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 canāt really skip phases of strategy and sometimes you left with no space in your deck.
Why is Vanar so high cost?
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The short and sweet explanation for Vanarās 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.
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Instinctively I want to argue with this, but hereās the thing: youāre 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 + Winterās 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, itās hard to take you seriously because of how drastically youāre overstating things. At their height Vanar was arguably the gameās 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 youāre seeing on ladder).
However, if youāre burnt out with that, maybe all you need to succeed is to try out something different. If you like aggressive decks, Iām partial to @alphacenturyās Tempo Faie and Burn Faie (from his final deck dump):
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 heās playing nowadays.
Some spicier options that are a little lower-tier, but can still compete at the highest ranks and which feel very āVanarā, include: @alphacenturyās Fast Nemeton, @rhacker93ās Echo Mechs, and @deathsadvocateās 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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Thatās pretty much Vanarās backstory. When you try to make ramp and spells the focus of your faction, itās gonna be a disaster.
Thatās not to say the faction is unplayable. You can definitely do well with it. But there arenāt a lot of Vanar decks that have that āVanarā flavor.
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I just want to play something thatās you know actually Ice/CC themedā¦ I donāt wanna go in with all neutral cards and just spam warbird.
For example the faction has a lot of stuns, why canāt 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 donāt claim to be good at the game but it doesnāt 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. Thatās just no fun.
I like the slow build up style with Glacial element but I donāt get that very often. Because first of all, you just donāt 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, itās still not enough because they might just be using a deck that doesnāt 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? Itās cool I guessā¦ But would it really hurt if it was a Vespyr itself? Is it even worth the 4 mana investment?
I donāt think it would be OP if it was 3 mana and a Vespyr itself.
Would it hurt if Illenaās 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 canāt 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 couldnāt counter attack your general either?
Or what if Vanar gets a trial thatās not board dependent like all the other factions?
All these little buffs could make a big difference.
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Lower Tier! I would rate that particular list higher then aggro/tempo, and while I wouldnāt 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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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 āthe worstā by a very small margin, with a ton of ties at the top.)
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I got you hold on
Iām about to drop a bunch of the decks I made, I fairly certain youāll 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.
Iām sorry for the cost the are a little expensive but they are my masterpieces.
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Thanks so much. What Iāve been playing up to now has been an Illena Artifact deck I made and the Vespyr deck you made and Iām sick of them being so match up based and stomp or get stompped.
Iāll 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 thoughā¦)
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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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To be fair, Iāve never put in the time to master your deck, so I was speaking mainly from my own respectable but not exorbitant success with it (and the fact that Iāve never seen anyone else play it). Iāll ladder with it this upcoming season and see how it feels once Iāve really gotten its ins and outs. However, while I believe that itās complicated to play well, thereās no way that itās harder than that tempo list: Sleet Dasher, Letigress, and the spells/repositioning options lead to some insanely complicated lines.
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I find Abyssian more difficult and perhaps weaker than Vanar. Apart from their solid aggro lists maybe? What am I missing in the big picture?
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Owlbeast is a neutral card.
Also Winterblade and Iceshatter Gauntlet can work together but only if you equip Iceshatter Gauntlet AFTER Winterblade, because artifacts trigger their effect in the order they are equipped. Read more about it on the wiki (thatās what we have it for).
I saw you playing an Ilena Artifact deck but mishandling the combo because of the order you equipped your artifacts. This is why Aspect of the Bear is so amazing, it creates a 5health minion which canāt counterattack.
This is Zohanās version.
This is Ponchoās version.
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I know you didnāt ask me, but Iād say (assuming the meta didnāt change much after the times I played Dooli myself) that Crown Lilithe is very good, and has a positive matchup against any non Reva Wanderer, which is a thing to consider.
Speaking of aggro, Abyss has different aggro lists for every general with varying efficiency. All-in swarm for Lil, burn/aggro for Cass and Swarm/Tempo/Aggro Maehv (not DW) are 3 completely different aggressive decks of varying efficiency, each of them with own pros and cons.
And DW Maehv with or without Abomination is pretty strong and highrolly.
All in all, Iād say that probably Abyss is kinda close to Vanar in terms of power, but is much easier to play (at least for me) due to each of their decks (and cards) being pretty streamlined. Deckbuilding is flexible - deck piloting is not, contrary to Vanar, which is flexible in both of these aspects, thus more difficult to play.
But given pretty close power level, Vanar actually sucks against multiple threats.
Correct me if Iām wrong.
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One more big thing is that Abyssian is one of the better Wanderer factions itself, which gives it another high-tier deck. It also has a few other solid tier 2 options like Arcanysts and Hybrid Xor.
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How could I forget about Arcanysts, silly me 
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Ummm. Indeed. Lol.
You ok?!
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Amazing how many metas CP messed up in a row back than
First meltdown RNG hell
Than arcanyst vanar with an āanswer or dieā 2drop that is fairly tough and magmar with their 5/9 lavaslasher
Than finality vaath which might have been the most busted deck i witnessed
Looking back-duelyst probably deserves to be this close to death given how often CP completely butchered the meta
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ah shit, complaint threads just like in the good old days
immediate 30 replies
Speaking of this, I got Maser to log in and play some, and his Vanar deck blew my god damn mind
Its nothing weird or otherworldly but I havent seen Shiro Puppydragon since i was in like silver when i started playing
And Cryogenesis is also in the deck
I dont even think that card is bad, but people dont play it i dont get
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Honestly i prefer the complaint threads over the coma-state the forum gets stuck in quite often these days
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