Last time I wrote about Olympian Light with BotW cards, this time I tried a Hidden/Aggro Nether Deception deck. The card steal cards added to Deception in this set seem quite strong, and it can help keep fueling an Aggro deck. They would work in Midrange or Control decks as well, but I was toying with a Hidden Deception deck already.
This deck was a lot of fun! I imagine it wasn’t for my opponents though when I start stealing their cards haha. Look at this neat lethal with an opponent’s Neferu:
Deck Link I basically took out the top end of that deck and replaced it with the card steal cards plus a few more low cost Nethers to trigger the effects. I did keep a couple of cards on the 1-2 mana range that weren’t Nethers though: Pyramid Warden because that on turn 1 with Assassin’s Aim next turn can win games by itself, and Armor Lurker because it’s just a great card. The goal of the deck is the same as Hidden Deception, hide your creatures and do face damage. The addition of the card steal cards allows you to refill your hand and maybe disrupt your opponent’s plans by taking their key cards.
I started off with a great day going 7-3 with this deck, but then tapered off the next 2 days to a 56.7% winrate. Note all games were played in Mythic. It’s not too bad of a result, and like I said earlier, it’s quite fun especially when you start stealing a bunch of your opponent’s cards, either through Moonlighter or Gama (if you have Shadows of Lethenon out, it’s wild!). I don’t think it’s as effective as a pure Hidden Deception deck due to the randomness of the stolen cards though.
Because it didn't perform as well as my Olympian Light deck from last week, I decided to play with that deck instead for Weekend Ranked especially as it's important to do well during this period to win BotW packs!
I would say that best card from this set for Deception is Shrike Moonlighter; it’s versatile in that you can play it in a Hidden Aggro deck or Mid/Control, and those decks usually play Nethers anyways. Gama is good but seems to want a more wide board (with Shadows of Lethenon) plus the Hide God power to really maximize his potential, which fits in Aggro but not as much for the other decks.
Dark Deliverance and Spore-Light Lantern are definitely more for the slower decks, and they could be decent as they saw some play, but I don’t think they’re strong enough to take away from other better cards. Time will tell though.
Finally, we have Vulpine Shadowshifter, which I think is the weakest card for Deception out of this set. The effect plus its low strength doesn’t pan out too well. I do want to mention a neutral card though: Ember Oni. This is a great budget alterative to Demogorgon for Control decks, and the fact that it’s a Nether synergizes with quite a few cards in the Deception arsenal.