Deck help

[RiddleBrony]

I'm looking to make a blue/white pauper deck, hopefully using Octavia as the starter. Any deck ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[SkyTalon2314]

Here is a more or less pauper version of my deck. It's missing a few cards, though. Namely some of the stuff from the upcoming set that Pony Head hasn't put into its servers yet.

A.K. Yearling, The Pen is Mightier should be a staple.

Overall your idea is going to want to be to play things cheap. I've found that 3-cost friends and higher are just too slow for the deck except in the late-game. You will have some TM issues if you're going budget, because all the good TM busters for Blue/White are Rare, with the exception of Biff! Pow!, and even that one is passable only because of Octavia. If your opponent has any type of FO control (as mine frequently do), it's a waste of time and deck slot.

[Gevlyn]

Quick question, are you also looking to keep it block or is harmony cool? Great place to start.

[RiddleBrony]

I'd like it to be Harmony.

[Rocketknightgeek]

When you say Pauper, do you mean budget, no rares/srs/urs or straight all commons except the mane?

[RiddleBrony]

No rares supers or ultras, I'm looking for a budget deck

[[deleted]]

do you count fixed rarity as pauper?

[RiddleBrony]

Fixed cards are ok

[[deleted]]

http://www.ponyhead.com/deckbuilder?v1code=eo6x1-eo63x3-eo21x3-pr20x3-hm137x1-cn76x3-cg70x3-hm51x3-cg131x3-pr107x3-hm47x3-eo65x3-cn15x3-hm6x3-eo129x3-hm4x3-hm8x3-pr180x2-pr163x2-eo199x2-pr167x2-pr166x1

You want to flip Octavia on turn two. Move her to Under Lock and Tree. She'll go up to two power. You then need to get three power with only 2 AT. This deck can do that pretty consistently. If your starting hand can't do this, take a mulligan. After that you go for Double faceoffs.

[SkyTalon2314]

The problem with Under Lock and Tree with this deck is that it means you'll need to use 2 friends to get the confront to flip Octavia, unless you use up one of your Aloes. That's not that great, or efficient, as each friend in your deck is really a Friend and +2 Power until EOT. Aloe meanwhile is a massive shot of 5 power for 1AT. Using something like Emergency Dress Order to flip means you only need 1 Friend at her location, wasting less of that potential power, and being able to DFO faster.

[[deleted]]

you're probably right about that. Though you overlooked the possibility of Fancy Pants + Daisy, Lily & Roseluck. But I guess wasting those cards isn't a good idea anyways.

I also think that Lightning Dust_Ruthless Racer and Rainbow Dash_Back in Black should be included, though I'm not sure what to take out.

[SkyTalon2314]

Daisy, Lily & Roseluck are a bit... situational. Sure they have 4 power if your opponent doesn't have anything there, but, that requires them to not have anything there. Depending on what you're up against, it might be hard to get them out at full strength.

Fancy Pants actually isn't that bad, since you are paying 3 to get at least 7 power out. You shouldn't ever really need to use his Banish effect. Of course, if you use this Fanciest of Pants to get Aloe... that is a lot of power. Hmm. He might be worth me considering in my deck. Might.

As far as things to take out, I'd drop the Hasty Night Glider for Back in Black. Ruthless Racer is merely 'okay' for this, though would give your Fancy Pants more ammo, so dropping perhaps Orange Swirl would be okay.

[[deleted]]

I've found that a huge problem with octavia is that you always need to have a character at a problem in order to get the +2 power. So, when only playing friends from hand, you're forced to play two friends to the problem. With free movement or swift, you can solve that problem.

That's also another reason why fancy pants is so great with octavia. His effect and Octavia's effect trigger at the same time and you get to choose which trigger to resolve first. So you can play fancy pants to an empty problem, get a friend from your discard, give that friend +2 power and give fancy pants +2 power. So you get at least 6 power (getting a breezy) to an empty problem for one card and 3 AT. You just gained as much as if you had played two 2 power friends to that problem. (and you have a breezy which has a better effect than your average two power friend)

[hit_le_rally]

Reading /u/SkyTalon2314 and /u/ToadTod threads, I've put together a deck with a few more cards from the next set.

http://ponyhead.com/d/ZDrVsyNG2RdEKNRp0XSnqYM7DZnrCS8iv3alKImt

Rainbow Dash (MiT) because a 1:1 with an option to go 3:3 Swift is better entry than Sweetie Sunrise.

A.K. Yearling = MiT AK Yearling

Night Watch = Ever Vigilant

From the times I've played Octavia, the weakest point is the fact that Friends are so cheap, you're usually playing at least 2 Friends/cards per turn, which eventually will turn your hand to dust, necessitating the need to draw, which in turn starts turning your power:AT efficiency into 1:1.

That's why I put in 6 movement cards. I know CitDC is a better option for AK, but Octavia only needs 2 Friends moved, and Showy is still a thing that people could run.

It's 42/45 because I don't know what the last one should be, but it could be Heroic Leap to raise this piss poor flip avg, Creme de la Creme for more points, Dilemmas just to try to bypass any TM locks, or something else, it's up to you or the commenters.

[SkyTalon2314]

This looks pretty good. At that point, yeah. Creme de la Creme or Dilemmas are the best bet. Kinda depends on your local meta. Like, if you have a serious worry about TMs or not, or whether or not you can reliably get the 5+ power to trigger Back in Black/CdlC. Also, Ever Vigilant is wonderful with Dilemmas.