[1.5 Zaladar] - A consistent focused 40 card deck.

[Anna]

Question, why did you remove Soul Reaper?

It just "felt" more right.. Maybe its just the way i play this deck..

U see, lots of times both players are fighting hard for the board and the game is pretty even. With relatively weak draw, getting a soul reaper instead of a fattie, a weapon or a shadow font is not very preferable mid game. Also, while staying at 5-7 resources its rather hard to play soul reaper, as its too defensive. Its best played when u think the opponent might have lethal dmg next turn, or just a bit before that. Talking about end game, when the graveyard is quite full.

Soul Reaper is also quite useful against mages, but this deck can afford to provoke some burn dmg on allies and wear the hero down using weapon, zal's ability - Shadow Font, or Mind Control. After all, with mages its expected to be a death race..

This is my current, highly subjective take . Its quite possible its not the optimal variation and a more experienced player will find including soul reapers better. I will also post the variation, which includes Soul Reapers that i found to give good results. (EDIT: original post updated with "2 Soul Reapers" variation)

PB, SK and MD all have their strengths and weaknesses, and it depends on your playstyle preference. When you are tuning a deck for a competetive tourney, you scout and feel the meta and choose accordingly. Fou delile said he expected moonstalker in the wc, so he used PB. In quick matches, however, you see every type of deck and the board situations are varied. Therefore, for qm I have varied my fatties.

2 sk
2 pb
2 md
1 ogloth

If I were to tech for a popup now, I would go:

4 Md
3 sk

Same number of fatties. One is for a diverse qm environment, the other is tuned for a specific expected matchup.
Consistency could mean having lots of 4-ofs. It could also just mean consistently having a fatty on t5. My mix throws opponents off, bc they have to deal with all sorts of threats, one coming diwn every turn.
Good luck!

U gave me an idea. Actually 4 SK instead 4 Behemoths might be viable here too. If relying more on Sac Lamb than on BS, cause crippled SK is the biggest problem, making SK recycling harder. So this deck also needs a tweak of upping SL to 4 and reducing BS to 2 (or maybe 3/3 balance). Needs some testing to see how viable it would be. Dam my exam session leaves me so little spare time ...

[Anna]

Ok guys, tested out the build i mentioned in the previous post (keeping Behemoths, loosing Sliver of Shadows). And it does surprisingly well (yay for my 6 games winning streak )!!! 4 SK and 4 Sac Lambs do a pretty good job as draw engines and the following deck is able to up the resources to 8 with relative ease AND provide very good item destruction. As it is relative deviation from the original, i will post the whole deck here and update the original post. The board control shifts a bit towards mid game, as u need to Sac Lamb at a point (usually around T5-T7), but once u get the SK's going the game unfolds and u can up the resources further! Oh, and the consistency of the following deck is top-notch! Enjoy!

1 x Zaladar

4 x Brutalis
4 x Infernal Gargoyle
4 x Death Mage Thaddeus
2 x Plasma Behemoth
4 x Shadow Knight
(18 allies)

4 x Mind Control
4 x Shadow Font
4 x Sacrificial Lamb
2 x Bad Santa
4 x Shriek of Vengeance
3 x Ley Line Nexus
(21 abilities)
(0 weapons)
-----------------
40 cards total

[1ndeed]

Glad its working for you. As you play more, it looks to me you might have a slow early game with mediocre draws. I know your whole goal is consistency and 4-ofs. I like your choices, but 8 5cc allies is really a lot, esp with 4 mc in there. Banebow will give you problems, mages may be able to cripple your hp and finish you off with dd, warriors may rush as well...

Try fitting in more 3cc allies for speed, as zal needs board control. Also, nome of the fatties will stick unless you can keep up early on. I like bad wolf, as its good vs poison, evil ascen, etc, and is an amazing 3 drop going first. Bad wolf eats enemy gargoyles. Never tried medusil.

Also, 4 sac lamb - do you like it? I love the card, but im not sure 4 is correct.

Good luck!

[Anna]

4 sack lamb is absolutely awesome here IMO. I very rarely sac SL's, it's the only "real" draw in this deck, SK being "pseudo-draw". The total draw feels great, u just have to try it out to see for yourself! I can very often get card advantage on the opponent, even if SL'ing not the frozen/crippled/etc allies.

The point is finding the right moment to SL. For example if on T5 a Gargoyle sticks with a chance of survival, its a good time to play DMT for 1 ping dmg and SL him, knowing I can get him back with Shadow Knight.

Having x8 5cc allies seems overkill at the first glance, but in practice it works out pretty well! In lots of games its better to play Behemoth at T5, than SK, as its not so often I would have 2xSK by T5. Also, Behemoth is great against Moonstalker, Boris and stealthy allies. [EDIT: actually substituting 2 Behemoths for 2 Santas works a bit better - build updated]

4 x SK's + 4 x SL seems to achieve a very good balance for all the draw one would actually want with this deck. The overall draw is powerful, but not constant, meaning u need to choose when to use it, and this will partly depend on the opponent's moves.

Now, against mages, the key point is to get card advantage by forcing them to use spells on allies and destroying their ToK's (and with 4 x Shriek this gonna happen at exactly the right moment). Sure, they will up their resources faster, but once the ToK is out: welcome to "Top-decking mode" !
Then, using the ability, regain the board, with a caution not to overextend cause "Nova happens". The only thing that can really screw me over is DoU. If LLN doesnt come soon enough, it's pretty much game over, but I would take my chances having 3x of them .

P.S. Gwen is still a b*tch!

[Anna]

OK, a small update here guys, now that the ladder has been reset. Almost reached 300 rating, now fell back to 288. Ow well..
Ah, and btw this is the current deck (the last build in the OP has been updated too):

Standard Consistent Zaladar v2.0
1 x Zaladar

4 x Brutalis
4 x Infernal Gargoyle
4 x Death Mage Thaddeus
4 x Shadow Knight
(16 allies)

4 x Mind Control
4 x Shadow Font
4 x Sacrificial Lamb
2 x Bad Santa
4 x Shriek of Vengeance
3 x Ley Line Nexus
2 x Severe Ties
[COLOR="#00FFFF"](23 abilities)
(0 weapons)
-----------------
40 cards total

Basically the difference is substituting the last 2 Behemoths remaining for 2 x Severe Ties. Defeated a Gwen using it! Yay !!!
Also very useful vs warriors to either remove their Blood Frenzy mid-game when they are low on cards, or untie a crippled SK for a sudden 5 dmg to board/hero. Not bad vs wolven to un-capture prey or to remove Lone Wolf mid-end game. Obviously good to counter Gwen's double shot, she is not easy to go against but now at least there is a chance. Auto-sac otherwise.