[SF] Jericho Jiujitsu - final refinements

[FearfulSymmetry]

I've had considerable success with this variation on control Jericho - hovering at 295-300, but I'm having some trouble nailing down the final details that will push me over 300 consistently. So I thought I'd throw it out to the collective wisdom of the forums. Any suggestion, compliment, or creatively worded abuse would be welcome.

***Hero***
Jericho Spellbane

***Allies(18)***
3x Aldon the Brave - 3cc
4x Fleet-footed Messenger - 3cc
4x Elizabeth Winterborn - 4cc
2x Braxnorian Soldier - 5cc
2x Armored Sandworm - 5cc
3x Viska, The Scarlet Blade - 6cc


***Abilities(18)***
4x Lingering Essence - 2cc
4x Embers of the Just - 2cc
2x Healing Touch - 3cc
3x Focused Prayer - 3cc
2x Banish - 4cc
3x Tidal Wave - 5cc

***Armors(3)***
3x King's Pride -7cc

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

Total: 43 cards + Hero

Comments:

Standard control doctrine applies: disrupt my enemy's strategy until I can wear them down or establish board control. The advantage of this deck as compared to other control decks I have used is how versatile the LE/Embers combo is, especially when combined with my other tools:

Healing to counter the rush - there is usually time for 1-2 uses of Jericho's ability with LE in the first 7 turns, plus a HT if I need it. That gives an effective HP of 32-36, which is usually more than most rush decks are prepared to dish out before they run out of steam. Brax to negate haste. Majiya is probably my hardest match-up here, as her ability keeps her from running out of cards, even if I negate her other draw abilities.

Solo heroes are toast unless I get a very bad draw. They count on synergies between items and attachments to keep the board clear of allies, and I can almost always destroy one of the key cards for their strategy. Durable allies and Viska's immunity take care of the rest.

Against other control/board presence/hybrid heroes, I just need to do my thing better than they do theirs. Again, LE/Embers helps with this as it gives the ability to counter allies, attachments, or disables, whichever is most beneficial at the moment. Plus there are the usual priest's tricks. TW is a major asset here, as it allows me to surrender the board for a turn in order to knock out a draw engine or a particularly annoying set of armor.


The major difficulty I have is draw power. This deck needs to draw consistently in order to have the right counters available at the right time. Elizabeth Winterborn is great, but she's as much a meat shield as a draw card, and I have been disappointed by the one-shots. I finally got desperate enough to use Wizent's Staff, even though it takes SE away from the LE/Embers loop. I've been considering Scriptures of the Righteous, but that would require reworking the deck for more arcane damage abilities and allies. Any suggestions?



Final bit of theorycraft:

I considered using Eriss Fateweaver in place of the Sandworm. LE + Embers + Eriss is hilariously powerful, (4 damage, 3 healing, and <em>ablaze> for 2 cc, with the SE cost refunded and Embers returned to the hand). However, I found it impossible to make her stick except in situations where I was already cruising to a win, and with the sheer number of Zaladar rush decks out there (Mind Controooool! Aroooo!), I am uncomfortable using high damage allies. Another possibility is Gunther for a bit more attack boost.



Odds of drawing at least 1 copy of a card in a 44 card deck:

Number of Copies
Draw 4 Copies 3 Copies 2 Copies
6 0.456 0.363 0.257
7 0.513 0.413 0.296
8 0.566 0.461 0.334
9 0.614 0.506 0.371
10 0.658 0.548 0.407
11 0.699 0.588 0.442
12 0.735 0.625 0.476
13 0.768 0.661 0.508
14 0.798 0.693 0.540
15 0.825 0.724 0.571
16 0.849 0.753 0.600
17 0.871 0.779 0.629
18 0.890 0.804 0.656
19 0.907 0.826 0.683
20 0.922 0.847 0.708

[Veles]

Cool deck and good write-up. Thanks for sharing.

[4Ak]

just a few comments:

Wizent's Staff - is contra-productive when you plan to deal damage with Embers of the Just, since staff eats your SE, i guess you will b better off using Tainted Oracle or even Confluence of Fate as your secondary draw alongside Elizabeth Winterborn

Armored Sandworm - as useless as can be, almost no damage output without support (Aldon, TKP) and once TKP hits the board, he can still be crippled. i believe Justicar Alysia will help your gameplan a lot more imo

[chamthabo]

How about using some Road less travel for draw, since you have a lot of allies with haste.
I am glad to see someone still playing control Jericho, not those boring solo builds. Can't imagine how you play it though. What is your IGN?

I don't know whether you have already known this, but I think it'll be helpful if you're interesting about probability of drawing cards.
http://db.deckmill.com/

[FearfulSymmetry]

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree about Wizent's Staff competing with Jericho's ability for SE, the problem is that none of the other options gives such a consistent draw. One staff generally gives me 3-4 extra cards, plus the damage/armor degradation. Oracle comes close in utility, but that extra 1-2 cards makes the difference between being able to keep an extra draw going consistently and not. Games usually last into turn 20+, and I depend on a reasonably large hand (3+ cards at least) to have a wide variety of counters available.
RLT is just too much of a loss of tempo. Even crippled/incapacitated allies are more useful to keep around and cleanse at a really inconvenient moment for my opponent rather than sending them back to the hand.
I hadn't really considered using Confluence of Fate - as it stands, the deck has 8 attachments,and I usually cast ~4 in a match. (One Lingering Essence, and then Embers every so often). That just doesn't seem like enough to justify the health drain. I suppose I could substitute Zail's Hymn for Banish and get a few extra that way, but that seems cumbersome.

IGN is the same as my screenname - "FearfulSymmetry". You may have to wade through some Lance and Threbin matches to find my Jericho ones. I also did some experimenting with Scriptures and arcane damage, but couldn't nail it down, so if you see templars dropping left and right, try a different match.