Jericho Tempo Control

[egatemi]

Hi Guys.
Last season i had pretty good results with my Jericho deck.
I'ce decided to share it with you to bring in more options for player to pick a hero.

The initial idea was to build a control style deck. After trying several heroes lik Nish or Threbin, Jericho seemed to be the best choice.
With the Embers-Essence Combo he has a 2cc source for 5DMG and 3 heal which is great. I have added in some Support allies and Fatties and my first deck was ready to go.

Now whats left to do was to develop a play style. What this deck is great at is to control the speed of the game. Yo can switch from a reactive play style where you just deal with your opponents threads to a agressive play style where you force your oppponent to react to your threats. You can loose your board to retake it next turn or stall till you have the right cards to do so. You will find yourselve in some very exciting and interesting games which goes from one side to another. Many games will end with zero cards left in both decks but in the end you still win.

Enaugh praising. Here is the deck list.

Allies (20):
3x Spirit Warden
3x Devoted Knight
4x Tainted Oracle
2x Elizabeth Winterborn
2x Thunderstrike Construct
1x Aeon Stormcaller
1x Viska, The Scarlet Blade
2x Eriss Fateweaver
2x Nathanias, People's Champion

Abilities (19):
3x Forgiveness
4x Lingering Essence
4x Embers of the Just
4x Focused Prayer
4x Tidal Wave

Items (0)

Deck break down.

Spirits Warde: Great 3cc Drop with solid stats and Steadfast to stop Snare Trap, Retreat and different other ugly things. His ability makes him a thread to Graveyard based decks so your opponent is forced to deal with him.
Devoted Knight: Well not much to say here. Great ally for resource acceleration.
Tainted Oracle: Main Draw in my Deck. Also a thread that my opponent has to deal with.
Elizabeth Winterborn.: Second Draw. She can be played into an empty board or as a meat wall. In any case she will generate at least one card.
Thunderstrike Construct: He can be combined with Embers to deal 7 Dmg in total. Enaugh to take out most threads and generates some board presence.
Eriss: One Possible Finisher. Extremely awsome to cycle Embers for only one SE.
Nathanias: Best Fattie in this game. 5/8 so your opponent will need multiple cards to deal with him + Card Draw and eventuelly free ally. With 20 Allys in this deck the chances are ~50% to get one
Aeon and Viska: Additional suppot allys which are great but not neccerily needed multiple times

Forgiveness: One of my Favorite Priesrt cards. With this you can sac your Fatties and be sure to get them back later. Thats the main reason why i have only one Viska and Aeon. In theory with 3 Forgiveness 3 Devoted Knights and 3 Emberes (which you only need to draw once) you are having 9 resources so all other cards in your deck can be played and dont need to be sacced.
Tidal Wave and Focuesd Prayer: Thats why Priests are Priest. They have the best Item Destru and Best Board Wipe in the Game. Do i really have to sai more?
Lingering Essence and Embers of The Just: Thats what makes this Deck possible. Heal and awsome Dmg in one Combo that can be played every 3 turns is realy OP.

Some Combos to retake the Board or Stall:

t3: Devoted Knight, t4 Tidal Wave --> Stops Rush
5cc: Embers of The Just + Spirits Warden --> 5HP Ally down + Small Board presence / Thread to graveyard Based Decks
6cc: Embers + TO or Elizabeth --> 5 Dmg + Carddraw. Nice stall and draw if you need a few answers
7cc: Embers + Thunderstrike --> 7 Dmg
8cc: Embers + Viska --> 8 Dmg
8cc: Embers + Eriss --> 5 Dmg to retake the Board (Kill Bobcat or Arachnoid...) and awsome Board Presence. Your Opponent hase to do something or he will get Embers every Turn in his Face
9cc: Embers + Nathanias --> 5Dmg and aggro generation

Pros:
+ Great Control Capabilitys
+ Great Heal and Sustain
+ No real auto loose imo. You can handle almost every Hero even Rush
+ Different Playstyles Possible
+ Fun to play
+ Opponents Item Destru Cards becomes useless agains you cause you have no items
+ Almost Every Card you draw is an important card so you dont need much carddraw

Cons:
+ Weak Draw
+ Needs Essence and Embers to be most efficiant
+ Hates Attachment destruction
+ Still Weak against Mage Rush

Play Style: Control
Speed: Slow to Very Slow
Difficulty: Hard

[maxi1230]

Nice, nice really nice deck!

[Deja Vu]

Good deck and a better write-up.

How high did this deck take you on the ladder? Also, did you consider running more cheap ally-control cards like Retreat! to make the task of regaining the board a bit easier?

[FDL]

Nice post.

Forgiveness is a card I've always been on the fence about. (is this a sentecne? lol)

In fact, the only deck in which I play it is Embers/Holy Shield Jericho so I can sac a Shield or Eriss on T1. Still I only run one copy and I think 1 is the right number (unless you find the SE acceleration crucial, in which case that is another matter).

Drawing an opening hand with a fatty and no Forgiveness is great, but past turn 4 or 5 I'd rather naturally draw fatties than Forgiveness. If you ran 2 Aeons, 2 Viska and 1 Forgiveness, you could just as easily sac a 6 drop on T1 and be assured that there is another coming eventually.

+ Opponents Item Destru Cards becomes useless agains you cause you have no items

Is this true in Shadow Era?

If your opponent knows your deck, he'll just sacrifice cards that have no/few targets and keep those that matter.

Your item-less Jericho is pretty unique in that sense though, so opponents might keep something to get rid of the King's Pride/Wizent's Staff they expect from Priests decks.

[jonmaciel]

Seems to work decently enough. I don't normally like decks that rely on combos (i.e. Embers + LE) but there should be enough allies plus Tidal Wave to hold you over if they don't show up early enough.

Nice post.

Forgiveness is a card I've always been on the fence about. (is this a sentecne? lol)

In fact, the only deck in which I play it is Embers/Holy Shield Jericho so I can sac a Shield or Eriss on T1. Still I only run one copy and I think 1 is the right number (unless you find the SE acceleration crucial, in which case that is another matter).

Forgiveness is pretty underrated. I've seen Threbin and Jericho normally run 2+. Yes, mainly for some SE acceleration but its also sudo-draw being that you draw from your resource pile. I've run a couple myself in zhanna decks that run chalice, which gives you 2 extra cards since you can draw an extra time with chalice.

[egatemi]

Good deck and a better write-up.

How high did this deck take you on the ladder? Also, did you consider running more cheap ally-control cards like Retreat! to make the task of regaining the board a bit easier?

I startet playing this deck 8 days ago with a 260 rating and climbed up to 296 rating with a 65% - 70% Win rate.

I feel like having Tidal Wave and Embers is more then enaugh to retake the board. Moreover the goal of this dekc is not to constantly keep the board bot to force your opponent to play his best cards only to easely deal with them and then strike back whe he doesnt have the right answers:

You might Watch egatemi vs Amael as an example.

[seedog]

the draw is weak. too weak given ur allies have high costs

[bobrossw]

I'm curious how much of this deck's success is due to its actual strength and how much is due to surprise (like you said people expect items, etc). People also probably expect a standard Embers Jericho, so they're intentionally playing around Embers, and here it's not the focus of the deck. Still I'm eager to give it a try, maybe later this week as I try to climb my rank.

[RogerFederer]

Forgiveness is pretty underrated. I've seen Threbin and Jericho normally run 2+. Yes, mainly for some SE acceleration but its also sudo-draw being that you draw from your resource pile. I've run a couple myself in zhanna decks that run chalice, which gives you 2 extra cards since you can draw an extra time with chalice.

Forgiveness is a neat little card, however do not mistake forgiveness for a draw engine - it is not. You are spending 1 card to get 1 card back.

The use of forgiveness is when you start the game with high cards in your hand that you cannot afford to hold on to (such as KP, 6 drop allies or if you have more than 1 tidal wave) you can resource it & then retrieve it mid-late game when you need a high or powerful card (like KP). I cant see any reason to run more than 1 or 2. Be sure to remember the first card you resource though! lol

4 devoted knights would be good seeing as this deck runs soo many fatties and he can actually do a fair bit of damage if you are playing first and summon him at turn 3

I personally don't like Elizabeth in these types of decks (not that it is a bad card) because you put yourself in 'zugzwang' when the board is getting out of hand and you have to decide weather or not to tidal wave your own unit. I prefer wizents for this reason (in addition to oracle) - also its amazing how often the little 1 damage prod can be game breaking! wearing down a crucial 1x durability, killing off a unit etc

Some nice ideas, seems like a nice proactive deck. Priest is much undervalued and underplayed in the current meta! probably because they require a fair bit of patience to play

[egatemi]

Forgiveness is a neat little card, however do not mistake forgiveness for a draw engine - it is not. You are spending 1 card to get 1 card back.

I have many reasons for playing forgiveness:

1) Spending 1 card to draw a card is still Draw. In theory you have 40 cards in your deck. if you add 4 cards like Pack Extra it means effectivly your deck consists only of 36card + 4 chances to draw a card that you need. Reducing the number of cards in the deck is key to make it consistent and not relieable. And Forgiveness is even better than Pack Extra cause i will always draw a card that i need.

2) Saccing Tidal Wave T1 means that i still have 3 chances to draw Tidal + 3 Chances to draw Forgiveness and Play Tidal. Thats why i have won many games in Top - Deck - Mode. Same goes for Focused Prayer in some matchups.

3) SE acceleration is great. having 3 Forgiveness means that i can play embers one additional time.