The Knights Who Say NEH

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Repartition by Cost
Repartition by Strength
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
NEH Grail/Swords Splash - Dice Age SC 1/31/15
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nybb 21

Alternative title: Only the Knights You Need.

Everybody knows NEH Fastrobiotics. It seems like every other deck is trying out Grails these days, why not try it here? It just so happens that 9 inf on Grails and 8 on Biotics perfectly fills up the 17 influence, like it was meant to be (?). A quick comparison to more traditional builds:

Cons:

  • It's a bit more expensive to maintain the ICE (a tiny bit worse on rez costs, and worse for your hand due to having to hold grails).
  • It's weaker to Parasite than importing Architect/Lotus.
  • Sometimes you only see one Grail ICE for a while, and that really sucks. Fortunately you're NEH so you have plenty of draw power to overcome this.

Pros:

  • Grail gearchecks harder in the early game. The runner needs a full rig to run safely. Criminals facechecking with just Faerie can end up locked out of the game if they get a 1-of breaker bedazzled out of their grip by Merlin.
  • It's also more taxing late game.
  • You're still NEH, so if the runner gets a bad draw you will win.

There's definitely room for tweaking. Another Fast Track would be nice. One more hard EtR ICE would be good (i.e. Enigma/Quandary/Guard) since you really want one in your opening hand to fend off Siphons; Merlin/Lancelot don't help without Galahad, and you don't want to spoil the Grail surprise by rezzing solo Galahad.

This ICE suite makes the Criminal matchup much more tolerable, since if they aren't careful you can seriously hinder them via unexpected trashing/damage, and if they are careful you get more time to get the Astrotrain rolling. They also don't pack many (if any) Parasites.

I have a great record on OCTGN with this so far, but haven't gone to any tournaments with it yet, so I don't make any claims about this deck being unbeatable or anything. Just a fresh approach to NEH FA with reasonable potential.

Update: Took it as-is to a Store Champs and went 6-1, with the only loss being in grand finals when I had the Astro Token/Biotic/Fast Track ready to get me the win the following turn. Should note that the event was pre-O&C.

3 comments
22 Jan 2015 Jashay

Huh, yeah, that's a pretty good way to approach it. My issue with the Grail ICE is that Galahad and Lancelot are pretty trivial to break with the common breakers unless you have a full hand of support. But FA means they have to run more often to equal your pressure, so you could exploit that.

My other issue is Imp. I guess you've got a target saturation thing going on here, but Imp is damn good at sniping ICE from your hand as well as trashing all the assets you need.

But this look intersting. Nice deck

1 Feb 2015 Meristem

Thanks for this deck! I splashed 2 Swordsman and took out one each of Lancelot and Galahad and took this this 5-0 at yesterday's Store Championship.

A lot of fun to play!

1 Feb 2015 nybb

@Meristem Nice, I just took the deck as posted to a Store Champs yesterday as well and went 6-1. It was without O&C though; Swordsman might be really nice to deal with Eater.

@Jashay It's true that the Grails are cheap to break if you don't have much in hand to support them, but really much cheaper than other ICE you'd run in NEH. And later in the game, with two Grails in hand, they are quite taxing. They're actually one of the few things that can effectively tax an Andysucker deck, since you rely on subs instead of strength for the most part.