Chillbeards
By Dracqi · PlaystyleBack to guides
Chillbeards is a rather underused card, especially in higher leagues, mostly due to its high mana cost and non-trivial success condition. In this guide, I will give a few tips to maximise the value of Chillbeards.
Before attacking, gain 3 strength
Before attacking, gain 4 strength
Before attacking, gain 5 strength
Before attacking, gain 6 strength
Before attacking, gain 7 strength
1. Be mindful of mana
At 9 mana, Chillbeards is one of the most expensive cards in the game. Consider its chonky mana cost and keep your strategy either a little more lean, and/or give it more mana gain.
That means either have a rather cheap deck where you can play multiple cards a turn early on (with many 1-/2- and 3-drops) to make Chillbeards your hopeful finisher, or have a mana-ramp deck with Frozen Core and Gift of the Wise.
2. Aim for the baseline
Due to its ability, the most valuable usage of Chillbeards is targeting enemies at your opponent’s baseline. Therefore it is important to either keep frontline at all time, for instance with Rockworkers; or to have a cheap way to get frontline back with cards like Wild Saberpaws.
3. Control cards
Use cheap cards with movement or cheap control cards, as they can be used to defend against units or damage units at the enemy baseline, and be combo-ed effectively with Chillbeards. Movement is particularly important because of ground-gaining and quick offensive capabilities.
Hunter’s Vengeance and Confinement are often recommended control cards for good defense and better offense.
4. Tokens are friends
Collector Mirz is pretty much perfect for these purposes, they produce solid moving units that cost 0 mana, and is relatively cheap too. Last but not least, the cycling lines up well with the mana cost. Maybe consider Harvesters of Souls too.
5. It’s all about that bait
Bait your opponent! Use (once again) cheap units (or expensive ones too) to bait defense at your opponent’s baseline, then use it as a perfect finisher opportunity.
In the following example, we play Rockworkers (with a lucky front spawn) then Collector Mirz on the baseline to hope for a cheap opponent unit clearing the Mirz. Next turn, we can hopefully slam Chillbeards in.
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winter6. Cycling
Keeping it in your hand to wait for the right moment to strike is limiting, consider Freebooters or mana filling cards like Moment’s Peace or similar expensive stuff. Also be sure to cycle it around mana turn 4-5 if you want to get it at 9 mana (and you cycle your cards almost every turn).
7. Chip Chip
Use chip damage (cards like Visions of the Grove or Needle Blast that deal base damage) to get more use out of Chillbeards finishers, since you’ll usually have to weaken your opponent or finish them off to complete the deal, and you might have to sacrifice ground to successfully pull it off.
8. Freeze & confusion
Use freeze and confusion cards to keep enemies at the baseline, Frosthexers and Sweetcap Kittens are the best options.
Below is a pretty perfect turn mana 8, with a lot of base pressure to force the enemy to defend, and Frosthexers locking an enemy unit on the baseline for a Chillbeards next turn.
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