Hey everyone, Reygon here again for another Alpha Clash Deck Primer. This time we are looking at Cadavros, Prophet of Despair!
Link to my Deck List: https://www.deckplanet.net/alphaclash/deck/727c3277-1b31-484f-9a83-25f914541b69
Link to 2nd place Protour Nashville ColbyD.: https://www.deckplanet.net/alphaclash/deck/df588d6e-176c-4579-8ac9-6a195b19af0c
Cadavoros is a fun new contender that utilizes the oblivion and the Discarded affiliation to overwhelm your opponent with a swarm of attackers!
Playstyle
Cadavros focuses on utilizing his 20 ability by discarding cards and bringing back into play for free! The biggest thing to know when reading the contender is to note the difference between "Initial Cost" and "Specific Cost." Initial cost is the number printed up in the corner of a card and the Specific Cost is the number of "pips" or "colored diamonds" the card notates. For example Lord Krung, Ruthless Warlord has an initial cost of of 2 but an specific cost of 1 or Morac, the Devourer has an initial cost of 3 and a Specific cost of 2.
What Cadavros is trying to do is "climbing" the ladder each turn and use the 20 ability each turn to get multiple cards into play quickly. You need to plan a minimum of at least one turn in advance to ensure you have the correct costed card in oblivion a turn ahead. For example, if i want to reanimate a Lord Krung, Ruthless Warlord on turn 2, i need to get it into my oblivion ahead of time. Then the card i discard to get reanimate the Lord Krung ideally should be a 3 cost Morac, the Devourer so the next turn i can be reanimating him by discarding a 3 specific card such as the bound Cadavros. The two most important cards in the deck are Morac, the Devourer and Lord Krung, Ruthless Warlord. Lord Krung boosts the attack of every discarded you play and you are looking to get 3 or 4 into play as quickly as possible. Morac then allows you to use his trigger to search for either more copies of Lord Krung or other 3 specific cost clash cards to continue to loop copies of Morac to continue to search your deck for more Krungs.
You will want to goldfish (play by yourself walking through a game without an opponent) lots of hands to learn how to walk the ladder and get all 4 krungs into play quickly. The deck can be mentally taxing as you are always thinking into the future and have to anticipate what your opponent might be playing turns in advance. Deck building is an important factor to ensure the deck functions effectively and consistently by tracking the amount of Initial Cost and Specific cost cards you have. You want a high number of 2 specific cost cards to reanimate Lord Krung, Ruthless Warlord and a high number of 3 specific cost clash cards to reanimate Morac, the Devourer for his trigger enter loops.
Example game of "Walking up the Ladder"
turn 1: get amazon rainforest into play to have a discard outlet ready for turn 2. Or use bombardment to remove an early threat and hopefully diminish into a useful card you can reanimate.
turn 2: Discard lord krung using your amazon rainforest. Then discard Morac using you contender ability. Lord krung is now in play. You can now play another low cost threat or a even a second lord krung.
Turn 3: you use your contender to discard your bound Cadavros to reanimate your Morac. Which then you use the trigger enter to search for likely another krung (this is now your 2nd, 3rd, or 4th one depending on your previous turns. You can then playout that Lord Kurng you just searched for and start attacking with your buffed team. Then you can also use Synthetic Surge this turn to buff an attack , send morac to oblivion and get that morac back into oblivion to reanimate your next turn.
Turn 4: its likely by now they have started to kill some or all of your krungs. But that's okay, we can get them back using additional copies of morac to discard and reanimate your krungs! You can also start to play Cadavros, Bringing Back the Dead to bring him directly back into play without the use of your contender. But in my opinion the best play is if you were able to discard Cadavros, Bringing Back the Dead from your amazon rainforest, you can use your contender to discard Cadavros, Vile Virtuoso reanimate your Cadavros, Bringing Back the Dead to then again reanimate your Lord Krung, Ruthless Warlord. So now you have an army of discarded being boosted by Lord Krungs in play!
Turn 5 and beyond: Its very common to be able to get all 4 Lord Krung, Ruthless Warlord by this turn and attack for 30+ if they cant slow you down enough. The rest of the game we are just looking to keep our lord krungs in play and play additional threats to keep up the pressure. Trugg, Unruly Scavenger allows you to get any discarded back from oblivion to your hand keep the pressure going long into the battle.
Utility Cards
Rizlac, Ferocious Threat: you can discard this to activate the portal to utilize a turn 1 face down morac to slow down aggressive cards or activate the portal to start using Truggs ability. You can also discard it to reanimate krung, and pay the 2 black to bring rizlac back into play the same turn!
Clarity, From the Shadows: You can tutor this card with your morac to bring in a surprise removal card to deal with any big/important clash card you need removed ASAP!.
Bound Cadavros: Our bound cards main job is to be used as a resource, but it has the huge upside that it is both a 3 initial and 3 specific cost. You can discard extra copies you can't resource to target your important Moracs. But even at its worst, you can simply play your Bound card as a threat that has a enter draw while being boosted by your krungs!
Thragor, Dread Titan: This new legendary can either be used as an early game resource or a late game ender! If you plan ahead for this card on turn 7, you can be sure to have at least one cadavros and one thragor card in play before. Then you can play it for the reduced cost from oblivion by discarding anytime turn 5 and after. During the Nashville Protour I played this deck and won a game by attacking with this legendary for i believe was 27 damage resulting in a OTK when i was about to lose to a top 8 Sinai Deck.
Amazon Rainforest: This is your most reliable way to discard the right card every single turn. But be careful as it also helps your opponent filter into the right answers for their deck as well. The plan is to better utilize the card selection AND utilize the cards in oblivion than our opponent. I believe this is worth the downside, but some players may disagree. It is also strong card to just maintain clash ground control with to slow down your opponent.
Bombardment: a 1 resource cost card that does 3 NCD and lets me diminish 3 cards to start my ladder? Sign me up. This can be the best card in the deck at times, it disrupts our opponent and fuels our strategy all at once!
Ancient Greed: this is a bit tech that i came up with to deal with accessories while also acting as a discard outlet as needed. If you combine Ancient Greed, Amazon Rainforest, and your Contender Ability, you can trigger it every turn to deal an accessory. This can really go hard against decks with lots of accessories like Khagan! But be careful, if there are no other accessories to target, you must target itself.
Strengths
This deck is very consistent and very powerful. You can easily end games by turn 5 if not properly disrupted by your opponent. It is also very resilient. You can easily recover from removal from your opponent by using your reanimate cards to get them back into play the following turn. Cadavros is also the best abuser of Morac, the Devourer. Consistently playing and replaying him to tutor up your best cards. Most decks can only use him once, but Cadavros is looking to play the same one mutiple times while also getting the trigger enter without having to pay any resources!
Weaknesses
It lacks a real card advantage engine. Your hand can get depleted quickly as you discarding a card, playing a card, and resourcing a card nearly every turn. Also, if you are playing a red deck and dont plan for a board wipe, you can be set back to far to keep up and quickly lose a game. The deck is also a bit more mentally taxing as you are playing turns in advance and trying to guess what your opponent might be doing in future turns. It is also a bit "gold fishy" as you are trying to do the same thing every game which leads to a bit less randomness compared to other decks.
There are different builds, versions, and styles you can try with Cadavros but nearly every version will have krung and morac as the main two cards. But with all that being said, Cadavros is one of my favorite contenders, is a top tier competitive deck and is a blast to play!
Thanks for reading!
Reygon