Greetings and welcome to the third part of my matchup series, where I go through all different matchups that I have the necessary card to experience, and explain these matchups in details while narrating how I pilot the game as well!

The goal of this serie is to help all new or unexperienced player get to know a certain matchup for a deck in details, to get more familiar with how they should play the match and how to win this certain matchup more than usual and overall get better at the game!

For this post we have the Card draw magic vs aggro deception matchup , where I will be playing my card draw magic deck vs a hidden rush deception deck! Now this matchup can be won if you had a decent starting handd with the cards you want, so without further ado let's jump into it.

A closer look on hidden rush!

​

To start things off here, I will be going a bit deeper about the hidden rush decks in general in the current meta, to further understand them and know how to react to them.

After the latest rework of the hidden god power of Ludia, people playing hidden rush deception added a new style to this deck that we will talk about in details, while some others kept the same old playstyle. So let us see what these 2 playstyles are, and how to play against each of them!

Hidden Rush first playstyle

​

The first and old traditional playstyle that hidden rush deception players used to do and still do sometimes, is keeping on playing hidden creatures and hitting face with them to keep on chip damaging your god until they finish him off. They use some strength buff spells and sometimes creatures hiding ability to keep on doing damage.

They focus on playing many creatures and sometimes going wide with them, and the core card for this strategy is the Shaodw of Lethenon along with some other creatures. Like these ones:

With the use of buff spells alongside such creatures, they focsuing on doing damage always and then they use even stronger creatures to finish the job:

How to counter this playstyle

​

Now the key to playing against this playstyle, is to try and take as less damage as possible in the early game, while building your hand to be able to take control of the game later on. To do that, you would need good card draws for the early on, while having an untargeted clearing spell of some sort. A good starting hand will be something like this:

The tracking bolt is key here for these shadow of lethenon as well as other hidden creatures if paired with Street Conjurer.

Then for the second phase of this matchup, to get through these annoying strong creatures and start taking control of the game, which should be doable if you had a good early hand building, these are some key combos and cards to do so:

It is basically to clear his whole board and from there you start taking control of things!

Hidden Rush Second playstyle

​

Now the second playstyle is a little similar to the first one yet very different. It was born due to the change for the hidden god power that does not do damage anymore. The second playstyle is based on focusing on 1 creature since the beginning of the game, buffing it insanely with 2 spells for extra 6 damage, ane then keep on hiding it each turn without damaging it until it kills you! They focus much on these combos most of the time:

They start buffing and damage from the beginning of the game and thus doing insane damage! While they keep their focus on 1 creature only and hide it all the time!

How to play against this playstyle

​

Now the though process here is a little different. Since the opponent is focusing purely on 1 strong creature, this means that he will HAVE to spend 3 mana each turn just to hide it, thus leaving him no room to react to your moves. So the key here is try to race your opponent with the creatures that you have that can do damage as well as draw you cards!

These are some cards that can pressure your opponent and make you do damage or make your opponent have to react to them or get punished especially the Rune Moth. your opponent will be forced to either react to it and lose his creature, or let you get value from it.

However, the startup here is almost the same and that is to get the best card draw hand possible because your opponent can not react to anything you do!

Setting up a really good starting hand and then using your damage creatures and spells, makes it possible to race this type of playstyle! Honorary mention to the best spell for this matchup:

Since your opponent solely focus on 1 creature here, this spell can block insane amount of damage thus making 1 turn for your opponent completely useless! Unless he has the relic at this time then you're screwed!

Gameplay

​

Here are 2 games that I played against aggro deception while using card draw recently!

Conclusion

​

From what I have experience before, this matchup is definitely winnable and in your favor if you got a decent starting hand for it. Usually against the first playstyle, if you do not get the tracking bolt the first 3 or 4 turns you are basically done for!

Now it is possible to know which playstyle your opponent is playing from the first or second turn I would say so it is not wrong to try and keep the tracking bolt just in case! So that was it for this one, I hope that you like it, and in case you are struggling against aggro deception with card draw hope this was helpful!

Always keep on enjoying the game and remember than you can not win them all! Sometimes that luck is just not on your side, but always keep learning and try your best to do the correct moves! Take care and I will see you on the next one!

Mad Love, Peace out <3