Z allstar's Crush (AI gold farming)
Z allstar's Crush (AI gold farming)
Hero (1):
Zaladar
Great hero with a great ability.
Allies (17):
Hellsteed *4
Ally that boosts first ally's attack.
Spark *4
Ally that grows with its fellow sparks.
Rotling *1
Did the Child of Aldmor remember to feed its pet?
Child of Aldmor *4
Amazing ally in this build .
Flare *4
Ally with good synergy with Spark.
Abilities(3):
Nocturnal Advantage *3
Awesome ability, mostly to bypass hidden, stealth and weapons, but the +1 global amp is good too
Artifacts (9):
Loom of Fate *3
Used to manipulate Meat Wagon, but the draw is nice too.
Shard of Power *3
Global amp.
Meat Wagon *3
Pseudo global amp.
Total Cards: 29 + Hero (you only need 30 to play against the AI)
Total Cost: 4450g
Resource Breakdown:
1cc *16 cards
2cc *4 cards
3cc *9 cards
Cost Breakdown:
15 cards at 100g
7 cards at 150g
5 card at 200g
3 cards at 300g
Playstyle:
Crush - rush build backed with several different global amps.
DO:
Drop your army and go for the face - easy.
Try to play Spark before Flare.
Try to play the permanent global amps before you play N. Advantage.
Also N. Advantage should be used carefully vs hunters and rogues. I swear the AI version of Gwen has 5 into the forest cards.
Have fun with Loom and Meat Wagon working hand and hand.
Child of Aldmor brought the extension cord.
DON'T:
NEVER drop more resources than THREE unless it is an extra artifact - EVER (you are not playing against a human).
NEVER underestimate Hellsteed - EVER (almost always a better drop than child or rotling).
NEVER waste your time on the opponents allies - that one in a million chance they snuck jasmine out - ok. Beyond that - ignore them all (you are not playing against a human).
Things to know:
You can easily destroy EVERY AI opponent.
Only priests can beat you and they have to get both Ice Storm and Tidal Wave and get really lucky, and they are the easiest hero to beat if they don't get Ice Storm - You won't see Tidal Wave unless they play Ice Storm first (they will dead before they have the 5cc to play T. Wave).
Boris is the hardest (high health and his ability) - I beat my less than 3 min record posted in the SF version of this deck. Actually "hardest" is the wrong word - he takes longer. One turn less thank you Child of Aldmor. No AI hero is hard even at the highest AI level - not one.
Building:
Things you can swap out with what you might have in your library:
You can swap rotling and Child of Aldmor out for any 1cc ally you have in your library. The previous versions had firesnakes. 2cc Allies even with haste slow this deck down. Trust me I tried frostmare for a long time and broke it down mathematically - always one turn slower the games I had to use it.
You can swap Loom for something like Bad Santa or Bazaar (Bad Santa is better since it can manipulate Meat Wagon). You won't really need draw unless you have more 2cc allies anyway. Since you could be running a slower version Bad Santa is better than Loom because you can use the burst draw after a board wipe.
You can swap in Bloodlust for either N. Advantage or Meat Wagon. N. Advantage is so much better though (bypasses weapons, stealth and hidden). Gwen hates you!
Every change you make will slow the deck down, but since CotC Zaladar has been the top Shadow hero for farming even when there was that evil known as the spark effect. Since the spark effect no longer applies regardless of the changes in the build you will be in fact faster than what we were using in the days of pure CotC. Still too drastic of a change you'll risk the possibility of challenging and exciting games vs the AI.
Discussion
Rather than update the build with each major update I figure it will be easier just to make a new thread and what ever changes happen I will post directly in the first post and reserve a few lines. Also a lot of the stuff in the previous farming threads don't apply with the updates in the CotC starters - basically the shopping stuff. Besides a bunch of the formatting I used that works on the web looks bad on Tapatalk in the later part of the thread and I can't base shopping info around no longer existing starter decks. Hey, the new CotC starters are even better than the last time they improved the CotC starter decks. Besides, you got the card list - go get them.
On the surface it looks like a tiny change:
-2 Firesnake
-2 Rotling
+4 Child of Aldmor
So basically I swapped out four garbage allies for four different ones, but no it's not that simple. Child of Aldmor is Epic in this deck even just using him once. He speeds the deck up even more. The thing with the 5 garbage allies is that before they really were garbage - you needed them for thoses critical t1 and t2 drops in case you didn't get something better. Also they make good t1 to t3 sacs if you start with better allies and no multiple copies of artifacts. Now however we have Child of Aldmor. It's not as much of a waste to play them. It adds a twist with certain battles. Giving your opponent an extra SE will not slow you down as much as giving yourself one will speed you up (you are Zaly) - just realize which hero you are giving se too. With previous versions of this build it was possible to kill the opponent without having a chance to use your ability (yes perfect game - which is common in this build), Child of Aldmor now gives you a chance to use it every game - and kill people faster. So the dude is really bad ass - ONCE. He is "four copies good" so you can use him ONCE when not sacrificing him to your unwholly gods of Zaladar's farm. Rotling is still as much garbage as ever. I was tempted to put firesnake in his place (for this post) and make the accompaning chuck norris joke. IE: "Firesnake is Chuck Norris, you only need one." But, with the Aldmor spawn posse there is a larger chance there will be something to clean out of the opponents graveyard. And the possibility to gain 1 atk versus having +1 perma hlth on an ally that won't be hit seems an obvious choice. Still, it happens so rarely that having more than 1 rotling makes no sence. I tried various ratios of Rotling to Child of Aldmor and the C o Aldmor's on summon ability has been more usefull. Way more usefull. It reinforces Zaladar's second turn advantage and removes his first turn disadvantage. He really doesn't shine so drastically until you realize he is your future reward for a bad draw at the beginning. No more bad draws - kinda awesome. The additional tech I feel really makes this shine. Basically the least suited thing in this deck is the single rotling and he works. Free Sac or emergency ally to play. Also if you get a "perfect game" you could in fact do a OTK (one turn kill) on T5 even if you had not attacked at all and without using your ability with the exception of Boris and that depends on what he killed of yours.
So yeah I said at the end of the SF versions thread I said I wasn't going to post a new farming deck until I did a price breakdown and new version of the shopping guide based on the new starters available. I lied. Instead I posted a thing about what you can swap out. Also I was planning on waiting till more LL cards came out. Now we got CP cards and I'm all confused. Obviously LL did give me a new card to add to the build ... but yeah, it is faster so I should post it!
So I suppose a link to the last version would be good: SF Zaladar [C]rush Edition - Final.
Things to know about that build/thread:
There is some info in there you might find helpful or interesting (at least if you are new). Places where I did hard core formatting looks like crap in tapatalk (be warned). Places where I have side by side decks and what not. The damage breakdowns are identical (this deck and that) since the quick and dirty way I do it ignores shadow energy. The elemental starter deck I mention in that thread is not the same as the elementalis or zaladar starters they have now. I have shamed the time - 2:38 presently for a win against Boris. Boris! Who cares if he can snatch an ally - I shot him in the face a turn earlier with a lightning bolt - boom (20 seconds off my time).
I spend somewhere on average at my level facing 6-12 min matches vs humans. I hate you evil people that make them take 20 min (I play a rushstalker ms aldmor build to mock you). But this vs AI with a loss rate that should be measured in ppm (parts per million) rather than % that absolutely wins every time and quickly (3-5 min ave). Unless random priest gets lucky or you are being silly. Oh wait you can get some goffy wins if you go crazy on C o Aldmor. You might lose too. Notice how I typed out once over and over above. What crazy crystal twisting hippy do you think kept messing around with Child. That would be me. Go with me - don't do that if you wanna win. Also you gotta be drunk or stoned intentionally make stupid moves to make games go much longer or lose unless you get the one priest that can eat you.
The first match in the video I linked to in this POST shows what the AI can do with it's untuned Zaly shard deck. It's kinda funny. The AI wins in 4 turns. Even with the Spark effect Nish could not take back the board. Dude was not flawed ... he played better against a human and that game was flawed (He didn't get his gear). Gotta give that guy props ... I lost crazy like ... I am sooooo gonna post this. This is how we separate men from boys and ladies from babies my friends, the brave from the cowards ... the true from the doomed ...
