📘 Book of Bones — Necromancer Attrition Control (Primer)

Budget: $48.74 shipped as of 1/27/25 using TCGplayers cart optimization

Avatar: Necromancer

Elements: Air / Water

Game Plan: Skeleton-driven attrition and control

Deck tech video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze9Emer3wE8

link to affiliate tcg players mass entry: https://partner.tcgplayer.com/4G69N0

🧠 What This Deck Is Trying to Do

Book of Bones is an attrition-control deck built around one idea:

Turn cheap, disposable bodies into cards, control, and inevitability.

You are not racing your opponent.

You are outlasting them.

This deck wins by:

generating Skeletons every turn,
forcing unfavorable trades, and
slowly locking the board until your opponent runs out of meaningful actions.

If the game goes long, you are favored.

🧙‍♂️ Understanding the Avatar: Necromancer

Necromancer is the engine that makes everything work.

Key abilities:

Tap → Play or draw a site
This gives the deck incredible consistency. You will almost never miss mana or thresholds.
Once per turn, pay (1) → Summon a Skeleton token here
This is your fuel. Skeletons are:
blockers,
sacrifice fodder,
removal enablers,
and win conditions when combined with other cards.

Always ask yourself:

“Can I afford to make a Skeleton this turn?”

Most of the time, the answer is yes.

🗺️ Early Game (Turns 1–3): Set Up and Stall

Your early turns are about stability, not aggression.

What you want to do early:

Play sites every turn (use Necromancer’s tap ability if needed)
Deploy cheap minions like:
Novice Necromancer
Apprentice Wizard
Porcupine Pufferfish
Start making Skeletons

What you should NOT do:

Rush attacks on the enemy Avatar
Trade valuable control spells too early
Overextend into bad fights

Blocking is good.

Trading is good.

Dying is often good — as long as you get value.

☠️ Midgame (Turns 4–7): The Attrition Engine Turns On

This is where Book of Bones starts to feel unfair.

Your main goals:

Keep Skeleton production flowing
Start converting bodies into advantage
Control positioning on the board

Key synergies:

Bone Jumble
Turns Skeletons into a reusable minion. Once it hits the cemetery, it’s very hard to keep dead.
Pile of Skulls / Open Mausoleum
Add extra Skeletons beyond Necromancer’s once-per-turn limit.
Wiccan Tools
Fix awkward thresholds and turn extra bodies into cards.
Book of the Dead
Lets you replay dead minions — your cemetery becomes a resource, not a graveyard.

At this point, your opponent should feel like:

Every trade favors you
Every removal spell barely matters
You always have something left on the board

That’s exactly where you want them.

⚔️ Board Control & Interaction

You don’t run removal just to “answer threats.”

You run interaction to control how fights happen.

Important control tools:

Freeze / Grievous Insult
Buy time, shut down abilities, and prevent explosive turns.
Blink / Tactical Move
Positioning wins Sorcery games. These spells let you:
save key units,
set up forced fights,
and protect your engines.
Wave of Eviction / Dredge
Water-based board control that breaks formations and creates bad trades for your opponent.

Use these reactively, not aggressively. Let your opponent commit first.

🧟 Closing the Game: How You Actually Win

You usually win in one of three ways:

1️⃣ Forced Trades with Lord of Lies

Lord of Lies lets you choose who fights — and that’s deadly when:

you have expendable Skeletons,
and your opponent doesn’t.

Every activation pushes the board further in your favor.

2️⃣ Grinding Damage with Regurgitator

Regurgitator turns dead minions into:

repeated projectile damage, or
graveyard denial.

This lets you:

pick off key units,
pressure life totals,
and shut down opposing recursion.

3️⃣ Board Swings with Draconian Bonekite & Witching Hour

These are your “break the stalemate” cards:

Draconian Bonekite wipes clusters and replaces them with Skeletons.
Witching Hour turns a stalled board into an evasive, lethal attack.

You don’t need to rush these — wait until they end the game or lock it up.

🏰 Playing the Atlas Correctly

Your Atlas is built for consistency, not tricks.

Key points:

You are Water-heavy — hit W2 reliably for midgame threats.
Air is secondary but steady — enough for Blink, movement, and disruption.
Several sites generate or reward Skeletons, reinforcing the main plan.
Necromancer’s tap ability smooths out awkward draws.

Don’t overthink site placement.

Prioritize:

Mana consistency
Defensive positioning
Skeleton synergy

✅ Common Mistakes to Avoid

❌ Overattacking early
❌ Forgetting to make a Skeleton each turn
❌ Trading control spells for low-impact threats
❌ Ignoring positioning (nearby locations matter!)

Remember:

You win by surviving and exhausting the opponent — not by racing.

🏁 Final Thoughts

Book of Bones is a budget deck that:

teaches strong Sorcery fundamentals,
rewards patient play,
and scales incredibly well into long games.

It’s resilient, flexible, and miserable to play against —

which, honestly, is exactly what a Necromancer deck should be.

If you like decks that always feel like they have one more turn,

this one’s for you. 💀🦴

Book of Bones

@ForkedTT