Hey guys, my name is Hippo and today we'll be looking at BeardyBog's manly Foltest deck. The Blue Stripes package is the bread and butter of this list. The gameplan is to create as many copies of Blue Stripes Commandos as possible and then shuffling them back into your deck with Pavetta. This allows you to Zeal them out with Foltest later into the match, which creates a lot of human bodies and grants you ridiculous value with Draug. The main advantage this deck has over the more played Henselt is the resilience to control. It can be strong in a control heavy meta, as well as in tournaments.
Strengths:
Strengths:Very powerful in long rounds thanks to Draug and Foltest's leader ability
This forces most decks to bleed you, which can grant you card advantage
Resilient to control, which makes some of your matchups more favoured
Great matchup against Arachas Queen, where your Revenants steamroll
Weaknesses:
Your lack of control tools makes the matchup against engine decks weak
Artifact removal - Summoning Circle is crucial for executing your strategy
Gimpy Gerwin
Considerations:
Eyck of Denesle can significantly improve your matchup against greedy tall decks
Bomb Heaver when you face too much Arachas Queen or artifact decks in general
Against Nilfgaard:
If you don't have the last say in Round 3, they can lock your Revenants with Auckes and Serrit in hand. Try to bait them out when they already exhausted some answers. You can play one of your Dragons or Seltkirk without Zealing them. However, if you have the last say, you can avoid this by playing Draug as your second-to-last card.
Against Skellige:
You will often use your Tactical Advantage to either keep something alive once it gets out of Cleaver range or to deny Bloodthirst. When you're fighting for Round 1 on blue, you can often "double-dip" on the TA buff and use it on Seltkirk, which allows you to deal with a big Svalblod Priest very effectively.
Against Scoia'tael:
Cintrian Knights are nice to have in Round 1, as they can snipe Dwarven Agitators and make thinning Mahakam Volunteers very awkward for your opponent. Every ST deck plays Ida, which makes Summoning Circle is a liability. Play it earlier than in Round 3.
Round 1
You would like to use Round 1 to thin Blue Stripes Commandos and create more copies with Scouts and Reinforcements. That's a lot of tempo from cheap cards and it can even win you the round. A trick you can do with Summoning Circle is playing it first, waiting for 4 charges, playing a Commando, pulling a Scout with Circle and then Zealing the Commando.
This gives you two Commandos with the Order ability intact, thus your opponent can’t kill both of them and prevent you from getting more on the board. If your opponent kills a Commando with Orders, leaving you with a "spent" Commando, you can easily generate some carryover by using Scouts and Reinforcements to create additional copies for later rounds.
In around 25% of matches, you won’t have a Commando in your starting hand. It's worth it to use Royal Decree if you have Scout, Reinforcements or Circle in hand, as long you can get at least 3 copies of Commandos into your graveyard. Don't fight for Round 1 unless you have a Commando and one Scout, or Summoning Circle to pull them from the deck.
Without a Commando in your hand or a way of pulling it from the deck, your best bet is getting out of the round without losing your card by passing earlier on 7 cards. You can then try to get your Commandos out while being bled in Round 2. Playing a "dead" Scout in Round 1 is perfectly fine since it gives you a decent Necromancy target.
Round 2
In the best case scenario where you’ve won Round 1 and have 4 Commandos chilling in the graveyard, it can be correct to play into Round 2 and risk going a card down so you can shuffle them back into your deck with Pavetta. I would only do it if I don’t have Royal Decree or Summoning Circle in hand ready to thin them out in Round 3.
You’re fairly happy to take a long round against most decks, however you should bleed engine-based decks like Henselt, going a card down if necessary. You should be able to win a very short Round 3 with Commandos.
If you lost Round 1, a lot of decks will bleed you out of fear of your long round. That’s one of the strengths of the deck since you can get card advantage if they overextend. Committing Draug in Round 2 gives your opponent an ultimatum, forcing them to either pass or go into Round 3 a card down.
Round 3
Round 3 is relatively straightforward. You play your humans, then use Draug and get a lot of Revenants. Combined with your Dragons and Lacerate, you will beat the vast majority of meta decks.
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