Eldawen: Tainted Light

[KingRao]

Taking a break from losing with Jericho - he is really hard to tune, worth it, but very challenging. I've leaned a lot about playstyles of opponents through Jeri and this led to my latest deck.

I'm having a lot of fun with this deck in QM. I haven't found any particular weakness yet, solo heroes and rushes have fallen to Eldawen's Tainted Light. Posting here as I appreciate comments and thoughts. Being in the game for 2-3 weeks I can obviously gain from any comments and help in fine tuning any deck I try, so TIA.

Eldawen Tainted Light


4 PotL
2 TO *
4 FB
4 LS
2 Poison Gas
2 Engulfing Flames
4 Tome
4 Nova
2 Webs
1 Special Delivery
2 ST
2 BS
3 LLN
3 Snow Sapp

* I started this deck with 4 PotL and 4 TO. I have been playing with adding and removing combinations of PotL/To, from 4/4, to 3/3 of each, etc. Not sure yet what is the ideal number of each for the deck to be properly tuned. PotL in a near solo deck is very powerful, giving you shadow energy advantage. Many heroes are reliant upon SE and having points chipped off here and there can really wrench up their game plans. Also, the 3cc of PotL is excellent return on cc, given you gain one life. Big difference between gain and heal. When dealing with a close game (and many will be close with max 8 allies) those extra points of life go a loooong way. Especially if you are planning to drop 2 Novas, which I have been as a part of the strategy.


Basic strat is to get the tome down and any allies in your hand out. I don't sack TO unless I have a tome down. Fireball/Nova are basically never sac. Early armor is a sac, same with BS if I have tome down. 1 special delivery is a bonus. It's amazing how often some extra damage comes in handy.

When the opponent is hit with both poison gas and engulfing flames the deck really gets moving through burn.

LLN for spelleater bands specifically, any enemy hero with big weapon potential secondary use. Otherwise sac fodder.

The goal is to get to 10 resources where you can cast 2 Novas for the win. Max resources are at 10-12, where you can drop an armor and nova in the same turn.

The armor is great. I've had some fights where the opponent does not attack with the allies on the board due to the freeze effect of the armor. This is great if it happens as you can continue to dish out direct damage.

So that's my Eldawen Tainted Light deck in a nutshell.

Thoughts/comments?

Thanks
KR

[Vincenzo749]

seems nice

[KingRao]

Thanks!

seems nice

I've been mixing up this build for a bit. Much of my last week or so of playing has been testing large deck size viability, testing cards I haven't been using and so forth.

I came back to this build after trying a lot of 50-60 card Jericho decks.

Here is the latest version:

1 Eldawen

4 Potl

4 Fireball
3 Poison gas
2 Engulf flames
4 Lightning
4 tome
4 nova
1 arcane burst
2 webs
2 retreat
3 shrine of negatia
3 lln
3 snow sapph

40 cards


Some combos I've been working on:

1. Retreat your Potls. I had 1 match last night vs Gwen, she would have won if I did not retreat 1 potl, then cast 2 from my hand in the last couple turns. Losing 3 SE late game can be decisive and is a hard play to counter without Shadow Font. Another versus Zaladar this morning. Potls eat up the SE and he cant blast them to death until 1 round later. So for 3cc you gain 1 life, opponent loses 1 SE, you can maybe hit for 3dmg, then it dies. That sounds like a lot of value for 3cc IMO.

2. Get to 10 resources. Play and plan for 2 nova in 1 go.

3. Shrine of Negatia
This card is so much better than I ever expected. Save it until you can make swings in board control, mid or mostly late game. For example, let the Elemental or Hunter run that bazaar for a while and continue to use your tome. Card advantage - a mage drawing 2 to 3 cards per turn is going to give the opponent some serious problems. When you are getting ready for your 10cc double nova, 2 turns before you want to blast the enemy, return the bazaar to his hand. He will likely recast. You do this twice in a row in the later rounds and you setup great card advantage, especially if you have the cc to use your tome at the same time.

4. I added 1 more gas - I think to get this combo working you need at least 5 of the DoT (damage over time) cards. They are the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging over the enemy life counter. 2 points per turn, tick tick tick. Possible scenario - at 4 resources the poison gas hits. 5cc nova or fb/tome. 6cc flames/tome or 7cc flames/fireball (or 7cc nova/tome, then 8cc flame LS etc). If you can last 5 rounds (not that hard with the retreats, nova, webs, SS and Eld ability) that's 10 damage. Then boom goes the nova dynamite. Or lighting, more fireballs, etc.

*In testing I strongly think 3 of each, gas/flames is too much wasted card space. 3 and 2 or 2 and 3 is the way to go.

5. 1 Arcane burst. Yea yeah, 1 card hardly ever comes up. Good. I don't like this card for the cc. However, there might come a time when weenies are heading at you and you don't have a nova. 2 damage kills those 2 sparks, the injured whatever and the odd flayer/carniboar/blake/etc etc etc. Very situational but it affords more versatility in 4cc than the 3dmg Special Delivery. I classify it in the same category as LS. Why not a junior LS in arcane burst to make those cards total about 5 for split damage rather than just 4 via LS. If you draw it, try to hold it until a good use comes up. If you face a soloist, or something like that, resourcing is an option.

6. A tip about webs - I've seen opponents use clinging webs on something like a 4hp ally and then kill it a round later. That is a waste. Always let your webs run the 2 turns prior to killing the ally. Timing and tempo to this deck is everything!


While I have lost a bunch (and won too otherwise I wouldn't post here) my losses were usually due to my error, not the cards. I think this can be a very strong deck, maybe it is not 100% tuned yet, but I think it is getting there.

Any insights are appreciated.

[Algork]

Please use the name of cards.

If you use Shrine of Negatia vs Bazaar, there is 0 card advantage (you spend 1 card to deny 1 draw), only 1 ressource of tempo advantage (you spend 1, opponent must spend 2 to recast it).

[KingRao]

Please use the name of cards.

If you use Shrine of Negatia vs Bazaar, there is 0 card advantage (you spend 1 card to deny 1 draw), only 1 ressource of tempo advantage (you spend 1, opponent must spend 2 to recast it).

Well I think what you said is true but to a certain extent - you have left out that the opponents bazaar has will have given you 2 extra cards compared to zero for them.

For example:

Opponent 2cc Bazaar
You draw 2 cards. 1 cc Shrine, return bazaar
Opponent uses 2cc again, Bazaar
You draw 2 cards

For spending 1cc, you gain 2 cards advantage over the opponent, who then used up 4cc and drew none.

Am I wrong here?