Kylt's Zhanna: popup winning deck

[Kylt]

Since I don't belong to any guild, I have no obligation to keep the deck list secret.
I hope this helps for new players who want to start playing DP Priest. This deck brought me to 340 rating.

Cost of making this deck (29th April 2013)
13,550 Gold


***HERO***
Zhanna Mist

***Allies (19)***
4x Jasmine Rosecult
2x Aldon the Brave
2x Armored Sandworm
2x Aeon Stormcaller
1x Braxnorian Soldier
3x Champion of Irum
2x Layarian Seductress
3x Elizabeth Winterborn

***Abilities (15)***
3x Tidal Wave
3x Ice Storm
3x Focused Prayer
4x Retreat!
1x Forgiveness
1x Mass Purification

***Armors (2)***
2x The King's Pride

***Weapons (4)***
4x Wizent's Staff

TOTAL: 40 cards + Hero


This deck is quite difficult to play.
You need to know when to go for the board and when to give up and Tidal Wave.
However, the deck is capable of winning without using a single TW if played correctly.
So many synergies in this deck, so fun to play. Knowing what your opponent's optimal play in what turn is crucial.

Type: Control
Resource: 6~7
Speed: Can be fast but usually slow.



Champion of Irum
Great with Zhanna's ability. Always drop this on T2 when you have it in hand.
CoI - Aldon can punish opponent Karash when going second.
CoI - L Seductress is great against human when going second.
CoI - Ice Storm can take out enemy Karash and DMT. A clear board is there.
Also, you can play CoI with TW at 7 resource.
Attack with him, and heal him with Zhanna's ability on t3.
He is unique so I only included 3. But really, if you get him on t2, your probability to win rises by quite a lot.

Jasmine
Best t3 play when going first.
If you managed to keep her behind Aeon, you won the game there.
No better 3cc ally than her, so 4.

Aldon
He became more important in DP, mainly because of Karash.
Himself is not great against Karash but he is the second optimal t3 drop when going first.

L Seductress
the only way to deal with allies with Steadfast from your hand except TW.
I don't know how many times she saved me in games. Keep her in hand if you have enough allies on board, otherwise, play her. It is always better to have allies on your board in this deck.

Elizabeth
People still don't know how to deal with her. She is sooo dangerous.
While health 5 is not easy to kill in one turn, Zhanna can heal her up for more draws.
t4 Liz when going first is very strong.

Sandworm
For me, Sandworm is better than Raven as I want to play 5cc on its own.
Raven, or KotGD sometimes need to be backed up with a retreat - Sandworm does not need it.
It can do nothing against Karash though. That's why I decided to include Ice Storm.

Brax Soldier
Just there to take care of Portal Majiya. Better than Sandworm against Lance.
3 Sandworm instead of 2 and 1 Brax Soldier is more consistent and that's what I usually use in QMs.

Aeon
Drop him after your opponent uses ability cards on Elizabeth/Sandworms.
Elizabeth - Sandworm - Aeon - KP is how I win 30% of times.



Tidal Wave
Arguably Priest's most powerful card.
However, it is always better not to rely on TW, because playing TW means giving up a turn and opponent can start playing more threats.
I believe in my deck and my draw so I usually sac TW. But for those who are not sure how my deck works should hold this in hand until you know when to sac TW.

Ice Storm
My biggest 'discovery' in DP. This card won me so many games. Totally underrated in every scene of the game. Trust me, this card is so good. Priests have had difficult times dealing with stealth allies. This is the answer.
Sandworm + ice storm is a great surprise as your opponent do not expect to see a board wipe.
Great against Karash, W.savage, as well as stealth allies. Coincidentally, they ALL have only 2 health (except Erika with 3 but no ambush so W.staff will deal the extra)!!! Or from a different perspective, this is a mini KP for 3 cost!

Focused Player
As I said, I believe in my deck and draw. So I only included 3.
This is a very powerful card and it has always been the one of reasons why I choose Zhanna to play in competitive scenes.
Since it is so powerful, you might want 4.

Retreat
One of MUST-INCLUDE card in any priest decks really.
Cheaper than new card Banish, and it does almost the same thing (for this deck anyway)
Knowing how to use retreat is not only crucial for this deck but for Shadow Era.

Forgiveness
One of the best card Priest got in DP.
The idea to include 1 forgiveness came from my friend, BP Hachi. So the full credit goes to him. Thanks!
His idea to include this card have made my deck possible - I rarely have 4 of the same cards in the deck because I can always get it back with this. This is 4th (3rd for KP and Aeon) copy of any cards in the deck. Doesn't it sound amazing?

Note: On the Test Server, opponent's resource destruction messed the resource pile and I could not get the card I was supposed to get. I am not sure if this is the case in the live server but please be careful.

Mass purification
I rarely use it. But attachment destruction is good to have at least one in any deck anyway. Nevertheless, it has won me games several times against Wulven/Warrior heros. Also, this is the only way to remove Into the Forest.



The King's Pride (KP)
Very expensive for new players But you need this (2 is fine )
I know mage/zalader/banebow hate this card.

Wizent's staff
Main draw engine. Also this is a weapon which enables Zhanna to attack. Get full use out of it. Especially since Zhanna can heal up the damage. Use this as an additional 1 damage.
e.g. Jas + W.staff to take out 4 health ally. Zhanna attack to reduce the durability of Anklebreaker/Dagger of Unmaking
But don't use too much SE when facing against a rush deck.



Have fun! But don't give up because you only played it for 5 times and didn't go well
You need a lot of practice with this deck. Trust my build and play with it for 100 times

Any questions?


Addition:
Some scenes I encountered on QM I think worths noting.

Kairos - TW or Seduce.
Serena or Baduruu (with Night Prowler) - they discard (steal) a card from your hand at t5
Moonstalker - When this deck starts to shine, MS starts to hide.
Rush Elad - Without Healing Touch, you need to take care of their ally rush. Tools are CoI, Seductress, Ice Storm and W. Staff.
Majiya Portal S.Colossus - Don't expect KP to stay long.

[SET Colosal]

Great Kylt, you belong to the amazing players guild

[bjjmat]

Great deck. I've been running a similar one, also around the mid 260s rating. 70+ winrate.

1 thing I hate: Foregiveness. +1 tidal wave for me always is better. Topdecking... looking for that last tidalwave... and you draw forgiveness. Great, I can get a thrown away aeon or whatever. Don't like it.

KotGD is stronger than Sandworm in my opinion, but it comes down to prefernce.

[Kylt]

forgiveness is great in every aspects. I strongly recommend you to have one unless resource denial decks are prevalent as explained above. It makes your first sac so much easier and lets you build your deck freely.

Whether you should have 4 TW is a different story from forgiveness. My deck, while it can be played in classic Priest style, it doest not always need TWs. In fact, I only use TW once in every 4 games or something like that.

One of the reasons is because I like to throw sandworm without thinking too much. He's a tank. And I use him to extend my board with KP/Ice storm/retreat.

One thing I can say for sure is that: If you don't need TW, it's always better. And this deck is capable of winning without TWs

[brogs]

thanks for the deck. i just recently moved from banebow/moonstalker to priest.
i find this deck to be less control and more aggro actually same deck except 4th prayer and 3rd aeon and -1 forgiveness. i've been using KOGD and Raven.
but in this deck u want something to stay on the board. somehow the worm sticks better.

though im not sure on seductress. as a priest, almost always u have more resources than your enemy. maybe + aldon is better

[Direwulven]

Great deck Kylt. I was one of its victims.

[Kylt]

thanks for the deck. i just recently moved from banebow/moonstalker to priest.
i find this deck to be less control and more aggro actually same deck except 4th prayer and 3rd aeon and -1 forgiveness. i've been using KOGD and Raven.
but in this deck u want something to stay on the board. somehow the worm sticks better.

though im not sure on seductress. as a priest, almost always u have more resources than your enemy. maybe + aldon is better

Great so you also use Ice storm? my fellow ice stormer!

As I said, I strongly recommend you to include forgiveness and learn how to use it. It is soo convenient.

Sandworm is meant to work with Ice storm/Aldon/KP and various other means to deal damages. He cannot be a big threat on its own, but he is something that is almost guaranteed to stick to the board. Even if he is killed, your opponent used more cards/resource to deal with him, saving your next Aeon/sandworm. Since I liked sandworm over any other 5cc allies, I included various other means to get the board back.

I'm recently trying to work on KotGD Zhanna, but Sandworm&IceStorm seem to be better in anyway...

[brogs]

Great so you also use Ice storm? my fellow ice stormer!

As I said, I strongly recommend you to include forgiveness and learn how to use it. It is soo convenient.

Sandworm is meant to work with Ice storm/Aldon/KP and various other means to deal damages. He cannot be a big threat on its own, but he is something that is almost guaranteed to stick to the board. Even if he is killed, your opponent used more cards/resource to deal with him, saving your next Aeon/sandworm. Since I liked sandworm over any other 5cc allies, I included various other means to get the board back.

I'm recently trying to work on KotGD Zhanna, but Sandworm&IceStorm seem to be better in anyway...

yeah! never thought Icestorm would be great till i tried it. I moved from 258 to 268 today practicing this deck. i almost never get to use TW. sadly the times i use TW is usually when i lose the match. it's really hard to tell when not to commit everything on board since it has an early to mid control phase unlike other deck where u delay and then wipe then take control. maybe i just need more experience with this i'm actually having better matchups against warriors with this deck and still doing well against mage even without the healing touch.

I've tried KotGD as well, but 6 hp is not that hard to kill in some decks. he's also not immune to anklebreakers
Have u tried Devoted lightbearer? i think it would fit in this deck if you can make him stick around atleast a turn after.

on another note, i also changed to -1 retreat +2 banish, here's why
last game i had with lance. it was a close match. actually last scene was i was at 20+hp 0 card left to draw with aeon + seductress on board and KP on hand. on the other side 4 hp left, raven on board 7 cards on hand 2 to draw. he assasinated aeon. pulled an anklebreaker and it was over
as i trace back where i lost board control it was always with ravens i didnt have anything to deal with her. she crippled everything that she didnt kill that includes sandsotrm. if i bounce her and play an ally she'll bounce back haste and disable an ally or assasinate. i guess the last mistake i had was thinking twice on using TW since i had nothing else to put her away and she was the only thing on board besides an anklebreaker.

[Alejandro]

Great deck thanks for share

[Raphael Majere]

Good job, Kylt.

Love the deck.