ProQuest - Branching out to Earth Briar

It has been 2 months now since I decided that I'll do a ProQuest event. It's been a very busy 2 months.

I wanted to try out a different hero, as I wasn't confident in being able to play Oldhim on time. I have decided to try out our Warden of the Rosetta, Briar!

The play style of my deck was going to be typical of Earth Briar builds. Play two 'non-attack' Actions, getting my Embodiment of Lightning for go again, into an Attack Action. This will allow me to then still come in again using Rosetta Thorn for 2 arcane and 2 physical. The idea was to go really tall with my Attack Action, and increasing the likelyhood of going again. Some of the key cards for this strategy were Weave Earth and Channel Mount Heroic.

However, I may not always have that ideal hand. I found that I would usually play what I have, if I need to pressure. Or, I will set up for next turn. I did have both red and blue Whisper of the Oracle in the deck for that purpose. Whispers also block for 4 if I have my Embodiment of Earth, so its quite good in my opinion.

After brewing a bit more, I found one of my favourite interaction. Bramble Spark into Explosive Growth, both fused. My base damage would be 8 or 9. But, since Explosive Growth was fused, if the arcane hits, that's another 2-3 damage for all my attacks that turn, including Rosetta Thorn. A really good turn could see Briar outputting upwards of 20 damage.

After more testing at my local Armouries, I also found that a ratio of 50/50 non-attacks to attack is best, in order to increase likelyhood of pulling off 2 non-attacks for the Embodiment of Lightning.

Interestingly, a week after me picking up Briar, some of the most impactful cards for Lightning / Cheerio Briar were banned, namely Ball lightning and Plunder Run. Luckily, I wanted to go for Earth Briar from the beginning, so it wasn't massively terrible news.

Whilst Plunder Run was a bit of a blow to the Earth Briar build, it wasn’t devastating. There were a few good choices to replace it, such Captains Call. I shuffled my build around a bit and managed to instead include another really good card that should have been there from the beginning, Stir the Wildwood. Another amazing card to combo with Bramble Spark.

I was trying to play Earth Briar for a good while. However, I found that I was not able to maneuver the competitive meta that came with Everfest release.

Dominating the ProQuest meta are Prism, Viserai and Starvo (Bravo, Star of the Show).

Due to my lack of experience, I was not able to fully utilise Briar's high damage output potential. Therefore, my Prism games tend to not see me race Prism fast enough. But, I did get close a few times. Interestingly, I found racing more effective than trying to kill off her important auras like Ode to Wrath or Merciful Retribution.

Viserai was also a difficult matchup. My local Viserai player went mid-range against my Briar and I was not able to contend. In all honesty, my stubbornness to not include some new Everfest Runeblade cards is to blame here as well. I wanted to keep Briar on theme.

I haven't played any Starvo games with Briar yet. But, I can see how those games that would turn out. Briar definitely will have a hard time putting a dent in Starvo, since Starvo is a guardian and can block fairly well. Once Starvo reaches second cycle, they will always attack with dominate and go again, and Briar will just be on the backfoot then.

I did not feel like going with Briar was the right decision for me at the ProQuest event. Besides the fact that Briar has a difficult matchup into those meta heroes, I also wasn't comfortable piloting Briar against other heroes either. This is very much down to me not being able to put in enough reps for Briar, to be fair.

So, what hero do I understand well and have put the reps in. I wonder. Perhaps instead of branching out, I should return to my roots.