Written by Connor Archer

 

 

Introduction

Since the release of Everfest one new hero above all has had a special place in my heart. That being the surprising addition of Iyslander, an elemental wizard with the essence of ice. After spending the last month and a half working on a list, I decided to take Iyslander to our most recent Skirmish, despite a heavy guardian presence and to my surprise, I came away with a close second place. I wanted to share my findings to help out any prospective wizards who want to try channeling the ice and the Aetherwinds in the hopes that one of you can improve on the list enough to take out a Skirmish. Join me as we take a look into Iyslander. 

   

 
The hero of choice.

  

The Goal

It is important whenever we sit down to play a game with Iyslander to understand our decks goal and the goal of our opponent. Iyslander excels at controlling a board through the use of cards like Pry, Winters Bite, Blizzard, Scour and even through her Weapon The Kraken's Aethervein. One of her main strengths is taking away card advantage or resources from our opponent during their turn, potentially interrupting powerful combos and leaving us with more cards to hit them with on our turn. She can also deal damage on the opponents turn, which can be used for the purpose of disruption, if they are played early in the turn (forcing your opponent to pitch cards to avoid damage, reducing their ability to deal damage to us) or can be used to push unblockable damage after the opponent overextends. This ability to be an active player on every turn is the biggest reason we have to understand our game plan, whether we are trying to force cards out of the opponents hand or trying to push damage.

  

Your main weapon choice.

 

The Weapons

Our first choice when deciding on a game plan comes before the game begins with our equipment and weapons. Game knowledge helps tremendously in this step as depending on the opponents game plan as well as how resource hungry their deck is, I will decide which weapon I want to bring in. For instance, Ranger is a hero that I have found to be very exact when it comes to resource costs, it is rare they will have resources to spare or a card they are happy to pitch when faced with a ping from Kraken, so you can get a lot of value from the weapon. Conversely, Guardian Is a class that often has easy access to extra resources and can still play off one or two card hands so I would rather play Crucible. a general rule of thumb is if you want to set up combo's or need to get over the top of some hefty arcane barriers, I would pick crucible. Whereas for longer games against less resource efficient decks you are aiming to slow down, consider the use of Kraken.

The last and potentially the most important thing to consider with our chosen game plan is the win condition. 

 

The Win Conditions 

Now that we know what Iyslander excels at we can use this knowledge to craft a win condition. the traditional Kano win condition uses a combo of Stir the Aether Winds, Crucible of Aetherweave and Forked Lightening to deal twelve to fourteen arcane damage, depending on whether you are able to run Metacarpus Node. This same combo can be achieved with Iyslander and even played on the opponents turn utilizing Storm Striders. This should only be done when it pushes a sufficient, game turning amount of damage or wins the game outright. Many other damage buffing combos exist in the deck however this is always going to be our trump card. 

Our aim is to get the opponents life total to twelve plus two if you are running Metacarpus Node, minus the amount of arcane barrier 'AB' they are running or protection they could reasonably have access to (Eg steadfast, sigil of solace). So for example, I have found in most cases people will run AB three against me, meaning If I can get them down to nine life I know I can win outright if I can play out my combo. our Toughest matchup by far is going to be Guardian because of the sheer amount of defense, life gain and arcane barrier they can bring to the table, plus we are incentivized to run Ironhide Gauntlets reducing our combo turn potential. using the math above if we assume Oldhim plays AB three plus Crown of Seeds, then also take into account two red Sigils and two red Steadfast, the game looks quite unwinnable, but in this case we have to keep track of each of these cards as they are used or pitched to figure out when we can effectively combo without having to worry about them and exactly how much damage guarantees the win. This means forcing our opponent to use those cards early whilst keeping our life total as high as possible. 

  

 

An important tool in your arsenal.

  

The Deck Breakdown

I will split this into sections to show each package and what role the cards play in our strategy, then at the end I will show how some of these cards actually cross over and positively interact with each other.

 

Disruption

For our disruption package, we are running, Channel lake Frigid, Winters bite, Pry and Blizzard. I have found using too many Ice cards to be a bit of a trap in Iyslander. Giving an opponent a Frostbite token is rarely enough on its own, so we run the six best that we have available to us. Channel Lake Frigid speaks for itself and is likely the best disruption card we have printed to this day. playing it on your opponents turn gives them a frostbite, plus you don't have to worry about flow counters until the end of your next turn, effectively meaning you keep it out for two turns even without having an ice card to pitch for it. Blizzard and Winters Bite are much more match-up dependent but they are Ice cards that can be pitched to crucible to keep Lake Frigid around in a pinch. Playing Winters Bite on your own turn and Arsenaling a blue is effectively giving you a plus two card advantage going into your opponents turn, and Blizzard is crippling to Runeblades and Warriors.

  

The essence of control.

  

 

Attacks 

One of Iyslanders greatest strengths over Kano is her being more free to play attack actions and defense reacts. I personally have experimented with a few, including Command and Conquer, Bingo and Firebreathing but in the end I have chosen to only run one Exude Confidence and two Enlightened Strikes. Both cards have far outshone the others for me. Exude is an attack you can play for free on off turns or a massive existential threat when you stare down your opponent with a full hand. Likewise Enlightened Strikes versatility earns it a place on the list as a seven power attack, a five power extender or a five power that gives you an arsenal card to threaten your opponent with. There's no card in the deck I would be unhappy to draw into off this ability and opponents can see an empty arsenal as a signal to pressure you hard so in my opinion this card is an auto include. 

 

 

Damage buffs

Rarely is dealing three arcane damage out of arsenal going to be threatening enough so we have plenty of ways to bump up that amount to something more difficult to deal with. The first and most obvious being Crucible of Aetherweave, at one resource cost it'll help a few of our less threatening attacks get over our opponents AB. next we have our red and yellow Absorb in Aether which double as defending cards and a plus two to our next source of arcane. We are also running blue Aether Flare and Rousing Aether which become extremely good if you allow your opponent to over extend first, then follow them up with a snapback.

Finally we have everyone's favorite wizard buff, red Stir the Aetherwinds. This card speaks for itself and is usually our game ender whether its used to play Aether Wildfire, Voltic bolt or Forked Lightening for insane damage. I have experimented with the blue version but can tell you the added bonus of playing it on the opponents turn doesn't offset the huge cost for little payoff. It would often end up as an awkward card in arsenal or a bad two block. 

   

Versatile attack actions are utilized by this wizard. 

   

Big Arcane damage

In the Blue corner we have Emeritus scalding, almost exclusively played on out opponents turn with crucible for 5 at the cost of a single blue pitch. Followed up by Voltic Bolt, a solid 3 for 2, and finally the divisive Scour. I've seen a lot of people run 1 but I really like 2. Its value against Viserai, Prism, Briar plus its creative utilities like popping quicken tokens makes it an easy choice for me. The ceiling is huge on this card and the floor is not bad at all. Plus we are playing blitz, Inevitably you will always have some cards that are dead into certain matchups, but the best dead card is a blue pitch that blocks 3.

In the red corner we have all the wizard favorites with the intention  for these cards to be played on our turn to push damage or as part of our game winning combo turn. We have Red Voltic bolts, Forked lightning, and one copy of Aether Wildfire. I will also give an honorary mention to the red and yellow snapbacks which will generally be played on our opponents turn at instant speed after our first wizard non attack action to go wider with damage and surprise our opponents. 

 

Utility cards

Energy Potion is a must have, in order to set up our end game combo with assurance. It can also be played out of arsenal rather than playing it on our turn and giving the opponent a full hand to hit us back with. Remembrance was a late include but it has drastically increased the power level of the deck and its essential to win in a guardian heavy meta. being able to bring back our best combo pieces late game to push even more unblockable damage is invaluable, especially if the opponent aims to fatigue you. 

   

    

Important Utility cards.

  

The Gameplay Overview 

On my turn, I assess my hand and figure out whether it will be a turn to set up damage on my opponents turn or whether I push damage and aim to disrupt them on theirs. The two strategies of aggression and disruption go hand in hand, as disruption leads to less pressure from your opponent on their turn, which leads to you not having to block as heavily, meaning you have more cards to strike back with. The gameplay follows that kind of flow and as you get to know your matchups more you'll find what is most effective into each deck. 

When pushing damage in your opponents turn you want to be as efficient as possible setting up combos that only require three resources or four when a tunic resource available.

For example with Blue emeritus in Arsenal you can block with a card, pitch a blue and play, Absorb in Aether to block for for seven all together and when the opponent has no more action points punish them for six off just one blue pitch. Leaving you with one card left which you can arsenal.

With Rousing Aether in arsenal you can pitch a blue and play it for two following up with a Snapback for four. Or maybe you play a pry on your turn for from arsenal, taking the only blue card from their hand, pitch a blue to block with Absorb then follow up with double Snapback. the possibilities are endless, however keep in mind the more you overextend in their turn the more cards they will have to hit you back with. 

Most of your gameplay will be on your opponents turn until you can swing tempo with a good disruptive turn, but in the end you are happy to play on either turn, just make sure not to neglect the arsenal, it enables the deck and threatens the opponent at the same time. 

You want to save your Energy Potion unless the potential gain is extremely high from using it early. Setting up an end game state is the only way Iyslander can win in certain match-ups so make sure to pitch purposefully and if you find yourself with an all read hand you can utilize effectively, rather than blocking with some of your best cards it may be worth using the Crucible as a resource sink just to stick one of those cards on the bottom of your deck for later. You don't have to be a pro level player to effectively pitch stack, you just have to think about the options available to you and try to keep in mind the cards you have left in deck, using your graveyard as a guide. 

 

Conclusion

I have had a lot of fun in this most recent blitz season  experimenting with different Iyslander builds and I'm Extremely hopeful that We eventually get an adult version of her for Classic Constructed. Her dualistic gameplay style is very unique and still under explored, but if you enjoy bringing something different to the table I implore you to give her a go. Until then I hope you got something out of this article and I wish you luck in the remainder of your Skirmish season! 

   

The Decklist