Card draw

[TOPSECRET]

At the moment I've got 3x Wizent's Staff for card draw, but I've found this is problematic against burn decks since it means I end up using all my shadow energy to power it rather than healing myself against fireballs and other similar spells. How much more effective would 4x Tainted Oracle be, and would Bad Santa (or even Bazaar) be worth getting to make up for the staffs?

[blueblurr]

Well you mentioned Wizents so you must be playing a priest, but which is it, Jericho or Zhanna? Bazaar can be a good option for Zhanna who needs her SE to heal. If it is Jericho, is there any reason you are only running 3 Wizents instead of 4? My guess is monetary issues. I think 4 TO is overkill and 3 works fine. Bad Santa is an option, but just remember to always use it wisely, such as T2 going first or anytime you opponent is flushed with cards and you are not. I find 3 to be the sweet spot for Bad Santas in decks that need them (4 is overkill and 2 is unreliable). Just my $0.02.

[TOPSECRET]

Yeah, I'm playing Zhanna. I was thinking Bazaar might be problematic because my deck will be slower than most and so I don't want to give my opponent extra cards if their deck is faster. I was going for 4 staffs but I want to keep my number of cards down (it's something like 46 in my deck at the moment, which is still too much).

Timing my Bad Santa might be problematic though since apart from Retreat all of my spells are 3CC or higher so my opponent can probably empty his hand quicker than I.

[blueblurr]

If you want to keep your number of cards down, lose cards other than Wizent's (the card is amazing and should be almost auto-include 4x for a priest, especially Jericho). One strategy that many Zhanna players take is to only run a few big allies (Raven, Aeon, etc). They survive the early game through Curse and Tidal Waves, healing when needed, then plop down their fatties once their opponent is low on cards in hand and has no board. You really should try your best to slim your deck to 40-42. It will make it much more consistent. I forget who on the forum said it, but it's great advice: when you are having trouble deciding what to sacrifice every turn, that is an indication you've made a good deck.

[TOPSECRET]

I just removed my Jasmines (strange, turns out my deck had 43 cards) but had to put one back in to meet the 40 card limit.

So would a good strategy be to rely on debuff (curse), retreat (for any strong allies my opponent gets out pre-tidal wave) and then to bring out all my strong 5CC+ allies on turn 6 and onwards? I have four birgittes in to offer them some sort of protection from burn spells or should I take those out too? Because at the moment my big allies are 4x Raven, 2x Erika and 1x Aeon so I'm not sure if I should try to get more of those. I've also got 2x Aldon and 3x King's Pride to buff my own allies.

Should I also just assume a slower deck like this will do poorly against Eladwen?

[FDL]

Running only 3 draw engines is a little low in my opinion. Wizent's Staff is great but you need it on the board! Tainted Oracle is actually pretty good. He also works quite well with Ghostmaker, King's Pride and Earthen Protector. Tidal will make sure his ability is triggered.

With Zhanna I prefer to put down a T4 TO over a staff (unless you can kill something with the staff).

[akratch]

Again, this just reminds me of twisty misty, but here is my Zhanna build that is similar to some of the things you're trying to achieve.

Hero
Zhanna Mist

Allies
3x Erika Shadowhunter
2x Earthen Protector
2x Armored Sandworm
4x Tainted Oracle
2x Aeon Stormcaller

Support
4x Tidal Wave
4x Destroy Arms
4x Retreat
4x healing touch
3x holy shield
1x resurrection

Equipment
3x Wizent's Staff
3x king's pride
2x ghostmaker


Synergy ghostmaker has with all allies is great. Erika protects herself vs. warriors and such, Earthern can be brought back even if you know he will die just to supercharge an ally on the board who wants to suicide (tainted oracle!), Armored sandworm of course is tough to break even at 1, Tainted oracle, as mentioned before, can die to your benefit (awesome for luring the overextend, giving you a nasssstttty turn 5 tidal wave if playing a weenie deck) and finally, Aeon stormcaller is a totally house. You land 2-3 allies backed by kings pride and it's gonna be tough for anything but another priest to stop the pain. Only 3 wizent b/c zhanna's ability is used a lot (as opposed to a jericho build in which i'd ALWAYS use 4). Other important spells you always want to see are at 3 or 4. Retreat is almost key to survival it seems against many decks, and thus is almost always expected, so be careful, and don't be afraid to bounce a fire snake or something if you already have a hand loaded enough to safely take control by turn 6. Tidal wave is a crux of this deck and should never be resourced unless you are trying to close (and need to drop king's pride/another ally) or if you have 2 in hand.

[SpeakerOfTruth]

Again, this just reminds me of twisty misty, but here is my Zhanna build that is similar to some of the things you're trying to achieve.

Hero
Zhanna Mist

Allies
3x Erika Shadowhunter
2x Earthen Protector
2x Armored Sandworm
4x Tainted Oracle
2x Aeon Stormcaller

Support
4x Tidal Wave
4x Destroy Arms
4x Retreat
4x healing touch
3x holy shield
1x resurrection

Equipment
3x Wizent's Staff
3x king's pride
2x ghostmaker


Synergy ghostmaker has with all allies is great. Erika protects herself vs. warriors and such, Earthern can be brought back even if you know he will die just to supercharge an ally on the board who wants to suicide (tainted oracle!), Armored sandworm of course is tough to break even at 1, Tainted oracle, as mentioned before, can die to your benefit (awesome for luring the overextend, giving you a nasssstttty turn 5 tidal wave if playing a weenie deck) and finally, Aeon stormcaller is a totally house. You land 2-3 allies backed by kings pride and it's gonna be tough for anything but another priest to stop the pain. Only 3 wizent b/c zhanna's ability is used a lot (as opposed to a jericho build in which i'd ALWAYS use 4). Other important spells you always want to see are at 3 or 4. Retreat is almost key to survival it seems against many decks, and thus is almost always expected, so be careful, and don't be afraid to bounce a fire snake or something if you already have a hand loaded enough to safely take control by turn 6. Tidal wave is a crux of this deck and should never be resourced unless you are trying to close (and need to drop king's pride/another ally) or if you have 2 in hand.

Looks strong!

If I may put in my 2 cents worth, I would choose Raven over Erika. She is stronger against mages, and if anything hits her and doesn't kill her in a hit (which is almost anything) they receive defend damage from her and are permanently incapacitated.

[pyrogene]

If you want to use Ghostmaker you should really take a look at DnD's Zhannax: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....pdated-for-1-3

On topic: I would still use 4 Wizents. You can always sac them against mages and not having a draw engine is so painful. As mentioned, 4X Tainted Oracle would be good esp with Tidal Wave.

[Raphael Majere]

Well you mentioned Wizents so you must be playing a priest, but which is it, Jericho or Zhanna? Bazaar can be a good option for Zhanna who needs her SE to heal. If it is Jericho, is there any reason you are only running 3 Wizents instead of 4? My guess is monetary issues. I think 4 TO is overkill and 3 works fine. Bad Santa is an option, but just remember to always use it wisely, such as T2 going first or anytime you opponent is flushed with cards and you are not. I find 3 to be the sweet spot for Bad Santas in decks that need them (4 is overkill and 2 is unreliable). Just my $0.02.

Bazaar and Bad Santa are bad ideas for Zhanna, esp Bazaar. If you wanna tech vs Burn, both cards will get even more burn cards for your opponent. Burn cards have no "Summoning Sickness" which means Zhanna will die even faster. Less so for Santa but since there is a better option - Oracle - I would go with Oracle. 4 Wiz Staff - that's a must - cos it gets destroyed along the way.

Zhannax by DnDfreak is the best Zhanna deck out there, IMO.