Assassin gets to dual class now?

Oh, the joys of being rudely awoken from my slumber just to find Assassin is eating incredibly well.

That's right, with the announcement of OBK, I think it's safe to say that I am officially back from my seemingly indefinite hiatus and will try and release biweekly articles again. I am incredibly excited to see what the future has to offer Assassin, and I want to share my thoughts and strategies yet again as we explore this strange new world.

Outbreak's announcement is honestly exhilarating. While we still don't know most of Mastery Pack Assassin, the two back to back Assassin sets with three new CC legal heroes paint a very clear picture: Assassin is getting a near top to bottom overhaul.

Quite simply, it's a pretty safe assumption to make that with nearly 200 new Assassin cards being loaded into the class, pretty much every deck will have a completely new shell come Outbreak's release. Especially when you consider the sheer amount of heroes each of those 200 cards are being designed to support.

Now, with such a small amount of information coming out of this announcement, this is, in fact, the perfect time to do some theorycrafting. So I wanted to take some time to go through each and every Assassin hero, both printed and unprinted, and discuss what I hope to see coming from these two sets.

Huntsman

Anyone who knows my content and brand knows that Huntsman is my heart and soul in the game.

Now, I'm about to say something incredible surprising about my favorite hero: I'm okay if they don't get much of anything from either of these sets.

Do I have a wishlist? Sure. Do I want more? sure. Would I be beat up if zero cards from either set enter their decklist? Not really.

Quite simply, Huntsman is in a really good spot. They are at the perfect point of playability and invisibility that I honestly don't want to mess with it that much. If they get too much more support, suddenly decks will start teching against them, and honestly I'd rather they just continue getting wins under the radar.

But that's not what you're here for. Let's hear the juice!

The style of Huntsman that I play can sometimes be a bit divisive, using Stealth cards in tandem with Contract cards, and primarily putting in support specifically to enable 6 copies Double Trouble. I personally believe Double Trouble is one of the strongest Assassin cards LSS has ever printed, and anyone who isn't actively enabling it in their deck is throwing away significant amounts of power.

Now, enabling Double Trouble does come with some opportunity cost, and I would love if that opportunity cost was reduced. The two primary ways this can come about is either by adding in more Attack Reactions that can work across the board, or by adding in more Stealth cards that work favorably with Huntsman's unique ability setup.

The former is kind of already confirmed, thanks to the wonderfully named Outbreak, a 3 cost blue Attack Reaction that gives +3 and hits for all three OUT diseases. More cards than that could very quickly become too powerful, but I would love one or two more to work with. It is worth noting that the text on Mutually Assured Destruction does soft confirm that we will probably see a few more cards like Outbreak, so it is worth getting prepared for, but I do worry the strength those cards would provide to consistency.

The latter is something unprecedented, but it would be awesome to see some Stealth Contract cards, or at least some Stealth silver generators / silver outlets. Double Trouble is an incredibly efficient silver outlet, allowing you to turn the reactions you've been throwing silver at into incredible threats with +2 power and +2 banishes. If we had a few more good outlets of the same nature, or maybe a few more ways to make silver outside of Huntsman's contracts, I think the hero could be in for a massive push.

Here is what my list currently looks like with currently spoiled cards: Wheel Spider

Uzuri

To be completely honest, I don't really play Uzuri. I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I've thrown her together. That said, her deck does look, on paper, to be incredibly sick.

After listening to Uzuri supporters complain about the hero for years, it's pretty clear what she needs, we just have to hope she gets the juice she wants.

Quite simply, Uzuri wants two things: Good cards to swap into, good cards to swap out of.

When it comes to her swaps, she honestly doesn't have a lot of great cards. The mono Assassin pool offers only three options: her Specialization, Sneak Attack, and Already Dead. None of them are great, and even when you add in generic targets like CnC and Death Touch, it's relatively clear that the answer to Uzuri is kind of just to block 6 and walk away.

Thankfully, we already know of two more swaps, and I find it reasonable to assume we'll get a few more in both sets. Hopefully, a few of them fix the "Just block 6" problem, and hopefully, a few of them are strong enough to make her swapping a bit more backbreaking and threatening.

The good "swap aways" is the more interesting side of the discussion. Uzuri essentially has one good card she can swap away from: Knife Through. Why? Because Knife Through does something no other card does: It presents a fork.

Imagine you are facing an Uzuri who has just played out a Knife Through with go again from her dagger. Do you block?

On the one hand, if you don't block, she can just swap in a backbreaking hit. On the other hand, if you do block, she may just use the go again to swing the hit anyways after you've wasted all your cards in hand defending against nothing.

Obviously, Stealth cards with base go again could be problematic, but hopefully we can receive a few more utility Stealths like Knife Through that can present similar fork situations to make blocking her not as simple as you might like it to be.

I am not building a list for Uzuri before we know more about what's in MPA because honestly I haven't played her much and I don't really know where to start.

Slipy

Slipy has historically been my least favorite Assassin in the game, for a variety of reasons. To make a long story short, I absolutely despise the design intention of it's ability. Free go again for just putting cards in your deck is disgusting value without any real intention.

That said, Slipy is getting some juice. Though it is not actively being supported in Mastery Pack Assassin, Slipy will be the only printed Chaos Assassin in CC to take advantage of the massive amount of Chaos and Chaos Assassin support in Outbreak. Regardless of how you look at it, Slipy is basically a new hero come Outbreak's release.

Honestly, looking at the Chaos card pool, I kind of have no idea how to evaluate Slipy's card pool. There's a lot of disease cards with arsenal manipulation and a bunch of go again paired with the historical identity of Slipy and it's forks.

I think the best way to think about Slipy will be to look at the hero as a "situation creator". Play out a card, maybe it's a stealth, maybe it's a chaos card with go again, maybe it's something else. Whatever it is, be holding back enough cards in hand and enough options in graveyard that implies options you may have in hand to make your opponent sit back and think "What the heck?" Then, when your opponent starts making mistakes, capitalize on it and reduce their life total to zero in record time.

As a whole, I very much want Slipy to move away from the free value identity it had at the beginning of their lifetime. I want Slipy to feel much more like what it had with Bonds of Agony, presenting backbreaking forks where your opponent has little to no information to play around the forks.

Without even knowing what's in Mastery Pack Assassin, and given my feelings on what the hero with current support is doing, I have no idea how to build this hero without more information, so I won't even bother putting a list together until we know more.

Mortimer

And here we reach the stars of the show, where a ton of discussion is to be had. Mortimer and our Outbreak heroes don't have established playlines. They are completely new, with completely new spaces to play in.

Mortimer, at least, is playing adjacent to a space we are already experienced in playing with. Silver and diseases.

There seems to be a ton of ways to build Mortimer, though. To put it simply, while Huntsman focuses on consistent silver generation and leaning into one thing incredibly well, Mortimer is kind of a jack of all trades foil to them. Mortimer can generate silver like candy, but what on earth are you putting that silver into? You can send it into the usual Huntsman Graven equips, or you can send it into his hero ability, or Graven Call, or the newly revealed Phial of Calamity, or Redback Shroud or or or.

Mortimer is a hero with 80 different build paths because what on earth are you spending your mountains of silver on? As of right now, each path seems equally powerful and equally viable, it's more a question of preference.

My personal preference is to use Mortimer's silver generation to pilot a much older deck I created a long time ago: Redback midrange. Redback Shroud's reaction ability in tandem with a spike (1 cost +3 attack reaction, usually with extra text) to fuel disgustingly high value turn cycles.

If I had my way, optimal Mortimer would do exactly that, and I'd ask for more spikes, more stealths, and more disgusting ways to fuel all of the above. Truth be told, though, I have no idea what he'll actually end up doing, and the revealed cards so far haven't pointed us in a specific direction.

There is, however, just one thing that I think Mortimer will almost always be doing, and it's something a local (Dawgy in the Assassin Discord) presented this morning following Phial's reveal.

Consider a three card hand with Perforate, Pain in the Backside, and a blue. At the same time, you have a tunic resource up, Phial and Flick Knives sitting on board, and a +1 power Graven Call.

This might seem like a lot of setup, but it's actually not that hard to pull off, especially with careful arsenaling.

Play out Pain in the backside.

If no blocks, use your tunic resource to activate Phial, targeting the Graven Call.

Additionally, play out Perforate, pitching a blue. Target Graven Call, draw a finisher of literally any kind.

Swing Graven Call twice with your floating resources, play out your finisher and flick Graven call for one last hit.

All things considered, if you grab a Bloodrot Pox with each Graven hit, you are threatening 3+1+2 -> 2+2 -> 2+2 -> (4)+1+2 for a total of 21 damage on a 3 card hand.

It may not come up much, but your Mortimer deck should almost assuredly have the option to threaten this in your 80.

All things considered, this is my current rendition of Mortimer (Without the Perforate combo because I need to retool a large amount of the list to support it and I didn't have the time this morning): Dr Jungle Spider, PHD

Interjection - Dual Class

I have a lot to say about Dual class heroes.

Firstly, they concern me. If LSS decides to do a lot of them, they can get out of hand very quickly. Even just looking at these three heroes, there's a lot of potential strength here. One wrong step with 8 more dual classes in the future and we could very quickly find ourselves in a wasteland of disgusting combinations.

That concern very quickly faded away when I saw what exactly was going on with these three. I don't actually think LSS intends to do very much of this, as each of these three have a very significant reason to justify their existence.

The obvious one is Azalea, who's lore codes her so deeply as an Assassin hero that it's almost painfully clear that she's an Assassin they had to make a Ranger because Assassin didn't exist in a form they were happy with yet. Just read an ounce of her story and you quickly come to the conclusion that she was probably supposed to be an in lore dual class hero from the beginning.

Then with the other two, they both feature Mechanologist as one of their classes, and we know Mechanologist is... strange. As the only class to share a border with it's region border, we knew from the get go that the class was a bit out of the ordinary. This, coupled with direct communication from LSS that the class had something weird going on around the time of Uprising and Dynasty, told us that we would need to expect the class to do strange things going forward. It folded very cleanly into EVO as a mono-class set, and now leads directly into OBK presenting the class with two heroes using it as a dual class.

Add in Pirate being basically dual class heroes as well, and you paint a picture that LSS probably doesn't intend to do this very often and only when it makes sense, like with OBK.

So let's talk on an individual basis.

Azalea

Azalea is awesome, let me just start by stating that.

Also, Azalea is very well established already. If you look at her hero ability in Outbreak, it is almost identical to her original hero ability. The differences are pretty minor: Instant speed instead of Action speed with go again. Veil instead of Dominate. Oh, and also now there's a Stealth case.

In other words, it's almost a strict upgrade from her original incarnation, a deck that has already hit Living Legend. Thankfully, that deck was powered in large part from Death Dealer, a weapon we no longer have access to, so it's not a literal "return from the dead" hero. But it is still well established.

Yes, that means exactly what you think it means: The starting point for Azalea is just the deck she was using when she hit LL with a few adjustments to make up for losing Death Dealer.

Except, that's not at all what I want to do! I'm an Assassin player! Let me play Assassin!

My desire for the hero is very simple. I want to play an Azalea deck that has 80 different ways to play out any four card hand. To explain, let me lay out a turn cycle.

Start of turn, face-down buff in arsenal, attack/buffs in hand.

Use Skullbone Crosswraps to flip my buff up and option select the top card. Use the following flowchart based on what I see:

Stealth attack: Activate Azalea, play the Stealth with +1 and go again to open my turn, then swing dagger, play some buffs, and use the bow to load a backbreaking Arrow to close the turn.

Arrow attack: Play the buff in arsenal, play out the rest of my hand, then load an Arrow with my bow, activate Azalea and swap it into the other Arrow, close out the turn with a backbreaking Arrow with veiled.

Buff: Decide whether the buff in arsenal or the buff on top is stronger. Once decided, either activate Azalea or don't, then play out your hand as normal, ending on a backbreaking Arrow.

Unplayable card: The buff in arsenal is strongest, just play out the hand as normal and throw a backbreaking Arrow.

At the end of the day, the number one consistent thing is that I want a buff in arsenal and I want a backbreaking Arrow to close the turn, which I want to lead into with a Spider's Bite.

If the floor of Azalea's deck is Spider's Bite -> 1 cost Arrow with an on hit, then I think Azalea will be a very powerful hero.

Oh, and that's not even considering the gross gameplay you can pull out when you realize that Under the Trap door can find offensive Rune Snares, utility Quickening Sands, and defensive Boulder Traps.

Now, let's talk about what I don't want. I don't want LSS to print a Stealth Arrow, full stop. This type of card immediately makes any and all decision-making above mostly irrelevant. I want to think about the cards I put in my deck.

What I want instead are cards that enable me to play out these flexible turns. I want cards like Premeditate that don't care whether they're buffing a Stealth or an Arrow, maybe a reaction that gets to buff both.

I want more cards that enable me to make decisions on my turn about how to play out my hands, not cards that make those decisions easier to play through.

This is what my deck is currently looking like with revealed cards: Jungle of Spiders

Huxley

My first thought when I saw Huxley was: INSTANT ATTACKS??? THAT'S AWESOME!!!

My second thought when I saw Huxley was: COGNITION NODES??? ON MY PLUNDER THE POOR??? GROSS!!!

My third thought when I saw Huxley was: Wait a second, hold on just one moment... Instant attacks are disgusting actually, how can we break this?

Before I get into the "Break this" part of the discussion, let me share with you my immediate kneejerk deckbuild. My main hero is Huntsman, so I am deeply familiar with fatige Assassin. What if we took fatigue Assassin, and just added in some Cognition Nodes to recur my Plunder the Poors?

Ok, that's not too powerful right? WRONG.

Huntsman is constantly fighting against card advantage math.

To explain, fatigue wins by outlasting. While most decks, when playing cards, lose those cards, fatigue doesn't. Guardian gets to pitch a blue into their hammer, costing 0 cards to play their turn. Assassin does something similarly when playing contracts. You might lose the contract, but the opponent losing the top card of their deck means you come out net neutral.

The difference between Guardian and Assassin is that -1 on both sides is not 0 on your side. You're still losing cards, end eventually you're going to run out of options.

Unless you have Cognition Nodes. Now, your Plunder the poor is net +1 in advantage, as you get to keep the card and still take your opponent's top card of their deck.

Oh, and also Cognition Nodes is a reaction to turn on Double Trouble.

Oh, and also you have access to Mech's fridge with Adaptive Plating galvanizing your silver.

Oh, and also you can Boost and do everything broken I'm about to talk about once per game.

Oh yeah, the broken stuff.

Let me explain two different interactions that are completely legal and codified in the rules and should probably express just how broken Huxley is. (Note, this is broken in the "breaking the rules" sense, not broken in the "absurdly powerful" sense. I'm not actually sure any of this is actually good)

Interaction one: Free Kiss of Death.

Step 1: Have a Kiss of Death on top of your deck (Memorial Grounds?)

Step 2: Have a boost card ready to go (Codex?)

Step 3: Play your boost card, boosting away the Kiss of Death. Tap Huxley to enable you to play it out.

Step 4: Before your boost card enters the queue, play Kiss of Death as an instant.

Step 5: Kiss of Death enters the queue. Boost card enters the queue. Kiss of Death enters the combat chain and becomes attacking.

Step 6: Kiss of Death -> Boost attack -> Flick Kiss of Death for 1+1. (Maybe activate Phial on it or Spike with Bloodrot it for another free 2 damage from the Bloodrot)

That's right, you can play Kiss of Death in response to the card that you used to boost Kiss of Death and make it playable such that Kiss of Death goes on the combat chain before the boost card does, allowing you to freely flick your Kiss without having to worry about generating a single action point.

Interaction two: Breaking interaction one.

Step 1: Let's divorce ourselves from Kiss of Death. Let's put Double Trouble on top of our deck.

Step 2: We need more setup, let's make sure Achilles Accelerator is still online. Let's also include a card in hand for which we have a reaction that can target it. Maybe... Sneak Attack and a Just a Nick. Also we need our boost.

Step 3: Play your boost card, boosting away Double Trouble. Tap Huxley to enable you to play it out.

Step 4: Your boost card enters play, works completely as normally.

Step 5: Gain an action point somehow, probably through the Achilles Accelerator we have on board.

Step 6: Play out our Sneak Attack. Before it resolves an enters the queue, play Double Trouble as an instant.

Step 7: Double Trouble enters the queue. Sneak Attack enters the queue. Double Trouble enters the combat chain and becomes attacking.

Step 8: Play Just a Nick. Target Sneak Attack with +5 power and Double Trouble with "On hit, banish the top card."

Step 9: (To get extra reactions to turn on the text of both Sneak Attack and Double Trouble, use your Cog Nodes or other equipment you have sitting on the field)

You heard that right, you can play out cards and stack the queue in just the right way to enable reactions to trigger conditions for one card while powering up another card.

The utility of this is endless, including but not limited to:

Boost with a blue T-Bone, give +5 power to T-Bone and "on hit banish" to the Stealth you boosted.

Pummel a CnC waiting in the queue after a Double Trouble.

Have a Dagger attack waiting in the queue, get both modes of Tarantula Toxin off by targeting the dagger with +3 and the defending card on your Stealth chain link with -3. No Chelicerae or Kiss of Death needed for the full +6 value.

Use Cognition Nodes to fulfill Double Trouble's condition and keep your CnC's in deck.

And so much more.

This is how I want Huxley to play. I want to be able to break the rules and target queued attacks with reactions.

What support enables us to get there? Top deck manipulation and action point accumulation. That's how we do it.

I don't want to fatigue, I want to make my local judge cringe when he sees me walk in the door. I want to force my opponents to pull out the Comprehensive Rules in a match and stare in awe and the beauty I've constructed before them.

I don't want to go hard aggro with boost, I don't want to boost 5 times until I whiff or hit a Stealth. I want to boost once and create such an incredible situation that I draw a crowd around my table.

I don't want LSS to print Stealth cards with boost. I want LSS to print more ways for me to break the rules of the game they've so lovingly created for us.

Anyways, here's my stupid fatigue deck that I have zero intention of working on once we actually get to break the game: Wheelie Spider

Moving forward

You may or may not be able to tell, but I am... really excited about the future of the Assassin class.

My plan moving forward is quite simple:

When Mastery Pack Assassin releases, I want to have a functioning and playable deck for Huntsman, Uzuri, and Mortimer.

When Outbreak releases, I want to have a functioning and playable deck for Slipy, Azalea, and Huxley.

As I attend armories and events, I want to kind of "catch all" each of these 6 heroes. I know this means that I will lose my specialist nature on Huntsman and I will probably be a weaker player because of it, but I mostly just care about having fun, and rotating between each hero in my favorite class is definitely the way to do it.

Additionally, outside of CC, I do want to have functioning decks for Sage and LL. Though not discussed in this article, I do think Mortimer LV, Marionette, and Nuu all have very interesting ideas going on and a lot of cool lines within the support we've been presented. Also, Huxley in LL will be a nightmare with access to both Assassin fatigue tools and Dash's pistol voltron.

And you all know I love cube, did you know I actually have an "All Assassin" cube?

The core idea of the cube is basically putting four very unique Assassins in a set and letting them run wild. I do think the cube will deeply change with Mastery Pack Assassin, and then again with Outbreak, so I wouldn't put too much stock into what it looks like right now, but here's where the Assassin Cube currently stands: Assassin Con

This does mean that I will have a lot to talk about on this website. I will likely be able to easily manage 2 articles a month, just as long as I don't get blindsided by writer's block and burnout.

If you would like to join in any of the discussion, join into the Assassin Discord and chat along!

If you like what you read here, please consider supporting me on Metafy. This website costs money to host, and I put a lot of time and effort into the words you're reading. Even just a single dollar a month goes a long way.

I look forward to chatting with you on the next one! Go forth and Assassinate!