My control Nishaven : Nishaven's army 2.0 + deck breakdown + free shadow crystal!

[chamthabo]

First of all, happy new year! I've completed writing this long thread for a while and have been waiting for this time to post it.

I decide to make a separated thread because I think my deck is finally fine-tuned and there're a lot of things I want to say.

Nishaven has been always seen as the weakest of all mages (together with Raikka). What he can do, Loest or Eladwen can do better, but it's just a common misconception. There are two things that Nish can do better than all other mages, slowing down the game and a mind game. This enables him to be played in a very unique way. This deck tries to fully utilize these strengths.

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Nishaven's army 2.0

Hero: Nishaven

Allies (28):
4x Twilight Opportunist
4x Priest of the Light
3x Layarian Seductress
4x Tainted Oracle
3x Sorcerer of Endia
3x Raven Wildheart
3x Thunderstrike Construct
2x Viska, The Scarlet Blade
2x Nathanias, People's Champion

Abilities (9):
2x Retreat!
4x Portal
3x Transmogrification Curse

Items (4):
4x Tome of Knowledge

= 42 cards

Type : control
Speed : very slow
Difficulty : hard

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Prepare yourselves for a wall of text!

[chamthabo]

Strategy
If you like playing fatty/control Zhanna, you will like playing this deck too. Its strategy is similar to Zhanna, you have to slow the game down until late game when you have a clear advantage over your opponent simply because your cards have better value compared to your opponent's cards.

Overall game plan
Obviously, Nish's ability helps you slowing down the game. it makes your opponent hesitate to play more ally, and you can use that to your advantage. Low cost allies are here mainly for surviing early game and as distractions, they have on-summon ability so they don't have to survive to have their job done and most of them also offer good value even in late game. Around t5 you have to decide when to use Nish's ability. After that, what you have to do is keeping the board in a contested state and maintaining your draw (draw is super crucial). Like all control decks, you have to predict your opponent and use the right response. Even a small mistake (that I still make) can sometimes cost a game. This deck is strongest around t10+ when you have enough resource to pull out your powerful moves. And don't be too hasty, this deck usually win around t12-13, by having complete board control. As you can see, among all mages, only Nish is capable of executing this type of strategy, due to his ability.

About Portal
When you see this deck for the first time you might think it's a late game aggro deck (like haste Zhanna) because portal is usually seen as a tool to boost damage for ally-based mages(such as portal Majiaya in DP), but it's not, this deck's nature is control. Portal is just one of your control tools (and a finisher), not damage boost. Never try to go for the throat (except vs mage, zal or solo build for example) and never drop a portal on an empty board because your portal will lose value (I used to do that, and just realized recently), you should use your hasted ally to kill your opponent's allies instead. This is why I use "control" in the title of this thread instead of "portal" as usuall.

Mind game
Nish is a master of mind game. His ability has the same psychological effect in the same way TW has. Like TW, if my opponent is reluctant to play more ally, I might simply try to assert dominance over the board, and I can do it easier because there aren't too many allies. If my opponent haves many allies, I can just use Nish's ability to clear the board and begin a battle for the board again, but this time it's your opponent that have to fight the board back. Tainted Oracle and TOpper (so annoying both of them have the same abbreviation) can be use as a part of this mind game, my opponent has to choose whether he should kill them. TO is obvious but TOpper is a bit tricky. If my opponent choose not to kill her, his ally can die to my TOpper following by TCon or Viska. If he choose to kill her, that's equal to 1 fireball away from Nish. You can think of TOpper as a 2cc Smite (with delay), or a healing touch that saves Nish 4 damage, depending on what my opponent chooses. I even won a couple of games without a single use of his ability, that doesn't mean his ability is useless and this deck can be better if its hero is Loest or Eladwen, it means the fact that I can use his ability at any time is one of many tools I can use against my opponent.

High health ally
Nish's ability alone usually can't clear the board entirely because a lot of commonly used allies have 4+ health. That's why this deck has a decent amount of cards that complement his ability such as TCon and Viska. This can be use as a part of mind game too by luring your opponent to play more high health ally thinking it will survive. This can be seen in another way too. High health ally tends to have low attack, that means you can tank some damage holding back your ability for a turn or two after which you will have more cards and resource and can fight the board back easier.

[chamthabo]

Matchups

Easy
BB, Skervox, MS, Bloodfang, Darkclaw, Gwen, most Warriors

BB and MS is this deck's favourite preys as they are the most popular. Both of them can't deal with fatty effectively. No direct damage doesn't hurt much vs MS because you have so many cards to deal with him. Don't be too afraid of WotF's draw, you can take the board first and destroy it later. A hand full of NYM and DFA won't help those 3 wolves against your fatties. They can use CP, but that means their WotF will be easier to destroy by SoE (and CP usually doesn't last long). Most BB usually don't carry more than 3xTPS and krygon is TCon's easy prey. All warriors hate SoE. PotL and SoE will make a bad day for Gwen and Darkclaw.

Medium
Rush mages, Tala

You have 50/50 chance of winning a death race against rush mages. This deck has tools necessary to stop their rush (TOpper, LS, Retreat). Most mages can't handle hasted Nathan if they aren't prepared for him and will usually die within 2-3 turns. PotL and TO help a lot. Tala is a bit harder than other warrior mainly because TCurse can't be used multiple time on FWisp but you also have retreat and TCon to deal with it.

Hard
all rogue
Serena > Garth > Lance

I usually can deal with their IGG and AB via SoE but their most problematic card is Stop thief. It's very hard to maintain your draw against them. This match up is like priest vs rogue, but it's a priest that uses SoE instead of FP, a clear disadvantage. I think 1xRLT would be a good tech against them.

Very hard
Victor, Zal, Baduru(Vince's build)

Why Zal is this deck's bad mu is so obvious. You can however have some chance of winning him by death race with weenies through portal or managing to destroy his AM with SoE(but playing SoE is also risky to MC). Like vs mage, PotL and TO help a lot. TCon is very handy at killing krygon.
Vic is even harder than Zal. Your fatty can't survive even for a turn. Hasted Bobcat will bring your health down so quickly, it survives Nish's ability and Vic can bring them back from GY again and again.
Baduru was once rated as medium but Vince's build is a nightmare. Hasted Bobcat is still a pain. HBM counters your strategy. Snowland makes Nish eating 6 damage per turn. PotL is less usefull because his bow will last longer than usual.

Not encountered yet
But I can guess some of their difficulties loosely based on first version of my Nish.

all priest -> Medium -> they are easier to deal with compared to rogue because their draw is slower than rogue and it's easier to set up TCurse combo to destroy their draw.
Gravebone -> Hard -> Dakrath is a joke compared to Phoenix Urigon. Even Raven can't permanently shut down it.
Elementalis -> Medium -> would be similar to Tala, a faster one.
Praxix -> ??? -> depending on my opponent's luck
Majiya -> ???
Raikka -> ???
Ythan -> ???

[chamthabo]

Cards not being used

Aeon -> Though looking bad ass, he has no important role in this deck. Your fatties don't need much protection and I view my weenies as meat shields. He's also very mediocre hasted through portal.

Eriss -> You always have SoE. TCon is clearly better than Eriss, being cheaper, same damage (Eriss's 6 health isn't very hard to kill) and doesn't rely entirely on portal.

Road less traveled -> You might wonder why I don't use RLT as it looks very synergistic with all those allies with on-summon abilities. RLT is actually not that very good in my deck. You need to keep the board in a contested state after 1st activation of Nish's ability, and only 2 cards doesn't worth a tempo loss, it's only good in very late game. it can be used though in a heavy ID meta as an another secondary draw and would be a good tech vs rogue.

[chamthabo]

I decide to do something similar to Jlbjork here.

Challenges

QM challenges
1. The first player to achieve 330 rating with Nish will receive 500 sc from me.
2. If you can maintain that 330+ rating for 10 game or more you will receive additional 500 sc from me.
You can use other hero to reach 300 rating but after that you have to use only Nish.

Pop up challenges
1. The first player to reach a final round in a 16-man pop up with Nish will receive 500 sc from me in addition to regular prize.
2. The first player to reach a final round in a 16-man pop up and win it with Nish will receive 500 sc from me in addition to regular prize.
You can get sc from #1 and #2 in the same pop up.

Noted that you don't need to use my deck or a variant of it, you can use any deck as long as its hero is Nish.


Last thing to say

Nishaven is my favourite hero and I'm very certain he isn't a low tier hero. He also isn't a weaker version of Eladwen or Loest, he has his own strengths and weaknesses, he can do something that other mages can't. I don't have much time to play now so you won't see me in qm for a while (but will sometimes appear in a pop up and custom games). I'm sure my deck can be further improved, no deck can't be improved (a cool quote from Preybird). I hope someone is interested in my deck, gives it a try, finds it's fun to play and comes up with a better version of it.

Thanks for reading!

[chamthabo]

Reserved for future use.

[Gremlin]

It won't always be new years when people read this

[matei13]

Nice writing.

Last season my Nish was struggling at 280. But this time I'll try better.

[Lahiri]

Thanks chamthabo, this is a unique deck and a grat contribution to the community!
I admit it didn't look so nice at first glance, but watching your games is a great experience and made me like it a lot!

[bobrossw]

nice write-up Chamthabo....it inspired me to try it out (after some tweaks). So far I've won 2 of the 2 games I played, so there's that! Being ranked 0 may have played a role though. If I can make it to 280 with it, I'll be impressed.