I’m not usually that excited by Commoner. I’ve found the games to be a little one note, and had the impression that there wasn’t much flexibility in how you could play the different heroes given the limited card pool.

This week I wanted to try something a little different to have some fun with the format. I thought about Lexi, my favorite hero, and what I could do to change things up with her. What if I didn’t run any arrows at all, and ran Talishar in the weapon slot? How would I play Lexi differently without having to worry about loading and firing arrows?

Lexi’s hero ability is very strong, so I set out to exploit the built in go again as much as possible. The lightning card pool, together with the hero ability giving otherwise vanilla generic attacks go again, lets Lexi go wide with very efficient attacks. And adding in an actual weapon in Talishar instead of a bow let’s her get even more value by throwing out another attack with left over pitch or using chest equipment for resources to set up extra wide turns.

After some testing, this is the list I came up with:

Commoner Talishar Lexi 

Weapons: Talishar, the Lost Prince
Equipment: Deep Blue, Honing Hood, Hope Merchant's Hood, Mark of Lightning, Snapdragon Scalers, Vest of the First Fist

[2] Critical Strike (Red)
[2] Electrify (Red)
[2] Entwine Lightning (Red)
[2] Flock of the Feather Walkers (Red)
[2] Heaven's Claws (Red)
[2] Lightning Surge (Red)
[2] Push the Point (Red)
[2] Ravenous Rabble (Red)
[2] Razor Reflex (Red)
[2] Scar for a Scar (Red)
[2] Scour the Battlescape (Red)
[2] Shock Striker (Red)
[2] Trade In (Red)
[2] Wounding Blow (Red)
[2] Electrify (Yellow)
[2] Lightning Surge (Yellow)
[2] Shock Striker (Yellow)
[2] Electrify (Blue)
[2] Heaven's Claws (Blue)
[2] Lightning Surge (Blue)

See the full deck on FabDB

Removing arrows makes room for cheap, vanilla attacks that aren’t much to write home about on their own but that become really strong when we can give them go again. We’re running enough lightning cards to effectively consider cards like Wounding Blow and Critical Strike to have go again printed in their text boxes. Together with plenty of cards that either have or can easily gain go again on their own (e.g. Ravenous or Scar for a Scar), the deck is well positioned to play out 3-4 attacks a turn. I’ve found I can play 14+ damage turns very consistently, and can 20+ when you cash in some of the equipment.

Lexi’s equipment pool provides some differentiation and fun play patterns. Mark of Lightning gives you a huge advantage at low life totals. If your opponent drops to 1, an attack with a Shock Striker, Heaven’s Claws, Lightning Surge, or Entwine Lightning means game over. Honing Hood lets you fill the arsenal in the event that it’s empty and you need to load up a lightning card for Lexi’s ability. The Hood is especially nice if you’re going second, allowing you to arsenal up on turn 0 to go off with a 5 card hand on the draw.

The generic equipment is also essential. Vest lets you throw in a swing of Talishar to top off a really big turn. There are times when it’s a bit awkward because you want the resources before an attack has hit, but ultimately it’s here to give you a free Talishar swing to top off a huge turn and no other equipment does that for us. Snapdragon Scalers are there in the event that you need some extra go again, maybe if you are unlucky and can’t arsenal a lightning card. I find that I’m often breaking Scalers together with Vest to throw in a 5th attack with Talishar. I have Deep Blue for matchups where you might not expect to hit often enough, e.g. into Oldhim. And I’m running Hope Merchant’s Hood as an option when you go first and might value fixing a bricked hand over an arsenal swap from Honing Hood. Honing Hood is the right choice when going second though.

I’m not running any arcane barrier. I don’t want to block anyway unless necessary. The matchup into Iyslander is pretty rough given that the list is so resource light and geared toward going wide, but I don’t think AB helps much. I figure to win that match I need to go hard turn 1, push 20+ damage if I can, and hope she draws poorly and can’t disrupt. As for Kano, I don’t think I’m worried about him in Commoner, but I haven’t played the matchup.

You really want to go second with this deck to grab ahold of tempo and never let it go. I’m generally hoping for a bit of a surprise element with this deck, and since Lexi typically likes to go first I’m hoping opponents reflexively opt to let me go second if they win the dice roll.

You always want to have a card in arsenal. Turns typically involve playing out 4 cards and saving one (ideally a lightning) to tuck away for next turn. Electrify is my favorite arsenal target. It threatens some extra damage across multiple attacks, gives go again, and you get to draw a card. Any of the lightning cards work well in arsenal though.

Flock of the Feather Walkers is really nice for extending turns, and can be a great turn 0 play to set up a Quicken token for turn 2. I’m often looking to make plays like:

  • reveal Electrify in arsenal using Lexi’s ability
  • play Electrify pitching a blue, floating 2, draw a card
  • play Flock which gets go again from Lexi’s ability and creates a Quicken token, floating 1
  • play Crital Strike which gets go again from the Quicken token
  • play another attack, e.g. Wounding Blow
  • arsenal a remaining lightning card e.g. Lightning Surge or another Electrify, or break Scalers and Vest to swing Talishar

If the last attack has go again, or you can give it go again, you can extend the chain with a swing of Talishar using Vest. Without a final Talishar swing, this is a 17 damage turn (5 from flock, 5 from Critical Strike, 4 from wounding blow, 3 from electrify assuming it’s red). With a final Talishar swing, it’s 21.

I threw in Razor Reflex to help close games out and to have yet another means of giving go again if needed. Push the Point is reliably able to swing for 6 as a chain closer, which is excellent value. I’ve included 3 power attacks like Scour the Battlescape and Trade In to keep costs low and because they can be given go again from arsenal in a pinch.

So far I’m having a lot of fun playing with this deck and seeing how it pairs into other decks into the format. I think it struggles pretty hard into Iyslander, and when it gets put on its back foot given that it blocks so poorly. Maybe d-reacts would improve some matchups? But would it make the damage output less consistent? Anyway, it’s really fun when it works. If you try it, let me know what you think!