Building Basics: Master Set - Maeoni
Snake and Bake
Maeoni – Snake and Bake
This deck was originally imagined by Skaak#0007 (Discord), an Ashes rules aficionado, creator of ashes.live, and avid fan of Maeoni. It’s been tested, tweaked, and presented here by Lizzie Hart.
Dice 3x Charm, 2x Illusion, 5x Natural
Summon Silver Snake x3
Summon Gilder
Shifting Mist x2
Empower x3
Close Combat x3
Golden Veil x3
Massive Growth x3
Open Memories
Anchornaut x3
Mist Typhoon x3
Refresh x3
Root Armor x2
The idea of this deck is simple - you want to build up a massive snake! You can use Anchornauts, Gilders, and Mist Typhoon to clear and control your opponent’s board. In a typical game it may only take two big hits with a giant snake to knock out the opposing Phoenixborn. Close combat and Maeoni’s Command Strike ability allow you to deal with bigger threats without exhausting your snake, and Refresh can come in handy to allow for double swings!
Empower is a great card that lets you spend a class nature die to put status tokens onto your snake, and once it is focused it also has the added benefit of allowing you to clear out opponent’s units by removing status tokens. It may seem like you don’t want to remove status tokens from your snake, but remember that any time an opponent’s unit dies, you get a token, so the net result of clearing a one-life blocker is still adding a token!
The other cards that round out this deck are Golden Veil, Massive Growth, Shifting Mist, and Root Armor. Golden Veil allows you to protect your snake from cards or abilities that would destroy or massively damage it. Massive Growth can be used on a Gilder or Anchornaut for a surprise big hit, or it can be used to make a snake with two or fewer status tokens big for a round. This deck uses a lot of power dice so Shifting Mist helps prevent you from meditating through your entire deck. Root Armor comes in handy to put on your snake if you are facing a deck with lots of ping and/or small units. It can make it more difficult for your opponent to try and take out your snake directly when they take an Attack a Unit main action.
First Five
Typical First Five for this deck is Summon Silver Snake, Summon Gilder, Shifting Mist, and two flex cards that are matchup dependent, as well as depending on how you want to play. These can include Massive Growth, Open Memories, Empower, Mist Typhoon, or Anchornaut. I like to go with Empower and Open Memories. With most of these First Fives you will not be able to afford Maeoni’s ability round 1, but that’s okay because your snake is not going to do much damage until it gets built up a bit.
A few tips for the match up against Noah: you will want to First Five Open Memories so you can get a second snake book out round 1. This is because Noah’s ability allows him to lock down a single spell for a round, and since the snake is your main hitter in this deck you can’t afford to not be able to summon it. The last card in your First Five, depends on how you want to play. I like to use Empower to start charging up my Silver Snake early, but if you want a more aggressive opening, you can start with Massive Growth.
This Noah deck uses Three-eyed Owls, so it’s handy to get out your Gilder book first and have a natural power die ready to go. This lets you summon a Gilder to hit the owl, then use your natural die to kill the owl as a side to avoid losing a card from your First Five. Fade Away is also a big threat to your snake, so if you have Golden Veil in hand, it’s a good idea to keep a charm power die up. It can also be useful to keep one up to bluff and trick your opponent into thinking you have Golden Veil in hand, and deter them from playing a Fade Away. Mist Typhoon is a great card in this deck since so many of Noah’s units, including his signature Masked Wolves, have just 1 life.
Watch out for Blood Archers. Try to kill them as soon as possible with Close Combat or Command Strike. They have the potential to kill your snake by side actioning to Blood Shot, and then attacking for 3. If you have to use your Phoenixborn guard it is usually better to take 3 damage onto Maeoni than to lose a built-up snake. Last but not least, be wary of killing units when your opponent has two or more ceremony dice on their class or power side - you might awaken some Sleeping Widows!
As always, I hope you enjoy and have fun playing!
