Needless to say I was intrigued. Next time we were both online, I got to face this "new best deck" across the virtual battlefield. I proceeded to get beaten by said deck - and hard. Granted, this is not an unusual experience for me. Still, I was impressed. I immediately set aside the decks I had been working on and began testing with this new one instead.
Although this isn't the version he initially showed me (or even the one I eventually played), I believe that this is probably the strongest version of this deck, now known as Junk Enchantments:
The deck's concept is simple and straightforward, yet remarkably powerful. It functions similar to a Hexproof archetype, save that instead of relying on Hexproof creatures, you instead make use of the special qualities of the Bestow mechanic that essentially prevent you from getting two-for-one'd if your opponent destroys the target of the Bestow Aura prior to it resolving. Ethereal Armor is clearly the most powerful card in the deck, followed by Auramancer, Read the Bones, and Hopeful Eidolon.
The strength of the deck is its flexibility. You can go slow and play the value game very well
with Auramancer, Read the Bones, and Bestow, or you can explode with a Turn 1
Hopeful Eidolon, Turn 2 double Ethereal Armor. However, conserving your Ethereal Armors is probably the wiser course of action, as they just get better as the game goes on.
Anyway, despite my initial enthusiasm, I have had nothing but trouble with this deck in two weeks of tournament play in Monday Pauper Deck Challenge. I have a record of 2-5 with the deck, and have seen it lose just about every way possible. I suspect that this is, at least in part, a combination of bad play, bad luck, and some less-than-optimal builds, rather than a true reflection on the deck itself. Still, it's been brutal for me.
So what do you think? Is this archetype viable? Or was it just a gimmick whose initial success was more due to its novelty than any real strength? As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading!
, which is rapidly becoming my favorite strategy board game. Board games have long been an important part of my life. Not only did I grow up in an isolated mountain community of less than 10,000 people, I also attended a small college surrounded on three sides by corn fields. Even today, when I get together with my good friends, card games or board games tend to be our chosen form of entertainment.
, in that you are developing a mix of infrastructure and resources that you use to convert your meager starting resources into a winning combination of points. However, Puerto Rico has a much lower reliance on random luck than Settlers does, and forgoes the use of dice entirely. Instead, players take turns picking one of a set of different roles during each round. While usually each player gets a chance to act whenever a particular role is chosen, the player who chose it not only gets the advantage of going first (and thus getting first choice of limited resources) but also gets a bonus for their action. In many ways it almost feels like running a business - growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing the island with
useful buildings, deploying your workers to best effect, selling at the right time, and, most importantly, shipping your goods for maximum benefit. It's also a beautifully illustrated game, as you can see here:
