Renowned Legate is a heal and the 1/1 is insta-giblets for Altar.

Sacrificing Indoril Archmage is pretty much lane wipe, or stops aggression in its tracks.

Auroran Sentry: Heal, dominates agro if you can get it down.

Aryenn: Only 5 drop, you know it is coming on Altar. Add spell to hand and decrease cost for swing turns.

Telvanni Arcanist: Trades well early game, later can just drop and gib. Get a free spell and also if your Altar has progressed, say ready to drop an 8 drop, drop this in empty lane and insta taunt. Sure, you can do this with any minion, but this is the only one that is not conditional upon drop (harpy) or gives you nothing (ouch doing it to Daggerfall mage, thus why 2 Daggerfalls, and 3 of these…)

Skywatch Vindicator. I only have one, but I am getting much more impressed. So versatile.

Brutal Ashlander. Great for early game control, if you don’t draw until later, another great drop and gib.

Cunning ally will frustrate you, hard to depend on to proc, but making the deck more blue to proc seems to weaken it. think 50/50, the fuggit, just Sacrifice it.

Lol if they can’t kill Divath Fyr.

Overall, check out how many minions require silencing. They can’t silence them all. And if they want to remove altars…less to use on your Indoril, Auroran, Divayth, Miraak’s stolen target or Odhaviing.

Lots and lots of taunts. I think taunts on 4, 6 and 8 (oh, and 10 mantikora) make it VERY predictable to pull a taunt where you want one. This wrecks fools constantly.

This game has won with 9 cards left, has beaten Altar Asassins (Ice storm to reset their wispmother antics).

51 cards. If you must, remove a Cunning Ally, as mentioned below. (I just removed it because apparently to anal retentive know-it-alls, they see 51 cards and instantly know it all…first impressions and all that). I urge you to even try 52 cards, you rebel!

But there are some dynamics at play here that make me completely baffled at why 51 cards is pretty much like having sex with your sister…

First of all, if you get multiple Altars up, you thin your deck at an incredible rate. In a control vs control matchup, you will really need to watch the risk of drawing your whole deck. Since it is control, also watch the overdraw. One extra card is one more 3 drop.

Why so many three drops? Because in my experience, that’s the most common mana cost card you get to when using your Altars. Often they are removed by then or you have won the game. Any why three drops, second reason? Because they are extremely useable in early game, and still hold value late game.

This brings me to why no Schemers. Honestly, I never need the card draw, and while once in a while the extra cards would help in a fatigue game, that isn’t that common. Schemers are killed by mere pings. I want things that stick so I can altar them. I actually think full schemers in Altar assassin is a mistake. You drop a 3 drop, the go PING!!!!! And you have nothing to attack with OR sacrifice next turn because they had a simple 1 dmg ping. That is SUPER greedy. This deck is made to go ahead and be the beatdown if it lines up that way, and that is commonly how I win. I think the 0 cost Schemers for wispmother are why people want them in altar assassin, but I have never lost to one of those decks. They can have a full board of weaklings if they want, I just save my ice storms for it. then they have to start trying to draw and build a board again.

As for Supreme Atromancer, two things:

1. I want control over breaking their runes. Especially in a control vs control, the last thing I want to do is start feeding them cards. I often win those games, but it is a long, value based grind. I don’t need a finisher, in that way. I have tried it and got rid of it. Again, I don’t understand the complete obsession with every deck needing the same exact cards or else it is instantly trash.

2. Having a 9 drop for Altar is almost NEVER usable. In my 50+ games with this deck, I think I pulled a sweet roll for a 9 drop twice? And if you have spent NINE TURNS getting to that point, you usually have more altars up, so you simply altar it to sweet roll then altar again.

Also, I understand people’s hesitation in using the Auroran Sentries and Indorils, and someone asked why have two of both because they will make the altar less predictable.

Again, I rarely get an altar to 8, first of all. Second of all, saturation of 6/6 taunts with incredibly high secondary value is usually more valuable actually PLAYING them. there’s thought involved here. You rarely take the low hanging fruit and just play it because you have 8 mana and they have things on the board. You need to draw out their silences and removal, bait out larger boards and manage your health total.

I will tell you this, getting an archer or sorcerer (whom I beat all the time, those scourge of the ladders…) to 1-2 cards, the placing an Auroran Sntry in front of their remaining minions? That’s freakin game.