Backstory

After seeing a complete lack of pathfinder usage prior to April of 2023 I decided I wanted to make a deck that was fun and could work competitively against other top tier decks. After experimenting with many decks, the main consensus from people was that Pathfinder was no longer viable after being nerfed several times from the playtesting stages, so Pathfinders Revenge was born. I strove to prove Pathfinder was still able to win games while having a fun and unique mechanic to every other avatar.

Update! Rift Valley now works with Pathfinder, see FAQ entry for more info.

Strategy

The way to win with this deck is to prevent yourself from going to deaths door for as long as possible with rootspiders, divine healing, and vampires to heal lots. Then you start swinging in with the heavy hitters. Pudge can be played whenever but also remember you can use him to maneuver your own pathfinder. Highland clansmen are important because your opponent has no way to respond the turn played unless they have blockers on every site which is unlikely.

General Tips

1. You won't have the luxury to mulligan sites like every other avatar that gets the ability to see up to 6 of their sites before their first turn. For Pathfinder whatever site you get, your stuck with. To make a consistent Pathfinder deck, you need a minimum of 9 sites of each element you are playing, thus making tri-color decks very inconsistent.

2. Because of site inconsistency, don't expect to get a 2 threshold spell out until turn 3 or 4, and sometimes not even until turn 5.

3. If you start by playing two sites towards your opponent and then filling in the sites to your left or right, you are almost guaranteed to get 6 sites/mana by turn 6 every game, and at that point threshold isn't a problem anymore. To ensure more consistency or more mana, mobility spells like blink are very important

4. Unlike the sorcerer avatar you only get to draw one spell per turn and then once you're out, you're out. You need to make every spell count so adding ramp isn't as helpful, (usually) so things like cores aren't an auto include.

Mulligan

Cards You Want To See - Blink, Common Sense, Daperyll Vampire, Root Spider, Bury.

It will vary game to game, but these cards you always want to keep at least one copy of in your opening hand. Blink means you can get sites out easily while still getting a card later. Common Sense lets you get that blink you might not have drawn, or removal later in the game. Vampire and Spider both prolong you the game and are key to your victory.

Cards You Don't Want To See - Craterize, Divine Healing, Grandmaster Wizard, Lighting Bolt, Disenchant, Highland Clansmen

These you will almost always want to mulligan these in your opening hand as they will clog your hand early and you want to get those cards that will prolong the game. Craterize you want to get later in the game, and you could draw it later if you shuffle you're deck with a common sense. Divine Healing doesn't have a guarantee you can play because of 3 threshold so its a good mulligan too. There are also enough Highland Clansmen to draw one later or search one with a common sense.

Everything else you have to make an educated decision on whether or not to keep it based on other cards in hand, what avatar your opponent is playing, or just a gut feeling! Maybe you drew a Mix Aer and a Sky Baron and want to get that out early.

Match Ups

Deathspeaker: You have to be careful of wizards and vile imps beating you down since you don't have early blockers, then you go into earth fire air deathspeaker or just air fire deathspeaker which have 2 different play styles. When playing against a Deathspeaker with earth beware of Wraetannis Titan and Craterize, two power house spells that change the game very quickly. Otherwise, try to stay away from your opponents sites with your avatar and always get out of range of summoning sphere to avoid Nimbus Jinn and Vile Imps. A general tip when facing Deathspeaker would be to try not to kill their stuff so they don't get the benefit of casting it from the cemetery but also watch out for chip damage from all their little minions.

Battlemage: Very similar threat as deathspeaker, lots of early attackers could get you down to 15-10 health by turn 3 or 4 so healing from vampire or divine healing is key. Battlemage also has 2 unique play styles. For both you want to start the game by placing your second site to the left or right of your avatar to avoid them having direct access to your avatar as turn 2 grapple shot is common in these types of Battlemage aggro decks. As early as possible you need to determine if they are using minions or only artifacts and spells to buff the avatar. If they aren't using minions, take advantage of the fact that bury can target artifacts and slow down Battlemage as much as possible so you can start swinging with larger minions than they can handle.

Avatar of Earth (AoE): This match up is scary since you don't have any removal vs an avatar and you are playing earth sites which buff your opponents avatar, this avatar heavily relies on grapple shot though and pathfinder has easy mobility to avoid that while still placing sites unlike most avatars. Turn 2 site placement will vary game to game but advancing forward is an okay option as AoE doesn't a high power early on for grapple shot to be worth it. The best tip I could give in this match up is to bait their Bury and Earthquakes with weaker minions before playing a Vampire to ensure you can gain life off it, also try to play your minions on water sites if you can to prevent bury mechanics.

Sorcerer: Pretty standard avatar that could be playing a wide range of decks, the main thing you have to look out for is if you run out of cards in hand before you get them to deaths door it is basically game over since you can't survive late game vs an avatar drawing 2 spells per turn.

Didn't Make the Cut

I've tried so many variations of Pathfinder decks and discovered that many cards that work super well with almost every other deck just weren't worth playing in a Pathfinder deck. I would like to preface that you should try these out yourself and see if you come to the same conclusion because things are always changing and I'm not perfect!

Elemental cores: Overtime I found that whenever I drew an onyx core, or an amethyst core, in my games they were no longer helpful. Pathfinder ramps mana so quickly they really aren't needed and I would rather have another 5 power minions or removal. I also found mix aer to be very helpful instead because getting a heavy drop down 1 turn earlier just lets it get removed 1 turn earlier, mix aer on the other hand lets you get something down 3 turns earlier or a minion and a grapple shot in the same turn and that can be more game changing.

Philosophers Stone: I didn't hate this card and would recommend testing it yourself but I still found that since I normally get 10 sites out every game, I would rather have removal or a heavy hitter.

Frontier Settlers: With no mulling of sites you get what you get for threshold so even though these cost only 2 mana 2 earth, they commonly came down turn 3 or 4 and like I said earlier pathfinder doesn't really need more ramp but removal to kill anything your opponent ramps out.

Angel's Egg: I find it to be too slow and risky since you would in most cases play it on you avatar and Pathfinder moves around a lot, with in range of dispel, disenchant or just pushed onto opponents site. I find divine healing to be more effective at keeping me alive.

I've just taken Mirror Realm out, I don't think it works very well anymore. It doesn't help to get threshold that I don't have, just threshold that I already have so I've replaced it with a crossroads

Final Notes

This deck is very light on uniques. If you don't have a Grim Reaper feel free to swap it out for a Shield Maidens or another Skirmishers of Mu! Philosopher's Stone isn't a requirement.

Pathfinder's Revenge

@Zachattack