[Zhanna 1.5 Deck Rank 310] The Oathbreakers of Dunharrow

[yomaster]

The way is shut.

It was made by those who are Dead.

And the Dead keep it.

The way is shut.

-J. R. R. Tolkien

The Oathbreakers of Dunharrow.

The wielder of the Sword of Andúril:
1x Zhanna Mist

The Women of the White Mountain:
4x Jasmine Rosecult
3x Raven Wildheart

The Protectors of the Dead:
4x Birgitte Skullborn
2x Earthen Protector
2x Aeon Stormcaller

The Oathbreakers:
4x Tainted Oracle

Oaths:
4x Tidal Wave
4x Focused Prayer
4x Smite

Weapons & Armor:
2x The King's Pride
3x Wizent's Staff
3x Ghostmaker

Many thanks to Caitlyn0 from A1 for helping me create this monster deck and for DnDFreak's Zhannax for inspiration! I think this proves that priests can be very dangerous in 1.5!

[yomaster]

This deck was inspired by the dead men of Dunharrow, from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, also known as the Oathbreakers, or Army of the Dead. Like the saying, this deck keeps the way shut, and the dead keep it.... until the time comes to bring your dead army and wipe out your opponent in 1-2 turns. The key to this deck is card draw. Massive card draw. The single biggest threat to this deck is Bazaar, so destroy it as #1 priority.

Zhanna Mist - You will need her S.E. to stay alive. You will find that usually you won't need to use any of it until she has around 6-7 S.E. About 80% of the time, I will only use it when she is below 15 health. The other 20% of the time, I may use it strategically to heal an Aeon or a Jasmine. You should be sacking every single turn until at least turn 8 or 9. The goal is to be able to play 2 strong cards at once after a tidal wave in the late game.

Jasmine Rosecult - Cannon Fodder. Meat shield. On turn 3 you will either case Jasmine or Smite. Cast jasmine if there are some heavy hitters on the board that you can not directly destroy with smite. The goal here is to stall the enemy and to entice them to put down allies. Don't be afraid to heal jasmine on turn 4! This is very great trick that is extremely deceptive as it makes your enemy think you aren't packing a tidal wave. Beyond that, feel free to sac her if you like. She is really only useful in the beginning to be a threat for early board control (but this deck doesn't need that at all!). I find that even when given the option, I almost never use her ability. The resources are best spent elsewhere, and you will need them because you have some very costly cards here.

Raven Wildheart - Great counter to Oggloth that everyone seems to love right now. More of a threat than anything. You can use her to entice fatties to come out an play. More often than not, she'll die before you can utilize her. That's ok. Occasionally if you can get her out and protected with a birgitte, you can easily nerf a Oggloth in one hit! Don't worry about resurrecting her, you want to save your resurrections for Earthen Protector, Tainted Oracle, and Birgitte.

Birgitte Skullborn - A key card for this deck. Do not ever cast her on turn 1! It would be better to just keep her around to sac in the early game. She's really only useful past your first tidal wave. She is a great way to protect your Raven or Earthen Protector. She is also awesome at protecting a newly resurrected ghost from the grave from instant death. This deck loses hard without her.

Earthen Protector - Another key card. Do not ever sac unless absolutely necessary! Used mainly for draw. Never cast him when you have no allies out. Always wait to cast him when you have a Tainted Oracle out. Then cast him, have your tainted oracle commit suicide by attacking either the Hero (if they have a weapon), or an enemy ally. Then watch as the cards come flooding in. Now the secret is to keep either the Tainted Oracle or the Earthen Protector in the graveyard as the top ally. Do not keep casting allies. Instead wait until you can get your Ghostmaker out and keep the card draw engine going. This is the part that builds momentum for the massive army of the dead later on. Sometimes you can cast him and protect with a Birgitte, but I generally only do this if I already have a King's Pride down, else the Birgette will fall and resurrect instead of the tainted oracle. But if K.P. is out, then doing this isn't so bad because Birgette will now be a 4/6 ally!

Aeon Stormcaller - Late game card. Use him on turns 9 or 10 in combination with another ally. He will be a great meat shield and probably get crippled or frozen. no big deal. He is mainly to protect the massive army of the dead who is about to follow him into battle. When you get to use his ability, it's a real bonus, and you'll get to use it a lot because by the end of the game you will have around 10-13 resources and will easily have 3 to spare each turn. Keep him healed up with Zhanna if you have extra S.E. to burn. If you're facing a rush deck and don't think you'll last that long, just sac this card. He will serve you when the time comes ;-)

Tainted Oracle - The keeper of the dead. He is arguably the most important card in the deck. I include 4 because you really need to have him by turn 4. When given the chance between him and Wizent's Staff, always use Tainted Oracle. The one exception is if there is a Kris + Aldon out and you are getting weenie rushed. In that case, sometimes I like to use the staff to kill the Kris, but even still, it's almost always better to use Tainted Oracle. Even better if they attack him for you! Keep him on top of your graveyard at all costs, even if it means taking extra hits to zhanna or even skipping entire turns! When you have the Ghostmaker, bring him back and if possible strategically use the ultimate card draw combo: Tainted Oracle out. Ghostmaker in hand. Cast Earthen Protector. Attack enemy ally that has more than 2/2, killing Tainted Oracle. Draw 2 cards. Resurrected to 4/4 ally. Use ghost maker to bring back Earthen Protector. Optionally Cast Birgette. Now sure, generally birgette will be the next to die, but at least they don't kill your Earthen Protector, and guess what? Even if they do, he's now ready to be resurrected again because you still have 1-2 hits to go on your ghost maker! (probably only 1 if they have an ally). Now use ghost maker again, bringing back E.P., attack with Tainted Oracle (now a 4/4) and keep drawing massive cards. Your hand will be overflowing and you'll probably be at or around 10-11 resources. Ready for the army of the dead to attack on the next turn after a tidal wave. If you draw 2 Tainted oracles in the first hand, go ahead and sac one. You can really get by with only 1 as long as you use the drawing engine correctly.

Tidal Wave - Hopefully you get one of these before turn 5. My general rule of thumb is this: If the enemy can do more than 5 damage per turn from allies on the board, use Tidal on turn 5. If not, throw out some cannon fodder like a jasmine, tainted oracle, or even a raven. Hopefully on the next turn they'll drop a plasma B. or maybe even an oggloth. Then you've got them. Don't be afraid to take damage to take out their whole army. The worst thing you can do is give them cards, so don't use tidal wave if Ill Gotten Gains or Wrath of the Forest is out. I generally never sac these unless I start with 2.

Focused Prayer - Awesome card. Kills that annoying ankle breaker that is all the rage right now ;-). Best use of this card is to destroy bazaar, as that is the single worst card for you. Otherwise, just play it by ear. Also keep in mind that given a choice to destroy their weapons or their armor, I'd chose to destroy their armor since ghostmaker is useless against ANY armor! And generally, you'll have only meat shields and tainted oracles out there, which you want to die anyway for card draw!

Smite - Another key card to outlast until the late game. Use this card to destroy puwen, or in tandem to knock about a 4 heath ally with your wizent's staff. I almost never use this on the hero. Save it for allies. If you have to pick between sacking this or a tidal wave, sack this card in the early game, and tidal wave in the late game (unless you don't already have control, in which case you'll need a tidal to knock out his fatties).

The King's Pride - You'll usually only ever need to cast 1 in a game, so if you draw this on turn 1, go ahead and sac it. It's not necessary to use to win, but sometimes it comes in handy. Here are my two uses of this card: 1) When you have a couple allies out and the enemy is running out of ammo, chuck this card down to kill off shadow knights, plasma B's, etc with your jasmine's and tainted oracles. It's expensive, so be sure it's the right move. If zhanna still has a lot of health left, still go for card draw before using this card. 2) stalling. Sometimes I use this card when there are a couple weenies out and I haven't got any card draw cards to play. I'll plop this guy down hoping they will whack away at it and hopefully they plop down a fatty. If so, bingo. Tidal wave them back to sea and then resurrect a fresh tainted oracle with a birgitte. It's a great surprise card when you really need to take back board control.

Wizent's Staff - A great card, but one that doesn't get much use in this deck to be honest. On turn 4, cast tainted oracle unless you are hard harassed by buffed kris's. Generally I sack one or two of these. Useful when you didn't get a tainted oracle though. In that case, definitely keep up the card draw, but don't draw too hard on it because you'll need your SE to survive the late game. Always attack with it when given the opportunity, even to whittle away the hero's armor, or just to take 1 HP here and there. It's almost always worth it because a ghost maker is on the way, and that is your REAL drawing engine.

Ghostmaker - aka. The Sword of Andúril. By now you probably already know the usage of this bad boy. It's the key card that makes this deck so fun and awesome. In the late game it will spawn a huge army of allies. It's not uncommon to have 5-6 allies with King's Pride, ghost maker in hand, and your enemy has absolutely no allies and only 1 or 2 cards in their hand. Unleash the dead in the late game and roll over your enemies in 1-2 turns flat.



So there it is folks! I've gotten all the way to rank 310 using this deck exclusively! Enjoy!!

[ShamanNatZ]

Awesome! Long strategy

[FDL]

Nice write up.

[pyrogene]

Good deck, not sure if you have seen this: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....dated-for-1-5? Your does have some differences but the key cards and concept is similar. Good read nonetheless, any specific match-up tips you find relevant? Which heroes give the most trouble?

[B0HATER]

Thx for sharing mate, I lost to this deck in one of my alt accounts and was really surprised of how efective it was!

[akratch]

wow. reading the first post alone netted me +50 nerds points. Definitely some good synergy in your deck. Only things I can say is maybe try to fit in holy shield. it's quite nasty when you rez a protector and then make it invincible.

[yomaster]

wow. reading the first post alone netted me +50 nerds points. Definitely some good synergy in your deck. Only things I can say is maybe try to fit in holy shield. it's quite nasty when you rez a protector and then make it invincible.

I tried fitting that in, but it seems too corner-case to be useful. I find that birgitte fills this exact role perfectly and is only 1 cost. The great thing is that even if they kill birgette, hence using your E.P., she comes back with 2/4 and is now an even bigger obstacle to remove. At this point throw down a king's pride and she'll be 4/6 and you just start taking board control now.

[yomaster]

Good deck, not sure if you have seen this: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....dated-for-1-5? Your does have some differences but the key cards and concept is similar. Good read nonetheless, any specific match-up tips you find relevant? Which heroes give the most trouble?

It's very similar, but I find retreat in that deck to be a big burden. It's not as good anymore since the Kris + EP bug was fixed.... Smite does a much better job I find, but that's just my style. Try both decks and I think you'll see this one is superior. I've played zhannax a lot and I like it, just not as much.

The only time I got owned with this deck was a very awesome solo Logan that i've never seen before. Now that I know what to look for, it's very hard to lose with this deck. Just be very selective about when you place your birgettes, because sometimes they can block up your graveyard. Most losses are because I chose unwisely, not so much that I got unlucky with the draw.

[Grumbaki]

Interesting deck. Very nice write up. I'll try it out but I have several questions:
- I can understand the absence of retreat but is 2 KP enough? With LLN crushing blow and stop thief being trendy, it seems risky.
- Kris isn't so much for EP but more to use late game with KP. It's basically a 1cc smite once KP is out. Also deals with DoU.
- Brigitte + Ep don't synergise (IMHO) well even if you have GM as by this time you'll have a Aeon ready to go. x4 seems a bit high to me.
- Same critique as to Zhannax, I find that 2 EP and 2 Aeon don't pop out together often enough. Any view on that?

Anyway as i already said very nice work, i'll try it out and post feedback.