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Ter Adun
4x Furion Terror
3x Crippling Blow
2x Shield Bash
4x Evil Ascendant
3x Contaminated Water
3x Rampage
4x Bazaar
4x Smith Shop
4x Reserve Weapon
1x Master Smith
4x Dimension Ripper
2x Spectral Saber
2x Dragon's Tooth
2x Nova Infusion
Total 42 cards+hero
The objective of this deck is to gain a strong hold on the board by using mass effects, like Evil Ascendant, Contaminated Water, and Furion Terror. You will likely take 10-20 points of damage before you really have the board set up the way you want, but typically the situation is reversible once you have your items in place.
Your win condition is essentially building up a wall of utility items, and wearing down your opponent with Dimension Ripper. The deck is constructed so that, while all highly useful to you, almost none of the cards you give away to your opponent will be of any use to them. On top of that, of the ones they might find useful, you are capable of quickly dealing with them because of the composition of the deck. Rampage could help them, but only if you're playing allies that you've ripped from them; Crippling Blow could help them, but only if you're playing allies you've ripped from them; your weapons could help them, if only you couldn't destroy them with your hero's ability; your opponent could benefit from your item destruction cards, if only you had any in your deck; they could benefit from Evil Ascendant, if only their allies weren't now taking 2 points of damage, instead of 1; they could benefit from Nova Infusion, if you couldn't just ignore them, focus on their allies, and let the armor slowly kill them.
MEANWHILE, you are stripping cards that are key to the way their deck operates, to and including their item destruction, which helps you in both directions: you can use them against their own items, and they are now denied access to them against yours; you are stripping their ally-control, which can then be used against their own allies; you are stripping them of their allies, with which they then have to deal; you are stripping their weapons, which you, in turn, use against them and their allies, and that they, in turn, need to spend their item destruction on. All in all, it's a vicious cycle. - Just don't start playing their allies if they've managed to grab a Rampage from you, as this could end up biting you in the end.
As far as direct counters, you run no item destruction cards, and so you'll be giving away no help in that regard, and few decks run more than 4x item destruction (and that's assuming you don't strip any of them) so there's just no way for your opponent to destroy enough of your items/weapons/armors.
Furion Terror - The only allies in the deck, these are for their board-wiping ability, and not their board presence. Of course, opportunistically they can be used to dole out damage against hero and ally, alike, but their primary purpose is surprise. Combined with Contaminated Water and Evil Ascendant, and preceeding a weapon attack, a Furion Terror drop can clear the board of all allies, to and including fatties. Also, by the time you play a Furion Terror, it is often the case that your opponent thinks you are playing an allyless deck, and has sac'd non-damaging ally control, such as Captured Prey, Crippling Blow, or Consuming Fear, leaving your Furion Terror free to reign some terror for a turn or two. Furion Terror can compliment your Rampage quite nicely. If your opponent rips one from your deck, it is easily killable, as you'll typically have a weapon, Evil Ascendant, and/or Contaminated Water in play, so usually the FT will only have 1-2 health when it comes back to your turn.
Crippling Blow - To deal with fatties and things that are resistant to constant trickle of damage, such as Infernal Gargoyle or Armored Sandworm. It also helps you to avoid heavy damage early on by neutralizing allies with high attack values.
Shield Bash - To finish off allies that have been damaged by EA and/or Contaminated Water, as well as to deal with allies who might otherwise be hard for you to address with weapons, such as those with stealth.
Evil Ascendant - Relatively self-evident, EA is one of, if not the, primary sources of board control. The earlier you can get this into play, the more likely you are to keep your opponent from acheiving a runaway flood of damage from besetting you in the early game. Later on, it also serves to feed you life when its effects are capitalized on by Rampage, allowing you to gain back much of the life you lost early on.
Contaminated Water - This softens up your opponent's allies to be killed by your weapons. Many allies have 4 health, and a Dimension Ripper buffed by Reserve Weapon kills those allies when Contaminated Water is in play. CW also ignores damage reduction effects, as well as avoidance abilites, such as stealth. Also, when played following Evil Ascendant, many smaller, specialty allies that your opponent was expecting to live at least one more turn are killed (i.e. Nightshade, Night Owl, Firesnake, Agent Rex).
Rampage - Your only source of healing; sacrifice it wise. In the opening hand, it's probably okay, but after that, you should never get rid of it, as you'll almost certainly need it to come back from the damage inflicted to you during the deck's setup period. There is also the risk of your opponent destroying it (including with one of your Spectral Sabers that Dimension Ripper has afforded them). If your opponent manages to get one of your Rampages from a Dimension Ripper, you can use your own Spectral Saber to destroy it, accordingly, although you'll often be able to ignore it, as you play very few allies.
Bazaar - This is very helpful early on, as it allows you to get enough cards to comfortably sacrifice for resources, as well as speeding up the process in which your opponent is run out of cards, which accounts for about 1/3-1/2 of the deck's win scenarios.
Smith Shop - Played on T2, this allows you to play Dimension Ripper on T4, starting the fun that much sooner. Also, later on in the game, shaving that (1) off the cost of your weapons and/or Nova Infusion helps a lot with playing multiple power cards in a single turn.
Reserve Weapon - One of the most important cards in the deck, second only to Dimension Ripper. Of course, when in play, it gives DR an attack value of 3, and if you use a Reserve Weapon to bring back a DR, and then play another Reserve Weapon behind that, your Dimension Ripper now has an attack value of 4. Of course, if your opponent gets a Reserve Weapon from Dimension Ripper, this is always the priorty to destroy, rather than the weapon itself (with the possible exception of Gwen or Amber, situationally)
Master Smith - Just one, and only because you might lose one or two Reserve Weapons to Dimension Ripper, and you really need to have a steady stream of weapons on your board once the late game commences.
Dimension Ripper - Most of the reasons have been mentioned above. Basically, it's terrific damage output, and odds are you will draw useful to powerful cards from your opponent, and the odds are they will draw very weak to moderately useful cards from you. The odds are simply much more in your favor, simply because of the things your opponent can draw from you. Dimension Ripper is the primary method of damage against your opponent's hero. It will also contribute to running them out of cards quickly.
Spectral Saber - Mostly to save you against the random Wulven opponent you face that attaches Lone Wolf. On a side note, something I discovered, if you have a weapon in play, and play Spectral Saber, but use its secondary function to destroy an attachment, it will not destroy your existing weapon. Very key when keeping your Dimension Ripper in play is so important to your success.
Dragon's Tooth - For the few times when you just have to kill that fatty. That you cannot boost its attack at all makes it one of the earliest sac choices for the deck, but in the instances that it is useful, it's incredibly useful. Also, though it won't gain the bonus, don't forget if you've got one in the graveyard that you can bring back suddenly with a Reserve Weapon to kill off your opponent's fatty (since they may have likely forgotten you had one in there to begin with)
Nova Infusion - Do not overlook this card. It has a durability of 5, and a defense of 3, so it has the potential to shield you from 15 points of damage - far more than the palty 1 point of damage it will deal to you every turn. On the off chance you happen to become poisoned or or set aflame, it will also negate those effects. - Oh, the last reason it is clearly the better choice, in this deck, than Armor of Ages, is that you can attack and defend with weapons while you wear it! So, you are able to minimize damage to yourself, while still being able to shell out damage to both the hero and/or allies. Against a board of enemies, it will usually buy you at least 2 turns, so it will only actually deal 1 damage to you. Meanwhile, it prevents an average of 8-13 damage to your hero, so long as it isn't destroyed by a direct effect.
So there you have it - Ter Adun, the Artificer, millstripper extrodinaire! Enjoy!
Descriptors/explanation added.
Being a huge Ter Adun player, I am going to try this idea. I've been looking at putting together a similar stall / mill version of Ter Adun. You have any info on how it has played?
DR instead of BE still scares me. i know, with your deck, they have a good chance to draw a useless EA, CW, SB or CB... but they could draw the armor or reserve weapon and that would hurt you. and losing a SB or CB will hurt you as well eventhough they cant use it. i understand you are using it to mill more but it still scares me. but then, my solo ter adun is more stall with lots of armor and weapons.
I agree, I quickly started using BE instead of DR. DR hits harder, faster, but the trade off doesn't seem to be worth it. BE is more reliable, and actually does just as good damage over time. Also finding Contaminated Water to be more useful than i thought. It does have it's downsides though, because the opponent doesn't need his SE to kill your allies. so they are free to use it on the Contaminated Waters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caitlyn0
I find that Contaminated Water is rarely destroyed, despite its ease to do so. Only a few heroes' shadow ability is specifically anti-ally, so most don't want to spend three turns' worth of buildup.
As for Berserkers Edge versus Dimension Ripper, I see both sides to the argument, but for this particular build, I still strongly favor DR, as its role is so multifaceted in the deck. It just takes so much away from your opponent and gives them so little in return. I'm at LEAST as likely to draw ally control from them as they are from me, and mine will do them no good. Oh, and with only 4 Bazaars as draw engines, DR provides the deck with much needed card flow.
I like the use of dimensional ripper here. I've always completely overlooked it in my warrior decks. The idea of having cards that aren't particularly useful to them whilst giving you a way to constantly take their cards away from them (and use them yourself) seems really neat. I also like BE, but i can see some situations where you may take from them the card they need to take you down, or just use another classes skills against them. This seems like it could be way better value than BE in some but not all situations. More or less it seems like stable deck that has the potential to be really deadly if you get lucky
oh, a new member who doesnt know about stripper decks . . . :)
Oh you've got it all wrong, i keep up to date with all your decks including the stripper decks. However, i do tend to overlook and forget to actually try them because other decks seem more competitive. However, i like the idea and really feel like giving it a go this time. In other words i don't feel like this one is as reliant on stripping as the others and may actually work pretty well in all situationsQuote:
Originally Posted by Caitlyn0