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Revising The Nightfall Flying Manta Ray Deck

This deck here takes some of the very best cards from the Flying Manta Ray deck and also some of the best part of MetaZoos first edition cards. Unfortunately, this deck would be a bit sub-par if it were strictly all Nightfall. The premise of this deck, like most of my decks (I guess consider it my signature) is to overwhelm the enemy Caster with Sewer Alligators and later into the game, tentacles.

Consider Sewer Alligator our primary unit and overwhelming force. There really isn’t much strategy into Sewer Alligator so it’s pretty much a brute force “strategy” we will be using.

SA (Sewer Alligator) can only be played if you are in a city or when the City Terra is in the Arena, which is why we have 2 City’s just incase. Sewer Alligator costs only 1 water aura, not expensive whatsoever, with a maximum of 10 per Spellbook. In this case, we have 7 which is more than enough. He boasts 50 LP which is fairly mighty for a 1 aura Beastie. On top of his initial 20 base from “Chomp”, it gains an additional 20 “if your opponent is from a city or in a city known for sewer alligators”. That’s the ideal situation we would want of course. Now, with that known, SA will either be doing 70 damage or 90 damage per hit. Still such a massive amount for a 1 cost beastie.

Chessie is a pretty unique and powerful Beastie. Chessie may cost 4 aura in total, but the benefits outweigh the cost without a doubt. Whenever Chessie enters the Arena you then Bookmark 1 page. Chessie’s ability “Drowning Kelp” which is exactly why we have her in this deck. Drowning Kelp only does a base of 10 damage, but the attack itself does an additional +10 damage per water page in the Arena. For example, if you have 9 water pages on the board…it will do 100 base damage. On top of that, if you have a Lake Terra…it will now be doing 150 damage.

So, ideally, contract Chessie once you have a fair share of pages in the Arena as she can be an insane powerhouse. Definitely also a good culprit for your Powerup Red.

A personal favorite of mine simply because the 4th Wall Effect applies to me. “This page’s attacks deal +50 damage if you are allergic to seafood.” However, that is not the reason to have this card in your Spellbook. He has Regen and Stone Skin. Regen allows him to recover 10LP at the end of each turn, where as Stone Skin which “A Beastie with this Trait reduces all Damage it would take outside of Attacking or Defending to 0. Effects that would cause a Beastie to “lose” LP are not prevented by Stone Skin”. With that, Wallowa Lake Crustacean has a decent LP of 55 and does 40 base damage for the cost of 3 total Aura. If destroyed the caster Bookmarks 1 page. A ton of bang for your buck here.

       A bit of a steep cost to play but Flying Manta Ray is a force to be reckoned with. Yielding a base 100 LP and 80 damage with Flying and Fleet (doesn’t enter the arena fatigued) and can use it’s power “Let’s Fly!” which can move him so that it touches one Beastie you control. While Flying Manta Ray is touching that Beastie, it “gains Flying and its attacks deal additional damage equal to half of this Page’s attack (including Terra bonuses)”. Couple Flying Manta Ray on another strong beastie in your Spellbook, like Chessie, with a Powerup Red and you will be chipping away the enemy caster in no time.

In my opinion, this Page is one of the strongest in MetaZoo. River of Time can be brought down to 1 Aura cost if there is a River Terra in play (which we have in the Spellbook). Long story short, River of Time allows the Caster, you, to take another turn after your initial turn. One ideal time to use this would be right after you have a Flying Manta Ray buff attached to another Beastie that already has Powerup Red attached to it as well so that you can deal twice the chunk of damage you are already doing.

Oklahoma Octopus is a prime example of a page that will overwhelm the enemy Caster. Simply put, you can place this Page into the Afterlife to generate 8 Tentacle Tokens (10 LP Water Beasties with a 10 Damage Attack and Fleet). For a mere 5 Aura, you can instantly place 8 Beasties into the Arena. Try to sacrifice Oklahoma Octopus before placing Chessie into the Arena for the buff from Chessie.

Conclusion

As per most of my decks, this is supposed to overwhelm the enemy Caster and a lot of these pages allow the moment to moment pressure that we are striving for. There are many cards here that can be gone over but they are pretty straightforward, like Lightning in a Bottle or Bookmark so use them to your discretion.

What do you think?

Written by Jake Sim

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