Host WCG Deck Tech: Painting Dragons!

Article by Adam Ray

As you heard on episode 81 of the Fantastic Universes Podcast, our good friends at HOST WCG have released the first expansion. Divergent Paths is out right now, bringing a wealth of new cards and styles of play to your existing Amatheia, Annabella, and Meridius Character decks. All that said, three new Hosts are up for grabs in this expansion. Two, the sisters Yandae and Graxis, we've seen in the game's accompanying fiction. Let's look at the enigmatic Rosella.

Wandering Painter has an effect that effectively lets you begin the game with one of the new Environment Forms in play. These forms are Impervious against cards like Stillness of the Lake or the new Sorcerer of Margisak. This gives decks a great deal of flexibility to filter their resource types from one to another during the course of a game.

I've taken my building of the Painter to be a Dragon Midrange deck. I truly maintain that the most powerful you can do in this game is pull 5 counters from Mountain's Peak to go get Dragonus of Constanti, blow up two of their things and draw a card as a reward. And now we Dragon fanciers can pull 5 counters to find big daddy Meridius, who comes in with Rush and deals 4 damage to a pesky blocker like Glorybringer from Magic's past (though Meridius is a distinctly more powerful card).

The rest of my deck may be threat light, but that's fine. Who needs threats when every threat your opponent presents dies? With removal options like Breath of Fire, the swift attacker Nebulus, and new cards like Fire Spark and Korthos, we can keep the board on their side succinctly clear. All else fails, Onarch will tidy things up very well. Toolbox cards like Life or Death will bring back your threats or pop their early game, Stillness of the Lake is on hand to pop their key Forms or handle a scary Ambush, and rival Dragon players should fear Sorcerer of Margisak for his ability to level mountains.

To keep us up on cards, Mysellis allows us to sculpt our hand a little, and with thirty Entities in the deck, Edith of Castle Keep is likely to draw us a card every turn whilst defending fairly well.

A key card has to be Renai, Troublesome Magician. As my teammate Akhariou said in the Fantastic Universes Podcast, it's very reminiscent of Snapcaster Mage from Magic's past. Being able to recycle your 8 damage spells, and Life or Death is crucial in a longer game, that this deck thrives in.

In terms of piloting this deck, it's relatively straightforward. If you ever see Sanctuary of Serenity in your opening hand, you Mulligan it away. The chances of drawing it again are highly unlikely but not impossible, but in the event that happens, it's a must play on turn 1. At the same time, it's very preferable to activate it as often as you can. You'll always be able to spend one Action Point to generate one Emotion Resource, but filtering it into Authority as often as possible is a good idea to afford the things that have multiple Authority pips like Onarch or Mysellis, or to always have access to Nebulus.

Anyone who knows me appreciates that I like value castle, midrange toolbox decks. This version of Painter features ramp in Mermaid of Desire, board control options in its many removal pieces and its strong Dragon finishers. You can see the full list for yourself on the Host website right here.

Now we want to hear from you. What decks are you building from Divergent Paths? How have you upgraded your Character decks? Let us know on The Artist Formerly Known as Twitter and tune in for more Host WCG content on the Horizon.