This article describes how to build the ultimate deck for The Divine Coronet and also gives a budget option. The key is to avoid Combo Magic and Lost in the Depths and instead run Control Light. The article will explain why!
Why Not Combo Magic?
Getting 9 drops out on turn 4 or 5 is a lot of fun, but the deck is entirely reliant on finding Lost in the Depths quickly. If it's in your mulligan, you probably win. If not, you have to dig fast before aggro opponents finish you off. In 18 games of weekend ranked, you can high roll a top ten, but over time you'll revert to the expected win rate of the deck. Take Kargas' deck as an example:
Kargas won 7 out of 8 games, but the community only won 62% out of 119 games. That's decent, but we can do better.
The second problem with combo magic is there are still answers to the deck. Control Light being one. If you don't get good 9 drops you can easily lose. If you can't finish them off, you can die of fatigue. Other combo decks like Portal Wranger and School Teacher are likely more consistent.
Why Control Light?
Control Light is likely the strongest deck in the game at the moment, so it's not hard to guess it might be a solid contender for Coronet, but two key features make it ideal:
- Enlightenment
- Dead turns
Enlightenment allows you to discard two cards to your void and then pick any two cards in your deck. The natural choice would be Coronet and the other Enlightenment. The only downside to this is how much mana it requires.
If you were racing for this combo, it might look like this:
At 3 mana: play Enlightenment.
At 4 mana: play Coronet
At 5 mana: play Enlightenment (2 mana left over to try and manage board)
At 5.5 mana: play your second coronet and delve your 9 drop
Against really passive control decks like Board Wipe death, this might be possible, but that's not why Control Light is a good match for Coronet.
Control Light has a lot of dead turns. This normally happens when the opponent's board is locked down with the numerous order cards that control light has access to.
In many control light games, you'll see turns where they simply heal their face and float 3+ mana. It's in these dead turns that Enlightenment and Coronet fit so well.
It's not the win condition for the deck, it's simply an additional win condition. You aren't looking for it, but when you have the spare mana to play it, why not?
The Ultimate Deck
If price is no issue, then we can put together some powerful decks on gudecks.com. For the low low price of 1.1 ETH, this too could be yours:
Deck Code:
GU_1_3_CDjIAtIAtIAvIAvKALKALKDQBEXBEXIAqKDbKDbGAfKATKATLAKLAKCBECBEICbLAJIAsIAsIAyIAyBBqBBqGCXGCX
The extra win condition is there:
The normal win condition is there:
All the normal stall and board clear is still there, too.
We also have a new nasty combo with the following:
Martyr does her best work in the void. Enlightenment puts her there. Importantly, the dying creature does not go to the void so it's stats don't reset. Imagine being able to kill that 15/15 Archpriest only to have it come back down even bigger next turn.
Now I don't have these cards, but I was able to find a deck similar to this: https://gudecks.com/decks/46369
It's only played 25 games but has an 84% win rate. In my opinion, it's also not quite optimal. It makes the mistake of removing Archpriests in favor of other choices. Highborn Knight is an amazing card, but the synergy of Priest with this order deck is too strong to pass up. I may get ridiculed for this next take: but the blades seem a little out of place here. I know it's likely the strongest card in the game, but control light doesn't care about tempo and the deck is giving up Lips are Sealed for them. Even so, the deck is winning games.
Budget Deck
Could we make a reasonable deck for less? I think so. For starters, the deck above doesn't run Inescapable Duty. While infinite looping is no longer possible, the combo of Duty + Embalmer is still incredibly powerful. We'll lean into that to help make up for what we lose in raw card value.
Here's the deck. Before you say anything, I know: 0.05 ETH ($65) isn't exactly "budget" in the same way that $10-$20 is, but compared to 1.4 ETH, this is a huge reduction. This deck is achievable through daily play and earn plus a little extra investment.
This deck also reduces the number of singleton cards in favor of using as many 2x pairs as possible. This will improve mulligan consistency, which is important as holding one Enlightenment in the mulligan can jumpstart the Coronet process. A nice general mulligan might look like:
- Eucos: answers the dreaded double 1 drop from aggro nature and deception. Also cleans up Armor Lurkers nicely (get greedy and take face damage before playing it to bait out more victims).
- Informant: lets you shut down something like a Black Jag and contest board early.
- Enlightenment: to do Coronet things of course!
Closing Thoughts
The best way to use Coronet is as an additional win condition in a strong control deck. Being able to get a 9 drop on the board at 7 mana is huge. Control Light doesn't need to sacrifice it's existing win conditions to add it in. Enlightenment is an incredibly powerful card in its own right. In a pinch, use it to find Censure + Divine Judgement. For 5 mana total, say goodbye to Polyhymnia, Neferu, or any other problem children. Discarding in Control Light isn't a terrible downside, either. Inescapable Duty and Radiant Embalmer will bring them back to you.
It should be no surprise that the strongest control deck in the game is likely the strongest shell to fit coronet into; however, it does fit incredibly well.