Majiya - Portal to Oblivion

[painful_smile]

Hi guys. I know me and my posts get kind of ignored from people that are not in my alliance, but anyway I give it another try.

This deck won lots of popups, is 2 times in top 20 and won a intern A1 tournament recently. (played by me or my room-mate)

SK loop and portal play are the 2 key elements of this deck. Depending on the matchup this deck can be very fast and win pretty quickly. But sometimes its very slow and you end up with 12 resources and nearly decked out.

1 Majiya

 4 Gargs
 4 Brut
 2 Wolf / Medusil
 4 DMT
 4 SK
 2 MD / BM 
 4 Fireball
 4 Lightning
 2-3 ToK
 2-3 Sac lamb (try to aim for 5 ToK+Sac lamb - how you wanna combine it is your decision)
 4 Portal
 2 Shriek / LLN

40 cards

I switch around with the options a lot. Sometimes I play no LLN, sometimes I play with no shriek and sometimes I play with shriek, LLN and only 4 SK as fatties. Its just how I feel at that point.

I am a big fan of 40 card decks and waiting for the sideboard option so badly, but if you are ok with playing 42 cards in a deck, you can also play this deck:

1 Majiya

 4 Gargs
 4 Brut
 3 Wolf / Medusil
 4 DMT
 4 SK
 2 MD / BM
 4 Fireball
 4 Lightning
 4 ToK
 4 Portal
 2 Shriek
 2 LLN
42 cards

LLN vs Shriek
Shriek you need against Wotf from moonstalker and Banebow and in a Majiya mirror. Its also good against Amber and if Zaladar steels a portal from you.

LLN you need against millstalker, Gwen and its also good against Serena and Kings Pride.

Molten Destroyer vs Brutal Minotaur
This is kinde meta specific. In the moment I feel Brutal Minotaur is the better choice, since I see lots of human decks using more and more Sandworms. Some time ago I used Molten Destroyer, cause Lance was very popular. And Molten on the board is better against a hasted raven then Brutal minotaur. But at the moment there are less and less lance player and BM is not totally bad against Lance, so I stick with BM at the moment.
But keep in mind, that BM is a dead draw against Zaladar, while MD you can play in some games.

Bad Wolf vs Medusil
I use Bad Wolf like always, but there are some Medusil fans out there and well honestly both passives are kinde shit and useless as fuck, so you can use whatever. Its not that much of a different. You just want to have the 3 damage and another 3cc drops.

________

So how you play is very matchup dependent. So I go through some matchups to give you the feeling out of my view as Majiya player.
If you want a specific matchup to be covered from me, just post as a comment.
Keep in mind that are just un-teched example on how to play against most standard decks that are played in the current meta.
In tournaments where you can tech for your opponent, that might be completely different, but then I tech too and my deck looks completely different.


Majiya vs Eladwen

If I go first, I pretty much win 90% of all games, if I don't have totally shit draw. You have 2 options to win this matchup. You either have Portal and 2 SK on your hand, then you can play something like this:
T2: Brut
T3: Garg
T4: Portal
T5: Sk
T6: SK

Often Elad has to nova at one point to stop that or has to use mass nukes to kill the Sk and cannot cast allies on her own and you can just loop the SK around until Elad is out of fireballs and then you win. If Eladwen Novas, and you get 1 hit with SK through portal, you pretty much won the game at then point, cause you can just death race her from there.

If you don't have portal on your starting hand you can also go for a mid-lategame play. Something like that:
T2: Brut
T3: garg
T4: ToK+Draw
T5: Garg+Draw if she does not use ability; or Fatty if she does use her ability on garg.

And then go from there and start your portal play.

If you go second it becomes a bit more dangerous, cause if Elad is a very fast burnrace deck you cannot cast portal or ToK on turn 4 or you just die. So use nukes to defend the rush and try to prevent as much damage as possible. If you can come to higher resource and begin your portal play without taking too much damage early, you win. If Elad makes too much damage early and gets decent draw, she will just burn you to death and you lose.

If 2 perfectly tuned decks and equally good players meet, I would consider the odds as to be 65-35.


Majiya vs Dripper Zaladar

I think this matchup is a lot decided by the first tourn advantage. Your health point is very low and you have no healing options and the damage output of Zaladar with just shadow fond and MC is insane. So yeah if Zaladar goes first, he can cast some allies early and then remove all allies you cast with SF and MC while their allies are hitting your hero until a point where he can just death race you. Its becoming harder when Zaladar also steals some burn with dimension ripper.

If I go first I can pretty much swarm the board with 3cc allies like zerglings. He has to use all his shit to remove them but has no allies on his own, so cannot hit your hero and I just can replace all allies he kills.

(concept of swarming the board against high cost removal spells)

Going first you do not really have a problem with him casting Dimension ripper, since you often get more 3cc allies to cast on the board. And don't forget Mages have high damage output too.

Still all in all my winrate against Zaladar in tournaments and quickmatch is like 75-25. But in QM or even popups are often some players that have not so much experience.

You have to sac all BM and SK if you get them in the early game. Even if you have 4 DMT on the hand its better to sack the SK than one of the DMT. Not having the SK loop option makes your draw a bit worse but on the other hand Zaladar often goes with bilateral draw, so you should be fine.

If he wastes too much MC on gargs or wolves and you think he has none you can start to haste SK or MD through portal.
But never cast a BM unless you are 100% sure you win with it or he has used all 4 MC. Trust me, even a totally leading game can be destroyed by 1 BM that gets MC.
Sometimes you have to take risk though if you are a in a situation, where you either lose or cast a BM.
(concept of playing for odds)


If 2 perfectly tuned decks and equally good players meet, I would consider the odds as to be 60-40.


Majiya vs Victor
Well I never played a very good Victor player / deck with majiya but I think since he has no way to destroy portal it should be very easy. Ability + hasted BM kills Sandworm. With portal you can keep the board free pretty easy and arrows or unbuffed Soulseeker are not that of a problem for your high health allies. Esp if you can haste them through portal.
I think the key here is again try to do some shadow knight looping, get to high resources and keep the board clean with allies and nukes. Late game SK loop through portal should kill him pretty easy. If you are at high resources, you even can ignore those sandworms pretty easy, cause not even Soulseeker can heal against that.

However my roommate says, that matchup is unwinable for Majiya, but hey he's a noob and sucks in this game, so don't listen to him.

If 2 perfectly tuned decks and equally good players meet, I would consider the odds as to be 65-35.
(but as I said, not sure here).



Majiya vs Elementaris

Get the fuck off with that shit. If he buffs a garg and casts life infusion on it, you pretty much lose the game at this point.
Just hit everything on the hero and unbuffed allies and ignore the buffed gargs. Maybe he does not get Soul reaper or cannot remove your allies fast enough and you might win.
But honestly, a good Elementaris player should not lose to a ally based Majiya ever.
If 2 perfectly tuned decks and equally good players meet, I would consider the odds as to be 20-80.


Majiya vs Jericho/Zhanna

I pair up the priest together, because they are very similar. Zhanna has more chance against you but only because Jericho's ability is completely useless against your deck.

In your deck is no Nova and no DoU, so if he gets an Aeon and some allies like a raven behind him on the board freely, you might have a problem. Lucky that will never happen if you play this matchup right and don't have totally trash draw.

The trick is, that Zhanna is very slow and wants to go to high ressouces. So you have lots of time going to high ressource yourself. And portal majiya with high ressource is just nightmare for everyone. Even a Zhanna can no heal against that.

Zhanna has 4 Focussed prayer. So she can either use them to destroy your ToK and cripple your draw or hold them back and use them on your portals.
Both is kinde shit for her. If she uses them on your ToK, you will kill her with Portal play later, cause even without ToK you have kinde decent draw with ability and sk loop.
If she keeps the fp to use them later on your portal, you can freely go to high resource and just drop portal + fatty at the same time several time.

Sk loop is very important against Zhanna and completely destroys her.
And its important to drop SK or BM right after a Wave and/or Portal right before she waves.
Also you can store your SE a bit, cause you don't need it early, since Zhanna is mostly very slow.

So the perfect start for going first is like:
T2: Brut
T3: Bad Wolf (zhanna most likely has no way to kill the wolf then)
T4: ToK+Draw
T5: portal (waiting for the wave or fp)
T6: SK (after Wave)

Going 2nd you wanna cast Garg on turn 3 over Badwolf since Potl/Jasmin + Aldon kills Bad Wolf.
Then on turn 4 you can most likely clean the board with ability. Then Zhanna has to wave... blabla you drop sk and so on.. you know the rest.

If 2 perfectly tuned decks and equally good players meet, I would consider the odds as to be 65-35..
_______
Thanks for reading.

[painful_smile]

Majiya vs Amber:
Actually the only problem about Amber is that her damage output with weapons is so high and you have a low hp pool.
So in my opinion Amber can only win against my deck, if she can hit my hero with his sword freely while using cb and retreat on my allies all the time and then deathrace me.
I know lots of guys will contradict me in this point... (hello jacqui) but I think Amber will never out-control a portal Majiya deck.
So if Amber begins and has lots of retreat and cb early you are kinde in trouble and will most likely lose. Thats how it is. If Amber can freely hit your hero with weapons while disable or retreat everything you drop, your hp pool is too low to survive that and Amber will death race you once you get finally board. And it does not help that she can steal fireballs with dimension ripper.

The more often Amber has to hit the board with her sword the more likely you will win. So yeah thats it... if I go first against Amber I think I actually feel very confident about this matchup.
If Amber goes first I hope he does not have perfect draw. If she does, I lose, if not I have a chance to win....

Amber has nothing against ToK so she cannot stop your draw, and she has nothing against Portal, so you can haste fatty after fatty on her and even just ignore unbuffed Sandworms if you have a decent ress count.

A deck variation is -1 or 2 Bad Wolf, -1 ToK, +2 or 3 Sac lamb. That makes you a lot stronger against Warrior.
I have a 73% winrate with majiya vs amber at the moment.

To be fair a Sandworm based Amber can be a real problem if she gets too many Sandworms out too early on an empty board.

Majiya vs Boris
Actually Majiya this Majiya deck is very good against Boris. Boris has not the power like amber to deathrace you with weapons, so for him its all about board control.
With your nukes you can defense early rushes and try to get to high ress as fast as possible, where you can pretty much destroy him with portal play.
Only problem would be a Sandworm base Boris with 4 Worms, Kings Pride, warbanner, aldon and Rampage.
My stats say that I am 10-0 with Majiya against Boris at the moment.

Like against amber, a variation with -1 or 2 Bad Wolf, -1 ToK, +2 or 3 Sac lamb makes it a lot stronger against Boris, but even without you should win most of your matches.

[painful_smile]

not that i think i need more space.. but why not...

[Icebear]

well, I already know and love that deck,
but cool you posted it here, so i assume we can also feature it in the planned 'deck anthology'?

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....hology-Project

Would be nice if we are allowed to quote your above write-up along with the deck

[Iramaj]

Not ignored, just no comment

[ahmet476]

Kudos for the effort.

[Evelyn]

Looks great and I'm definitely going to give this deck a try, I do have a few questions however. How come you're not using Nova, and what do you think about Acid Jet instead of Shriek? After all Shriek only removes something with a cost of 4 or less, but many armors/weapons cost 5-6 and Shriek won't remove them.

[painful_smile]

well, I already know and love that deck,
but cool you posted it here, so i assume we can also feature it in the planned 'deck anthology'?

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....hology-Project

Would be nice if we are allowed to quote your above write-up along with the deck

sure go ahead

Looks great and I'm definitely going to give this deck a try, I do have a few questions however. How come you're not using Nova, and what do you think about Acid Jet instead of Shriek? After all Shriek only removes something with a cost of 4 or less, but many armors/weapons cost 5-6 and Shriek won't remove them.

Nova? Sorry, but I only know good cards.
Nah just kidding. I am not a fan of Nova in a portal Majiya deck since it just helps your opponent to kill you faster and steels slots for more important cards. However if you like Nova..... I would suggest taking out the BM and add 2 Nova. Nothing wrong with that.

Acit jet I think is a bad idea, because I need the shriek mainly portal in a Majiya mirror. Also Acit jet does not destroy igg, warbanner, ToK, curse and lots of other shit. And replace LLN for Acit Jet is a bad idea imo, cause LLN is better.

[Preybird]

Great deck PainfulSmile! Solid and consistently strong. And I completely agree with you on your matchup info. Also as you well know, a Portal Maj can work well against dear old Lance.

P.S: It's becoming very hard to ignore you PS, you've made quite a mark in the tournament scene and in the QM ladder Actually you remind me of Cwhit and his meteoric rise to prominence.

[jacqui]

Not enough draw for my tastes. Make some room for SL and you have my stamp of approval.... even without nova!