Hey everyone, Reygon here with another Alpha Clash article. Today we will be looking into the next event card for Clashground Tampa and how I think it will impact the meta and deck choices.
The event card will be “The Helping Hand”. Which is an relic accessory with safeguard that has a few effects that all revolve around clashgrounds.
While you control a clashground your Contender gets +1/+0.
The first time each turn a Clasghround you control comes into play, draw a card.
Counter - Attack: Engage: If an opponent controls a clashground, target clash card gets Superspeed until end of turn.
So looking at the 3 abilities, they all care about clashgrounds. But the one that grabs my attention the most is ability #2, “The first time each turn a Clashground you control comes into play, draw a card.” So simply just playing a clashground allows you to draw a free card. My brain goes right to, what current clashgrounds already draw a card when you play and cost 2 or less resources. I used the trusty Deck Planet search features and filtered down to clashgrounds and typed in draw a card and two cards popped up. Amazon Rainforest and Denver! If you have read any of my other articles, you know how much I like to play both Amazon and Denver.
When amazon enters, I get to immediately draw 2 cards ensuring that I get access to more cards faster than my opponent BUT when I play Denver i get to draw THREE cards and only have to discard 1. Ok so in my opinion, Denver is going to be the best card in the game with the new event card. You get to draw 3 cards, discarding one, netting you 1 positive card in hand only costing 1 resource and giving you attack boosts to your Hunters and Rogues. Unlike Amazon, Denver doesnt give your opponent access to more card draw so the downside is much less. Also playing Amazon may be too much of a liability with how good Denver will be. If you play Amazon, sure you get to draw 2 cards but then you pass to your opponent. Your opponent gets to draw 2 due to amazon effect then they replace your Amazon with Denver. They will get to draw FIVE cards in one turn almost ensuring them they get the cards they need for the next few turns.
Then my brain goes to, now that I think that Denver is the best card, which decks can best utilize Denver? Denver gives +1/+0 to Alpha hunters and rogues so I am looking at builds that like to run Hunters, Rogues or both! So with the deck’s im currently familiar a few came to mind.
Shadowblade: Plays both rogues and alpha hunters. The extra contender attack point also ensures that you deal damage through 1 defense contenders allowing you to trigger certain ambush shadowblade cards. But it doenst play really any other clashgrounds and is weak to non clash card decks such as Khagan.
Anzudak Traps: This deck also plays a bunch of rogues and traps to draw cards and already has Denver in the main deck build. The extra contender attack also allows you to attack with Anzudak and put more pressure on. This deck is very solid and The Helping Hand only makes it better.
Haven plus Clarities ring: Again, this deck also plays all the good rogues and alpha hunters and already had Denver in the main deck. Combining Denver with the blue clash buffs that allow you to draw 2 cards. This deck will be swimming in card draw!
Sinai: there was a top 8 finisher from Sinai in Nashville, but I think we will be seeing Red Black versions instead of blue. Sinai can utilize both the Red Alpha Hunters from Mecha Drailia and the black alpha hunters. I could even see a build that runs a 3 color red black and blue!
So all 4 of the decks above utilize rogues and hunters and they all are using low cost options to “flood” the board and go wide to take advantage of the attack buff from Denver. Then I need to decide of the 4 options above which one will be the “Best?” Of course when i say Best, it will be an opinion only. But what is the best option to stop an opponent from going wide with alot of small attackers? It would likely be Here Comes the Boom, Shocking Revelation, or a combination of repeatable removal such as Torque Contender plus Crimson Scales.
Of the 4 decks listed, which ones have the best plan into the main “hate” strategy of Here Comes the Boom and repeatable removal such as Torque contender, Crimson Scales, and Onslaught. So of course a strong game plan into red based decks will be important.
Shadowblade and haven will have similar play styles of just flooding the board with attackers and doing damage quickly. This makes both these decks vunerable to the red counterplay. You can definetly still win games simply by getting ahead early, absorbing the Boom and just play more cards after and keep attacking. But they dont have specific cards that really counter red’s goal of keeping the board clear with NCD.
Well Anzudak traps has the unique strategy of utilizing the Trap Sacrificial Strength combined with Cybernetic Recall to laugh in the face of Here Comes the Boom. The combo lets you send 1 clash card to oblivion to ready 2 resources, then use those 2 resources to play Cyberntic Recall which returns all 1 cost clash cards back to your hand! This saves all your clash cards when the opponent plays a Here Comes the Boom! So the biggest counter to our proposed strategy can be completly played around usually resulting in a blowout in our favor! Now when considering playing around repeatable of Torque plus crimson scales it will struggle a little bit more, but still has access to Zhao Li whcih gives all your cards an extra defense until the start of your next turn which will help. I do think we will be seeing a ton of this Anzudak Traps deck as it was already a strong build and the event card only buffs it while having good counterplay to common hate cards.
Sinai will also be uniquely strong with Denver and utilizing the Nanoshield mechanic. The nanoshield reads “When the attached card woudl take damage, detach this and prevent that damage instead” which then the contender allows you to draw a card the first time that happens each turn. So Sinai gives protection from the first instance of Clash damage or Non Clash damage each turn. So if they want to play Here Comes the Boom, they first need to find a way to do two instances of damage to remove a Nanoshield target. Unfortuantely Torque can easily play around this simply by using the contender ability to do 1 damage to remove the shield, then play a Here Comes the Boom. But all other decks running red will have to find ways to deal two sources of damage which will be insanely good. I also think that Sinai will want to use Suit Up plus Heavy Power Armor to buff up their bigger single attackers. But the other benefit of Sinai, is that he gets to utilize another strong 2 cost clashground “Nano-Tech Beacon” to futther take advantage of the event card. Nano-tech is one of the best cards in the deck and having access to 8 good low cost clash grounds will allow this build to really take advantage.
So in my opinion, if you are looking to play into the Tampa event you will either need to play the best synergies with the event card or have a strong plan to stop them. I think we will see a bunch of Anzudak Traps, Sinai, and Torque builds. Whoever can best utilize Denver will be in a strong position to win the event. I am sure there will also be some new builds out there that I am not aware of as well! Hope to see you all in Florida!
Thanks for reading :)
Reygon
EDIT 12/1/2023
Over the weekend the first Dubai tournament took place and they also used The Helping Hand as their event card. The top two finishers were Haven - Blue/Black and Sinai - Red/Black who were both utilizing Denver and Alpha Hunters as predicted.
The main difference between Haven and Sinai was the inclusion of the Suit Up / Heavy Power Armor package by the Haven list. Sinai choose to run a more diverse package but only had 2 copies of alternative strike to deal with Heavy Power Armor (HPA) likely giving edge to Haven in that match up. HPA puts the defense of the most equipped cards 6+ also putting it out of range of a single here comes to the boom.
It was great to see the results of the first Dubai tournament and to see the meta prediction hold up! Keep brewing and hope to see more lists show up on Deck Planet!