If you consistently apply pressure, while preventing your opponent from winning, you will eventually win.
To achieve this, midrange decks tend to favor cards that have 3 of 5 primary functions: 6+ toughness champion, fast (event/ambush champion), draw a card, blitz, and/or removal (secondary functions: make tokens, deal direct damage, gain health, discard pile removal, airborne). Midrange decks win when they exploit X gold-opportunities (X depends on opponent’s deck); this involves surviving against aggro or maintaining handsize with board pressure against control.
Midrange Cards
Below are a few examples of card types that work particularly well in Midrange.
Ambush, 6+ Defense Champion, and…
These cards are powerful for midrange because
- they provide an immediate benefit when played or soon after (for example: draw a card, gain health, or deal damage)
- at 6+ defense, the only 0-cost card in the game that can immediately remove them by itself is Vanishing (Smash and Burn can incidentally remove them though, so 7+ defense is ideal)
- if played on your opponent’s turn when their gold is down, these champions can attack at the start of your next turn, before either player spends their gold
- if played when your opponent has no champions in play, you generally don’t need to spend another gold until your opponent spends one first
Blitz, 6+ Defense Champions/Removal, and…
These cards are powerful for midrange because
- they are either A) only removable by Hasty Retreat if played when your opponent’s gold is down on your turn and/or B) provide immediate removal and threaten additional damage/removal if unanswered
- when played in a deck with ambush, 6+ defense champions, and… cards (see above) and establishing cards (see below), you are likely to be able to play these when your opponent’s gold is down on your turn
- they allow you to threaten damage immediately after an opponent off-turn board clears or otherwise disrupts your champions already in play
- if after playing this your opponent has no champions in play, you generally don’t need to spend another gold until your opponent spends one first
Fast, Removal, and…
These cards are powerful for midrange because
- they can immediately remove most 1-cost ambush champions your opponent could play on your turn, before they can be declared as blockers
- they provide an additional bonus like card draw, health, or a 6+ defense champion
- many of them can also be played off-turn with a bonus as well
- they work particularly well to support 0-cost blitz champions too
6+ Defense, Card Draw/Token Produce “Establishing” Champions
These cards are powerful for midrange because
- they are strong to play to an empty board when your opponent’s gold is up (going first is a lot less punishing)
- they gain you immediate resources
- your opponent can’t use a single card to remove them and get universally ahead
- if not answered, they threaten to deal damage and/or provide additional removal
Midrange 0’s
These cards are powerful for midrange because they either have multiple important effects or are incredibly efficient at negating gold.
Midrange Weaknesses
Midrange’s strength comes from sequencing its cards/gold in a precise manner that allows for a consistent stream of mid-sized, almost-unanswerable threats. When this stream is disrupted, the deck can falter. Due to this, I would say these decks require the most aggressive mulliganing. They are also generally weak to aggro that can kill them before they get rolling.
Big, Removal Champions
These cards are devastating against midrange decks because they
- immediately remove one or more champions
- put a big body into play
- are too big for Drain Essence or other damage based-removal
- win in combat against mid-sized champions attacking alone
Sea Titan is particularly brutal because, in addition to everything above, it is untargetable. So, a Sea Titan held back for defense can only be removed by Winged Death (Will of Scara in the next expansion, Pantheon), combat damage (frequently requiring multiple champions and/or buffs), or board clears that remove your champions too.
Hyper-Efficient Card Draw
Midrange decks utilize “draw a card” champions more than any other decktype. This allows them to maintain a stream of mid-sized threats without having to play “draw 2s” as often as other decks. In order to mitigate this advantage, some decks run hyper-efficient card draw cards like Muse or Frantic Digging/Lesson Learned -> Ancient Chant. An unanswered Muse, for example, means the non-midrange deck draws 2 cards on their turn; this enables them to play a powerful, non-draw, 1-cost card every turn, largely cancelling one strength of midrange.
Direct Damage
If you lose all your health, board and handsize advantages are irrelevant.
Other Card Considerations
In order to mitigate some of the weaknesses of midrange decks, here are a few more cards to consider.
Efficient Muse/Thought Plucker Answers
An unanswered Muse is arguably the most powerful anti-midrange card in the game, and it is/was popular. Therefore, including multiple answers to deal with it immediately is essential. Many of these can also effectively deal with Thought Plucker, another popular problematic card. (For Thought Plucker, it is also important to have discard pile removal to prevent Final Task and/or Necromancer Lord.)
Miscellaneous
Aside from some of the core midrange cards, the rest of midrange decks are fairly open. The 4 cards above are almost always strong and give you some health gain, efficient back up card draw, some board clear if your opponent has a string of strong plays, and some discard pile removal.
If you want to build the deck more defensive, Angel of the Gate and Spore Beast can be nice additions. For a more aggressive build, Strafing Dragon/burn and Juggernaut are worth considering.
Example Decks
Combative Humans (my full explanation / core-only version)
My World’s Pyrosaur Deck
Combo archetype discussed in the next article.
Foreword
Epic Midrange decks focus on aggressively controlling the board (champions in play), in order to create and exploit unopposed gold-opportunities (turns where your opponent spends their gold first), to establish and maintain immediate/recurring sources of champion-based damage.
