How to play : Jayce Defender of Tomorrow

The legend’s ability costs 1 energy and exhausts him to ready a gear, and its best target is Platewyrm Egg. An Egg enters exhausted; from your next turn, exhausting it adds 1 energy, or 2 once it is Empowered. Use an Empowered Egg, ready it with the legend and use it again: you pay 1 energy for 2 more. Mobilize and Catalyst of Aeons add runes on top of the two you channel each turn. All of it points at one card: Dazzling Aurora, which costs 9 energy and 2 Body power.

At the end of each of your turns, starting with the turn you play it, Dazzling Aurora reveals cards from the top of your Main Deck until it reveals a unit, plays that unit ignoring its cost and recycles the rest. Jayce, Brilliant Inventor waits in your Champion Zone, so the only units in your Main Deck are the three Elder Dragons: while one is left there, the Aurora brings a 10-might Dragon. With a Dragon on the board, any amount of your damage kills an enemy unit, so Flurry of Blades kills every enemy unit at the battlefields and Bellows Breath kills up to three at one location.

You see four cards and may send back up to two. Keep what starts the engine (Platewyrm Egg, Mobilize, Catalyst of Aeons) next to one cheap answer, Flurry of Blades or Bellows Breath, so a fast start does not run you over before the engine gets going. An Egg with a cheap answer is the hand to hope for.

Send back the top of the curve. Elder Dragon costs 12 energy and 4 Body power: it is a card the Aurora brings from your deck, not one you plan to play yourself, and a Dragon in your hand is one the Aurora cannot find. Mulligan it away: it goes to the bottom of your deck, where the Aurora can still reach it later. Clairvoyance, Sprite Burst and a second Dazzling Aurora go back too; keep a single Aurora only next to an Egg, Mobilize or Catalyst of Aeons.

In a best of three you choose your battlefield, so choose it for the deck across the table. Forgotten Monument stops every player from scoring there until their third turn, which buys the time a slow deck needs against a fast one. Sigil of the Storm makes whoever conquers it recycle one of their runes, a tax on early attacks that this deck rarely pays itself. Dragon Roost lets any player pay 2 extra power of any domain to play a Dragon straight onto it: good for Elder Dragon, but do not pick it against a deck with Dragons of its own.

The first turns are for building, not scoring. Play Platewyrm Egg as early as you can: it enters exhausted and only pays from your next turn. Mobilize costs 2 and Catalyst of Aeons 4, and both bring their runes in exhausted, so they too pay off next turn. Keep the energy you do not spend for their turn: Flurry of Blades is a Reaction for 1 energy that deals 1 to every unit at the battlefields, enough to kill every 1-might unit there, theirs and yours.

The turn you Empower an Egg (1 energy, exhausting it), pay 1 more for the legend to ready it, then exhaust it for 2: the Egg is Empowered and the whole sequence cost you nothing. From then on it gives 2 every turn, and the legend turns 1 energy into 2. Once you have two Eggs, Empower the legend itself (2 energy and 2 power of any domain): it then readies both for the same 1 energy. The Egg’s ability is a Reaction, so an Egg can also pay for Flurry of Blades or Clairvoyance on their turn.

Jayce, Brilliant Inventor costs 6 energy and 1 Mind power. When you play him, and the first time you play a non-token gear each turn while he is on the board, you may ready something else that is exhausted: exhaust an Empowered Egg for 2 before you play him, ready it as he lands, and those 2 come back for your next card. Promising Future is the other shortcut: each player plays one card from the top five of their deck, the opponent first, ignoring energy costs but still paying power. Cast it with Body runes to spare, since a Dragon found this way still asks for its 4 Body power and an Aurora for 2, and prefer it against a deck of cheap cards, which gains little from its free one.

Before the Dragon lands, your damage is small. Flurry of Blades deals 1 to every unit at the battlefields, yours included; Bellows Breath, an Action, deals 1 to up to three units at one location, and its Repeat (1 more energy and 1 Mind power) does it again; Deadly Flourish deals 3 to an enemy unit, and if that unit dies this turn you get a Gold token that later pays 1 power of any domain without recycling a rune; Rocket Barrage deals 4 to a unit in a base or kills a gear. With a Dragon on the board every one of those hits is a kill, so hold them for that turn when the board allows. Sabotage makes them reveal their hand and recycles a non-unit card of your choice from it: cast it right before your big turn and take the answer they were keeping for the Dragon.

Gutter Palace turns a card you do not need into a 1-might Bird token with Deflect (discard 1 and exhaust it), and the legend can ready it for a second Bird. Discard Dredge Up to it: Flow lets you play it from your trash later for 2 energy, so leave it out of the three cards Garbage Grabber recycles from your trash. The Palace is also a second way to win: if your Beginning Phase starts with exactly four cards in your hand and exactly four of your units at battlefields, you win the game. It is not the plan, but count both before you pass the turn.