Elves come back to meta as good deck after a few seasons. For now this is most popular deck on ladder. Buffs on Isengrim, Toruviel, Vernossiel and bronze cards makes Elves very strong. Simlas, Vanadain, and Waylay combined with each other they can make many points. There is many ways to play Simlas. It is possible to play up to 5 Waylays from deck. Alissa makes it possible but you have to get very good hand and this does not happen often. We can also play double Heatwave thanks to her.

Gameplan

Mulligan:

You can look for Vanadain or Waylays.

Round 1:

You can play Vanadain and Waylays. It give you many points and set up graveyard for Alessia to put them back to deck in next rounds. Its good to win first round.

Round 2:

You can play long last round or push for 2:0. If you have Feign Death and good Elves on hand it is possible to win 2:0 or go for short last round with Simlas combo.

Round 3:

Long last round with Simlas, many Elven Deadeye and Vernossiel can be easy to win. Also short round with Simlass and Waylays should make you win.

Details

Good against:

Assimilate

Bad against:

NR Siege, Alumni

Win condition:

Simlas, Vanadain, Feign Death, Vernosiel

Card replacements:

Squirrel → Bronze Elf

Heatwave -> Vigo’s Muzzle

With Raffard’s Vengeance and Siege Masters we have even more thinning to Northern Realms than ever before to get our key cards. Change to Siege Master have changed that Veangeance must be answered in one turn to avoid playing Winch on it. The whole strategy is to play Students and get as much patience value as you can to get carryover on Alumni and then you restore their order or replay them to get a lot of points by using PMP or Casting Contest (from Gerhart). The deck contains engines, non-dependent control tools like Margarita, Boiling Oil and Seltkirk, and if we talk about him – if you have Chapter of Wizards and two leader charges, you can remove a big unit instantly, so it’s like Ivar for NR. Though it’s an engine deck you have strong short round too, especially if you manage to keep Alumni/Chapter to replay them again with spells. Long round is also extremely dangerous if you don’t have a lot of control to remove engines. The deck is vulnerable to control decks as you can’t get zeal on Alumni or even neither points from them, so your only win condition left is spamming Spellweavers.

Gameplan

Mulligan:

Practice Makes Perfect and Alumni in R1.

Round 1:

First round is very important to our strategy, you play students and then try to manage to stick Leticia on board so she can double your patience on students. In best case scenario you should have around 10 patience students.

Round 2:

If you play against control decks you should push to get out negative trades on your cards, if not, you should go for a long round where you play a lot of engines.

Round 3:

If your opponent has been killing your students or you haven’t managed to develop them to get zeal on Alumni you can go for plan B, which is Spellweaver. You can spawn additional one from Chapter of Wizards. In short round it is good to have order from Chapter to get additional Mage to play safely PMP from hand or Gerhart.

Matchups

Mirror:

In the mirror, it’s very important to give Ban Ard student the priority, as having access to control tools later can greatly help. Ultimately though, getting the highest value on either one student and PMP should be the deciding factor.

Monsters:

Vampires: Very good machup. Witches Sabbath usually benefits the NR player more than the MO player (reviving cards like Raffard, Seltkirk, or a high patience value Alumni). They also have close to no control option, so growing students is very easy. Careful with Drowner, which can row control Leticia, so there is no need to be too greedy with her.

Scoia’tael:

Milva: Very unfavored machup: Milva is the deck that pushed NR into unplayability during the season of the Wild Hunt and even with Milva being nerfed, they still have all the needed tools to deal with the students. Again, Necromancy and Shani can give a chance to raise a student (preferably Aretuza) big enough to outvalue the deck in the late game, but it’s very difficult.

Nilfgaard:

Assimilate: Good machup: The only card that can deal with Leticia is Yennefer’s Invocation, so Leticia can give free wins fairly often. Playing Alumni should be avoided until the last round, as Illusionists eventually copying them after an early copy of a student can be very troublesome. Students played through Amphibious Assault can’t be removed and Tourney Joust is usually not sufficient to deal with all of the students, which makes the machup favored. It’s important to avoid having Gerhart or Chapter of Wizards copied through the leader ability.

Hyperthin: Slightly unfavored or even machup: Hyperthin usually runs lots of removal options, but if a round 1 is successful and at least 1 student grows big enough, it is very possible for the Alumni spam to outvalue the late game push. The outcome of the game depends heavily on the outcome of R1 and thus draw RNG (especially on the NG side) comes into play a lot.

Skellige:

Shrooms: Very good machup. Their control options are limited, so growing a student big (through Leticia or not) is usually easy. If they pass early in R1, the player should play up to 4 cards in case Leticia is in play, otherwise take the win with whatever patience value is achieved and push R2. If they don’t pass early, then it should be an easy win and they should be pushed in R2.

Syndicate:

Bounties: Unfavored machup: Bounty heavy SY has enough removal options in R1 to deal with most everything that NR sets up. But a Veiled Leticia can be almost impossible for them to deal with if they don’t draw Moreelse and can give free wins. Raffard’s Vengeance can also give enough tempo and power in R1 to allow for a student to grow large enough. Teching Necromancy is especially useful in this machup as it is greatly helpful to “finish” raising one of the students to get Zeal on the Alumni later.

Details

Good against:

No Control decks

Bad against:

Control decks

Win condition:

Leticia, Alumni and other top-end cards

Card replacements:

Margarita, Spellweaver -> Necromancy, PMP

Changes to the entire Siege Engine archetype as well as a few support cards have seen Siege Engines as a competitively viable archetype this meta. While it is arguable if the pure Siege Engines are better than the mages hybrid version, there is no denying that they have the best board wiping tools in the game right now. It is a bit difficult to pilot as key cards like Henselt, Raffard’s Vengeance and Siege are not tutorable making it highly draw dependent.

Gameplan

Mulligan:

You want to search for the aforementioned 3 key cards of the deck to make your decisions easier.

Round 1:

If played correctly and usually on blue coin you tend to win round 1 pretty easily without committing too many resources. A few basic Siege engines and possibly Henselt are more than enough to do the job. On red coin Henselt is usually a guaranteed win on even (unless in a mirror matchup as the going first advantage counts heavily in the matchup).

Round 2:

This is one of the best decks to push for a 2-0 in a medium to long round 2 as the mass removal provided by Siege and the warfare cards ensures the opponent’s board is wiped out. It is also very versatile in defending a bleed. Be mindful, however, that a mirror match can end up with you getting 2-0ed if the opponent resolves the Siege scenario before you.

Round 3:

This is similar to R2 where a long R3 with going first is preferred to lay the scenario down and see how it goes. Barring buffed up units from AA, there is nothing that offers the opponent’s tall removal cards any value. The gameplan is highly susceptible to the scenario being heatwaved (the round is still winnable but much more difficult) and Muzzle on one of the high value siege engines.

Matchups

Mirror:

Mirrors in NR hugely favour going first. However Siege Engine mirrors come down to who gets to resolve the Siege scenario first. The general game plan is to win R1 and resolve the scenario R2 where depending on your opponent’s draws, you can downright win the game in a 2-0 or be very favoured in a shortish R3. The absolute key cards for dealing with mirrors are Henselt for tempo, Heatwave and Muzzle as they can get rid of the high value siege engines or a reinforced ballista played from AA.

Monsters:

Generally a lack of control tools in typical monsters decks makes Monsters one of the most favoured matchups for this deck on either coin.

Scoia’tael:

Although not seeing much play on the ladder the unitless and control heavy versions of ST could be tricky matchups depending on coin. Nature’s Gift, however is usually favoured.

Nilfgaard:

This deck in my experience is surprisingly resilient to Nilfgaards usual superiority over Northern Realms’ decks. However a Nilfgaard deck playing lock heavy cards like Alba Armoured Cavalry and van Moorlehem Hunter can pose a few problems.

Skellige:

By far the worst matchup for Siege Engines especially against the Pirate and self wound archetypes. Self wound is hands down the worst matchup for Siege engines  on either coin.

Syndicate:

This is a matchup where skill is required the most as reading round length and getting out the opponents key cards. Though winning a long R3 is possible, it depends on a lot of factors as SY has probably the best mass removal tools to deal with the siege engine overload. Getting rid of Whoreson’s Freakshow or baiting him out in R1 are your best bet to have a good match but even then it depends on a lot of things going your way.

Details

Good against:

Assimilate, any Monsters deck

Bad against:

Pirates (esp R2 onwards with all the armour), Self Wound, Lock heavy NG and any full power SY deck

Win condition:

Henselt into Foltest’s Pride with Siege Master in hand plays for insane tempo with a leader charge. The win condition is usually a full board wipe of the opponent after resolving  Siege and chipping away at any remaining units left.

Card replacements:

Heatwave/Muzzle -> Anseis.

Gameplan

Jackpot has finally been dethroned after taking most of eastern Europe and northern Africa in its Macedonian conquest. Fortunately, he died at 32, and his Empire collapsed. Less fortunately, the army managed to settle succession rights in barely a month, and Off The Books has cleanly taken over.
Though, I am proud to say SY is no longer completely braindead. Now you have to take the 3 seconds to not overprofit. Don’t worry though, if you’ve been relying on braindead tactics to climb ladder, this deck is still pretty easy to play.

Mulligan:

Just don’t have KOB in hand. Every one of your Golds is good. Tinboy is a tech card for elves or even firesworn, so put him back if you’re not up against swarm.

Round 1:

This deck has a bit more to it than its previous iterations. First and foremost, you have a lot of tributes, and it’s quite easy to pull KOB. You DO NOT want to pull him R1, so watch your coin spending. You are running devotion, so Jacques can get to level 3, but you don’t have enough firesworn for it to really matter (2 or 3 coins of value tops), so feel free to play him earlier if you really need to. Moreelse is your only tall removal, so be prudent with his usage. Besides that, though, you can just play it like you normally would, slamming whatever cards you have.

Round 2:

Play your remaining gold cards. This time you can play Savolla and pull KOB. Most decks have a hard time catching up, so you will likely either win or be up a card in R3.

Round 3:

You already won last round. If you didn’t, just repeat R2.

Details

Good against:

Almost everything

Bad against:

Assimilate sometimes

Win condition:

Classic KOB+Savolla, destroy everything they play

Card replacements:

Tinboy (if you don’t feel like you’re matching up against elves enough to tech this card in) -> Ulrich (most of your firesworn bronzes play for around 8. Not incredible, but max 15 points is decent enough to consider) -> Rayla (she’s not really good, but if you want to be really greedy, she can be worth a lot in this deck)

Grandma came back from fighting Harpies in the North to visit her cute grandson Sigvald. With a basket of Mardrome (kids, don’t do drugs) and Mead (please drink responsibly), she wanted to surprise the young lad. She looked around, but everyone was an adult. Where was her sweet boy? “Grandma?” a burly man called out. It seemed that in the time Grandma was away, Sigvald had grown. Apparently the “god” Melusine had been putting him on some steroids or something. “My, how you’ve grown since I last saw you.”
This deck is actually quite complicated, so be careful.

Gameplan

Mulligan:

You need Fucusya in hand. If you don’t have her, you need Fisher King in hand. If you don’t have him, you need Royal Decree. You also need Covenant of Steel and Melusine. You need at least one, and can substitute the other one for Ihuarraquax. If you are missing 2 of the previous three, you need Royal Decree, and hopefully have Fucusya in hand. If by some miracle you draw none of the cards you need or the tutors, then you have to go all in Sigvald R1 to have a chance. If it gets removed, however, you just lose.

Round 1:

Okay, this is the “easy” part. You need Melusine to get large in round 1, and for her to not be banished. That means you need to bring out Covenant of Steel first. If you have them both in hand, good. But if you don’t, you can use Ihuarraquax to pull one, and at worst, Royal Decree to pull the other. NOTE: Ihuarraquax will pull Fucusya first, which is REALLY BAD, so make sure she isn’t in the deck first. You can guarantee this on red coin (going first) by using Fisher King to put her on top of your deck, and drawing it with the stratagem. On red coin, there is no reliable way to put her in hand, so hope you get lucky. If you really need to, you can pass on 7 R1, play Fucusya R2 to defend bleed, and try for a long R3. If you do get the proper hand. Ihuarraquax is strong in this meta, since most decks have high-end low-power strong deploy cards that you can cheat them out of. If you have already pulled Melusine and Covenant of Steel, the next targets aren’t worth it, so you can put it ranged row (it’s a bit of a brick, but at least you won’t lose points). Now you can play out Houndsnout, and most of your bronzes. Don’t use Sigvald, Ermion, or Knut. You can use Restore, but save Bekker’s Dark Mirror. You can use tutors if you already have the combo pieces (see R3) in hand.

Round 2:

For the sake of simplicity, assume you won R1 and dry pass for a long R3. You can risk playing Sigrdrifa’s Rite on Melusine for Bleeding, but now it’s vulnerable to Heatwave or even worse, Yennefer’s Invocation.
If you lost, try to defend with just Fucusya and bronzes, but use Sigrdrifa’s Rite if you really need to. If they are trying to 2-0 you, you can also employ the normal R3 strategy combo (see R3), saving Sigrdrifa’s Rite, and take the short R3 with Melusine carryover.

Round 3:

Okay, this is the not so easy part. Sigvald can get realllly big, but only if you play it properly.
Consideration 1:
If they still haven’t used Heatwave, you need to bait it with Melusine. If you suspect they have two tall removals left, try to spread the points instead of pumping Sigvald, even if it’s less point efficient.
Consideration 2:
Mardroeme, Knut the Callous, and Bekker’s Mirror all pair very well with Sigvald, but you have to play them properly.
Mardroeme plays for 12 points on Sigvald, since he turns the 3 damage into bleeding, and boosts by 9. Your leader Ability is best used here.
Knut the Callous, can be worth a lot on Sigvald, but remember that he needs to be at Berserk 5 to do this every turn, which is somewhat hard to accomplish. You can always put him next to Melusine or a Svalblood Priest, but then you need to watch his health. Otherwise, you can try to get it with Houndsnout over two turns. Be careful that you may accidently heal Knut with your Leader passive.
Bekker’s Mirror needs to be played on Sigvald before using Sigvald’s order ability. It’s a counter intuitive way of using Bekker’s Mirror, but it basically doubles your points.
Consideration 3:
What do you do with Bride of the Sea and Restore?
Restore is best used on Melusine after taking a lot of damage. This can best be accomplished by using a turn of Knut or even two, and by placing her next to a cultist (Sigvald and Hermit on left both work very well for this, and Svalblod Priest and Knut also work). If your Melusine is dead, it’s pretty much a brick, but as a last option can be used on a Hermit for up to 12 (if you self-damage it to 1).
Bride of the Sea can be used with no rain for a Mardroeme or Mahakam Ale, with 1 rain for Restore (not recommended), and 4 rain for Sigrdrifa’s Rite. You can get turns of rain from Melusine, Fucusya, and Little Havfrue, but note that the only way to get 4+ rain on board is with a bronze pull with Fucusya or a combination of multiple cards. Melusine can also do this, but only if you stack the rains in the same row 3 turns in a row (which obviously takes a few turns of set up). You have a few good targets, so you can figure out if they’re worth more than 12 points from the Mardroeme or not.

Matchups

Mirror:

You don’t really have ways to interact with each other, so try to Ihuarraquax Fucusya and just be greedier.

Details

Good against:

Alumni, Assimilation

Bad against:

Elves

Win condition:

Melusine. Sigvald.  

Card replacements:

Nope.

Gameplan

Jackpot kinda fallen out of the meta thanks to OTB, but it’s still a decent contender. It’s main upside is that you don’t have to care about your coin limit, and use spenders, just slamjam all the profit cards, and turn them into boosts.

Mulligan:

Just don’t have The Flying Redanian or KOB in hand. Every of your Golds is good.

Round 1:

Win.
Play your good gold cards. This sounds sarcastic, but its honestly really just that simple. You just play stupidly high value cards until you win. As long as you don’t accidently pull KOB round 1 you’re good.

Round 2:

Win harder.
Play your remaining gold cards. This time you can play Savolla and pull KOB.

Round 3:

You already won last round.

Details

Good against:

Almost everything

Bad against:

Other Syndicate decks, maybe a good Assimilate

Win condition:

Classic KOB+Savolla, destroy everything they play

Card replacements:

Philipia -> Heatwave

Assimilate, still being pretty confident it can generate more than enough points to win, has gotten a little less greedy. The deck has a new addition in the form of Muzzle, which can be great value, like in mirrors it can yoink a Torturer with veil. Really though, if you’ve played this deck before the patch, you’ve pretty much played it in its current form.

Gameplan

Mulligan:

Search for:

Mage Torturer 

Calveit

Blightmaker

If you need any lower provision cards, make sure to draw them before you play Calveit. Be careful not to brick your hand with a Mage Assassin.

Round 1:

The most important parts of r1 are:

1. Looking out for a good Mage Torturer/Thanedd Turncoat target.

2. Deciding whether to play Calveit.

It is usually advantageous to play Calveit in the earliest round possible, but it can backfire pretty heavily in specific circumstances. If you play him in r1 against a deck with a strong r2 bleed, then lose r1,you are setting yourself up to be bled for literally every important card in your deck. Also, if you decide to run Joachim, playing him after Calveit can cause you to massively overcommit in an early round, especially if you copy him with Coup de Grace.

Round 2:

Usually you would pass, but this depends on the matchup/how many assimilate engines you have access to. If you have a lot of engines, you want a longer round. Consider a soft bleed with your illusionists, as this has the added bonus of setting up Mushy Truffle’s order as carryover.

If you lost r1, you’ll find this deck is extraordinarily resistant to bleeding. Calveit can be a liability if you face a determined and skillful bleeder, but most of the time he just provides you with such high quality cards that any who dare try to bully you find themselves in a world of hurt. If your opponent seems determined to bleed to a short r3, don’t be afraid to commit your leader to gain card advantage.  

Round 3:

Don’t forget to use your leader before your opponent plays all their good cards! Set up your Assimilate engines asap to prevent this from happening.

Matchups

Mirror:

In general, the one who has more assimilate engines win, but the tricky part is a board space – in long r3 don’t play Blightmaker into Mage Assassin as well as Illusionists aren’t that good unless targeting an assimilate engine. Clogging your own board is the best strategy, because even if your opponent copies your high-end golds – Artaud or Braathens – there should be no space for him to utilize them.

Details

Good against:

NR, ST, SK Warriors

Bad against:

Vampires, SK Rain, SK Gedy can be tricky

Win condition:

Assimilate engines, Artaud and Braathens are the powerhouses of this deck.

Card replacements:

Muzzle -> Heatwave

Gameplan

Pirates since reworked Onslaught has gained a lot of points and a lot of payoffs, but first things first. By the whole game you try to damage opposing units to get armor on your Pirates and Ships, ship like Dimun Light Longship might give you real points from it compared to other cards, next payoff from armor might give you Crach an Craite which converts your Pirate’s armor into damage. The deck is really flexible in terms of control, your leader gives you direct damage and with ships on board you can efficiently control opponent’s board. Terror of the Seas, they call it for a reason – depends if you have been keeping it since round 1 but at average you get like 10+ armor. Strength of this deck is positive trades from removing opponent’s units, except this you have also some proactive points from discards, The Mushy Truffle and Sunset Wanderers.

Mulligan:

–

Round 1:

Getting round control for control deck is decent but not necessary, you don’t need to fight for this round, you should be focused on getting armor carryover.

Round 2:

As control deck you should go for long round. If you are being bled  you can try to manipulate Sunset Wanderers with discards.

Round 3:

If it’s long round you get here a lot of positive trades from removing opponent’s stuff. Short round is mostly weak, you might struggle with proactive plays and points itself.

Details

Good against:

Engine decks

Bad against:

Assimilate

Win condition:

Crach, Top-end cards  

Card replacements:

Holger -> Hammond.

Selfwound had been buffed for a long time, however up to the last season these changes didn`t make real difference. Sigvald and Knut got huge support and combined with previously powerful cards like Melusine and Cerys finally made Selfwound good again. The deck contains the best SK cards like Fucusya and discard package and it was played by Kams (with success!) during qualis. There are different versions of Selfwound on ladder so we present this one, which have proven that is powerful. Sigfrida`s Rite can be played twice and Melusine lets you play another card from graveyard, what provides unique flexibility.

Gameplan

Mulligan:

You are looking for a Melusine (depending on matchup you might need defender as well) and discard package, at least one bronze cultist to reactivate Melusine`s order is nice as well. Mulligan Cerys.

Round 1:

Try to set up Melusine, sometimes you ought to play defender in order to protect her from opponent’s Yenvo or Heatwave.

Round 2:

In some matchups you want to bleed your opponent, especially when you have the opportunity to play Melusine in a short round, cards like Vildkaarl lets you make huge tempo during the bleed.

Round 3:

You have big chance both in long and short round with powerful Sigvald( who can be buffed with Mardroeme + Knut combo.

Details

Good against:

Alumni

Bad against:

Assimilation

Win condition:

Knut + Sigvald, Melusine  

Card replacements:

Nope.

Eredin, Auberon, Winter Queen and new reworked bronzes has got some love which makes Aen Alle elves try to rise again. Since latest patch Eredin is at 7 base power, Auberon in final form is no longer RNG dependent, Wild Hunt Warrior is great value removal and Winter Queen doesn’t let you waste frost. The deck has a lot of tempo in bronze cards which is awesome for red coin abuse. Pushing with Imlerith eating Griffin and playing frost makes a bigger point gap each turn. Prince Toad to asnwer engine and key cards like Auberon and Mammuna makes the deck dangerous in shorter rounds, strong as well in longer rounds with Foglets.

Gameplan

Mulligan:

Winter Queen, second Wild Hunt Rider, Mammuna

Round 1:

Bronzes can take you this round because of their high tempo. Thanks to Ard Gaeth and Winter Queen especially combined with Foglets it’s very easy to abuse red coin.

Round 2:

Drawing Imlerith and Griffin is very crucial for this deck so you don’t end up with bricked Mammuna in round 3. You might have second Ard Gaeth and Foglets to push your opponent because you have a great finisher Mammuna in short round. Frost can become even more biting with Eredin on the board.

Round 3:

Mammuna as a finisher plays for 20 points, combined with other cards should give you victory.

Details

Good against:

Pointslam decks

Bad against:

Greedy and engine decks

Win condition:

Top-end cards, Ancient Foglets

Card replacements:

Nope.