Intro

This version of Geomancer is focused on controlling the realm through sticky minions and powerful mass removal. It’s a midrange-control deck. Stabilize your position and outvalue your opponent.

This primer is an in-depth (subjective) strategy guide for Geomancer. Continue if you enjoy reading this kind of stuff. I wrote it as a way to thank the community and other fellow Geomancers who wrote similar guides, they were incredibly useful.

How I started with this deck.

My good friend Filip wanted us to go to a Cornerstone and familiarize ourselves with the rest of the Sorcery community. The problem was that we have been playing Sorcery for just two months and our card pool was small. My deck wasn’t even a full 60/30 yet.

I enjoy competing, so I wanted to come up with something that I could pilot to the top 8.

(E) Why Earth?

Earth has good minions and minions in Sorcery are often a removal spell on a stick. You can play earth defensively or aggressively. I enjoy this flexibility and playing control-ish decks. This element seemed to fit my playstyle very well. Coincidentally, no one else in our local playgroup played earth, so I was able to trade nearly all of my other cards for earth cards.

Before I ended with a Geomancer, I tried a few different avatars and elemental combos like:

Mud Necro
Mud Druid
Dust Sorcerer

Then I tried Geomancer. This avatar is better in practice than the card suggests. You WILL have 6 mana on turn 6 without drawing a single site. It’s not a flashy ability like Druid’s or Archimago’s, but it is a solid one. Some of your spells and sites allow you to get even more value from it (more on that in the later section).

Geomancer felt like the strongest and most consistent of all avatars I tried, so I started practicing with him hard.

(F) Why splash fire?

Fire gives access to good graveyard hate and powerful mass removal magics.

My wife often played fire [[Persecutor]], so I felt how strong a single [[Poison Nova]] could be.

(W) Why not splash water?

Water sites turn off your [[Root Spider]], [[Earthquake]], [[Cave-In]], and [[Bury]]. I would love to play a Mud build, but it doesn’t seem to be worth it with the current card pool.

(A) Why not splash air?

Dust build might actually be viable. [[Blink]], [[Whirling Blades]] and [[Grandmaster Wizard]] could effectively work in this shell. I didn’t have time to test this build. Try it yourself and tell me how it does! : )

Why not play [[Archimago]]?

I saw Geoffrey’s list and for some time I considered playing Archimago, as it shares a lot of cards and Archi’s ability is crazy good. So why did I ultimately decide against it? My reasons were:

I had no experience playing Archi and nobody in our playgroup plays him.
Archi seems like a very exhausting avatar to play for multiple rounds in a row.
Archi benefits more from Uniques that I didn’t have.
I was expecting an aggro meta, which sucks for Archi.
[[Mirage]] got fixed.
Archi is currently considered the most powerful avatar and I prefer to play off-meta builds.

I feel like my build of Geomancer has no really bad matchups, but it also doesn’t have any great ones either.

In preparation for the tournament I think I watched all the available recorded gameplay on Youtube, lurked through discords and looked up hundreds of different decklists on Curiosa. And of course played as much as I could. (In the few days prior to the Cornerstone, all my dreams were Sorcery related xD)

How to use Geomancer - A quick guide

1st turn - Play a Village under your avatar, summon a Foot Soldier, and place a Rubble in front of you.

2nd turn - Replace the Rubble. Play a 2-drop if you can.

3rd turn - Play a site to the left or right of the site in front of you. Place a Rubble behind it. Play a 3-drop if you can.

4th turn - Play another site and make a Rubble or replace the Rubble you made the turn before. You have to make a call depending on your opponent. Sometimes you want to go wide (and make a letter T) and sometimes you want to play your starting sites on one side (mostly when playing against aggro, so it's a bit easier to defend in the early turns.)

5th and 6th turn - by now you know what to do.

Your main goal is to make 3 Rubble tokens nearby and then replace them with sites from the top.

Gameplan:

Vs Aggro - Stabilize! Trade, block, preserve your life total. Attack when they run out of gas and you have a blocker ready. Kill their minions that could [[Whirling Blades]].

Vs Midrange - Focus on creating more value than they do. You have [[Craterize]], [[Major Explosion]] and other late-game cards. Control the board!

Vs Control - Pressure them early if you can. Your minions aren't so easy to remove. Again, there isn't much they can do to stop 10 damage coming from your [[Craterize]]. Focus your removal on things that could provide them value every turn, like Omphalos or [[Maiden, Mother, Crone]].

My thoughts on cards from this list:

Core cards:

[[Arjaro Exorcist]] - Spellcaster with a great genesis effect. There is often a good target for his ability. You can banish a [[Pudge Butcher]], [[Mariner’s Curse]] or [[Sphere of Animosity]]. One time I even used it to banish a Keening Banshee.

[[Root Spider]] - The best earth minion. His art is sick. It can buy you lots of time or you can use it to move and disable blockers from an adjacent site. I love them.

[[Gargantula]] - What’s up with earth and powerful spiders? Due to how its ability is written it can cocoon and disable minions with stealth or ward (removing those marks permanently) 4 power allows for trading with lots of popular minions.

[[Archangel Michael]] - The reward for going heavy into earth. Great genesis effect, hard to kill due to airborne and ward.

[[Toolbox]] - I love the utility of this card. I feel that earth and fire have a good pool of ordinary spells to prefer Toolbox over [[Silver Bullet]].

[[Mix Terra]] - Never saw it during the tournament, but I was impressed by this card during practice. Use it to play Michael, [[King of the Realm]], [[Returned King]] or [[Earthquake]] much, much sooner and use that early advantage to dominate.

[[Crusade]] - Foot Soldiers count as earth minions and you have lots of them. You can also use it to drop Pudge Butchers, Gargantulas and Michael on opposing sites.

[[Pudge Butcher]] - 5 power is no joke. There aren’t many minions that could survive a hit from this gal(?). I am really impressed by their performance. They provide a lot of area denial and they can often remain out of reach from the opponent's removal.

[[Assorted Animals]] - Played it multiple times during the tournament. Searched for a combination of Root Spider/Gargantula/Redmane Hyena. It provides a lot of fuel. I’d consider playing a second copy of this spell in the future.

Other good cards:

[[Kettletop Leprechaun]] - They are great earth minions, but Geomancer doesn’t really benefit from drawing extra sites that much. I am considering swapping them with [[Bosk Troll]]s.

[[Mover of Mountains]] - Never saw it during the tournament. You can use his ability to disrupt opposing defensive sites or move your [[Sinkhole]]s closer to enemy sites or your [[Roots of Yggdrasil]]. Being a spellcaster is useful.

[[Redmane Hyena]] - I played a single copy to find it with [[Assorted Animals]]. I played only 4 demons in the deck, so I couldn’t count on triggering the +2 power. Hyena is mainly for disrupting enemy Archi.

[[Saint of Redemption]] - 2 power with ward for (2) is actually alright. His ability could really mess with some decks (mostly Persecutor). Combos with [[Rhitta Gawr of Snowdonia]].

[[Autumn Unicorn]] - Good beater for cheap.

[[Order of the White Wing]] - These guys could mess up your strategy a bit, I hate the anti-synergy with the rest of this deck, but I found out they are still worth playing. They work great against necro and Archi.

[[Paladins of Bazia]] - Good beater with ward and spellcaster.

[[Atlas Wanderers]] - They allow you to make some cool and unexpected plays. (Like repositioning Pudge Butcher and breaking walls made of defensive sites.)

[[Lord of Greed]] - This card is close to a pet-card status. Great art. You may steal an opposing [[Toolbox]] played too early, a Core or an Arbalest. Nobody really expects him. (6) mana is not that much for a Geomancer, so a single copy may catch some opponents off-guard.

[[Returned King]] - Tech against Necro. Also can steal [[Daperyll Vampires]].

[[Rhitta Gawr of Snowdonia]] - Every time I played him, my opponent was forced to remove him, giving me more time to ramp.

[[King of the Realm]] - There are lots of Mortals in this deck and in the meta. Play him.

[[Divine Healing]] - Good vs aggro, useful vs midrange and control decks, but I wouldn’t play more than one copy.

[[Gift of the Wolf]] - Useful card that replaces itself. You are always glad to see it.

[[Bury]] - Sometimes all you need is to get rid of an early problematic minion or artifact. Bury often gets the job done.

[[Landmass]] - Great if you aren’t pressured early. Ramp into your big spells. Often you will play a village and make a blocker, so you aren’t punished that much.

[[Onslaught]] - There are some situations where Onslaught breaks through enemy defenses and allows you to put your opponent on death’s door in a single turn. Play more than one copy if your meta has a lot of earth.

[[Scorched Earth]] - Something to blow your Roots or defend you in a pinch. Geomancer will allow you to rebuild quickly. It’s not the best card, but you don’t have better options. Feel free to swap it with something that you like more.

[[Cave-In]] - I couldn’t find a second copy of [[Earthquake]] before the tournament. Cave-In is a weaker, but still playable alternative. It deals with warded units!

[[Infiltrate]] - Good card with a single (F) threshold requirement.

[[Earthquake]] - That’s a powerful spell. Gets rid of multiple minions and the rearrange is very useful. I would love to find a second copy of it.

[[Poison Nova]] - This spell saved me multiple times during the tournament. This deck has a few spellcasters, so you could use them to really blow out enemy minions and keep yours at a safe distance.

[[Guards!]] - Saw it and played it one time on turn 7 and summoned 9 minions. Felt powerful, and a turn later I drew a [[Crusade]].

[[Major Explosion]] - Great removal and a finisher. (7) mana is not that much for a Geomancer. Your spellcasters will often provide you range to cast for high value.

[[Craterize]] - Ah, the iconic Craterize. Very expensive to cast, but it ends games. You don’t want to see it early. When I saw this spell in other decklists I wasn’t sure how to use it properly. Don’t worry, you will see its power.

I wouldn’t play these cards:

[[Valor]] - Spicy card, but even though this deck has lots of minions, I often kept this card in my hand without an opportunity to play it. Unfortunately, Valor does nothing vs Whirling Blades, Grapple Shots and other cards that simply strike.

[[Sir Morien]] - Both of his effects are great. He stops Grapple Shots, Firebolts and Pudge Butchers. The problem is that at turn 4 you will probably have 0 or just 1 (F) affinity. (F)(F) is a big deal.

Would play them if I had them:

[[Torrid Omphalos]] - Couldn’t find this one. It would provide good value after stabilizing on the board. Great vs control.

[[Balor of the Evil Eye]] - Strong minion and another demon. Deals with opposing root spiders or finishes bigger minions or avatars. I would love to have one.

I want to test those:

[[Powerwish]] - This one could work wonders against [[Savior]], [[The Doom of Dilmun]] and warded water minions.

[[Siege Giant]] - Reposition your Geomancer to make and replace more rubble.

[[Sister Stefania]] - Swing with your Pudge! Unfortunately has some anti-synergy with the rest of the deck. Still, it might be worth it.

[[The Inquisition]] - 2 for 1. Helps vs control.

My Atlas:

Villages - Blockers are nice to have. Makes the deck resistant to [[Atlantean Fate]].

[[Bedrock]] - Creates a safe haven for your [[Root Spider]]s. Also, you play [[Roots of Yggdrasil]], so it’s nice to be able to play something the same turn you blow them.

[[Boulevard of Bones]] - Good site that makes free units. Can be moved by other cards to make even more value.

[[Desert Bloom]] - Provides fire threshold and your Geomancer sees it as an earth site the turn you play it, allowing you to place a Rubble.

[[Funeral Pyre]] - Tech against Archi and other graveyard focused strategies. I don’t like this site, but felt it was necessary.

[[Haystack]] - I like running one. In most matchups it does nothing, but sometimes it can be very relevant. If your meta has weak earth representation, cut it.

[[Mount Ussar Sanctuary]] - I felt safe with this on the board. Doesn’t cost you much, and you will have the threshold to use it.

[[Pillar of Zeiros]] - This card really saved me one time, gaining me 11 life. Every time I played vs aggro I wished to see it.

[[Rift Valley]] - If you replace rubble with this site, it does nothing. I’d cut it. Doesn’t work well in Geomancer.

[[River of Flame]] - Another spellcaster to center your [[Poison Nova]] on. Often you can’t control where it is placed, so I consider cutting it.

[[Roots of Yggdrasil]] - When I saw this card, I knew I wanted to play it. I enjoy resetting the board with it and then rebuilding quickly thanks to Geomancer’s ability. It’s an Unique site, so the chance of it happening is rather low (never had the opportunity to do it during the tournament), but I like knowing that I have an out somewhere in my deck. Remember that your minions with ward will survive!

[[Sinkhole]] - Roots enabler, also you can blow up opposing sites, to slow down your opponent and quickly rebuild. Reposition Sinkholes with Atlas Wanderers or Mover of Mountains.

[[Steppe]] - An obvious inclusion.

My collection:

In order of relevance:

[[Firebolts]] - Kill small minions, end games.

[[Heat Ray]] - Different flavor - sometimes better, sometimes worse than Firebolts.

[[Bury]] - An additional removal spell.

[[Dispel]] - Awesome card vs artifact and aura heavy decks.

[[Smite]] - You can use this to door your opponent by playing this on a strong minion adjacent to their avatar.

[[Angry Mob]] - It can kill a strong minion and it leaves a body.

[[Boil] - Good card to have against water decks.

[[Scent Hounds]] - Tech against Infiltrate or non-existent stealth decks.

[[Makeshift Barricade]] - Tech against heavy aggro. Never used it, but it might come handy one day.

[[Carrion Beetles]] - Tech against Archi, feels too weak to matter. I think I will replace it with something more useful, like a second [[Dispel]].

Tournament matches summary:

5 rounds of Swiss

Win vs aggro Elementalist good stuff - I banished his turn 3 Pudge with my Arjaro, allowing me to gain some control back. Rhitta gave me a turn to catch my breath and set up Major Explosion that turned the whole game.

Win vs mono Water Harbinger - My opponent played lots of defensive sites and a Mariner’s Curse. It was really hard to attack through it, but I finally broke through.

Win vs smoke Interrogator - I drew Divine Healing in my starting hand. I denied him cards early and paid with life. Assorted Animals for a Root Spider that helped me stabilize and outvalue.

Win vs mono fire Pathfinder - My Pudge Butcher really limited his options and defended my sites. Then I played Michael that he couldn’t easily remove.

Lose vs lava Archimago - He drew an early ring and outvalued my plays. Then he Heirloom Lost my Roots. This game went to time, and he played Onslaught with Border Militia two times to put me on door. I didn’t draw my hate pieces, just a single Hyena through Assorted Animals. Rough matchup.

Top 8

Win vs dust ramp Savior - This deck caught me by surprise. Wards are annoying to deal with. We were fighting for control over the realm, then I played Pillar of Zeiros gaining me 11 life and Assorted Animals for Gargantula and Root Spider stabilizing me completely. He was out of gas by then.

Top 4

Win vs aggro Elementalist good stuff (again) - Lots of cool plays in this game. He played Rift Valley in front of my Geo and placed a Pudge there on turn 3 thanks to his City of Glass. I wanted to counter with a Root Spider that he removed by using a Geyser from a Silver Bullet. Poison Nova saved my ass, and my Foot Soldier destroyed his City of Glass. I stabilized by summoning 9 Foot Soldier with Guards!

Finals

Win vs smoke Persecutor - The final match was vs my good friend from my playgroup. He won against Archi who beat me during swiss.

Lady Luck was totally by my side. I drew a really good hand with Saint of Redemption and he totally turned off his deck. I knew that if I could protect Saint, this match would go in my favor. Root Spider disabled his Dragonettes and Paladins of Bazia attacked his sites. Gargantula turned off his Daperyll Vampire that could save him. I truly feel sorry for him, this game was completely one-sided. You will find the finals match on Youtube.

Future of the meta

With the new Court sites becoming legal, I expect this deck to change. Air court punishes token strategies and earth court punishes elites and uniques.

I think that Geo could find success by running both earth and fire courts and cutting most Villages and rare spells.

The end

Huge thanks to the whole Sorcery community. I had a lot of fun and memorable moments. Also, shoutout to a player with a similar nickname (Morgoth) that also won a cornerstone with a Lava Geomancer. What a weird coincidence.

I hope I can see and play with all of you again soon.

About the author

My real name is Hubert, and my favorite elements are earth and water. I have been playing different card games competitively for over 15 years and I currently work as a board game designer. I enjoy brewing and testing my own decks. I love Sorcery and its community, and I’d be thrilled to contribute to Erik’s Curiosa someday if the opportunity ever arose.

1st Place Cornerstone Warsaw - Lava Geomancer

@Morgot