Greetings! So far I've been having a lot of fun with this series of articles, getting to vocalize my testing and share ideas for the new contenders as we see cards get spoiled. Full discloser though, this will be the last of the Ancient Alphas contenders I will be covering until we see more spoiled for Windhoof and The Absence as I feel there isn't enough shown for me to construct a deck and get a sense of what both the contender and the deck want to do. That doesn't mean these articles will stop though! I have a few ideas that will be much more fun/informative to how I approach deck building. With that preamble complete, lets talk about the true subject of this article:
Fangyin, Defender of Drak'aroth
Fangyin is a green destroyer contender with twenty five health, 1/0 for stats, and is a dragon type. His starting text reads "Trigger - Challenge: Temper a Weapon you control. Dragon Clash cards you control get, "Trigger - Victory: You may ready your Contender". This effect triggers once per turn." Now, Fangyin has a brand new mechanic and a somewhat new one that not everyone might know yet by heart. So, I'll give a reminder for what Trigger Challenge is, then we will cover what Temper a Weapon means. As a reminder, Trigger - Challenge means whenever the card with the ability deals damage successfully to a contender (as an attacker or as a blocker) trigger their challenge effect. In this case, Fangyin "Tempers a Weapon". Temper is a brand new mechanic in Ancient Alphas which is a new kind of counter. Tempering will only happen to weapons and grants them the invisible additional text of "This Weapon gets +1/+0. Action: Remove a temper counter, reduce the attach cost of this weapon by one resource of any color" or something to that effect. To my understanding, Weapons can only have one temper counter on them at a time, so no reducing attach costs to be free completely and still have a power buff with remaining temper counters after. However, all of this is to say that Temper is a great mechanic! Weapons that previously gave no stat buffs now get a little extra umph to them. The example we were given at Clash Con 2025 when Fangyin was revealed was to improve Webber's Binoculars. Fangyin much like his rival Anzudak care both about Dragon Clash cards as well as their one separate mechanic. Meaning you can put a Dragon package (or go full dragons) into the deck to take advantage of his ability to swing twice in a turn. Fangyin's second ability turns on at fifteen health and is similar to the Magnate contender from Unrivaled: "At the start of your turn you may Engage a Dragon you control. If you do, choose one - This gets Flight until end of turn. - This gets Necrotic until end of turn." This Ability can be quite useful if we get some defensive Dragons but as it stands right now, it's not as impressive as his Trigger - Challenge. If he gets anything with Daunting in the set this will become a strong way to take advantage of a few cheap swings in on your opponent.
Inside You There Are Two Dragons...
Fangyin's main two colors to build as support are black or white. I've tested with both and found both to be equally powerful in their own ways. However, I am partial to the white green build (which is what the subject of the article will be on). White gives you access to Cao Ling's clash cards and Weapons matter package, along with Clarity's 1911 which is a great cheap weapon to Temper and make even stronger. Key Clash cards in the deck include Cao Ling, the Huntsman, Cao Ling, Demon Hunter, Cao Ling, Bane of the Discarded, and Windhoof, on the Offensive. These cards pair well with the amount of Weapon shenanigans you'll be doing, passing around weapons for big swings in a turn.
Forged With Knowledge
Fangyin's deck also shows that he cares about cards in hand, as shown by Fangyin, Sword Drawn. This guy starts out quite small at only a 1/1 but can quickly grow in size when he enters by exchanging Temper counters for cards to draw, one for each removed, and will get +1/+1 for each additional card in your hand. Thankfully, he has Breakthrough built into him already, so no need to worry about pushing his damage through when he's ready to attack.
Turn Two, Draw Two
Fangyin has an exceptionally strong early combo he can take advantage of if he goes second. Turn one you resource a green card and play Molten Breath, a contender weapon with a hefty attach cost but pretty strong effect. For the sake of this combo however, it doesn't have to be attached. Attack with Fangyin into the opponent's contender to Temper Molten Breath, then pass the turn. Turn two, resource either green or white and play Wisdom of the Ages, a basic action that would normally cost you four resources but because of our previous turn's attack, we now have a Contender Weapon, a Tempered Weapon, and a Dragon card (our contender), it costs one resource of any color to draw two cards! If you have a Fangyin, Sword Drawn in hand when you play this, you're setting up for quite the big scary dragon, especially if you follow it up with a Cao Ling, Bane of the Discarded, potentially drawing you three cards for two resources. Alternatively, if you don't draw a Wisdom of the Ages on turn one or two, you can just attach Molten Breath (removing the temper counter to make it two green to attach), draw a card, and have your contender powered up early and deal with any X/1's on the table to ensure the board is clear for Fangyin to attack. Or even play Fangyin, Formidable Challenger, attack with your contender, attack with Formidable Challenger who will get +2/+0 for the clash from your contender attacking, use his Trigger - Challenge, sending him to oblivion to free attach Molten Breath to your contender and draw you a card.
A Master of What?!?
We've seen Fangyin's specific clash buff for himself and I do enjoy it a lot, it has a ton of potential to be quite explosive. However, when I began testing with him, we hadn't seen his clash buff yet so I had used a temporary buff that at the time was just meant to be that. But as I've played the deck more and more, feels like the better buff to run. Baiting feels like a great buff to keep your contender safe from taking large amounts of damage and potentially clearing clash cards your opponent previously thought would be alive after the clash. Especially with how most of the deck's clash cards have more defense then power printed on them means that you'll have a solid defense no matter what. Plus, it can be used on engaged or readied clash cards, making it even more versatile.
Dragons, Dragons Everywhere
While there are a lot of great non-Dragon cards to run in the deck, that isn't to say there aren't any good ones. Fangyin, Warden of the Inferno is a great engine to find non-clash cards while also clearing your opponents board, Fangyin, Elemental Fury pushes extra damage through to the opponents contender while also drawing you a card when you defeat the first clash card you don't control each turn, and Fangyin, Mystic of Drak'aroth is a massive flying clash card that can close out games by himself.
A Centaur Over Dueling Dragons?
This may come as a shock to some, I'm running the Legendary Windhoof, Relentless Breakout over Dueling Dragons. Windhoof provides another great body to put a weapon on, he can have two weapons attached to him, protects himself AND the weapons attached to him, Tempers weapons attached to Windhoof cards (which can also be Windhoof, on the Offensive) and attaches another weapon for free onto himself when he gets his Trigger - Victory, and as long as he has a Tempered weapon on him he has Superspeed! All of that value on a three cost clash card. Dueling Dragons is a good removal engine once you get a couple temper counters on it, but it also encourages your opponent to hold open blockers for your contender, meaning you won't get those temper counters as fast as you need. Windhoof is a clash card so he draws attention away from your contender to do its job while still netting you a bunch of value.
Closing Thoughts
Fangyin has been one of the most fun decks to test since he was shown off. I had a lot of fun realizing how busted he can be with the right deck and pilot, and he's only getting better as we see more cards. He also has a lot of different builds you can do with him! Red Green Dragons might be a thing, a mono (or mostly green) Fangyin with a Pestilence package in it, green black Fangyin taking advantage of the power of alpha hunters, he has a ton of paths you can go with! I'm quite excited to see what the community comes up with!
Written by The Pest
https://www.deckplanet.net/alpha_clash/deck/53e12023-98a6-4dc1-843d-7a994ee4a511