Intro

What happens when you stray from the path? In search for light, you instead encounter darkness. You surrender to it.

The sweet taste of revenge. What was once suppressed now rises to the surface. This is the Path of Darkness!

Pathfinder has lost its way—and that’s a good thing, because we are on the path to great power! We harness evil and destroy our enemies.

Gameplay

The idea is simple, we use the Pathfinder ability to naturally generate card advantage and still get a site every turn to curve into our evil army. The goal is to max out at 6-7 Mana and play our marvelous big daddy Mephistopheles. We drop our Pathfinder ability and use the card advantage we build up to this point to simply put a threat in play every turn.

What I feel like is super important in this list is, to play minions that do something the turn they enter. This makes a big difference to gain board control and turn the game in your favor.

Actually the Imposter was the inspiration for this list. We start with Pathfinder and end on an avatar that uses it card advantage in the late game. Sidenote: When we replace our Avatar with Mephistoteles, we can attack with him in the same turn for 4 Damage. That makes him a 4 Power Charger that drops any Evil minion on board in the same turn as we play him and all that for 6 Mana! hello???

The deck plays out pretty smooth. Usually we won’t play much in the first few turns, since the 2 Mana spells are pretty situational. We really start to come on board on turn 3. Then we pretty much go with the curve, play mana effective spells, trade a lot and try to gain board control. After turn 3 we slowly generate cardadvantage thanks to Pathfinders ability. After Turn 5-6 we are more likely to have the upper hand on board. We slowly grind our opponent in the mid to late game. Best is to keep track of opponents cards in hand and don´t over commit against potential board wipes. At this point we can make the transition and be offensive, getting damage in.

Our tools

We like to move, and we are moving a lot!

Thats why Key to the City and Flame of the First Ones are perfect tools for Pathfinder.
With Blink we can reposition in case we are trapped in a corner.
Grapple Shot is great, especially in combination with our big hitters, hitting twice as hard
Cerberus in Chains, our evil Companion that keeps us save while we travel the realm.

We are evil and that's for a reason!

Eclipse is our Jihad/Crusade equivalent just for evil minions.
Grigori Rasputin recycles our evil minions and combos with Vile Imp and Hotwheel. Especially nice with bogyman :D
Witching Hour buffs our evil army as a whole and makes defending more difficult, just what we need!
We hate the holy Spirit and despise its warding hand, thats why we play Bane of Aventis
We won´t let them answer at least not with what they are looking for. Legion of Gall helps us with that.

Cards, more cards!

Char Omphalos is the perfect addition as a stationary spellcaster that draws us a card every turn
Clairvoyant helps us with looking for the perfect answer and brings us a bit closer to Mephistopheles.

The graveyard hate is not to underestimate!

Grandmaster Wizard is perfect, when we are ahead on board. Not necessary but super swingy against other value decks.
Browse is the perfect tool to filter our deck effectivly, a must have in most decks that run Air.
Searing Truth is the final push on deaths door but can make us draw as well, best of both worlds!
The Black Mass helps us assemble our evil army and gets us closer to Mephistopheles

Thoughts

I like this deck. It plays out pretty smooth thanks to the nature of Pathfinder. I like a lot of interactions in this deck. Eclipse enables so much more potential, for example buffs the hotwheels at the effected locations, Bogyman can pick up 4 Power Minions here and with Young Master Damion we are buffing 3 minions at once. Grigori Rasputin recycles our early game Minions like Vile Imps, Hotwheels and Jack the Ripper and triggers their Genesis effects again. It is lots of fun to play, it feels strong and well matched against a lof of other decks. Being on curve and having the treshold u need for the cards in your hand, is key to success. Just take effecitve trades and utilize the card advantage. And the matches play out in your favor!

From my playtesting this weekend I must say Ersatz Platz is an MVP and saved me from going crash out 2 games out of 3 by putting Volcano or Mountain Peaks from the Collection into play. Another MVP is Blink, with the addition of Overflow and Landmass in Gothic, we are more likely to get bullied out of landdrops. Always worth it to keep in the opening hand, since we almost alawys need to use it at some point. I would play 4 Blinks if I could but honestly this deck is packed to the brim and i don´t have any idea what to cut.

Downside

Its not the most competitive deck i would say. That comes from the fact, that we play two elements and a lot of double or tripple treshold in both. As Pathfinder we can't controll what site is played so we have to trust the process. I think it would be more consistent in 1 Element only like Air or Fire but i like the combination since we have access to best of both world. If we have treshold problems and get behind, the chances are not the best to come back. Then we are dependent on mass removal like a well placed poison nova or major explosion. We have problems against non minion based matchups like Archi and Enchantress, espacially when we are too slow and without a good opening.

I hope you enjoy this list. I love the cards that are played in it. Its a lot of fun to play and experience the new gothic cards, espacially combined with the nature of big Mana!

Feel free to let me know what you think and what could be improved. Like, share and comment!

Path of Darkness

@InuitZee