"Drink the Punch" - Zaladar

[Killtrend]

"Drink the Punch" - Zaladar Build

Beta build v1.0

1 - Zaladar

4 - Brute
4 - Gargoyle
4 - Bella
3 - Behemoth

2 - Shriek
4 - Conversion
4 - Life Infusion
4 - Mind Control


30 Cards


Quickmatch Win/Loss: 10-2


This build focuses on late game fatties and health gain while trying to survive the early rush by any means necessary. Mind Control/Life Infusion+Conversion is the decks main flavor combo. The rest just support the win condition, dealing out enough damage to win.

Nightmare Matchups: Weapon heavy decks with ally support and any decent Jericho build.


Comments and thoughts welcomed.

[soothslyr]

i like, but the lack of speed concerns me. most decks have some sort of exclusive speed boost setup. the chances for bad draws are just a little bit too high, AND considering how most people play zaladar and elementalis with supreme fear of MC and rush them, i would have to add some speed. it looks like fun though.

+2 Bazaar/Bad Santa

not sure what to minus though lol

[Seth]

This is actually pretty similar to my Zaladar deck. I like the idea of using Bella instead of Bazaar/Bad Santa. Conversion/Mind Control does indeed make up for the lack of speed. I don't see that being a huge issue. One thing I'd be interested to know is how much those Brutes come in handy throughout your games. In my deck I play Spark instead, to deter the opponent from ever playing a Blake in the first place and for a little extra early game damage/control if I happen to throw out more than one of them. However, in the late game they are essentially useless resource fodder, whereas Brute would actually be useful for conversion, as you note. Which is the better tool? We must know!

[Killtrend]

I am finding in my first few matches:

Brute is likely a better option going forward over spark. While spark negates Blake and has a unique innate ability, brute can maintain the proper board presence required to "nuke" 4 health creatures with Zaladar and doubles as +4 health instead of a dead draw late.

I'm banking on the lack of speed early being substituted by health gain late. Lack of draw still worries me, but with a few well timed bellas and proper use of infusion, I think I can mitigate most scenarios where I'd be *drawing dead*

30 cards gives me a good percent to draw a brute by T2 and Gargoyle by T3, which is standard practice for most of my shadow decks anyway. And raising this to 40 would make spark even less useful then he would be in this version of a conversion deck.

2-0 in testing so far. Mediocre opponents running Nishaven and Boris. In the Nishaven, an infused gargoyle proved to be an assault rifle as it did substantial damage to the hero while I dropped bellas to speed draw and keep the crosshairs off my hero. In the Boris I was able to steal a raven, cripple a creature and then convert them for a nice swing in which Boris never came back from.

Chimera was considered and then thrown out opting Bella as a much better choice because of my lack of draw.

[Seth]

I tried changing my own decklist to use the Bellas instead of the Bad Santas I was previously running. I kept in the Sparks just to compare to your experience (though I think I'm gonna go ahead and agree with you that Brute is the better choice at this point). I went 2-1, and the loss was against a Gwen who stole 2x Mind Control from my hand with Night Prowler and then dropped 2x Aeons on the next two turns :/

It felt really good to not be giving my opponents cards with Bad Santa, but with your only draw being Bella, it felt like I wasn't getting as much throughput, which I think might weaken the matchup against decks like Majiya. Here's my old list for comparison:

1x Zaladar

4x Spark
4x Gargoyle
4x Behemoth

4x Mind Control
4x Life Infusion
4x Bad Santa
3x Conversion
3x Bloodlust
2x Shriek

Total: 33

When switching to the Bellas, I dropped the Bloodlusts to account for the reduced throughput, but it still felt like I wasn't quite getting enough bang for my buck in terms of drawing cards. Against decks that can sustain card draw, flooding them with Bad Santa had minimal impact, whereas I think the Bella version might be weak against opponents quickly outdrawing it.

[Killtrend]

I tried changing my own decklist to use the Bellas instead of the Bad Santas I was previously running. I kept in the Sparks just to compare to your experience (though I think I'm gonna go ahead and agree with you that Brute is the better choice at this point). I went 2-1, and the loss was against a Gwen who stole 2x Mind Control from my hand with Night Prowler and then dropped 2x Aeons on the next two turns :/

It felt really good to not be giving my opponents cards with Bad Santa, but with your only draw being Bella, it felt like I wasn't getting as much throughput, which I think might weaken the matchup against decks like Majiya. Here's my old list for comparison:

1x Zaladar

4x Spark
4x Gargoyle
4x Behemoth

4x Mind Control
4x Life Infusion
4x Bad Santa
3x Conversion
3x Bloodlust
2x Shriek

Total: 33

When switching to the Bellas, I dropped the Bloodlusts to account for the reduced throughput, but it still felt like I wasn't quite getting enough bang for my buck in terms of drawing cards. Against decks that can sustain card draw, flooding them with Bad Santa had minimal impact, whereas I think the Bella version might be weak against opponents quickly outdrawing it.

Your decklist is almost a mirror if my adaptive" Zaladar build +conversion -extra sharp. It's a very good set up. I like Santa too but it was never really that much a help. In this build I see myself being more flexible late rather then early.

Still more testing to do.

[23Kid]

This deck definitely seems like a good idea and I have considered excluding Sparks from mine also. Having spent a day or two now playing around with Conversion, I would agree that a particularly well timed use can completely negate the disadvantage of late plays.

Would be interested to see if the Brutes suffer against Puwen? Ie. He can be a quite strong draw as an early card for a Human deck and with no Extra Sharp etc you'll have to just wait to draw a Gargoyle for retaliation proper.

[Killtrend]

That's fine. Gargoyle is enough of a deterrent because even a Aldon can't make puwen strong enough to kill a brute.

[Killtrend]

Just steamrolled two more scrubs. Anyone up for a test match in an hour? I need real competition.

[Reshiram99]

I may be able to get on, maybe not. If I can, 30 cards or 40 cards?