The one I started with was 6x Horned Frog, 6x Cockatrice, 6x Adrenaline, 1x Druid Staff, and 11 pillar/pend. The toughest games are those with dimensional shield or ice shield, though adrenaline can get around ice shield to a degree. You don't really need the druid staff if you don't have it; a short sword, heal, another pillar, dragon, mitosis, etc, will be fine.
If you want to beat the aether one with dimensional shield, you'll obviously need something to get around that. The more obvious ones to me would be decks using sapphire charger or deflagration/steal.
An immolation deck built around either phoenix or lava golem should do very well also.