After a few treks through the Frost Ring, I've been averaging about six pieces of new equipment with every run. Unfortunately most of them tend to be for PvE cards I don't yet own. But one piece of equipment I can actually use that caught my eye is Ring of Goodfellow. It's a Rare Trinket that dropped from Princess Cory after a perfect Tier 3 run, and it provides a substantial buff to a unique troop from Shards of Fate: Puck, Dream Bringer.
Puck saw some competitive play in Eye of Creation decks back in their heyday. That particular deck wants to generate huge chunks of resources and dump a bunch of big troops on the field with Eye, and Puck was the perfect enabler for this since you would often have a few of these bulky beaters in your hand as well. The Ring of Goodfellow keeps Puck in this support role as all good Bards should be (Yeah, I know he's technically a Cleric, but I'll be damned if they don't add the Bard class to this game eventually). But instead of just sitting back and finding troops he can actually call more to your side. Whenever Puck deals damage to an opposing champion, you can look through the top four cards of your deck and put a troop you find there into your hand.
If you're able to get Puck out early, you can easily pad your hand with threats for the mid and late game. If the troops you search up cost five or more, Puck can still help you play them with his resource ability. Getting him through for the first few attacks can be tricky, and Puck doesn't have any natural evasion to speak of, so building around the Ring will require a way to punch him through, or to make him big enough where the AI won't want to block him. For my deck I chose Feather Drifting Downriver as my champion, since her ability can grant any troop permanent Flight. This not only works well on Puck, but also the late game threats like Arborean Rootfeather that naturally want to be in the deck anyways. Crackling Sprout can also give Puck a quick +2/+2 pump and crush to push through damage if he's blocked, and the Dandelion Arm Guards (a piece of common equipment) lets your Sprouts grant bonus charges when you have more Crackling cards in your graveyard, allowing Crackling Wit a place in the deck as well. Add some beefy 5+ cost troops and some additional fixing, and Goodfellow Puck is ready to tear up the Arena!
Goodfellow Puck
Champion: Feather Drifting Downriver
Ring of Goodfellow [Trinket]
Dandelion Arm Guards [Hands]
2 Azurefate Sorceress [Spellshield/Empowerment]
3 Jadiim
3 Battle Beetle [Mind]
2 Arborean Rootfather [Spellshield/Empowerment]
The twos and threes that litter this list, particularly among the rare and legendary rarity troops, is mostly due to me not owning a full playset of those cards. This also tends to be how most of my decks look in their early stages. Hey, Reese is good, costs five, and is in my shards. Let's run him and see what happens! The Sorceress is a nice addition with the number of troops she Inspires and the Empowerment ability will trigger twice if you inspire a Rootfather, giving you two +8/+8 pumps for that turn, often enough to end the game. Howling Brave and Chlorophyllia ensure you get to your second Wild threshold while providing ample acceleration if you just want to get a Jadiim out as soon as possible.
I'm not 100% sure if it's in the client, but Wildwood Beastcaller (which was spoiled during the Arena Beta) would be a fun card to add to the deck as well. I'd probably replace Reese just to make the deck completely Ardent for theme sake, since he fulfills a similar role. Maybe you'll be able to get it from opening chests, which should hopefully be coming in the next few weeks. In the mean time there's over 150 pieces of equipment to grind, and only one bard bold enough to pilot me through.
Card Image Links from HexTCGBrowser
Card Image Links from HexTCGBrowser
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