Why I chose Combrei as my first Eternal deck
Ever since I brought my first homemade Magic: The Gathering deck to my first tournament when I was eleven years old, I’ve been hooked on constructed play. That feeling of excitement when you sit down from your opponent and see if all your creativity and planning pays off is unlike any other. I still get that feeling today and more than that, I crave it. As fun as limited play is, I want to play all constructed all the time and so obviously, ranked play is my favorite thing to do in Eternal. But to get to the point where I am now; owning a solid collection backed up with lots of shiftstones and gold, was a grinding, sometimes grueling, process. Being in closed beta with no way to shortcut the grinding of incremental rewards, it was a very careful and patient process. I knew I eventually wanted to play with as many control, mid-range and flavor cards as possible (but nothing to do with combos like Witching Hour, because I am not a soulless monster) so I really took my time before spending my precious stones on new cards.
This is the first “real” deck I grinded out:
4 Initiate of the Sands (Set1 #74)
4 Desert Marshal (Set1 #332)
4 Friendly Wisp (Set1 #82)
4 Sauropod Wrangler (Set1 #83)
4 Vanquish (Set1 #143)
4 Knight-Chancellor Siraf (Set1 #335)
4 Valkyrie Enforcer (Set1 #151)
4 Sandstorm Titan (Set1 #99)
2 Xenan Obelisk (Set1 #103)
4 Marshal Ironthorn (Set1 #174)
2 Reality Warden (Set1 #343)
3 Predatory Carnosaur (Set1 #118)
4 Rolant’s Honor Guard (Set1 #183)
2 Rolant, the Iron Fist (Set1 #185)
9 Justice Sigil (Set1 #126)
9 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)
4 Combrei Banner (Set1 #424)
4 Seat of Progress (Set1 #58)
This is my first Combrei deck, and I’d classify it as a Ramp-Tempo deck. A lot of factors went into me deciding that this was the deck, or at least the type of deck, that I should focus on first. I wanted to fight as well as I could, with the best options for fighting that I could find. Instead of focusing on spells, relics and combos, I wanted to get the biggest units out quickly and see how they measured up, while also crafting legendaries that might find use outside of a simple beat down plan. Plus, this deck let me play with this guy:
For my money, Sandstorm Titan is the best legendary to get a full playset of first. This is not a revolutionary idea but it’s one that cannot be overstated. The Titan is absolute monster in any kind of combat, having huge stats for his cost and having endurance making him great on offense and defense. In your early days of Eternal I recommend you focus on getting as good as you can at unit-based combat because overall, that is how most games of Eternal are decided and mastering it is the first step to understanding deeper strategies. Sandstorm Titan makes this much, much easier. You can attack freely, be confident of having a strong defender, and simply by going through the mental repetition of always looking to attack and always having a blocker every turn, is a good habit to exercise. Basically, Sandstorm is so good at fighting, it forces you to consider combat every turn. Which is what you should be doing anyway so why not do it with one of the best units you can?
On top of this, Sandstorm Titan is an incredibly flexible card that can fit into many different kinds of decks. If you don’t see yourself playing much Combrei in the long run, still get those Sandstorm Titans. Nevermind the stats, just think about how removing flying, having Endurance, being a big blocker, being a decent clock, for only four mana, fits easily into control and other midrange strategies? It is not unreasonable to play a deck that is all spells, all relics, and Sandstorm Titan is the only unit you play with because if left un-checked, Sandstorm Titan can be all you need. I don’t recommend only playing decks with one unit but if you had to choose, or if you wanted to experiment, Titan is a great, if not the best, option.
Aside from my love affair with Sandstorm Titan, why did I want to play Combrei as opposed from Elysian? Or Xenan? Essentially the answer lies with Desert Marshal and Valkyrie Enforcer. Or in other (key)words, having access to silence. Not having a full collection means not having access to all the best removal and reactionary cards. Being able to remove the game text of any unit that you may or may not know exists, gives you a strong way to make-up for the lack of cards and/or experience of being a new player. In the bigger picture I tend to think silence is a little overrated compared to outright removal and cards that race well (like Pyroknight), but in the beginning it’s great to be able to stick to the basic plan of playing units each turn, and still have access to the “safety-net” that silence provides. And just like Titan, Desert Marshal and Valkyrie Enforcer can go into lots of different decks and overall will just give your collection a more flexibility and depth.
So in the beginning, it was all about Sandstorm Titan and units with silence, but there are many different ways to build Combrei so let’s take a little deeper look at the particular cards in this list:
Many people would (and I’m sure will) argue that Siraf is the first legendary you should get four of instead of Sandstorm Titan. That’s a perfectly reasonable position, as Siraf is powerful and flexible, but Siraf’s role in control decks and even in mid-range decks is less straightforward than Sandstorm Titan. She too has big stats for her cost and she also has amazing game text but there are two factors to consider when comparing her to Titan: 1) She is dual-faction. This means that if you want to keep using your Siraf while trying different decks, you’re going to have a harder time splashing her than you do with Titan. 2) The best part of her game text doesn’t exist until turn 8, and it’s a random effect. Siraf probably wins more games on her own than Titan but her impact is not consistent (not fun to spend eight mana just to put a 0/0 Copper Conduit into the void) or even easy to pull off, without lots of other rares and legendaries that may not fit into the decks/factions you want to play (I’m looking at you, Harsh Rule). At her best Siraf can be better than Titan, but she is not the objectively more powerful card. That said, Siraf is a very, very powerful card that every Combrei deck should play with, and she also fits into control decks and this makes her another great card to invest your time into getting.
Speaking of cards that don’t fit into other strategies, why is Reality Warden in this deck? Well, a 7/7 for five mana is a good deal when I want to win combat as often as possible. This deck does not need Reality Warden, but when I started out stats were king to me. If I didn’t have the experience my opponents did, at least I could try to blow them off the board with giant monsters. Reality Warden fits that bill. That said, I haven’t put Reality Warden into a deck since this one so I wouldn’t say it’s a great card to pick up early for your collection, but I did win several games because of Reality Warden going over the top. If all you want to do is smash, I say go for it.
After finishing the initial campaigns, I really wanted to try out one of the Scions and I personally thought Rolant was the coolest. He has that sick mustache and looks like he just walked out of a superhero cartoon. Yes I am a nerd. Also, I needed a top-end finisher for my curve and Rolant seemed to fit the bill. In my early days of Eternal there wasn’t as much control/Icaria decks floating around so games often led to huge board stalls and having my side be immune to damage with endurance seemed pretty good to me. And it was. I won many, many games with Rolant, often the moment I played him my opponent conceded. But in the early drafts of this deck I was sometimes too far behind in life for Rolant to make a difference, or I died before turn eight. Enter Rolant’s Honor Guard. Honor Guard really helped bridge the gap between dealing with smaller aggressive decks and slower control decks. Against aggro, slamming a 6/6 life steal unit either ended the game on the spot, or bought me one or two extra turns that let me stabilize to get to Rolant. Against control decks, Honor Guard was often one threat too many after running out Sandstorm Titans, Siraf’s, Marshal Ironthorns, etc. At the time, Honor Guard was a great surprise that snowballed into victory quickly and also satisfied my desire to have a sweet, flavorful way to end the game with Rolant.
In all honesty, the one-two punch of Honor Guard into Rolant is probably not the best way to end a game, it was just my own personal preference and I was happy to invest shift stones into it. And it is no less valuable for that. Your first “real” deck is going to live with you for a long time so make sure you enjoy playing it. Getting to end the game with Rolant really made me feel like I was part of the Eternal mythology. Being the nerd that I am, this provided a strong motivating factor for queing into game after game. What I’m trying to say is, find your own mustached-superhero and grind away.
In closing I want to mention the mistakes I made in choosing this deck, because even though I love this deck and it worked for me, I would definitely do things differently now. First of all, the deck has too many legends. Sandstorm Titan and Siraf have proven to be great investments overall but Marshal Ironthorn and especially Reality Warden haven’t done much for my collection. Ironthorn is a great unique card that should be in Combrei almost all the time, but in a lot of decks he is just a 5/5 that gets me one extra mana. Unless you really want to try to combo off with Mystic Ascendant, I would look at replacing Ironthorn with any other decent five cost unit that is either cheaper or more flexible. For a long time I was using Copperhall Elite and that worked fine. The second mistake of this deck was not putting more effort into the mana base and trying out more cards like Seek Power, Secret Pages, and Diplomatic Seal. I was so focused on my ramp units I didn’t think much about how I could directly interact with my power cards more and that cost me a lot of games.
Since grinding with this deck I have built Elysian Midrange, numerous control decks, Stonescar Maiden, Rakano, Jito-Queen, Feln Midrange, well…pretty much everything including original brews that sometimes worked. When the wipe happens and we all have to start over again, I’ll be happy to “sleeve” up a better version my first Combrei deck. Maybe something that looks like this:
4 Initiate of the Sands (Set1 #74)
4 Desert Marshal (Set1 #332)
4 Friendly Wisp (Set1 #82)
4 Sauropod Wrangler (Set1 #83)
3 Secret Pages (Set1 #81)
3 Vanquish (Set1 #143)
2 Knight-Chancellor Siraf (Set1 #335)
4 Valkyrie Enforcer (Set1 #151)
4 Sandstorm Titan (Set1 #99)
2 Xenan Obelisk (Set1 #103)
2 Marshal Ironthorn (Set1 #174)
4 Predatory Carnosaur (Set1 #118)
4 Rolant’s Honor Guard (Set1 #183)
2 Rolant, the Iron Fist (Set1 #185)
6 Justice Sigil (Set1 #126)
8 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)
2 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)
4 Combrei Banner (Set1 #424)
4 Seat of Progress (Set1 #58)
This list really focuses on getting to late-game mana (6,7,8) as quickly as possible and then wants to make the most of that mana. It still requires a decent amount of legendary cards but it keeps the number regulated to minimal numbers while not losing too much power. I would feel good recommending this list to any new player, and I intend to play either this or something very similar once open beta hits.
Thanks for reading!
Keith “TheTrystero” Watabayashi
Twitch.tv/kwatabayashi
Titter.come/keithwatabayash
