We Fused and Upgraded and Tested at FuseFest
Set number two The Battle for White Fang Pass is nearly here, and on February 4th, 2023 Team Covenant held an epic pre-release event for Solforge Fusion. This article will break down my experience from the event and why I’m more excited than ever for the future of Solforge.
Sealed Format - 3 rounds
SolForge Fusion is a hybrid deck game, for those of you that don’t know, I encourage you to pop over to their site and learn more about the game. I think Solforge probably shines its best in a sealed format. You get one box, aka a booster kit, filled with four decks. One from each of the faction, Nekrium, Tempest, Alloyin, and Uterra. Each kit provides you with up to 6 unique decks. You then look at the cards in each half deck and decide which two you think will best pair together and give you as cohesive plan as possible.
Deck Construction Round
At FuseFest, we received our sealed deck product and had twelve minutes to open the packages, look at our half decks, slam something together and go play. This was my first time experience Solforge at any level outside of my stream matches with Neil and a few games I played with my friend Frank at my kitchen table. Because the set was all new and I’m basically new at set one as well, it was not a lot of time to pick anything that could be the best potential pairings. These are the four decks that I recieved:
Korok in Season 2 looks to continue with some potentially powerful abilities. Demolish is a very solid way to finish off creatures that are pesky and beyond the reach of your units. Blast Wave in Cycle 3 is just powerful enough to clear many pesky threats, and Earthen Fists at IV looks like a great way to open up some lane damage from big attackers.
On the Deck side, This particular Korok list is loaded with lots of mobility, and some great wide board removal tools as well as single target removal in Disintegrate. It does lack some free action synergies but makes up for that with big breakthrough creatures like Thundersaur.
Steel Rosetta in set 2 is doing some interesting things. Nanotech Disruptor is a very solid cycle two ability that can bring added removal synergies to the board state. Inspire is a great ability to gain access to something more synergistic in another faction, and Optimize is awesome to create a very powerful over the top finisher if you get to Cycle four.
The Creature suite here is a bit all over the place but there is some decent minion replace synergy with Gizzy Mo and Energy Surge. Vid Icarus is interesting and a card that needs to see further testing. Isolate also provides a semi decent removal piece here as well. The new exalt Duplication Dome is very powerful from level 2 up.
Opened a Nix from Set 2 as well. Soulrip is a solid ability in cycle 2 assuming you can find a small creature to destroy. This is best with a steady stream of minions to support it. Dark Ritual also needs good sacrificial units. As a general rule I’m not a fan of destroying my own creatures all that much. Endless Death in Cycle IV appears to be a very strong ability especially if you have reliable ways to kill units.
Unfortunately, the Nix deck brought very few synergies with her ability. There are strong cards here like Dreadbolt, and Indomitable Fiend. Ossuary Mech is a solid card to boot, but many of the other cards in this deck are just singular creatures and that leaves very little room for this deck to fit without a specific pairing.
Nova with Bounty in cycle 2 is just moderately okay unless you have a way to spam a bunch of minions to the board to maximize your life gain. This also works well in combination with the new Exalt Heart Tree. I would have loved to see this on Cycle III instead. Nova’s Judgement is a fine ability and it gives us a source of removal and card advantage. Nova’s Might at Cycle IV is very solid if we get to that stage of the game and have creatures with Mobility or Breakthrough.
When I first looked at this deck I got very excited, Chrogias and Arboris in the same list along with a Heart Tree? Wow, but then I quickly realized that the only source of life gain in the deck came from Roaring Elk. It’s ability only triggers if the Elk can slay another creature. There are other very good creatures here, many of them care about life gain as well, so a lot of synergies going on around that source. This is definitely a deck that was difficult to pass on for the sealed event.
Who did we pair?
Ultimately I chose to pair the Steel Rosetta list with the Korok list for a couple of reasons. Because our Nix didn’t have any additional life gain synergies I decided my best course of action was to pressure boards and push as much damage through as I could. The mobility creatures in Korok along with Thundersaur having break through led me to a place where I felt I could continue to drive pressure. Firestorm activating Thundersaur was an added value, just in case my opponents decided to ignore it’s lane. The Alloyin pairing brought to the table an Armored Assassin, making for a tanky stealth unit and more access to shields than any person should reasonably need. Firestorm and Vid Icarus look pretty solid together in a vacuum. We gain access to two reasonable removal spells in Isolate and Firestorm. We have solid replacment synergy with War Machine, Gizzy Mo, and Energy Surge. Giving our Red Creatures even more stats to work with.
Results
In Round One, I ended up in a aggressive mirror match between my opponent and myself. I was really on my back foot for most of the game, as his creatures had stealth and put in positions where I just couldn’t interact with them when I didn’t have the forge. I didn’t see any removal this game besides Isolate, which proved to be dead as my opponent was flooding creatures to lanes and left no units alone in a lane. I was fortunate enough to upgrade Gizzy Mo all the way to 3 in this game, and Duplication Dome allowed me to Make my Thundersaur which also got played at level 3 effective. Rolling Wurm and Mystical Teacher both had some strong synergy together and Korok’s Blast Wave to deal 5 to two creatures during Cycle Two was critical to my success.
My Best Play of this game was dropping Gizzy Mo Level 3 in front of my opponents level 3 Thundersaur, playing duplication Dome Level 2, into War Machine Level 2. I was able to tank the Thundersaur and kill it without suffering any breakthrough damage, while my Thundersaur continued to mount additional pressure.
Round two, felt very similar to round one in that my early game presence was not very strong and I was unable to keep up with a flood of higher-stated creatures. Unfortunately, my Thundersaur and Armored Assasin eluded me for the whole game. This left my two largest threats under-leveled by cycle III. I was able to stabilize the board mid-cycle III but did not have reliable damage sources to convert to face damage on my opponent. Time was called and I lost due to a health differential.
I decided to drop from the tournament and get food instead of playing out my Round 3. I was not super happy with my sealed deck but also unsure what pairings would have been better.
What Pairings would you have made and why?
After reflection, I still feel I made the best pairing possible, but I can’t have a little bit of a what-if around the Chrogias deck. Would you have played it anyways?
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