark Wisp and Gorgon Fanatic, combined with removal to let Gorgon Fanatic hit, and buffs to make Dark Wisp's removal costly for an opponent. So long as the deck successfully reaches 3-drop, it will very likely be able to hit its 4-5 drops before too long with all the draw in the deck.

How to Use

Caution: This deck should only be used by players that know the game in great detail. There are an incredible number of ways to make suboptimal plays with this deck, and this deck doesn't recover from mistakes easily. Even a player playing this deck 100% correctly can lose (true of any deck, but especially this one.) That said, it's the strongest overall Feln common / uncommon deck I think possible to make.

The early 1-2 drop game is pretty reliable especially with mulligans guaranteeing 2-4 power, and most of the early game minions costing 2. In most matchups, a player wants to put out Lethrai Ranger, Gorgon Fanatic, Gorgon Swiftblade, and Dark Wisp, in that order. (Gorgon Fanatic is a 3-drop, but it's mentioned here because a player often will want to drop it as soon as possible.)

Getting Lethrai Ranger to 4/4 means it can be used as an early attacker, or a solid fairly-early blocker, giving the deck the time it needs to develop. Gorgon Fanatic needs to be dropped early so it can hit before an opponent draws into removal. Gorgon Swiftblade is board presence, and may need to be dropped earlier than Gorgon Fanatic against the aggro matchup, but getting its Infiltrate ability triggered is often not quite as crucial as getting Lethrai Ranger's Infiltrate triggered. Dark Wisp is nice because if an opponent uses a card to remove it, that's one less removal card going against minions that are useful on the board, if the opponent doesn't remove it, it can block and draw a card. Dark Wisp can also be equipped with Venomfang Dagger to threaten removal against big enemy minions (yet the player won't come out badly on the 2 for 1 trade because Dark Wisp draws a card when goes to the graveyard).

The 4-drop game isn't terribly reliable or powerful, and the combos are not terribly likely to come out despite the draw in the deck. Deathstrike is Fast Spell removal against any target, which can be important against enemy answers like Scorpion Wasp or enemy gang blocking, but is quite costly and slow. Stormcaller is pretty weak by itself (but damage can still add up to lethal especially if a player has multiple Stormcaller and/or Vara's Favor). If the player puts a Venomfang Dagger on Stormcaller though, and the target isn't invulnerable to damage or has Aegis active, then Stormcaller can destroy the target regardless of size.

The 5-drop game runs into Puma and Stormdancer (the transmuted powers). The deck runs so many spells, curses, and equipment that it doesn't have a lot of minions, and it needs something to pressure an opponent, so Transmute lands were ideal.

The deck is very slow to develop so is very vulnerable to enemy counterplays. For example, generating a 6/6 Lethrai Ranger by turn 3 sounds good in theory, but in practice that means having a 2-drop Lethrai Ranger (often not possible with all the potentially depleted power in the deck), following with a 3-drop Trickster's Cloak, attacking, surviving that attack, and after all that the minion is still exhausted and unable to block. It's only by turn 4 that the minion is ready to perform as a 6/6 blocker. Or say late game a player can put out 5-drop Pumas or Stormdancers. Those do not have impressive stats for their cost at all; a 4-drop Sandstorm Titan is a 5/6 (compare to a 5-drop Puma's 3/3). So a player has to be very careful about losing minions, though a player can't hold back from attacking too much, as it risks losing to an enemy burst finisher.

Besides the deck being slow, its minions are costly and inefficient. Lethrai Ranger's 2-drop 2/2 statline, Gorgon Swiftblade's 2-drop 2/3 statline becomes irrelevant, Gorgon Fanatic's 3-drop 3/2 is pretty bad, and 2-drop 1/1 Dark Wisp and 4-drop 0/2 Stormcaller are outright bad. The Transmute minions do not have impressive statlines for their cost; a 5-drop 4/4 is not good, and a 5-drop 3/3 even worse. Even the minion abilities aren't *great*. The deck can only get anywhere because of targeted enemy minion removal using Permafrost, Deathstrike, and other removal options in the deck.

Besides being slow to develop, vulnerable to enemy counterplays, and being costly and inefficient, the deck *also* runs much lower on available power than other decks, because after a player has 5 power, any remaining Transmute lands become minions instead. It is not unusual for the player's hand to remain quite full for much of the game, and not just because of the draw in the deck.

Because of the deck's especial slowness and vulnerability, a player must have a very strong knowledge of cards that opponents can play, a sense for when they will or will not play them, and ideally a knowledge of the specific cards in the specific deck an opponent uses. Using Permafrost on a 2/2 is a very bad move if the opponent has a lot of powerful followups like Champion of Progress or Vodokhan coming up. But *not* using Permafrost on a 2/2 is a very bad move if the opponent is going to swarm the board with small minions and whittle down your life points before you can recover.

But it doesn't stop there. That level of play and counterplay is relatively easy to guess at, but consider a player holding Vara's Favor to target an enemy Primal player right after the enemy player reaches 6-drop, just in time to remove a player's Aegis so the player won't have a bonus on a 7-drop Mistveil Drake. Or perhaps an opponent runs 7-drop Rimescale Draconus, so any exhausted minions have Permafrost played on them, so the player doesn't use their full board to attack.

The deck theoretically has almost infinite removal and neutralization between its Permafrost, Deathstrike, and Stormcaller / Venomfang Dagger combo, but the slowness of the deck and its vulnerability to being countered means a player in practice must be very careful to use removal, counters, attacking, not attacking, selecting which power card is appropriate to play on what turn, and finally, anticipating *exactly* what card an opponent will play on what turn, to get the most out of this deck.

Cards That Didn't Make It (Part 1)

I tried a huge number of variants of this deck before settling on the current version.

Yeti Spy: This card has the potential to be not terrible if running Feln with Dark Return, Haunting Scream, Shadowlands Guide, and Xenan Cultist. It dies, you bring it back, it gets bigger and bigger. But without Shadowlands Guide (and other rare cards in that build), it's just a 1/1. Sure, with Infiltrate it draws a card, but the issue is the card itself uses up a card slot and it only has a 1/1 body. Equipping this with Trickster's Cloak makes it a 3/3, which really doesn't withstand most 1-2 drop enemy aggression. Only Lethrai Ranger with a 4/4 statline (though conditional on Infiltrate hitting) can really hope to withstand enemy aggression.

Eilyn's Favor. Having a personal Aegis is nice against burst finishers, or in some matchups cards like Madness &c. But the deck ended up running only a single Primal Sigil, so there was a good chance using Eilyn's Favor would draw nothing in some games. Changing the influence balance wasn't worth it to get Eilyn's Favor, nor was decreasing the number of Stormdancers. Finally, the deck relies on Infiltrate activators and targeted removal. Vara's Favor can remove an enemy Aegis or can even destroy a weak enemy minion. Eilyn's Favor just couldn't do that.

Borderlands Waykeeper. An Aegis minion is always a consideration when equipment is in question. But in this deck, it just doesn't have the stats it needs. A 2/3 Deadly is a lot more relevant than a 1/3 Aegis in terms of blocking a big enemy minion. If equipment provided a 3/3 bonus, then I might have considered it as a 4/6 blocker would be enough to kill a lot of enemy attackers, but a 3/5 isn't *quite* good enough - especially considering the card might not end up equipped in the end after all, or might even only have weaker equipment available to put on it.

Lightning Storm. It kills Dark Wisp and Gorgon Fanatic and Lethrai Ranger, which is just too much. Further, a lot of enemy decks put out multiple attacking minions with 3/3 or 4/4 statlines, ranging from Strangers that mostly have a 2/2 statline but can easily get +1/+1 from effects, or minions buffed with Xenan Obelisk or other pump cards - basically Lightning Storm just wasn't good enough at all, especially considering it killed a lot of the deck's own minions.

Ice Sprite. It's very easy to destroy with its weak statline; effects that do 2 damage, multiple effects that do 1 damage, &c. It does slow down an opponent, but why risk its valuable stunning ability when a Permafrost is much harder to get rid of in a lot of matchups? It was still a consideration just to slow enemy decks down, but what with the other neutralization and removal options in the deck, and Ice Sprite's expensive 3 cost (the deck REALLY needs EVERY bit of power it can generate) Ice Sprite ended up being eliminated quite early.

Tundra Explorer: Part of an early draw engine with Cobalt Acolyte. I realized I was pushing the deck away from spells which didn't do much to create a sustainable board, and more towards Trickster's Cloak, as well as other equipment-based combos. Also Cobalt Acolyte's 2/1 statline was weak. What with reduced spells and increased equipment and Cobalt Acolyte looking questionable, I ended up not running a flying Tundra Explorer draw engine.

Cobalt Acolyte: Originally included to facilitate Infiltrate, and to impart permanent abilities to minions so they would come back from graveyard with Dark Return and buffed by Xenan Cultist for huge flying nastiness. It wasn't terribly uncommon to see 8/7s or 9/9s or even larger, say 14/14 in some games, but the lack of multiple minions with staying power meant the deck often got run over anyways. This got cut when the deck got reworked from more combo-based single huge minions to multiple minions that could pose a credible threat.

Windshaper: At one point I thought about trying to run flying minions off Windshaper, Clone, and Wild Cloudsnake. But that deck really didn't have much versatility; if the right removal options weren't drawn, the deck had to try to block with inefficient-stat flying minions, and its major drops happened at 6, which was *very* late. Then I considered Xenan Cultist and Vampire Bat, but that cut the number of flyers, which made Windshaper far less useful. In the end, this just didn't work out.

Dark Return: For a long time I tried running this with Haunting Scream and Xenan Cultist, building a minion/spell deck based around Tundra Explorer and Cobalt Acolyte draw engines and Ghostform and Levitate spell activators into Gorgon Fanatic's infiltrate. But the issue was pretty consistently that I would have a huge hand, but no board, and I would get run over. So I tried Lifesteal variations, but that decreased the spell count. Finally I concluded that Haunting Scream and Gorgon Fanatic simply didn't lend to permanent board presence, and though I ran spell removal, most of the spells couldn't contribute to board presence either, so I'd RNG into having no board presence, and the deck kept dying to getting swarmed. So I cut Haunting Scream and Gorgon Fanatic, and though Gorgon Fanatic ended up back in for draw, Dark Return ended up being cut. The deck is now pretty focused on getting credible threats on board, and preventing those threats from being destroyed, as dying means losing equipment, and the equipment effects are too important to lose casually.

Direfang Spider: A 1-drop Deadly. But its 1/1 statline kept getting it picked off by Vara's Favor or Temper or Snowballs, then I was like I'm just going to use Dark Wisp, if they kill Dark Wisp at least I get a card. Tried to make Direfang Spider work, just didn't.

Ghostform: Part of the spell/minion engine that I decided not to use. Also Ghostform used up a card in hand to gain trivial life (unless used late game on a 12/12 or something) and an Infiltrate activator, but no board presence.

Sabotage: Part of the spell/minion engine. Not as terribly useful against Time as it would use Scorpion Wasp or Desert Marshal and Storm Lynx as non-spell non-attachments to respond to attacks.

Devour: Part of the spell/minion engine. Particularly nice against Permafrost, getting some cards back even though losing a minion in the process. But Devour just made the lack of board presence even worse. I couldn't even count on using it on an "expendable' blocking minion; things just died way too much; the deck needed to *maintain* board.

Beastcaller's Amulet: Tried using this to generate 5/5s. Ended up cutting it as sure it was nice if you already had a minion hitting. But if you couldn't get a minion hitting, it's just a 3-drop 1/0 attachment. On the other hand, Trickster's Cloak was a 3-drop 2/2 attachment that made a minion unblockable.

Desperado: I could run this card and an activator to get it through to try to destroy a target. Or I could just run a single card to destroy a target. Activators were already in the deck for other Infiltrate abilities, but I couldn't have *too* many Infiltrate abilities. Without Desperatdo's Infiltrate it's just a 3/2. I opted not to run Desperatdo as removal; spell-based removal was more reliable even if it was more expensive and didn't generate a body on the field.

Xenan Cultist: Part of a Dark Return / Haunting Scream engine. But I had to stop it when I realized stuff had to die before Xenan Cultist could help it, and I was having trouble maintaining board presence what with Gorgon Fanatics disappearing when hitting, Devour eating minions, and so forth. Huge huge minions off combos, but not enough to stop a bunch of enemy minions from swarming in.

Haunting Scream: Part of the spell/minion engine. A 2-drop that left no minion on the field, the lack of board presence was too much.

Cards That Didn't Make It (Part 2)

These cards were only finally cut in the very final build; I considered them quite seriously through most of the deck builds.

Feeding Time: The transformation effect was great at shutting off graveyard recursion effects. But Deathstrike's quick spell ability was just too useful at removing Ambush minions such as Scorpion Wasp, or destroying one minion out of multiple enemy blockers so an attacker would live and all defenders would die. It was also quite expensive to cast; the deck needed to run very cheap removal because of its power issues through the entire game.

Violent Gust: For much of the deck's iterations it involved flyers, either using Levitate or Cobalt Acolyte to put Flying on Infiltrate minions, or running Flying minions &c. Violent Gust *always* had a target, opponents often had Flying (and when they did, the ground builds had much less trouble dealing with them when using Violent Gust, and the flying builds had less trouble hitting face when using Violent Gust). When opponents didn't have flying, they could be given flying with Levitate especially since Levitate draws cards anyways. In the end, with Cobalt Acolyte cut, and *also* because Violent Gust cost 2, Violent Gust got cut. The deck runs so tight on power, the difference between 1-casting-cost removal of Permafrost is much better for the deck than 2-casting cost Violent Gust; the fact that Permafrost isn't particularly conditional on Flying settled the decision.

Suffocate: The cost of 1 is very appealing, and there are a lot of problem minions like Combrei Healer, Knight-Chancellor Siraf, and Feln Bloodcaster that can be removed with this spell (among others). But those cards wouldn't put out damage like, say, a Sandstorm Titan. Also, Suffocate is not a Quick Spell. In the end, Annihilate was run.

Annihilate: Only two Annihilate are run. Why not more? The issue was a lot of AI threats ended up being multifaction, from Champion of Progress to Vodokhan to Reality Warden to whatever. Deathstrike doesn't have a problem with those though.

Cards that Almost Made It That You Might Want To Put In

Smuggler's Stash: Venomfang Dagger is very useful to have, but equipped minions can be destroyed pretty easily. Bring back minions and equips with Smuggler's Stash. This was very nearly included except the deck is incredibly slow as it is. Smuggler's Stash is a dead card in hand for much of the game, including Fire influence slows the deck from its already glacial pace, and after cards are brought back, they typically are still going to be slow to make an immediate impact on the game.

But if the game *does* really go quite late, Smuggler's Stash can be very good to have because it could bring back Stormcaller / Venomfang Dagger, as well as utility Lifesteal or Flying minions, or just a nice big Lethrai Ranger.

If going Smuggler's Stash, change some Sigils and Banners to Shadow/Fire and a few to Primal/Fire. But also -

+1 Smuggler's Stash, -1 Gorgon Swiftblade, but also -2 Cobalt Monument, +2 Banners or Sigils.

+2 Smuggler's Stash, -2 Gorgon Swiftblade, but also -3 Cobalt Monument, -1 Amethyst Monument, +4 Banners or Sigils.

==

A lot of other cards mentioned earlier, such as Suffocate and Feeding Time should be rotated in depending on the meta. Substitute removal cards in and out depending on the meta.

Permafrost: Useful to shut off graveyard recursion while not destroying a minion outright and sending it to the graveyard where it can be resurrected, yet this works far less well with the use of Shadow card "Devour". It does not stop effects from triggering if exhaustion is not required, as from Justice's "Marshal Ironthorn" or Time's "Mystic Ascendant". Even when used against meaty minions such as Shadow's "Impending Doom", the use of a Silence effect restores the use of the 5/5 body. Finally, Permafrost is vulnerable to removal from cards that remove enemy attachments, and with more players running attahcments in the meta, "Decay" and other cards are seeing more use. Anywhere from 0 to 4 is a good number depending on meta.

Suffocate: Straightforward low-cost removal for a great number of problem enemy minions ranging from Champion of Glory, Argenport Instigator, Deadly Shepherd, Statuary Maiden, Steward of the Past, Knight-Chancellor Siraf, as well as any number of likely minions run in any deck. Anywhere from 0 to 3 will likely work out more or less, depending on other removal options in the deck, but 4 is possible depending on meta.

Feeding Time: Good at shutting off cards with innate graveyard recursion and effect minions of any sort, in fact, it's just generally a great card other than that its application is limited as it is not a Fast Spell (though being a Fast Spell is *huge*). But straightforward removal as offered by Deathstrike simply doesn't shut off innate graveyard recursion, nor does it permanently address any effect minion if the opponent has some sort of recursion / resurrection ability (as with Time's "Excavate" or Shadow's "Dark Return" though Shadow has a great number of other minion recursion cards as well). So it *may* be necessary to substitute in Feeding Time depending on meta switches. This deck needs to get the most out of its cards so unless the meta is really difficult without it, I'd say 0-2 is right for this deck, often 0 unless quite sure some are needed..

Annihilate: Good at single-faction minion removal, but not good at addressing multi-faction cards such as Champion of Glory, Knight-Chancellor Siraf, and other multifaction early drops that can prove to be serious issues, as well as later drops from Recurring Nightmare to Statuary Maiden to Knight-Chancellor Siraf &c. Still, this card can stop a lot of nasty enemy threats from Sandstorm Titan to Impending Doom to Mystic Ascendant &c. I think 2 is about right at the time of this writing, but 0 could be right, or 3 or even 4.

Deathstrike: Terribly costly, but really the only single card Fast Spell solution to a lot of potential problems ranging from a Scorpion Wasp played in combat, to repeated castings of Recurrent Nightmare, to Haunting Scream on a Direwood Beastcaller, or whatever - also the only way to blow up enemy minions in combat to potentially get a big score. It's useful as removal against any target as well, never mind multifaction or single faction, or power &c. For these various reasons, 2 is a pretty safe bet for this deck, though I think 4 generally better.

History of the Build

I started the deck trying to build off synergies with Haunting Scream and Dark Return. But Dark Return is conditional on having minions in graveyard, and Haunting Scream doesn't create any permanent board presence. Haunting Scream decks that use rares use Direwood Beastcaller to generate *massive* board presence for cost, but rares were not an option for this deck.

I thought about running Yeti Spy, but its 1/1 body isn't a good investment for a card, even with a 2/2 boost from Trickster's Cloak it would only be a 3/3 which is not a particularly good blocker. Haunting Scream into Devour was a possible play that could make decent use of Yeti Spy and turn otherwise dead cards into at least semi-useful draw, but all in all, Yeti Spy was just too weak a card to justify using a card slot to include it, especially as the deck couldn't abuse graveyard recursion terribly well. (Shadowlands Guide being important to 1-drop recursion and Grasping at Shadows to bring back Xenan Cultist or whatever card - but both Shadowlands and Grasping off limits for this deck as rares.)

Primal and Shadow are both pretty weak in terms of commons and uncommon minions that have good board presence for cost (this changes at 6-drop but too little too late), so I was pushed steadily away from temporary or conditional effects, towards permanent minions and/or equipment. With a concentration on creating and maintaining board, Haunting Scream and Dark Return were eliminated.

Direfang Spider was a consideration, but it's not a credible attacker (an opponent can just let it swing) and as a blocker it's not consistently good as enemy finishers can fly over it. Plus it's easy to kill with just one toughness. Again, if I had been running Shadowlands Guide, perhaps it could have made it in, but no rares, so no Shadowlands Guide, so nothing doing.

Beastcaller's Amulet seemed a possible choice as it can (in theory) at 3-drop generate a 5/5 body as well as boosting a minion +1/+0. But Beastcaller's Amulet had to ride a minion in to hit, which meant first casting a minion that wouldn't necessarily die, but then also a minion that had some sort of native or imparted evasion so it could hit - or potentially the deck could use removal to clear the way. But answers like Scorpion Wasp &c were problematic, as well as getting any sort of consistent evasion. So that didn't work out.

Going Lifedrain minions into equipment, or flying minions into buffs - both didn't work out. The early game wasn't necessarily bad for either. But both failed in mid and end games; the Lifedrain deck didn't have enough reliable finishers to end games, and couldn't rely on pushing Lifedrain minions without evasion to a win, and the Flying deck could get get run over by enemy decks with stronger-stat ground minions as well as lacking reliable finishers, plus both running into problems without any sort of consistent draw engine paired with single-card-single-target removal. Single-card-single-target removal isn't a good response against cards like The Great Parliament, or Marisen's Disciple, or Knight-Chancellor Siraf (for example), all of which can generate multiple threats, and a lack of draw engine meant an enemy deck that had any good density of credible-threat minions would inevitably put out a minion that couldn't be answered (which is simply a realistic expectation of what one *should* expect even with reasonable RNG i.e. random number generator).

In the end, I pushed Lethrai Ranger for its potential 4/4 statline, Trickster's Cloak for its enabling Infiltrate, Dark Wisp and Gorgon Fanatic for card draw but also as a credible mount for equipment in a pinch (if it dies before equipment's on it, it draws a card and isn't a big loss, if it dies after equip drop it was harder to remove than a simple 1/1 so pulled some sort of serious-ish removal, and drew a card anyways). Even with a load of removal, the deck would run into RNG (random number generator) problems against any sort of serious enemy minions (big flyers, big minions, whatever) when a player just couldn't draw needed removal against an enemy threat, so I put in Stormcaller and Venomfang Dagger for a lasting source of minion removal, and Backlash to protect minions, especially equipped minions, against enemy plays.

The end product wasn't ideal; it's pretty reliant on combos, its draw is not reliable, it doesn't have a lot of Lifedrain to compensate for early life loss to a weak board - but it's about as strong a deck as I think possible with Feln - and that's after trying quite a few variants.