1.5 Ter Adun – The Spartan

[Preybird]

(I was going to resist posting this until after my internal tourney, but I can't help myself Besides, it's not deck lock, so I'll be able to change things up anyway.)

This is the result of an internal Warrior only tournament/challenge and more than a bit of insanity on my part. I truly feel that this is as good as Ter is going to get, and I’m probably pushing the boundaries of his usability here. I have tested this in QM and can actually maintain a rough 50% win rate at 300+ (My best is knocking out a 335 ranked Eladwen). However this deck is exceedingly difficult to play and not recommended for beginners. Even experts may (and probably will) shake their head at this one.

Warning: Try this in QM ONLY if you want a challenge and like a rapid heart rate. Bear in mind that while I can (just) maintain a 300 ranking with this deck, do not expect it to be a good climbing deck. There are too many bad matchups, and it’s just fortunate that the meta in the 280-330 range does not contain as many of them.

Ter Adun

4 x Reserve Weapon
2 x Smashing Blow
4 x Crippling Blow
4 x Rampage
3 x Shield Bash
4 x Evil Ascendant
4 x Rain Delay
4 x Bad Santa
3 x Snow Sapphire
3 x Dimension Ripper
4 x Berzerker’s Edge

Current iteration:

-2 Smashing Blow
-4 Bad Santa
+2 Enrage
+4 Blood Frenzy

So much faster, and surprisingly it does better against mages (2 for 2 against mages since the change). Lost to a Zaladar, but I don't think Blood Frenzy was my problem there.

Solo?

Yep, Solo. Ter Adun has no board presence at the best of times, so I decided to not waste my early game with allies and instead set up for a strong late game, hence solo. If possible, turns 3 and 4 are reserved for Evil Ascendant and Rampage respectively. If not, you need to stall until you get weapons out and start to fight back. You do have quite a few tools at your disposal here, and once you get Snow Sapphire out you can actually maintain a decent board lock. Don’t be afraid to use an early Rain Delay if you have to, it can really blunt a human rush.


Late Game

This deck gets rolling at turn 5. That’s when your first weapon comes out. For Mages, it is preferable that it’s a Dimension Ripper. Everyone else, Berzerker’s Edge. However, don’t be afraid to use Dimension Ripper on other opponents. Remember most of the cards in your deck are worthless to your opponent, and the ones that are useful are the items, easily dealt with using Ter’s ability. Snow Sapphire as soon as you get it, and keep the board under control AT ALL COSTS. I usually only swing at the hero with a BE when it’s on 1 durability, to get maximum damage.

Then comes the trick. Reserve Weapon to bring back a BE or DR. Then next turn, another Reserve Weapon to boost it further. Doing this, a BE will start at 3 damage and boost to 6, and a DR will give you 3 swings at 4 damage. In conjunction with Rain Delays you can actually deal damage ridiculously quickly, as your opponent can’t use allies to whittle down your weapon durability. Then once the weapon runs out, the second Reserve Weapon brings it back and you can start again. Of course this is ideal, and more often than not you will be fighting for board the entire game, only swinging at the hero occasionally.

Pro Tip: You can chain Rain Delay with Ter, using his ability to blow one and then cast another. It's expensive SE wise, but can win you the game.

Keep Crippling blows for allies that are resistant to EA (Sandworm, Gargoyle, Bad Wolf). If Molten Destroyers hit the board, dispatch them AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. They will ping you for every turn they’re in play, due to EA. Shield Bash and/or buffed weapons are required.


Strengths

This deck’s greatest (and really only strength) is its ability to survive if you can get to turn 5 relatively unscathed. In regards to matchups, the best matchups you could say would be:

Majiya: Don’t be fooled however, it's a tough fight when played by experienced players. To beat Majiya(and mages in general) you need to really concentrate on board to keep your life total up with Rampage. Expect Gargoyles. Blow up draw engines as priority.

Amber: Also one of the easier (and I use this term loosely) fights, however hold onto your Smashing Blows. A canny opponent will wear out your SE then bring out the big weapons. Pro Tip: Use your SE first to bait them into overextending

Gwen: Have not faced a Gwen yet, but I would expect she is going to be at least beatable, what with near limitless item destruction and Snow Sapphire.

Victor: As the common Victor build is slower and control based, it tends to give Ter a good chance to set up. As long as you can keep the Sandworms under control you can manage him pretty well.

Zaladar: Not a strength, but not a weakness either, so he’s going in here.

Weaknesses

There’s a long list of weaknesses to this deck that you NEED to be aware of:

Sever Ties: The number 1 killer of this deck. Keep a spare Rampage in hand if you can.

Sandworm/Gargoyle/Bad Wolf: Resistant to EA, save Crippling Blows for these allies, or alternatively, ensure you have a Snow Sapphire to slow them down.

Aeon Stormcaller: Kill him as soon as you can. Do not leave him to die to EA, otherwise he will spend all his time buffing allies out of EA’s reach, and before long a 7 attack Sandworm will be staring you in the face.

Moonstalker: This should be obvious why. My best result was getting an allied Moon to 11 before he overran me. Rain Delay, Crippling Blow and Shield Bash are of UTMOST importance. And Millstalker……. fuggedaboudit. (Though you could annoy the crap out of him with all your item destruction Mwahahaha!!!!)

Zhanna: Auto lose. Her heal plus abundant item destruction means you have little chance of overwhelming her. Best hope is to hit with Dimension Ripper and pray for Tidal Waves, then hold out until she decks before using them. Remember one thing….. Tidal Wave with Rampage and a board full of allies = EPIC life gain.

Lance: Still winnable, but a damn hard fight. Stop Thief! is a pain of immense proportions. Watch for Aeons, tear them down as quick as you can.

Elementalis: Thankfully not prevalent where I am currently, however almost impossible to beat. His buff means that his allies tend to stay out of EA range, thus largely negating your heal.


Some matches:

ASF Preybird vs Little Bear I (304 Lance): Tight tight game. Watch the game prior to it (s3101959) to see what happens against Lance when it all goes pear-shaped .

ASF Preybird vs Poxy (335 Eladwen): He didn’t get off to a great start, but he spammed Sandworms and Aeons, so I was lucky to take this one. Watching again I made a dumb move with a stolen Tainted Oracle, so forgive me there However this is a great example of how the deck works when it all comes together.

ETC Preybird vs M4geHunter (279 Majiya): This was an earlier iteration of the deck which included Violet Thunderstorm. Far less effective I realise now. We ended up decking out, and I finished him with a stolen Fireball and the Futurama kill (Death by Santa) (IIRC because I can’t seem to watch the replay through.)

ETC Preybird vs ASF Shadowtide (2nd Game, Amber): Custom game. First game we disconnected, but second I beat back an early rush to take it.

ASF Preybird vs KA HKQ 1718 (297 Zhanna): This is what I say when I mean Zhanna is auto-lose. I held her out until we decked, but couldn’t answer her ally flood. I also made a number of mistakes during this game around the timing of my ability. I was still teaching myself at this point.

ASF Preybird vs AA1 Devery03 (266 Zaladar): As Devery put it, a “brain fart” cost me this game. I didn’t destroy a buffed Dimension Ripper but instead attacked into it, forgetting he’d used a stolen Reserve Weapon to bring it to 3 attack. Damn good game though, and highlights that you can’t make any mistakes.


Conclusion

There you have it. This is the best I can do with Ter Adun, and this deck has genuinely surprised me. I do feel that he is better than Tier 3 with this build, and he can win matches against the top heroes. That being said, every fight will test you to the limit. If you try this, I highly recommend switching to Eladwen rush periodically to give your brain a break

I must also give thanks to a number of people for ideas and inspiration:

Caitlyn for pioneering the idea of a solo Ter Adun way back when.
Keaven for Berzerker Boris. A lot of the play style is similar, particularly the weapon cycling.
Bobwei for his Solo Amber. The intricacies and logic behind his deck made me choose Dimension Ripper over another weapon (say Jeweler’s Dream).
Xander Spitfire for organising the internal tourney and giving me the push to try something new.
My own insanity for deciding to try this in QM.

[Tazzaras]

I'm running a build similar to this, but with his ability do you really need the smashing blow x 2? Wouldn't it be better to add perhaps +1 snow sapphire and +1 DR to maximize that you have a weapon in your hand at all times? Or even - 2 SB and +2 Shadow Font if you need item destruction quicker. Just a thought

[Preybird]

I'm running a build similar to this, but with his ability do you really need the smashing blow x 2? Wouldn't it be better to add perhaps +1 snow sapphire and +1 DR to maximize that you have a weapon in your hand at all times? Or even - 2 SB and +2 Shadow Font if you need item destruction quicker. Just a thought

The cost of Shadow Font makes it less effective. I know that sounds weird, but this deck hangs on a razor edge, and the difference between needing to sit at 8 resources (SB and Weapon) and 9 resources (Font and Weapon) is significant. I have run a version without Smashing Blow, instead adding +1 Shield Bash and +1 Dimension Ripper, and that works too, but if you're opponent is smart and runs your ability out, you're in trouble.

[Tazzaras]

The cost of Shadow Font makes it less effective. I know that sounds weird, but this deck hangs on a razor edge, and the difference between needing to sit at 8 resources (SB and Weapon) and 9 resources (Font and Weapon) is significant. I have run a version without Smashing Blow, instead adding +1 Shield Bash and +1 Dimension Ripper, and that works too, but if you're opponent is smart and runs your ability out, you're in trouble.

Yea I see your point. I've actually included HBM x 4 in mine to try to get on out on T3 to keep the opponent play catch-up in terms of resources and/or help you get to 5 resources first if you went second. Doing some tests now to see how it works out.

[Preybird]

I considered HBM, but the games run too long and you can't quickly take control after using it like you can with Zaladar or Banebow for example. So it didn't make the cut.

[TheSt4lker]

Ran into a very similar build in a QM, playing Gwen. I was soooo p*ssed, lol.

I dropped early Potl to get time to get the first SS in play, and then drew out his second use of SE with katar, thinking I was sorted with a SS the next turn. Only to get my SS smacked with a smashing blow! Finally got Ter Adun down to 6 health, RF on, SS in hand, and out comes SS armour! The main difference with that deck was he was using SK instead of JD, he cycled 2 at a time over the final 3 moves (somehow he had worked up to 18 resources)!

Anyway, nice build

[Preybird]

Ran into a very similar build in a QM, playing Gwen. I was soooo p*ssed, lol.

I dropped early Potl to get time to get the first SS in play, and then drew out his second use of SE with katar, thinking I was sorted with a SS the next turn. Only to get my SS smacked with a smashing blow! Finally got Ter Adun down to 6 health, RF on, SS in hand, and out comes SS armour! The main difference with that deck was he was using SK instead of JD, he cycled 2 at a time over the final 3 moves (somehow he had worked up to 18 resources)!

Anyway, nice build

Good to know it can perform against Gwen. (Sorry it pissed you off though.)

I had Shadow Knight in my original build, but I found unlike Millstalker, you tend to be spending too many resources keeping your weapons up, which means you don't have enough to spare to run an SK loop. It is something to consider if I built a (slightly) larger stall version.

[TheSt4lker]

Good to know it can perform against Gwen. (Sorry it pissed you off though.)

More like WTF? than p*ssed off, lol

[Preybird]

More like WTF? than p*ssed off, lol

Yeah, I think this is everyone's reaction when they see Ter

[Little Gnome]

You don't have problems with draw with only 4 bad santa? I think a turn 2 bazzar could help in getting high resources since this deck needs them (8+ imo). I wonder if it works with shriek for rain delay recycling but then again it would hurt losing that 1 resource I guess...
Thx for sharing man!