Deck Profile: Dookis' Light Heal Deck

I talked with Dookis of Team Mythic who is currently rank 4 with their Light deck. To figure out how and why their deck works. At the time of this writing the deck is 31W-10L. He calls it Light Heal.

About the deck

You can find the deck details and stats on Unchained Stats The deck is a mid-range built around gaining and keeping control of the board. It does this in a couple of ways. The largest is classic value trading. Simply making smart trades. Keep healing your creatures so you don't lose tempo and you can use them again and again.

This pressure on the board will force your opponent to keep playing more and more cards out of their hand. The thinner their board the more damage you can do to face. Our win conditions are out valuing the opponent in the early game and using that value to keep their board clear. One thing, Dookis would trade out the Cudgel of Atonement for Ritual Rod.

new mulligan is so much more consistent at finding your early game
especially if you exploit it by using mostly 2 ofs
So you can get away with running fewer low cost cards than was previously possible
and still reliably draw into them in mulligan
- Dookis

The Cards

Mana	Name	# of cards
1	Cudgel of Atonement	2
1	Netherborne Binder	2
2	Devoted Follower	2
2	High Thaumaturge	2
2	Pyramid Warden	2
2	Skeleton Heavy	2
3	Golden Harpe	2
3	Light's Levy	2
4	Highborn Knight	2
4	Master of Indulgences	2
4	Veteran Archer	2
5	Canonize	2
5	Odysseus, Tried Victor	1
6	Astraea's Envoy	1
6	Helian Blademaster	2
6	That Which Aches	1
7	Penitence	1

God Power: Heal

• Healing creatures to support longer board presence.
• Healing yourself but try not to worry about this too much before the mid-game.

Early Game

We are playing high health creatures for their mana cost. Just keep clearing out their board and healing your creatures to keep them in the game. Don't forget to take swings on the face when you can't clear anything.

Against Aggro Decks

We are waiting for them to run out of cards they can play easily. Once that happens we lock down our board with frontline creatures. If we haven't already played the Golden Harpe and High Thaumaturge combo then this is the time to do it.

This makes it very difficult for them to actually deal damage to us now that have used up a good portion of their creatures. We can start prioritizing our own health and heal away any burst damage that they pull off here.

Against Control Decks

Here we are clearing their board as needed and filling ours as fast as possible. We are going to prioritize warded and protected creatures during the mid-game. Such as Highborn Knight and Helian Blademaster. We are going to help with hand refill by using the High Thaumaturge and Golden Harpe combo.

Their clears should be not allowed to completely remove our board. If we did it right we should have a full board and our clears in our hand. Clearing their first few big bads with Master of Indulgences and Penitence. Finish the game with face damage before they can play even more of their late game goodies.

If we are down on the board vs control we are in deep trouble and will most likely lose. However, this should rarely happen as the early value should have pulled us through.

Against Mid-range / Combo Decks

Fill the board as fast as you can and hold on through their early game for the win.

Combos

This deck really only has one combo in it High Thaumaturge and Golden Harpe and we use it to will refill our hand.

Its all about holding the board and gaining advantage through trades
healing 2 on a creature for tempo is so powerful
- Dookis

The Meta

Deception:

Here instead of Heal we are going to take Summon Acolyte God Power. Rapture Dance is going to be painful since we have to go wide as our creature are not heavy hitters and can have trouble ending the game. Summon Acolyte allows creating value and keep our board full without over extending yourself. They will often end up Rapture Dancing your 2/2 army and you can start refilling the board.

Next we want to get high value cards out of our hand as soon as possible to prevent them from using Cutthroat them from our hand. Cards can be stolen with Vault Vagabond and spells with Lightfoot Informant or Lara Grim, Spellthief. We specifically want to be wary of them stealing Lights' Levy which can steal almost anything on your board with it and Canonize as they can set up power trades with their hidden creatures.

We win by saving Penitence for their Demogorgon which gives them a lot of value when combined with the God Power Memory Charm. If we are going first then we'll want to play Devoted Follower to counter early Switch Duelist, but you still have to be aware of Sleep Dart and Mugging that are able to remove it before you can use it. If we get it our combo it will really help. If we don't Golden Harp is good on its own.

Slayer War:

We're going to ignore all late game cards to provide the strongest early game. We just have to survive their early game and you will win. We'll want a Lights' Levy and a Master of Indulgences if we can find it in the Mulligan ignore the Golden Harpe unless we are going second and already have great early game cards.

One mistake is healing yourself too early in this match-up and most match-ups in general. Wait until you have the board and then you can start self healing.

Mulligan guide:

Dookis has kindly provided a complete mulligan guide. Cards that are good keeps if you have a good curve already are denoted by an asterisk *

GENERAL MULLIGAN:

• Netherborne Binder
• Ritual Rod/Cudgel
• Skeleton heavy
• Devoted Follower

DECEPTION:

Control deception:

(note: pick summon acolyte for god power)

• Highborne Knight
• Golden Harpe*
• Lights Levy*

DEATH:

Zoo death:

• Pyramid Warden
• Lights Levy
• Veteran Archer*

Control death:

• Highborne Knight
• Lights Levy
• Golden Harpe*
• Helian Blademaster*

LIGHT:

Heal Light:

(note: devoted follower is extra important in mirror)

• Lights Levy
• Master of indulgences*
• Thaumaturge*

MAGIC:

Aether or Rune magic:

• Pyramid Warden
• Golden Harpe
• Highborne Knight

(Note: not sure which god power is best been experimenting with both summon acolyte and heal)

NATURE:

Midrange nature:

• Highborne Knight
• Veteran Archer*
• Master of Indulgences*

WAR:

Slayer war:

• Pyramid Warden
• Lights Levy*
• Golden Harpe*
• Master of Indulgences*

Blitz war:

• Golden Harpe
• Highborne Knight

Last Call

This is probably the strongest Light Deck in the meta right now. It has very few combos or complex interactions that would make it hard to play that are inherent to the deck itself. All the difficulty comes from knowing the decks that are out there and correctly adapting your play to them. Making it a good choice for many intermediate players with a solid understanding of the game.

Also, Dookis has done a write-up of an earlier deck of his that can provide some additional insight into card choices Rank 2 Heal Light it is outdated and not a great deck in the current meta, but has lots of extra info.

See you next time.