Some other notes: I might mention plays that involve a card that's not specifically listed in the decklist, that's because a decklist is never quite "set in stone" - people will change stuff out for...reasons. If you choose to run Aard over Lugos (like LC and JJ is today), then obviously the lugos plays don't matter. But obviously Lugos is still a viable card, as is Aard. So yeah, if I talk about discarding a bear (and you see there's no bear in the decklist), just understand you "could" run a bear just to discard it with Lugos.

The deck primarily relies on tempo in the early rounds to ensure a good pass - then winning round 2 at an advantage or at even cards. And then closing out round 3 with renew/Hjalmar.

Hi guys, LierGame here presenting you Lifecoach's number 1 Skellige Deck: All Frosts in the World. I myself have climbed from 2.7k MMR to 4k MMR (#12 in Asia as I write this) piloting this deck. It's quite fun and powerful, but it may require a bit more thinking than I've seen from the majority of players I've faced. Most of the strategies I will present come from LC and SuperJJ's stream and my own personal experience climbing with it.

Should all seem pretty self explanatory; frost stuff, put stuff into frost (like udalryk and Hjalmar's thing) and then generate value using axemen. Use shieldmaidens on frosted stuff, use madman lugos to remove stuff. Note that king bran into discard 2 raiders and morkvarg = 20 value.

General Guide

OBVIOUSLY EACH GAME IS DIFFERENT: DO NOT FOLLOW THESE STEPS TO A TEE, THERE ARE CERTAIN EDGE CASES WHERE YOU WILL DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Going First:

If you run bears, perhaps you can open with bear against something like monsters. But to me it feels weak. Better to just leader card for 20 pts instantly.

1. Vs. Skellige - just pop leader and generate 20 pts. If he replies with savage bear, pass. If he replies with craite + morkvarg, probably just pass as well, unless you have lugos. If you have lugos, play it, discard raider, and then pass.

2. Vs Monsters - pop leader for 20 pts. If replied with crones, frost if you have a lot of them, else pass. If replied with harpies, pass. If replied with leader, pass.

3. Vs NR - leader or bear (vs Foltest). If you played bear, and he Foltests, then leader. After, just pass on whatever he plays (other than maybe witchers....). If you are confident in your abilities, you can force him to play all his kaedwani sergeants, then right before a tempo play (such as ballista), pass. If not, don't sabotage yourself by playing a long round 1 against NR when they're setting up. If you played leader, and he foltests, just pass. If he's not foltest and he plays kaedwani sergeant, probably pass honestly - he'd have to witchers to overcome - and if he doesn't, well, he's kinda screwed.

4. vs NG - leader or bear (vs reveal). If you play bear he probably will either remove it or will play spies to avoid revealing stuff to get damaged by bears. Knowing this, you can just pop leader and force his leader (potentially). If he leaders, consider frosting (if there are a lot of minions on the board); if he doesn't overcome you, passing may also be good. NG is a pretty uncommon match up - so this will rely mostly on your personal skill to adapt to the situation rather than what this guide says.

5 vs ST. Vs Spell, open with axeman. Seems odd, but it protects against epidemic (I made this mistake as did JJ/LC). Afterwards, leader, and consider passing (note that ST can only bring 12 pts of value to the board + a spell early) for 2 CA - GOING AS FIRST!!!

5a. Vs Not spell? Well, use your own judgment. I've never played against ST that wasn't spell past 3k MMR. Nor have I seen LC and JJ play against it. Use the principles that going up 1 CA for losing R1 as first is not that bad, but that if you can potentially go up 2 CA then maybe do so. Winning R1 is not important.

Going Second:

Yay, you won the coinflip. Use this to potentially generate 2 card CA.

1. Vs Skellige: If they open with savage bear, and you run a bear, consider Lugos to remove the bear. IF they follow up with a savage bear, you can just pass since they did not overcome your points (Lugos = 7, bear/bear&freya = 6/7). If they open with hero power, open with leader. IF they don't overcome (like playing bear), just pass. If they do overcome, consider lugos into raider discard for 15 pt swing. And then pass when they cannot overcome.

2. Vs Monsters. If they open with harpy, leader card. Usually dagon or eredin comes out, then you just pass :) If they crones, hmm, potentially a frost is a decent play if you have multiple frosts in your hand, but generally I would just pass since getting the crones out of the monster play is pretty good too.

3. Vs. NR. Open with leader, if they cannot overcome, pass - unless you can lugos a kaedwani sergeant (consider this play). If say you kill a kaedwani sergeant, then you can just pass and laugh and walk away with potentially +3 CA or the round on even cards.

4. Vs anything else. Probably open with leader, and try to gain 2 CA. Use high tempo plays - playing out R1 is not that great and ill-advised.

R2:

If you did everything right you should have lost with 1 or 2 cards up or won on even cards or 1 card down. Note that as you reach higher ranks, more people will run renew. Note that since R1's are usually quite short and devoid of goldens, renew is probably a dead card R2. Keeping this in mind, you should also recognize when someone aims to 2-0 you e.g. if he decides to renew the only golden it might be to deny you any value from renew. Also, if no goldens were played R1, and you lost R1, then you should understand that you get first Renew into the next round. What does this mean? It means: you should open with a golden, so you don't cuck yourself from renew being useless if he passes when you're ahead and you haven't played a golden. It also means, that if he has renew, that he has to reply with a golden (at one point, eventually), or be trapped into a situation where renew is a dead card in r3 (given that you'll just insta rez the only golden in r3 to deny him the renew). There are some other complicated logic scenarios that you might want to consider during R2 (most likely your longest round) such as the way weather clear should be played, as well as using Regis to look at the enemy's deck to get more info, but I'm not writing that into a guide.

Lost R1:

This is the most likely scenario. Since they start first, you can should try to out tempo him and overcome him every time you play a card. If you are unable to do this - then play a bit slower and aim to overcome within 1 card while also setting yourself a potential play to generate insane value using axemen. E.g. if you can't overcome, you might as well just frost so you can overcome with 1 axeman next turn or potentially, if the enemy continues to play, generate enough value that you CAN overcome in 1 card. Note that if you can overcome him by a large margin to set up your weathers, you should try to do so. Using Udalryk is a bit tricky - generally you want to play it so that he doesn't overcome you by the fact that you played the spy, but sometimes you need the draw to get something to potentially not get 2-0'd. Spy usage is hard to define with a guide and generally depends on the skill of the player, rather than a specific situation; I'd advise you watch LC or other good players to see how spies should be played.

Won R1: This is a tad trickier than playing as the loser of R1 (which, seems odd right?). The reason being that axemen is generally a pretty reactive deck. For me personally I've only won R1 a handful of times, all of which when I started 2nd - meaning I had even cards winning R1. This is a pretty favorable position in general, since you can even just open pass to go into r3 1 card up and with them going 1st. But, do evaluate if you can just 2-0 them potentially (check out your hand) - ask yourself a few questions like: do they have renew targets, do they have renew, and if you can force some bad desperate plays or to go down 2 cards into R3. I'd say, if you won R1 on even cards that you probably can win.

TIED: I've only tied 1 card up, that means, yup you should have a pretty big advantage! Play to win the game - use udalryk carefully (think about cycling the shieldmaidens/raiders out to ensure better draws) and to generate CA that might allow you some extra turns for frosts/axemen to gain value.

R3 & General tips:

Usually going into R3 you would be about 1 card up (but going first, so say, 0.5 cards up) or even (0.5 cards down, but sometimes youd have a spy to make this up). It's rare to be seriously disadvantaged going into R3, and if you are.... good luck. Keep an eye out for cards like succubus, mardroeme, BTM, and whatnot. Count their weather clears and options and decide if you can weather freely (most likely just open with weather). Also, keep in mind renew targets and if you can block the enemy from a renew target. Hjalmar is generally best renew option, though you might not want to if you can get more value out of a different gold (like Schirru to burn away DBPs, just an example).