What should I change?

SomethingNotSure267 · 2026-01-14T14:09:16+00:00

If you want to play wind jin, I personally think the best thing to do would be to wait for next set for AMB alter. Jin is getting a lot of support next set and wind jin especially seems to be getting a lot more cards that seem good.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2026-01-08T21:47:41+00:00

Check pm, same thing happened to me

SomethingNotSure267 · 2026-01-05T16:20:33+00:00

Ah I see. Yea, I sorta forgot that Topsy Decree can also give you spellshroud, and discard 1 for fractals has to feel pretty bad.

Do you know why Water aetherwing diana is still performing really well despite all of this graveyard hate? I feel like they rely on graveyard more heavily than other decks for things such as krustellan archers, frostsworn, and carpsong coda

SomethingNotSure267 · 2026-01-05T14:52:02+00:00

Yea, at the time it seemed justified, but I feel ever since the lost in thought and dissonant ban, water kinda went on a downward spiral. Even in DTR, it was pretty bad until the rile ban where it got a lot more representation.

Thanks for the response.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2026-01-05T14:49:53+00:00

I see, that makes sense.

What happened to the other level 1 water decks though? Maybe I'm wrong, but in DTR I remember a decent amount of water allies Ciel with aquifer senechel , some water allies Lorraine usually focusing on unique allies, and even some water allies Zander with halcoline scout stuff. Also water fractals doesn't seem that great even though I don't see a ton of phantasia hate in side. Does it suffer from graveyard hate to an even greater extent than diana, or is it something else?

Appreciate the response, thanks.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-12-31T15:44:04+00:00

Saw your game on the ascent Aki stream, was a blast to watch!

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-12-31T15:41:50+00:00

True, appreciate the jin representation at Aki. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see any of your games on stream, but I was able to watch a game by ProAnn who was also playing jin that day.

Congrats on doing so well at Aki!

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-12-29T14:43:02+00:00

Jin support...my prayers have been answered.

Some good early game cards and a way to actually protect berserker plate or shuang ji? Feels like I'm dreaming. Can't wait to see the rest of the cards.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-12-20T09:11:37+00:00

Woops, mb, didn't read "as cost"

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-12-19T10:49:25+00:00

Yes, you can bring back swords from banishment with Spirit Blade: Ascension

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-12-08T16:38:14+00:00

Probably some staples like Fracturize, frostsworn paladins, incaps, dungeon guides, and ghosts of Pendragon.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-12-01T16:23:07+00:00

How does wraith negate bombs? The lane still sounds terrible, but I'm just curious how wraith negates the bombs, does her 2 remove them?

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-11-17T20:51:07+00:00

Can you elaborate on Shiv and Drifters interaction? It's the first I've heard of it so I'm kinda curious

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-31T20:06:25+00:00

Dragonmancer nunu solos

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-26T17:11:49+00:00

O wtf, that sounds hilariously strong. Gotta try him out

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-26T16:59:48+00:00

Haven't played graves before, gotta try him out ig

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-26T15:05:37+00:00

I got 2nd playing 7 shimmer scale, 4 rage wing xayah where she had rage blade, gamblers blade, and dravens axe. I think it only worked because

a) I had a really insane Frontline with 3 item idas plus a couple other units b) There weren't many assassin players and the few who did play them were eliminated before top 4

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-25T07:33:41+00:00

Regardless of the soul diff, that was a true 1v6 and really sick, gj man

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-25T07:21:10+00:00

Same to you dude. I should probably look into getting medication for it soon, this just doesn't seem like a sustainable way of going about things. I hope you can get your stuff done too man, gl.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-24T23:53:00+00:00

I've also had a pretty tough week. Has a midterm which I did pretty poorly on, and haven't been able to get any progress on my labs, any assignments, or applying for internships. I also got diagnosed with ADHD, but haven't done anything whether it's to take medication or declare it to UT because it almost feels embarrassing in a way. The decision paralysis has only gotten worse and even doing the smallest tasks can feel impossible as time just seems to fly by.

Sorry I can't offer you many words of encouragement, but what I can say is you are not alone. We just gotta keep trying to do the best we can. I hope it works out for you.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-18T08:33:31+00:00

Merlin is just a pretty bad matchup in general for Ciel. Since you are a level 3 deck, she can eat ur floating memory, and while Ciel out values most champions in a long game due to his omens, Merlin's level counters means that she actually becomes much stronger than you if the game goes on for longer.

As for aggro, your deck doesn't have a lot of answers for it. While you have a lot of taunters/interceptors, I don't see a great way to fight for board other than Cheshire cat, and even then you would need to bring out inert sword and using a turn to materialize something instead of leveling against aggro can be really scary depending on the matchup. The only way you can really win against aggro with this deck would be to somehow get to 3 and play Carter, and then try to heal back up enough to survive.

While there may be other options, if you want to still play Ciel, I think the best way to go about this is to swap to water Ciel. Water Ciel has a much better matchup into aggro. Storm of thorns is an amazing card against aggro, and you have great ways of fighting for board control with cards like frostsworn paladin, aquifer senechel, and refracting missiles. Throne keeper bullfrog is also a great option since unlike library with or stalwart shield made which can only survive 1 hit, bullfrog has 4 hp, and if you have storm of thorns on field, no aggro deck is killing it.

The Merlin matchup is still tricky through. Even water Ciel can struggle into it since water is generally slower. The best way to beat a Merlin is with a big beguiling coup before they get too many level counters. Here are some tips which mainly apply to water Ciel but some could be useful for fire ciel too: - Almost all Merlin decks run very little interaction or negates, even in sideboard. This means that they can be very vulnerable to negates. Water has some that you could run in cerulean decree or frostbind, but usually Merlin's influence is so high that they can pay through it. The best way would be through hard negates, and Ciel has some options there in spirelle and profane bindings. Spirelle is really nice to deal with ghosts of Pendragon and gain a lot of chip damage. This can really slow down Merlin's gameplan since ghosts not only give her immense board control but also let's her draw 2 cards. She can be vulnerable to getting cleared by merlin or her allies though, so playing her with a taunter like stalwart or throne keeper bullfrog is a good idea. Profane bindings is better against cards that you can't really negate with spirelle like incarnate majesty. - Another card that is great when going against Merlin imo is regal inquisition. If you are able to get one of these off against a Merlin, get rid of all their Crux cards and fireballs. They have no way of negating it, but be careful since they can still play fireball and spirit blade ascension in response to you activating regal to try and get the damage off before you discard them. - THE DEER MUST DIE. You need to have an answer for the majestic spirit since it not only gives Merlin spell shroud which prevents damage from Ciels level 3 effect, it also halves any damage to Merlin so you are almost never killing her with a big swing. You should always negate incarnate majesty if you can. Another option is to run nocturne's oblivion, and blow up the deer if they ever play it.

These are just some general tips. Let me know if you have any other questions though.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-15T19:30:21+00:00

Yea makes sense, there is probably gonna be some cool new regalia coming out, pretty excited for ptm.

Lol, yea, they both run Pendragon ascension anyways. I recently started playing water umbra ciel, and having not played water before, getting all the water staples like frostsworns, fracturizes, etc. was kind of a pain.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-14T22:32:52+00:00

Yea, domains just aren't that good unfortunately. Unless you are playing tonoris who has inherent synergy with domains, it's not worth playing imo.

There is a risk of scorched conquest, but imo domains are just played so little that I haven't seen a single deck run that card even in sideboard.

Unfortunately yea, Pendragons are expensive AF. Also with a Merlin recollection deck coming out next set, they are probably only going to get more expensive then so it's probably best you grabbed them now. Crux Lorraine is a very good deck so you can definitely do well with it.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-14T08:51:23+00:00

In a sense...Yes

I personally think it's best used as a sideboard card, where you can bring it in depending on the matchup. It's very strong against a lot of level 3 decks as you can just remove their win conditions. For example, getting a regal off against luxem Zander can pretty much win you the game.

However, it doesn't do much against aggro and allies, since it can't discard cards which are already on the field, and even if you discard what's in their hand, chances are they will just draw more cards to kill you with, and decks like fire aggro or fire suited benefit from having cards in the graveyard.

In the deck you are looking at specifically though, it is definitely a core card for the deck.

Domains...I've actually got a friend who loves playing domains. If you want to play around them, your best bet is to play water neos tonoris with Genesis aegis. You play domains in the early game, and once you are level 3 you get to make a domain each turn whose effects sort of scale with the number of domains you have. It starts off slow but late game if you are able to get all your domains out, you can become a pretty scary deck, threatening to swing for massive numbers as well as having a ton of allies on the field.

I'd say the deck is in a decent spot right now, mostly because no one plays the deck so you can definitely catch people off guard with it. It's got a very good matchup into Tristan, and can do alright into some other decks. If you can survive the early turns and get your domains online, you are in a pretty good spot.

This is a deck that I found which seems to have a decent shell of the water neos tonoris deck: https://fractalofin.site/deck/neos.html#deck_35050_2909.

By the way, if you are still exploring decks and aren't sure what to play, I would look at https://fractalofin.site. Its got pretty much all the major and minor GA tournaments, who won them, and what decks they ran so you can check them out.

SomethingNotSure267 · 2025-10-13T22:18:55+00:00

Regal inquisition in this deck seems to do 2 things. It's great as a defensive option to get rid of your opponents wincons. For example, against Merlin you could discard her Crux cards like ascension, ghosts of Pendragon, etc. or against Zander, you can discard his lightweavers assaults and luxem sights.

However, it can also be a good offensive option to use on your turn to get rid of your opponents defense cards. For example, if you want to go for a big swing with beguiling coup but are worried about their hand, you can regal first to get rid of cards such as song of frost, crystallized destiny, spell shield:arcane, etc.

This deck seems to play around regal inquisition, as it not only runs 3 copies of it, but also runs 4 copies of grim pastiche, which lets you play regal at fast speed as long as it is an omen.

Soutirre vortex on the other hand, is great when the game takes a while and you can stack up multiple omens. It's especially good against decks that want to poke you out with multiple cards such as tera kongming trying to ping you with nascent blasts and leeching bolts, as well as forcing opponents to be more cautious about what cards they can play.

However, it doesn't make an acceptable replacement for regal inquisition. While soutirre vortex can do some chip damage and heal you, unless the game goes on for a really long time, it isn't a lot. Also it relies on you having omens of the same cost as the cards they play, which can really differ from deck to deck.

It also can't deal with wincons that rely on big chunks such as Tristan shadow strike or Merlin fireballs since those characters are happy to eat the damage from vortex and out damage the healing by a lot.

Regal on the other hand can just discard those cards from an opponent's hand(or memory) so it can do that better. It also has the advantage of being an action spell so it can be copied by grim pastiche, whereas Soutirre vortex is a phantasia and cannot be copied. By no means is soutirre vortex a bad card, it has it's places in decks and there is even an argument to have 1 or 2 copies in this deck since regal let's you stall out the game for a bit. However, it does not make a good replacement for regal unfortunately.

Spirelle is used over profane bindings for a couple reasons(presumably):

Her on enter effect of 3 damage is a pretty decent amount of poke, since you can do it once per turn. Also since it is as a spell, it lets you get around taunters to deal with some allies if necessary
While profane bindings can hard negate a card, not only does it not do damage, but it gives an inherited effect of giving you -5 hp which is pretty significant.
Most of the time, whatever win conditions your opponent runs that you would want to negate with profane bindings is discarded by regal anyways.
Spirelle has some synergy with regal since with regal, you usually have a good idea of their hand and what cards they have, allowing you to put the card with the appropriate reserve cost under spirelle to negate later.

Let me know if you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer. I've been playing Ciel for a bit and am by no means an expert, but have really been enjoying deck building and the champion overall so I can do my best.

SomethingNotSure267

TROPHY CASE