Hello everyone and welcome to the third and final part of this miniseries on Shadow Runeblade in Commoner! The last two instalments I took a look at lists for both Chane and Vynnset, and shared a few insights into their play patterns, hero identity and specific card choices. This article is intended as more of a “best of the rest” regarding deckbuilding for these two heroes, but will also contain some general heuristics for Commoner deck construction.

The Banished Zone

The elephant in the room when discussing deck construction for the Shadow Runeblades is the Banished Zone. While it’s no secret that Chane gains access to so many extra cards over the course of the game thanks to the Soul Shackles, it’s also a deckbuilding restriction in that he really wants to only play cards that can be played from banish. Especially after the Belittle ban, there’s basically nothing that can generate so much advantage in resources and damage in the available card pool that warrants a place in the deck, so you’re just priced into being as slot-efficient as possible in your card choices.

Vynnset, on the other hand, gets the luxury of selective banish built into her hero ability (though this is also a downside due to it being mandatory), and can at least operate on an axis of going tall, whereas Chane actively wants to go as wide as possible. This leaves much more room in Vynnset decks for customization, in particular regarding the non-attack selection. Pummel is a great card as it has always been, and being able to actually utilize it in a deck that can cheat on resources via Rune Gate makes it a great fit. The great thing about this split in deckbuilding needs is that you can go as deep into it as you want; maybe you really want to try and win in one to two turns, so you added a Sloggism package into Vynnset, or even something like yellow Shrill of Skullform to really try and insure against drawing hands that don’t do anything.

The Worth of a Runechant

What I’m about to say also applies to a hero such as Viserai, and it’s pretty simple on the surface: do not rely on Runechant generation. Now clearly, the cards that can freely generate Runechants with go again or increase the amount of Runechants generated in a turn are all extremely powerful effects in their respective formats, but Commoner doesn’t have access to them.

In the case of the Runeblades, it’s almost not beneficial to be playing these cards, and red Read the Runes in Vynnset is a concession to how slow she would be otherwise executing a game plan that relies heavily on hitting fast and early. While the idea of sending out a ton of mixed damage is really appealing (believe me, I was there for that Viserai Skeleta Blitz season), you’re either fitting in too many clunky actions to imitate the power of those strategies, or supplementing the clunky cards with things like Lead the Charge to once again imitate the power of those cards. Let alone the fact that so many of these cards tend to block for two, it’s just not worth the squeeze to try so aggressively to port over the existing Runeblade decks in this way.

Making Your Blues Work For You in Shadow Runeblade

Similarly, the blue lineups in these decks will look extremely strange, due in part to so many of the nice Majestics being blues that block for three! My advice here is in when building your own Runeblade decks, whether it be Chane, Viserai, Vynnset, or even Briar, to make your blues work for you. This can mean a variety of things, though for me personally, this has to usually fulfill a few specific requirements.

Firstly, they must block for three or provide an effect that is so essential to the deck’s game plan that it warrants playing them despite their poor block value. Secondly, the blues have to help provide reach. What I mean by this is that they can help me get over the line if the game gets scrappy and we’re throwing bad attacks at each other because we’ve burnt through all the best cards, or I’ve just opened a bad hand or even just needing some extra ways of eking out damage to win.

In the two deck lists I shared over the last month, the blue lineups are usually quite standard, either comprising of cost-efficient attacks that can be played from banish or more Rune Gate cards, and the rest are all various effects that synergize with my heroes in some way to help me win. In Chane, I’ve used attacks like Singeing Steelblade and Arcanic Crackle as a way to either force an extra card out of hand to nullify the free point of arcane damage, while in Vynnset I try to either eke out the last points of damage with a dominated Drowning Dire or utilize the free Runechant from her ability in Consuming Volition to force cards out of their hand.

In the worst case scenarios, my blues still work and have some value, which is precisely how I want them to be when the Runeblade playstyle wants me converting every card into damage in some form.

Closing Thoughts on Shadow Runeblade

There is some slight homogenization in the Runeblade space in Commoner, primarily occupied by the existence of Rosetta Thorn as being one of the most efficient and deadly weapons in the game that offers extreme mixed damage that no other class can even hope to match. I’ve thought about playing other weapons in Vynnset, such as Annals of Sutcliffe, Reaping Blade, and even Scepter of Pain, but the reality is that the potential upside of Rosetta Thorn is so overwhelmingly large that the extra point of damage on Reaping Blade is eclipsed by it. With that in mind, the deck construction of your Runeblade lists is priced into having a healthy mix of non-attack and attack actions to help enable this powerful sword, and until you find a really compelling and good reason to not play Rosetta Thorn, will have to abide by this unspoken rule.

The other thing to mention is that the pool of good Runeblade cards is actually surprisingly small. While some classes like Warrior have some really compelling card pools that don’t need to dip into generics to be effective, a lot of the Runeblade cards are designed with gaining action points or go again in various ways that aren’t present in Commoner. Cards like Spellbound Creepers, Mauvrion Skies, and Rattle Bones, to name a few, all do so much in tying the deck together and bridging any hand into something that can put up decent damage.

Conclusion

My advice for Runeblade deckbuilding can be summarized into three points.

1. Find your game plan. This is true for any deck in the game, but figure it out! Runechants, banished zone, big attacks, small attacks, resource cheating – figure out what you’re trying to do!
2. Identify the attacks that actually work with your plan. Don’t just jam the same Runeblade attacks into every deck because they’re “good,” find the ones that actually benefit from what you’re trying to do.
3. Make your blues work for you! This is the most important part of this process, ESPECIALLY in Runeblade where you’re always going to try and maximize damage every turn from any position. Your main pitch cards actually doing something relevant will help turn so many games into victories simply because they had truly meaningful text boxes.

I really hope this miniseries was in any way informative for you in your Commoner adventures. Next time, I’ll be diving back into another class and trying to dissect everything I can from it in the context of the format. I’m currently tossing up between Warrior or Brute, so any feedback or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Further Reading:

Best Cards for Commoner in 2023

How to Upgrade the Olympia Precon for Commoner

Commoner’s Most Complex Heroes

Daniel Yam

Daniel is a competitive psychopath who has relegated himself into playing the most casual format of Commoner. Starting Magic at the onset of Shards block, he jumped into Flesh and Blood when the Ira demo decks were being given out to Australian stores and is a proud holder of a 4-digit GEM ID. In his spare time, he enjoys trying to convince his friends to play increasingly worse cards, going to museums, and playing Guild Wars.