For the past two weeks you have been sharing your awesome ideas for the decks with us and now it is time to conclude what ideas are the best. However, before we jump into the results let's look closely at Soulbound Sagami, the card that contestants had to build a deck around.

Soulbound Sagami — Card Analysis

At first glance Soulbound Sagami seems quite bad. Although for 6 faeria cost this card has a total of 6/10 stats which is almost as good as Thyrian Golem's 5/10 for 5 faeria, Soulbound Sagami has several considerable downsides:

• When you pay 6 faeria to play Soulbound Sagami you only get a 3/5 creature whereas you could pay the same amount to get a strurdier creature, for example 7/7 Verduran Force. Sagami is an antitempo card — by playing this much faeria for this weak creature you risk to lose board control even though you may get a big pay off later.
• Soulbound Sagami's Last Words effect is random. This huge 3/5 buff may move to a creature that doesn't need it, for example it may move to your harvester on the other side of the board far away from enemy creatures. If you cannot trade with the buffed creature immideately then you give your opponent an opportunity to trade efficiently.
• Soulbound Sagami's Last Words effect doesn't trigger at all if you have no other creatures on board. If your opponent manages to clear all your other creatures before killing Soulbound Sagami it puts you at a huge disadvantage because you basically wasted 3 faeria on a Last Words effect that didn't even trigger.

These downsides explain why Soulbound Sagami does not see competetive play. No surprise that 6 faeria 2 land requitements card with 8 faeria worth stats has that many flaws. However, if we build our deck carefully taking into consideration these downsides we can gain full value from this card. First, here are the best creatures to have to ensure that Soulbound Sagami's Last Words effect triggers:

• Divine Guardian is an excellent buff target. Its high health and Divine keyword make it very difficult to kill. With Divine Guardian on board you can be confident that Soulbound Sagami's Last Words effect will not be wasted. Not to mention that Divine Guardian is a great buff target. Thanks to its Divine keyword your opponent will be forced to take ineffiecient trades because he will not have an opportunity to finish it off with Seifers Wrath, Soul Drain or Emperors Command.
• Living Willow is another difficult-to-kill buff catcher that makes it safe to use Soulbound Sagami.
• Battle Toads are not that sturdy, however there are two of them meaning that it is very likely that at least one of toads will be alive and ready to catch the Soulbound Sagami's buff.
• This is funny but Annoying Gnat is Sagami's best friend because it is literally unkillable and always-ready-to-catch-a-buff creature. Together with Elderwood Hermit it could make an interesting deck.

This is not the end of the list but these are probably the best options. Now let's look at cards that could make the best use of Soulbound Sagami's buff. Before we do it, answer the question: what is better, Elderwood Embrace on Wood Elemental or on Sagami Warrior? If you've answered Wood Elemental, you won, take a cookie! Of course it depends on these creatures' positioning and whether they could efficiently trade with the enemy creature but in general a buff on a creature with Taunt or any other keyword or ability is better that on a creature with no abilities. With this idea in mind let's look at creatures and keywords that could make the best use of buffs and especially Soulbound Sagami's buff.

• Fortunately, our best survival creatures all have useful keywords: Divine Guardian with Divine, Living Willow with Taunt, Battle Toads with jump and Annoying Gnat with Flying. What a good luck!
• Jump and Charge creatures are probably the best buff targets especially for Soulbound Sagami and Elderwood Hermit's random buffs. As already discussed, one of the weaknesses is that the buff may move to a creature that is unable to make use of the buff immideately. It's not that big of a problem for Jump and Charge creatures, however, because thanks to their mobility they have a higher chance to reach enemy creatures. Apart from Battle Toads, Triton Warrior is one of the best jump creatures to catch Soulbound Sagami's 3/5 buff because with it Triton Warrior goes up to 7 attack. And a lot of popular creatures have exactly 7 health like Windstorm Colossus, Wavecrash Colossus, Living Willow, Verduran Force, Crackthron Beast (if played with no friendly creatures on board).
• Combat creatures are another great buff targets. Underground Brigand and Underground Boss are already quite good on their own but everyone knows how good it is if you manage to make them hit twice using Gift of Steel. With the help of green buffs including Soulbound Sagami you could get even more value out of your combat creatures. Although you should be careful becuase combat creatures share the same problem of being an antitempo card.
• Long-horned yak has a good synergy with buffs. At the same time its attack damage buff can hit your Soulbound Sagamis which will become at least 5/5 so playing it for 6 faeria may be even worth it.

Well there are a lot of great buff targets but listing them all may take too much time. Anyway, there's still other notable cards that may be come in handy in a Sagami deck.

• Feed the Forest is a great card to trigger Sagami's Last Words effect. You may even sacrifice another creature and then trade with Soulbound Sagami to ensure that the buff goes to the third creature. However, feeding Sagami results in a 3/5 buff for 2 faeria which is fine but not really that great, it is better to use Feed on Oaklings or other high health creatures to gain faeria so Feed the Forest in my opinion is a decent tool to use when you have to but not a go-to combo.
• Failed Experiment is another decent tool but again not good enough for it to be a go-to combo. 3/5 buff for 3 faeria and two cards is questionable so you only want to go for it if you have to or you have other cards that benefit for creatures dying.
• You may also trigger Last Words effect with yellow sacrifice effects like Demon Wrangler, Lord of the Wastes and others. However, we have to remember that sacrificing a 3/5 body is a very bad idea. Elderwood Hermit fits this role much better. You could still go for it if manage to trade once before sacrificing which brings us to
• Mobility cards. Mobility may give you an option to trade with Soulbound Sagami and let it die and trigger its Last Words effect or it may stay alive and become a great target for yellow sacrifice effects. And it's always a good idea to have mobility in your deck anyway. Sagami Grovecaller, Syland Horsemaster, Prophet of Tides and Oradrim Fanatic are good options because they also provide you with a body to catch Sagami's buff.

Metashaker #4 results

G Experiment

Onnig90's G Experiment is a mono green deck with Failed Experiment splashed. Although Feed the Forest and Failed Experiment are not good enough on their own with Soulbound Sagami, this deck gains value by creatures dying with Bone Collector and Spirit of Rebirth. It also has a lot of creatures to play with Failed Experiment apart from Soulbound Sagami. For this highly synergetic deck Onnig90 recieves 5000 gold, congratulations!

Divine rush

Divine rush made by Eshi is a deck that focused on throwing all the buffs on Divine Guardians. Once you manage to place a buffed Guardian near your opponent's face it's probably impossible for your opponent to defend. For this unique idea Eshi recieves 2500 gold, well done!

Soulbound Threatdown

Soulbound Threatdown made by TWAdorno800 is a GY deck that utilizes mobility to trade favorably with Soulbound Sagami and then go for a two turn kill with buffed Possesed Ursus or 10/8 Lord of the Wastes. For this interesting approach TWAdorno800 recieves 1000 gold, good job!

Honorable mentions

Unsung heroes by Aasgier has a very nice buff synergy with Unlikely Heroes and Sharra. Oath of Shaytan is a somewhat crazy yet interesting Monstrosity deck. Hunger Games by dDuh is a clean and fine-tuned GB deck with an impressive deck description, nice work!

That's it!

Thank you everyone for sharing your awesome ideas! Watch Luuu90's Metashaker #4 deck submissions review to take a look at some other submissions as well and to know what he thinks about them.

See you later! We are taking a short break for now. We will come back later when the new cards will be released or more of them will be revealed. Check the news on the Hub or offical Faeria discord #tournaments channel for the Metashaker deckbuilding contest #5!