STRATEGY: This decks sports the typical Afanas package with near 50/50 charater and spell distribution to abuse Afanas boosts. This is a well-balanced game so some cards are shifted to close out a late game win using Baku and Small Step, Giant Leap.

EARLY GAME: Kadigiran Mage-Dancer and Helping Hand will be your ideal opener but a combination of low cost characters and spells will work. The key is to commit to memory some popular openers so you know where to place Baba Yaga or a couple of small characters (Disciple, Bladedancer) to steal early expeditions. Use magical training to trigger Afanas. We are running the Rare versions because I found that I never cast the common ones from reserve at 3 mana. This will pay off in the Mid Game.

MID GAME: You will want to gain card advantage during this stage. Ideal setup is to Meditation Training a boosted Mage-Dancer for chain draws. At only 2 mana, Magical Training off reserve will be affordable here. Card draw plus a boost is a pretty good rate for 2! You will likely play Alchemists and Tooth Fairy at this stage. Remember that Alchemist is strictly better than Tooth Fairy from reserve. Aggressively ditch the Fairy over the other. Use Flamel for spell shenanigans, opportunistically play Spy Craft (even without the Afanas trigger), bounce things with Off You Go! (don't think too hard about the 4 mana reserve cost - it's too high so feel free to ditch the second cast). Just do a lot of disrupting at this stage.

The goal is to enter the late game with a Baku or Small Step in hand using card draw.

LATE GAME: You have 2 options in the late game. The first is the usual Small Step cast. Enough said about that.

The second play is to set up a Baku cast to rip the last card from your opponent. During this stage, there's usually enough mana for your opponent to set up the board and cap with a boost spell or the one character with effects. For example, Ordis will play tokens then boost with Charge. Ripping Charge away will often result in a win! Just deny that last cast, rip away the beefy character or key spell and you will be in a good position to win.

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