Mastering the CardsI have decided to do a Spell, a Permanent, and a Creature.
Miracle, the backbone of stalls everywhere. Every stall deck, from THE DECK to Firestall, will have Miracle somewhere in it's card list. The most effective way to use Miracle is to simply use it the turn before your opponent can kill you, in most situations. You want to make the best of the hefty 15 (or 12) quanta that you spend to gain the (almost!) full heal from Miracle, so you soak up as much damage as possible beforehand. However, in situations where your opponent can burst you down (Fractal, Parallel Universe, Bolt spells), you will want to be more heavy handed in your usage. During a match, you can do some mental (or use a calculator, I won't judge
) math to figure out roughly how much damage your opponent can do in a turn, and time your Miracle accordingly. Cards that pair well with Miracle include Sanctuary, to protect your quanta (and your ability to play Miracle in the first place, by blocking Silence), Stone Skin, to raise your maximum HP to gain the most out of your Miracle, and Sundial, to prolong the amount of time needed before you play Miracle.
Miracle's right hand man, Sanctuary. Those two cards go hand in hand in the stall archetype; there's rarely a deck that doesn't have one or the other, and for good reason! When you look at raw numbers, Shard of Gratitude with a
mark looks a lot better than Sanctuary, but the difference is all in the card text. Sanctuary prevents your opponent from altering your quanta pool via cards like Devourer, Discord, Black Hole, and additionally prevents alterations to your hand, via cards like Silence and Nightmare. The best way to use Sanctuary is to simply, just.. use it! Sanctuary is a very non-interactive card, it heals you for 4 HP at the end of your turn, and protects your resources. It's best fit is into a stall deck, generally alongside Miracle, to produce copious amounts of healing to sustain your opponent's damage and end the game through one of your deck's wincons. Three cards that work well with Sanctuary are Miracle, for aforementioned reasons; CC cards such as Rage Potion, to eliminate enemy creatures and let you heal up, and Sundial, to buy you more time to gain more HP.
One of Light's most interesting cards, Crusader, is also one of the most versatile! It can Endow weapons such as Titan or Fahrenheit for a sheer boost in attack, for a rush, or weapons such as Eternity and Eagle's Eye to control the flow of the game, and even cards like Jade Staff and Vampire Dagger, to gain some nice healing, for a stallier deck. The best way to use Crusader is to place it in a deck where it can use a weapon's ability to further it's usefulness on the field, such as Vampire Dagger, which provides +6 damage and the Vampire ability, or Eagle's Eye, where you can use Sniper more times per turn. An interesting interaction with Crusader, is that if you make a weapon a creature via Flying/Animate Weapon, buff it via Chaos Power, Blessing, Rage Potion, etc., and then Endow it, the attack buff transfers to the Crusader, creating a Crusader with a punch! Three cards that have the most synergy with Crusader are Flying Weapon, to make buffs transferable, Blessing, the buff to transfer, and Vampire Dagger, a very strong card to Endow.
