(This is a guest article by Lyneth)

Introduction

Eladwen's new hero ability makes her the best death-racer in Shadow Era now. Not even Zaladar's ability with 4 Shadow Font cards can compare to her.

This deck is tuned with the burn strategy in mind. That is the reason why we use Kris and Puwen, because they don't cost a lot of resources to cast. It has a high synergy with the other burn cards. This way, you can afford to start burning and casting allies as early as Turn 4 (1 Fireball and 1 Kris).

This deck does not require the traditional board control in Shadow Era, which makes it rather easy to play if you know how to play it. I will explain it further in the strategy section later on. This is the reason why Tainted Oracles play quite a significant role in this deck.

It can be quite controversial because I choose not to use any Jasmine or any Aldon and 4 Supernovas. Snow Sapphire is a good addition only for very particular matches, and you can make room for it.

Deck List

Strategy

The problem with all mages is the draw, and for that reason, we have 3 major cards to support us in our draw: Bazaar, Bad Santa and Tainted Oracles.

The first few turns should be focused on allies. Obviously, that means that in Turn 1, you can only play Kristoffer Wyld. And do play Kristoffer Wyld whenever you can early on, because his damage will be cumulative, considering that most opponents you face do not have a multi-target option, such as Lightning Strike or Arcane Burst. Both those cards can only be played the quickest on Turn 4. By then, if your Kris survives, he would've caused 4 damage for just 1 resource spent. That is equivalent to casting a Fireball!

On Turn 2, only if you don't have good cards do you play Bazaar or Bad Santa. What I mean by that is obviously if you have too many Bazaar or Bad Santa cards, without any other cards. It's okay to sacrifice Retreat, Bazaar or Bad Santa, especially if you have at least two Retreats. Don't worry if you only have 1 Bazaar or 1 Bad Santa card, but at least you have an Oracle.

The only exceptional situation you'd want to save Bazaar is when you're playing against warriors. Warriors have an extremely good drawing mechanism using Blood Frenzy, but they know that it's at the cost of their lives, which is rather risky against mages.

However, when they realize that you do not cast a Bazaar, then they're going to feel that it's rather problematic for them to draw, so perhaps they'll use Blood Frenzy later on. At this stage, this is likely to be the point where you'd want to use Bazaar, and if possible, after having used Bad Santa as well (so that they do not get any card advantage over you), so that you do not fall behind in terms of card draw.

If you're fighting against warriors who refuse to use Blood Frenzy against you, then do not fear to use Oracle and Supernova combo. Simply because the Oracles can very easily be crippled by the warriors, ideally, you always have 1 Supernova in hand whenever you cast an Oracle in play. This will make them waste their resources on crippling the Oracle, which will be killed by your own Supernova in the next turn.

The best possible card to play on Turn 2 is Puwen, because you'd want to push for early damage as much as possible.

On Turn 3, it's possible that the opponent casts a Jasmine Rosecult card. At that stage, if the other opponent is also an Eladwen, that means that the opportunity is spent on trying to gain board control. That means that she's not going to damage you on that turn.

There are three ways to deal with this situation, depending on what cards you have. Take note that I'm assuming that you have 1 Kris and 1 Puwen on the board.

Firstly, if you have another Puwen and another Kris on your hand, cast them all. If that's the case, ignore Jasmine altogether, and have all your allies attack the hero. On the next turn, they would do their utter best to gain board control.

That may mean casting an Aldon, which is rather pointless, because Jasmine's 3 damage is enough to kill a Puwen, cast a Lightning Strike on the two Puwens, and then have Jasmine kill one Kris, or cast an Arcane Burst, which will get rid of the two Krises, but only one Puwen by the fatal blow from Jasmine.

If Aldon is cast, get rid of Jasmine by using a Lightning Strike and Kris will finish her off.

If Lightning Strike is cast, then cast a Lightning Strike and kill Jasmine by using Kris.

If Arcane Burst is cast, get rid of Jasmine by casting a Lightning Strike and one hit by Puwen.

Secondly, if on Turn 3 you do not have a Kris and a Puwen, and if you're simply reacting, then use a Fireball on Jasmine and maintain board control. If your allies get killed the next turn by a Lightning Strike, it's okay because you would've dealt 3 damage against your opponent (from Kris and Puwen) and they haven't dealt any damage against you.

Now, with a clean board, you should cast an Oracle. Why is that? Because on Turn 5, they may cast a Raven or an Armored Sandworm. They NEED to be distracted. What is especially nice with having an Oracle on the next turn is that if you have a Supernova, you can actually get rid of Raven by having the Oracle attack the Raven first before you cast the Supernova. This is an extremely HUGE advantage! First of all, they waste all their resources for not doing any damage at all, and secondly, you now have CARD ADVANTAGE over them!

Armored Sandworm is more problematic. If a Sandworm is cast, then by all means use your Oracle to attack the hero, and do not cast a Supernova yet. The best move here is a Fireball and a Retreat combo.

At this stage, you need to draw and burn like mad any time that you could. By this stage, in the ideal situation, you would've dealt around 18 damage (including Eladwen's special).

By then, it's all about burning and delaying your opponents' allies. Your ally cards now serve as delaying meatshields, more than anything. That is the reason why Kris is such a good card here, because not only will he serve as a meatshield, but he can actually deal some damage before he dies.

Obviously, Retreat is God-sent here. However, even 1 Fireball, 1 Kris and 1 Supernova can usually end the game.

Key Points

The best way to use Bazaar is after you cast a Bad Santa. In turn 6, you can very easily cast two Bad Santas and 1 Bazaar, but you'd probably want to cast a Puwen or a Kris instead of another Bad Santa, just so that the enemy doesn't hurt you too much.

When you're short of cards, don't worry about giving your enemy some card advantage too much, because even if they have a card advantage, usually they need more time to set things up and you don't. Take advantage of your direct damage capabilities as a mage. Even if they come up with a Turn 6 Aeon because of you casting a Bad Santa, you can usually counter the Aeon using Retreat, Kris, or Puwen. While the Aeon they cast is now busily getting rid of whatever is in the board, very likely you were able to burn the hero.

Early game, your sacrifice priorities are the drawing cards, as well as the second Oracle or the second Lightning Strike. Next would be the second Supernova. After turn 3, it's usually okay to sacrifice Puwen. Puwen becomes more useful again in Turn 6 onwards, but even so, the likely priority becomes the drawing.

For instance, it's possible that you'd want to cast an Oracle + a Bad Santa instead in Turn 6, because your cards are getting sparse.

Should we want to reduce the number of cards, I'd suggest removing 1 Bazaar. Otherwise, even the 4 Supernovas are really important.

Another possible addition to this deck is Snow Sapphire. If you want to use Snow Sapphire, I suggest take out 1 Bazaar and 1 Bad Santa and replace them with 2 Snow Sapphires. I find that Snow Sapphire doesn't quite have the synergy for this deck because it's defensive rather than offensive. However, it can be quite useful in some match-ups.

Personally, I feel that I'd rather see more Bazaar for as an auto-sac or more Bad Santa against for instance, warriors, rather than getting a Snow Sapphire card. They require quite a bit of resource to be cast, and they can be very easily dealt with using Smashing Blow. If you're too desperate that you need Snow Sapphire, and if the opponent has Smashing Blow, it's usually game over anyway. Whereas if I get a Bad Santa instead, even if I have 6 resources, I can draw them twice and I'd probably find a Retreat that can save me more than a Snow Sapphire could.

Do not forget to use Eladwen's special anytime you can with the priority garnered towards the hero.

Feedback

Please post comments/questions on my thread at the Shadow Era Forums.