Crimson Order

A combat summoner that needs to be highly involved in battle as the Crimson Order economy depends on his health being depleted as a resource and then his ability replenishing it. Attacking with Baron Daemar, especially when supported with Sacral Priests, is a big part of how the Crimson Order wins games. Although Faithful Servants can be used to protect him at the end of every turn, the truth is most factions have ways to get through that defense. So positioning Baron Daemar in the right way tactically to get attacks in and at the same time not give good opportunities to the opponent, is a tough and delicate balance. The Baron should be accompanied most of the time by his court of Sacral Priests, as a big part of his power comes from being able to attack for 4-6 ranged strength (beyond the healing he gains).

Because Baron Daemar's life is the core of the faction’s economy, opponents will target him at every opportunity they can. Often it means he can then hit back and gain some of that life back, but still you should be very careful with the Baron’s position at all times.  If he loses too much life too easily, the whole economy of the Crimson Order can fall apart quickly.

In a pinch you can retreat and heal by attacking your own units. It’s okay to attack your own Devout Cultist for healing if you have the extra attack, but this is not a great situation to be in.

The core combat unit of the faction and the main source of damage. As long as Royal Warriors can use Baron Daemar’s life as a resource, they have no match in combat efficiency among other common units. This can even be enhanced with Sacral Priests. Because of their high life, you shouldn’t worry too much about exposing them, you can be pretty careless with Royal Warriors knowing that they are still very hard to take down. 
You should summon a lot of them each game knowing that they will do the most heavy lifting, and use them as your main way to advance into enemy territory by threatening with their high attack.

The support unit of the Crimson Order has the very important role of buffing your Summoner. Unlike other similar support units, their buffs stack, so multiple Sacral Priests can support the same unit, providing an additive bonus!

Most of your summoner attacks should be supported by 1 or 2 Sacral Priests. It is possible to attack with a 3-priest support but unlikely and somewhat cumbersome to set up. 
You should find opportunities to also buff your champions and Royal Warriors, and even your cultists can be dangerously efficient if supported by Sacral Priests.

As strange as it may sound, this is the damage soaker of the Crimson Order. Undying Devotion is a very powerful ability, and also allows you to be quite careless with this unit. In combination with Royal Warriors, Devout Cultists allow the Crimson Order to flood the board with a lot of efficient life point units, using that life to protect and block important spots and other units, like your summoner, Sacral Priests and champions.

It’s recommended to summon all copies of this card, all games, preferably used as Faithful Servants to protect the summoner at the end of a turn. Its attack is pretty low but because the body is so disposable and it is also a ranged unit, you can still position it in the worst spots to target a valuable enemy unit like their summoner, without risking much in return. Often therefore this is your best poke unit.

The most niche of the commons in the faction, this is the card that should hit the discard pile the most when in need of magic. It still can be used as a Faithful Servant when needed of course, and in all the many roles that a 0c 2/2 melee can serve, but the main role is to put pressure on the enemy summoner, something the deck needs.  In combination with the Epic Event Convert, you can kill a common enemy unit near to their summoner, Convert the unit into a Doom Cultist, and then attack with this Doom Cultist and be an added threat just based on proximity.

Another use with the event Death Rite instead of Convert, is to attack with the Doom Cultist the unit protecting the enemy summoner (assuming it has 2 or less life), and after killing it, sacrificing the Doom Cultist with Death Rite, opening the way for a ranged unit to attack the enemy summoner and meanwhile causing damage with Curse.

Note that for Convert you don’t need the Doom Cultist in-hand, so generally this is the safest unit to discard for magic.

The Epic Event of the Crimson Order is their most important trick while still being a phenomenal economic card. You should play both copies each game as they are too strong to pass and very straightforward to play, as you can just play them immediately when they come into hand in all games. However, that doesn’t mean you should use both boosts immediately, on the contrary, you should find a good time to use them as there is no pressure.

What are good uses of Convert?
- The afore-mentioned combination with Doom Cultist is your main way to threaten enemy summoners.
- Use it to kill a unit that is protecting another unit, like a support unit, to then attack with the newly converted Doom Cultist.
- Take over key summoning spots.

This is your only trick so be careful with their use as it’s a scarce resource.
Occasionally you may be forced to use it to protect Baron Daemar, and that is fine, but it is better to avoid having to do that.

For just one summoner life point and this card, you get two commons of your choice from your discard pile. Here is another event where you should play both copies every game. In general, you should bring Royal Warriors back, but only if you can afford them, which honestly, often you may not be able to. As such, a quality retrieval is one Royal Warrior and one Devout Cultist. When in doubt, that is a very safe fetch. Sometimes, you may recur Sacral Priests.

In reality, priests are the best investment you can make if you can make use of them. The reason it is not strongly suggested to retrieve priests is that it is very hard already to make use of all 4 priests in the deck, as they require a lot of movement and proper positioning to be useful. But if you can find a use for more Sacral Priests, it is definitely worth getting them back.

You will find a pattern here: this event is so powerful that you should play both copies every single game. If you feel this event is clogging your hand, remember that even for half its effect it’s still worth it! So while it’s tempting to go for the full two life and two damage, even half of it is good enough. This is especially true because it’s the only tool the deck has to kill units outside of the standard three attacks. 
Transfuse is particularly potent when combined with the champion Vesna Brana.

Your more disposable event, it’s the only card that is not very economically efficient. Even sacrificing a Devout Cultist, one card, and more than half a magic for +1 strength on three different attacks is still not very efficient. Having said that, this is your only tool to threaten high “surprise” damage in a turn, especially against enemy summoners. 

A nice trick as mentioned before is to sacrifice a Doom Cultist next to the opponent’s summoner or to attack with a unit and then destroy it with Death Rite allowing a ranged unit to attack through the now open position.  Overall don’t hesitate to discard this if you need magic or need to keep your hand flowing, but if you can hold it to use in a turn to focus on a high value target like an enemy champion or summoner, it may be worth its price.

Probably the champion that should see the battlefield most often, not only because it’s very cheap at only 3 cost, but because it’s your only real ranged threat besides your summoner.
Vesna Brana combines very well Sacral Priests and Transfuse, making it very enticing in general. The only reason Vesna Brana should maybe not see the battlefield is if the opponent faction has a lot of ways to cause ping damage. The value of this card falls dramatically if the opponent can do direct damage to him. But other than that, the very needed ranged damage in addition to its efficiency should make Vesna Brana a great addition to almost any battlefield.

The faction has many tools against high life targets, but it has some troubles punishing multiple low life units. Casimira however feasts on low life commons.

There isn’t much to say other than if there are a lot of low life commons to destroy, Casimira is extremely efficient and should be summoned. Even against 3 or 4 life commons, Casimira can be pretty good when supported with a Sacral Priest once she gets damaged. However, in most cases when possible the opponent will try to focus fire on her and thus being damaged, well positioned, and also adjacent to a Sacral Priest, is not an easily arranged set up.

Sekhmet is expensive and doesn’t have especially great stats, and it also has a big drawback.  But this card gives the Crimson Order two necessary tools: 

1)  In a deck lacking tricks and mobility, Flight on a 4 melee strength unit is certainly welcome.  It allows the Crimson Order to put pressure on a summoner that was overconfident in this faction’s lack of tricks and took too much damage and/or became too exposed.

2) A common occurrence during Crimson Order games is that because of the Devout Cultist, a lot of magic is generated on both sides. When facing other factions that swarm the board and generate a lot of magic, there can be a surplus of the resource flowing that can be hard to take advantage of. In such matchups Sekhmet provides a use for all that magic and because in those same matchups there tends to be a lot of small units, Sekhmet can feed off of them without ever triggering its drawback.