Hey everyone, Reygon here again with a new Deck Tech straight off the press (literally). We are going to be looking at Clarity, Ready for Trials from the new PVE set The Vault Trials.
Clarity is from one of the prebuilt decks you get from PVE 2 The Vault Trials, but were not going to be talking about PVE, were going to be looking at how effective Clarity can be in a PVP build. If you haven't looked at Clarity we will start there.
The main ability we are focused on is the 25 ability. Foretell two then reveal the top card of your deck. You may put that card into your hand. If you don't, put it into your Oblivion, then this gets +X/+0 to a max of +3 until end of turn where X is the specific resource of that card.
So really the 25 ability has 2 options. First you foretell to help you make a decision, look at the top 2 cards decide if you want to put them on top or bottom of your deck. Then you reveal the card and put it to your hand for a card draw effect or not put it to your hand and use it to buff your contender to potentially attack for up to 4 damage! This allows the contender the flexibility of extreme aggro attacking for 4 if you reveal the right card or draw the card you need for card advantage. Two extremely strong options.
Other key things to note about Clarity is that she is a Death and Harbinger contender which gives her access to a few key cards made popular recently on the war minion strategy. Being a Harbinger she can effectively play War, Bloodlust Commander. Bloodlust Commander is an effective 3 cost threat, card draw, and token generator. One downside is that she doesn't have access to Modern Bardaga as she is not a Bardaga/Zenith Prime contender. Clarity is also a Death contender which allows her to play I am Demise for the reduced cost of 2 instead of 3, which is a big deal in tempo/aggro based decks. With all the tokens the deck can create, sending one to oblivion is a small price to pay.
BUT the real reason I am excited about the deck is the combination of I am Demise with Clarity's ability to put cards directly into oblivion with her trigger attack. Lets walk through the "ideal" start to this combo and explain why its powerful.
Turn 1: Play 1 cost Areson (portal closed) pass. Assume opponent has played 1 clash card
Turn 2: Attack with clarity, find 5 cost areson or 6 cost death and send it to oblivion to give your contender +3 attack. discard Rizlac to open the portal, engage areson to create a token. Play I am Demise targeting your token and their clash card. Reanimate Areson/Death. Now you have a 5/6 cost card in play as soon as turn 2 while doing 4 damage with your contender on the same turn.
So essentially we are getting to play a proven powerful strategy in War Minions, blend in the contender aggro from Kilimanjaro but dealing twice the damage, and add a combo piece with I am Demise to reanimate a big hitter as soon as turn 2 acting as a faster Genesis. This is a classic situation of multiple win conditions with overlapping synergies that work independently well and as a combination even better.
Other thing to note with our friends in the US of A, PVE2 becomes legal on June 22 and Progenitors Gambit isn't until July! Meaning this deck will be legal for play for the gambit which gives you access to Marcus. Marcus further increases the power of the deck as it stops the first attempt of a board wipe or negates a clash buff turn allowing our go wide minions to connect.
Here is my rough build, note that clarity isn't shown as she's not available yet on Deck Planet. https://www.deckplanet.net/alpha_clash/deck/3780481b-8ac1-41dc-b368-9ad853366464. There is plenty of optimization that could be done to fine tune the deck to make it even better! Just want to give everyone a starting base.
Now get out there secure your PVE kit to get Clarity, Ready for Trials and take on the Angel as well.
Thanks for reading!
Reygon
