Vigilant Ancestor is already one of my favourite cards, completely replacing one of my old favourites Camlorn Sentinel. I find it invaluable in intelligence control decks as is. But here we take advantage of its great offensive stats by running it along side older cards who also have nuts stats but suffer crippling penalties. Vigilant Ancestor shares a crippling penalty: it’s permanently shackled (not unlike Imprisoned Deathlord).

So we turn these mostly useless cards into wrecking balls by either silencing them or purging their shackle with Dres Renegade. Another great card with a crippling penalty is Throne Aligned, which shackles the card you’re turning into a monster. Unfortunately the silence approach doesn’t work for cards you’ve buffed with Throne Aligned, since you’d remove the buff at the same time.

East Empire Crafter buffs all of our creatures with crazy stats and gives them guard, which is very useful for stalling an enemy while you wait to find or play a silence or Dres Renegade. Most importantly, it is the key that turns Falling Wizard into a playable card. Falling Wizard will be buffed by East Empire Crafter with +1/+1 before it does 5 damage to itself, enabling it to survive with 1 hp. Crafter also turns Dark Guardian, a great card in and of itself, into a 3 mana Hive Defender with a bonus of giving you card draw when the enemy lands a prophecy from a broken rune (something pretty common when you’re being very aggressive).

You’ll notice however that we’re missing two sources of silence available to our class. I can tell you with certainty that Suppress is not worth playing under any circumstances. It’s a waste of a card slot. This deck simply can’t guarantee to pile one useful attacking creature after another since the core damage dealers usually require a silence or shackle to be removed. Suppress can turn one card into a monster, but when that card is removed you’re down two cards. This is true of Sorcerer’s Negation also, but that card has much more total utility than does Suppress.

The other missing silence is Cursed Spectre. The worst part about this card is that it’s actually really good in this deck and I wish I could include it. Unfortunately the deck is overloaded on 4-drops as is– the nature of the beast when two core creatures cost 4, one core silence costs 4, and the only shackle-removing card in the game also costs 4. And lastly, under no circumstances will I omit Lightning Bolt in an intelligence deck, especially an aggressive one like this which has great use for face-hitting lethal reach. In theory I could swap out the highest costing cards of the deck for Cursed Spectre, but they’re cards that are actually playable in other decks and are thus useful in a greater number of scenarios, even in this deck which loves silence.

Speaking of the highest costing cards: these are not core to the concept. If you don’t have them, don’t craft them. I believe they are the most useful additions to the deck, but many cards could also round out the top of the deck’s curve and add utility and/or unconditional finishing tools (tools that don’t require you to silence them first!). Bone Colossus is a staple in most aggressive sorcerer decks. Dark Guardian and Imprisoned Deathlord will even receive its skeleton buff. Stronghold Eradicator I’ve seen run in midrange sorcerer decks as well, though admittedly it’s not as common. It’s not just a great body for its cost (the running theme of this deck’s creatures), but its utility of drawing a creature out of cover can be invaluable as well.

If you don’t have or don’t want to use Stronghold Eradicator, Hallowed Deathpriest is a decent replacement. While it’s not as aggressive of an option, and is still of epic rarity, the utility it provides can easily be game changing. It is a core or popular card in many other decks and is thus worth crafting. And lastly it has synergy with your two buffing creatures: East Empire Crafter and Bone Colossus will both give it +1/+1. Another option for the same cost is Indomitable Ordinator (alas also epic, damn the 5 slot!). While costing 1 more mana for the effect, it becomes untargetable by actions, making it that much harder for your opponent to remove it. And it has enough health to be effected by East Empire Crafter. For all the same reasons Nahagliiv fits the deck well, especially as a replacement for Bone Colossus if you lack them.

So I classify this deck as “aggro”, though it’s not far from a midrange deck. It can’t always plant a creature capable of attacking every turn. What it can easily accomplish though is swiftly setting up an overwhelming amount of damage on board which can be unlocked with a few keys enabling swift victory. Additionally, even if you aren’t capable of immediately dealing the damage, the threat of the enourmous damage you’re preparing for such a cheap cost can’t go unlooked. As such the enemy usually has to trade multiple cards for any one of yours, bleeding them of resources over just the threat of damage. Since your threats never stop hitting the board you can run them dry of removal before even striking a blow, then after finding the silence or Dres Renegade exploding into a game-ending attack.

A note on Dres Renegade: he removes rather than pauses shackles. This means that if you play him after a Vigilant Ancestor, the Vigilant Ancestor will be permanently shackle-free even after Renegade is removed. If the enemy plays a creature while your Imprisoned Deathlord and Dres Renegade are in play your Imprisoned Deathlord will not be shackled, even if Renegade dies the same turn. Next turn if you haven’t silenced the Deathlord he’ll be able to be shackled again if Renegade is dead.

A final note on crafting: only one legendary card is used and as stated before isn’t necessary. As such this deck isn’t too awful to craft for if you’re missing any cards. The awkward part is many of these cards are of epic rarity that aren’t used in any other deck. Of the epics included, only Shadowfen Priest is widely played across a myriad of decks. I do think that Vigilant Ancestor is worth picking up if you enjoy playing slow decks though.