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  1. #1
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    KISS Victor [1.5]

    Victor is a very interesting hero to me. His ability, on paper, is rather fantastic. Imagine that you have a Victor equipped with the hunter staple, Soul Seeker. You take any ally you want to 1hp, bring back a card, and finish off the ally to gain 3 health. If that card was a Death Trap, you can then play it to take out another ally. So 4se + 3cc to destroy 2 allies and heal 3 health? Yes please! Your opponent has a big mean Plasma Behemoth out and you have nothing? No problem! Equip Soul Seeker and use Victor's ability and you go from having lost the board to having control of it. He is a hero that plays to control very well.

    So what is holding Victor back from just doing this over and over?

    Well, for one thing, a lot of decks just don't mind running into a Death Trap. You lose 1 card, they lose 1 card. If they have better draw power than you (and they have enough low cost allies) then this 1 for 1 trade suits them, so we need to make sure that we have better draw power than them. And here is the first problem. Human hunters, as they stand, have several weaknesses, one of which is a lack of draw power. However, Victor's ability, combined with Lily, Tainted Oracle and Wrath of the Forest allows for the weakness in draw power to be more than done away with - in fact, it hopefully becomes an advantage.

    The other big problem that Victor has is consistency. He has great combos that he can pull off, but if you don't have a Death Trap on the top of your graveyard, for example, or a Soul Seeker about, then it can hurt. This all means that it is useful to create a deck with a lot of consistency in, so you can get the right cards at the right time, but then this brings up a lack of versatility as a new weakness. However, without consistency Victor becomes significantly weaker, so including lots of copies of cards, and only the cards we really need, is the approach I have taken here.

    This deck is about getting board control, and keeping it. You're not going to be able to beat your opponent straight away, but limit what they can do, and push forwards slowly while bearing in mind your weaknesses.


    The deck:

    1x Victor Heartstriker
    4x Jasmine Rosecult
    4x Lily Rosecult
    4x Tainted Oracle
    4x Armored Sandworm
    4x Death Trap
    4x Poison Arrow
    4x Retreat!
    3x Lay Line Nexus
    4x Soul Seeker
    4x Wrath of the Forest


    The cards and their uses:

    Draw power - Victor, Lily, Wrath of the Forest, Tainted Oracle - One of the combos involving Victor's draw has already been listed, but basically he brings back the Death Traps and Poison Arrows and laughs. Lily is a vital component of this deck - bringing back Soul Seekers over and over, allowing Victor to board control and heal. Soul Seeker is such a strong card that always having one in hand or available is important. Both Victor and Lily allow you to get the cards you need, when you need them, bringing back some of your strongest cards on a whim. Wrath of the Forest is surprisingly good. As you're keeping board control, your opponent will hopefully not get much of a chance to beat away at your hero and wear it down. Yes, your opponent can use an item to destroy it, but then they've just used an item destruction card on this instead of Soul Seeker or a death trap, which is okay since you aren't so reliant on Wrath with all the other draw you have. Unless your opponent is Ter Adun, they won't have enough ability to destroy all of your items, so the destruction weakness is lessened. Wrath also counters Ghostmaker and provides a little bit of damage prevention, which can be useful in close games. Tainted Oracle is an excellent card and combos well with Wrath of the Forest (yes, you get 3 cards). If you can get away with dropping him down on turn 4, you have gone a long way to setting up your mid game. And don't forget that he can do his own little bit of damage too!

    Early/Mid Game - Death Trap, Poison Arrow, Jasmine - I don't really need to explain Death Trap any more, except to say that it can also be used as a mind game. It doesn't just destroy allies, it puts the opponent in a position where he may make a less than optimum move. For example, if he only has one ally in hand, he may be afraid to play it, so he might try and play around your trap, only to find that this will just give you more control. Control isn't just about controlling the field of play, it is also about controlling the affect your opponent has on it. Poison Arrow is an extremely versatile card that can not only simply destroy allies, but can slow the game down and give you a tempo advantage. It combines very well with Victor's ability on either the same turn on the previous one. Jasmine is a staple, and arguably the best 3cc ally in the game. She hits well and slows down your opponent. All of these cards are useful throughout the game, although Death Trap becomes less useful as the game goes on, since your opponent can start playing multiple allies per turn, playing through it. If you can get a card advantage however, it is still very strong.

    Mid/Late Game/Healing - Soul Seeker, Retreat!, Armored Sandworm - Soul Seeker is obvious, and should be at four in pretty much every hunter deck. Keeping up constant damage and getting constant heals allows you to prolong the game and make comebacks even if you fall behind early on, something which this deck is adept at. Retreat! is a very obvious card for this deck - the board control it provides is fantastic, and it can bring back Lilies to get more use out of your main cards. And don't be afraid to play it early game if the situation calls for it. Armoured Sandworm is again a great control card. Almost a must in the current meta against mages, it can stand strong and knock away at those 4 health allies with your Soul Seeker.

    Item Destruction - Lay Line Nexus - Thankfully, the introduction of Lay Line Nexus to the card pool gives human hunters a way to take out dangerous weapons and armours, and while this is still a weakness compared to some other classes, it is usually sufficient given that we can use our bow (and Sandworms) to wear down low cost weapons and armours. You won't need these against most decks, but when you face a deck that they are useful against, you will be very glad that they are there. As is always the case with cards like this, the number you will require will have to change as the meta changes. At the time of posting, 3 is enough, but don't be afraid to take them to 4 if you need to.


    Cards that could be included, but weren't:

    Priest of the Light - With eight 3cc cards already in the deck, there would need to be a good reason to include Priest in addition to them. Given how this deck relies on board control, Priest just doesn't help in that respect. He is far too easily destroyed and inferior to Jasmine when it comes to slowing down the game and controlling the board.

    Raven Wildheart - Given the meta as it is, I prefer Sandworm, who tends to be more useful against more decks. Sandworm is also more durable, which helps given the low ally count in this deck. Besides, you don't need to cripple allies when you can straight up kill them :P

    Aeon Stormcaller - If there was any card that would like to include but haven't, it would be Aeon. The main reason that he isn't in is simply that his protector ability isn't too useful in a deck with so few allies. That, and lack of space. He would go great with Sandworm for buffing purposes against PBs and the like, but that is rather situational. He might be worth looking at at 2x or even 1x though.

    Surprise Attack - An interesting draw choice, but bad with Victor. You want to be bringing back Death Traps and Poison Arrows with his ability, and this will only make the deck inconsistant. It's a fairly situational and unreliable draw card too. Would combine well with Sandworm, but not really worth the downsides.

    Bazaar - Well, it would give all the draw power we need, but it would do so for the opponent as well - not good for those Death Trap trades. In fact, it would give us too much draw power and we would hit our hand limit quite a bit when combined with all the other draw sources. It could also interfere with Lily.

    Honored Dead - Draw power, as I have said, is very important, but Honored dead just doesn't suit this deck. Not only is it a bit of a dead draw in the early game where every card counts, but given that we are in some ways running traps instead of allies, it will take longer to come in to a playable state that with most decks.


    As a note at the end, I know I’ve lumped draw power and pseudo-draw power into the same category in this post, but they're close enough :P

    Overall, Victor is a here who takes a lot of skill to play well, as you need to think ahead quite a bit, planning ahead for what cards will be on top of your graveyard in 3 turns time when you might next use Victor's ability, for example. You need to plan a lot more than in your average deck, but when you succeed it is very fun. As with my Majiya deck, while a lot of this will be simple to many of you, hopefully this will give some players ideas about using this fun but underused hero.
    Last edited by Spectrl; 02-23-2012 at 09:19 PM.

  2. #2
    Senior Member blueblurr's Avatar
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    I LOVE this deck, wouldn't change a thing. I've made this EXACT deck, and it is so much fun to play. Very good write up.

  3. #3
    Senior Member fatal1t1's Avatar
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    the amount of people who responded to this post, shows that many like to keep secrets from the heart of the card. :-)

    simple as the wind, strong as a hurricane.

  4. #4
    Moderator danae's Avatar
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    A combo I love to use with Victor is: at 5 resources, if your opponent has a PB/Sandworm/Raven/etc.. on board and you nothing, you could retreat the ally and cast a death trap which most likely delay your opponent casting that ally again. And by the time he has gotten rid of your death trap, you would probably have enough Shadow Energy again to easily take out that ally when he casts it.

    Sadly, however, I haven't been able to make Victor work out successfully but maybe I'll give your deck a try.

  5. #5
    DP Visionary Padawan Pete's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by danae View Post
    A combo I love to use with Victor is: at 5 resources, if your opponent has a PB/Sandworm/Raven/etc.. on board and you nothing, you could retreat the ally and cast a death trap which most likely delay your opponent casting that ally again. And by the time he has gotten rid of your death trap, you would probably have enough Shadow Energy again to easily take out that ally when he casts it.

    Sadly, however, I haven't been able to make Victor work out successfully but maybe I'll give your deck a try.
    I tried that too, but the opponent always plays snake (so op) then pb or kris then sandworm next turn. Or some variation.
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  6. #6
    Senior Member bobwei's Avatar
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    This is excellent
    Shadow Era, ETC

    Evolve Through Cooperation

  7. #7
    Senior Member Unruler's Avatar
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    Can victor return SS from graveyard with his ability? Because it's a hunter card, right?

  8. #8
    Senior Member ahmet476's Avatar
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    His ability can't but he can with Lily.

    Hey Spectrl. What's the KISS tag in front of your decks?
    Last edited by ahmet476; 02-24-2012 at 12:04 PM.

  9. #9
    Senior Member thendless's Avatar
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    You need Raven Wildheart. It's important to be able to disable allies instead of killing them. Infinite recurring Dark Knights will make your Death Traps meaningless and let's not forget the flood of Gravebones we'll see when 1.5 hits.

    Edit: Victor can retrieve any hunter cards now, including armours and weapons? This wasn't possible in 1.29. That's a significant buff.
    Last edited by thendless; 02-24-2012 at 11:37 AM.

  10. #10
    Member Xothguk's Avatar
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    I've tested that Victor can not return his bows from graveyard. They are not Hunter specific items as traps,arrows. They are classified as "Hero Item - Weapon,Bow", not "Hunter Weapon" or something else.
    "My bones become my arrows!"
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