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Deck Tech: Mai 1-costs

Updated: Oct 11, 2022

Welcome to Skyweaverist's first deck-dive! Today we'll be going over the deck that's taken constructed Rank and Conquest by storm (or zaps?)


An aggro deck at its core, Mai 1-costs utilizes a powerful streamlined gameplan to control the board and lockdown early aggression while still having some powerful ways to close out the game and refill the hand if it runs out of gas.


Lets take a look at a sample list:

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As it's namesake alludes to, almost half of Mai 1-costs is made of cards that cost 1 - mainly to take advantage of the powerful 1-cost payoffs like Hax, Fren-Z, and Big Friend. These days it's even easier to fill the yard thanks to the work done by the core of this deck generating Micron Drones. Each micron drone attack adds yet another 1-cost to the graveyard for any cards relying on these synergies.


Control the board and quickly fill the graveyard with 1-costs by utilizing Micron Drones


Taking advantage of this fact is key to winning with Mai. In the early-midgame you want to focus on controlling the board through Zaps and Micron Drones. The package of Torques, Drone Surge, Micro-swarm, and Leonitus can take care of practically any threat on your opponents side of the board. Zaps create a drone off of Torque's trigger and Leonitus attaches Zap to any Micron drones you happen to summon (except for the ones from Torques, as they come attached with Lead).




Finish your opponents off with powerful finishers like Unophobia & Fren-Z


While it's easy to unload your hand and do tons of damage with 1 costs units and spells, you'll inevitably need ways to close out the game and Mai has the perfect tools to do so, which the deck smoothly transitions into. If your opponent stabilizes and the game goes extremely late, a HUGE Unophobia will easily put the game out of reach. In other cases, by turn 5-6 your Big Friend should cost 0 and Fren-Z can come down with a copy to deal with almost any board state while leaving behind two large threats with guard. Overdrive! will turn all your 1-cost units, including your micron drones, into MUCH bigger threats




If you run out of steam, refill your hand with powerful card draw tools

Between Pandora, Curious, and Doctor Vile the deck has a lot of options to refill its hand and continue the relentless assault of 1 cost units. Pandora is particularly powerful since it's so easy to empty a hand full of low cost cards, and for the same reason Curious can draw into many cards.


General Tips & Synergies:


  • With Bloodletter on the Battlefield, Zap your own hero to do damage to your opponent and grow your Bloodletter

  • Dash For The Cup will almost always grab Bloodletter & Electron, kickstarting a combo - Vile Vial counts as a metal spell! Similarly, look for moments you need to remove a unit with guard out of the way if Ivy is still in your deck

  • Water Rune giving an enemy unit frostbite will increase the potency of Drone Surge even if the 16 health threshold isn't met

  • Save your Mana Crystals for a big turn with Torques - each crystal summons a drone

  • Leonitus and any Micron Drone generator can lead to some explosive turns

  • Hax daze enchantment is always great to eat a Vile Vial if you are at low health

  • Turn 1 Speedster into Fire Rune is an excellent start

  • Don't hesitate to play micron drones into an empty board before an alpha strike with Orion to close out the game

  • A well timed Zap can clear stealth from opposing units (Bloodletter triggers too)



If you're looking for a powerful option to hop onto the ranked ladder with, look no further than Mai 1-Costs. It's likely to get nerfed in the coming weeks as its established itself as one of the best decks, so play it while you can. The core of the deck will remain despite any nerfs though, and I expect it to be a pillar of the metagame as the premier aggressive deck for quite some time.


For a sample game check out https://play.skyweaver.net/game/3627c3f02d48769160f7c948041440340f7a9dac/?mode=REPLAY&replayMatchID=7084294&replayID=c0d53fac319fdf89909724f4806562209520609d&serializedGamePlayer=1


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