Birdie’s Hero Breakdown – Zaladar

[Preybird]

Intro

Well Zaladar has really been the talk of the town in Shattered Fates, since the nerf to Aetherborn Wisp (for those of you following the discussions) he’s been the number one poster child for overpowered. I’m not going to enter that debate but he certainly is strong, and right now one of the heroes to beat.

Overview

As many of you are probably aware, Zaladar is an incredibly flexible hero, which is the primary reason I love him so much. This is in no small part due to his ability. Unlike every other ability in this game bar Banebow, it can directly target the hero, an ally, hero + ally, or two allies, and is completely unconditional (does not require a weapon, ally, etc) besides the SE cost. That in itself puts Zaladar head and shoulders above pretty much all others in terms of flexibility.

However, Zaladar also has access to the Elemental card pool which is widely regarded (in CotC at least) as one of the best in the game. He has access to reliable single creature removal (Mind Control), a board wipe (Energy Discharge), healing (Conversion, Soul Reaper), buffing (Life Infusion, Shard of Power), and resource manipulation (Feedback). Factor in Dark Prophecies and you also have access to mill (Temporal Disturbance), a plethora of allies (Flare, Zantonite, Xar Modulator, Crystal Titan), SE manipulation (Interference, Crystal Titan), and most importantly a draw engine (Antimatter). Shattered Fates added a lot of versatility to Zaladar’s pool with discard mechanics (Reactorary), more ally control (Wave Collapse, Energy Extraction), a huge ally buff (Exaltation) and some more mill (Reverberate). Basically with the Elemental and by extension the Shadow card pools there is nothing Zaladar cannot do with some degree of effectiveness.

Allies

Zaladar, in addition to his Elemental class allies, also has access to the Shadow pool of allies. This provides some excellent choices for Zaladar, as many of these allies promise high durability, which is useful so that allies can survive to combine with Zaladar’s ability. I’ve highlighted some of the core choices that usually make themselves home in a Zaladar deck:

Call of the Crystals

• Infernal Gargoyle: Even now there is no 3cc with greater survivability, even though others are definitely aiming for the crown. Gargoyle is almost always guaranteed to stick around for at least a turn, most times two, and that is a massive boon for Zaladar.

• Death Mage Thaddeus: Like the others, he is used to combine damage sources. However he does not need to survive at all to be useful. A fantastic tool for taking back the board. However he also suffers from the Brutalis syndrome in DP, sometimes not being enough to deal the final ping.

Dark Prophecies

• Ironhide Karash: Karash’s damage reduction makes him insanely dangerous to some heroes, though his low health means he’s vulnerable to others. Most importantly however is that he has 2 attack, meaning he can combine with Zaladar for 5 damage. This is very important in the current meta as I have mentioned before.

• Morbid Acolyte: This card is made for Zaladar. Not only is he 5 health and thus has massive survivability, his ability means that Zaladar’s number one nemesis, the pesky Gargoyle, is a threat no longer. The alternate 3cc drop for sure, and adding 2 or 3 of these to your deck will mean you have an incredibly consistent opening.

• Death Collector: Another solid alternate 3cc, this card has the ability to become a beast if left alone for a couple of turns. However he has more uses than that as his ability equates to graveyard manipulation, which means he can really put the hurt on Gravebone, shut down Shadow Knight loops, hurt other Death Collectors and Rotlings. Not to mention he can also shut down abilities like Soul Reaper and Infinity Core, or at least render them less effective.

• Darkwood Wraith: The Wraith is control, and is another way to deal with the deadly Gargoyle. He also provides Shadow with a Retreat effect, something they were sorely lacking in CotC. But his real benefit is flexibility. Wraith can also be used on your allies, bouncing back damaged, crippled or disabled allies, or allies with effects (like DMT, and even Twisted Familiar). He can also be used in concert with cards like Super Focus and Synchronicity.

• Furrion Terror: His on summon ability means that combined with Zaladar’s ability two allies on the board can take 5 damage, enough to kill most things in this game. Not to mention the Terror has a capable attack by himself. However his true strength is his board wiping ability.

• Disciple of Aldmor: The Disciple is starting to show up more and more in Zaladar's as a direct counter to Banebow, one of his worst matchups. That being said the Disciple is good value vs a lot of heroes, and her low attack means little when combined with Zaladar's ability.

Shattered Fates

• Frostmare: HASTE! YAHOO! Seriously this is the one thing that Shadow was lacking. Now Zaladar’s ability is even more dangerous, even with an empty board. Plus Frostmare is cheap as chips when you are behind, his ability meaning he only costs 1.

• Rampant Krygon: The best haste ally of the three in the Shadow pool, Krygon has a home in most Shadow decks. Plus his ability is super useful with Zaladar, as you can reduce the health of many allies (using Krygon’s ability) to bring them into kill range with Zaladar while using Krygon’s attack to finish off a second.

• Falseblood Cultist: An alternate draw engine and body all in one, this guy works exceptionally well with discard trigger allies (Brimstone Devourer, Reactorary) as well as allowing you to filter your hand (by removing tech cards you don’t need etc.).

• Brimstone Devourer: A core component of most Zaladar decks out there right now, he works well either as an ally or as discard fodder. He basically mitigates the loss of a card, providing a level of board control if he is discarded.

[Preybird]

Abilities and Items

So many choices here and so many that can swing a game in your favour. There are also so many options for catering to different playstyles. Here are some cards that have tremendous synergy with Zaladar:

Call of the Crystals

• Shadow Font: The NUMBER ONE ability for Zaladar. In his hands this is no different to the mage card Lightning Strike, and we all know how powerful that is. Honestly I can never think of a time when this is not a useful card.

• Mind Control: Probably the most feared card in the Elemental pool, and with good reason. No ally is safe from this card. However this card has drawbacks that most people are not aware of. First thing is that it is 5cc to kill a single ally, which means it’s usually the only card played in a turn until late game, which costs huge amounts of tempo and means if you’re behind it won’t help you get control of the game back. (I will quite often bait Elemental players with a juicy MC target to put them behind on the tempo game.) Secondly is that in terms of resources it’s almost always a negative trade or even at best, unless you’re targeting a 6 cost ally. This is a card to help you keep board control. Also the psychological aspects of this card cannot be ignored.

• Here Be Monsters: Made famous by Fou DeLile in his Here Be Zaladar deck, HBM allows you to keep your opponent down for a turn or two, and forces them to resource more than you, generating card advantage and resource advantage. It also counters the major weakness of Elementals, draw, by forcing your opponent to use up their cards and get them closer to the dreaded “top-decking” state. It also doesn’t cost you a lot of tempo, because you have Zaladar’s ability to control the board in early game.

• Soul Reaper: Quite a useful card to keep you in the game until you can deal those last few points of damage, especially if you are running an aggro beatdown Zaladar with lots of small cheap allies as they will provide a great deal of fuel for Soul Reaper. Play Eternal Renewal after this to get back all your powerful abilities and weapons without diluting the mix with cheap allies.

• Dimension Ripper: This weapon allows him to boost his damage potential significantly, and steal cards from your opponent. Sure you give away a card as well, but it’s best to think in terms of what you stand to gain, rather than what you’ve lost. You can also mitigate this loss with clever use of Bad Santa. Also do not forget an important part of this card, disruption. By stealing your opponents cards you’re disrupting their strategy, whereas you are able to build your deck around the expectation you will be giving cards away.

• Shard of Power: A lot of you have no doubt seen or experienced the Hasted Zaladar archetype (See here), and have seen just what Shattered Fates has done for this card. Your allies become living Fireballs and your damage potential is insane (I’ve done 15-16 damage in a turn quite easily). Suddenly Shard decks are competitive, and by the Seven Gods of Layar they’re fun

Dark Prophecies

• Super Focus: This card is incredible, and the bane of Warriors and Wulven everywhere. This thing not only boosts your allies, it shuts down crippling effects and allows them to get back in the fight. This card encourages lots of dirty tricks and synergizes well with cards like Darkwood Wraith, Sacrifical Lamb, Conversion and Synchronicity just to name a few. While I feel it’s probably more Elementalis’ domain, this card is still very much at home with Zaladar.

• Infinity Core: This bad boy is an anti-milling, graveyard manipulating, healing powerhouse, and all for 2 resources. A very powerful card that is offset by the tempo loss of casting it and using its ability. It has some synergy with Antimatter, but is a very expensive combo to pull off.

• Interference: An alternate Shadow Font that carries considerable risk, yet amazing reward. It can be fantastic against some heroes, yet useless against many others (3SE heroes mostly). It also loses a lot of potency if you go first. However it does work beautifully in concert with the next card….

• Shadowvein: This thing is a beast. An alternative to Ripper and it actually makes semi-solo Zaladar viable. This card can cause you to gain SE at a phenomenal rate, and combined with Interference can delay your opponent from reaping the benefits. But there are some heroes you should not use this on, the number one in this case is Zhanna (she will out heal your damage) followed closely by Moonstalker (You won’t get to attack him ever again). Banebow is also a definite no-no unless you’ve stopped casting allies.

• Morphic Armor: This card is Zaladar’s ace in the hole. You may be wondering why, it’s a huge SE sink and prevents you from maximizing your ability. The reason is simple; it is the bane of Zaladar’s bad matchups. Think about who gives him real trouble, Amber, Gwen, Darkclaw, Banebow. Three of those four rely on attachments to carry the day. Morphic Armor changes all that, stealing them away for good. Now you might think Sever Ties is a good alternative, but ST doesn’t give YOU the benefit of said attachments. Think Shadowvein with Rapid Fire or Speedstrike, or the draw of Blood Frenzy and the health of Enrage or Lone Wolf, or crippling your opponent’s allies while simultaneously freeing up your own (HUGE TEMPO SWING). That alone makes it worth including. And with the increased prevalence of attachments in the game there are a lot more strategies you can disrupt with this card.

Shattered Fates

• Dagger of Fate: A very nice weapon for the discard Zal archetype, or any Zal that uses Antimatter for that matter. Can deal significant damage if you're discarding each turn.

• Sword of Might: You probably think I’m crazy, but I’m not. In truth this is a damn good weapon for Zal. It’s 2 native damage which makes it more consistent that Dagger, fits perfectly in your resource curve at 5, has no drawbacks or conditions and buffs when hitting expensive allies. What’s not to like?

• Living Armor: This thing is amazingly versatile. It’s can shield you for 12 damage (or 16 if you don’t convert it) and then become an ally and swing for 4! Plus it’s trigger (discard a card) isn’t as big a draw back as expected, as you can use it in conjunction with discard effects to get even more benefit!

• Wave Collapse: A nifty supplement to Mind Control, this is basically a supercharged Perfect Shot, but with the added cost of discarding a card from your deck. That being said the extra cost isn’t that much of a drawback. In addition it can also work like a Crippling Blow, essentially knocking an ally out of the fight in many cases.

• Mimic: This is an interesting card. It’s got combo card written all over it, and can make for some very interesting plays (particularly with Energy Extraction and Der’kan). Bear in mind it can target any graveyard as well, so there is some flexibility there. It’s not going to see its true power yet, but later on I don’t doubt it will make its mark.
  
  One thing to note is that with this you can essentially carry up to 8 Bad Santa/Sacrifical Lamb in your deck!

[Preybird]

Playstyles

Okay, now that we’ve looked at some of the cards Zaladar has access to (not all, there are just too many to go through), let’s start looking at the ways to play him. To do that we need to look at archetypes in general firstly, so we should all know that there are three main playstyles available in Shadow Era currently:

• Aggro: Also what I refer to as beatdown. You’re the aggressor, the proactive player aiming to force responses from your opponent. You hit fast and often. This sort of playstyle generally uses a lot of allies and/or weapons/direct damage. Aggro is a style of play that relies heavily on maintaining tempo. Mess that up and chances are you can overrun an aggro deck.

• Control: The flip side to aggro, control aims to win by being reactive, constantly having the right answer until it’s ready to produce threats of its own. Control doesn’t so much rely on the tempo play, it’s more reliant on card advantage for the majority of the game.

• Stall/Mill: The ultimate slowdown. We all know the main culprit here (Millstalker), though there are other stall decks around of varying levels of effectiveness. While these decks claim to win by decking you out (milling) they’re actually stalling you, milling is just a by-product of that.

Now what category does Zaladar fit into? Well, he can do all three, but he is most effective in the aggro/beatdown role, and most decks are built to exploit this. However he can be used in the other styles with varying degrees of effectiveness. Some of the card choices for each style could be:

• Aggro: 4-6 2cc allies, 7-10 3cc allies, 2-3 5cc+ allies, Falseblood Cultist, Brimstone Devourer, Living Armor, Antimatter, Shadow Font, Mind Control, Weapon.

• Control: 4 2cc allies, 6-8 3cc allies, 4-6 5cc+ allies, Shadow Font, Interference, Mind Control, Energy Discharge, Infinity Core, Eternal Renewal, Living Armor, Antimatter

• Stall/Mill: Bazaar, Bad Santa, Temporal Disturbance, Evil Ascendant, Furrion Terror, Shadow Knight, Infinity Core, Soul Reaper, Armor of Ages, Shadow Font, Interference, Mind Control

Bear in mind these are hardly exhaustive and are created considering my own personal preferences.

Matchups

Okay, this is the meat and potatoes of this article, going through the heroes and discussing the quality of matchup and what needs to be done to beat them, based on current meta decks. For the purposes of this article I will be using a traditional Zaladar beatdown as a base deck, nothing special here:

1 x Zaladar

4 x Ironhide Karash
1 x Harbinger of the Lost
4 x Brimstone Devourer
3 x Death Mage Thaddeus
4 x Rampant Krygon
3 x Falseblood Cultist

4 x Mind Control
4 x Shadow Font
2 x Shriek of Vengeance
1 x Soul Reaper

2 x Bad Santa
3 x Antimatter

3 x Sword of Might/Dagger of Fate (whatever takes your fancy)
2 x Living Armor

41 cards inc hero

This is the latest iteration of my Crystal Miner 4 deck.

[Preybird]

Call of the Crystals Heroes

Boris Skullcrusher
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Boris likes his fat allies, so hold onto your Mind Controls. Keep the board locked down at all times, which isn’t too difficult with your raft of damage sources. Boris can’t outdraw you like he used to and now it’s very difficult for him to keep up with your endless damage stream.

Amber Rain
Matchup Quality: Hard
Tactics: Ugh. Weapons. Zaladar hates weapons, because they’re a damage source he has trouble controlling. Coupled with her resource acceleration and draw power and you’re in for a hard fight. Spam allies as rapidly as you can to overwhelm her. If you can get three uncrippled allies on the board you’ve got the match in many cases.

Victor Heartstriker
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Victor is annoying but most certainly beatable, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Keep chipping away at him and go for the face whenever possible. Switch to a solo strategy in the mid game to deny his draw and heal.

Gwenneth Truesight
Matchup Quality: Medium/Hard
Tactics: There is no easy route to defeating a tuned solo Gwen deck. Your best bet is to get Living Armor and a weapon out and fend her off that way. Once her ability isn’t active use hasted allies and ability damage to get to her while denying her heal. Allied Gwen is generally easier as it isn’t as focused.

Nishaven
Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
Tactics: With a built in board wipe that doesn’t hurt him, Nish is tougher than his feminine counterpart. Get those allies out and swinging but always keep some in the back, and make sure your ability is ready when his goes off, to counter whatever he plays that turn.

Watch out for Voltar’s Ring, it will ruin you if you don’t deal with it.

Eladwen Frostmire
Matchup Quality: Easy
Tactics: Honestly, I love facing Eladwen rush with Zaladar. Once you get past the first 3 turns you’re usually on top of it (even going second), unless she gets the God rush (Kris, Puwen, PotL, Aldon, etc). Counter with haste and Devourer discard damage. An interesting thing with this matchup is that Mind Control is not really important, you should be fine with Shadow Font as Eladwen rush runs very few allies with more than 4 health.

Do hold a couple of Mind Control just in case there are some late game fatties (like Sandworms and Aeons).

Jericho Spellbane
Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
Tactics: Zhanna without the heal. Get in early and hit hard, but don’t overextend. Keep three allies maximum on the board. Wait until the first Tidal Wave before you drop any more. Hold onto your Mind Controls to deal with the waves of Viskas and Aeons that all half decent Jericho decks should have. Kill his draw engine wherever possible. Even Plague builds aren’t that much trouble as most Zaladar builds can function quite happily on 3 resources, constantly dropping threats.

Zhanna Mist
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Basically your tactics are identical to Jericho. Now that all Priests are running Glass Chalice of Knowing they’re almost all the same, as they dedicate all their SE to maintaining their draw power. Bear in mind that Zhanna can start healing, she’s just less likely to.

Lance Shadowstalker
Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
Tactics: Zaladar is the perfect counter to a standard Lance strategy, mid game control and ramp up. Your early game is an order of magnitude better than his, Devourer discard will deal with his stealthed allies without you relying on your ability, and by the time the first hasted fatty comes out you should be waiting with a Mind Control. It’s not uncommon for me to walk away with wins while on 20+ health.

Canny opponents however can give you a tough time if they put out more weenies than you can handle (if you don’t have Energy Discharge). Priest of the Light is also very annoying in Lance builds.

Serena Thoughtripper
Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
Tactics: Slightly more difficult than Lance, as she has the discard and the weapon based strategy. However she still has those squishy human allies and the weak early rogue game. Just keep your hand as full as possible. Every extra card in your hand hurts the probability of you losing the one card you need significantly.

One: 100%
Two: 50%
Three: 33%
Four: 25%
Five: 20%

And so forth.

Ter Adun
Matchup Quality: Easy
Tactics: Ter is easy. He has one of the weakest early games out there (though the Ravager builds can take a board off you quite quickly), so just get in there and tear up. Keep spare Antimatters about because he will blow them up.

Logan Stonebreaker
Matchup Quality: Easy
Tactics: Basically your tactics here are identical to dealing with Ter Adun. However you will be losing an ally every four turns due to his ability, so be ready with more in your hand. Throw out lots of allies to beat down the weapon and to give him too many targets.

Banebow
Matchup Quality: Very Hard
Tactics: Banebow is the only hero with a better early game than you, and it hurts you bad. He is the number one enemy for Zaladar, as he also has a good later game with Soul Seeker. And now the Undead builds have Der’Kan and Cryptspawn Tormentor which are damn near impossible to kill sometimes and Tombstone Beacon for resource acceleration and draw. The best way to defeat him is to get in as much early damage as possible then switch to a solo route to prevent him from healing. Use Mind Control and Shadow Font like they’re going out of fashion, and ensure you’re constantly beating down with a weapon. He is winnable, but it’s not easy.

Baduruu
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Most Baduruu’s out there at the moment are Resource Destruction Baduruus and like I said versus a Plague priest deck, Zaladar can function at low resources if he has to. The problem with Baduruu is that he has all those psychotically powerful weapons. Living Armor really puts a spanner in the works if you can get it out.

Majiya
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Majiya is a lot easier than she used to be because you’ll be dealing damage from everywhere, and a dedicated aggro start can get her precious life total down very quickly. Keep two allies on the field at all times so she is encouraged to control with any allies she has and just keep on pinging her.

[Preybird]

Gravebone
Matchup Quality: Medium/Hard
Tactics: While Majiya got easier, by contrast Gravebone has gotten harder. All the discard abilities that benefit you benefit him just as much if not more. If he can get a fat ally like Dakrath discarded you can be in strife, but the real threat here is Phoenix Urigon. They’re nearly immortal, and Gravebone’s ability gives them two more lives each time. They’re worse than the Gargoyle used to be back in CotC because you have to expend a RIDICULOUS amount of resources to deal with them.

Elementalis
Matchup Quality: Medium/Hard
Tactics: Elementalis has majorly benefited from the discard tools in Shattered Fates and now can really give you a hard time. He can drop allies out of nowhere, and with his ability they can become very big very fast. You have to keep him under wraps but you will have to combine damage sources to do it, and that means you can fall behind in the card advantage stakes.

Zaladar
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: So much back and forth in a Zaladar mirror. Because Zal runs so many glass cannons now nothing ever sticks around on the board, so the one with the best foresight and play will win this one.

Darkclaw
Matchup Quality: Hard/Very Hard
Tactics: Solo Darkclaw is very tough for Zaladar to overcome. If facing lots of these you need either Sever Ties or Morphic Armor in your deck. On the plus side you have so many damage sources it can be difficult for DC’s heal to keep up.

Moonstalker
Matchup Quality: Medium/Hard
Tactics:Moon is one of those heroes that ramps up. You may look like you’re going strong, but then he’ll hide for four-five turns and before long you’re looking squarely at defeat. DO NOT SACRIFICE MIND CONTROL EVER. Hold them as you can be sure there will be a stream of allies from turn 5 onward, and the Bloodpack Shaman is an eternal pest (literally). Use Zaladar’s ability on the hero at all times. Rely on DMT and Devourer to do most of the damage. Use your hasted allies to sneak damage in between the gaps in his ability use.

Shattered Fates Heroes

Note these are subject to change as the SF meta evolves.

Tala Pureheart
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Constant protectors is annoying, very annoying. Basically always keep some sort of removal in your hand (Wraith, Mind Control, Wave Collapse if you run it) to take them down as soon as they arrive. Other than that Tala has no major way to trouble you besides the card advantage that all Warriors have with Blood Frenzy.

Ythan Redthorn
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Ythan can be a tricky one because he can really utilise haste. At the moment the main Ythan deck out there utilises the Twilight tribe, with Demetreyo being the centrepiece. That means that he can deal massive damage really quickly, but it’s a very up/down style of play. Take advantage of the down times to really solidify board and use Living Armor etc. to help fend off the up moments.

Aramia
Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
Tactics: The dreaded Aetherborn Aramia deck can be problematic if they get the perfect draw, but other than that you should have little trouble. Mind Control cures all One thing with Aramia is that it’s very difficult to keep her draw down, due to the fact that her ability can just fish for replacements easily.

Threbin the Righteous
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Very similar strategy to the other Priests, however his early game is stronger and you will take more damage than usual. Karash isn’t as strong in this matchup as he usually is with Priests due to Threbin’s ability, but he’s still good.

Garth Ravensoul
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Garth is a control juggernaut, which can be problematic for you, especially later game. His ability makes it difficult for you to consolidate a board presence, but generally he’s not much trickier than Lance to shut down. Just keep his IGG down and watch for Anklebreakers. Bear in mind Sword Thief is evil.


Vess Swifthands
Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
Tactics: Depends on the Vess, but most of them are not that difficult to deal with. Take out her draw as priority (with Morphic Armor/Sever Ties/Shriek of Revulsion etc) because it will shut her down even harder than other Warriors.

Skervox
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: This guy likes to stall. And stall. And stall. However his early game isn’t super strong so you have an advantage there. Try and get as many allies out as you can while keeping his down, so that when his ability fires it’s not as detrimental to you (as some of your allies will survive the turn of disable).

Raikka Spellseeker
Matchup Quality: Easy
Tactics: I see this girl as a weaker version of Majiya. She uses a similar strategy but while her hasted allies will hit slightly harder she lacks the board control to set up as well. Use the same tactics as you would against Majiya. Infernus and Flameborn Defiler however are real problems with Raikka as they give her ability a massive leg up. (plus buff all those Fireballs and Supernovas).

Praxix
Matchup Quality: Easy/Medium
Tactics: It’s really hard to judge matchup difficulty with Praxix because each match against him feels like you’re just rolling the dice. However if you are using a discard based Zaladar you should walk all over him. Otherwise it’ll depend on who loses their core cards to the mill first.

Bloodfang
Matchup Quality: Easy
Tactics: Bloodfang likes dropping lots of heavy allies, and Mind Control is the perfect counter to that strategy. In addition if you are facing lots of Bloodfang’s an Energy Discharge or two doesn’t go astray. Also without being able to stealth allies you will have a much easier time of combining damage sources. Watch out for Griptooth however, he can be dangerous (actually most of the SF Wulven allies are dangerous).


Loest, Savior of Layar
Matchup Quality: Medium/Hard
Tactics: Loest is an extremely versatile hero, and it can be difficult to grind an advantage against him. That being said he can be beaten if you flood his ability with targets. Remember while his ability can remove anything it can only do it once every 5 turns (not counting accelerators like Sun Blighted One and Aldmor Accelerator).

Rothem, King of Layar
Matchup Quality: Medium
Tactics: Rothem is interesting as the most dangerous deck for him at the moment is the Desperate Tactics combo deck. What that means is that you can find yourself in a winning position only to have Rothem deal 24+ damage in a single turn with a combination of haste, weapons and ability. Living Armor is a great defense here, even if you don’t get it to convert to an ally it’s good for soaking up 16 damage, which pulls the teeth out of the combo. Morphic Armor can work as well to choke his draw and prevent the combo from ever firing.


Conclusion

Zaladar really has become the bad boy of Shadow Era at the moment. It seems everyone hates him yet everyone is playing him. That being said there are plenty of heroes out there that can give him a hard time so he’s not invincible. He is however a very smooth hero and a great choice for beginners now, as he’s a lot more forgiving than he used to be.

 

[SET Colosal]

Wow i really like Zaladar and this is really awsome and helpful for me, thanks Preybird

[Gondorian]

WOW!

Great writing and analysis. Now we just need 19 other people to write up about their favorite heroes.

[1ndeed]

+1

[najmister]

Excellent Zaladar analysis Hope other SE experts write something similar to this for their favourite heroes.

[Preybird]

Thanks guys

I might do another couple of hero breakdowns for some of my other favourites, but I figured I'd start with Zal because I know him best.