Sunday 1 March 2015

The Eon & Pion Show - PROgeny



Welcome to the first of a series where Pion and I take a deck into the constructed queue and give insight into our plays and thoughts. This one featuring PROgeny.





Note: While the deck played differs slightly from the optimal list (2 Lifeblood Dryads instead of 2 Ferocious Roars, 2 Snowdrift Alphas over 2 Aetherphage) the discrepancies do not alter the core idea and still are workable, although not optimal, hence, we didn't rerecord the queue.

PROgeny

3 Progeny of Xith
3 Suruzal, Emissary of Varna
3 Shardplate Behemoth
3 Tarsus Deathweaver
3 Nethershriek
3 Leyline Demon
2 Xithian Direhound
2 Sharbound Invoker
2 Aetherphage
2 Ferocious Roar
Ancestral Echoes
2 Immortal Echoes

The deck list is also available in the video above, but for the sake of reference, its here too.

The remainder of the article isn't going to be blank space, however! I'll spend the rest of the article explaining the card choices and specific interactions.



Oh, Suru, where would this deck be without you? Suruzal is the Swiss Army Knife of this deck, between recycling Shardbound and Direhound to proliferating your Progenies and resetting Behemoths, she's rarely a dead draw because of all the amazing synergies in the deck.



It might be apparent that Aetherphage wasn't the first choice for the deck, but after tinkering around a bit, it seems to be a solid fit. Being able to pull a Scythe of Chiron protects your board immensely while preventing your opponent from making their own monster. Also, with the advent of the powerful Echoes series, this just becomes even more useful. Lastly, his effect can be 'copied' using Suruzal, keep that in mind if you need to snag more than one key spell.



While its health took a hit in a patch a while back, it still proves to be a powerful support card in the right deck, and this deck has a plethora of things that don't enter the field from your hand, and the multitude of Ferocious Roar effects in our deck make even his below average body respectable. Also works extremely well with Immortal Echoes.



Now this is where the indirect synergies come in, sure you can pump this with Deathweaver, but do you know what people tend to do with Progenies? Ignore them. This increases the reliability of Shriek immensely, allowing you to advance your board while pushing your opponent further behind.

(These last few cards aren't in the Card Database just yet, so there aren't clean images of them just yet. Apologies if the article looks a tad.. ugly.)



This guy right here propelled the consistency of this deck by a ton, in the past, you would have awkward hands where your entire hand doesn't have enough attack to kill a threat. The card is great as an underdrop, an on-level threat, and brilliant Suruzal and Immortal Echoes target/pull. What's not to love?



The 'I'm currently winning and pushing it' card. Once you establish a board, you want to look to push for growing tall with Ferocious Roar and this to make your board even stickier. Helps that Progeny and Behemoth are inherently sticky doesn't it?



This card is absolutely amazing. When your opponent attempts to stabilise using free plays as facilitators, (think Flamebreak Invoker with Static Shock) This can help turn the tide yet again, providing another body for Ancestral Echoes and Roar. The card even works with Deathweaver when its Ambush triggers! However, this can clog hands since you never want to play it actively, and are a poor pull for Immortal Echoes.

And that covers the deck overview portion! Watch the video if you are looking for insight on how to play the deck or want to hear Pylon and Leon Pion and Eon commentate.

Now, this kind of article is yet another experiment, so do comment on how you feel about this specific format, and of course, I hoped you enjoyed reading! (and watching, in this case)

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