Living on a Prayer

Jacob Pearson is a game developer at Legend Story Studios, showing us how to use new cards from Dusk till Dawn to light the way forward with Ser Boltyn, Breaker of Dawn!

Fatigue burning through his muscles, Boltyn fell to one knee to recover his strength. Chest heaving and sweat torrenting down his brow, he surveyed the scorched wastes that had once been lush farmlands. Friends, mentors, students, colleagues, and even people he had only met hours ago. All slain in the neverending feud with the Demonastery.

As the sun began to fall over the horizon, the sound of thunderous hooves from another ghastly battalion reached his ears. Their own reinforcements would not arrive until dawn, and he didn’t know if he could survive the night alone.

He caught sight of the glassy eyes of a fallen comrade - Galaphor was his name. A brave soldier, who had thrown his mind, body, and soul into the conflict every time the forces of Shadow attempted to breach Solana’s walls. How long until Boltyn was to join his fellow warrior in the dirt?

As he knelt, head heavy in his hands, his necklace dangled in just the right position to catch the last glowing rays of the setting sun. A beam of golden light refracted through the amulet, casting a warm haze upon a discarded banneret. Boltyn glanced at the scarlet fabric, emblazoned with gold insignia, and felt hope flare to life within his soul.

He wasn’t alone. He was never alone.

Boltyn plucked the banneret from the cracked earth, and rose to his feet, Raydn resting sturdily in the other hand. He plunged the shaft of the banneret into the ground, and the deep red folds danced to life in the evening breeze.

Let them come.

Dusk till Dawn brings us many bright and shiny new toys to Boltyn’s arsenal. It feels like a millennium since he was in the spotlight but that doesn’t mean his power was ever lacking. When Boltyn debuted in Monarch he was able to go toe to toe with some of Flesh and Blood’s most infamous heroes, even the legendary Chane! Boltyn has always held a special place in my heart, incentivising enemies to disengage from the combat chain lest his prowess in battle readily overtake them.

When building Boltyn for constructed formats it was previously quite a struggle to find effective payoffs for charging your soul, and keeping enemies engaged with what our attacks are really threatening. Boltyn excels when your opponent is having to play a back and forth trading game with you. Cards like Lumina Ascension were and still are very key, threatening an increase in life and soul. We were consistently able to threaten this thanks to cards like Beacon of Victory, and pull off terrifying turns with V of the Vanguard once Dynasty brought us Spirit of Eirina. The problem was that when we were not playing out our power ‘spike’ turns Boltyn really struggled to push damage with just a charged attack action card alongside his signature weapon Raydn, Duskbane. These turn to turn plays with two to three cards were typically a little behind the ball when compared to some of the aggressive decks we have in the format now, but thanks to Dusk till Dawn we have some fantastic pieces to keep stringing together truly powerful plays.

My preferred way to play this illustrious warrior is a very aggressive plan that relies on applying pressure every turn with Raydn. We don’t mind losing cards from our hand unlike other aggro decks. We can easily keep tempo with some amazing 2-3 card hands while utilising the strong base defense value of our class cards. This makes us quite acute into other aggro strategies while maintaining a more midrange playstyle into slower decks. All we need is to charge and swing Raydn, and the good fight is already getting done. Just make sure you're always keeping an eye on how many cards are in your soul. Sometimes it pays to leave a possible card or two in the gas tank, as chaining together attacks can have real synergy that we could miss out by being too greedy, too early.

The basis of any good Boltyn deck should start with our yellow pitch cards. What!? No way! You must be screaming at your screens as you read that. But it is the veritable truth. Boltyn really needs to be able to operate on the premise of having a charge card, a card to charge (ideally yellow), and a way to extend, whether adding value to your charge attack with Spirit of War by threatening another on-hit, or a way to utilise charging like with Take Flight. To have this be bread and butter smooth from turn to turn we are going to turn to these traditionally underused yellows for our resource base.

I don't think it can be understated how beneficial having good ratios can be for Boltyn and this is where I believe Dusk till Dawn truly shines for our vanguard: the new Bannerets! These Light Warrior attack actions are all yellow with fairly reasonable stats and an effect whenever they are charged to our souls. Now I wouldn't go throwing them all in your deck and calling it a day, but they are definitely where I would start. Too many and you’ll clunk up fast. But with a sprinkle here and a zesting there they are just the secret spice one needs to really start cooking up a storm! Courage allows you to make your attacks more likely to hit while letting Boltyn’s hero ability get to work, giving easy access to go again. Quicken just lets you squeeze that extra source of go again without any additional tax. Or even just an extra resource or life can be the last ingredient needed for that special soup.

If we want to play a more streamlined and aggressive deck we need to make sure we’ve got the mounds of charge attacks ready to keep up the offence. I like to have just under half my deck fulfil this aggro role as we need to charge to enable any and all of the synergy. Having up to half our deck being yellow is not unreasonable. Get the resource base looking good before we head to those red-hot bomb cards. Dusk till Dawn introduces great base cards like Beaming Bravado, Light The Way, and Prayer of Bellona. These are convenient start of turn plays to keep the light brigade galloping forth.

From here it's just a matter of personal preference when building an aggressive Boltyn deck. My personal passion lies in a back and forth trading gameplan by including cards like Sink Below, Fate Foreseen, and That All You Got? But you can easily go down the aggro path with cards like Snatch, Razor Reflex and Courageous Steelhand. Or even go crazy and set up a massive turn with triple Lumina Ascension, Cintari Sabers, and Courage of Bladehold to take out our enemies in one candidly mesmerising combat chain. Play with the ratios, mix it up. There is a lot to tune under the hood and I think you’ll find him paying dividends to those putting in the time to understand his true intricatesities.