Stone Blade Entertainment recently released two new community decks for its addictive digital card game SolForge. Yesterday, we took a look at the pros and cons of the in-your-face Wyvern's Wrath deck. Today, we'll focus on the subtle finesse of the Ironmind Intuition deck.
SolForge Community Deck Overview: Wyvern's Wrath
The deck was constructed by the official ForgeWatch team, so it comes highly approved. An Alloyin/Nekrium super team up, the deck's main focus is to level and draw as quickly as possible by use of two Aetherforge Oracles, two Technosmiths and an assortment of Alloyin cards, including the new and potentially devastating Ironmind Acolyte, which gives you a free card. Because what's the point of having nine cards in your hand if you can only play two?
The AN alliance is quite a good one. The new Onyxium Allomancer card was, I suspect, quite literally made for this deck. The zombies give the deck a little firepower in the beginning and help cushion the many blows you will be sustaining early on in a match. Death Current and Cull The Weak ensure you won't get too overwhelmed and can just be so much fun later on. If an opponent is swarming, Epidemic can knock em down to give you a little more survivability at early, middle and end games.
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The deck is built on patience. Ironmind Intuition requires a player who doesn't want to just blow through the opponent as fast as possible. Chances are you are not going to win this thing before level 3. Your creatures are going to get smothered, but that's their job. The Zombies work off one another pretty effectively. The abilities of the Technosmith and Oracle proc when they're put onto the field, after that they're taking up space and running defense. Ghox, Metamind Paragon is a stunning addition but can be taken out before his ability can fully render itself a lot.
Ironmind Intuition can be rendered impotent by a heavily armored deck or especially the new Wyvern's Wrath community deck. It can't always keep keep up early and you'll be punished repeatedly while you snipe the opponent's creatures. I never really encountered a weak hand, even an all zombie pull in round one or two yielded positive results, especially with the Allomancer present. But it's definitely more beneficial to get a Technosmith or Oracle or even a Metatransfer early on. Rare should be the turns that go by in which you do not level something outside of regular gameplay. Be patient, the rewards will come.
If you survive until level 3 or later, that's when Ironmind Intuition comes into its own. You can draw three free cards from an Energy Surge (which you should always level), Cull the Weak is devastating and a well timed Epidemic can gum up the works for your opponent. Your creatures are also almost uniformly powerful at this point. Even the lowly Technosmith is packing a punch. One game saw me at 1 life for four rounds and I managed to get the opponent down to 12 before he finally nailed me with a Flame Lance.
Basically, expect a lot of dramatic, come from behind the victories and near-victories with this deck. My win ratio hung slightly above 50% against colleagues, random opponents and the computer on all difficulty levels. If you can keep your opponent off-balance by getting rid of their creatures, you are most certainly in this game until the end.
No deck is perfect and of the two new community decks, I slightly prefer the Wyvern deck but there's no denying the satisfaction one gets of pulling a hand and seeing nothing but level 3 cards in it.
Every deck depends on the skill of its user and that of the opponent. Ironmind Intuition definitely requires a seasoned user. There are a lot of variables to pull from. Certain cards you really want to level up, like Ghox, may not satisfy an immediate need to the action on the board.
Want to go? Hit me up on SolForge. The name's DocHappenin and I look forward to losing to you.