On Friday, Achroma posted a new addition to their rules: a Restricted List. This is a list of cards or combinations of cards that have additional restrictions placed on them when deckbuilding for Constructed Canvas format, the typical 30 card format used when playing Achroma. Their intention is to use this list to control the power level of some decks in the Achroma meta.

There was only one deck archetype hit by this update, and unsurprisingly it was Rayders. Here’s the restriction:

• Ray: If you choose Ray as the Legendary card in your Palette, then the following cards are restricted to one copy of each: Firetender and Full Palette.

Since Day 1 of Rise of the Realm Runners, even before Rayders was an established deck, Firetender/Ray has been a popular combo in Achroma. I remember playing my first ever Rise of the Realm Runners game over webcam, and my opponent and I were both playing this combo. Reducing the probability of this combo AND removing 1 copy of Full Palette from the palette definitely hurts.

Assuming you hard Mulligan for Firetender or Ray, and ignoring draw abilities on cards such as Imp, the chance of getting one or other card before this change was 68%. It’s now 52%. Funnily enough, that’s actually higher than the chance of getting one of these cards pre-Restricted List and pre-Mulligan, which was 43%.

So where do we go with Rayders? There’s two obvious options: drop Ray, or swap in a couple of good uncommons or commons for the space left by the Firetender and the Full Palette. As a reminder, here’s the full Rayders build (or at least the version I currently favour), with the cards on the chopping block greyed out:

Replace Ray:
Looking through the legendary options, a few jump out. Guardians of Flutterby Falls has a nice trade 6, or on the canvas: defend 6, prevent 4, splat 4, which are impressive stats. However, the two I favour are these:

You can’t FIND her like you could Ray, but Copper Joss is worth a net +2 on the turn you play her and +6 thereafter, she can’t be attacked, and her 4 strength means she can pick off the smaller characters the opponent plays. This is the most mechanically similar character to replace Ray with, and is a solid choice.

The less obvious choice is Coffey, Lab Assistant. 4 shards for +3 is decent, but his ability to FIND any character could be absolutely clutch. FIND Wincey for some more gain, FIND Sorrono to push some steal and control the opponent, FIND Carmella to erase a problematic location or object, or even FIND Firetender to FIND Full Palette to net +1 for the turn and turn Blueprint Swirl into a +6 location.

Replace Firetender and Full Palette:
These are my top picks to fill up the uncommon/common slots left behind:

Group Huddle is a trade 4 with an impressive upside. If you play this card for the gain, you’re extremely likely to have Menagerie active, meaning it could be worth a net +4/+6 if you’re lucky.
Invasive Parasite is a meta choice is Hex Clunker is a likely matchup. Pop this on the Clunker to nuetralize it. This is likely to be more effective than erasing it (or trying to erase it). And of course this card can be used on any problematic character or location, making it a very versatile control card for Rayders.
And finally, Squad Formation. Given this deck has only 1 Painter (Wincey), and 1 other Fairy (Firetender), assuming you play this without either in your hand, you’re guaranteed to REVEAL both. Open with this card and you get Wincey to hand for next turn, drop the Firetender, FIND Ray, and you’re off, albeit it net -1 for the turn. Additionally, since you’ll have just the same number of cards in your hand as you started with despite playing 3 cards, you can always finish the turn with a big trade. Include this combo in your deck and you’re looking at a 79% probability of a turn 1 Ray.

I’m not exactly sure what the future holds for Rayders, but looking at the options above, I’m confident that this is still a formidable deck in Achroma, and I respect the soft touch used here to keep this deck competitive.

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