2-Cost Abyss Guide

One of the newest tier 1 decks for Alterchaotica, 2-Cost abyss is a deck carried by the particularly strong new cards Crimson Rose Queen and Alterplane Arbiter.

True to its name, a vast majority of the deck feature 2-cost spells and followers, utilising Alterplane Arbiter to clear the enemy board, replenish your hand, and bridge you to that all-powerful Crimson Rose Queen to either heal to insurmountable amounts, or simply burn the enemy to death.

For most decks, they must kill the 2-cost Abyss player before they can successfully reach the Crimson Rose Queen turn, which provides you with a clear and consistent game plan.

Decklist

This time, we have two variants of the decklist. The first is from my good friend Justin Mao, and the other is from William, the Second-Place BCS Sydney Finisher. Both lists are good; you can use whichever one you prefer. I will explain the differences between the two.

The one from Justin has a focus on a consistent late game. Maisha is both a well-statted 2-drop in general that must be answered on curve, but it also provides us with a very strong late game finisher against decks which attempt to grind us out. Personally, I am not a large fan of Tart Man in the deck, but it does guarantee us Crimson Rose Queen/Arbiter. I tend to prefer the second Hell's Unleasher as you can recur it with Arbiter and that lets you access your entire toolbox on demand.

William's list has a heavier focus on the Sanguine package, utilising even the Idolmaster 2-cost that is an exceptional tempo tool that comboes well with the rest of the deck. I also like the inclusion of Hellblaze Demon, it snowballs very heavily if you are lucky and can put your followers outside of common removal ranges.

General Card Explanations:

Obviously, the deck must run 3 copies of Crimson Rose Queen and Alterplane Arbiter, which are the most powerful cards in the deck. You would run more of both if you could. Crimson Rose Queen should only be played when it is impactful to the game state. Usually, it will be, as long as you used Arbiter to refill your hand.

As for Arbiter - it is usually better to hold it until you can evolve it. If your opponent forces it out, fine, drop it for the tempo clear. But don't forget that you actually do need this card to win the game with Rose Queen. Incidentally, this is why I like the inclusion of two Hell's Unleasher in William's deck, cause then you can play this on turn 5, then use turn 6 to recur it (while opponent is recoiling from the clearing your 5/5).

For Rose Queen, some decks have no real answers to it (like Puppet), so it's fine to slam. But against other decks, you want to be more careful about how it leads you directly into victory (i.e, two turn lethal setups, or clearing problematic boards/healing out of lethal range)

Most 2-cost lists also opt for the Ruleneye Package. This card fits in very well into the deck, due to its strong stats, disruptive potential, and scaling into late game after Necrocharge 10. In addition, the deck sometimes runs the new 2-cost spell that can recur him.

I won't go too much into depth on the various 2-cost removals. These are mainly here to bridge you to Alterplane -> Rose Quen.

Most of the 2-cost followers can be described as tempo tools. Use them to value trade whenever possible and protect your life total so that you can safely reach late game. Some of them also have pseudo-ward, like Vuella, where your opponent is forced to remove them no matter what the cost.

Kiss of Lust is self explanatory, it draws cards and heals you. It is not an early game card unless you have literally nothing else in hand or must hit Arbiter/Rose Queen or lose. It's also not something I'd play without the Sanguine effect.

Maisha/Valnareik are your OTK tools, but you can play them on curve when it makes sense to do so.

Game Plan

Early game: Focus on efficient trading with the opponent and protecting your life in the early game. Your turn 2 usually plays itself tbh (play follower before any spell in most circumstances). Ruleneye on turn 3 if you have Evo Point, otherwise turn 4 is usually fine too.

Mid game: Note that most of your opponents are going to try to force you to Alterplane early, try to avoid this, but considering your opponent is trying to make you do it - some games you'll have no choice. Often, this will be somewhat telegraphed, or you can tell that you simply cannot deal with their board otherwise. In these situations, I'd consider trading a bit of life and leaving my followers standing (depending on the opponent's deck).

Basically, imagine your opponent has a 3/3 and you evolve a Ruleneye on Turn 4. Instead of trading, you take 4-7 damage and then slam Arbiter next turn swing 4 to face. This can put your opponent into a situation where they have to clear full HP Ruleneye AND Full HP Arbiter, which can be very hard to do. That said, whether you can do this is dependent on the matchup and your personal judgement. Obviously, don't do this if taking the extra 3-damage means they can just straight up race and kill you.

Late game: This is where you start overwhelming your opponent with your overstatted Arbiter/Rose Queen. The classic combo is obviously Alterplane -> evolve -> next turn Rose Queen evolve.

Rose Queen can set up some ridiculous lethals. For example, if you have 6 play points after Rose Queen evo, a combo of Valnareik, Razory, Crimson Thorn Bust does 15 damage even without the bonus +2/2 damage from Valnareik. But it's also worth noting that Rose Queen can just straight up grind out the opponent via AOE removal and free HP heal as well. Just assess the game state and see what makes sense.

First or second? 

I prefer to go first in general. While evo-points are nice, what tends to happen is that you have to use your evo points to keep up early, and you're usually going to run out prior to your Alterplane/Rose Queen turns, which means you are unable to get the "earlier combo turn", regardless.

Going first can be a bit rougher in the early game but once you get past the early game, hitting the crucial turn 7/8 before the opponent makes a very large difference.

Ultimately, don't worry too much about losing dice roll, it's playable on both sides.

Mulligan

Since a majority of your deck are 2-costs, you don't need to aggressively mulligan for a curve. Instead, I'd recommend mulling for Alterplane Arbiter (and if possible, Rose Queen), as this card is so egregiously overpowered that the other cards don't really matter comparatively. After all, most of your 2-cost cards ultimately do the same thing. In some matchups, esp going second, it's fine to just keep a decent 2-cost and Ruleneye (Decks like D-shift and Lishenna come to mind).

Matchups

Puppet Matchup 

I think this matchup is favoured. If you don't die before your Crimson Rose Queen turn, you pretty much win. As a result, they're aiming to kill you early. In some games, you can't do much, they get everything, and you can't clear/whiff on Alterplane. But in most games, they're not highrolling you; aim to clear their board and protect HP until Rose Queen turns.

On the Rose Queen turn, remember to hold at least one quick spell, such as Surefire or Razory Claw. Rose Queen's effect triggers on the opponent's turn, so the ways they can clear a 6/6 is severely limited and relies excessively on Roach. Even if you have neither in hand, it's often correct to bluff it anyway, as the range of plays they can take is severely limited if they need to play around 2 open play points. For example, if you have 0pp open, they just Orchis lol. Otherwise, they'll probably opt for Roach to clear the Rose Queen, which is fine if you have another one for next turn to seal the game.

Natura Sword 

Pretty even m/u imo, mainly due to Mistolina being a good card.

Against Natura Sword, your Rose Queen/Arbiter is never living more than a single turn on the board due to Princess Strike. Assume your opponent will be chaining Mistolina and adjust your heal/damage strategy accordingly. What this means is that if you cannot reasonably kill them within two turns (remember that Misto heals two), then you need to calculate whether you will die within their two turns. This will change how you utilise your Rose Queen.

Natura Sword is not necessarily aggressive in the early game, but they snowball heavily if you miss on your removal for Bayleon in particular. Aim to remove their followers via trading where possible (obviously, i would never advocate for using a 2-pp spell to clear a 1/2 but everything else is fair game). Watch out for Lupine Axeman and don't play your followers into it for no reason (assess their tree count).

This is a matchup where you can attempt the "trade HP for bigger Alterplane swing turn", but you can only do this if you feel you can race them through Mistolina chain (obviously impossible if you see certain EX-area setups). It's also possible to go for the mass HP heal route with Rose Queen if all else fails. Healing 3 times nullifies most of Mistolina's damage and gives you a chance to stat-check them (i.e, maybe they don't have the next Mistolina and it gives you time to set up). Dynamic matchup dependent on both player's skill.

Mirror match 

In the mirror match, it's ultimately a battle of who can extract the most value out of their opponent. Ruleneye is exceptional in this matchup as it forces the opponent to spend 3 mana to clear (surefire costing 1 more), and gives you the chance to rip Rose Queen or Arbiter from their hand.

Make sure to always consider their next turn and ensure you have an answer for it. I.e. before making your play - ask yourself how you deal with their arbiter/Rose Queen next turn. If you find that your intended play is bad against their best play, try to find a different one.

One of the major aspects of this matchup is controlling the turn before they Arbiter. For example, if you have the board lead and they are effectively forced to play it next turn anyway, you should prepare an out on your turn. Suppose you have no clean out - then you end up taking Arbiter to the face and a free evo. You can avoid this by setting up something like a surefire, for instance, to reduce the hp of the Arbiter to make it easier to clear the following turn.

While it's usually better to use Rose Queen for its aoe clear and hp effect, in tournaments with time limits, it's worth keeping an eye on how much time you have left and forcefully accelerate game state if needed (double game loss is quite possible).

This is also one of those matchups where you can consider trading hp for card advantage (for example, taking a bit of damage in exchange for a bigger Arbiter clear).

Other matchups

Disdain Dragon: Easy, don't take any unnecessary poke damage and clear their board repeatedly. They will fold the moment you drop Rose Queen and pick "heal" as the option.

Lishenna: Can be difficult if you whiff early and don't play carefully/don't draw multiple of your high-end cards. You want to curve out as heavily as you can early, where they are weak and are looking for an opportunity to play Lishenna. Do not let them play it for free without taking 4+ damage minimum!  Ruleneye is also a very strong card in this matchup, as their deck relies on spells and you can rip out crucial pieces within their hand (imagine ripping Lishenna XD). In the late game, don't do meaningless turns. You want to be putting together boards where your opponent cannot clear everything at once. For example, on your Rose Queen turn, you want to play as many of your 2-cost followers at once. If you are having trouble with this m/u look at the various popular Lishenna lists and memorise their range of plays for their pp to assess what your best plays are on a probability perspective.

Mono: Clear their board as much as you can, don't let them get an early Mono evo off. Your opponent is ultimately aiming to win before you can get to Rose Queen, because obviously, you win if you ever get to Alterplane -> Rose Queen curve. They can't do shit if you AOE 6 heal 6. Can consider going 2nd in this m/u so they don't get their evo curve on you.

Final thoughts:

It's actually pretty funny that this deck exists at all. They just printed two ridiculously overstatted cards (Alterplane/Rose Queen) and forcibly made the 2-cost archetype a thing.

In any case, I think this deck is heavily underperforming in recent BCS' compared to how strong I think it actually is. Not sure if it's because Puppets are a more attractive/easier deck to pilot or what, but certainly think this deck is stronger than it would appear based on results alone.

Hit me up if you have any questions about the deck but I think you can follow the general principles in this guide and do pretty well.