That Time Ruknuddin Khurshah Had Perfect Draws

A few weeks ago I played a playtest game with Beans from the Discord channel (the best place to find matchups!). I was piloting the Khutulun precon, which is an aggressive, follower-heavy deck. Beans chose to play the Ruknuddin Khurshah precon, a midrange deck that typically gains power in the early-game through followers and then wraps up the win by developing one or two big locations.

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I won the coin flip but had a poor opening hand, mulliganing four out of five cards and still not drawing any economy. I decided to start with a Kalari Adept, hoping that Beans will not have a follower and I’ll recoup my mythium. Unfortunately for me, Beans played Yam Operator as a potential blocker. I recruited Forceful Rogue with the intention to use my Dirty Attack the following turn to gain 3 mythium. Beans countered with Vicious Stab, defeating my Rogue. He then followed with a Novice Cutpurse and closed the round with a Void Grenade, knocking the Dirty Attack I was hoping to paly right out from my hand.

Card Void Grenade
A well-timed Void Grenade can take out an opponent's key card, especially early in the game

Things only got worse in the second round. I deployed a series of followers, including Sparring Braggart, Skillful Bruiser, and Lowly Bard. Beans countered with a very early Rogue with Initiative, a three standing card that typically only appears in the late game — except Beans’s opening was explosive enough to get her into play much earlier than usual. Later he played a Gratuitous Gift for a Void Apprentice, pinging my poor Lowly Bard for 1 wound and defeating her. Beans has been drawing perfectly so far while I was behind on board, behind on economy, and behind on power!

We had some back and forth on round three, which was mostly both of us working on economy. Then round four arrived with the coup de grâce. I finally managed to stabilize and even nab some power. Beans was running out of steam and my hope was that he draws poorly and I get two or three turns to push for an advantage. I played an Amu River Armorer with a +1/+1 counter, which I hoped would stave off the opposing followers.

Amu River Armorer with Bonus Counter
The Armorer offers efficient statistics along with either a standing or mythium boost

Beans played a Stealthy Assassin, then, on his following turn, had a rules question: Does Poison Alpha Strike trigger off the Assassin’s Bloodshed ability?

Stealthy Assassin wounds a follower when attacking alone. This triggers the response on Poison Alpha Strike, defeating any one opposing follower!

Guess what, it does! My Armorer succumbed to the poison. Beans won shortly thereafter on a record turn five. With that said, the game was close with him at 10 power to my 8 power. He has drawn the right card again and again. At least three times Beans had exactly enough mythium to play what he needed. The perfect curve.

But wait. Out of curiosity, Beans looked through the remaining cards in his deck, and noticed an interesting trend:

The remaining cards were the most expensive cards in the deck and they were ordered according to their mythium cost. Beans was not lucky; we both forgot to shuffle the Ruknuddin Kurshah deck! The cards had the same order as the development spreadsheet. Personally, I was pretty excited that we had an interesting game (albeit a short one) despite one deck being literally stacked.

Forever reshape history

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