Hello, Diskisan here coming after a short hiatus from Mythgard to guest write for KG about my favorite color. I will be discussing purple, building a mono purple deck, and hopefully convincing you to give the color a chance.
Purple is one of the most flexible colors in Mythgard, supporting strategies from aggro when paired with red, midrange when paired with green, and control when paired with yellow. However, purple is often out shined by the other colors.
While purple is flexible the color itself has a lot of weaknesses, perhaps put most succinctly: purple lacks direction. With that said, purple is unique in that it synergizes with Disk pf Circadia naturally through the item generation at almost all mana costs.
Strengths
Racer in the shadow - removal for small stuff
Single target removal for medium size stuff (Muttonmorphis)
Single target removal for large stuff (Spirit Away)
Healing: Peach of Life and Sword Saint
Flexible 2 and 3 drops
Weaknesses
Wide Boards
Inability to play from behind
Lack of finishers
Lack of draw
Disappointing 4 drops (other than vixen)
Power level is concentrated at the commons/uncommons leaves the color vulnerable to Seal of Exile.
While it can not be expected for mono color decks to be viable given only the core set, it is interesting to see what we can do with the existing card set in anticipation for the new expansion.
Building Mono Purple
1. Why Disk of Circadia?
At this point it's a meme to ask this, but there is motivation for disk; I swear. Disk solves the lack of finishers issue as well as lack of draw. It does this with night market, ramens and smite. While our hand will not be full, disk will guarantee that our draws are curated to our needs due to the divination effect. This can help us a lot to look for the cards we need, while not effectively drawing a lot of cards.
2. Deciding the Type of Deck
The lack of board control tools in purple forces us into either an aggressive or midrange strategy. I have decided upon a midrange/tempo strategy as purple doesn't have cheap cards that allow our minions to connect face reliably (cards like demolition speedway, conviction, alacrity, etc). Therefore, we rely on midrange bodies to be able to trade favorably and go face.
We have two options to consider: Smite and Impel. I have a deck utilizing each, but here I will focus on the smite version. The impel version is visited shortly after.
Honestly, I have not tried infuse with disk, so I am not sure how good/bad it would be, but I have been satisfied enough with my choice of power so far that I haven't felt the need to try infuse out.
3. Racers and 1-drops
Simuzen is a no-brainer, while one could wish Simuzen’s item was a little bit higher impact. As of the core set, Simuzen is the ideal 1-drop for aggressive and midrange purple decks. Tong foot soldiers is also a playable 1-drop, that I make use of as well in the impel version that will be described shortly.
Steam bun is a feelsbadman addition to any fast deck, but generating an item on turn 1 is often necessary for early trading with slayer racer. Hopefully, the new expansion adds a replacement for steam bun.
4. Choosing the 2-drops
How many Sword Saints is a meta question based on how often am I the aggressor or the defender. I like to be the aggressor so I only play 2 Sword Saints(and would probably cut them all together if better options prove possible in the new expansion).
Now, a minion I did not expect to respect a lot was Battle Chef. Shield Wok is a very impressive item. I owe this appreciation to Noah who suggested the card to me back when creating my aggro BP disk. I like 2 Sword Saints, 3 Battle Chefs, and of course 3 Night Markets.
5. We choose the 3 Barkeeps
And sadly, 3 Shinobis of Fire, though sometimes it can cheese a win. However. the Shinobis of Fire will be the first to get cut in the presence of better options, as the ¼ stat line can not trade well, not fitting our desire to play midrange.
6. Choosing the 4-drops
This is an area that I hope the expansion will fix, as right now, playing 4 drops other than Vixen often feels not so great. God of Gamers can be nice at times, but not playing Impel takes away from god’s power. Back Alley Ronin is often a hit or miss, being able to play him as a 6/5 is great, but due to the lack of removal, it can be difficult to connect face with that stat line.
Pentacle of Flavors is a card that felt the slayer change significantly. It is no longer the finisher it used to be, but it remains a strong card and we play 2 copies of it. However, it needs to be played with caution. If the Pentacle’d minion gets removed efficiently, it often loses us game.
7. We choose the 4 terragons
Terragon is great. Jin-Sook is mainly good for the movement ability. Reincarnation has snatched too many wins for me to not consider it an essential part of the deck. However, to be honest, only the Terragons are necessary.
Jin-sook and Reincarnation can be replaced by Pushy Oni or possibly Emperor Koi.
8. Celestial D, C Dragon, Big D among other names
This 8/8 chonker is made to hit your opponent in the face, and is essential for the deck. I have tried the various higher end minions but none felt good in the deck, and so I settled on Lantern Colossus. However, Lantern Colossus does too little for its cost, but the native overrun is the main reason I run it. You can consider a copy of Baku Boogeyman in replacement of one lantern colossus. This is another flaw that I hope will be fixed in the expansion: more midrange high end minions to choose from.
Notes: in earlier versions of the deck I used to run all the Muttons and Spirit Aways, but often found that this deck wants to remain proactive forcing the opponent to be the one removing our threats. In this version, Pentacle is the only removal in the deck aside from the racers.
Gameplan
We want to play the curve, burning till 6, only going higher if we absolutely need to We play Night Market on 2 against slow decks, but also possible to play against fast decks if we can make sure not to lose too much tempo.
The deck is a tempo deck and has very little value outside of the minions that it plays, therefore the deck is on a timer to finish the game before you get outvalued/outhealed. We flip disk only when no other better play presents itself. Generally we will be smiting every other turn by turn 7. In summary, face is the place and prioritize tempo over card advantage.
Smite PP
Verdict:
Running Disk/Smite fixes the draw issues as well as the finisher issues to some extent, but it introduces new issues: we run minions like Steam Bun, Shinobi of Fire, and God of Gamers when they don’t strictly synergize with our game plan.
Impel PP
Verdict:
Running Disk/Impel changes the design philosophy considerably as Night Market is no longer viable, however Juiced becomes extra juicy, and we are forced to drop the curve significantly to be able to squeeze in as much cheap minions as possible for Juiced. This changes our play style as well in which we have more freedom in not taking trades and moving away to go face. Shinobi of Smoke and God of Gamers are naturals here and feel very strong. However, the deck can sometimes struggle to finish games, it can also struggle with gaining value from Impel, leading to some unnatural plays.
Match Ups
RG Midrange/Aggro:
Not Favored. Rushers often race us successfully, Detained/Deported ruins our tempo, Gigantomachia, 7rr and Murmur are instant losses. Very hard match-up.
RB FoC (Icewall):
Favored. Make sure to thank your opponent for the draws. Also stretcher lets us do more Smite damage. We are generally much faster, and their lack of healing quickly shows after a couple of Smites.
Mono B Valkyries:
Favored. Slayer Racer is the star of the show, being able to take down most of the Valkyries with very little investment from our side. We can still lose to a well timed Odinthrone on a Bragi or kara.
Necro Decks:
Equal. The game becomes a race. The body that the Necro deck cheats out tend to be the same amount of damage as the stats we will have on board by turn 4-5. Therefore it's a race, the potential struggle is against Purple Necro that can heal for a ton.
Conclusion
While the decks are by no means top tier, they are sufficiently different from the decks one occasionally sees on ladder. This can offer a refreshing experience for people who are burnt out or looking to play something new until the expansion is released.
Whether you choose to run the Smite or Impel variant is a matter of taste as well as play style. Neither deck is perfect, but hold great potential with the new expansion. Hopefully the new expansion brings about tools to reduce the aforementioned flaws.
I hope you enjoy these decks as much as I do.
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