Winning with Amazons

Inspired by @meltysquid 's post, I decided to try and make an Amazon deck that was decently competitive. Amazon lists are of course going to share a fair number of cards, but there is enough difference that I expect my deck plays differently. Of course, squid's deck proved itself by going 18-6 for the Cujo challenge. Mine has not.

Source: Dall-E2 expansion of Barksworn Ranger card art

The Deck

Code:
GU_1_5_BEuBEuCDOCDOCGACGABCCBCCCAvCAvCDYCDYCFuCFuCGBCGBCBxCBxKBCCFvCFvCFyCFyKBHKBHKBRBGtBGtIARIAR

The biggest difference from squid's deck is replacing Lethal Prowler with Sudden Bloom. More later on this.

Addressing Arkmonian Onslaught

It's simply not good, and I have the (frustrating) games logged now to say that with high confidence. Amazons are not bulky creatures (like wild), and we all recognize how much worse a 4/2 creature is compared to a 3/3. High strength is meaningless in this game if there is no health backing it up. GU has a ton of removal spells/relics/blitzers, so that strength usually winds up in the void immediately.

No health buff also means the twin-strike value is heavily reduced. You've got a 4/1 pixie with twin strike? Good luck with that. And yet, the card remains 5 mana. Compare it to wildfire at 4 mana that has removal, +1/+1/, AND adds regen.

Sudden Bloom

Usually seen in wild decks, but the biggest thing about Sudden Bloom is that it excels with non-confused creatures. Overkill is also a huge mechanic for Amazons. So much so that I even experimented with fire wine. With low HP, you want overkill rather than twin strike. Luckily, Bloom gives both. One of our recorded games against zombies shows just how strong that combo is.

Sticky Creatures

The concept is similar to my Hidden War deck. There, the payoff is Sole Survivor. Here it's Sudden Bloom. In order for either to work, we have to have board. For war, that means hidden/armor/protected. For amazon, we make the most of hidden/ward/buffs.

Riverjumper is one hell of a card. Baseline stats are 2/4 + ward for 3 mana. That's fair value in my book. Compare it to a vanilla 3/4 Hunt Warden. I'd trade 1 strength for ward any day. Usually, cards with upside come with base stats that are slightly below vanilla.

I've opted for Barksworn Ranger. Amazon mechanics revolve around having amazons on board, and Barksworn is a great way of making that happen. Of course, compared to Nightleaf Warrior, Ranger is a lot less value per mana spent. On the flip side, it's easier to get her out of easy removal range (which I consider 4+ hp early game). Nightleaf isn't great to buff, because he will still likely get removed quickly.

One option I'm still not 100% settled on is swapping Barksworn Protector for the Spellcatcher.

The trade-off is blessed for 1 HP. Early game, the extra 1 HP can make the difference between holding board and losing it, but by 5 mana, 2-vs-3 hp is meaningless. Blessed on the other hand retains its value. It's random, of course, but I think the expected value is probably somewhere around 6 favor, and being the first to reach the sanctum is big. This is especially true against other aggro decks where you are both strapped for cards. Blessed also offers mechanics that are good when behind (dividing favor in half, setting your favor to 12).

I'll definitely test her out.

Buffs

Sudden Bloom is already covered, which leaves Hopeful Druid as the only potential surprise choice. For an archetype that really needs creatures to stay on board, being able to add 2 hp and 2 regen to a wounded creature is huge. I'll come back to this card in the echo section, which is the other part of her value.

I've got 1x Warrior of Paradise in here as another reactive card. The competing card for this slot would be Barksworn Hunter.

Warrior of Paradise gets the nod from me for two reasons:

• For 4 mana, I want to control where the blitzer goes.
• Our sticky creatures are likely to benefit from the +2 strength.

Hunter was clearly the better card when the roar gave it +2 strength. Echo is really nice. Also, like with confused creatures, you can try to manipulate the board to leave only one creature left to guarantee the attack, but in those cases, you were already in control of the board. I could be convinced otherwise, but I think Warrior is better in contested board states where you need that reactive card to make the difference.

Echo

My first deck lists had 0 echo. Relic removal was Chiron. 4 mana slot was Agrodor Protector. (The Protector felt incredibly lackluster.) My current list makes use of sword breaker sage for relic removal and hopeful druid in the 4 mana slot. I specifically sought out echo cards after running into empty hands in most games. We don't have any good card draw options (I'm not sold on United Reinforcements), so echo is the closest we get. In addition, the token 1 drop amazons are great for primal guidance, riverjumper, and canopy sniper.

Druid of the cycle is a card to consider instead of Sword Breaker Sage or Warrior of Paradise. For the next week, it's probably better than Warrior of Paradise. However, with the upcoming nerf to anubians, I've decided to leave it out of the deck list above. It does help with control light though, so maybe it still makes it. It's certainly the king of refilling your hand, but sprouts aren't amazing in an amazon deck.

One last thought

Might there be room for one of these?

At the moment I'm playing the deck list above with 1 primal guidance swapped for Plan the Hunt. It opens up potential for huge swing turns, but is also cheap enough that it's worth playing in lots of lower-impact scenarios. Hidden creatures can attack, heal, and then re-hide. Against spell-heavy gods (magic/deception/death) we can avoid a lot of their direct damage spells. Against magic's board wipes, hidden + ward is very effective. It also can preserve a Canopy Sniper setup for one more turn.

Primal Guidance may be better, but this is interesting enough to do some testing with.

Gameplay 1

The first game is our friend from gutools playing zombies.

We go first but have an atrocious starting hand. Passing turn 1? Terrible.

Turn 2
I could have gone Sniper + Primal Guidance. This would prevent frenzy on the next turn, but sniper really doesn't want to be played on an empty board. I decide to go for Ranger and try to clean up the ensuring mess on my next turn.

Turn 3
Moderately successful. Would have loved for guidance to hit obelisk, but 50/50 is 50/50.

Turn 4
So now we're in trouble. Scepter + Obelisk = zombie's final form. Importantly in the state, you just have to keep trading until you can reach the obelisk. Hope to draw relic removal in the meantime. Our sniper hits the one target we don't want her to hit (obelisk), but then redeems herself by 2-for-1'ing the remaining two zombies. We can finish with boar. At least she didn't hit the obelisk twice.

Also, a nod to Barksworn Hunter here, who could have hit the backliner. So something to weigh.

Turn 6
That Sudden Bloom from turn 1 finally gets to see play. At this point, the zombies become our advantage by offering low-strength targets for us to hit.

Turn 7
The dream. Behold our 10/6 overkill/twinstrike/regen Amazon of Death. Kudos to gutools dev for letting us swing with it for the video. 😊

Gameplay 2

Mulligan
Enrage god power is why I hold the opening Lightning Strike. He's going to play some hardy creatures at some point.

Turn 1
Opening with nightleaf backed up by primal guidance feels good. We also find our relic removal, which is great. I think this deck gets a lot more benefit from Sword Breaker than Chiron. That's especially true when our opponent plays I Need a Weapon. 2 durability removal is better than one.

Turn 3
Awkward turn because we pipped out the badger on turn 2. Maybe shouldn't have. Favor is just so tempting.

Turn 4
We cash in the lightning strike to heal up our nightleaf warrior and rehide him. Thanks, Pyramid Warden.

Turn 5
Wasn't expecting Valka's Axe that's for sure. Sword Breaker keeps us in the game by giving me 2 relic removal instead of 1.

Turn 5.5
This was for science. In an earlier game, I realized that Canopy Sniper shoots Mire Bloodwyrm before it heals. I wanted to see what would happen with Strife. He heals before Canopy Sniper shoots. TIL. After enough science, maybe the community can put together order of operation tables on our own. Surviving damage comes before the attack ends.

The opponent's deck is full of surprises. Pyros + Take Them All On. If the order had been different, he probably wins the game. But it wasn't.