I Got Worms

That’s what we’re gonna call it… I Got Worms.  We’re gonna specialize in searching worms and eating aura.

How do I play it?

I Got Worms turns the arena into your personal worm farm thanks to the mill and tribal boost abilities afforded to the Ice & Cement Worms.  With the ability to find and contract your worms early and often you will lean on slowing down the game state to take full advantage of the crippling power of this deck.

As you set-up and establish enough worms, you will utilize effective and efficient ground spells like Boulder Bash and Rock Rain to keep the board clean.  While your worms are burrowed Icy Path’s ability to keep your opponent on edge and wary of attacks will be to the worms benefit until you can find Slide Rock Bolter & Kushtaka and deploy their unique abilities to slowly freezing opponents out of aura and ability to play their spellbook.

 

Beastie Breakdown

The bulk of the work on this spellbook will be done with the combo powers of Ice Worm and Cement Worm.  While both are integral, Ice Worm is slightly more important to draw early game given it is the beastie with ability to search spellbook for any other beastie with ‘worm’ in the name.

This is important for two reasons, obviously to get more beasties on the board, but both Ice and Cement Worm activate tribal boost (+10HP/+10LP for each other beastie with same tribe in arena) which are going to buff all of your worm beasties significantly.  Luckily, both worms have the burrow ability and should most be safe from any attacks while you get at least the four you need on the board to start doing some real damage.

If you are only able to come across Cement Worms early game, don’t fret, they also have some pretty cool abilities to help stall out opponents while you get the pages you need from your spellbook.  If Cement Worm is able to swing at caster, they are then able to identify an opposing caster’s aura of their choice not to fatigue next turn decreasing their ability to spam the board.  An extra kicker is Cement Worms arena effect which disallows any fleet beasties to come in awakened and also has an ability to target an opposing beastie to lose the Stoneskin ability.

Often the worms are enough on their own to overwhelm early if you can get them out by turn 4-5, but if you aren’t afforded a quick ramp from the start their is no worry your spells will help negate a lot of their beasties on the board until you can either bring out Kushtaka or Slide Rock Bolter who have some crazy unique abilities that make this deck so consistent.

Kushtaka, in my opinion, is one of the most overlooked beasties in the whole game.  This guy is friggin’ crazy thanks to Shapeshift ability.  He essentially is able to copy any attack (including additional damage, effects, etc.) from any other beastie in the arena without fatiguing Kushtaka.  This beastie is super versatile and can be utilize in many ways.  Typically you will want to drop him into the arena after your worms have been set-up and then will essentially have an additional free swing from a tribal boosted worm or after you have played Powerup Red on one of your beasties to squeeze some additional +100HP swings at opponent.  It can even be dropped as a counter when opposing caster has an overwhelming beastie or recently dropped a Powerup Red of their own.

Ok, enough fanboying over Kushtaka.  But I mean honestly, you can play up to four Kushtaka in your deck and at only three cost (one being neutral) is splashable in a LOT of decks where he’s being overlooks… just sayin’ ok, moving on for real this time haha.

Slide Rock Bolter is the ultimate game ender if deployed correctly and will slowly eat your opponents aura until their frozen out of anything they want to play.  Slide Rock is beefy for sure at six aura and if you’re opponent has 4th walled a rock expect to pay a couple more.  With that being said this beastie has triple traits of Defender, Stonskin, and Burrow which means he’s a freakin’ tank.  The Landslide attack is great and all, but the Groundbreaker ability is really what your after here. Typically, by the time Slide Rock hits the arena it’s mid-to-late game and you already have some worms locking up their aura or beasties.  Groundbreaker will allow you to enflict 30 damage on Slide Rock (don’t worry he has 170LP) to destroy an opposing casters aura page of your choice which is FREAKIN’ CRAZY.

At that point you can keep your beasties safe by burrowing and slowly suffocate opponent spellbooks by sending the majority of the aura they own to the afterlife which is a slow, painful MetaZoo death indeed.

Spell & Potion Breakdown

The spells in this spellbook are some of my favorites for sure.  Earth spells by nature are tough, but these are some of the best beastie crushers which you will need while you find at least four worms.  Boulder Bash is super versatile letting you swing for 50LP at one beastie or 25LP at two which helps for quick board clean-ups, while Rock Rain let’s you adjust the damage inflicted on a specific beastie based off of how many aura you have to fatigue which is helpful when there’s higher LP beasties out there you can’t get with just Boulder Bash alone.

Last, if those Earth spells can’t keep things under control, Icy Path surely will.  I put the full play set in here because at two cost it’s a great card to keep in hand, sit back and slow play the board knowing their beasties attacks will be foiled.  Icy Path is endlessly frustrating to play against and often will make casters be more hesitant to swing in specific situation, especially if you have aura left unfatigued.

Artifact, Aura, & Terra Breakdown

 

Despite being a dual aura deck, this spellbook runs super smooth thanks to the worms search and stall ability as well as Stalactites supplemental support.  This artifact has the ability to act as a defender, further helping with stall tactics to get Ice Worm or Slide Rock out, but also has the Convert ability which means if you are aura dry you can tap it to help bring out a Cement or Ice Worm out.  Typically, I play it face up to take advantage of the aura/defender ability, but can also be played as a trap to protect a valuable page.  The last kicker on this great artifact is when it is finally destroyed, it allows you to shuffle a Earth spell out of your cemetery into your spellbook effectively recycling a Boulder Bash or Rock Rain if available.

Other than that we’ve included a Neutrality Totality Aura to help get Ice Worms, Kushtaka, and Slide Rock Bolter out quicker, while the rest of the aura lean a little heavier on the Earth side than Frost.

Weaknesses / Archive Options

I do love this spellbook’s ramp with the mill ability and the typical consistency of a frost or control deck, but similar to most control builds are susceptible early game and against heavy aggro spellbooks.  Typically we don’t talk a lot about aura advantage either, but something to keep in mind here with Flame having type advantage on Frost and typically being more aggressive, spell based decks which might not be good matchups for this specific build.  While it has beat aura advantage type decks like Flame and Water, there’s also an off chance a low cost, beastie heavy type of opponent can swarm and overwhelm before able to lock in the abilities you need with decks like Fearsome Critters or Aliens.

This spellbook is a little light on beasties to focus on getting those worms as quickly as possible, but if your opponent is able to destroy a few somehow you might run out of steam before you can get the most out of the synergies of your spellbook.  As I mentioned earlier, adding a few more Kushtaka’s could never hurt and even an option from a more traditional Frost spellbook like Pamola who is only a three aura cost beastie, but a lot to handle given it has flight and is a spirit.

Budget Options

This spellbook, along with Forest Thunder, are some of the lowest budget options we’ve posted so far.  Similar to Forest Thunder, the most costly cards in the deck will be Prism (& Neutrality), but aren’t MUST have’s for the deck to run properly.  My suggestion’s on subtitutions for aura swaps would simply be an additional Earth and Frost aura for the Prisms and an Eternal Snowflake in replacement of the Neutrality to try to fuel Frost a little better.  Depending on your beastie mix could swap an aura either way, as well as potentially include Overgrown City Terra if needed with ability to draw basic aura.

Card List (40 Cards Total)

Beasties

• Ice Worms x4
• Cement Worms x4
• Kushtaka x2
• Slide Rock Bolter x1

Spell / Potion

• Powerup Red x1
• New Beginnings x1
• Bookmark x2
• Boulder Bash x3
• Rock Rain x3
• Icy Path x4

Artifact / Aura / Terra

• Stalactites x3
• Neutrality Totality Aura x1
• Prism Aura x2
• Earth Aura x5
• Frost Aura x3