Nishaven Deck: Fire in the Winter

I am by far not an expert in the subject of deck construction for Shadow Era. I chose Nishaven because of his God of Wrath like ability, wish it costed 4 Resources rather than 5 and he would probably be a better Hero. Any suggestions and/or tweaks to this deck are welcome.

The deck is inspired in Nishaven Burn deck.


Nishaven
Freezing Burn 30

Hero
1 Nishaven

Mage Abilities
4 Fireball
4 Lightning Strike
3 Supernova
2 Arcanic Bursts

Human Abilities
4 Retreat

Neutral Abilities
2 Rain Delay (Item)
3 Bad Santa
3 Bazaar (Item)

Hero Armors
2 Snow Sapphire

Hero Weapons
2 Voice of Winter

Nishaven
Freezing Burn 40

Hero
1 Nishaven

Mage Abilities
4 Fireball
4 Lightning Strike
4 Supernova
3 Arcane Burst

Mage Items
3 Research

Human Abilities
4 Retreat
2 Special Delivery

Neutral Abilities
3 Rain Delay
3 Bad Santa
3 Bazaar (Item)

Hero Armors
3 Snow Sapphire (Armor)

Hero Weapons
3 Voice of Winter (Weapon)

I recommend running the 40 card version simply because it has more added burn to them. I dropped Poison Gas and Engulfing Flames but if you intend to run them drop the 2 Special Delivery and bring 1 of each.

Sacrificing cards every turn is vital at least until T9-T10. Try to not sacrifice any of your burn cards except Supernova which I usually discard as the majority of times you will field 1-2 maximum.*Between Fireball and any other burn related card, sacrifice the other burn card and keep Fireball. Only use them on opponent Hero do not waste it on Allies. Try to always play your LS on 2 cards and AB on 3-4 targets. But do not be afraid to use them, specifically LS, if you have wiped the board of Allies. You want your opponent to burn fast so if you have LS and there are no enemies in play use it on the Hero without hesitation.

Try to play Bazaar when your opponent has six cards in hand. Bad Santa should be used sparingly and when you have four cards or less otherwise it is best to sacrifice it. The 40 card version brings along Research to add more card drawing engines so you can draw cards faster. With Nishaven it is important to have 5-7 cards after your draw phase.

Between Rain Delay and Retreat keep Retreat. Rain Delay is best in preparation for Nishaven's Plasma Blast or a Supernova.*If possible save at least one Supernova as it can usually determine the game for you.

Retreat is an excellent cost effective card that can be used to send opponent's allies specifically when they have been invested with considerable resources; high costing Allies or Allies played with Abilities.

Snow Sapphire can be a real life saver as they freeze your opponent and his allies when they attack you and defends from 2 points of damage. Whereas the Voice of Winter is best played right after clearing the board with a Plasma Blast or Supernova so the allies of your opponent come into play frozen.

Decks that you will most likely lose against:
•Heroes who can heal your DD. Elementalis and Priests are a prime example of this.

•Heroes who rely heavily on Items that harm you. Mages lack ANY way of removing items.

•Heroes who set up faster then you. Majiya is a prime example of this.

You can still win these matches but*Nishaven's margin to make errors is very small; you do not have the luxury to "screw up and make up for it later in the game." You really have to know your deck and setup a draw engine flow as fast as you can.

Thank you for reading,
Issac Frost

There are no Nishaven 1.27 Tournament decks. You have come close here though. You could fill it out to 40 cards with more draw and burn cards (Arcane Burst goes well to mop up leftovers from the blast).

Why not use Research instead of Bazaar? If you give opponent free cards then they will overwhelm you with allies and you will have no choice but to waste burn on them.

I read thouroughly on card drawing engines amd a lot of the Nishaven 1.27 information. For this type of play where you don't really have the luxury of "controlling" the board and burning as fast as possible with stall techniques, it seems Bazaar is more suited in the 30 and 35 card decks. However for a deck with 40 cards I think I can give Research a try again and see how it works. Because from experience many times I found Research sitting there and me unable to use it for using Resources on more vital cards.

Come 1.28 Nishaven might actually be more playable seeing the changes they did. I'm happy to see they changed Elementalis ability, so perhaps now in 1.28 it won't be such a horrible match up. I feel they weakened Majiya overall though as he card draw engine for 0 resources made her very dangerous. On another note it would sound as Priests got better.


•007 | Human Hero | Jericho Spellbane | | | 4SE: Destroy target attached effect. Gain 2 life.
•008 | Human Hero | Zhanna Mist | | | 3SE: Target ally or hero heals 3 damage.
•015 | Shadow Hero | Majiya | | | 4SE: Deal 3 damage to target ally. If this ability kills an ally, draw a card.
•019 | Shadow Hero | Elementalis | | | 3SE: Target ally gains +1 attack and +3 health.

I swear if Nishaven ability was 4 Shadow Energy and Engulfing Flames and Poison Gas cost 2-3 Resources, he would be a lot more competitive.

Zhanna didn't really get better as get fixed in the same way Eladwen did (targeting restrictions removed) and Jericho's new ability is a nerf, plain and simple.

On topic, Nish is draw needy in 1.27, he needs Bad Santa, Bazaar, Research, Tainted Oracle, anything that will get cards in your hand faster than 1 per turn. The reason for this is especially clear in an ally-less version as he just cannot get his burn fast enough to beat the clock of his dwindling HP. If you are playing 40c I would use Bazaar over Research, if you are playing 30 cards I would go with Research, but both should have 3-4x Bad Santa to kickstart your hand size when it starts dwindling. Whether it is a rush/burn or a fatty/portal build, you need to be able to sac a card a turn for resources to have enough to get all your spells and allies out soon enough to make a difference. The only way Nish can do that reliably is with two cards drawn per turn from early in the game, but if you star Researching just to draw those cards, you are wasting precious early game resources to do so, so think of Research as an aid for draw mid-late game when you have 7-8 resources and can't use them all in a turn.

I hate to be disagreeable, but Bazaar giving both players extra draw Is a secondary issue if you have an empty hand after T6. The swarm that GDC warns about will happen anyway vs a BF Warrior, or a Majiya, or GB, or anyone with a reasonable unilateral draw engine, which basically covers the decks you will meet in comoetitive circles and quick games. The more chance you have to throw out a T4 Portal, T5 Nish-blast+5cc of allies, T6 6cc of allies, or replace Portal and allies with as much burn as you can, the better your chances of winning.

Cheers,
-Harakhte

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Originally Posted by Harakhte

Zhanna didn't really get better as get fixed in the same way Eladwen did (targeting restrictions removed) and Jericho's new ability is a nerf, plain and simple.

On topic, Nish is draw needy in 1.27, he needs Bad Santa, Bazaar, Research, Tainted Oracle, anything that will get cards in your hand faster than 1 per turn. *The reason for this is especially clear in an ally-less version as he just cannot get his burn fast enough to beat the clock of his dwindling HP. *If you are playing 40c I would use Bazaar over Research, if you are playing 30 cards I would go with Research, but both should have 3-4x Bad Santa to kickstart your hand size when it starts dwindling. *Whether it is a rush/burn or a fatty/portal build, you need to be able to sac a card a turn for resources to have enough to get all your spells and allies out soon enough to make a difference. *The only way Nish can do that reliably is with two cards drawn per turn from early in the game, but if you star Researching just to draw those cards, you are wasting precious early game resources to do so, so think of Research as an aid for draw mid-late game when you have 7-8 resources and can't use them all in a turn.

I hate to be disagreeable, but Bazaar giving both players extra draw Is a secondary issue if you have an empty hand after T6. *The swarm that GDC warns about will happen anyway vs a BF Warrior, or a Majiya, or GB, or anyone with a reasonable unilateral draw engine, which basically covers the decks you will meet in comoetitive circles and quick games. *The more chance you have to throw out a T4 Portal, T5 Nish-blast+5cc of allies, T6 6cc of allies, or replace Portal and allies with as much burn as you can, the better your chances of winning.

Cheers,
-Harakhte

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I gave it from the beginning with 30 cards and Research. Didn't work out well enough. The card draw wasn't fast enough and I found myself using my resources on burn amd having none to draw card except in a few cases. So that is why I grabbed Bad Santa and Bazaar. However I did not try it at the time with Bad Santa. So perhaps that is probably the difference.

I don't think Nishaven decks are or will be competitive enough at least not at this moment. I am not sure if it is because Nishaven ability, the equivalent of MtG's Wrath of God, costs 5 Shadow Energy rather then MtG's combined 4 Mana. Also WoG is a White spell which had ample synergy in a White Control Deck due to its ability to control/slow/stall/heal, something Mages in this game are not exactly capable of doing this and since there aren't enough and/or any Neutral/Human cards that can fulfill these roles to support Nishaven.

Also since I am playing on iPhone, and I am not sure if the versions differ per platform, but most of the time I wish there was game lobbies with card restrictions so that way both players cannot exceed a certain card limit number such as 30 or 40.

On other Heroes.

Jericho's ability really did get changed. Now instead of removing all attached effects from a target for 2 SE, practically the game's version of an all Dispell.*Now it costs him 4 SE and he can only target ONE effect from the target. On the flip side he now gains 2 life. Perhaps it would have made more sense to gain life equal to the Resource cost of the removed effect.

Majiya's ability is also now 4 SE but her ability will have synergy with direct damage decks and the support of Shadow allies and if she kills the target she draws a card. In my opinion it actually sounds like a nerf considering every two turns she allowed one in the game to have card advantage with no Resources used at all. Now she has to wait four turns AND sucessfully kill the target to have her card advantage.

This game is pretty good but it is still a long way from being more balanced.

Wasn't it Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky?

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Originally Posted by Lahiri

Wasn't it Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky?

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Huh?

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Originally Posted by Lahiri

Wasn't it Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky?

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Deep Purple reference. Look them up.

your glad elementalis got nerf'ed???? seriously?

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Originally Posted by GondorianDotCom

Deep Purple reference. Look them up.

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I meant what did that had to do with anything on the topic. Or did it have anything to do with the topic's title?

As for Elementalis checking again I think the change should have been:
[3/4] SE: Sacrifice target friendly ally. Gain life equal to the friendly allies [Card cost/Attack Power/Health]

It was pure trolling - a mild reference to the topic's title, yes.

Your discussion with Harakhte above was interesting. I might try Bazaar.

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Originally Posted by GondorianDotCom

It was pure trolling - a mild reference to the topic's title, yes.

Your discussion with Harakhte above was interesting. *I might try Bazaar.

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I'm thinking of tweaking it dropping 1 EF, 1 PG and 1 RD giving me 3 open slots to 30 and adding the following:

•3 Research

Or
•3 Baazar
•3 Bad Santa
•3 Snow Sapphire

Or
•3 Voice of Winter
•3 Snow Sapphire
•3 Bazaar or 3 Bad Santa

And see how it plays out.

The biggest problem playing Nishaven in these no ally type decks is that your margin for making errors is very small; one small mistake can cost you the whole game. Other Heroes have better margins and a player might screw up but still able to recover, Nishaven doesn't have that luxury. I still say his ability should be 4 SE to deal 4 damage on all allies. If it is going to stay at 5 SE might as well make it deal 5 damage to all allies. On the flip side one can "bluff" with Nishaven making opponents hold their stronger allies in their hand and not play them until you use it up.

This is the form I am fielding at the moment.

Nishaven
Freezing Burn 40

Hero
1 Nishaven [0/5SE]

Mage Abilities
4 Fireball [3R]
4 Lightning Strike [4R]
4 Supernova [5R]
4 Arcane Burst [4R]

Human Abilities
4 Retreat [2R]

Neutral Abilities
4 Rain Delay [2R]
4 Bad Santa [2R]
4 Bazaar (Item) [2R]

Hero Armors
4 Snow Sapphire (Armor) [6R]

Hero Weapons
3 Voice of Winter (Weapon) [5R]

I've tried a very similar deck but used Freeze instead of Rain delay.
It works for 3 turns on a creature rather than 1 turn only. And prevents them from using any abilities (Death Mage, Plasma Behemoth). But either way I can see them both working. I don't think it's a big difference just thought I'd mention it.

Yeah I thought about switching them for freeze. But then again RD is good to hold a wave of enemies. Still Freeze is solid I will give it a shot.

I run four reassearches, four bad santas and four oracles in my wenie/burn deck, hang round 200 rating with it. Doing great. Unused bad santas and reassearches can allways be resourced, mind you.

Your 40-card deck is the same as my own allyless Nish, except I run Research instead of Bazaar.

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Originally Posted by GondorianDotCom

Your 40-card deck is the same as my own allyless Nish, except I run Research instead of Bazaar.

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The one I am fielding or the one mentioned by Kingsider?

Right now I'm running burn but with allies. It helps a lot with damage dealing and distraction. And it makes your opponent focus on them. I am also using Portal, works great with low cc allies, in combination with Fb/Ls. Retreat! is a great card for Nish decks to use as well.

Flameforged gauntlets are essential to any good ( human mage)burn deck. When you use Fireball, Cinderon Fatebreaker, Meteor, Engulfing Flame, and Wrath of Summer ( on ally) you get a free draw. . I feel tainted oracle has a too high of a cost at turn four but if you have a crap hand then maybe TO is worth it.

"Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves"

Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate