When the Warriors of Wishwell cards were spoiled, I was most excited about the prospect of playing a trader deck. However, I just couldn’t get it to work consistently for me, despite the fact that the synergies in the set are incredibly strong.

Fortunately, another player, Amynta (Mat) played an excellent version of this archetype at the recent Grand Tournament, and was happy to share his decklist and some thoughts:

As he says:

“The event gave some fantastic playtesting as I got to play a wide range of different decks (Hex Clunker, Copper Joss, Curdle Steal, Vast Volitarius Dragons, Samyr Trolls drain and Drain/stealing Dragons!) I am overall very happy with how Traders performed but there was a few changes to make, to improve its reliability.

The MVP of the Deck is Traders Lifeline. Hands down. Being able to drop 2 of these at the start of your turn. Netting you 2 trades and 3 card draw. Then a trade for turn start, another 2 card draw, a 3rd deploy trade (from Orium twine) for more, then fishing docks and traders pass and turn end trade means you can draw half your deck which is absolutely huge. (Eyeball brisgavi negotiation to steal a Vast Volitaris). It also lets you fish out removal if you cant make the trades to win. (Just remember to keep your 3rd deploy free until you’ve done the docks/pass and turn end trade so you do the twine/removal at the end).

Other great cards are Hulder Tail Whip – cost 5 looks scary but if you Erase a 5 cost char/location and another (say an Issadora and the Occultist Den) you get 6 shards back so you actually gained 1 – and removed 2 massive pieces. You can also Tail whip your own Norso totem to gain 12 shards (plus any trade +’s you have).

Since the event, Mat’s made a couple of changes. Here’s the new deck.
You’ll need to slide the slider on this image to see his old deck magically transform into his new build. Slide up to see the new deck, and down to see the old deck:

“Removed the 2 Lacringi Traders as they were just not proving enough trade support as I thought they would and seeing them appear on Fishing Dock lowered the average trade value of the deck.
Doubled up on Marcus as he can be played to dig back Knut. He is better than Eirik as we don’t run objects, and is a solid trade value of 4.
Dropped the Raiders as they were just not generating cards and we’re too expensive.
Swapped Wishwell Market for Knut, the location got destroyed or stolen very quickly and is too low trade value if it appears in Fishing Dock and Knut – if not dealt with can lead to tremendous amounts of draw (20+ cards is used with 2x Traders Lifeline).
Added in Lacringi Way as a way to deal with Achrom locations (im looking at you Murky Manor) that avoid the Samyr Smash. The idea of the deck is to be light on played locations, and try and fish for (ideally) a 2x Traders Lifeline and just explode trade in 1 turn.

The absolute god turn would be to have 2 or 3 of Traders pass/Fishing Dock combo out. and then 2x Traders Lifeline. This will give you 8 trade windows in your turn. Generating you 15 card draw from your lifelines. if you can get cards that trade for an average of 3 (which is very much the average of this deck – its heavily costed to increase trade value) means you will trade 8 cards for 24 shards.

It’s very easy to win from as low as 3 shards at the start – with just 2 locations out if you manage to hit all the 5’s and 6’s. Essentially you want a burst turn – don’t be afraid to play nothing and double draw a few turns as sometimes your opponent is just looking to steal locations – and if they build wide just Samyr Smash and choke.”

Thank you to Amynta for sharing his builds and letting me post them here. Hopefully someone out there is inspired to give this deck a try.