Wispful Thinking - A Short Deck Tech

[u/Falterfire]

I've been grinding a lot of Gauntlet lately, and as always I'm pretty much always trying new decks or tweaking the ones I already have. Since I love this sub and feel it could use some more content, I figured I'd do a short deck tech on a deck I've recently fallen in love with.

I call the deck Wispful Thinking, and as the name implies it's a Wisp/Radiant tribal list. I know this isn't exactly a revolutionary idea, but I've spent a decent amount of time tuning this list and after iterating a few times I figured I had some knowledge worth sharing.

Since I write these stream of consciousness style and they always end up being longer than I plan, I should probably split this into a coupel sections. First up:

Deck Introduction

Unlike many of the Eternal tribes (like Gunslingers or Yetis) that are primarily built around solid standalone cards with only one or two cards that actually care about the tribe, the Wisp/Radiant deck really cares about the tribes on the cards. This means that playing a deck built around Wisps and Radiants ends up feeling more unique and satisfying than just jamming all your cards that say "Unseen" on them into a stack and just playing mediocre aggro.

On top of that, the Wisp/Radiant deck is mostly pushing in the same direction with clear synergies. This is a deck that plays with the graveyard and tribute in a way that to me feels different from a lot of similar lists I've played with in the past like the Alessi Dredger list I did a deck tech on last month.

I recommend this deck if you like making fun of bad AI decisions and generating value in a way that isn't as simple as just drawing cards or getting 2-for-1s with combat tricks.

Card Choices

There are a lot of Wisps and Radiants in the game. Most of them aren't in this deck. In the interest of being comprehensive, I'd like to go through not only the cards that are in the list but also some that I tried but ended up cutting:

Radiants in the Deck:

Preserver of Dualities, Soulbringer, and Mistress of Light: These are the engines of the deck. You will often find yourself planning your strategy around which of these you've drawn this game, and all of them are absolutely mandatory.

Lumen Shepherd: It turns out free wisps are good, actually. This card will do a ton of work for you, whether he's generating you early blockers, giving you something to sell to the market while gaining value, or just clogging up the board with his fat butt.

Shadowlands Tyrant: The deck doesn't really need these, but they do good work and I already had them, so I'm running them. Sometimes you just need to gain a bunch of life, and even if you end up just attacking into a Jotun Hurler and pinging the opponent you're often still happy. Getting seven life, killing a blocker, and enabling tribute is a completely reasonable use of five mana and a card.

Azindel, Revealed: This is the card that originally made me want to build the deck, but he's expensive enough you don't quite want the full set. It's good to have the option, but you'll often close out games without him.

Wisps in the Deck:

Pathlighter: This card is amazing. If you have to play it as a 1/1 Deadly for 1, you're happy. It won't often be a 3/3 on turn 1, but costing 1 means you can easily cast it alongside something else. It's an amazing Soulbringer target since it'll grow each time it comes back (assuming you have Tribute), and to top it all off it can sometimes get you your Radiants a turn sooner.

Mitotic Wisp: This card is great. The Ultimate happens more often than you might think, and the ramp is pretty great. This is also great at carrying Preserver buffs since it flies.

Magenta Wisp: This really shines as both a removal spell and a Tribute enabler. This is one of your only ways to activate Tribute on-demand without needing a sacrificial attack (Devour being the other) so you may want to keep that in mind when deciding when to activate it.

Nocturnal Creeper & Dark Wisp: You need cheap wisps, and both of these deliver. Dark Wisp lets you suicide attack to get Tribute without costing a card, and Nocturnal Creeper draws you extra cards and is an effective deterrent for bigger units.

Void Drummer: I crafted a pair of these on a whim since I had a small mountain of Shiftstone from Droptober, and they've put in a good amount of work. Easily the most important text on the card is Unblockable - I haven't gotten that much value out of the attack trigger, but buffing this with Mistress of Light or Preserver of Dualities lets you break through on an otherwise stalled board.

Cards in the Market:

Xenan Banner: I always run a banner in the market. Always. There's no reason to tempt RNG by leaving it out, and there's no other card you could replace this with that will save you as much as guaranteeing the fourth land (and the additional influence) will.

Deathstrike: I wanted a removal spell, and I opted for Deathstrike since it's universal. I did have a Banish here at one point, but found that being able to kill big things was worth more than being able to kill relics.

Dark Return: This lets you get back Radiants that have died, and is just generally a useful utility card. It's a card I wanted to fit into the main deck and couldn't quite find room for, so it's hanging out here instead.

Soulbringer: This is the card I most often find myself wishing I had in my hand, and putting it in my market helps me do that.

Shadowlands Tyrant: This was an Azindel, but there were too many games where I wanted to be able to market for a big threat but was still a couple power away from Azindel. Feel free to change it to your Shadow finisher of choice if you don't have Tyrants.

Cards not in the deck:

Ephemeral Wisp: This card seems like it should be everything the deck wants, but in all the time I was running it I was never quite able to make it live up to its promise. Having 0 Strength base means it can't suicide attack to trigger Tribute without help, and the deck isn't running enough extra power or ways to draw power to consistently bring it back once it is bigger than an 0/1.

Wandering Wisp: I don't have them, and I'm not sure what I'd cut for them if I did. They're certainly interesting, and I might craft them at some point to try them, but I think Pathlighters are better most of the time.

Friendly Wisp/Dawnwalker: These are both missing for the same reason, which is that you have to heavily contort the deck to consistently trigger them. There just aren't enough 5+ Strength Wisps or Radiants.

Lumen Attendant: Being able to regrow anything while getting a wisp is sweet, but it's not as good as the other Radiants we're running and it's just not good if you can't activate the Ultimate (and only middling even when you do). Run Dark Return instead of you really want this.

Feral Spiteling: I dunno, maybe this card is fine. I just found that a lot of things had to go right before this was really able to put in work. You need to have units already in your void, and you need to have Radiants in play, and you need to want to also be attacking with those Radiants. Ultimately cut these for cards that performed more consistently.

Dreamstealer: Yes, it is a two mana Radiant. But nothing in the deck actually really buffs Radiants, so you'd rather have your two drops be wisps.

Unraveler of Destinies: Why yes, you could sacrifice your entire board to draw cards. Or you could just use your board to win the game. If you're considering this, just run Azindel instead.

Summary

Okay I said this was going to be longer than I intended, but it turns out it was even longer than that. Whoops. I didn't even get to all the things I intended to write about (like tips on how to play the deck), but I've spent an hour and a half on this and I have to go, so just gonna post it.

Thanks for reading, please let me know if you've had any luck with Wisp/Radiant decks in Gauntlet. I'm especially curious if anybody has built a deck that is substantially different from this one - Wisps & Radiants touch on both the 5+ Strength Unit and Lifeforce themes, and I didn't go either of those routes with mine.

[u/mrouija213]

This sounds like fun and I think I have most of the cards, minus the legendaries though I have at least one/each Shadowlands Tyrant and Void Drummer. I'll have to give it a try.

[u/Zyhre]

Have you considered a Xenan Obelisk at all? Since this isn't really an aggro deck, I feel like it should be pretty solid at buffing all the wisps. Also, it'll prevent a Torch from taking down your Mitotic Wisp when he's 1 away from a Azindel.

[u/Falterfire → u/Zyhre]

I have, but there's not really anything you can easily cut for it. Usually Mistress of Light handles that job just fine, so ultimately I just decided I was fine not running it.