Uprising Limited Initial Impressions - Iyslander

By: Yuki Lee Bender

 

After having the privilege of attending the Uprising world premiere sealed event and doing one Uprising draft, I have some initial impressions I want to share on Iylsander, the hero I played the most during limited events. I want to give the disclaimer that this is based on a very limited sample size and is merely a starting place. It’s highly likely that things will become more nuanced with more time to explore and learn the format. However, hopefully this can serve as a guide that will help folks jump in to limited for their Pre-Release and Release events.

Iyslander

Iyslander is excellent at playing a tempo gameplan where she attacks on both her own turn as well as her opponent’s turn with arcane damage that is difficult to block, while also disrupting the opponent. She often wants to trade small amounts of damage back and forth each turn cycle, and find small advantages in efficiency as she taxes her opponents and chips them for damage on their turn.

 

Playing as Iyslander

Waning Moon is an extremely impressive weapon and I believe activating it as much as possible, especially on your opponent’s turn, is key to winning with Iyslander. As a result, this means you want the majority of the blue non-attack actions you intend to play to cost 0 or 1 resources so you can play that card and activate Waning Moon off a single blue.

 

As Iyslander, you always want to go first in every matchup, both because you can deal Arcane damage on turn 0, usually forcing the opponent to use Helio’s Mitre right away. You also have strong turn 0 plays like Sigil of Protection, Healing Salve or Arctic Incareration which fit nicely into the decks core gameplan. Additionally, going first allows you to set up your arsenal right away to start playing on your opponents turn. Having a blue card in arsenal at all times is a huge priority and something you should actively be looking to do every turn if possible.

Iyslander is very particular about her card economy, and planning this out is an important part of building and playing her correctly. Generally every turn cycle you will want to:

• Pitch 1 blue to play a 0 or 1 cost non-attack on your opponents turn, and use Waning Moon.
• Arsenal another blue non-attack so you can repeat the process next turn.
• Use the remaining two cards to block on your opponents turn, or disrupt/attack on your own turn.

 

Because you are basically locked into pitching a blue to play your arsenal + Waning Woon every turn, you want your remaining two cards to be as flexible as possible. For this reason I think red 0 costs, especially ones that block 3, are premium as they give you a lot of flexibility to make plays such as defend with 1 card and play the remaining 0 cost on your turn. However, more expensive cards can be good for allowing you to take a more aggressive role in the game, and some premium 2-3 cost reds are still very good.

 

To see the difference between 0 cost and 1 cost cards in action, consider the following hands, assuming there is also a blue Aether Hail in arsenal:

This hand will likely want to pitch Sigil of Protection to play Aether Hail from arsenal, and pay 2 for Waning Moon to deal a total of 5 damage and give your opponent a frostbite. Additionally, you will want to save a blue Aether Hail in hand to arsenal next turn. That leaves you with a few possible lines for your remaining cards. You can block with Frostling and Icebind for 6, you can block with Frosting for 3 and attack with Icebind fused on your turn for 3, or you can not block and attack with ice bind for 3 fused, pitching Frostling to Waning Moon for a total of 5.

 

Now let us consider the same hand but with a 1 cost red action instead.

You still want to pitch Sigil of Protection and save Aether Hail. However your choices for the remaining cards becomes much more binary. You can block for 6 with Frosting and Red Aether Hail. Or you can save both to play Aetherhail and attack on your turn with Waning Moon for 6. The 1 cost red trades a higher damage output for less flexibility. This by no means red cards that cost resources are bad, it just means they are less flexible and so in my eyes slightly less preferred.

 

Building Iyslander

As of right now, my ideal ratios for Iyslander are approximately:

• 20-22 blues - prioritizing 0 and 1 cost non-attack actions, especially ones that deal or prevent damage.
• 8-10 reds - prioritizing 0 and 1 cost cards that deal damage or prevent damage. Attacks and non-attacks are both good at red.

 

While Iyslander is definitely played best with a very heavy blue count, she can still function at lower blue counts. My sealed deck for the Uprising World Premiere in Vegas had 14 blues which I would put as close to the bare minimum, but still felt serviceable. Yellows can be a decent replacement for blues if you have a fair amount of 0 cost blue cards. Spellfire Cloak can also help make up for resource light hands. I ended up going 4-0 with Iyslander after starting as 1-1 with Fai, for a total record of 5-1 at the event. Here is my sealed deck for reference.

I do not think this is an especially ideal sealed pool, and I’m playing quite a large number of cards I would prefer not to have to play, but Iyslander feels fundamentally very strong. Overall, I found the deck to perform much better than it looks on paper.

 

Here are some very rough power rankings for many of the common and uncommon cards I would look to play for Iyslander in limited. Keep in mind these are only based on initial impressions and are subject to change. It is not an exhaustive list of all the cards, but generally cards not on the list I would try to avoid playing when possible. Within each category, cards are not listed in any particular order. 

 

Please remember these power rankings are only a rough guide and should not be used as a pick order. The overall composition and synergy of your deck is very important, and the value of these cards can shift greatly depending on what your deck needs. You may very well have to aggressively draft blues as you want such a large blue count and are somewhat particular about which blues you are hoping to put in your deck.

 

Best of the best - cards I would take aggressively in early picks of the pack.

Strong Playables - cards I am happy to take once I start to feel committed to Iyslander. Seeing lots of these cards might steer me into the deck.

Solid Roleplayers - cards I generally am happy picking towards the middle of the pack, but usually won’t make me want to draft Iyslander. These are cards I’m generally quite happy with with when I draw them.

Playables - cards you can put in your deck, but feel more like filler. Often these cards don’t feel fantastic when you draw them.

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