Academy of Ages adds much-needed support to the tired Godwyrm Mysteria package. The addition of cards like Arcane Instruction and Mysterian Exchange Party allow for more consistent discounting on Majestic Sorcery. Grea, Crimson Promise saves the deck evolution points after turn 6, which can help smooth out lethals or allow you to survive until the lethal turn.Mysteria Rune is a deck focused on getting Anne & Grea, Royal Duo’s spell out as soon as possible, discounting it via Spellboosting and Mysteria, Magic Originator’s Fanfare effect to OTK with Mysterian Exchange Party.
Featured here is the current “stock” decklist. Some lists cut Freyja, Hanna, or both, but I’m not skilled enough to always have Anne & Grea and Mysteria in hand on turn 1 every game, so I run tutors. However, outside of the Mysteria core package and mandatory spells, pretty much every other card in this deck is a tech slot. Feel free to tweak ratios to suit your playstyle.After the buffs, Hanna is now optional; however, if you are unskilled enough to not draw your win condition cards, consider putting her back into the deck. Some decks are opting to cut Craig for more Annes, but burn damage is still very prevalent in this meta, so I think keeping three Craigs is necessary.
Unlike many other deck archetypes, Mysteria’s core cards all rotate at the same time, which means until Godwyrm rotates, and assuming they don’t print another win condition after that (highly unlikely, as we got Royal Duo the expansion after the old Mysteria win condition rotated), the Academy of Ages Mysteria cards may see very long-term value.
This card is Mysteria’s main (and only) win condition. Instead of nuking your deck to 5 or less and then throwing out massive damage via Rending Blast and Resentful Blaze, Mysteria now wins off of a non-interactable OTK via this new spell, which pulls five random (gacha haters can leave now) Mysteria followers from your left-play pool and gives them Storm.Cygames gave this card an absolutely insane buff. Anne & Grea, Royal Duo’s evolve effectively turns her into a pseudo-Howling Demon or Drazael, Ravening Enforcer, allowing this deck to basically neutralize any early aggro. In other words, the buff turns this deck into an unbrickable, stupidly consistent machine of a deck that only loses to a worse version of itself. Alternatively, a bricky, slow deck that loses to Ward Haven of all things.The Majestic Sorcery buff now includes followers that have been bounced or banished, which is a nice QoL change for the deck. Note that cards that transform followers, like Fallen Shot, Patchwork Pup, Ghost Town Apparition, and Winged Inversion, still deny your left-play pool.
Why is she pretending to be a student at her own school Mysteria, Magic Originator’s Fanfare effect effectively makes your spells reduce the cost of Majestic Sorcery by 2 instead of 1. This makes discounting the latter require
Reducing the cost of all Mysteria cards in hand also allows for some absolutely disgusting highrolls, generally achieved with multiple copies of 1 play point Winged Inversions and lots of discounted 0-cost spells.
tempo yolk Craig, Mysterian Chanter is the deck’s main board clear and healing, all bundled up into one card. In non–board based metas, this card is awful. But with decks like Wrath Blood and MarsSword soaring in popularity on ladder, Craig sees plenty of play due to his ability to stabilize the game, with both of his effects activating after Mysteria’s Fanfare effect.Even with Anne & Grea’s massive buff, Craig is still necessary. Please don’t cut yolk man.
Maids? Maids. Maids good. She tutors a Mysteria follower, she makes for a good Winged Inversion target, and her evo can add some chip damage via Mysterian Rite or Mysterian Missile. Her Japanese death sound is 12/10. I cut her for a cleaner Majestic Sorcery reanimate pool.
roommates.jpg Grea, Crimson Promise gives all allied Mysteria followers the ability to evolve for free. Before her release, this deck ran out of evolution points extremely quickly, since turns were spent having to evolve both Mysteria and Anne & Grea. Having her in the deck allows for Angel’s Blessing to be active more often, since you will usually be at more evo points than your opponent with this card on the field. Her spell is also a way to deal with early aggro boards or problematic cards like Raging Commander and Weiss, Discerning Professor that hide behind Wards.
Who wouldn’t want to be nameless student #493 here This card is used to add Ms. Miranda, Light Mage to your hand 99.999999999% of the time. There are some extreme fringe scenarios where the other two can be picked. Can be played on turn 1 if you have Mysteria cards to quickly reduce her cost, or held until after Mysteria’s reduction effect to speed up discounting Majestic Sorcery.
Missing: One Lou, please return to Runecraft if foundReward: Haven is deleted from the game Tutors a Mysteria follower from your deck. Only use this as a tutor when both Hanna and Freyja are not options (e.g., when you need Mysteria or Anne & Grea and only have 1 play point left); the other effect that gives everything on your board +1/+1 is much better and helps with lethals, so this spell should usually be held unless absolutely necessary.
Why run one Anne when you can run two Annes? Can be used as a 1-of to guarantee Anne & Grea, Royal Duo. It also adds an Anne’s Summoning to your hand, which is now almost always guaranteed to be in the Majestic Sorcery pool. The drain effect isn’t very useful, as by the time it gets drain, Majestic Sorcery should be discounted enough to go for lethals instead of healing. The card pollutes the Mysteria pool, which can ruin tutors from Freyja and Hanna, Mysterian Maid.Anne may find more use in Mysteria, due to Sorcery now pulling banished and bounced cards. If burn-damage decks become less prevalent, consider running more just to have more Anne’s Summonings in the left-play pool. However, as many other decks tend to do absurd amounts of damage, Craig is still necessary.
JAR OF GREED ALLOWS ME TO DRAW 1 CARD. I WILL START MY TURN BY PLAYING JAR OF GREED WHICH ALLOWS ME TO DRAW 1 CARD. I WILL PLAY THE MAGIC CARD, JAR OF GREED, WHICH ALLOWS ME TO DRAW 1 CARD. Draws a card. Very good target for Mysteria’s reduction effect. DO NOT PLAY THIS ON TURN 1. MYSTERIA IS NOT SPELLBOOST. THERE IS NOTHING IN YOUR HAND THAT NEEDS THIS PARTICULAR SPELLBOOST UNTIL AFTER YOU GET MAJESTIC SORCERY.
insight, but i get to slap your face Deals 1 damage and draws a card. Useful for pinging off shield effects from Lyrala, Luminous Cleric, Judith, Cosmic Observer, and Sacred Sheep. The 1 damage can also be useful for extending lethal range, especially when the cost has been reduced to 1 (or 0, if multiple Mysterias have been evolved).
tfw a gold card has a longer shelf life than most legendaries lmao Draws two or four cards, depending on how many cards have been drawn. When reduced by Mysteria’s effect, this can be a very useful way to refill your hand after spending non-draw spells and Mysteria followers to discount Majestic Sorcery. Personally, I don’t particularly like running too many copies of this card, as this deck draws relatively slowly compared to other Rune decks, and the extra effect activates quite late into the game, usually happening around turn 6–7.
This card was a mistake This card is disgusting. When reduced by Mysteria’s effect, this is basically a 1PP “recover 2 play points when used on an allied follower” card, extending your turn so you can discount Majestic Sorcery faster. Chaining multiple discounted Winged Inversions allows for some filthy turn 6 highrolls. It can also be used to remove annoying enemy followers like Drazel, Ravening Enforcer, Shion, Immortal Aegis, Noir and Blanc, Brothers, and Galdr, Heroic Headmaster, to allow for your Storm followers to hit face instead of trading.
POT OF GREED ALLOWS ME TO DRAW TWO MORE CARDS. I WILL START MY TURN BY PLAYING POT OF GREED WHICH ALLOWS ME TO DRAW TWO MORE CARDS. I WILL PLAY THE MAGIC CARD, POT OF GREED, WHICH ALLOWS ME TO DRAW TWO NEW CARDS.Draw 2 cards. If reduced by Mysteria’s effect, this is essentially a 0PP “draw two, discount your Majestic Sorcery by 2PP” effect. Always play for this, since the inclusion of Grea, Crimson Promise in this deck gives you free evolutions anyways. If the evolution point effect cannot be reliably played for, discard with Story of a Lifetime for more efficient play point usage.
Fake Mysteria card lore ruined Freyja guarantee draws a Mysteria follower, can be chained into a Mysteria on turn 4 going second, can be discarded by Story of a Lifetime to guarantee maximum Mysteria reduction value, and is the best Winged Inversion target in the deck. Overall a very versatile card.
Broken in Take Two Theoretically a good 3-drop that adds already discounted Mysteria cards to hand, however, the importance of being able to tutor Mysteria and Anne & Grea consistently make her less valuable to slot in the deck. Additionally, playing her can screw over your handsize, as Mysteria does not have any easy ways to reduce handsize apart from memes like Phantasmal Box. Also, Anne, Brilliant Mage is a better 3-drop to play on turn 3.
lock lock lock lock lock lock lock A 1PP card that prevents an enemy follower from hitting your face. Useful for stalling a turn while discounting Majestic Sorcery.
This card should have been named en passant Useful for staving off aggro before evolve turns. Magical Pawn is also a prime Winged Inversion target. Unlike many other 1-cost spells in this deck, it can be played with no targets, a full board, or both for Craig pings.
Again, this is not a real Chess term. Immersion ruined. Bishop where? Another Chess spell that can see some use in this deck. Drawing cards is always good, and all the pros of having a pawn on board from Blitz apply to this card as well.
Lock Forest PTSD Like Enchanting Spell, this also stops a follower from hitting your face for billions of damage while your Majestic Sorcery still costs 15. It also has the added benefit of drawing a card, however, since it no longer targets the opponent’s face, including this card is slightly harder to justify than Enchanting Spell due to its higher cost.
Crushing Solid Water If you can Spellboost this card enough, it can also be used to break through shields and push damage for easier lethals. If not, this card is a brick. It also provides no value in the early game, when Mysteria is most vulnerable, unlike the Chess cards. Just play Spellboost or Chess if you want to use this card.
How are the blades raining if they’re not facing down? Society may never have the answer. This card can be used to make a Majestic Sorcery board bigger to guarantee lethals. However, it also has the same problems as Crushing Rain, especially since the cost is higher, where it can just be a big brick in your hand due to the smaller number of spells Mysteria plays compared to Spellboost. Again, just play Spellboost or Chess if you want to use this card.
Do not keep multiple copies of a card in the mull phase. (Yes, even tutors.)Mysteria’s mull is rather straightforward, as the deck is very linear and requires two specific cards to actually play and win the game: always keep Anne & Grea, Royal Duo and Mysteria, Magic OriginatorSituational keep:
Never keep Insight. If you must draw on turn 1, play Mysterian Exchange Party instead for the guaranteed Mysteria follower.Winged Inversion is better used after Mysteria’s evolve effect, as Grea and Magic Missile clear early boards much more efficiently. Always toss—unless in the mirror—to deny your opponent’s Mysteria followers.
Early game, Mysteria wants to assemble the two cards that will allow it to win the game: Anne & Grea and Mysteria. Pre-evolution turns should be spent maximizing draw to make sure you get both of these cards to start setting up an OTK. Using too many spells early game, however, will severely hamper Majestic Sorcery’s discounting, as almost all of the Mysteria followers either do not draw cards themselves or only draw into other cards.The main problem with this early-game plan for Mysteria, however, is that many decks don’t simply sit back and allow you to draw cards while doing nothing; understanding the balance between alleviating early aggression and drawing for win conditions is crucial.
In the midgame, aim to play both Anne & Grea and Mysteria as soon as possible. There are lines where blindly yolo dropping either of these can cost games, however, so don’t just assume that playing Anne & Grea on turn 5 is always correct. For example, going first, you can bait out your opponent’s second evolution point by playing Grea and Mysteria on turn 5 for a free evolution, activating Mysteria’s fanfare, and chaining Anne & Grea with multiple Angel’s Blessings on turn 6—without this play, Angel’s Blessing would have been a 3 play point brick for the rest of the game.Late game, play Majestic Sorcery and Mysterian Exchange Party and end the game. In general, try to hold at least one Mysterian Exchange Party (or face-damage spells like Missile and Rite) to guarantee lethal, as Sorcery’s reanimate is completely random and will not reanimate 20 damage unless Anne’s Summoning is in the pool.
This is just a general idea on how you will want to be playing most games. However, do not just blindly follow this blueprint, as many different game states exist, and delaying your opponent’s gameplan from progressing is much better than yolo dropping Anne & Grea on 5 and evolving her on an empty board, for example.
Step 1: Draw or tutor your Anne & Grea, Royal Duo and Mysteria, Magic Originator. Step 2: Play Anne & Grea on 5 Step 3: Play Mysteria on 6, evolve her, and start discounting Majestic Sorcery. Step 4: Play Majestic Sorcery on 7/8 and kill your opponent by going face.
Step 1: Draw or tutor your Anne & Grea, Royal Duo and Mysteria, Magic Originator. Step 2: Play Mysteria on 4, evolve her, and hold the discounted spells. DO NOT PLAY DISCOUNTED SPELLS UNTIL YOU HAVE A MAJESTIC SORCERY, UNLESS YOU REALLY NEED TO. Step 3: Play Anne & Grea on 5, and start discounting Majestic Sorcery. Step 4: Play Majestic Sorcery on turn 6/7/8 and kill your opponent by going face.
The mirror is stupid, where both players do nothing while discounting Majestic Sorcery, and then whoever gets theirs off first wins the game. Save yourself sanity and just ban it.Play to grief their gameplan, and you almost always win. Because of this, expect to have to play multiple Majestic Sorceries to actually do 20 damage, usually all on the same turn, just to get a full board of Storms.Linus Tech Tips: Keep some Winged Inversions to deny their Majestic Sorcery reanimates. This is especially useful if you can transform their Anne & Grea, as they lose out on a lot of damage. While small, an extremely niche-use case for Winged Inversion is to prevent Craig from being in the Majestic Sorcery pool. Playing multiple Exchange Parties means they won’t be able to clear your board with the AOE alone, requiring them to trade into your followers instead of hitting face.
Mysteria generally does well into Wrath, as Wrath’s comparative lack of aggression allows Mysteria to reach turn 4 and 5 much more easily than it would in the Vengeance matchup. The Mysteria OTK is also more consistent and comes out (usually) a turn earlier than the usual Wrath OTK plans like Garodeth – Vania – 0-cost Devilish Diva. Staying at full health is crucial, as Wrath can push 15+ damage late game if they don’t have an OTK in hand.Saving Inversion for their card draw can disable their entire gameplan; however, take game state into account. For example, if there is known information about multiple Gift for Bloodkins in their hand, transforming their on-board Demon Maestro usually will not do anything, as the extra ping denied from Maestro is inconsequential.Warding up with Mysterian Exchange Party is a good way to delay Garodeth turns, as clearing multiple Wards is relatively hard for Wrath and usually requires them to trade their Storm followers instead of going face, usually allowing you to turn around and OTK the next turn with Majestic Sorcery.
Like Bahamut Dragon, Discard also aims to ramp into big threats. However, unlike Bahamut Dragon, they can definitely kill you. They also have an OTK with their new card Lilium, Wyrmwitch, just like Mysteria, so the matchup boils down to whoever can collect their OTK pieces first.Both decks have relatively slow early games, as chip damage from either side usually will not stick, due to the insane amounts of healing both decks have.Discard’s OTK is (usually) limited by boardspace for their Noir & Blancs, depending on how many Lilium spells they have in their hand. If they have followers on board before their pop-off turn, locking them or leaving them unable to trade them off can delay them for a turn, allowing you to either
Mysteria’s early game is, well, rather bad, and folds to aggro easily if they can’t get Craig discounted fast enough. Most of the damage from this deck comes from one card—Nobilis, Sable-Lily Queen—so if they don’t manage to draw it, the matchup becomes rather easy to heal up from, especially with the Anne & Grea buff. However, if they do draw Nobilis, the game suddenly becomes much harder. Before their eventual Filly, Mythmaster turn, try to lock a follower so they are required to use play point–recovery spells like Guidance of the Wise in order to have enough boardspace for the Sky-Devouring Horror that she summons. If they don’t have a Filly OTK, multiple Craigs are usually required to heal back from Nobilis fairy pings.Tech: If you run Blitz, keeping it to deny a bounce on turn 2 from their Windflower Tiger or Salvia Panther can swing the game in your favor, denying them left-play cards and Storm damage, which inhibits their gameplan. Otherwise, hope you go first and have a Magic Missile on turn 2. Even if you can’t stop them from bouncing on turn 2, Missile is very good at stopping their aggro since almost everything Forest plays in the early game has only 1 health.
Like Fairy Forest, early aggression is pretty hard for Mysteria to deal with, especially if they can get off injured followers into the Heroic package that all Mars players run. However, unlike Forest, they can be boardlocked since Flame General’s Regalia takes up valuable board space, letting you stall until your Majestic Sorcery OTK.Tech: Using Winged Inversion on followers buffed by Flame General’s Regalia will not give them +1/+1 or the clash effect again. Use it liberally to make a Sword player regret picking Sword. In this matchup, you can even delay your Anne & Grea until their second Mars evolve, as you can trade them off cleanly, denying their pings.
Mysteria doesn’t particularly care about Weiss, Discerning Professor’s anti-Fanfare effect unless they play it on 4 to deny your Anne & Grea. Galdr, Heroic Headmaster’s effect can also be played around, usually by locking the followers and then killing through them the next turn, or outright killing them through the 2-damage reduction with multiple Mysterian Exchange Parties.Many Rally decks now are opting to cut Weiss and evolve Lecia and Nano, Twilight Trainees instead for the Support Cannon. Unfortunately for them, Support Cannon makes their limited boardspace even more limited, and just like Mars Sword, locking their board is a great way to tilt them off the face of the planet while you OTK them the turn afterwards.
AoA’s new Vengeance cards give the deck massive amounts of burn and face damage. Well-played Craigs can help offset the absolutely bonkers damage this deck can do, however, the existence of Doomlord of the Abyss makes this matchup practically unwinnable.The matchup becomes slightly more playable with the Doomlord nerf. Delaying immortality by 1 turn allows Mysteria to heal and potentially OTK with Sorcery before they can play Doomlord. However, Vengeance still puts out a lot of damage on board that will require multiple Craigs to heal up from, even with the Anne & Grea buff. If the game gets to a point where their only option is to Doomlord, setting up a large Mysterian Exchange Party board will stop their Doomlord from going face, while (maybe) leaving up potential healing from Craig and Anne & Grea, allowing you to stabilize and kill them on the turn after.Some Vengeance lists now run a small Garodeth package instead of Doomlord—they will usually combo this with Raging Commander on turn 7 with a Gift for Bloodkin, which does 12 damage by itself. However, this combo has the same weakness in Vengeance as it does in Wrath: using Mysterian Exchange Party before it will usually cause them to have to trade Garodeth into a Ward instead of going face.Cygames, please, never print a Zooey or Doomlord ever again. Please.
Keep their board empty as possible to deny Coach Joe, Fiery Councilor cheese. Generally an easy matchup: Craig deals with their large boards rather efficiently, and their early game—which usually involves ramping and playing stuff like Megalorca Rider, which is a 1/3 that you can forget about for the entire game—is quite weak. The main problem with facing Buff Dragon is getting hit with Grand Slam Tamer on turn 3 and then seeing them snowball the game out of control. Having a Grea to deal with the Hellflame Dragon that spawns out of it makes it more manageable, as we don’t care about the 3 chip damage from Grand Slam, and it will (eventually) be cleared by Anne & Grea.
Like Discard Dragon, this deck also wants to ramp into large threats early. Theoretically, Bahamut Dragon should control the board while amassing play points used for an Ultimate Bahamut invoke. In practice, we don’t care about anything they play and can simply OTK them through a Bahamut invoke anyways, as their Wards can all be bypassed by Winged Inversion or just damage from spells. Even with Giant Happy Pig’s maximum health increase, holding one Mysterian Exchange Party is usually enough damage to kill them.
This matchup is rather easy for Mysteria, as most of Burial Rite’s damage comes from Myroel, Death Enforcer’s leader effect, which is hard capped at 6 damage per turn, along with Septic Shrink’s burn damage. Unfortunately for them, Cygames decided to give Runecraft a Drazael. Anne & Grea heals most, if not all, the damage taken up until that point; afterwards, you will usually have Craig and friends to alleviate the damage taken from their Myroel turn, making your life total too far out of reach from the burn damage they can threaten. Make sure to have your Mysteria followers in the left-play pool before Ceridwen, Eternal Duality reanimates Ghost Town Apparition so none of your followers get transformed. Try to also keep a clear board before their Ceridwen turn as well, to maximize Majestic Sorcery boardspace.
Thanks to @buttercup3277, @TsuyuSV, @turtlegenetics, @Tofucana#3863, and @joyverse for helping. Honorable Mention to the Revue Starlight Movie for inspiring me to write this guide.