Validity of Majiya?

[CipherExtort]

Hey there everyone, I just started playing roughly a day or so ago and I found myself falling in love with Majiya as a hero. I managed to dredge up some pretty ancient posts regarding her and viable decks, poses circa 2011 and sporadically on through late 2014. It seems to me that information regarding her is preciously little and she doesn't seem to be regarded as a viable hero to craft a deck around.

Scanning through the heroes themselves, I didn't see any that offered card draw advantage and offered a 3/4 Fireball in as a cherry on top. Perhaps you wizened players of the game can help enlighten me as to why she isn't more heralded as a stout hero choice?

[Inevitable]

Well I am just as new as you are, so I don't know if this is of any aid.

I personally started with an Eladwen Frostmire deck as I did a quick search on what would be a good starter deck. (turns out I read an article roughly 2-3 years old). When I started playing with her I realized that her Shadow Energy ability is entirely useless against solo decks.

My knowledge of the current meta is small, but so far I have been seeing many using either Baduruu, Serena, Loest, Aramia, Zaladar, Banebow, Lance, Garth and Amber. They all have abilities that work in every situation as they either buff their ally or increase the usefulness of their weapon.

That doesn't mean that Majiya has no hope of being a good hero, in fact it might be a cool thing if you can come up with a deck that does well against the higher tiered heroes.

[Pat Jay]

Majiya used to be good because she had access to haste via portal

Since the introduction of Shattered Fates... Shadow received many ways to have acess to haste without portal such as Krygon and Frostmare

This in turn made Majiya's portal less outstanding and more ordinary - thus weakening her as a hero as well.

She still is a decent hero nonetheless... just not tier 1

[FDL]

First of all, welcome to the forums!

I've always wondered about Majiya myself. She looks great on paper but she always falls a little bit short. She's by no means terrible but she has been constantly outperformed by at least one of Zaladar and Banebow as the dominant midrange deck. She has access to the same allies they play, she has better draw options (especially compared to Zaladar) and she gets the mage burn/removal package which is more versatile than Hunter and Elemental options (Banebow and Zaladar can use their ability to target opposing Heroes, but, except for Mind Control, their removal only hits allies).

SO, IMO, it boils down to two things: ability to 2-for-1 and take the board in the early game (Zaladar and Banebow do it better) and access to healing.

Shadow Midrange can't race Human rush but it can take back the board in the mid game and if it heals enough, it can put the game out of reach for the rush deck. Soul Reaper and Soul Seeker are both super effective here, Majiya has nothing of the sort.

I've never really been a Portal Maj player myself, so I'm not really sure why it fell out of favor.

[CipherExtort]

Thankee for the welcomes everyone.

I see exactly where everyone is coming from. She is most decidedly crafted around the midrange game in mind but she just simply does not have access to the utilities necessary to make a solid push anymore. By no means am I giving up on the concept of a capable Majiya deck, but I realize that in the current meta she just lacks what it takes to shine anymore.

[Pat Jay]

Hero: Majiya

Allies (22):
4x Ironhide Karash
3x Rapacious Vermin
4x Infernal Gargoyle
3x Death Mage Thaddeus
2x Death Collector
2x Slingblade Demon
4x Shadow Knight

Abilities (14):
3x Sacrificial Lamb
3x Fireball
2x Portal
4x Transmogrification Curse
2x Supernova

Items (3):
3x Tome of Knowledge

= 40 cards



You could try this?

The idea is to capitalise on the synergy between curse and vermin.

Then bring vermin back with Shadow Knight or Slingblade to blow up some more stuff

Use sac lamb to send it to the graveyard and use death collector to clear the graveyard to give access to shadow knight to retrieve it

I tested in 2.88 and it worked ok. The problem was... the meta was too fast with Shard Aramia, Banebow and Dsicard Zal...

Now that the meta has slowed... it could work

Give me a PM if you want to collaborate on building a viable Majiya

[CipherExtort]

Well now.. That build definitely has my thinkybits whirring and chugging.

It'd definitely end up as a kind of combo deck.. Something I'm not entirely unfamiliar with being a LONG time M:tG player. My thought process is as follows:

The all-star of this would -definitely- be Slingblade Demon. That card has enormous potential to start a bounce chain reaction.

Belladonna + Portal = card draw fireball

Belladonna + Sacrificial Lamb = Draw 3 and with a 40 card deck it lends itself to a roughly 13% chance of drawing a singleton copy, or in the case of running multiples upwards of a 53% chance of drawing a card that is having a quad copy run.

Belladonna + Slingblade Demon = A bouncing card draw fireball.

Slingblade Demon + Sacrificial Lamb = Same card draw combo as the Belladonna + Sacrificial Lamb combo as listed above, but say we were running oh... 4 copies of Shadow Knight, we slam him down, pull back Slingblade Demon or Belladonna, we've effectively pulled back either a card draw fireball or a bounce-critter that can potentially set up for ANOTHER round of hurt.

Slingblade Demon + Shadow Knight = A way to keep our graveyard nice and tidy and helping ensure we have a decent shot at having those nifty utility combos in hand to unload with.

And this isn't counting any pure offense spells we might be running to help fill in the gaps in-between getting the sacrifice rotation down.

[Delay of Game]

Majiya is still viable. Seen some well-crafted decks with her. Is she as awesome as Millstalker? No, of course not. But then again, nobody is

[ragosonos]

See what I said about it in my thread.. majiya is a superstar , BP maxi heated me in a pop up some months ago using amazing portal majiya and samj won many important matches , I was always amazed by why not much majiya in our QM when I found her amazing brutality then I posted my deck just for only encouraging people to use majiya

[BlanketEffect]

I am about to post my Maj deck. It's top shelf, so she's certainly valid.