Hi All,

I'm trying to build a fun deck based on two cards; Simon Abraxas & Negotiated Surrender, and am looking for some help/ideas.

The idea of the deck is to run your opponent out of cards and win via a Negotiated Surrender.
Below is the basic idea of the deck and some cards that will help me achieve it.

(Against a "Basic" 50 Card Deck & assuming Opposing Player plays all 5 Cards per turn and Simon's ability is played first in the round)

Round 1
Opposing Players Starting Rank = -6
First Turn Draw = -5 Cards
Remaining Cards In Deck = 39
Abraxas' Ability = -5
End of First Turn = 34

Round 2
Opposing Player Draws Hand = -5
Abraxas' Ability = -5
End of Second Turn = 24

Round 3
Opposing Player Draws Hand = -5
Abraxas' Ability = -5
End of Third Turn = 14

Round 4
Opposing Player Draws Hand = -5
Abraxas' Ability = -5
End of Fourth Turn = 4

Round 5
Opposing Player Draws Hand = -4
Opposing Players Deck Size = 0

After my opponent reaches 0 is when I need to play my Negotiated Surrender (from my hand, or search through the discard pile or deck) Below are some of the cards I'm including that will help me defend/draw/cycle/mill. The deck is going to be roughly 80 cards min (as I will be cycling cards quickly as well

Mill
x1 Simon Abraxas
x3 Isle of Madness
x3 Mindfire Medallion
x1 Grihilga
x1 Mollusk Helm
x3 Death or Glory
x3 Flesh and Bone
x3 Kiss of Lethe
x3 Meet at the Inn - also card draw
x3 Reches' Labyrinth - Could be canceled/stopped

Defense
x1 Temple of Lore
x3 Premonition

Draw/Cycle
x3 Wheel of Fate

Other than the above I was looking for more ideas/suggestions to get this deck going.

Thanks!

Use Fulfill Destiny to save wounds and give them a card.

use Imprisoned and Dimensional Rift to put a character back into their hand, if they don't replay it you just got it into the discard.

Use Mirror Magic on either a starting Wizard or on Zhul / Shadowreaver.

Regrettably, there are not a lot of Mercenary Monk or Mentalists, and since Negotiated Surrender is not a spell, it is nearly impossible to get it back from the discard pile.

Don't Forget Blind the Gods.

You can cut down on the # of cards in the deck and at the same time insure that you have plenty of monks and mentalists by adding Calling Back Souls. As far as Getting to and keeping the Negotiated Surrender, I don't know how you're gonna do that. I can't find anything other than Mask of Past Lives that will let you attach a non-spell card of that level and class(less). Would staff of power allow you to sribe a non-spell? I think I'll ask about that....

War Journal requires the card to have a class too.

Keep a Mourn Worm handy and put it back on top of your deck each turn before you cycle the hand?

Genius!!!
Don't forget Atlas of Vision

Thanks for the help!

Potentially even more genius!

Scymmeran!

So its been a while since I posted the initial idea for this deck, but here is a more solidified decklist

x1 Simon Abraxas
x3 Brine Fiend
x1 Cal Blackbourne
x1 Narutep
(Starting Army)

x3 Isle of Madness
x3 Mindfire Medallion
x3 Mirror Magic
x1 Mollusk Helm
x3 Meet at the Inn
(Card Milling)

x3 Negotiated Surrender
(Win Condition)

x3 Scymmeran (to cycle Negotiated Surrender till Opponent is decked)
x3 Fulfill Destiny
x3 Seize Life
x3 Premonition
x3 Veiled Passing
(Stalling/Negating)

x3 Calling Black Souls
x1 Gand Wyrian
x3 Ger'rog
x3 Sarakian Ooze
x3 Kun Atoll
x3 Darsan
(Monks & Mentalists for Win Condition)

Mindfire Medallion doesn't trigger from Simon's ability thanks to the errata.

At first glance, it seems that you could replace Veiled Passing with something more useful (maybe Infinity's End or Twist Fate). Hammer of Stone and Divine Will would be great too. If you can find a way to use Alter of the Mind, that could help. Consider dropping Yarr in there too, if you drop him at the end of the turn, he'll be unstunned and ready to discard their cards at the beginning of the next turn. Isle of Secrets wouldn't be horrible either, but I could see being wary of running too many dungeons.

One last thought, you might want to include a couple more wizards who can play Mirror Magic, in case they kill your Cal Blackborne (I would suggest Eye Eater, because he is a Mentalist as well as a way to slow people down).

Isle of Madness is going to allow your opponent to discard your Negotiated Surrender.

Guilt Ridden and Saving Grace are Cleric Actions you can play from the discard pile.

Might want to use some out of faction Monks / Mentalists as meat Shields
Consider Arra'dann, Devourer, Emil Tzin, Lady Eryne, The Stone Spider, Abd al-Jalaar, Gi-Yarr, Kar'tal

and Eye-Eater

I have tried to put this all together a different way, and in my version I used Fields of Bone to put the Monks and Mentalists back out (and now that I think about it, I should give this deck another try).

I like the idea of Mask of Past Lives - that may solve the problem of What to do with Negotiated Surrender. maybe out of Yedraw. Or use level boosting and run it out of Feyd Rowan (for the Mask of Past lives and Fields of Bone.

Since using Negotiated Surrender already sets up that You are not playing Ancients, much can go with this.

I always Call Black Souls as well. They seem to just be better at stuff.

No offense, but Lekar Osud does the Negotiated Surrender thing a lot more effectively and efficiently than Simon A. If you want to use Simon then it will be by will alone I set my mind in motion, but if you want to use the same strategy, only with Lekar, then I won't have to, because I could just post the deck I already have built for this. Who won? Who's next? You decide. Epic Card Battles of Obscurity.

-nihil

Dang! It would have made the deck run very fast



Good includes



I began looking through out of faction monks/mentalists to include and Yarr is a perfect include.



I realized this while looking over the deck list today, thanks for the catch.



I was also trying to find cards that allow you to shuffle or place a discarded card back into your deck (for the negotiated surrender) or build a bigger deck size (60-75)



I know Lekar is the way to go, but I've always found Simons ability to be interesting and fun, and wanted to be able to use his ability to some sort of "win". Set that mind into motion!



If you could, I would love to see your deck.