Looking for input on PvE Home Soil Barrier Pure Frost / 3F1N Deck

[Clayney0]

Hey, returning player from 2012 here.
I started playing this week and am jaded a bit with my Frost Deck after playing a day with a basic Nature Deck (pulled Shaman in first few packs so I just started farming with that. Windweaver / Shaman start feels like a slap in the face), especially the transition between T2 to T3 or if the enemy already has a strong T1 defense (looking at you, bandits).

This is my current build:

Spoiler

http://www.bafocards.eu/shared/?4f3d8b098922e1d5344c19a0e8d25c62

I went through a couple of the easier advanced & expert maps with this, both singleplayer and 2/4man. Went okay I guess, but like I said, it feels lackluster.
So I'd like to try and make Home Soil work, because I think the concept is unique and interesting enough to make a fun deck.

This is what I came up with so far:

Pure Frost

Spoiler

http://www.bafocards.eu/shared/?2c3b042b14c320237cb1a2b05e8fa947

3 Frost 1 Nature

Spoiler

http://www.bafocards.eu/shared/?21614315b69b02f69e35a3a54cc9368e

So a couple of questions for people who may have some experience with the following:

1. I am missing some pretty pricey cards like Home Soil, Area Ice Shield & Dredger (plus Dreadnought and Battleship if I end up going pure Frost), so I'd like to know it'll even be worth pursuing this deck idea.
2. Ice Guardian Yay or Nay? I played with it a bit and the range on being "near" buildings feels incredibly low compared to Lyrish Knight.
3. Is Dreadnought strong enough to justify its BFP cost and going Pure Frost, or should I stay with T4 Nature Orb?
4. Buildings? I have Worldbreaker Gun and might get Construction Hut & Stronghold for specific maps, but so far I only felt the strength of Worldbreaker Gun on very few maps where your late game Defense matters (Guns of Lyr) or you can set up close to the enemy (Sunbridge).
5. Just in general things I should drop completely or just swap for a similar card (e.g. Maelstrom for Ice Tornado)
6. Bonus question for PvP players: I played only very little pvp back in 2010-2012, but I'd like to dip my toes in. Is Home Soil / Ice Barrier a viable option? Not the entire deck obviously, but the idea behind it.

I greatly appreciate any help on this, thanks for reading and stay safe.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Clayney0
image link didnt work

[Weak1ings]

In PVP ice barrier home soil is usually very good and its devastating for a wide variety of units but I'm not sure if its worth adding as a tier 2 option for decks without a frost start.

[Cocofang]

There is no such thing as going pure being worth it. It can be viable but it will basically never be as good as splashing because there are some really good cards that only require one specific color. Most notorious is probably the 1 Nature splash for obvious reasons. Hey, how about your expensive T4 units don't die? Yeah, I'll take that I guess.

Pure is all for flavor and style.

Here is something interesting for your consideration that I learned some weeks ago: Defenders + Northern Keep R.

An immortal stack of Defenders for 20 seconds that deals 30% more damage and cannot be knocked back. Frost Mage benefits too. Home Soil them if you like. Live out your immovable object frost-fantasy as early as T2. Give it a try in the forge! Stack like 5 or 6 Defenders on top of each other, build two Keeps behind them and then spam a nice, mixed T1 up to T4 twilight army.

[shroomion]

If you want 3 frost 1 nature cou can go the first 3 as frost and simply choose the northland drakes as cheap(bfp wise) and very good t3. If you played during christmas or if it is sellable then maybe add a santa clause to give the northland drakes a heal. for t1 homesoil and masterarchers plus frostmage is plus ice barrier is the way to go. for t2 you can either go the war eagle route or in some maps use stormsingers to a greater effect. however for the war eagles i really recommend the area ice shield..since they are strong but also slow and low hp..maybe you can go on t1 with imperials plus their stance and frost sorceresss(the one which applies the shields) then use her in t2 for the war eagles and keep the shields with ice age active before they expire. could also be an option to avoid area ice shield and reuse a t1. imperials are brilliant and with ice shield ..you know unkillable in most early game situations. if you do not pick up matter mastery at either t2 or t4 then you should take constructs or battleships since they are the only other way to deal nicely with willzappers(their special attack can outrange them) if you got matter mastery then you can also go with whatever else you want. ironclad etc. constructs are super slow but even on ice/nature you can do a work around with tunnels and maybe deepcoil worm. If you want to deviate from frost units only then gemeye is also a long range option at t4.

oh and before i forget it...dreadnought is a great card. you can hold any defensive position with it if it stands near a building(it will heal all the time since it is not actively in combat). you can even add a winterwitch to apply shields and leave its hp untouched. my favorite was constructs plus ironclad in front of the dreadnought in its defensive position..if you really want to go pure frost then you need to introduce winterwitch imo, but it is not as simple and painless as simply swapping an orb for regrowth if you plan going on the offensive

for example on lost souls maps i was using frost guardian on t1 to great effect...but the restriction to its shield makes it weird to play on most maps so i removed it from my deck and had one slot free for santa to make the t3 more sturdy. if you are lucky and get an avatar of frost then your t3 is getting another great option btw^^

[Torban]

Ice guardian is very micro intensive and your probably better off not having t1 melee or running lightblade/ imperials with sorc if you really want melee. The Imperial and sorc should be saved for hard maps though as they are pretty much never going to lose period but are expensive. Drop northern keep for defense tower. Only on blight do you need northern keep for anything. Homesoil is definitely worth keeping especially for t2 as wareagles with homesoil are pretty darn terrifying.

Think you should drop mountaineer and lyish and roll with wareagles and defenders backed up with viridya for pure frost. War eagles are frosts bread and butter and can trivialize t2. Defenders act as your indestructible ground presence. Area ice shield definitely pretty important for pure frost. The only map I ever found a use for mountaineer on is blight so I regret buying and upgrading one. Wareagles just fills his slot better unless you need a suicide unit to kill a spawner.

 

Frost shard is pretty terrible. Swap for coldsnap 

T4 you don't have winter witch!!!!!!!!! How can you pure frost without winter witch?????? Construct can be dropped if it comes between winter witch and construct. Also drop shatter ice for ice tornado. More flexible killing buildings and troops. 

Anyone saying pure is just flavor has never played a good pure frost deck. A quick and spicy t1, godly flyer t2, best t3 in the game, and a t4 that litterally cant die and is good for taking out priority targets. Viridya is also the best card in the game for frost and you should keep her summoned even at t4.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Torban

[Clayney0]

Thanks for the answers so far! Will surely help me on the long run on deciding what my final deck will look like
 

17 hours ago, Weak1ings said:

In PVP ice barrier home soil is usually very good and its devastating for a wide variety of units but I'm not sure if its worth adding as a tier 2 option for decks without a frost start.

Thats great to hear! I will definitely give it a shot then once my deck is finalized, and my plan was a Frost Start anyway.

16 hours ago, Cocofang said:

Pure is all for flavor and style.

Kind of what I thought before, but no harm in asking I guess. Will save me a good amount of currency on Dreadnought aswell.

16 hours ago, Cocofang said:

Here is something interesting for your consideration that I learned some weeks ago: Defenders + Northern Keep R.

This sounds very nice, especially since I struggled a bit on T2. How strong would this be on offense though? I imagine with moving a lot, the 25power cost on Stand Ground would quickly become expensive.

12 hours ago, shroomion said:

If you want 3 frost 1 nature cou can go the first 3 as frost and simply choose the northland drakes as cheap(bfp wise) and very good t3. [...] if you are lucky and get an avatar of frost then your t3 is getting another great option btw^^

This is how my games went so far. I pulled a few Northland Drakes (Blue) from boosters, and Frost Avatar is the unit I wanted in my deck 100%, so I already bought it a few days ago.

12 hours ago, shroomion said:

if you played during christmas or if it is sellable then maybe add a santa clause to give the northland drakes a heal.

There are a few Santa cards on the auction house, but his tooltip says "As soon as Christmas Time is over, his special abilities will no longer be available." so I don't think he's an option I should consider. Do you still have the card, and if so, do his abilities still work?

Thanks again for your time and suggestions.
After reading everything, this is what I came up with so far, as a base for maps that don't require a strong defense.
http://www.bafocards.eu/shared/?0b02f779f5f5d381960b9b32d404a180
 

I am unsure about Stormsinger vs Gravity Surge. So far I played Gravity Surge, and it helped me out a lot on T2 because I wasn't running any T2 Unit that could attack flying units. I definitely want to have one of the two in my deck.
 

@TorbanI will read and respond to you later, I have to leave for now.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Clayney0

[shroomion]

Just tried santa in my frost deck..the ability is still working. I think it is just flavour text.

[Cocofang]

1 minute ago, Clayney0 said:

This sounds very nice, especially since I struggled a bit on T2. How strong would this be on offense though? I imagine with moving a lot, the 25power cost on Stand Ground would quickly become expensive.

Toggle abilities give a full refund into void. You don't lose anything, you merely push the spent power back to be used again later. And since your Defenders ideally never die while executing that slow-push your main expenses are spells and the towers.

The biggest hindrance is finding a good spot to build a Keep for offense and waiting for it to finish. After that you have to aggro the army of whichever camp you attack into your immortal Defenders and sit it out. It's a war of attrition basically. But you should always come out on top as long as waves don't come faster than you can destroy their spawns. It is slow and steady, the essence of frost, basically. Since several Defenders stacked on top of each other will distribute incoming damage very equally and melee enemies will all lay into the stack while generally ignoring the towers (as long as there are enough Defenders to attack) being pushed back is very improbable.

Defenders + Keep Red is also just the basis for that tactic. Since it's T2 but only requires one frost orb you are free to splash into any other color your desire for additional customization.

It is actually pretty crazy what this simple T2 defense set-up can withstand. As long as the Defenders are getting all the heat and consequently the Keeps don't die, you can outlast T4 units.

[Clayney0]

@Torban Thanks for the help!

I will definitely drop Ice Guardians. The Range just feels way too low to make it work properly.
I quite like Lyrish Knight, although I didn't play a map with Defenders yet so maybe the Knights aren't as useful anymore.
After playing around with Northern Keep & Defense Tower in the Forge, the latter just feels worse, especially in combination with Defenders. Why do you prefer it?
Mountaineer is a weird one for me. Sometimes it carries the entire map for me (both Campaign & rPvE), and other times it's just worthless. But I really like the fact that with correct micro, it will never die due to how the Frost Shield refreshes.
You said I should drop Shatter Ice for Ice Tornado, but Shatter Ice wasn't in my deck before to begin with. Did you Mean Maelstrom?
As for Pure Frost, I will most likely stick with T4 Nature for more versatility and saving BFP on Dreadnought. I have ~2k left and still need a few cards.

How do you feel about this: http://www.bafocards.eu/shared/?497fa7c8ff2fbeb6ee075357c0deada7
I don't know about the last three cards; Maelstrom, Glyph of Frost and Gemeye.
Maelstrom was in my deck because I didn't know what else to put there, Glyph of Frost was always very helpful on T1 and T2 pushes but maybe Defenders will carry here.
Gemeye was a suggestion from another player, but I haven't tested it yet. Maybe this is a good spot to fit in Winter Witch, but having Regrowth is probably enough to keep units healthy.

How do you feel about Core Dredge? Maybe Red over Blue if I end up dropping Mountaineer, although Blue is quite nice with multiple freeze Cards. Also Avatar and Northland Drake are already strong, but maybe a 3rd T3 Unit would be useful.
 

5 hours ago, Cocofang said:

Toggle abilities give a full refund into void. You don't lose anything, you merely push the spent power back to be used again later.

I guess that's true. When playing with Mountaineers as my main T2 I sometimes had trouble saving enough power for anything else.

Quote

Just tried santa in my frost deck..the ability is still working. I think it is just flavour text.

Okay weird, maybe it's a Skylords Reborn thing. The wiki even states that it shouldn't work. Thanks for clarifying tho!

Edited January 28, 2021 by Clayney0

[Torban]

My mistake on the shatter, rushing these out on work breaks. I do prefer tornado at t4 though as by t4 pure frost doesn't need to freeze enemies anymore as nothing will ever kill them. Glyphs good but unnecessary a majority of the time. I'd only slot it for long t1 maps.

I prefer defense tower as it's great spammed out as an extremely cheap high dps defense. I believe fully upgraded it's a whopping 940 attack for 50 power. That's absolutely devestating on a t1 cheap defense. I also use viridya so defenders arent going to die often regardless so I don't need it's offensive ability. I like to go quick so power to stat efficiency is a big deal.

Think of wareagle as your flying, cheaper mountaineer thats perfect for both offense and supplementing a defense, especially if those damn twilight dancers are spawning. A lack of anti air on some maps makes them doubly rediculious and their ability oneshots most mediums.

I like core dredge red, great for building heavy maps like king of giants. Don't need t4 at all between avatar and dredge for that map, great for carrying randos through expert and its dive makes great cc. I don't use it every map but I use it on enough of them to love the card.

If you do decide to run without dreadnought for awhile and run t4 nature gemeye is definitely a good pick. Run both affinities and your t4 is pretty much covered. Long range artillery that puts out aoe paralize or aoe damage. I don't think 3F1N is as strong at t4 as pure frost but it is certainly cheaper on bfp. Eventually getting that dreadnought would be good though as winter witch, dreadnought, Viridya is stronger than regrowth could ever be. Still think construct should go for winter witch. Shes truly S tier since her buff. Better than regrowth in a fight. Construct is more cool than practical most of the time.

 

 Gotta get back to work

Edited January 29, 2021 by Torban

[shroomion]

I said i would post it once i got it reinstalled so here it is. Depending on the map you sometimes can take out lightblade and get way more mileage out of a t1 tower or a warden sigil or gravity surge/or stormsinger. i had a killer time with stormsinger and ravenscoutships before xD

btw if you get stormsinger or silverwind lancers as fast t2/t3 in this deck than ascension expert map 2 can also be done with it. You really need one quick unit though. I fucked up royally once because my santa and lightblade were simply not quick enough to get to viridya to freeze her..that was shitty xD. I would gravitate to stormsinger(g) first since you can have a quick t2 then, just in case you somehow did kill too many avengers and she spawns before you can get your t3. Also removing northland drake for frost chard might be a good idea in this specific map.