How to play : Nasus Curator of the Sands

Think of the legend as a refund you collect once per turn. When you play Thousand-Tailed Watcher, Tasty Faefolk, Whiteflame Protector or Nasus, Ascended, or pay the Empower of Steel Paws (7 energy) or of Nasus, Ascended (8 energy), exhaust the legend and ready two exhausted runes. That is two more energy the same turn, or two ready runes kept for the opponent’s turn: exactly a Discipline, or a Stupefy and a Retreat. Spells never count, Time Warp included, and the legend readies only at the start of your next turn, so a second big play in the same turn pays full price.

Nasus, Ascended is the finish. He waits in the Champion Zone for 8 energy and a Calm power, has 8 might, and Deflect 2 makes any spell or ability of theirs that chooses him cost two extra power. Play him on one turn and pay his Empower on a later one: both count for the legend. Once he is Empowered, each time he conquers you score his point on top of the conquer’s. That point comes from a card effect, which the final-point rule never blocks: at seven points, an Empowered Nasus that conquers wins the game even when the conquer alone would only draw you a card.

You draw four and may replace up to two. Keep the cheap cards that hold a battlefield, win a small fight or build your runes: Scuttle Crab, Steel Paws, Ravenbloom Student, Stupefy, Retreat and Find Your Center. The opener we want is a 0-might holder with Find Your Center: the unit takes an empty battlefield early, and Find Your Center on turn two gives you at least seven runes on turn three, enough for a Thousand-Tailed Watcher.

Send back the extra giants: with two of Thousand-Tailed Watcher, Tasty Faefolk and Whiteflame Protector, half the hand sits idle through the first turns, and Time Warp is a card for the very end. One giant is a keep next to two cheap cards. Against a deck full of spells, keep a Defy. And never mulligan for Nasus, Ascended: he waits in the Champion Zone from the first turn.

Units with 0 might can still conquer and hold. Steel Paws costs one energy and Scuttle Crab two, with a card drawn as it lands; both walk onto empty battlefields and score, and Steel Paws’ Deflect makes any spell or ability of theirs that chooses it cost an extra power. Ravenbloom Student is the early unit that fights: it gets +1 might for the turn each time you play a spell, and 22 of our 40 cards are spells. Discipline is one of them, so a Student defending with one stands at 5 might, and you draw a card. And when Scuttle Crab dies, the opponent reveals their hand and you may look at their face-down cards for the rest of that turn.

In the first turns, runes are the real board. Find Your Center draws a card and channels an extra rune, exhausted, and once an opponent reaches 5 points it costs 1 energy instead of 3. Retreat returns a friendly unit to its owner’s hand and channels a rune too: use it on a unit about to die, or on a Scuttle Crab you will replay to draw again. In a best of three you pick your battlefield. On Ripper’s Bay, each time a unit there returns to hand, its owner may pay 1 energy to channel one more rune, so a Retreat there is worth two runes. The Papertree gives each player a rune, exhausted, every time someone holds it, and this deck turns extra runes into giants faster than most. Rockfall Path forbids playing units there, so no Ambush unit can land on it.

Count your runes before a big turn. With seven, Thousand-Tailed Watcher (7 energy and a Mind power) takes all of them: exhaust the seven, recycle one of those exhausted Mind runes for the power, and the legend readies two of the six that remain, enough for a Discipline on their turn. With an eighth rune and a second Mind power, pay its Accelerate as well: the Watcher enters ready, every enemy unit has -3 might this turn, never below 1, and the Watcher can move straight in. Every recycled rune leaves the board, so spend power with care: our twelve runes are seven Mind and five Calm, Time Warp alone wants four Mind power, and Whiteflame Protector two Calm.

Two pairings decide the turns you attack. Thousand-Tailed Watcher brings every enemy unit with 4 might or less down to 1; then Bellows Breath, an Action for 1 energy and a Mind power, deals 1 to up to three units at the same location, and all three die. Pay its Repeat as well (1 more energy and a Mind power) and units that started at 5 might die the same way. Whiteflame Protector gives a unit +8 might this turn, but it arrives exhausted at your base, so play it before you move and give the +8 to the ready unit about to attack: a Steel Paws or a Scuttle Crab walks in at 8.

Hide Temporal Breach at a battlefield you control for one power: from the next turn on, the opponent’s included, it plays for 0 energy as a Reaction. It banishes a unit, then its owner plays it again at the same location without paying its cost, so its play effect happens a second time. Breach the Whiteflame Protector waiting at your base during their attack and a defender gets +8 might; Breach your Thousand-Tailed Watcher and every enemy unit has -3 might for the turn. Zhonya’s Hourglass catches the next friendly unit that would die, whichever it is, and recalls it to base exhausted. Played early, it gets used up by a Scuttle Crab or a Tasty Faefolk you meant to lose, whose Deathknell then never happens: hide it instead, and play it when the unit you care about is about to die. Each card you hide costs one power, a rune off the board.

Numbers to hold on their turn: two energy covers a Discipline, or a Stupefy with a Retreat, and a single ready Calm rune pays for Defy on its own. Exhaust it for the energy, then recycle it for the power. Defy counters a spell that costs no more than 4 energy and one power. Charm, 1 energy and a Calm power, moves an enemy unit but has neither Action nor Reaction, so it only plays on your own turn: use it to take their lone defender off the battlefield Nasus is about to walk into. Time Warp is the last word: 10 energy and four Mind power for a whole extra turn, which begins with every rune and the legend readied, two more runes channelled and a point for every battlefield you hold. Cast it on a turn when you control both battlefields.