Sylas Belmont

• So, you want to play Onoskelis? You don’t know how or where to start? Well, it's a good thing you're reading this Snapshot! Onoskelis is a fairly oppressive control deck, that has been at or near the top of the tier list since I started playing. Her entire game plan, is to say your Warriors are mine, your Unifieds are getting negated, and anything else is getting destroyed. But how does she accomplish this game plan? Well there are three major parts to it. The Engine, The Control, and The Damage, lets break each of those down.

• Lets start with the engine. You need two things to make this work, a discard outlet, and things to discard. Now, before you DM me saying “Sylas, you dummy, why would I want to discard cards?”, the answer is simple: discard effects. You have a few key cards, Sacrificial Throne Of The Hell-Plains, The Deeper We’ve Fallen, and Fallen Fervor to name a few. They all say "do something when I’m discarded". Sometimes it's draw a card, sometimes it's draw 2 cards and discard a card, sometimes its something else entirely. To start this discard train going, you need a card with an on play effect to discard. There's lots of these, but to name a few, Fallen Inferno, Bolster The Fallen Forces, and Advance Of The Fallen Armies. So now that we're drawing cards and having a good time, what do we do with it?

• Next part is the Control, how to make games go for a while, and run your opponent out of resources. Onoskelis can make great use of some Stax tools, Some hard control, and some bounty tools. For Stax, Onoskelis doesn’t run many warriors with enter play abilities, so Majik Void Collapse is great to use. Majik Void Aurora is another good tool that protects back rows and stops searching. Twilight Magnolia also helps keep you healthy and prevents opponents from conscripting constantly. 

• Next up is the control, Fall Of The Fallen is a Fortified negate that also discards cards, and is an ACT that you can use every turn. Other than that, Rapture On Mount Bane is an amazing tool. Once it's there it's hard to get rid of, makes opponents pay life, and every single time you discard a card, you get to destroy something. Good luck keeping a board with that thing around! Finally, we have Empusa, The Fallen Demi-Goddess: she has swift, heals 10, and permanently steals 2 of your opponents warriors, what a bargain! Last up is some bounty, we’ve already covered a lot of it in the Stax section, but we got a few more pieces. Ecrutek, The Wandering Warlock is a swift warrior that saves many lives. Finally, Twilight Princess Hyacinth. Swift, large body, searches 2 cards, and recurs back to hand? Yes please.

• So now that the game's drawn out, how do we kill people? It’s quite simple really, there’s 2 main ways. First up, is Majik Mask – Three Eyed Dark. Stick it on a warrior, the owner pays 12 life at each of their reinforce phases, and you can stack multiple for 24 damage a turn! Next up we have Fear The Fallen, it gives +4 to all Fallen warriors, and +8 to all demons that we originally an opponents. But wait, remember that fallen negate I mentioned earlier? That also happens to have a static that makes all demons Fallen, so your opponents cards that you stole all get +12. 

• So that’s the long and short of Onoskelis, but there’s still a lot of nuance that I can’t cover in this short blurb, so don’t read this and expect to become a pro Onoskelis player, it’s gonna take practice and time. But keep at it, and you’ll be crushing hopes and ruining dreams in no time!