Loyals have a lot of powerful tools to build and profit from board presence, so you run one Hero each for both: Orthos just lets you summon an extra Loyal from your hand every turn, no questions asked or costs to pay, and Ingo gives you Gold everytime you summon a Loyal, easily getting you 16 or more total Gold per turn and allowing you to run a large set of Artifacts in the deck. Orthos is actually what makes the deck "tick". With him getting you free bodies out, and with almost all the Loyals all having passive effects and thus not being affected by summoning sickness, you can do intricate combos and lines of play every turn, even if you start the turn with no Creatures out.

Your third Hero is Barker, who brings out a free Creature from your deck at the start of your first turn. That could be a Pinpom, which would let you spam out another free Creature, albeit from your hand this time, a Hountriever, which draws you cards whenever you summon another Loyal and could be an easy +4 every turn, or maybe a Labradoodle if you want to protect your board. Labradoodle reduces any damage Loyals take by 20 for every Loyal on the board.

Importantly, Barker triggers and lets you summon a Creature after drawing your first 5 cards, so you can look at your starting hand and see exactly what line of play you'd like to take.

​

On your average turn, you will summon 2 new Loyals, 1 for your Action and 1 with Orthos' effect. Additionally, if either of them is Pinpom, you get to summon a third one, allowing you to constantly flood the board while you have enough cards in hand to sustain the flood. And with Hountriever drawing you 2 cards whenever a new Loyal comes out, you will not run out of cards as long as you can keep your Hountrievers alive.

To do that, you have the aforementioned Labradoodle, but also Bone Dog, which can discard itself from your hand to prevent another Loyal from being defeated, and the Spell Divine Gift of the Guardian, which prevents any damage to your Creatures for a full turn and can thus save your entire board. Like all Divine Gifts, it's a one-time thing for the entire game, but it can help you set up a strong board or prevent the opponent from making a big swing in momentum! Note however that there are still ways to get around it, like Burning or taking control of your Creatures.

​

Well, that's all nice and good, but what about actually winning the game?

Your damage source almost exclusively comes down to Loyal Terrier and its 50 damage when another Loyal is defeated. That doesn't exactly sound impressive - but it doesn't have to be your opponent who defeats your Loyals! You run Book of Doom almost exclusively to kill your own poor doggos to trigger the mourning Terrier and lay waste to your opponent that way. If you have multiple Terriers out, that can be 100, 150, or even 200 damage per Loyal you get rid of, damage that can quickly get out of hand, especially considering how constantly you can pump out new Loyals every single turn to get rid of. And once you have multiple Terriers out, even killing your Terriers, which should be your opponent's number 1 priority, will result in damage for them, during their turn! As will attacking your ever so important Hountrievers.

​

Importantly, you have no real way to deal damage outside Terrier, except maybe using a Book of Doom for a little bit of damage on your opponent's Heroes. No Alice. No Rain of Arrows. That means that the total damage you can do is quite limited, which in turn means that you yourself can get overrun by opponents' Creature boards simply because you have a hard time clearing Creatures with more than 50 HP. Creatures with exactly 50 HP? Easy. Book of Doom clears them, as does a single Terrier Proc. But if your opponent runs something like Slipperies, where the Creatures can have up to 200 HP, you will have a really hard time.

To alleviate this weakness, you run 4 copies of Dark Gear to steal problem Creatures and maybe even get additional damage sources to help keep your opponent's board manageble.

​

Overall, this deck is not exactly the most difficult, since you will do very similar things (spam Loyals, draw cards, deal with opponent's threats, kill your own Creatures to deal damage) every turn. But finding the right sequences, when to kill what Loyal, in what order to summon them, and even what to summon with Barker for the best possible turn 1, can all give you an extra level of mastery over this deck!