Pat's Aggro Tala

**Pat Jay** · 01-13-2015, 09:57 PM

Introduction

Here is my Tala

deck that I have been using for the 2.90 version of the game.

It has been fairly successful as it counters most of the meta decks and keeps above 300 consistently.

Hope you enjoy the write up!

The Deck

***Allies (24)***
2x Champion of Irum

4x Yari Bladedancer

3x Aldon the Brave

3x Fleet-footed Messenger

3x Layarian Seductress

3x Fortified Wisp

2x Yari Marksman

2x Armored Sandworm

2x Braxnorian Soldier

***Abilities (13)***
4x Crippling Blow

2x Smashing Blow

4x Blood Frenzy

1x Enrage

2x Overwhelm

***Items (2)***
2x The Last Harvest

TOTAL: 39 cards + Hero

Deck Comments

The deck mainly aims to counter the main meta decks at the time which were: Templar Threbin

, Attachment Lance

, Baduruu

(Vince's or Otto's) and Mage (Fire Aramia, Rush Loest and Fire Majiya

).

Essentially, it does this by being aggro - gaining board control early and continuing to add pressure onto the opponent.

Here are my thoughts behind choosing some of the cards in the deck:

The Last Harvest

The Last Harvest

can impact the board as early as turn 3 and so I chose it over King's Pride

to give my deck more aggro.

It also acts like a pseudo-draw... allowing you to spend your resources without playing a 3CC card.

I rarely use more than 6 charges of the Last Harvest even when I have 4 copies of it and by this reasoning alone ... I have decided to include only 2 in my deck.

Draw

4 Blood Frenzy

does seem like a lack of draw. But I really couldn't find any other viable options?

Bad Santa

was not really helpful apart from on turn 2 going first having first played The Last Harvest

.

Road Less Travelled counteracts The Last Harvest

so is not ideal.

Treasured Heirloom

and Tainted Oracle

do not really help you regain board when you are behind. And then when you are ahead, they are usually hidden behind a protector and do not draw you cards!

So in the end, I decided to just stick to 4 Blood Frenzy

, lower my resource curve and rely on the pseudo draw from The Last Harvest.

Ally Mix

Yari Bladedancer

goes so well with Aldon and Fleet Footed Messenger both going first and second. This combo allows you to kill a 4 health ally along with Tala

's ability which can be a huge tempo swing in your favour.

Champion of Irum

is great going second with Aldon and has synergy with 4 Crippling Blow

.

Fortified Wisp

and Sandworm

are the tanks of the deck. Tanks are crucial as they help you keep and regain board control as protectors. Sandworm

is the better tank since it can survive Nova twice when buffed twice and shuts down Wulven's Now Your Mine and Death from Above

.

Braxnorian Soldier

when hidden behind a protector makes it incredibly hard for your opponent to utilise haste.

Viska

is generally very good in Tala

but I wanted to keep my curve below 6 due to my lack of draw and so she has been excluded.

Overwhelm

A situational card but when used correctly... wins you games.

Very crucial against Moonstalker

and Rogue allies such as Night Owl and Nightshade

. It also helps you finish off solo Gwen hiding in the forest.

Match Up Comments

Good Matchups

Aramia

- Fire

Try your best to not cast Blood Frenzy

and rely on top decking and the pseudo-draw from Harvest as you will need every point of health on your hero. Never sac Enrage!

Aramia

will use Nova to deal with your allies and so try to buff allies enough to survive it. Using your ability on FFM is a good choice since you will lose less tempo if Aramia

retreats it compared to Sandworm

.

Generally casting a tank is more important than using smashing blow to counter Flameforged Gauntlets

. Smashing Blow

should only really be used when you have board control.

Having the ability to cast a protector before Aramia

can Lightning Strike

helps immensely to keep your 2 drop ally alive.

Baduruu

Look for clues on turns 1-3 to see if the Baduruu

is Vince's or Otto's

If it is Otto's Ravager Baduruu

, you will need to play slow/control via using Crippling Blow and Blood Frenzy with the aim to cast your first ally as a tank. Casting any weak allies to begin with invites Baduruu

to trigger Obliesk which can kill your Blood Frenzy, Crippling Blows and Harvest.

If it is Vince's Bobcat Baduruu, you will need to play fast/aggro and make sure that Morbid Acolyte

dies at all cost. If Morbid Acolyte

manages to hang around... it will ruin your day.

Solo Gwen

Gwen is likely to play Bazzaar and Bad Santa

so do not cast Blood Frenzy to preserve your health.

Deal as much damage as you can early game. Ignore Snowland Spotter

if it is out as you will have plenty of time to kill it later when Gwen stalls with Into the Forest

and or Rain Delay

.

Secure a tank as a protector and pile on the allies. Keep both copies of Overwhelm

and use them both when you have enough allies out there to deal fatal damage whilst Gwen is hiding in the forest.

Keep Smashing Blow

and Enrage

for obvious reasons.

Fair Matchups

Templar Threbin

Your goal here is to focus your damage output on the hero and ignore his allies. You can do this by securing a tank protector which none of his allies nor weapons can kill. Bladedancer is a key ally to have on board since you can avoid retaliation damage by transferring his attack onto the tank protector.

This strategy will force Threbin

to either Tidal Wave

or play more allies to contest the board. If he Tidal Waves, drop another tank and make it a protector to continue with the strategy above. If he plays more allies, then utilise Marksmen and or Overwhelm to get rid of key allies such as Templar Champion

or Justicar.

Try to keep all your non ally cards like crippling blow, enrage, smashing blow, overwhelm as you will need to play these cards more so since you don't want to overextend on the board to give his tidal wave more value.

All in all, you are death racing the priest and forcing him to Tidal Wave

his allies when you have fatal damage.

Attachment Lance

T4 protector wisp will make it incredibly hard for Lance

's Irina

to impact the board so aim to make this happen.

Brax won't be that useful to begin with since Lance

will always be able to use his ability before you cast Brax. But aim to hide him behind a protector to ensure Lance

does not get to use his ability the second time. Brax can also stop the use of Zealous Mystics.

Counter stealth with either Crippling Blow

, Overwhelm

, Marksmen or Seductress.

Always assume Lance has A Legend Rises

in hand so always kill Crippled allies when you have the chance that is unless you think the Marskmen you have in hand could be useful.

Zaladar

Use the Last Harvest to get your allies to 4 health plus in order to avoid death from Zaladar

's ability and or Brimstone's ability.

Try to force Zaladar

to use his Mind Controls on protector Fleet Footed Messengers... thereby leaving him less options to deal with your tanks.

Moonstalker

If it is Wulven Moonstalker

then you will need to aim for a Sandoworm or Braxnorian to be the protector as anything else will be subject to Now You're Mine

or Death from Above

.

If it is Undead Moonstalker

then aim to have either a Wisp or a Sandworm

to be a protector also.

Make good use of Crippling Blow

(especially for Shamans), Seductress and Marksmen to counter stealth. Then when the time is right, use Overwhelm to clear the board. Save Smashing Blow

to clear Wrath of the Forest

.

Serena

Cast Blood Frenzy ASAP to fill your hand and lessen the chances of Serena

stealing a crucial card.

Get a tank protector into play and be weary of Spirit Shuriken

when contemplating extending the board beyond 2 allies.

Counter Black Garb

with 1 attack allies such as Fleet Footed Messenger and Fortified Wisp

.

Use Overwhelm to clear the board completely thereby denying the use of Assassinate.

Bad Matchups

Zhanna

Same strategy as Threbin

... only that this will be a harder match up since Zhanna

usually had more control cards like Retreat

and Zail's Hymn

.

Amber

Turn your crippled allies into protectors. This denies Amber

from casting more Crippling Blows and it also forces her to kill these allies and thereby negating the usefulness of the Crippling Blow.

Always be weary of Marksmen when contemplating extending your board beyond 3 allies.

Garth

See below

Losing Conditions

No deck is without it's weaknesses and this has several...

Morbid Acolyte

lockdown

If your opponent has board control with Morbid Acolyte

present... then it is very difficult for you to regain board.

This is because when Morbid Acolyte

uses his ability on your protector tank, your tank not only loses its protector status but its damage reduction passive ability as well!

One of the best ways to regain board is to cast Blood Frenzy, get a tank to stick then proceed to use Crippling Blow, Seductress and Marksmen.

But the presence of Morbid Acolyte makes it very difficult to execute this comeback strategy...

Attachment Jericho

Jericho

has the ability to kill your draw, deal with your allies efficiently and heal at the same time.

This can make it impossible to win. Utilise the same strategy as per Threbin

and hope to win early as you have realistically no hope later on.

Garth

Rogues already have several ways to remove your protector tanks, namely Assassinate, Spirit Shuriken

and Black Garb

.

Garth

's ability along with Anklebreaker

is another option Garth

can deal with your protector tanks. This can make board control very difficult to maintain...

Conclusion

There you have it... my aggro Tala

that has been tuned as best I can for the current 2.9 meta.

If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to share with a post!

Thank you!

**FDL** · 01-13-2015, 10:25 PM

Great write up! Well done.

I'm curious about why you consider Amber

such a bad matchup. I guess it's that she started to run Retreat!

again, but from my Tala

experience her answers don't line up very well with our threats.

I think you can get away with less draw because you have a lot of early sources of card (and board) advantage.

**Zhorex** · 01-15-2015, 02:20 PM

Great Deck and writeup!

I watched a few games of you and maybe would have copied the deck soon

Thx for posting

**ragosonos** · 01-15-2015, 02:26 PM

Lol whenever I see your thread pat I just enter to see the writeup
Keep it up

**SEF Mango** · 01-18-2015, 07:52 AM

Certain I have been owned by both FDL and ragosonos with this deck while I run Amber

. I find that I have a terrible time keeping up. Think I won a few where you never had a BF but otherwise, I was consistently owned.

I never allowed myself to run this kind of deck without some other option for draw. Unfortunately, for the reasons you mentioned, it just never did work out.

I know the deck is effective through our matches but I do wonder about Spirit Warden

. I do not know how the game looks in the 320+ range (I float between 280 - 300) but do you not run into many Hunters with Snare Trap? I started running Spirit Warden

just because I was being strangled by those dam traps. I was just sick of losing a turn basically and they do not fair terribly overall especially when facing Wulven or Shadow Knight

. The steadfast + protector is a solid option as well. Obviously it does not affect your success, especially against me >_>. So, I am just curious, did you ever run Spirit Warden

? If so, what did you trade out for him and why?

After being man handled by this deck... I just might have to take it for a spin. :P

x_X

**Pat Jay** · 01-18-2015, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by FDL

Great write up! Well done.

I'm curious about why you consider Amber

such a bad matchup. I guess it's that she started to run Retreat!

again, but from my Tala

experience her answers don't line up very well with our threats.

I think you can get away with less draw because you have a lot of early sources of card (and board) advantage.

Haha yes mainly because of retreat

Also I don't have a direct counter to crippling blow like A Legend Arises. I used to run ALR and that used to win me games against warriors, but Overwhelm

was winning me games against a larger group of heroes like MS, Rouges and Solo Gwen... So I subbed ALR for overwhelm

Not having a counter to Crippling Blow

also makes Yari Marksmen very troublesome for me

Hm maybe it should be a fair match up?

Maybe I just got unlucky running into Dimble's Amber

all the time

**Pat Jay** · 01-18-2015, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by InsanoMango

Certain I have been owned by both FDL and ragosonos with this deck while I run Amber

. I find that I have a terrible time keeping up. Think I won a few where you never had a BF but otherwise, I was consistently owned.

I never allowed myself to run this kind of deck without some other option for draw. Unfortunately, for the reasons you mentioned, it just never did work out.

I know the deck is effective through our matches but I do wonder about Spirit Warden

. I do not know how the game looks in the 320+ range (I float between 280 - 300) but do you not run into many Hunters with Snare Trap? I started running Spirit Warden

just because I was being strangled by those dam traps. I was just sick of losing a turn basically and they do not fair terribly overall especially when facing Wulven or Shadow Knight

. The steadfast + protector is a solid option as well. Obviously it does not affect your success, especially against me >_>. So, I am just curious, did you ever run Spirit Warden

? If so, what did you trade out for him and why?

After being man handled by this deck... I just might have to take it for a spin. :P

x_X

Yes spirit warden is great for the reasons you mentioned...

But I believe Aldon

, FFM and seducress are better in my deck

Aldon

and FFM interact with my two drops well ...
being able to kill a 4 health ally on turn 3 going second
Or being able to kill a 3 health ally on turn 3 going first is a huge tempo swing that I would take any day...
That kind of tempo swing really sets you up for wins

And seductress is just great going second... my resource curve is very low and so she will always trigger her ability

Tala

has a hard time regaining board and seductress helps me do this when I am behind

Snare traps are annoying... but you can play around them with either playing a 2cc ally or just 4cc+ ally

Edit: changed Victor from good matchup to fair

Don't get me wrong ... Spirit Warden

can work very well.. just refer to this deck for more info
http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....f-the-Sentinel

Just that Spirit Warden

doesn't work in my deck specifically since I prefer my protectors to be tanks like Sandworm

and Fortified Wisp

**SEF Mango** · 01-19-2015, 12:19 AM

Originally Posted by Pat Jay