Siphonary
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5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uo 5uo 5uo 5us 5us 5us 5us 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 7k2 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7tb 7tb 7tb 7tc 7tc 8pq A powerful combination of the divine powers of Light and the shadowy forces of Darkness, War #8's team Darkness, led by Odii Odsen, saw great success with Siphonary, collecting a total of four wins against a single loss. Siphonary managed to outheal team Death's mono deck in round 6, outstall Earth's Immortal in round 7, beat down Entropy's Firestall in round 8 and shut down Aether's Devtal in round 10. I'll be reviewing this mighty deck, discussing its strengths and weaknesses, strategies, and possible modifications.
Card RundownDrain Life* Drains 2 HP's from the target for each 10 darkness quanta in your possession. *Drain Life is the driving force behind Siphonary, capable of delivering massive burst damage by playing multiple spells in the same turn. The main focus of the deck is to hold these spells until the quanta cap of 75 is reached, and then to direct all six straight at the opponent. While not capable of delivering 100 damage in a single turn by themselves, using a Vampire Dagger to whittle the opponent's health down can quickly bring them into burst range.
Sanctuary* Your quanta pool and your hand can not be altered during your opponent's turn. Heal 4 HP per turn. *Making up the second half of the name of the deck itself, Sanctuaries are important for keeping the user alive until the burst combo of Drain Life spells can be played. They provide passive healing, as well as protecting the user against denial cards like Discord, Black Hole, Devourer and Nightmare. Having all six Sanctuaries out on the field provides a total of 24HP passive healing per turn.
Vampire Dagger (Upgraded)* Weapon: Deal 6 damage at the end of every turn. The damage dealt is returned to you as healing. *Unupgraded Vampire Stilettos pack a decent punch, but they really start to shine when they are upgraded. Dealing 6 damage per turn quickly starts to wear down the opponent's health, and without any healing on their end, can very quickly bring them down into burst range from Drain Life spells. As an added bonus, combined with the passive healing from Sanctuaries, the vampire effect definitely plays its part in keeping the user alive.
Miracle* Heal yourself to maximum health minus 1. This spell consumes all your light quanta left. *While the Sanctuaries can heal off a lot of the damage received from creatures, sometimes the opponent's damage can overcome this healing and start chipping away at the user's health. Miracles can help in a tight spot, extending the life of the user and giving them more time to draw the cards they need for the combo.
Dusk Mantle* Shield: The attacking creatures have a 50% chance to miss you. *While heavily affected by luck, Dusk Mantle essentially reduces incoming damage by 50%. This compliments the healing provided by Sanctuaries and Vampire Daggers very nicely, maintaining constant healing each turn while reducing the damage the user takes.
Optional CardsSteal* Steal a permanent. *A fantastic card for any Darkness deck to make use of, Steal fits well into Siphonary, giving the user a way to remove shields that block Vampire Dagger attacks, such as Dimensional Shield, Dissipation Shield or Wings. It can also remove high-damage threats like Fahrenheit, the dreaded Pulverizer, or healing permanents such as Empathic Bond.
Reflective Shield* Shield: Any damage from spells is reflected against your opponent. Can not be destroyed or stolen. *A very important card when specific decks are expected, Reflective Shield counters damage from Bolt spells (particularly Fire Bolt) and Unstable Gas. This card can save the user from almost guaranteed losses against decks like Firestall and Blue Nymph decks.
Liquid Shadow* The target creature is poisoned and gains the vampire ability. Previous skills are removed. *Liquid Shadow is an interesting choice for Siphonary. While it has no creatures to benefit from the vampirism, the secondary pseudo-Lobotomizer effect can be extremely potent against troublesome enemy creatures. Removing the active skills of bulky creatures like Firefly Queen and Pharaoh can save Siphonary from death by swarms. This is especially true in Air decks with Blue Nymphs, where Reflective Shield is required for survival and so Dusk Mantle cannot be utilized.
Sundial (Upgraded)* Stasis: Creatures do not attack for 1 turn. 
: Hasten - Draw a card from your deck. *Unupgraded, a Time card has no use in a Darkness/Light duo, but the upgraded version allows Sundial to be played for free. Delaying the enemy's creatures for a turn gives the user a free turn of healing, and any excess quanta can also be used to draw through the user's deck more quickly.
General Strategies- Victory by Damage
- The main focus of Siphonary is for the user to slowly chip away at the opponent's health with Vampire Dagger, then burst them down to zero health in a single strike with Drain Life spells.
- At the maximum of 75
quanta, six unupgraded Drain Life spells will deal 88 damage in a single turn. - This damage increases with upgrades, up to 96 damage with five or six upgrades.
- Sanctuaries, Miracles, Dusk Mantles and Sundials provide the healing and stalling power needed for the user to reach the quanta cap.
- If the opponent has Unstable Gases on the field, or you are at risk of being bolted to death (particularly with Fire Bolts, five of which can deal over 100 damage in a turn), Reflective Shield should be kept up at all times.
- As your Drain Life spells cannot deal 100 damage by themselves, your Vampire Dagger needs to get the opponent below a certain threshold before you start casting your spells. If the opponent is healing back to full health each turn, Steal priority should be given to healing cards like Empathic Bonds and Sanctuaries.
- Victory by Deckout
- Against decks that can overpower your healing, such as Pharaoh swarm decks or Golem rushes, Siphonary can change its tactics, and instead force the opponent to deck out by taking out its primary damage sources.
- Victory by deckout is your only option if the opponent plays a Reflective Shield, and is able to outheal the damage from your Vampire Dagger.
- This is also your only option if your opponent has permanent control for your Vampire Daggers, or can outheal your damage from them.
- Drain Life and Liquid Shadow spells should be targeted at priority enemy creatures.
- Pulverizer is a priority target for Steal, as it can quickly destroy your important Sanctuaries, Daggers, Sundials and Shields.
- For the same reason, creatures with Butterfly Effect should be given high priority for creature control spells.
StrengthsSiphonary is an incredibly well-rounded deck, and works well against most non-specific counters. It is effective against:
- Standard creature decks (Standard monos, Grabbows)
- Denial decks (DBH, Devtal, Ghostmare)
- Poison decks (PDials, mono Death, Death-Water)
- Rush decks (Immo rushes)
Weaknesses- Bigger stall decks (Sanctuary stalls, Stone Skin decks)
- Stallbreakers (PUGons, Fractagons, Unstable Gas decks)
Reflective Shields can do a great job protecting the user against Bolts, Unstable Gases and Psions, a popular target for in-element Fractal attacks.
A full field of Dragons coming out as burst damage with Fractal can be problematic - with a bit of luck, Dusk Mantle can hold off their damage until victory by deckout.
Outside of sharded play where Shard of Void becomes an option, Siphonary has no way to beat larger decks with ways of outhealing Vampire Dagger damage. If another stall deck is expected, make sure to bring more cards than they do!
