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My journey to Champion with YG Volition

Hello!

My name is ThePuffinMan and I just hit Champion with YG Volition

Wall of text ahead. There is a tl:dr at the bottom.

I have a background in Magic and was watching Jeff Hoogland stream a couple of weeks ago when I saw him playing this game. It looked like fun and I decided to try it. I love the amount of decisions that impact the outcome of each game of Mythgard.

I started by just making decks to complete the faction quests to build up my collection. The ease of acquiring cards in this game is much more friendly, in my opinion, than that of Hearthstone or Magic Arena. I love how well done the story mode is and that it gives you useful cards. I'm looking forward to more story missions.

I also love the idea of Featured decks and jumped into ranked with a few of them that looked interesting. After getting to Silver with mostly Featured decks I started looking for more information on the higher ranked metagame. There wasn't a lot to go on. I did watch the finals of the Midnight Masquerade tournament and thought that both Gerren's YG Volition deck and Koveras' RB Rainbow Rush deck looked strong, but, because Mythgard is so new, there isn't really a mature metagame yet. So I started brewing and doing fairly well but, whenever I played against YG Volition, I couldn't win. I tried rush decks, bomb-oriented midrange decks, and the most controlling decks that I could find based on looping Armageddon Angel with Root of the World. Nothing Worked. Finally I thought "Fine, I'll just try the deck and see what I lose to."

Then I started winning... and winning... and winning. I lost a few games due to learning the game and the deck, but it felt like I couldn't lose. I started playing the deck in Gold 6 and after finishing the promo game to Champion I had 99 wins and 24 losses with the deck (Thanks for keeping track of individual deck stats Rhino!) which is just over an 80% winrate.

My list mostly stayed the same throughout. Here it is:

Path: Turn of Seasons

Power: Impel

2 Clay Effigy

3 Maze of Iyatiku

2 Beimeni Falls

3 Volition

4 Meso Libre

2 Wonder Drug

1 Enchanteater

2 Misanthropia

1 Revelation of Ximec

Zolea, The Unclean

Twin Blanque

Sapo, The Devourer

3 Grinning Kolobok

1 Rewind Hex

2 Wake the Bones

2 Detained

1 Raid the Tombs

Baba Yaga's Den

Bela, Witch Queen

2 Bald Mountain

Boneyard Abomination

Traitorous Murmur

Chort Stag

Iku-Turso

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Here are my takeaways on why this is deck is so strong:

1. Meso Libre. THIS CARD IS INSANE! There is no better 3 mana creature in mythgard in my opinion. This thing straight up kills EVERY SINGLE 1 and 2 mana creature other than Mavka and Ravine guardian, which it trades with. It also kills most of the commonly played 3 drops. In fact the only 3 mana creatures that win combat against Meso Libre are Security Phalanx (which is not commonly played and is a defender), Dune Courser (only while on a desert), and Serendipity Efreet. But there's more. Stunning things is an incredibly powerful effect in Mythgard, especially for a defensive deck. Even if you remove Meso Libre your Iku-Turso or Living Mountain or 12/12 Sapo that it stunned can't attack or move. This card buys so much time to find answers or get enough mana to cast your expensive cards. This thing dictates your opponents' play patterns and positioning if you have yellow in your deck. I think Meso Libre needs a nerf because it does too much. This thing is not ok. Give it 3 toughness or make it cost more mana.
2. The best card advantage. Most of this decks cards are extremely powerful by themselves. Add in the ability to cast them over and over and over again with Bald Mountain and Wake the Bones, and you have a winner. The cheap cards in the deck draw cards or give you a mana advantage (Effigy, Maze, Kolobok, Wake the Bones, Raid the Tombs) and your expensive cards are arguably the best in the game because they give you card advantage in some way (Sapo, Iku-Turso, Chort Stag, the Twins, Traitorous Murmur etc). I think I cast Sapo on the same person 4 times in one game. That is messed up.
3. The combo only takes 3-4 slots. I like combo decks. I have gravitated toward them throughout my Magic and Hearthstone play. Most combo decks in other games take up many slots in your deck, usually with cards that don't do much by themselves. So if you draw more than one of the same piece of your combo you are at a disadvantage. Not so with Volition. It has a ton of uses other than comboing. For only 2 mana (or one if you have Bald Mountain occupied or Bela activated) It can give one of your minions rush to take out an important creature, allow your big defensive unit to run across the lanes to block, let you rebuy more than 1 spell per turn with Bald Mountain, or you can just burn it to add mana if it isn't useful at the moment. Giving one of the best midrange decks the ability to combo kill with only a few cards in hand takes it to the next level as far as power. Your opponent also has to start worrying about dying to the combo starting around turn 8 or 9 which adds a level of stress and mental exertion when playing against this deck. Volition does so much for such a small mana investment.
4. Power Cards. The legendary minor action creatures that impact the board are crazy good (Please buff Serapis). Bela is a Meso Libre on steriods that also can help you combo, and Zolea is repeatable removal that is hard to kill. It takes 2 or 3 of the opponents cards to deal with her most of the time. There is a general consensus on Sapo being one of the best creatures in the game for obvious reasons. Iku-Turso is even better in practice than it looks on paper, and it looks pretty darn good on paper. It is immune to Traitorous Murmur, Sapo, and Meso Libre, it is basically the largest viable creature and it has Overrun, and giving the creature in the opposing lane defender and immobile is better than killing it in many situations, because it locks down whatever enchantment the creature is on and the creature can't be recurred. Iku-Turso also leads to the quickest kills with Volition and has only a few answers in the current popular decks (Gigantomachia and Seal of Exile being the most common). Mysanthropia is the best catch-up card available as well.

Lets talk about my losses. After my first loss I decided to write down some quick notes on each games that I lost. Looking back, I was decidedly salty about some of them ("Lost to OR Badstuff with HEAL because of drawing horribly and them drawing insanely well.") but I did learn a lot both about the game and the deck because of them. Some of the losses were due to silly mistakes. One game I played a large Boneyard Abomination across from a Baku Bogeyman. It died upon entering the field. I also forgot that I was changing to spring one time and cast a wonder drug on my now 8 life. Another time I somehow forgot that Bragi can give Frenzy. I also experienced some unfortunate variance a couple of games (which is to be expected in this sample size) where I redrew 3 cards that I had burned by turn 7 so I had literally nothing to burn to play my Iku or Sapo. Many of the losses were to some version of BR Rainbow Rush due to me not having Meso Libre or Mysanthropia on time or them having a timely Gigantomachia or a very good curve. I lost some other games to other combo decks like BG Reanimator combo with All Father's Horn or the mirror match. I lost VERY few games to midrange decks or Journey of Souls aggro decks. My recursion allowed me to outvalue the midrange decks, and Meso Libre and Mysanthropia are very hard for aggro decks without much card advantage to beat.

All that being said, here are some tips for how to beat this deck:

Play around Meso Libre! you should almost always place your minions straight across from theirs if playing against Meso Libre. They will at least have to move their creature in order to stun yours. Also remember that they can't stun your minion if it is across from their Maze of Iyatiku. Use their Mazes against them!

Wonder Drug is a heck of a card and it feels bad to lose to it. Pay attention to their life total. Don't attack with your 2 power creature if you have lethal on board and they are at 9. Many of my wins against BR Rainbow Rush included Wonder Druging at 7 or less life.

Don't overcommit to the board if you are already pressuring them. Mysanthropia is a very good card and the reason I beat most aggro decks is because they played out all of their minions only to have them all get Blight 3.

If you can, play around Volition kills. Many of my wins came from people not playing around Volition. People put 4 minions all next to each other to contest my board which allowed my unblocked rushed 15/15 Boneyard abomination to make them regret it. If you are ahead and they only way that you see yourself losing is to the combo then play around it as best you can.

A quick note on the above points: If you can't beat a card, pretend it doesn't exist. Sometimes your only hope is to be as aggressive as possible and kill them and you just have to hope that they don't have Mysanthropia on curve. Same with Volition. If you can set up a lethal attack next turn but they have an unblocked 8/8 Sapo and 4 cards in hand and you are at 22 life then it is probably best just to hope they don't have 2 Volition in their hand.

In Mythgard figuring out which one of you is the aggro deck is important and should determine what cards you burn and how you play out your hand. (There has been a lot of ink spilled about this topic in other card games. Google "Who is the beatdown mtg" if you want to read more about it.) Here is a hint: If you are playing against YG Volition you are the aggro deck. Beating this deck lategame is practically impossible. Your plan should be to kill them as quickly as your deck can. I think I lost exactly ONE non-mirror match game that went to turn 20 and it was to a deck that combo killed me before I could combo them.

Play cards that require YG Volition to have an answer, and play answers to their cards. Cards like Gamayun, Volkov Heavy, Terragon, and Serendipity Efreet are great against Volition because they don't die to Meso Libre, and put alot of pressure on them. Removal Spells that hit Sapo and Iku-Turso and don't put them in the boneyard are very good. In many of my games I had to rely on one of my big cards to stabilize the board, and Seal of Exile, Spirit Away, and the like allow you to push through the last few points of damage.

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This deck is probably the most powerful deck out there right now and I expect and hope that Volition will be nerfed somehow in the coming patch. This type of deck will likely still exist in some form or another, so I think the tips for playing against it will still be relevant. Please let me know if you disagree with something I have said (I'm sure there is something) or have any questions about Mythgard or some thing else. I love this game already and I am planning on streaming and making some youtube videos on it in the near future. I'll keep you posted on that.

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TL:DR Yellow Green Volition is extremely powerful. Meso Libre and Volition need nerfs.

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Feel free to add me and hit me up in-game or on the Mythgard Discord. I'm always down for battling some brews.

Puffin

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