Duelyst Forums

Why is Vanar so high cost?

#1

Vanar spells and minions have such high cost compared to their stats.
Even when they are supposed to be good at something they get out classed. Take for example single target minion removal.
What cryogenesis does for 4 mana, Magmar can simply do with bbs + lava lance costing only 2 mana.
Vanar’s end game requires two turns and 16 mana, ice age + winters wake when
Vetruvian can finish the game with fault + rae at 6 mana.
And it’s not like their ramp is any good either. Abyssian or Magmar’s ramp is a lot more direct and less situational/counterable than Vanar.

Swarm decks Abyssian does better. Aggro decks Lyonar, Abyssian and Vet do better. Burn and arcanyst decks, Songhai does better. Trial decks, every other faction do better. Healyonar does what vespyr decks do and more but better, with less counterplay without suffering any of the draw backs. All other factions have better end game win conditions, with less counter play and less mana cost.

When you pick Vanar not only are you going to get outclassed in every way but you also make big sacrifices that no other faction has to make. A lot of cards benefit from swarm, but you have no card draw options. You are encouraged to play aggressively, but you have no healing or self sustain. Your win conditions depend on your minions surviving on the board, but their stats are so terrible that you lose all of them by turn 4 with rebuke. You are encouraged to stall, but you have no AOE removal or board clear like Magmar does to actually stall.
It feels like Vanar is a class with an internal contradiction and no sense of self identity, it’s a class at war with itself.

So what’s going on here?

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#2

Hi…

It seems like you are comparing vanar to other factions without really understand that you don’t play vanar like other factions.

In short (due to laziness) - yes, alot of vanar’s tools are by themselves more costly then others.

But vanar builds on ramp (very good ramp, the best in the game), timing and basically choking the opponent out of removel before dropping the wincon.
The way I see it - vanar plays on th big damage later in the game.

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#3

Thought you was going to speak about the deck cost with that title :laughing:.
Kinda harsh on Vanar. Agree that the identity of Vanar is less clear though.

While your examples makes sense, you shouldn’t quite ignore the differences. You also happen to choose some cards arguably OP.

Cryogenesis gives back a card and damage is unconditional.
You are also comparing a nerfed card, Cryogensis, with a card considered OP, Lava Lance. No surprise which card is better.

Fault is not the end of the world. Strong but it is still possible to fight back.
Ice Age + Winter Wake is a finisher. Game is over.

Abyssian and Magmar’s Ramp, Sacrifice and Flash, are single time ramp.
Vanar ramp is a permanent mana crystal. (Although you lose mana if a Malicious Wisp dies.)

I thought aggro Faie was still good. Faie BBS is an easy win-con :stuck_out_tongue:.

Probably biased but I would say Nemeton is underestimated and not the worse trial.

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#4

Everything that counters Fault, counters Ice age like let’s say for example EMP or Ironclad + Maehv BBS. Lyonar can easily deal with it using Decimate and by that time they probably have Titan or Strategos. Magmar can just use Rebuke or Plasma Storm or you just walk up to the walls and kill them with frenzy and grow. Songhai can clear the board with Eight Gates + Ghost Lightening or Battle Panddo + Deathstrike Seal or just turn them all into Pandos.

Ice Age is not the end of the game by any means. It’s a terrible end game finisher compared to every other finisher that other factions have usually countered by a maximum of 2 cards. It is more costly, harder to pull off, countered by everything and sometimes you don’t even draw the cards and lose.
Besides you have to completely suffer all throughout the match. In the early and mid game you are just a passive boxing bag running away and trying to stall as much as you can. But if you’re playing Hate furncase, you win in the early and mid game and if you’re so bad that you don’t, it’s ok because you’re going to be even more OP later on.

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#5

The way I understand (and favor) Vanar:

  • Every Vanar card a tiny bit overcosted, but everything available whereas most other factions have some real gaps in their toolset.
  • Best ramp to compensate
  • Aspects provide multi-use smart flexibility
  • Decent at any strategy
  • Getting good at Vanar requires you to get good at Duelyst

Ryu has no personality. He’s just good.

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#6

Hatefurnace is good?

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#7

It’s all crazy big minions with high stats that you can’t out trade so you have to dispell but even if you do, they are going to beat you with their trial anyways.

It’s certainly not the most broken thing in the game but still better than anything Vanar has to offer and will beat any Vanar deck any day of the week with ease.

To be honest any combination of Magmar cards would probably beat the most optimized Vanar deck.

1 Like
#8

I think you missed my point. I am not saying which is better. Everyone knows Fault is strong.
I am saying they are different.

If you play Ice Age, you are threatening lethal damage next turn with Winter’s Wake, hence a finisher.
Your opponent has to have a counter that turn or lose.

Fault is guaranteed board presence. But you aren’t threatening lethal next turn.

Ice Age: High risk, very high reward.
Fault: Very low risk, high reward.

Dunno why you mentioned counters either.
Ice Age: Board AoE
Fault: Things that affect tiles (e.g. lightbender) and just occupying the middle column.

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#9

I don’t think we can have a serious discussion if you insist on an opinion like that.

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#10

My history in duelyst want to have a word with you.

You can’t approach vanar like other factions.
It is not a dummy faction (like Magmar), it is a faction that got everything linked to the point that of I got the 3 cards I need in my opening hand the game is over.

You play on positioning alot, baiting into damage, baiting removal etc. All the micro movements you do with other factions are more important here.

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#11

Yep, this is right, vanar has no gaps but everything is a little harder to set up, which is funnnn.
This is what makes vanar deck building into such a mess sometimes, you can’t really skip phases of strategy and sometimes you left with no space in your deck.

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#12

The short and sweet explanation for Vanar’s high mana costed cards: ramp tools.

Because crystal wisp, malicious wisp, mana death grip, shivers, and ghost seraphim exist, other cards have to be over costed in order to not be busted.

2 Likes
#13

Instinctively I want to argue with this, but here’s the thing: you’re not entirely wrong. Currently, Vanar is widely held to be the worst faction overall. Traditionally its faction identity consists of relatively understatted minions, unconditional ramp, and powerful spells. Its best decks leveraged these tools to efficiently control the board and take over with some sort of snowballing value engine (Arcanysts, Meltdown) or a simple I-win combo (Jax + Razorback, Seraphim + Reflection, Ice Age + Winter’s Wake). However, over time (and especially towards the end in the rotation changes and the final patch), almost all of its best staple spells have been nerfed, especially its cheaper spot interaction and AOE (a nonexhaustive list: Aspect of the Ravager, Mana Deathgrip, Chromatic Cold, Frigid Corona, Altered Beast, Enfeeble, Cryogenesis, Frostburn). This has significantly weakened the faction across the board and left it in a somewhat awkward position.

That being said, it’s hard to take you seriously because of how drastically you’re overstating things. At their height Vanar was arguably the game’s best faction, and even with the nerfs they still have some good decks (which are certainly strong enough to consistently take down meme tier decks like Hatefurnace). You appear to have had a bad experience with the Ice Age deck in particular, but it will get you a positive winrate if you learn how to play it well enough (and tech appropriately for what you’re seeing on ladder).

However, if you’re burnt out with that, maybe all you need to succeed is to try out something different. If you like aggressive decks, I’m partial to @alphacentury’s Tempo Faie and Burn Faie (from his final deck dump):

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If you prefer a slower playstyle, the 2019 power rankings had some (admittedly very neutral-heavy) Vanar midrange lists, or you could ask @snowshot what he’s playing nowadays.

Some spicier options that are a little lower-tier, but can still compete at the highest ranks and which feel very “Vanar”, include: @alphacentury’s Fast Nemeton, @rhacker93’s Echo Mechs, and @deathsadvocate’s Cryonic Tempo.

If you put in the time, any of these decks are more than capable of taking you as high on the ladder as you care to go. Good luck!

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#14

That’s pretty much Vanar’s backstory. When you try to make ramp and spells the focus of your faction, it’s gonna be a disaster.

That’s not to say the faction is unplayable. You can definitely do well with it. But there aren’t a lot of Vanar decks that have that “Vanar” flavor.

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#15

I just want to play something that’s you know actually Ice/CC themed… I don’t wanna go in with all neutral cards and just spam warbird.

For example the faction has a lot of stuns, why can’t it have cards like Sunriser, Gold Vitriol or Shadowdancer that proc when something is stunned?
It has Vespyrs and I use Vespyr decks to climb to diamond 2. I certainly don’t claim to be good at the game but it doesn’t change the fact that no matter how good I am, all of my minions will just die to rebuke with 4 mana if my opponent chooses to. That’s just no fun.

I like the slow build up style with Glacial element but I don’t get that very often. Because first of all, you just don’t draw it sometimes and when you do you have to be super careful with positioning and even then it will die to every removal. Sometimes when you do get it to stick on the board and do everything right, it’s still not enough because they might just be using a deck that doesn’t care about minions if they are running an artifact deck or Shidai Mantra. Sometimes their buffs out pace the damage I can do, if they are playing a grow deck or an arcanyst one. Othertimes they are running a trial deck or Titan and I lose by default if I try to go for my setup.

Also the fact that Glacial Elemental is so random is certainly not fun.
Most of the time I just have to cheese by hiding a crystal cloaker with flying buff (from Iceblade Dryad) and make a lot of minions then finish with Vespyrian Might, or just equip a lot of Animus Plates when they are provoked, then combo next turn with Wintertide or Bonechill Barrier. It feels super cheesy and unsatisfying knowing that my opponent could have easily prevented it.

Every other class gets these really cool 4 mana minions, like Sunriser, Flamewreath, Four Winds Magi, Owlbeast, Wasteland Wraith, Desolator, Bloodtide Preistess, Progenitor, Rizen.
What do I get? Voice of the Wind? It’s cool I guess… But would it really hurt if it was a Vespyr itself? Is it even worth the 4 mana investment?
I don’t think it would be OP if it was 3 mana and a Vespyr itself.
Would it hurt if Illena’s BBS worked on generals as well as minions and dealt one damage?
Would it be that OP if Ice Shatter Gauntlet and Winterblade actually synergized with each other?
Why can’t we make Cryogenesis do 4 damage and also stunned the enemy? Or lower the mana cost of Endless Hunt, Blinding Storm and Boundless Courage?
What if Matron Elveiti made it so that minions couldn’t counter attack your general either?
Or what if Vanar gets a trial that’s not board dependent like all the other factions?

All these little buffs could make a big difference.

3 Likes
#16

:sob: Lower Tier! I would rate that particular list higher then aggro/tempo, and while I wouldn’t rate it higher then walls, it is much more reliable and harder to counter. That being said while it might be 1.1x better then some other examples, it is about 10x times harder to play.

@atrestia So here is the thing, Vanar is quite possibly both the hardest faction to play and the most expensive. That does not make it weak, it just has an extremely high skill ceiling. Vanar has a handful of extremely powerful decks that are top tier, but they are very difficult to master. For example in your posts you mention Hate Furnace and Walls. Walls is at least A Tier, Hatefurnace is widely considered garbage tier. That being said Furnace is super easy to play. Here is another example, Rebuke does 0 vs walls and does not kill key units like Glacial Elemental, and plasma which is surprisingly rare in the meta, is suicide vs Luminous Charge.

Magmar vs Vanar is actually a really interesting discussion that comes up a lot with newer players. Magmar is very easy to learn and it dominates people that do not understand how to fight against it, however once people understand the ways to play around Magmars stuff that starts to change (ALL of their stuff is conditional and avoidable), but the burden of skill falls more so on the opponent then the magmar player until very high tier play. Magmar does this weird curve of being overwhelmingly strong and easy for beginners, falling off with intermediate, and then becoming pretty fair in high tier play. (Not talking about Wanderer, as that is an abomination that is not Magmars Fault.)

Where as Vanar is very hard to learn, and does its strongest stuff without conditions. For example Aspect of the Bear is both a strong finisher or a HARD kill spell. But if used incorrectly it does a poor job at either, and can completely backfire. Vanar requires careful timing, positioning, and baiting. They had been the top faction for many many patches, and then suffered many many nerfs to bring them in line. But they also recently gained Malicious Wisp which was a huge game changer, but again is a tough card to use, it has to be played at the right time, in the right spot, and you have to know when to protect it, trade it in, or transform it.

To make matters even worse for new players, good magmar decks are very cheap, and vanar is extremely expensive.

While Vanar may not have quite the raw power of the big scary four of the meta (Wanderer, Rag, Fault, and Burn Ziran), the match up will usually be won by the more skilled player. Vanar is not a faction about raw power, but one about flexibility, and or counter or lose, and or outwitting your opponent.

On a related note since trials were brought up here they are rated from worst to best (Keep in mind Trials decks are not representative of a faction as a whole): Magmar, Vanar, Vetruvian/Abyss, Songhai, Lyonar, Wander.

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Why is Fault Hated?
#17

If you want to play fun ice themed decks its going to take time and resources to do but here are some great examples, that with a little practice, can fight anything in the game:

(And yea sorry Ilena is still one of the worst generals in the game, but she does still certainly have her place and is only “the worst” by a very small margin, with a ton of ties at the top.)

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#18

I got you hold on

I’m about to drop a bunch of the decks I made, I fairly certain you’ll like them (they are all diamond/s rank decks that are really fun and very themed).

They are all in the duelspot, so if you want to read about them - jump there.

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JimXV1s
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I’m sorry for the cost the are a little expensive but they are my masterpieces.

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#19

Thanks so much. What I’ve been playing up to now has been an Illena Artifact deck I made and the Vespyr deck you made and I’m sick of them being so match up based and stomp or get stompped.
I’ll give these a try.
And no worries about the cost. I have every Vanar and neutral card. (I wish I had invested that spirit in Lyonar though…)

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#20

Yea Ilena/artifacts are bound to be a bad time, both tend to be not so great for the meta. But both Faie/Kara are doing really well. And while vespyrs are awesome, they are usually better as a small portion of a deck then a focus.

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