Sylvia is one of my favorite rulers design-wise. Her ruler side provides versatility in will-fixing while her j-ruler side provides power, speed, and evasion. This combination allows her to accelerate and apply pressure at the same time. Sylvia has the capability to play an aggro-midrange style while boasting a strong finisher in her j-ruler side.

Reasons to Play Sylvia

A 1000/1000 Lancelot on turn two that also destroys one of their resonators from the attack trigger? Yes please.

We can also cast this on turn two:

Swiftness + Target Attack + First Strike + Flying (possibly) on a single resonator? YES. Did you know she also deals 500 to the opponent when she dies?

The Optimal Curve: Turn 1 Elvish Priest -> Turn 2 Lancelot + Rapid Growth -> Turn 3 Pricia Target Attack + Flying.

Against decks that go wide on the ground, we can also cast this turn two:

Lastly, we have the power to accelerate into one of the greatest red lategame plays: Little Dread + banish outlet:

Stealing your opponent’s best resonator, attacking with it, then banishing it to Guinevere or Laevateinn breaks a lot of parity.

All these wonderful plays assume we open with turn 1 Elvish Priest, which is why we mulligan very aggressively for it.

The Deck

Sylvia Gill Palarilias

Main Deck:
4 Elvish Priest
2 Flame King’s Shout
4 Guinevere, the Jealous Queen
4 Perceval, the Seeker of Holy Grail
3 Laevateinn, the Demon Sword
4 Pricia, Pursuant of Exploding Flame
4 Lancelot, the Knight of Mad Demon
4 Rapid Growth
2 Dream of Juliet
1 Susanowo, the Ten-Fist Sword
3 Little Dread, the Fake Red Moon
4 Rukh Egg
1 Athena, Titan of Revenge

Stone deck:
1 Fire Magic Stone
1 Little Red, the Pure Stone
4 Magic Stone of Blasting Waves
4 Magic Stone of Heat Ray

Side deck:
3 Deathscythe, the Life Reaper
2 Blessed Holy Wolf
3 Sign to the Future
2 Foment of the World Tree
2 Demonflame
3 Fetal Movement in the Outer World

Most of the list is straightforward. I’ll explain some potentially curious slots here:

• Dream of Juliet – Many players will side in Robe of Fire-Rat against you. Some run it mainboard due to how popular red decks are in most metas. Having a mainboard answer to a card that significantly slows you down is crucial. Dream is the mainboard choice here because you can cycle it (cast it to draw) in matchups where it is dead.
• Athena, Titan of Revenge – This highly hyped card is actually quite average in practice and serves as a lategame bomb searchable off Rukh Egg after you’ve exhausted most of their removal. Like Susanowo, we run it as a one-of.
• Laevateinn, the Demon Sword – A versatile way to give imperishable and boost damage at the same time. With multiple resonators in play, Laevateinn can boost Sylvia‘s ETB damage trigger to destroy an enemy Gwiber (or anything else). Sometimes it allows her to attack for lethal damage that same turn. It also synergizes with Rukh Egg and Little Dread.
• Fetal Movement in the Outer World – We’d prefer not to run Split Heaven and Earth, so this card often comes in against control decks with greedy manabases since we often don’t need the extensive reach Split offers due to Sylvia being able to connect for a lot of damage. This also gives us another out against reanimation strategies.

If you want to cut white, I recommend the following changes:

Mainboard

-4 Perceval, the Seeker of Holy Grail
-2 Dream of Juliet
+1 Flame King’s Shout
+2 Keeper of the Past, Urthr
+2 Split Heaven and Earth
+1 Laevateinn, the Demon Sword

Stones

-4 Magic Stone of Heat Ray
+4 Fire Magic Stone

Sideboard

-2 Blessed Holy Wolf
-3 Sign to the Future
+1 Split Heaven and Earth
+1 Blazer Gill Rabus
+3 Elvish Bowman

The Bowmen are the most efficient non-white answer to opposing Robes post-board. Blazer comes in against J-Ruler centric decks such as Valentina 2.0 and Bahamut.

Where’s the Excalibur?

I get this question a lot. When you stop running this card, you’ve reached a new level in playing Sylvia. If you’re relying on Excalibur as a crux so Sylvia‘s trigger doesn’t end up targeting and killing herself, you should probably evaluate why your deck gets into those situations in the first place. If you’re using it for target attack, there are more efficient ways to remove enemy resonators than swinging your best body into them every turn.

Laevateinn is the superior regalia choice for almost everything you want to do with Sylvia. It allows her ETB trigger to deal more than 1000 damage to target J/Resonator and also gives her the capability to deal upwards of 2000 damage in a single attack thanks to the ability to banish a resonator and recover.

How to Mulligan

Always mulligan hard for this. If you don’t have it in your opening hand, mull all five. It doesn’t matter if you have a Guinevere, Lancelot, and Rapid Growth – that hand is actually subpar compared to playing a turn 1 Elvish Priest and tapping into this deck’s natural curve.

Assuming you have the Priest, you should aim for an efficient turn 2 that utilizes all three will:

• Lancelot and Rapid Growth
• Pricia, Pursuant of Exploding Flame
• If you know the enemy is a swarm deck: Flame King’s Shout

If you don’t have any of these combos, the deck can still function like a typical red deck powered by individually good cards. These combos are still devastating in the midgame when you draw into them.

Your most brutal curve is turn 1 Priest, turn 2 Lance + Rapid Growth, turn 3 Pricia, but keep in mind you should adapt your curve based on what your opponent is playing.

The Gameplan

Apply board pressure while destroying theirs at the same time.

Notice the general plan isn’t about hitting the opponent in the face. Damage to the face is simply a byproduct of Lancelot shooting their potential blocker for 700, Pricia not having a good resonator to target attack, or because you stole their resonator using Little Dread. You’re not a pure aggro deck and should only swing at the opponent directly if it’s your best option. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to get in damage when you can, but rather that you should focus on controlling the board and getting in incremental damage before dealing lethal with a Sylvia judgment + attack.

This plan is effective for most matchups, including the aggro mirror. However, knowing when it’s no longer effective to play the board and switching to a race plan is crucial in many matchups, especially against red decks. Your trump card is Sylvia herself, often capable of swinging upwards of 2000+ with a Laevateinn in play.

Tips and Tricks

• If you have a Lancelot and Elvish Priest in play, you can rest Priest before recover to cast Rapid Growth and buff Lancelot to 1000/1000.
• When resolving Guinevere‘s discard effect, Rapid Growth is one of the best choices since you can cast it from the graveyard using Remnant.
• Hold Laevateinn in hand until the turn before you intend to judgment with Sylvia. This lets you rest Laevateinn before recover for an additional damage boost. I recommend not playing Laevateinn earlier as it gives the opponent information. The only exception is if you intend to utilize it with Rukh Egg or Little Dread (read next tip below).
• You can use the second awakening effect of Little Dread to steal an opponent’s resonator and then banish it to Guinevere or Laevateinn for extreme value.
• Pricia deals 5 damage to your opponent when she dies. This is an important trigger you don’t want to miss. You can utilize cards like Guinevere, Laevateinn, or Sylvia (ETB trigger after judgment) if you need additional reach.
• You can rest Laevateinn to increase the damage from Sylvia‘s ETB trigger.

Gameplay Videos

Note: Some of these have a different sideboard than the one I eventually settled upon because I was still developing the sideboard over the course of these matches.

Reflect Italian Aggro (BRU) – No Commentary

Gill Lapis Control (BR-Moon)

Vlad Control (BRU)

The Observer Red (R)

Kaguya Control (BGU-Moon) – No Commentary in First Game

Sideboarding Tips

Sideboards are ever-changing. You should adapt your sideboard for the expected meta, but against a general field my sideboard covers most weaknesses adequately. Note that this isn’t what you actually want – if you’re going to a major event at the time of this post, having sideboard slots for Bahamut is probably wasteful.

• Deathscythe, the Life Reaper comes in against strategies relying heavily on a J-Ruler for damage. This includes Bahamut and an opposing Sylvia. In these matchups you are likely not going to get much value out of Little Dread‘s second awakening so reducing the number of banish outlets is reasonable.
• If you know they are playing Robes or will side them in against you, trade the Dreams for Blessed Holy Wolfs since it’s better to have an out to Robe that also has a body.
• If you’re on the draw against a deck that puts many bodies on the field, Sign to the Future is an all-star. Note that playing Sign generally prolongs the game and makes it grindy, so I often like bringing in Foment to sculpt my hand in the midgame if I’m against a deck that can put on a lot of pressure.
• In a grindy matchup, siding in the Fetal Movement can provide you the last bit of reach.
• Your best out against Avatar of the Seven Lands, Alice is to have enough will to steal it with Little Dread (requires 7) or to use Demonflame.

You’ll notice the deck is susceptible to an opposing Split Heaven and Earth, so if that is played in your meta then you will want to work in some number of Keen Sense into the sideboard.

Summary

Dominate the board. Go Big with Sylvia.

The past few weeks on LackeyCCG and Untap.in have been an exhilarating foray into how to build Sylvia. I don’t claim to have the best possible list but the deck feels incredibly solid. If you’re interested in playing the dragon clan founder then I highly suggest giving this a try. As always, I’m interested in what people think and their experiences with the deck, especially changes. Let me know in the comments!

(Cover image source: SatsukiManyula)

With The Moonlit Savior prerelease this weekend, I’ve prepared a primer for anyone who wants to participate.

General Setup

Most TMS prereleases use the following format:

• 6 packs of The Moonlit Savior
• 20 card minimum main deck
• 8-14 card stone deck
• Proxy Ruler from TMS

You should open your packs as quickly as possible and organize them by color. For example, put all your white cards in one pile, your green cards in another pile, etc. This lets you evaluate which of your colors offer the most options. I recommend putting your multicolor cards in a separate ‘multicolor’ pile. Once this is done, you want to go through your piles and evaluate which cards are strong and which are just filler bodies for your curve.

To evaluate cards properly, you need to understand what the set offers.

Primary Mechanic: Awakening

The primary TMS mechanic is awakening, utilized across four of the five colors. Most awakenings are powerful effects that require Moon will, so you need to note how many ways you can produce moon in your pool. A synergistic deck that can take advantage of the powerful awakenings in this set is likely to trump a deck banking on bombs – Cherudim is uncommon and multiples in your deck will take out any number of Athenas or other red/darkness threats your opponent tries to use. The same applies to Wolf in the Moonlight – 8/8 Target Attack is insanely powerful in limited, especially at common (!!).

Besides awakening resonators, there are some resonators with moon-based activated abilities that are highly playable:

Alongside powerful awakening resonators, there is a regalia that can pay Awakening costs:

It’s a rare, so you may have to make do simply with:

There are no ways to produce moon will outside of these (excepting the two moon dual stones), so if your pool does not have them then your best bet is probably to construct a deck composed of individually powerful cards with bombs, combat tricks, removal, and relevant bodies. Note that awakening is powerful enough to be worth splashing, so if you have some moon support try to fit in your stronger awakening cards.

Bombs

These individually powerful threats make any deck better as long as the deck can reasonably support them without being too greedy with stones.

Combat Tricks

Like MtG limited, Force of Will sealed often revolves around resonator combat. Evaluating how and when to block is a matter of knowing what combat tricks exist in the set.

The only white combat trick is insane – if the awakening is paid for then the target resonator likely becomes a bomb-level threat. Watch out for this common (!!).

Blue is one of the weaker colors in the set, so there’s not much to play around or even care about.

The only wind resonator with a cost of 3 is Pricia, Pursuant of Exploding Flame. If your opponent is not playing red, the only wind resonator you need to worry about with this card is a 2-drop or less.

Nighttime Raiders isn’t as scary as it looks – the resonator put into play must be a darkness resonator and most darkness resonators are not very threatening stats-wise except Lucifer. Izanami’s Curse is listed as a combat trick instead of pure removal since it decreases attack, and that is what it will primarily be used for if at all.

If your opponent is playing blue/black, watch out for this remnant card at common.

There are no relevant Red combat tricks outside Demonflame (listed under Removal).

Removal

Keep in mind: The best removal in FoW limited is usually your resonator attacking the problem resonator. However, pure removal is good in almost every situation.

Demonflame and The Executioner are common. The rest are rare or higher, so hard removal is hard to come by in this set.

Relevant Bodies

Among one-drops, there are at least three one-cost resonators with 600 defense. Many two-drops are 500/500. This means any resonator with at least 600 attack has a relevant body.

Note that Huanglong may not be worth playing since there are no other Four Sacred Beasts in the set and a vanilla 1000/1000 for 6 will is expensive.

Color Tiers

1. White is the most powerful color with above-average cards across all rarities and excellent synergy.
2. Green packs a couple bombs, decent synergy (beast resonators and beast-based spells), and is quite powerful across all rarities.
3. Black has a super rare bomb and strong removal, although most of black’s strengths are at higher rarities.
4. Red has a rare bomb (also shares a multicolor rare bomb with green), one rare relevant-body resonator, and the most applicable general removal spell.
5. Blue has a super rare bomb and fringe combat tricks.

Rulers

Kaguya’s ruler side is strong because will-fixing is powerful in limited. There are only 3 Moons in the set so the draw effect won’t be relevant most of the time.

The Moonlit Savior’s J-Ruler side is able to cancel opposing resonator awakenings (since they are ETB triggers) and her God’s Art basically screams ‘alpha strike time’. She’s also hard to kill as a J-Ruler since the primary way of destroying a J-Ruler in limited is through damage and Kaguya has an ability to prevent damage.

If your pool supports a heavy awakenings-based deck, Kaguya is probably your best choice since she allows you to go heavy into moon without sacrificing green support.

Primogenitor’s ruler side is more destructive than constructive. His ruler side value will depend on how many regalia your opponents have and since both regalia are rare, he is not likely to be useful until j-activated.

Where the Primogenitor shines is on his J-Ruler side. His first ability can stop enemy J-Ruler activated abilities (including God’s Arts!) while his second is a removal spell given enough stones. The God’s Art ranges from bonkers to mediocre depending on what kind of deck your opponent is playing – if your opponent’s deck is heavily awakening-synergistic then stealing a single resonator is probably not very impressive. However, against a midrange value deck the God’s Art can rob them of their best bomb and steal the game.

If your pool primarily supports a midrange value deck, the Primogenitor is among the stronger choices.

Avoid.

If your pool has the heavy-red support for Alisaris, you might be able to get away with it. However, you’ll likely need to run more than 20 cards and even then you probably won’t judgment unless the game goes really long.

Avoid unless you don’t have any moon support but have a sizable blue pool.

Slightly better than Alisaris, but only because the Songstress provides information on her ruler side. Her J-Ruler side provides an extremely cheap pure blue removal in her God’s Art, but otherwise Shion doesn’t do all that much unless paired with her Regalia. Considering how much value both Kaguya and Gill Lapis provide on their J-Ruler sides, the only reason to play Shion is because you have no way to utilize Kaguya or Gill Lapis.

Avoid.

If you have Alice, you’re better off quickcasting her for 6. Also, against the Primogenitor he will just not deal lethal damage to you and then use his God’s Art to steal your Alice and regalia anyway if you were lucky enough to have them in your pool.

Summary

Unlike TTW, which focused on archetypes of heavy resonator-based support (Fairies, Tea Party, Beasts), TMS limited features a single strong mechanic (awakening) alongside many cards of varying power levels similar to SKL. The primary mechanic (awakening) is powerful enough to splash into a deck even if moon support is scarce, and most decks will likely comprise a mixture of raw value and awakening synergies.

When people ask me to critique their Force of Will deck, this is the first question I usually ask. When given an immediate answer, I’m able to assess their deck with the goal of making it as competitive as possible. When I’m not, it’s very hard for me to provide input on their deck. While it seems obvious every deck needs a wincon, you’d be surprised how many people cannot answer the question or have to spend some time thinking before more or less answering, “do some powerful things and grind them out.”

The Inevitable State

There are plenty of ways to do something powerful in FoW but lose the game soon after. To prevent this, decks should aim to reach a state upon which the game is basically won (inevitability). Here are inevitable states three major archetypes from different formats aimed to achieve throughout the game’s history:

Aggro/Tempo – Put Them On a Clock

Due to the way red cards are designed in FoW, most aggro decks are actually tempo decks since resonators like Lancelot and Little Dread have board control elements built into them. This is why I often group aggro and tempo together.

Back in the Grimm block era, there was a deck called Oddgro showcasing the power of one-drops backed by tempo cards like Dreams of Wonderland. The deck was called ‘Oddgro’ because it featured odd-costed resonators such as March Hare, Tinker Bell, and Oz. This meant Dreams of Wonderland would always return the targeted resonator (often times a blocker) to the owner’s hand, forcing damage through. Sometimes this means a Tinker Bell attack would deal 8 damage or more, not to mention the opponent would lose tempo because the blocking resonator would need to be replayed again (for more information on tempo, read my article Gaining Parity).

The deck aimed to whittle down the opponent’s life low enough for a Rapunzel to finish the game with flying and multiple attacks or to create a situation where the opponent had too few blockers to prevent a lethal series of combat phases. The latter was accomplished due to the fact that Dreams of Wonderland only costs 1 while most of the Oddgro deck was comprised of resonators that also cost 1, allowing the Oddgro player to continually flood the board with resonators each turn while the opponent simultaneously lost board presence.

Here is the Oddgro list Vincent Paglia used to win WGP California in 2015:

Ruler: Grimm, the Fairy Tale Prince

Aggro decks in current times aim to create a situation where the opponent must make suboptimal blocks in order to stay alive, eventually reaching a point where the defending player runs out of resources or becomes open to a finisher card such as Split Heaven and Earth.

Control/Midrange – Outvalue and Race

After the release of Vingolf (part of the Grimm cluster), control decks dominated the Italian meta thanks to the printing of Vlad Tepes, a ruler with a built-in wincon in its ability. The Vlad deck aimed to control the board using value resonators like Carmilla and removal spells like Flame of Outer World while being backed by counterspells such as Exceed. It won using excess stones to drain the opponent’s life every turn, eventually sapping them for lethal. The advantage of this deck is the only board state it needs to establish inevitability is one where it is at least even on the field (does not need to be winning on board) while having a high number of stones to rest for Vlad’s ability since most decks do not have a reliable source of lifegain to offset the drain. Resonators such as Fiethsing accentuate the deck’s ability to stave off damage while increasing the amount of will used to sink into Vlad’s ability at the same time.

Here is the Vlad Control list Federico Zoppini used to win an Italian RGP in 2015:

Ruler: Vlad Tepes/Vlad Tepes (J)

The meta as of this time of writing is not friendly toward control decks due to the presence of Reflect/Refrain, a J-Ruler who can counter non-resonator spells using abilities (including counterspells like Xeex and Absolute Cake Zone). In addition, many threats in the game currently cost 1 while most counterspells cost at least 2, making control decks based around counterspells very inefficient. The viability of an archetype in a given format usually depends on what cards are powerful enough to warp the metagame.

Combo – Inevitable Powerful Synergy

The term combo is slightly tricky to use because every deck utilizes combinations of cards in the hopes of assembling an inevitable board state. The use of the word combo to define an archetype is based around the idea that extremely powerful combinations exist that can usually win the game from any given state. For example, using Guinevere to put a Yamata-no-Orochi in the grave and then returning Yamata to play using Book of Eibon is often game-winning.

Not all combo decks in FoW are based around putting a single large threat into play. Some decks, like Alice’s World, aim to win by assembling a board of different resonator types and then taking extra turns. Even if the World player fails to win in those extra turns, the resulting board state when the combo is finished can be impossible for the opponent to recover from if he or she is not also playing a combo deck.

Here is the R/R Alice’s World deck Zachary Tufford used to win the ARG King Con event in 2015:

Ruler: Reflect, Child of Potential/Refrain, Child of Convergence

Combo decks in Force of Will tend to also embody another archetype – there are very few ‘pure combo’ decks. For example, Tufford’s list above can beat the opponent down using Gwibers and Adombralis (a midrange strategy) without actually casting Alice’s World. To learn more about Tufford’s list, check out the FoWTavern article about the deck.

Choosing an Inevitable State

In a competitive tournament, the deck that is capable of assembling an inevitable state faster than other decks will generally win more games. Therefore, you should look toward building states with minimal dependencies.

In general, a good inevitable state has no more than 2 specific cards. For example, Yamata and Book of Eibon are specific, but the number of ways to put Yamata in your grave are numerous (Guinevere, Forty Thieves, Nyarlathotep) and would not count as specific cards as long as the deck runs plenty of methods. However, this is just a general rule for specificity. Many inevitable states in this game (such as Alice’s World combo) rely on factors other than just specific cards. The best way to determine if a deck is competitive in a format is to playtest and get a ‘feel’ for both its speed and reliability.

Consistency and Tech (Disruption)

Every competitive deck aims to assemble an inevitable game state as fast as possible. For a deck to accomplish this, roughly 70% of the deck needs to be focused on increasing its consistency to build that state. The other 30% is typically reserved for ‘tech’ cards to disrupt opposing strategies, some of which happen to be faster in a vacuum.

Two important terms here are stability and forced synergy. Reaching stability is establishing a state where the opponent does not want to damage you. This often occurs when the board is under control and an attack would simply lead to a loss of resources or a lethal counterattack the following turn. Most players add ‘tech’ cards to a deck help it reach stability against faster wincons – control, for example, is slower than aggro when it comes to who can close out a game the fastest. Tech cards are based on the idea that an inevitable game state is achieved first by disrupting the opponent’s ability to construct his or her own inevitable state. However, where many new deckbuilders go wrong with ‘tech’ cards is when they also slow down their own strategy to the point where they are not making any significant gains. This is called forced synergy.

As an example, a lot of players new to the game ask me what deck can put on pressure but also play control cards like Xeex, the Ancient Magic. The problem with building a deck like this is that these counterspells are tangent to the aggro player’s central plan of applying pressure. Obviously, using counterspells means the opponent won’t be able to put more blockers on the board, but at the same time it means the aggressive deck isn’t building a board state. If at any point the aggro deck is behind, counterspells do not accomplish much except stall the game. In addition, cards that apply pressure typically require will to cast, creating an awkward situation where the aggro player does not have any unused stones to produce will on the opponent’s turn. This results in dead cards – cards that sit in your hand and cannot be used because your deck is not designed to use them consistently. Ideally, tech cards are chosen based on how well they accomplish the necessary job while minimizing the amount of ‘slowing down’ caused to the deck. A few exceptions exist, and these are generally cases where not disrupting a combo can outright lose the game, such as not stopping a Yamata entering the field from Book of Eibon or Genesis Creation.

Build For Inevitability

Every deck is capable of generating states of inevitability. However, the best decks are built toward consistently achieving specific states with minimal requirements. This is why the ‘do some powerful things and grind them out’ strategy fails on a general level. If a deck does not aim to focus on a wincon, then it falls upon the player to use the deck’s card choices to construct an inevitable state. While this can sometimes happen, often an advantageous state is achieved instead of an inevitable state – a strategy that typically loses to any deck that establishes inevitable states by design.

If you are building a deck for competitive play, the first question you need to be able to answer is, ‘What is the wincon?’ This will help you build the core of the deck since wincons revolve around specific game states. The rest is simply tweaking numbers and evaluating what tech cards need to be included so the deck can compete in the meta.

I’m a US National Top 4 Player who travels to events, brews decks (both competitive and non-competitive), produces gameplay videos, and writes articles on improving your Force of Will game. Keep up with my content by submitting your email below!

Essential Reading

These articles are a must-read for anyone new to the game who wants to begin playing competitively.

• Gaining Parity – Deckbuilding to win on the draw.
• What’s Your Wincon? – The importance of inevitability.
• Deciding Initial Numbers When Brewing – Building and testing tips.

Deck Articles

TMS Meta

• Sylvia Gill Palarilias
• Seer of the Blue Moon (Kaguya 1.0)

TTW Meta

• Reflect/Refrain Alice’s World