Today’s article features a deck by CultWizard, who runs the playingachroma blog. Check out their articles here.

One card in A Conjuring at Curdle Cove has got me thinking about deck building more than any other, and that is The Veil Chaser’s Nest.

It’s a simple 2 cost +1 location, but with a powerful ACTION: REVEAL a Location. With this card, I’ve been building decks with 1 key location, 2 copies of the Nest, and no other locations. Key locations you might want to find include The Bay of Mysteries, a rift such as Aqueous Transition or Achrom Breach, or the indominatable Hex Clunker. With this in mind, I present 2 decks which utilise this build philosophy. First up, sirens:

There’s a lot going on here, so let’s break it down.
First off, The Veil Chaser’s Nest is there to find The Bay of Mysteries. The Bay has two purposes in this deck: generate shards by cycling Pearl, Otrix, or at a pinch Ezili Algae, and to enable potentially huge drains, with the help of Moonveil Harpy, Servant of the Sirens, and some curse tech.
Dark Rainbow is the obvious card to curse and ramp at the same time. I originally built this deck with a copy of Isaz, which will only ever REVEAL Dark Rainbow, however I’ve dropped it for the more aggressive Peorth. Less aggressive players may prefer the consistency of Isaz.
Alchemist’s Tincture will only ever REVEAL another Tincture or a Cintimani Stone allowing you to recover your Bay or play a Dark Rainbow or HAIM Shard Cache for a second time. The double Dark Rainbow of course means that Moonveil Harpy can hit for a big drain. Building this way means I’ve had to omit Corrupted Muon Trap, but I think it’s worth it to know that in most games I can play a Cintimani Stone from my deck for net 1 shard (if you DISPOSE after resolving the Tincture), which is pretty epic.
The rest of the cards are there for general tech, or as good value cards to spam my canvas with then curse.

This deck would function without Veil Chaser’s Nest, but the consistency this location offers in hitting that big drain and giving me some big gain with its REVEAL makes this deck much more powerful.

After testing this deck I just thought I’d highlight two other little bits of tech:
Veil Chaser’s Cat can give itself DIVERT, so is a good way of protecting your big characters for a round even if you have nothing else on the canvas;
Pearl doesn’t have to erase a card. If you’ve got a couple of Nests and a Bay of Mysteries on the canvas, curse dark blue but choose not to erase for the big drain and later gain with Dark Rainbow.

Next up, the inimitable Hex Clunker:

There’s obviously some overlap between decks here, which speaks as much to my building style as the power of the cards themselves. I’ve deliberately made some unusual card choices so this isn’t just another Hex Clunker deck. This deck is all about control and is not an aggressive deck. Thanks to the Nest, rather than using the cyan and red runes, you can include Fireball, as well as Dark Rainbow, and for a bit of fun Summon the Harvest (a card which will literally win you the game if it goes off) and Apollo.

As your Clunker will be finding Corrupted Muon Traps and Cintimani Stone, and I wanted Rabid Dog and Occultist Warlock anyway, I’ve included Arabella’s Recipe. I’ve controversially not included Achrom Converter. You could easilly slot it in, but I find that in most games the opportunity loss of pulling the Converter just to erase an opponent’s card, thereby playing reactively, is worse than the benefit of proactively pulling a Corrupted Muon Trap or Stone. I’m also aware that I’ve skipped the Hex Clunker Parts, which I’m happy to debate the merits of elsewhere.

The big downside of this approach is that the Clunker costs effectively 7 shards to play if pulled with a Nest rather than the usual 2 (as it is with a rune). However, I find this downside is often offset by the ability to inlude Fireball and Dark Rainbow, the latter which is almost always played twice thanks to Clunker finding Cintimani Stone. Wait a few turns before dropping the Clunker and your box of tricks, allowing you and your opponent to build up a decent boardstate, and you can easily gain enough shards with Cintimani/double Dark Rainbow in a single turn to win the game out of nowhere, a trick which the ostensibly achrom sirens deck above can also achieve.

It’s worth noting that there is a similar card in Spirata Planum, Fallen Stone Skeleton Key, which also REVEALS a location as an ACTION. I haven’t tried building with this card myself, but fellow player and achroma blogger CultWizard has, and kindly let me share the palette here:

I love the concept of using the Skeleton Key to guarantee the super strong Achrom Breach hits the table. I would probably swap out Pixie Enlisting, Double Trouble or Infiltration (plus CultWizard admitted they had no Peorth or HAIM Shard Cache at the time of building, which are notable omissions). But those changes aside, this looks like a solid palette. Achrom Breach does end up being quite expensive, yes, and it means you miss out on Achrom Factory and Castle Gates, but I’m definitely going to be trying out my version of this deck soon. If you want a strong palette, consistency is king. Factory Production Line is an especially fun addition here, as it either reveals and deploys for free a Cintimani Stone, or a Fallen Stone Skeleton Key, which will in turn reveal your Breach.

This kind of deck building reminds me of building around runes. I love how it forces you into different card choices from normal, and often ends up in surprisingly effective and consistent palettes.

Thanks for reading. And happy summer everyone.

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