This is the second deck that I thought worth doing a write-up about for my climb through pool 1. See my guide to my Pool 1 Onslaught KaZoo Buff deck if you are interested in a different archetype.
This deck is one of the more control-ish that you can play throughout pool one that does not have a "build around" combo card like Devil Dinosaur.
Common gameplay patterns:
- You will always draw Quicksilver turn 1 & Domino turn 2. This means that your gameplay will mostly be focused on determining the best turns 3, 4, 5 and 6 to play situationally.
- Heimdall is a very game-swinging card, and his shifts have won me a number of games where I cheesed my opponent positionally. Heimdall often will often allow for you to snap from a losing position, and transform the board state into your favor. Prioritize stacking the middle & rightmost locations throughout the early game so you have the ability to shift your cards to the left on turn 6. Card play order is relevant for these shifts so plan accordingly: if you have four cards in the middle location and one in the leftmost location on a Heimdall shift the first three units in the middle location will move, and the fourth will stay in the center location. If you are able to get a Heimdall out early due to location mana cheat, a cheeky combo often is playing Odin on your Heimdall location to provide a second shift.
- Abilities are key in this deck. Don't be afraid to play a card off tempo if it gives you a big board swing (Enchantress & Spider Woman are the two cards for which this is most relevant )
- Stacking On Reveal cards on the same location provides the most value for Odin. At a base level this is what you should strive to do for the deck, however you can use this as a bluff in certain circumstances, forcing your opponent to overcommit to the threat of an Odin, while you either play him in another location, or drop a different bomb elsewhere to shake up the boardstate.
-Deck changes:
Three drops are fairly weak in Pool 1, so you are at a stretch to play good value cards in the three mana slot. Alternatives to the current listed 3s are: Morph (Good against control-heavy decks), Cosmo (anti-synergistic with this deck but can be used if cognizant on positioning), Ironheart. The only high impact two drops I tried in this slot was Scarlet Witch, which was OK.
There were two other five drops that I tested in this list, the first being Gamora. She felt fairly weak with the Heimdall synergies, as often you are contesting lanes that your opponent is not playing in, so it was harder than usual to proc her ability. On the other hand, I found that Klaw was surprisingly good with the Heimdall ability, as his split power across two locations worked well, and even allowed for me to play him at the rightmost location if I knew that I was going to use Heimdall.