Skeleton Catcher [fun]

[ARTHANASIOS]

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52g 52i 52i 52i 52i 52i 52i 52m 52m 52m 52m 52m 52m 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 52v 52v 542 8pk

Here is a fun deck that can be used to have a fun PvP1 game or to battle the AI3 for fun.
Keep in mind that this is a MONO deck that is put into the MONO death decks section, so please no comments like "put Sparks or Cats instead of Skeletons" and stuff like that.

Strategy:
*Turn 1: Play your Soul Catchers asap (with a normal, non-RNG screwed hand, you should have 2 Soul Catchers in your starting hand, or a Soul Catcher and a pillar/pend).
*Turn 2: Play your Virus (with a normal, non-RNG screwed hand, you should have at least 1 in your starting hand).
*Turn 3: Play your Skeleton and sacrifice your Virus to target Skeleton; that way, they both die and give you quanta to play the rest of your deck; Arsenic has the highest playing priority and Bone Wall the second highest (with a normal, non-RNG screwed hand, you should have at least 1 Skeleton in your starting hand and yes, this deck can be easily screwed by RNG but it is still a fun and quite effective deck).
*Turn 4: Repeat...

Tips:
*If you have an enemy creature with a low health, you may at your own risk sacrifice the Virus to target that creature instead of a Skeleton of yours.
*If you use this deck to battle a CC-based AI deck, feel free to play as many Skeletons as possible. The AI will use CC on them and they will grant you both quanta and +2 rows to your Bone Wall with their death.
*If you face a hostile Bone Wall based deck, do not sacrifice your Viruses and Skeletons but use them to dispatch the hostile Bone Wall instead in order to let your Arsenic deliver its poisonous stab.
*If you use this deck against AI3, you may skip the Pharaoh and FFQ decks because you have no chance against their swarming and healing capabilities.
*If you have neither a Skeleton nor a hostile creature to target with your Virus but you need quanta and extra Bone Wall rows, sacrifice your Virus and hit "cancel".
*This deck is in general not newbie friendly; use it at your own risk.


A fun mono-death deck that uses Skeletons? Why not!
Have fun!

[iancudorinmarian]

I dunno about fun, but I wouldn't call this deck "effective" at all. It's VERY difficult to beat anyone with arsenic alone. You need 14 turns, and that's assuming your opponent has no shields, no healing, no PC. Those are some pretty huge conditions, if you ask me. Also, those 3 poisons aren't going to do much, really. You'll draw 1 in ~11 cards on average, it's not even worth having them.

I'd have 6 poisons for sure. Should probably cut some skeletons for them and 1-2 bonewalls.

I don't really see why you would want to infect your own skeletons, you're just wasting deck space by having them in the first place. It's much more effective to infect an enemy creature. Otherwise, you'll run out of bones eventually. Cards like plague, dragons, or even just plain mummy would help this deck way more than some skeletons. Skeletons do nothing for your deck. Using 2 cards to get 4 bones is just a way worse freeze, really.

[dragtom]

why waste quanta on skeletons if you could use sparks instead?

yes, funny idea, but like ian said, so ineffective.

[ARTHANASIOS]

why waste quanta on skeletons if you could use sparks instead?

yes, funny idea, but like ian said, so ineffective.

Because Sparks:
* Are messing with Mulligan because they are 0 cost creatures and you need to draw Soul Catchers instead.
* Are not a Death creature and this deck was meant to be a mono-death one.

About Ian's comment:

*I think we have a total different understanding of the word "effective". By "effective" I don't mean "competitive" or "game-breaking"; I mean "it gets the job done".
*I used to have -1 Arsenic, -2 Bone Walls, +3 poisons but my playtesting showed I needed +1 Arsenic (in order to draw one early and because more permanents = more PC protection) as well as all my Bone Walls. Since Poison is not a card that is part of the main strategy of the deck, I went -3 Poison and use it like a support card instead.
*Nothing prevents you from using Viruses against enemy creatures. I personally have done it many times using this deck. However, there are many things to take into account. How much health the enemy creature has? how early does it attack in comparison with the rest of your opponent's creatures? Will there be a Bone Wall out when it dies? Because of all these, I say the "you may at your own risk sacrifice the Virus to target that creature instead of a Skeleton of yours" thing, as well as the "This deck is in general not newbie friendly; use it at your own risk" phrase.
*About choosing Skeletons over other Death creatures. Skeletons are cheap and they have 1 hp, making them the only creature of the Death meta that can be used to perform the Virus & Skeleton & Soul Catcher & Bone Wall combo (your opponent will not always have a creature-based deck). Other than that, Skeletons can be used as CC bait against the AI and they can also be used to add some minor damage to your deck (if there are no DR shields out there).

[Calindu]

What's effective about this deck? I don't even see it getting the job done and the whole combo your deck is based on makes no sense and is terribly inefficient.

Trying to keep the deck mono instead of having it actually make sense and be useful is just silly, Spark is the card you want to use, not Skeleton.
The deck is slow to actually put damage and has little to no damage, unless you draw a pillar the earliest you can play an arsenic is turn 3, and with so little damage coming from anything else so I expect a ttw of around 13-14 if there is no healing involved.
The deck is bad at defending itself too. Since you generate combo with the virus-skeleton combo, and you need to first one to generate quanta to actually deal damage, you'll usually be able to play a bonewall turn 4-5, which is fine, but the problem comes when the bonewall falls, as unless you draw a third combo, you won't have the quanta to play another bonewall. And even if you do, since you have no way to get rid of your opponent's creatures, your bonewalls will drop like flies and you will be left with no ways to defend yourself.

You say you use skeletons in case you don't face creature-based decks, but against those, I don't see you winning, as your deck has little damage and bonewalls will not be effective, so why not help your stronger matchup instead of trying to win 1 game in 100?

Now, against Ai3, I find it hard to believe this deck wins more than 50% of the games, this coupled with the fact that it's very slow, makes this a terrible deck to use against Ai3.

I hope this was helpful and makes you understand why this isn't an effective deck by any standard.

[ARTHANASIOS]

I see the word "effective" in this deck description causes discord, so I will remove it...