Zaladar - CotC Mill Deck

[Flynn]

I've made a few killer mill decks in DP and I decided I'd try to mess around wit a mill Zaladar on main server. I was surprised at how effective my results were. Here's the deck:


Deck

Hero:
Zaladar

Allies: (8)
4x Shadow Knight
4x Ogloth the Glutton

Items and Abilities: (27)
4x Conversion
4x Mind Control
3x Eternal Renewal
4x Shadow Font
4x Bad Santa
4x Bazaar
4x Evil Ascendant

Weapons are Armour: (4)
4x Armour of Ages

Total: 39 + Hero


Strategy

Once you can get a Bazaar down sacrifice something every turn until you get to 12-15 resources. Play something every turn, no matter what. Use Mind Control on a Puwen, it doesn't matter just delay every bit of damage. Don't sacrifice more than 1 ER and once you get to the end of your deck, just drop and ER. Don't worry about SK loops unless you're finding it really helpful; just spam them on the board and use them to get your Ogloth in hand. Use Ogloth mainly for your heal combo by using it with Conversion but feel free to troll with him on an empty board. Once you have used one ER play a lot more conservatively and make your hits count and try to fill the board with an SK loop to deal damage.

If you're having trouble with not enough recursion add another ER. I run 4 ER.
If you're having trouble with not enough healing add 2x Life Infusion. Untested.


Warnings

1) Not having T3/T4 EA is going to cost you many games. Furrion is really needed... This is true with all mill Shadow decks.
2) Not having Bazaar by T5/T6 is probably going to cost you the game. This is true with all mill decks.
3) Figuring out what to sacrifice is VERY important. You need to really know the opponent's deck well.
4) Remembering what you have sacrificed is also very important so you don't accidentally discard too many of a card you will need after you use ER. It is also very important because you need to think 2-3 moves ahead and plan the probability of you getting exactly what you need. Use ER to increase that probability.
5) When you play a card you need to think about filling your graveyard with useful cards and opening up your hand so you can receive the maximum amount of cards from Bazaar. Normally playing Shadow Font so you can clear the board of a single Kristoffer Wyld is a bad move, but with this deck it's actually a very good one. Playing an Ogloth and using Conversion on it to heal only 3 health because you're barely damaged when you have AoA up is actually a good move (depending on who you're facing) because you got rid of 2 cards from your hand and they are now in your graveyard for later use and you opened up your hand to get more MC and SF.


Easiest Match-ups

1) Any deck with a mid/late damage curve you'll almost always beat.
2) Decks with very little/no burn are much easier. Eg. Gwen, Lance, Boris


Hardest Match-ups

Elad-rush:
If you don't have an Evil Ascendant down by Turn 4 just leave. If you have all the right cards at the beginning don't play Bazaar on T2, wait til T6/7. Sac all your ER except 1. Having AoA on T6 is usually vital as well. T4 SF and T5 MC is perfect. T8 heal combo means you will probably win unless she is running Sandworms.
*Note: I have actually beat an Elad-rush before; see match posted below.

Millstalker: If he has more than 70 cards just leave. Keep all your ER and SK. Stall as much as you can with SK loops.

Stall Mages: If a mage uses Engulfing Flames and Poison Gas on you, you'll probably lose.


Gameplay

There's a stupid amount of mages in the current meta so it can be tough to pull this off at times, but when you get a non-Eladwyn you should win a lot more!

BP Flynn (Zaladar) vs DiBrom (Lance) @ 04.09.13 20:00 EST
- Control Lance Deck with a few Fatties

LegendDeck (Moonstalker) vs BP Flynn (Zaladar) @ 04.09.13 23:50 EST
- High-rank, 40-card Millstalker

BP Flynn (Zaladar) vs Drakkzilla (Zhanna) @ 04.10.13 17:00 EST
- Control Zhanna

Vorgath (Eladwyn) vs BP Flynn (Zaladar) @ 04.10.13 23:10 EST
- High-rank Eladwyn rush deck

[FDL]

Nice one.

The Oggy/Conversion healing engine is crafty.

Healing is by far the area I struggle with most in my Bazaar Zaladar DP decks. Giving so many cards to Mages is very dangerous!

Thanks for sharing.

ps: Do you have a couple of games I could watch? Your history is filled with many builds.

[Index]

Nice milk deck!

[Flynn]

Nice one.

The Oggy/Conversion healing engine is crafty.

Healing is by far the area I struggle with most in my Bazaar Zaladar DP decks. Giving so many cards to Mages is very dangerous!

Thanks for sharing.

ps: Do you have a couple of games I could watch? Your history is filled with many builds.

This Zal deck is really easy to pull off in DP and can take on almost any mage build with it's OP healing. I run Ogloth and Kairos for the heal combo there and I use both Conversion and IC to heal. I also deal with rush decks using both EA and Furrion - much easier.

Posted a game in the OP, I'll post more as I make more amazing games.

[FDL]

Haha. Tried this. Lost to Maj, won against Zal. Pretty funny stuff.

Well done.

[Index]

I'm trying now against a solo Gwenneth.
I don't know why he rage quit at T6 after seeing my AoA.
Maybe he can see I've got 3 AoA in hand?
AoA~

[Flynn]

Nice milk deck!

Haha. Tried this. Lost to Maj, won against Zal. Pretty funny stuff.

Well done.

Thanks guys! I was trying to come up with an original deck haha

[Dylan Hunt]

Maybe try PB or even Chimera instead of Ogloth?

They heal almost as much but allow you to start healing a turn or two earlier.

Also PB is good against Ms.

[Flynn]

Maybe try PB or even Chimera instead of Ogloth?

They heal almost as much but allow you to start healing a turn or two earlier.

Also PB is good against Ms.

I thought about it, but what makes Ogloth so good is his end game survivability and the combo of getting 8 health if you can kill two allies with your ability when you play his heal combo. He's amazing at taking the agro off your hero too. In the posted game above versus LegendDeck's Millstalker the only reason I won was because I was able to dish out 18 damage with Ogloth on his hero and then finish him off with milling + ability. Also, Chimera isn't proper, you'd run Cobra Demon.

I use the combo on the SK sometimes for a quick health boost. You can see me do this effectively in my posted match with Eladwyn.


This deck gets a serious boost in DP, I can win more than 75% on the testserver with my DP Miladar.