1. Getting horrible Mulligan. You have to have the lowest cost cards you can get to start. You want a handful of 0,1 and 2 at the most.

2. Not playing it as what it is, which is AGGRO. Face. All the time. Everything you have. If you get the ring and have a Firebrand, Marked Man, Scimitar and Initiate you break the ring and use 2 mana to play everything but the initiate. Face. Face. Face. Hit all the time. Most of my games are over at turn 6, sometimes 5.

3. Your opponent gets a nice low mulligan with counters. You are going to lose these games. If your field is getting cleared off in the first few turns and by turn 4 your opponent has more than 15 health… it’s about a 95% chance you are toast. Recovery from that is really difficult.

It’s an aggro deck. Don’t think too hard. Don’t save cards “in case x or y might happen”. Kill. Maim. Destroy. Burn the village. Kill the women and children. Loot the treasury. Destroy their culture and religion. It’s a Crusader – that’s what they do.

The only time you aren’t hitting face is if they have DRAIN on the board. You have to address drain always, if you think you can wait to do it the next turn it’s too late. If guard comes up… plow through it and/or switch lanes.

Cheers.

Level on this site is not the same as rank in TESL. I’m playing this at rank 3 and above with mostly success. You are right that in the current meta it’s not a great contender at rank 1 and in to legend… but when it is the advice I gave stands – that’s the way to play a solid aggro deck.