Zaladar Adaptive Deck

[Jovai]

I love Sparks in Elementalis, less so with Zaladar.

[Killtrend]

If you eliminate your first turn drop based on odds of getting multiple of them, you won't have a first turn drop.

1st turn, spark.

2nd turn, spark or extra sharp

From then on they are cheap drops that must be dealt with or I turn them into larger creatures or mini beatsticks pumped. I used to drop 3rd turn Keldor. Now I'm playing with Bella. Mixed results.

All in all. Love my sparks.

[shannong]

If first turn drop played that large a factor in the outcome of games, Zaladar with no Sparks or Fire Snakes or Brutalis would not be a tier 1 deck. Yet it is. Here's why.

As Player 1, you have a 53% chance of getting either 2x Spark OR 1x Spark + 1x Extra Sharp by your 2nd turn. And what does that buy you, really, when your opponent's turn 3 drop (Blake, Aldon, Gargoyle, or Bad Wolf) can easily first-strike one of your Sparks on his 4th turn, even if you managed to get 2x Sparks into play by your turn 3? The chance of you actually getting 3x Sparks into play by your turn 3 (as Player 1) is only 4.8%, and even then, both Blake and Bad Wolf can still first-strike one of them.

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(For this next bit, please don't ask me to walk you through how I calculated these probabilities. It's a bit cumbersome to explain in detail. I'm confident of these numbers.)

As Player 2 against any human deck, you have a 62% chance of gaining the initiative on your turn 2 and keeping the initiative through your turn 4.

As Player 2 against any shadow deck:
If they have Sparks, you have a 18.4% chance of gaining the initiative on your turn 2 and keeping the initiative through your turn 4.
If they don't have any Sparks, you have a 49.4% of gaining the initiative on your turn 4.

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Now let's look at what happens if you have no Sparks at all in your Zaladar deck, and you instead rely on a turn 3 Gargoyle or Bad Wolf to help you win the early struggle for board control.

As Player 1, worst case scenario is vs Human deck where they drop Blake on their turn 2. (Which they have a 69.2% chance of doing in a tuned 30-card deck.) In a typical "tuned" 30-card Zaladar deck you're going to have something like 4x Gargoyle and 2x Bad Wolf. This gives you a 91.8% chance of dropping one or the other on your turn 3. On your opponent's turn 3, his Blake CANNOT kill either Gargoyle or Wolf unless he's willing to mess up his ally development tempo and is carrying 4x Extra Sharp or 4x Retreat or some utility tool like that. If he tries to kill you with his Blake alone, he'll die in the process, leaving nothing but his turn 3 Aldon or Jasmine the board by the time you get to turn 4. Your turn 4 rolls around, and between your Zaladar's inherent Shadow ability and your single Gargoyle/Wolf (damaged or not), you can kill BOTH his Blake and his Jasmine, leaving you in control of the board with either 2x Gargoyle/Wolf or else 1x Gargoyle/Wolf plus 1x Chimera. On your opponent's Turn 4, If he has anything other than Boris/Eladwen, he has already lost board control versus those two heavy hitters. If your opponent is Eladwen, she can take out ONLY a damaged Gargoyle, leaving either an undamaged Gargoyle or undamaged Chimera on the board. If your opponent is Boris, he can take out only one of your allies and leave (at worst) a damaged Gargoyle in play on your side.

Now turn 5 rolls around and you're still in board control with the ability to dish out 2 damage and take at least 2 damage, plus whatever you bring into play on turn 5. You now have the initiative and the advantage, and remember, this is a 98.1% probability scenario against the best possible ally-development play a human deck can throw at you, assuming you've loaded your 30-card deck with 4x Gargoyle and 2x Bad Wolf. This is how tier 1 probabilties/deck design works. Yes, yes, I know he might be running with Extra Sharps or Retreats, but I can't go running down all the probabilities for these variations. Yes, his using one of these would be strongly in his favor, but not everyone does run with this, and the main thing I want to point out is that 98.1% probability in your favor in a straight up ally development race.

As Player 2, worst case scenario is vs Human deck where the drop turn 2 Blake, then turn 3 Aldon. (Which they have a 51.8% chance of doing.) You drop nothing on your turn 2 so they get 3 free damage against your hero. You drop turn 3 Gargoyle if he's not running Boris/Eladwen, otherwise you do a Transference if you have it (79.6% probability you can do this). Just don't drop an ally to certain death. If he's not running Boris/Eladwen, even his pumped 4-damage Blake cannot first-strike your Gargoyle, so if he tries he'll lose Blake in the process and that would be tactically weak, giving you an advantage in the struggle for early board control.

If he is running Boris/Eladwen, you'll have an uphill battle for sure and I'm not even going to try to calc the odds, but remember that on your turn 4 you can use Zaladar to kill Blake outright and get Aldon down to 1 health (or kill Sandra or Dirk or Puwen outright), plus you can drop a Chimera with 83.6% probability, and while a turn 5 Erika or Raven can provide you with an uphill battle, you now have both a potential turn 5 Mind Control of your own, plus lots more heavy allies, that can turn the tide in your favor with proper play and/or a little luck.

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So me? I like those odds for a Spark-less Zaladar. They seem more consistently able to pay the win-loss ratio in my favor.

[Killtrend]

I see what your saying. But you assume a turn 2-3 I can't kill aldon or any other 4 dmg creature with sparks.

Another reason why I ran Keldor over 4th turn drop Bella

1st spark
2nd spark or swing.
3rd turn if he drops a 3 health creature, only one spark with extra sharp or blood lust wins. If he drops a 4 health creature, 2 sparks in play, one with extra sharp can win. Mind you it's a 1 cost ally. Not 3. If I had Keldor, I could extra sharp him or pump with his own ability or both on turn four. Since going first, you always have first strike. I really gotta drop Bella.

I get what your saying. Cookie cutter teir one use probability and exact builds to win. Well, that's no fun is it? I rather win in a bar fight then an air strike.

Good post though, seriously.

[shannong]

I see what your saying. But you assume a turn 2-3 I can't kill aldon or any other 4 dmg creature with sparks.

Another reason why I ran Keldor over 4th turn drop Bella

1st spark
2nd spark or swing.
3rd turn if he drops a 3 health creature, only one spark with extra sharp or blood lust wins. If he drops a 4 health creature, 2 sparks in play, one with extra sharp can win. Mind you it's a 1 cost ally. Not 3. If I had Keldor, I could extra sharp him or pump with his own ability or both on turn four. Since going first, you always have first strike. I really gotta drop Bella.

I get what your saying. Cookie cutter teir one use probability and exact builds to win. Well, that's no fun is it? I rather win in a bar fight then an air strike.

Good post though, seriously.

Keldor is a much stronger early drop than Bella, especially once Kyle fixes the bug with his pump ability. Even now with it broken, I don't run Bella any more. Instead of 4x Bella in my Zaladar deck, I run 3x Behemoth and 1x Shriek. (I run more Shriek than that but in place of other typically run cards from the cookie cutter.)

Oh heck, here's my deck. Basically a minor variant of Narziss' deck:

1x Zaladar

4x Gargoyle
2x Bad Wolf
4x Chimera
3x Plasma Behemoth

2x Energy Discharge
4x Transferrence
4x Mind Control
4x Life Infusion
2x Shriek

Once Keldor is fixed, it would probably be 2x Keldor and 1x Behemoth instead of 3x Behemoth.

[Killtrend]

I miss my Keldor. Yours is very reminiscent of the standard with the discharge and shriek. I like armor of ages for an all around fix while my creatures/Zaladar do their thing.

[shannong]

I miss my Keldor. Yours is very reminiscent of the standard with the discharge and shriek. I like armor of ages for an all around fix while my creatures/Zaladar do their thing.

I'd love to run an Armor of Ages and even one Eternal Renewal for "insurance" against Elementalis "mill" decks. But like Calmdown said once here (paraphrasing), just because a card is good, the real question is whether the card is good *enough* to replace something else in your deck. If we ever get to 40-card deck minimums in this game, the landscape will be very different, I think.

[Killtrend]

Indeed. I like my ages tho. A good card to at the least, scare people into changing up how they have to attack

[Killtrend]

Updated. Keldor is back. Bella is cut. 20-3 and Keldor was key in both wins. Although the Keldor bug alnost cost me one of them.

Glorious.

-edit- just took a loss to a Gwen soul seeker double strike. Almost had her beat full health to like 4. Then she used soul seeker with double strike. Real "balanced" that she kills a spark and gains 4 health. Then kills another and gains another 4. In one turn. Shouldnt it be worded "gains health of dmg dealt" as in 1 for a spark, 4 for Keldor. Etc. Meh. Life goes on.

[currymutton]

I think Shriek can be a life saver cause I have encountered a number of elemental decks using a lot of armors, large deck and renewal.

I manage to win one game against another Zalader deck with luck, when the Shriek just happens to come into play at the right moment! (I see no place here to post AAR)

I also notice that Here Be Monster card is not widely used here -- if your deck makes up of high-cost allies only and happen to go next, this card can be quite devastating. Just to say many hard lessons learned.