Core Epic Humans (Good)

Forward

This article follows the progression of my core-set-only Core Epic Humans deck. I start by explaining how I created the experimental, untested deck (in preparation for the core only alpha for Epic Card Game Digital). Then, I plan on updating this article with an analysis of how the deck performs, in addition to explaining any changes I make to it (assuming it performs well enough to update).

Other decks in this Epic Card Game Digital series include: Core Incremental Targeted Removal, Core Evil Tokens, Core Sage Army, and Core Wild Champion Overload. They are all built following my Epic Constructed Process.

This bonus deck is the most interesting one in the series, and I’ve been looking forward to writing about this one the most.

(Extra 5 decks: Core Token Control, Core Sky Force, Core Feint, Tom’S Core Discard Deck, and Tom’S Core Aggressive Burn List)

Current Deck List

As I update the deck list, I’ll update this picture and written list (currently + Board Clears deck list).


*Picture not updated to reflect the -1 Angel of Mercy +1 Divine Judgement change

Evil (12)

Slow ()

Fast (8)
3x Apocalypse
3x Final Task
2x Plague

0-Cost (4)
1x Guilt Demon
3x Wither

Good (36)

Slow (9)
3x Lord of the Arena
3x Palace Guard
3x White Knight

Fast (15)
3x Angel of Light
2x* Angel of Mercy
3x Angelic Protector
1x* Divine Judgement
3x Noble Unicorn
3x Resurrection

0-Cost (12)
3x Brave Squire
3x Faithful Pegasus
3x Priest of Kalnor
3x White Dragon

Sage ()

Slow ()

Fast ()

0-Cost ()

Wild (12)

Slow (3)
3x Kong

Fast (5)
2x Pyromancer
3x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (4)
2x Flash Fire
2x Lash

Prototype Explanation

Eventful Champions Changes

+ Board Clears Changes

-1 Angel of Mercy +1 Divine Judgement

After succumbing to the all 3 Angel of Mercy early draw, I’ve decided to be a bit less greedy. Therefore, I’m taking out 1 Angel of Mercy and replacing it with 1 Divine Judgement. Angel of Mercy is very strong, but it can be awful if you draw too many of them early, especially when playing against decks that have a lot of banish effects.

Conclusion

I really look forward to seeing how this deck plays. Feel free to discuss/ask any questions throughout the decks development. Always happy to provide answers (usually very long, detailed answers).

+ Board Clears

The deck has been performing well, and it is fun to play. Hopefully the additional board clears will make it even more resilient.

12 thoughts on “Core Epic Humans (Good)”

  1. I’ve been having real trouble with running out of cards using this deck. Frequently things are gummed up with a bunch of Palace Guard, Lord of the Arena, Brave Squire etc. and nothing to even play off turn, let alone draw 2. I’m finding myself frequently leaving off turn gold unspent and quickly running out of gas.

    What am I doing wrong?!

    1. This deck does have a bit less draw than I like, and I have experienced running out of gas with it once or twice, but overall I don’t have that problem too often with this deck. Here is absolutely everything I do to try to prevent this from happening to me.

      – Mulligan aggressively
      = Almost always mulligan your cards that require you to have a discard pile to be worthwhile: Angel of Mercy, Faithful Pegasus, White Dragon, and Plague
      = Keep no more than 1 slow, non-drawing champion: Lord of the Arena, Palace Guard, and Kong (usually mulligan LotA)
      = Keep no more than 1 non-drawing, ambush champion: Angel of Light, Angelic Protector, and Pyromancer
      = Mulligan Priest of Kalnor if you are low on card draw in hand
      = Keep no more than 1 Brave Squire
      = Keep at most 2 Wither
      = Keep no more than 1 Lash and consider mulliganing it if you need more outright draw early
      = The best cards in the deck are Noble Unicorn and White Knight, and they are the best cards to play on turn 1 when going first. If you draw some of these you can be a bit more lax with the above.

      – Draw 2 aggressively
      = Apocalypse and Plague should be used as draw 2s significantly more often than as break alls. Unless you absolutely need to break everything, use the draw 2 option early when you get an opportunity.
      = If low on cards in hand, be careful what you use Resurrection on. Resurrecting a LotA, Angel of Mercy, Angel of Light, Angelic Protector, or Pyromancer generally is not worth it if this would bring you down to 4 or less cards in hand.

      – Pass with your gold up
      = On your turn, only spend your gold first on an empty board to play White Knight, Noble Unicorn, or a draw 2. If this means you pass on the first turn of the game, so be it. (Kong and Palace Guard can get you back into the game.)
      = Once you have a Noble Unicorn in play, playing a LotA or Palace Guard, etc. while your opponent has their gold available can frequently be ideal. (Off-turn Noble Unicorn into on-turn White Knight is your best possible opening play.)
      = If your opponent spends their gold first on your turn in such a way that you remain ahead on board, playing a draw 2 instead of another threat is often correct. Sure 13 LotA damage is nice, but if it drops you to 4 cards in hand, playing a draw 2 to go up to 6 probably would have been better. Being able to maintain consistent pressure is more important than big spikes of pressure.

      – Recall Lash
      = Lash is great. Recalling it can be better than playing another champion to the board in multiple situations.

      – Don’t attack with non-airborne, non-Kong champions while your opponent has their gold available unless you have Brave Squire.
      = If you attack into a Surprise Attacked blocker like Kong, the resource and tempo loss can be horrible. If this causes your opponent not to play their gold in order to prevent your attack, great. For example, play White Knight with loyalty 2 and pass without attacking. If they spend their gold on an 8/9 or smaller champion, attack. If they put an Evil champion in play, consider breaking it. If they put a 9/10 or bigger champion into play, be happy you didn’t attack. If they just go to turn without spending their gold, preventing you from being able to attack, be ecstatic.

      Also, since this is one of my signature decks, there is a high probability that it will see play on May 20th. Feel free to ask any further questions/clarification before, during, and after.

  2. As with all aggro decks, it’ll struggle in grindy games – it’s just not set up for them. It’s vulnerable to GY hate while having basically none of it’s own; It struggles with removing threats off turn; It doesn’t have many cards that generate natural value.

    It’s got a lot of punish so plays well on the front foot, but if it loses initiative it’ll be rough going.

    1. I wouldn’t consider this an aggro deck, and I would say it is pretty strong in long grindy games. I just played a game with it to refresh my memory, and I won where both of us were down to about 2 min remaining against a Sea Titan/Plucker/Muse deck that played 3 Drain Essences against me. I spent most of the game at around 7 cards in hand.

      In this specific game I mulliganed 3 cards leaving myself with a Palace Guard and a Resurrection (mulled a 2nd Palace Guard and 2 other cards I don’t remember). My opponent went first and drew with first gold, I drew with my gold. Not having a White Knight or Noble Unicorn on my turn, I passed with 7 cards in hand and my opponent started their turn. The game proceeded from there fairly back and forth (it was a pretty good game). Throughout the game, my opponent played 2 Sea Titans (at least 1 with Surprise Attack off-turn), 1 or 2 Kongs, 3 Thought Pluckers, 2 or 3 Muses, 3 Drain Essences, 2 or 3 Erases, 1 Amnesia, 2 Soul Hunters, and a few other cards.

      I played 2 Noble Unicorns, White Knight 2 or 3 times, 1 Palace Guard, Angelic Protector 3 or so times, 2 White Dragons, 2 Priest of Kalnor, 2 Faithful Pegasi (to chump block Sea Titans), 2 Apocalypses as board clears, 2 Plagues to break Pluckers off turn, 1 off-turn Angel of Light without Loyalty, 1 Lord of the Arena, and a smattering of my 0s. While the lack of discard pile removal does make the deck weaker in the ultra-late game, I would still say this deck is mid-range, although more on the aggressive side of midrange to be sure.

      While it is true that this deck has almost no off-turn removal, it can usually establish its own threat during that time. This can even push the opponent into board clearing away their own Sea Titans to stop my airborne threats.

      To get some video footage of me playing this deck, I plan on streaming a bit this Saturday and putting the videos up on youtube. Expect a full post on that Saturday stream later today. Let me know if there are specific times on Saturday that anyone would like me to stream, and I’ll see what I can do. Most likely, this will be another stream snipe stream session like my Dark Draft Stream Snipe session.

    2. Game 2, I was able to shift from my long game plan in game 1 to a heavier aggro plan in game 2. I hovered around 4 cards in hand for most of the game. Played 0 White Knight, 1 or 2 Noble Unicorn (+1 with Resurrection), 1 or 2 Kong (+1 with Final Task), 1 or 2 Angelic Protector, 1 or 2 Apocalypses to draw, 1 Plague to draw, 1 Pyromancer (on turn) a smattering of 0s and a lot of turns where we both passed with our gold up.

      My opponent was playing an Evil deck with Medusas, Ancient Chants, Thought Pluckers, Palace Guards, Apocalypses, and a smattering of 0’s like Guilt Demon.

      While hovering at around 4 cards in hand, I used my gold-punish opportunities to land ambush champions, draw 2, and Final Task a blitzing Kong on different occasions.

        1. Good Game, those Noble Unicorns did work (as they frequently do), and Plague has been impressing me so much in Core-Only.

          1. They did indeed! I’m new to Epic (saw it on Kickstarter) and have read all your stuff and it has really given me much needed help. I played Magic for years, but the cost became prohibitive. I’ve played with your humans deck and really like it. (even more now that I was destroyed by it!)

            1. I also played a lot of Magic before getting into Epic, primarily draft because I didn’t want to spend the money to compete in constructed. One of the reasons I love Epic is that it has enabled me to actively follow and participate in a (constructed) competitive environment whereas this was largely barred to me before. Being able to track the meta progression and develop my playstyle to address it has been incredibly rewarding and fun.

              Not only has this allowed me to improve dramatically at Epic, but I have also improved dramatically at other games as a result. It has also given me a subject to write an extensive amount about, detailing my ever-growing understanding of it.

              My humans decks have always been favorites of mine, but I also have a few new Uprising legal decks that I’m looking forward to talking about; they seem pretty sick. (One of them is a toolbox deck that currently runs 12 3-ofs, 5 2-ofs, and 14 1-ofs. Another one currently runs 3 Fairy Tricksters.)

  3. Game 3, the dream. Off-turn Unicorn, into on-turn White Knight + White Dragon, into off-turn Angel of Mercy bringing back Unicorn, into Lord of the Arena Lethal.

  4. Game 6? Hit one of those completely dead draws. I drew triple Angel of Mercy (opponent played 2 or 3 Amnesias), drew double Lord of the Arena, 1 Pyromancer, 1 Angel of Light, 1? Noble Unicorn, 1 White Knight, double Wither, 1 Flash Fire as a draw 2, 1 Apocalypse as a draw 2, and a couple 0’s. My opponent was playing a Good deck with an unanswered Gold Dragon, with a couple Angelic Protectors, 1 White Knight, 1 Noble Unicorn, 2 or 3 Memory Spirits, an Angel of Mercy, 1 Ceasefire, and a few 0’s.

    While my opponent did get down to 2 cards in hand, I had very few impactful plays and even fewer ways to draw. Even though I was at 4 or 5 cards to their 2, none of my cards were able to get me out from behind on the board, and I just got run over (or more precisely flown over). Game ended with my opponent at 112 or so health to my 12ish (conceded before time limit expired for opponent because I was clearly going to lose that game and there were no stakes).

    My opponent played quite well, but my deck just did not show up that game. Sometimes you just get those draws. (Not as bad as game 2 in round 7 at Worlds where I drew almost nothing but non-drawing 0-cost cards, but worse than a game I won without playing/drawing a single 0-cost card.)

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