Oldhim Deck Tech for Skirmish Season 5

Oldhim players have experienced a roller coaster of changes since last Skirmish Season. From new cards in Uprising to the banning of Crown of Seeds.

As an Oldhim player myself, I wanted chime in on what Oldhim could look like for Skirmish season 5. Particularly, I'll be using my disrupt-aggro Oldhim list in season 4 as a reference.

Playstyle after bans

Continuing the trend of aggressive and disruptive Oldhim is the way, in my opinion, because LSS have taken away Crown of Seeds in Blitz!

I think the decision is fair. With some of the recent bans that nerfed other heroes, fatigue Oldhim did jump back into the game a little bit and had the potential to be dominant this season. Taking away Crown of Seeds forces Oldhim players to rethink their strategy. Whilst it is a shame, I'm actually quite excited about tuning my deck to this change. My Oldhim build already doesn't use Crown of Seeds that much, to be honest, so it's not a huge lost. Instead, I'm currently playing Crown of Providence from Uprising.

It's a card that blocks and also help cycles the hand. Since my Oldhim build is aggressive, blocking with Providence to potentially get a big attack with a 5 card hand isn't bad!

I think in the current Blitz meta, this Oldhim build still hold its own quite well. For many matchups, once Oldhim start swinging with on-hit effects, it can consistently prevent the opponent from having a proper turn whilst chipping away damage. The deck still have hard matchups into Kassai and Ira, who are very efficient with weapons and can have good turns off just 2 cards. But, not impossible matchups. With this Oldhim list, I usually do have a positive record at Armouries. So, I still think this list's strategy can perform really well in the new meta.

New cards to include

The card that will push the aggression game for Oldhim even further next season will be Sift.

Sift triggers Earthlore Bounty, which beautifully sets up the next turn. In addition, It also fixes those awkward hands that I occasionally get, ones that doesn't keep tempo well like a full non-ice 3 pitch hand. It also blocks for 3, so a very good card all around. I also initially tested Pulverize in the list with Sift, to take advantage of hand fixing and additional Seismic Surges. But, I found that playing cheaper attacks, even non-Guardian ones, still tends to work out better, especially since Uprising also introduced Erase Face.

Erase Face became an inclusion to handle heroes like Fai, Prism, and even Valda (who also got a huge buff from Sift). Erase Face is more favourable compared to big Guardian attacks this season because it's cheaper to play and combos well with Pummel, just like Frost Fang and CnC. True, it does mean that my Seismic Surges will more likely become a miss. But, I found from last season that even if I had two more Guardian attacks instead of Erase Face, it doesn't guarantee them on the turn of Seismic popping anyway. Instead, calculating the probability of Tome of Harvest drawing into a Guardian attacks, then saving those for next turn is a much better option.

There are also some Ice cards from Uprising as well. Not many works in Oldhim, to be honest. The only one I included was Cold Snap.

It's similar to Polar Blast and Sow Tomorrow, as it helps draw a card to trigger Earthlore Bounty. I took out Winter's Grasp for it as to push aggression and improve deck synergy.

New matchups

I would like to share some experience from recent play-testing against the new heroes:

Fai's damage output can be very high, Oldhim players need to make sure to disrupt well with Blizzard and Ice reacts. Do keep in mind that Fai does not block very well, so our big disruptive attacks, especially Erase Face and Pummel, can be devastating for them.

Dromai is a game of discipline and patience. Guardians are one of the classes that have access to big attacks, patiently pop their dragons and deck them out. This is going back to the fatigue game-plan a bit, so play fast.

Iyslander is matchup I haven't fully figured out yet. I do have the honour and pleasure to practise against an amazing Iyslander player who do consistenly win Armouries, Shahmir Samee. Check out their recent Iyslander article on The Rathe Times. I know that disruption doesn't matter in this matchup. I would usually perform better if I can put in a large amount of damage in the early game. After that, I need to be able to fatigue whislt keeping my health total high enough to not get zapped by Forked Lightning or a similarly big arcane attack. Usually a life total above 10 is safe. I also have started bringing AB5 into this matchup. I might drop to AB4 and keep Snapdragon Scalers to keep the aggression up.

Season 5

I hope that this article will help you Oldhim players get some ideas for this season. I wish you all luck in the Skirmishes!

I will be taking it easy this season, playing in only one Skirmish with the gang, and taking a hero that isn't Oldhim for once. A break after National grinds would be nice. See you all later!