Last week Realm Runner Studios hosted a Realm Locked event, banning Realmless favourites such as HAIM Shard Cache, Ray, all Runes, and Cintimani Stone. Inspired by this format, I thought I’d edit my most powerful and favourite palettes to meet this format.
First up, “Ray”ders:
Ray is banned, as is amazing trade fodder HAIM Shard Cache plus Cintimani Stone. For that reason, I’ve gone down the Copper Joss/Squad Formation route. We’ve got 3 fairy painters for Squad Formation so you’re likely to get a double hit with this card, with Joss coming to your starting hand one way or the other (after mulligan) in more than half of games.
I’ve included the 3 “promo” locations here, as these boost the Δ count for trading, and are high value. I’ve kept Factory Production Line, as it’s such a strong play to get the Lab Coat down for 3Δ, especially with Blueprint Swirl on your canvas. Just make sure you resolve your steals and drains before playing it in the Resolve Step to maximise value.
This build is certainly weaker than the Ray version, but really not by much, and it’s mostly down to the loss of the surprise achrom wins you get with the Cintimani Stone/HAIMs.
Next up, Staycation (my name for my Draco steal locations palette from the How to Beat Rayders article):
I had to remove my HAIM Shard Caches (these cards are in literally all my decks) but I didn’t have to remove Cintimani Stone for this one. In fact, the only changes between this deck and the one Torus won the Grand Tournament with is:
Chromatic Extinction has been swapped for Vast Volitarus as it’s just such a good value card, and Chromatic Extinction ended up being just a bit too situational;
Chroma Overflow and the two HAIMs have been swapped for Altari Drift and two Thisps.
I also swapped Summon the Mist for Breath of Ice. This makes literally no functional difference, I just think it’s more elegant.
And finally, a variation on a Dark Rainbow/Arabella’s Recipe palette:
A classic Arabella’s Recipe build here (though without Cintimani Stone). I’ve got 15 non-action cards with achrom/chroma Δs. Plus I have the old favourite Alchemist’s Tincture/Corrupted Muon Trap combo to annoy the opponent with.
Notable missing cards are Replenishment (which is not as good if you can’t grab HAIM Shard Cache), Abundance of Quintessence (which doesn’t really further the win condition for this palette), and Tempest (which is too much of a liability given the large number of locations).
That’s it for now. It is noteworthy that I have not built a Norso deck. That is deliberate. My goal was to make highly competitive palettes, and Norso realm simply can’t cut it at the moment for consistency, especially if Traders loses HAIM. I look forward to The Monsters of Norso shaking that up a bit.
After community member LordTHEN did so well in the Realm Locked tournament with a Norso deck, I thought I’d include my version of a Realm Locked Traders deck for completeness:
This is a pretty classic traders deck with a couple of minor changes:
- There’s so many locations I couldn’t resist Lacringi Gardens/Leif of Lacringi. I wanted to include Lacringi Cliff Dwelling to find him, but as it’s a 3Δ card I couldn’t justify it. Both cards are just nice if you happen to draw them at the right time (or get lucky with Cave Expedition). And Magnus can bring Leif back from the dregs too.
- Lacringi Forge is there as trade fodder, or you can play it to find the Orium Diamond, costing you a total of 6Δ to play and netting +3 each turn and +4 when you Dispose. Just don’t forget to Dispose as a reaction if the opponent tries to Steal/Erase it.
- Cave Expedition is a favourite of mine, and pretty much anything it hits is decent value, except perhaps the Lacringi Mines. It also cleans your deck for you. If you hit the Gardens or Totem, great.
Next time you’re ordering achroma products, please use the discount code dracotemple at checkout on the achroma webstore for 10% off all orders, including pre-orders. By using this code, you are also supporting me, as I also earn commission on any sales using this code.
To activate this discount, enter the code at checkout, or go to shop.achroma.cards/dracotemple to automatically apply the code.
Draco Temple 