Will you accept this Rose?

Why do I play that way? It all started when they changed how stars were won and lost for queue games. I really disliked losing 5 stars for a loss so I started exclusively playing challenge games where no stars are on the line. Combined with my desire to get my human thief Kachiko to Diamond 100 Prestige, all to see a 3 digit prestige badge, it became natural to Gauntlet a bunch of games at level 16 and wait for enough of them to be accepted while starting play on games but not finishing any. I’ll often get multiple games to a point where they could end and just leave them be until I prestige. Depending on how many Gauntlet games are accepted, I can end up prestiging anywhere from 3-7 times per Gauntlet. For a deeper dive into all of that check out https://www.realmsrising.com/podcast/sparks-recreation-episode-28-running-the-gauntlet-with-zembu/

As mentioned in the Sparks and Recreation Necromancer Build Lab episode, a Bone Belt Necromancer Gauntlet was the initial inspiration for Tuff’s Necromancer Journey to Diamond. He put in a ton of play, tweaked some of the build choices (ones I’ve come to adopt for my Bone Belt Builds), and wrote a great article summarizing it all. I mention this to establish my Necromancer Bonafide’s. Additional data to assure you of my general Hero Realms experience, I presently have 11,190 pvp games logged in Hero Helper with an estimated 3K co-op games.

With the October 19, 2024 buff to Necromancer that changed Sticher’s Kit (Level 13 choice) from 3 Gold and 2 Health to 3 Gold and 4 Health, and changed Bloodrose (Level 5) from 1 Gold and transform a skeleton servant to a skeleton warrior to 1 Gold and +1 health for each champion you have in play, I decided to dive back into Necromancer and give these new buffs a spin. And this time, I decided to write this article because I was surprised by what I found.

I’m here to tell you that while the Rose Crown build may not be as good as the Bone Belt build, it does offer superior deck building game play. I’ve run a Gauntlet both ways and this Rose Crown build was by far the most fun I’ve had with Necromancer. So, how did I do over my 56 pvp games? My final record was 41-15 for a 73% win percentage.

Basically, everything about Snap Buys, Premium Buys, and Deny Buys from Tuff’s article still applies to this build with a few exceptions. Tithe priest is slightly less of a premium buy as you often spend a majority of the game at max health or close to max health already. And you’ll be buying much bigger fish. The Deny buys in general aren’t as crucial for you to buy at the expense of buying some other great card in the market? Why? Because you don’t really care about maintaining a skeleton wall. The value of your skeletons come from being able to sacrifice two of them for a draw with Rotting Crown or having enough skeletons to draw a card with Collection of Corpses. You never have any skeleton warriors in play because the Rose Crown build doesn’t play with any of the cards that generate or transform to skeleton warriors. The Fearsome Foursome are likewise not to be feared for the same reason. In fact, in a lot of games, you’ll be the one buying those cards, something that would never happen with the Bone Belt build (or at least rarely. You’d be more likely to sacrifice them in the market with Voidstone).

The Rose Crown build does the opposite of the Bone Belt build at every card choice except Rod of Spite. You absolutely want Rod of Spite in the Rose Crown build. Similarly, you want the Skull Swarm skill as Rotting Crown fodder is needed sometimes but you don’t have to skill every turn like with the Bone Belt build. You often don’t skill so you can buy a good market card. You also want Reawaken for the ability.

Bloodrose – Play order doesn’t really matter for the +1 health per champion except you don’t want to play it after sacrificing champions to Rotting Crown. If you play this first, every champion that hits play afterwards gives you a health. This isn’t just for skeletons mind you. Other champions count too. This card can easily net you 6-10 health when played mid to late game. It really does offer you the ability to come back in games or at least live longer.

Puzzle Box – Sets have lots of cards to get stuff to the top of your deck. So great to top deck a bomb and draw it with puzzle box. Plus, this build runs stitchers kit so you recycle a big champ and draw it with puzzle box. Very sweet when that comes together at a pivotal point in a game. Not uncommon to do that AND reawaken in the same turn to almost feel like a cleric using their resurrect.

Rotting Crown – This armor really is integral to the build. Drawing to cycle your deck and often split deck is crucial. Keeping this armor online is also crucial. The tough matchups against aggro get harder if you lose your draw. Very important early to get that reserve 1 Sticher’s Kit into your deck asap. Nuance that took me a lot of play to realize, Rotting Crown doesn’t say stun two of your skeleton champions so it is perfectly acceptable to stun non-skeletons. Why would I do my opponents work for them? Typically you wouldn’t but situations might come up where you only have non-guard champions that your opponent is not stunning to avoid you being able to use Reawaken. You might also want to pro-actively use Rotting Crown on your own 7-8 cost champion so that you can target it with Reawaken the same turn you put it into play. This lets you use that champion twice in the same turn because once it is stunned, it is as is it was never in play that turn. Imagine being able to use Tyrannor twice in one turn, 4 cards sacrificed, 16 total damage, 8 healing, and 2 potential card draws. Also, you can stun your own big champion so you have a target for Stitcher’s Kit/ Puzzle box combo.

Onyx Skull – Essentially a ruby as the bonus kicks in when you’ve played this without a skeleton and then later add a skeleton. Important to realize that, for sequencing, and that it is okay to play it without a skeleton if you need the gold from it to help you skill.

Sticher’s Kit – The econ from this really makes the build market focused, meaning that you really get to play the decking building part of the game. The 4 health can also be critical mid game to get your armor back online. The one time use to recycle a champion to top of deck can often help you have a nuclear turn where you just bomb your opponent out of the game.

General tips:

This isn’t a Skull Swarm every turn build. You skill usually if you don’t have rod of spite in hand because you want to be able to draw from Rotting Crown. However, pay attention to the market! If you can use the two gold that you’d otherwise skill with to guarantee a big market buy. Just do it! Even if you think, I can skill and draw from Rotting Crown and still have the gold needed, you’ll draw that god damn dagger every time. It happened to me too many times. I really hate dagger in this build’s starting deck. I wish they’d add a condition that if you pick Bloodrose, your dagger would convert to a gold.

You generally don’t want to Reawaken too early so you shouldn’t be burning it for the first stunned champion in a discard pile unless you really need to apply some pressure and eat up opponent resources in certain matchups. If you have a sacrifice champion in your deck, use it the first time it is stunned out of play. Otherwise, just wait for an advantageous play to pull the trigger on Reawaken. Unless you have other guards in your deck, you likely won’t be able to keep an opponent’s non-guard on your side long as you don’t have a guard wall to hide them behind.

In a lot of ways, Rose Crown is the opposite of Bone Belt. You are almost always thinking market first and then the game is down to play skill and what you do with good cards. In Bone Belt build games, you see your opponent feasting on the market, just hoping you can aggro them down before their market stuff comes online. With the Rose Crown build, you’re the one feasting on the market.