Ter Adun and Friends

[Unruler]

I've been looking for a solid warrior deck for some time on this forums, and then I decided to compose my own. Here it goes:
http://shadowera.gondorian.com/deck/....4se157.2se065

This deck does not use weapons and won't let anyone else to do so. Honestly, I'm not big fan of weapons in this game, simply because they are expensive and have limited durability.

Overall strategy:
This is ally-based deck and can be played in rush or control style (you should decide which one is more appropriate in your situation). Usually I go for early game board control and then finishing off ignoring opposing allies.
It's pretty fast deck with a lot of cheap allies, with them you should gain board control for your scary dudes to come safely and seal the deal nicely.

Let's go through the cards quickly and get into details.

Fire Snake - your classical good-for-nothing ally used to get rid of pesky Kris or to nibble on enemy heroes heels. But don't hurry to throw them back into snakepit, you could buff them to 4 attack power with aid of Bloodlust and War Banner. Also feel free to set them on ally that you can't kill in one swing, they can be decent cannon fodder.

Hellsteed - this horsy with as many uses as legs it has. You can power your not very strong allies and you can even break weapons/armor with it if use it with War banner.

Carniboar - at first glance it looks pretty ugly, but it can grow into something truly terrifying if raised properly. Because of low initial attack power it needs aid of steeds or banner to get his first meal (usually Puwen), but then it can become real pain for your opponent meaning he have to distract and kill something with initial cost of 2. For example on t3 you eat Puwen (with help of hellsteed) then you can kill Jas or Aldon, then Raven, and then even Aeon. If your opponent underestimate this creature he can really regret this.

Gargoyle - this is your spongy creep used to annoy heroes and tank beefy guys. Good for maintaining board presence.

Behemoth - now this is your ace face. Use it to deal main damage and finish off your foe quickly. With possible amount of 7 damage per turn this can be truly devastating and usually meaning gg if opponent can't deal with your Plasmas.

Bad Santa - well, he's bad what else can I say. Sac him if your hand is full (and has Blood frenzy in it). But use it to get blood frenzy or to eliminate card disadvantage. You need this card because you will find your hand empty due to presence of lots of cheapos.

Blood Frenzy - your main draw engine, but be careful and not bleed to death. If you have all you need you can sac it and refill your hand with couple of santas later, but ofcourse usually it's recommended to cast it. Problem is that board control imo is more important and I tend to cast boar on t2.

War banner - not decisive card but could be used as aid in board control. Also it's relevant in this deck because of lots of low cost allies.

Bloodlust - used to finish off your opponent or if you struggling with board control.

Enrage - usually sac but can become useful if things went horribly wrong or to seed fear deep in the heart of your opponent.

Rampage - same as enrage, can be used as bleed compensation. Kind of insurance card.

Valiant Defender - Initially I was planing using Warrior Training on gargoyle in order to protect my precious Behemoths but I found this card perhaps more useful and 2 turns usually enough for couple of Behemoths to deal decisive amount of damage. The problem with warrior training is that you don't really have beefy pimps like humans do (Aeon, Sandsworm).

So here you go. Now ofcourse main counter to this deck will be the mages and priests with their board wipes. Basically you strategy against them is not to put all your allies as soon as possible, hold on, provoke them to use their wipes, mock them with weenies, destroy their draw and get yours.

This is pretty low rating deck and any suggestions and opinions are always welcomed.

[pyrogene]

Firstly, your thoughts on Weapons. Jeweler's Dream is potentially a negative 4 cost weapon due to it's ability to get you 2 resource back. Berserker's Edge is potentially 1+2+3+4=10 damage for 5 cost. Compare that with one of the most efficient spell Fireball (3 cost for 4 dmg.) While they are not as important for Ter Adun as some of the other warriors, you shouldn't discount them so fast. But of course it is your style and it does make all weapon destruction your opponent carry useless so that's up to you.

Same thing with armour. In particular, King's Pride may be worth a look since you run so many weenies.

4 Bad Santa seems a little excessive. Usually 2 is enough because you already have a very efficient draw engine in BF. You do run 8 1cc so maybe you could cut it to 3.

I see Crippling Blow is missing. It may be worth including to get you back if you lose control and against Erika/Sandworm.

Including Both Enrage and Rampage seems slightly excessive to me since usually only 1 is needed. Since you don't use weapons, the only time Rampage helps is when you already have board control. Would suggest removing it.

The biggest issue I can see as you mention are board wipes (Nova & Tidal) would totally destroy you. With Eladwen being so common, this is a problem. Weapons would once again be helpful here.

[abazigal]

From experience, items are becoming more prevalent in the game, and I feel that relying on Ter Adun's hero ability alone is going to be insufficient. I am currently in the midst of starting a deck myself (a variation of an earlier zaladar suicide rush deck), and am trying to find out the best ratio of shrieks/destroy arms to include as well. Destroy arms is more consistent, but shriek is faster and can get rid of pesky abilities, cheap armour/weapons, though it also slows you down.

I would consider lowering bad santa to 2 (you only need them if you do not draw your blood frenzy), maybe drop the rampage (this deck shouldn't need it), and maybe replace the hellsteeds with dark flayers. Reason being that if your deck does not run shard of power, you do not have a consistent means of letting them attack. I have had mixed experiences with hellsteeds, TBH.

In addition, run 2-3 death mages for board control, 3 shrieks for support and an additional defender (you need those when dealing with logan, gwen, moonstalker and to an extent, darkclaw).

[Caitlyn0]

Yay, someone else posting a Ter Adun deck... wonderful. i think this is the beginning of a very great deck

i agree with some of the suggestions. ter needs to suppliment his ability a little. like maybe 2 smashing blows. a kp or 2 would help. other than that, i think this is good.

i had a similar weenie rushing type deck in 1.27

[Unruler]

Thank you so much for responses! Especially Caitlyn0 for encouragement, really appreciate it.

Now I would like to respond to you as well.

I know that weapons are viable in this game, I just don't like limited durability, you have to cast them over and over again, return them from graveyard cast again etc., etc. Anyway, this is ally-oriented deck, I don't think weapons worth to fit in here... Previously I've tried to build Logan deck, but found weapons always getting in the way when I need allies and vise versa. So weapons can really cripple the pace of this deck. Maybe Jewelers dream could fit in, but you need to plan ahead to get use out of its ability so more often than not you (by you I mean me) will find yourself sacrificing it.

King's Pride is too expensive (and don't match Ter Auduns eye color), by turn seven you should be winning already xD I wanted this deck to be as much time efficient as possible, but without losing control ability and some insurance so you could return from unlucky coincidence.

Now about Bad Santa trick I've been using: you have less cards than your opponent in hand (let's say three), which is understandable because of WINnies, then Use Bad Santa (now you have five cards) and this draw gives you another Bad Santa, by this time your opponent's hand should be full already, cast your second Bad Santa and bam! you have full hand and maybe still can cast weenie and have card draw next turn, and your opponent got at least 3-4 cards less than you. Considering that sometimes I prefer not to use Blood Frenzy, this trick may come in handy and this is why I don't want to drop Bad Santas (they are also good sac fodder if you cast your BF).

With crippling blow I agree, I've been considering myself to drop Rampage and Violent Defender in order to fit in this cards. But the problem that in some cases crippled allies can be used anyway (different buffs or their abilities) so killing them is always a better option, so with lots of cheap allies I would rather get some of my weenies killed, then re-cast them but will eliminate enemy creature from the board for sure. Both Erica and Sandsworm die to Behemoth but by this point they can't do anything really bad to me (especially if this is only ally on board) so I would rather prefer to ignore them. Crippling Blow is good perhaps if you have a little board presence, I don't know how relevant it will be in this deck.

Enrage/Rampage aren't really use all the time cards. These are for insurance, to add to the deck some additional viability, one time Rampage saved me against AI Eladwen (imagine how humiliating defeat would be), Enrage was not enough against her spells and I was about to bleed to death because of my Blood Frenzy...

Additional item destruction perhaps not that crucial because a lot of items (weapons, armors) are late game, and this deck not late game oriented. And you don't have to destroy every item you need to carefully pick and remove critical items of your opponent. Gwens bow, Darkclaws teeth and so on.

Now, I don't like Dark Flayer, hellsteed + carniboar is much better (remember Puwen meal combo). And yeah, previously I've tried to create elemental weenie rush deck, but because of 40 card minimum you can't have enough weenies and this shard of power can really screw you over. In this deck you're having War Banner and Bloodlust and this is much safer options.

Death mage? Not a fan of. Gargoyle's always better and you have your Behemoth for spell damage.

Now I'm really considering dropping Valiant Defender for Warrior Training simply because Defender doesn't prevents spell damage and has limited time.

Sorry I didn't quote you but I hope you will be able to figure out whom did I answered anyway.