As promised, here are the 3 achrom decks I took to the Salum Spring event on Saturday. First up, occultists:

I’ve made a few changes since the Grand Tournament. I’ve swapped Murky Manor for Pifarius, as the Manor felt a bit too high risk with this build. I’ve also ditched:
The 4-card Ludlam City combo, Achrom Surge, Curdle Woods, and one of the Rangled Woods.
In favour of:
Prism Sapper, Chromatic Flare, 2 Restock, 2 Salum Spring (the new promo), and the absolutely essential second copy of Abundance of Quintessence.

These changes made the deck more aggressive and consistent. I think I’ll probably swap out Huxon for a Murky Manor, as despite the errata, it’s still a -2Δ in one card, that has an extremely high chance of giving me some more drain or steal, so is much better for rapidly pushing my win condition. And worst case scenario, it’s a trade 6Δ.

This deck has control and consistency as its primary strengths. It could be more aggressive, but I like it as it is.

Next up, pixies:

This deck is strong, and so much fun. It’s the deck I settled on for the 7v7 mini-event above.

MVP (other than the amazing Carmella) is probably Advance Scouting Party. Early in the event I was chatting to another player and saying it’s basically trade fodder, but then I started to actually deploy the card midway through the day for a bit of variety, and the extra consistency it offers is incredible. It normally costs a net of 1-3Δ, to essentially choose 2 cards from your top 3. And you can still trade in the turn you play it, which normally leaves you on more Δ than you started with, no change in hand size, and you’ve picked your favourite card(s) from the top 3 of your deck to add to your hand.

I built this deck independently, but it’s interesting comparing it to Charles aka Viridian’s build which he published at the end of February. Here’s a comparison image. Just slide the slider to compare.
You’ll see my deck if the slider is at the bottom, and Viridian’s if the slider is at the top. I’ve deliberately put the cards we disagreed on at the bottom of the deck image, with the exception of the legendary in the top left:

As you can see, there were 8 cards we didn’t agree on (we agreed on all the same rares). Notably, I went with Spiral, while Fowl went with King Craven. I see the logic. He has the potential to just completely shut down the opponent. I just like Spiral as I have a decent amount of steal I don’t want to switch off with Craven, and I like his natural steal 2Δ, and often steal 3-4Δ.

After playing this a lot now, I’d say Bounce in my build is definitely worth the slot. It’s such a versatile card. Black Out has such huge potential, but I didn’t really get much value out of it. Role Reversal I’d be inclined to keep, as I do love resolving, swapping, then resolving my new character. So perhaps swapping my Black Outs for Snuff Outs/Achrom Bombs for an easy -2Δ for 2Δ might be a good call to make it even more aggressive.

And finally, Brisgavi:

I was highly skeptical of the Brisgavi initially, but I wanted to play a deck with the newly much better Solveig or Gisle so built this for the event. I have now really warmed to them, though ironically I didn’t draw Solveig once during the entire day. I’m not convinced they’re better than pixies or occultists, but they get to where they want to be through stronger characters meaning they have the potential to control the board much better in certain matchups.

If you get the right cards early, like Brigavi Cave Dwelling (which is like having 3 copies of the Samr rares in your deck), Brisgavi Falls, Brisgavi Totem, and a couple of Samr Trolls (any really will do, though Gunnar and Brynhild are far and away the strongest), they pack an impressive punch. However, other than Samr Smash, their ability to control the opponent’s boardstate is laughably poor compared to pixies or occultists.

That’s all for now. I can’t wait for the Rise of the Realm Runners to land, and then the first deck (probably) I’ll be building will be Drakes.

---

Since writing this article, I have made some changes to my achrom decks, and I’ve built a drakes deck. The decks are below:

Here are the changes from the decks above:
Occultists:
-1 Detective Huxon, -1 Prism Sapper, -1 Chromatic Flare
+1 Murky Manor, +2 Curdle Village
More achrom, less chroma, and no 1 cost achrom (Prism Sapper) as I just know I’d hit it with Murky Manor
Pixies:
-1 Double Trouble, -2 Black Out
+1 Dove Tail, +2 Achrom Bomb
Double Trouble and Black Out are nice cards but a bit situational. Dove Tail and Achrom Bomb are almost always good value.
Brisgavi:
No changes. Not because it’s perfect, but because I just can’t think of what to change.