Reinhardt Spoopy Ghosts

Welcome back Rulers! Judgment of the Rogue Planet brought a new breath of life to several decks that we’ve seen throughout Hero Cluster. One of those decks is Reinhardt and the Possession EX Deck that he employs. Harnessing the dead resonators of game’s past, Reinhardt prevents damage, pings the opponent with Ethereal Princess, and makes powerful combo plays with Dexia, Ethereal Twin Prince. The deck is fun to play for several reasons, most of all because you employ ghosts to swarm the field and take the game with Soul Absorption / The Ethereal King contract. So where has this deck been for the entirety of the Hero Cluster format?

When Reinhardt was released in The Underworld of Secrets pack, players immediately noticed some interaction between his accompanying Moon Child, Child of the Ethereal Moon, and Lailah, Maiden of the Swamps, who ramps you a Darkness Magic Stone when she is put into the graveyard from the field. Child of the Ethereal Moon provided a sac-outlet to trigger this effect, while also helping you look at the top 3 cards of your deck, placing one of each of those cards in your hand, graveyard, and Possession EX Area. This combo lasted until the following set, The War of the Suns, where Lailah and the Ethereal Moonchild were ultimately combination banned, where they remain as of the writing of this article.

From this point on, Reinhardt would see little to no play, offering one or two inclusions in ruler breakdowns for major tournaments from this moment on. The loss of Lailah meant the deck lost a critical resource engine that allowed for Reinhardt to pull out ahead of his opponent’s strategies and take control of the game earlier than he was able to now. At this point, Soul Absorption was not the main win condition of the deck and was included for its stat-neg effect, a -600/-600 until end of turn, that was also becoming more and more irrelevant as resonators became more hearty on turn two and beyond. Ethereal Defense Trooper, the other card that put Reinhardt on the map for its draw effect and damage prevention in the EX Area, was also going to be threatened overall with the release of Elektra, Shooting Star of Fire in the set Clash of the Star Trees. While Reinhardt, Shooting Star of Darkness was also released in the same set, alongside a plethora of Ethereal token support, these cards would ultimately benefit Stein, Deathly Star more than Reinhardt.

Judgment of the Rogue Planet did give Reinhardt a peace of support he was sorely missing - a sizable threat that would float into a tag out of rulers and a choice between a will coin and an expansion effect for the Possession EX Area. Asuka and Reinhardt were a 900/900 body, an Ethereal, and cost less will when you controlled Reinhardt and/or Asuka. The main deck lineup was beginning to shape up. With Defense Trooper, Princess, Dexia, and support from Vampire and Witch, Reinhardt began to look interesting again. So I went to work developing something and this is ultimately what I developed…

The Pros

Reinhardt still has a powerful late game that is difficult to interact with if one is short of a sweeping board wipe effect that can be played at instant speed. These matchups exist, in particular, Tinker Bell, Spirit of the Light Trials is cropping up in lists in the Pilgrim Memories era, and the ever present Blazing Storm that can be played relatively easily. However, a lot of decks cannot manage a defense against an Ethereal King swinging multiple times with an EX Area full of Asuka & Reinhardt’s and Ethereal Princesses. Interaction in the deck can help in that regard as well, since Persephone is still a powerful chase-bounce in the current metagame and doesn’t demand too much of your stone deck to incorporate. Ethereal Defense Trooper is a card that can give a lot of aggressive decks pause, since unless they can get over the 400 damage prevention, the prevention can often scale to 800, simply silencing entire turns from aggro decks in general. Reinhardt is exceptional when it comes to slowing down the game state as turn after turn his tempo sees his gameplay eventually choke out the opponent’s options before he resolves a Contract and ends the game.

The Cons

Reinhardt’s largest issues tend to be clunkiness and a bit of split identity. The deck is invested in some very powerful control cards like Defense Troopers, Princess, Witch, Vampire, Lamentations and Ethereal Attack, but it also has a suite of combo cards, like Dexia, Ethereal Sword, and Mausoleum, that would like you to have played other cards with limited mana available to you. Most of these cards do not set your opponent back as much as they, in theory, prevent you from losing. Lamentations is a curious case because if you are able to load up your Possession EX Area enough to deal a large blow to your opponent’s board or hand, you are needing to follow up with a Soul Absorption to recoup your losses. Though it is a large pay off for your large EX Area, it stings when you don’t have the EX Area to use it well. It also draws out Persephone’s and Memory of Soul’s, making your EX Area investment often feel like a total loss as their placement in the graveyard is an additional cost to put the card on the chase. Soul Absorption is also a difficult card when you are not wanting to contract as -600 doesn’t hit as much as it use to. This detail in particular pushed me to include King’s Hopeless Scream as a way to do more to my opponent’s board while also gaining some much needed draw power in the deck.

While these weaknesses do exist within the deck, Reinhardt is a remarkable deck building project that had me pulling from the fundamentals of Force of Will deck construction and game sense to produce an interesting strategy overall. I do not see Reinhardt topping a Grand Prix anytime soon as the game state seems to be moving away from fire aggression and into a comfortable mid-range/control format that values incremental advantage over the course of a game. However, with more support that benefits Reinhardt’s game plan, I’d be excited to pick this Ghost King up again for my local scene.

-Paul