Dr. Mortimer is brand new, which means there is no tournament data, no established decklists, and no meta report to lean on yet. Anything written about his strategy right now is necessarily an early outlook, not a settled build.
That said, the hero's printed cards give enough signal to sketch a real direction before the first Armory Event results come in. The cure loop, the weapon's infection bonus, and the equipment that seeds disease tokens all point the same way.
This guide lays out what the stock Armory Deck is trying to do, where a builder might reasonably deviate once Mastery Pack: Assassin adds more support, and which choices actually matter mechanically rather than just thematically.
Treat every suggestion here as a starting hypothesis, not a settled conclusion, until real event results exist to test it against.
Classic Constructed strategy content normally leans on tournament results, win rates, and known matchups. None of that exists yet for a hero that has not released, so this section is upfront about the limits of what can be claimed honestly.
What can be said with confidence is based entirely on printed card text: what each card does, how the pieces interact, and what the obvious intended line of play looks like on paper.
The stock build centers on a simple sequence: get a disease token onto the opponent's hero, cure it with Dr. Mortimer's Instant ability to generate Silver, then either cash Silver for card draw or bank two toward an extra attack via the hero's Attack Reaction.
Humour Plunge rewards attacking an already-infected hero with bonus power, which means the ideal sequence is infect first, then swing, rather than attacking blind and hoping an infection lands afterward.
Assassin as a class already leans toward tempo and go again chains, and nothing about Dr. Mortimer's printed text changes that identity. The cure loop layers on top of existing Assassin fundamentals rather than replacing them outright.
Builders coming from an existing Assassin pool, whether Uzuri or Arakni, should expect to keep most of their go again support intact and simply weave in cure triggers where the curve allows, rather than gutting the shell to make room.
Viral Diffusion is the piece worth prioritizing in any build, since it creates three separate disease tokens in one defensive trigger. That single card effectively banks three future cure activations if it resolves even once per game.
Because it is a Defense Reaction, it rewards a deck that is willing to take a hit rather than avoid combat entirely, which is a real deckbuilding tension worth planning around rather than ignoring.
Humour Plunge is the deck's included weapon and the one explicitly built around the infection payoff, so it is the default choice for a cure-focused build. Its Piercing 1 also helps push damage through resist-heavy opponents.
A builder leaning away from the cure loop entirely and toward a more generic Assassin tempo shell could reasonably swap in a different weapon once more options exist, but doing so sacrifices the one card explicitly synergizing with the hero's theme.
The Armory Deck ships as a complete, legal 60-card list, which means it is playable exactly as packaged on day one. That is useful for a first game, but most competitive builders will want to swap in copies from their existing Assassin collection once they see how the cure loop performs at the table.
Early adjustments worth testing include adding more ways to apply disease tokens beyond Viral Diffusion alone, since the loop stalls out if Dr. Mortimer never has a disease to cure. Whatever the current 60 looks like, sleeve it with EVORETRO Perfect Fit Sleeves before it hits the table for testing.
Mastery Pack: Assassin releases the same day and is built to give the whole class more tools, which likely includes additional support for exactly this kind of infect-and-cure shell. That product deserves its own separate read once full spoilers are available.
Builders should hold off on finalizing a long-term list until that product's contents are confirmed, since it may change which support cards are actually worth running alongside Dr. Mortimer.
No, the hero has not released, so no event results exist yet.
Infect an opponent, cure the disease for Silver, then spend Silver on card draw or extra attacks.
Humour Plunge is the weapon built around the infection bonus, so it is the default starting choice.
It likely will, since it adds more support for the entire Assassin class the same day.
The stock Armory Deck is a legitimate starting point for testing this loop before committing to a long-term list. Keep every iteration organized in its own EVORETRO Magnetic Black Deck Box while you figure out what actually works.
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