Shards Zaladar (LL)

[Elizabet]

Since I finally got my first original deck to a 300 rating, I thought I would stop lurking and register and post for the first time.

Greetings all!

I'm sure the basic idea has been around for a long time, but LL added one card (Thriss Crucible) that I think really improves the concept.

Hero: Zaladar

Allies:
Frostmare x4
Rampant Kygon x4
Ravager Zealot x4

Abilities:
Bad Santa x4
Feedback x4
Bloodlust x3
Mind Control x4

Items:
Loom of Fate x4
Shard of Power x4
Thriss Crucible x4

I think it's a really simple deck, but (at least for me) learning how to play it against different deck types took quite a while. I've lost quite a few matches due to my own errors when the deck had what I needed to win.

It's worst match-ups are against Baduruu (almost auto-loss against most variants) and Gwen (LL General decks can hide too well with LitF). Banebow can be tricky as well.

When it's working properly it's really, really fast. Turn 6-8 kills are the norm.

[Shadows R Us]

I've lost to a similar build. Thriss Crucible makes a huge difference. He works great with this.

[abazigal]

I am wondering if we could run 1-2 nocturnal advantage to tech against gwen and moonstalker? Granted, I tried modifying the deck, but it has been tuned to the point of being a lean, mean killing machine, and any changes just feel as though they would dilute the speed of the deck. We may just have to write off those match ups as auto-losses.

Against Baduruu, I found the trick is to simply not play shard of power, and rely on Zaladar's ability, mind control, ravager zealot and thriss crucible, as well as a lot of luck. Use bloodlust in place of shards for the final punch as well.

[highmystica]

Wow, over 300 with a shards deck ... that's really impressive!

Personally, I would run Nocturnal Advantage over Bloodlust because it bypasses stealth and hidden (Into the Forest, Moonstalker, Rogue allies, etc.) not to mention giving you ambush which effectively makes it so opponents can't hit back and it still grants +1 atk to all your allies. Now, I only use Bloodlust as a sleeve. I run Nocturnal Advantage in all my shadow decks that have allies - rogues and hunters are just to common.

BTW Zaladar makes one of the best and most consistent decks for farming the AI with, just reduce your deck size to 30 and go to town (When this game first came out decks only needed to be 30 and that rule still applies to playing against the AI).

[Elizabet]

I replaced two Mind Control with Ley Line Nexus and that really helped against Baduruu. It also gives me a way to deal with Voice of Winter, which was previously almost an auto-loss card.

Nocturnal Advantage is a great suggestion; I had completely overlooked that card. I will try with tweaks and see how it goes.

[seedog]

Congrats on your success!

Thriss Crucible is a great addition to this deck and sounds really awesome with the cost/damage output ratio with shard.

How often can you activate the feedback/bad santa combo? This is a great combo when successful pull off!

[abazigal]

Another advantage of nocturnal advantage is that the ambush won't trigger weapons, so that is one way of working around that pesky soul seeker.

Awesome deck, keep the refinements coming!

[seedog]

I have been playing with a lot of replica of this deck.

You have changed the meta! Nice job!

[seedog]

AnakarIsia is playing this deck at 350R level!

[The MiddleAgedNerd]

Mind control is a must for one very simple reason. Brax soldier. Brax and vooce of winter are the 2 auto loss. But brax is way more common. Vow seems play but not in nearly as many qm matches.