Notes & Combos

The climb to Master 1 was definitely a grueling one. For the first 66~ games, I was going back and forth between Master 5 and Master 4. Once I was able to break through, I luckily never deranked from there.

As for the deck itself, I am still torn on whether or not 3 Macro + Soul Drain are the best. In my Master 2 games, I did remove Soul Drain and the 3 Macro for Shadow-Imprisoning, however, I never saw a single Branded deck in M2, so I swapped back to 3 Macro at first to help against Tear and Runick. After being slapped a bit around by Tear, I ended up adding the Soul Drain back in as well.

As you can see, I did end up dropping Shifter. It's a very powerful card, yes, however, it did just outright lose me some games as a topdeck here and there. While Macro/Soul Drain are the same (potential bricks), I can at least maybe do something with them. (ie, Prison summon, bluff, Ves food)

To help with that, I added in the 3 Bystials after zeroender mentioned it in our Traptrix channel. In some games they did come in clutch for a push for damage or removing a Tear name. While paired with Macro, they can also be dead, however, at that point, just consider them Shifter.

Everything else is standard enough for my lists.

As for the ED. I rarely/never used the following cards:

• Dweller (well, I used it once, but forgot Fissure was on the field, so it didn't do anything)
• Wollow
• Drill Driver (I did summon it a few times.. but with Macro/Soul Drain, I never used its gy effect. Still good for the piercing damage if that comes up)

In one of the few games I had, I was able to get 2 Bystials out and thought it'd be neat to have a rank 6 as 1 can search another, so it shouldn't be too uncommon. The scenario never came up again afterwards.

The Utopia line has been putting in work though. Utopia Prime especially since hitting over 2500 seems extra important now with Bystials running about. They either make a 4 mat ZEUS or a 4 mat Lightning depending on what you need to clear.

Everything else is standard. Allo and Cularia have lost some strength given the power level of other decks and since I run Macro, but they are still good tools if the timing is right.

As for what to change, I'm not really certain. You still need good enough hate against Tear or they snowball on you in seconds. The same goes for Branded and Spright, however, not much to my knowledge hurts all 3 enough to end their turn. You also have to watch out for other rouge decks/stun as well.