JankFest 2022 — Nominees And Decks For Ashes: Reborn’s Most Prestigious (citation needed) Evening

12 min readJan 2, 2023

My name is ImpossibleGerman and I’m here to tell you- if you’re not janky, you’re stanky.

Below this paragraph, dear reader, is a chronicle of the stankiest of the stank, the chosen few who brave the waters of the Off-Meta Ocean, the legendary working class Johnathans and Timothys who power this great country of mixed metaphors and bad (probably) decks. Their sacrificial surrender of their own good sense and better judgment must be honored.

Vote here. Merry JankFest, y’all.
Love, ImpossibleGerman.

C H A R L O T T E

“Do You Hear The People Sing?” — Coal Les Miserables

https://ashes.live/decks/share/01fcf4b8–226e-4243–9c12-cf81e352a1ef

From Charlotte:
I spent the week in Paris humming les miz tunes in my head. When I found out Jankfest had been postponed and I’d be back in time to play, this is what I came up with.
Les Miserables
Cast of Characters:
Jean Valjean: Coal Roarkwin
Inspector Javert: Immortal Commander
Fantine: Rose Fire Dancer
Cosette: Enchanted Violinist
Marius: Adept Duelist
Eponine: Sun Sister
Bishop: Temple Elder
Gavroche: Anchornaut
Enjolras: Standard Bearer
Act 1: Abundance, Temple Elder, Adept Duelist, New Ideas, Standard Bearer
Theme: Everybody dies. Bonus achievement if Marius and Cosette are still alive at the end but not necessary.

Nominated for:
Best Theme

S C H M E N D R I X

“Confusion S’mores” — Dimona Confusion Spores

https://ashes.live/decks/35380/

From Schmen:
Come, little one. Come to the fire and warm yourself. Here a mallow and a graham, and a chocolate bar to melt betwixt them. Set your path to simple pleasures and no chump or scheme can vex it.
Playing the role of marshmallow: a couple Divine dice.
Playing the role of chocolate: a couple Ceremonial dice.
Bringing the nostalgia: Charm and Sympathy dice as the graham cracker sandwich.
~~~
Happy JankFest 2022! This admittedly mildly janky deck is the best that Confusion Spores has felt. The core idea: By putting Confusion Spores in Dimona, we are enhancing a multipurpose bypass and removal engine. Empyrean Mounts and Grave Knights can pull blockers away from other units (or even each other!) and Confusion Spores enhances your degree of control either for a big bypass swing or to force your opponent into really unpleasant blocking plans.
Your FF is dictated by whether or not you expect to be the “beat down” the aggressor. If you think your opponent is running something a bit slower, you can FF Confusion Spores, Light Bringer, Grave Knight, Flute Mage, and then Anchornaut or Enchanted Violinist. This creates a significant amount of pressure via two threats for promotion and the Grave Knight.
If you are facing a deck heavy on removal, you might instead opt to play the long game, and FF Confusion Spores, Steadfast Guardian, Sonic Swordsman, Anchornaut, Golden Veil/Enchanted Violinist (depending on whether you need to protect the knight). In this game, you’re willing to go long and look for openings for a big Confusion Spores swing to end it in R3, or, if necessary, fatigue.
Hope you give this one a try and enjoy it!

Nominated for:
Coolest Combo
The Underminer

F L O R A S N O W

“The Fires of Time” Jericho Era’s End

https://ashes.live/decks/share/671a17aa-842b-441e-8e3d-85cc780a7743/

From Flora :
The point is basically to use Era’s End for a lot of burn. Earlier versions of this deck have been relatively successful and really fun to play, but as of writing this has not been tested with all recent revisions.
It’s in Jericho because Prepare can help draw the Era’s Ends and the Puppets, but I think a similar deck could be made in Namine, using encore to fetch the EEs and taking advantage of that fourth SB slot. That version may be better, but I kept it in Jericho because of some fun uses of Blink that I’ll get into a little later.
Standard FF would be Admonisher, Dweller, Era’s End, Prepare+Swift Messenger to draw Puppet book. The EoR effects across the FF add up to 3 burn and the exhaustion from Crypt Guy, and hopefully at least a few of them go off twice before R2.
Ready spells: All do EoR burn, 3x puppets for some potential BF clog and because I built this deck to make use of my alt arts. LB instead of Admonisher would be better, but also less thematic.
Allies: Crypt Guy obviously for the EE synergy, FA for some extra burn, Anchornaut because it’s cheap and useful and plays well with the Rile the Meek, and Swift Messenger to go with Prepare and help keep BF tempo. I’m not totally sure how useful Sunshield is, but I thought the extra defense could be good if you need to stall for EoR burn. I have a tendency to build decks with more allies than I need and I feel like that’s very likely the case here so I’ll revisit after some testing.
Action Spells: EE is obvious and To Shadows plays well with Crypt Guy. Rile the Meek is 1x because it has some value with Admonisher and Anchornaut but is mostly there for a joke play. Blink has 3 uses:
1. The sometimes useful: Blink an opponent’s unit for a bit of bypass.
2. The more useful: Blink your own unit (usually Crypt Guy) to refresh it, especially useful for unexhausting something before playing EE.
3. The Joke Play: Ok so because of the way Blink is worded and the rules define “Owner,” blinking a Blood Puppet that you’ve placed on your opponent’s BF actually returns it to your BF. This is generally not very useful but I think it would be really funny to Blink a puppet onto your BF in order to do a little extra with Rile the Meek.
Reactions: Stand Still lets you attack without your Puppets blocking and Sympathy Pain can further the burn plan or help with BF management if needed.
p.s. I spent so long trying to come up with a name and this was the best I could do I feel like I’m not very good at clever deck names

Nominated for:
Best Theme
Coolest Combo
Lord of the Jank

T H E T R E A T M E N T

“Enchanto — The Chantening” Rowan Chants

https://ashes.live/decks/share/7620b2ca-1f69-4d4b-99aa-64e91f5015e2/

From Treatment:
ImpossibleGerman: “Any commentary on this?”
Treatment: “Oh, didn’t know I had to tell you that. I’m out driving, get back to you in a couple hours?”

Nominated for:
Best Theme
Lord of the Jank
The Underminer

S H A D O W F I R E

“Flash Archer Deck” Odette Flash Archer

https://ashes.live/decks/share/6a6b29f9-0f73-4606-9118-78572050c214/

From Shadowfire:
“this is a flash archer deck”

Nominated for:
Lord of the Jank
Coolest Combo
The Underminer

M A J . A P O L L O

“Biona, Twice Queen of the Twain” Fiona Doubles

https://ashes.live/decks/share/fad7920f-0c70-4476-9695-c5d68b756500/

From Maj. Apollo:
I have a question for you: What is the best number? Not the highest number, not the most efficient number, but the best number? The answer is 2. 2 is the best number, and so naturally the best deck must contain as many 2’s as possible.
Everything here costs 2. There are plenty of 2-of cards. Half the conjurations have a limit of 2. Plenty of units have 2 attack and 2 health. Books can be used twice with Fiona’s ability for twice the 2’s. The 2’s never end!
The first five? No, this deck has no first five. It has a first (2x2)+(2/2), which is basically the four books and an Excavate, Adept Duelist, Knowledge Seeker, or Iron Worker (or Kneel, see below). If you need a bit more defense, swapping in Beast Tamer and/or Crystal Archer should help. Everything costs 2, so any five cards will use all your dice. You can’t mess that part up.
…But while all our costs are all 2’s, our dice types are double that, which can lead to some awkward hands. But fear not! You are Fiona and can translate dead cards Into more books! Not only that, but with all the draw and filtering from Excavate, Iron Worker, Knowledge Seeker, and Fiona herself, you can better line up the right cards for the situation at hand.
The endgame here is winning either through unblockable swings and Mind Fog Owls (possibly with Massive Growth) or through the burn from Molten Gold. I think it probably has a hard time against mill decks given how much it wants to discard cards and given Fiona’s low health it’s probably not great in many other contexts, either. But Jank? Oh, it has jank. Twice as much even!
(This deck was inspired by a joking conversation I saw in the Discord about first-fiving Kneel and then discarding it before the game starts for intimidation. That got me thinking… What kind of deck could do that and maybe have a chance of still playing out round 1? Well, this deck has a pretty okay shot at doing it if you want to go for style points. But is it a good idea? I’ll leave that up to you.)

Nominated for:
Best Theme
Lord of the Jank
Coolest Combo

B R I A N B

“Deathrattle” James Nightshade Swallow

https://ashes.live/decks/share/184b570e-4ea0-43e6-85bd-bbc491513324/

From Brian Slashinsforth V:
This deck is in my continuing effort to make the nightshade swallow a good unit. The key synergy here is nightshade’s pacify ability + vengence. Ideally you can also combo with sleeping widdows or standstill to swing for a lot while exhausting opponents key blockers with nightshade.

Nominated for:
The Underminer
Coolest Combo
Best Theme

C L U

“Rise of the Clu-mera” Rowan Chimera (w/ spreadsheet)

https://ashes.live/decks/share/c8a839b0-273c-45de-906c-252d1fcfedd3/

From Clu:
After months of testing, I present Looper Mk V! The deck so technical it has its own play flow chart. The goal is to completely wipe the battlefield and get chimera out on round one to swing at least twice.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XjTRs9MTAec_wGQjV89HgSpxwnttiw3Gyw4d11F2Hbg/edit#gid=0
Don’t be scared of the future. As long as your opponent isn’t playing spin down you are free to follow the instructions. You’ll want to put Jungle Warrior, Ritualist, and Essence Druid back in your deck with Revival Pact. Round two is an exercise in taking what your opponent is giving.
Get Era’s End if the game is going to be won. Get Revival Pact to continue the loop. The end goal is x3 Memorialize and Chant of Worship. Just drawing whatever cards you want to finish the game. Again and again and again until your opponent screams no more!

Nominated for:
The Underminer
Coolest Combo
Best Theme

K I L L E R C A C T U S

“Deck the Halls with Salamanders” Fiona Salamanders

https://ashes.live/decks/share/70d60478-eb0e-4c64-8849-0e8b966590fb/

This year’s audio component: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10zAOwkPKbFaLcjfr0zZ2uK5rbhYLigpP/view?usp=drivesdk

From Killercactus:
Decks are always running Sally
Sa-la-la-la-laaaa, la-man-der Monk.
But ‘tiiiiis the season jank will rally
Sa-la-la-la-laaaa, la-man-der Monk.
Wheeeen they die, they leeeave a spirit
Sa-la-la, la-la-LA, man-der Monk!
It can’t block but you should fear it!
Sa-la-la-la-laaaa, la-man-der Monk!
— — — — — —
Salamander Monk is busted. Play a lot of them and leverage the battlefield. Snapper is a great 2AV unit to have on the board and eat exhausted Salamanders.
Standard FF: Salamander, Snapper, Druid, Tidal Shift, Mind Maze. Meditate off the Sally book to pick back up with Druid, and then Tidal Shift it. That gives you 3 Salamanders in round 1. If you want, you can discard the Mind Maze (and get it later with a PMage) to refresh the book and play a 4th Salamander.
For max Salamander, you can include Recollect and meditate the books away to Recollect them back.

Nominated for:
Best Theme
Coolest Combo
Lord of the Jank

Y O K O F A C T O R

“Inverted Swallowing” Hope Body Inversion Nightshade Swallow

https://ashes.live/decks/share/0dec158b-0fc8-4021-ab02-67fbdede52b2/

From Yokofactor:
Just threw something together for fun.

Nominated for:
Lord of the Jank
The Underminer
Coolest Combo

M B A U E R S

“Ashes Normal Dice Powers” Lulu Dice Powers

https://ashes.live/decks/share/829287fc-2930-4835-8a0b-ef7fc4b63660/

From Matt:
Every card in this deck represents one or more dice powers. Dice powers are great!