Ziran is so satisfying to play!

[atrestia]

After my Vanar complaint thread and the replies, it got me thinking that maybe I’m just not playing the right class for my style of play. I was always interested in trying out Ziran so I decided to get rid of my Vanar cards and build myself a Ziran deck. Ever since, I’ve been having a blast with the game and I got to S-rank with a little bit of grinding.

This is what I’ve been playing. I got rid of Azure Heral because I hate minions with bad stats. The 4 health felt useless because most of the time damage comes in even numbers. It opened up space for more Gold Vitriol and Tempest.
First of all, it completely suits my style. Camp a tile, poke from range, force them to get close and then kill them with heavy sustain. It was something I tried with Faie and I just never got it to work the way I wanted most of the time.
Second, I pretty much never have to worry about card draw or consistency. Having good stat minions means I can afford skipping my turn two to get a spelljammer up which in return gives me more spelljammers and trinity oaths. I pretty much always play as many minions as I can every turn as long as I know they are going to stay on the board. Also, this makes my deck ever more consistent allowing me to set up more and more combos!
Third, the poke from Vitriol is unconditional. I can always guarantee that I can proc it even if I don’t play aggressively I can always sue Tempest or Flamebood Warlock to damage my general. For Vespyrs, which is what I used to play, I had to establish board dominance with Gravity Well early game and move in to my opponent’s side of the board because without infiltrated Snow Chasers my deck was useless. The fact Vitriol can hit generals means that I don’t have to worry about destroying artifacts against SpellHai Shidai and Vetruvian Trial decks which makes it so much more useful compared to Glacial Elemental considering that it costs one less mana and doesn’t need as much protection either.
Fourth, healing, healing healing! God I love healing. I love never having to worry about face damage and counting whether or not I’m going to risk lethal because of how amazing Sundrop Elixir is. God I love that card so much. Not to mention the amazing face damage I can get from combining it with Lucid Beam.
And finally, removal. This deck has amazing removal. Vanar has the best removal my ass! Holy Immolition is an insanely strong card. In this one game, I cleared all minions from evolutionary apex twice just by holy immolition and then walking up to the Kraigon and hitting it with my 9 damage general. My god that felt satisfying to be able to kill two Kraigon’s in one game. With my Vespyr deck, if it ever got to that point of the game it usually meant I was lost (or out of cards) but with this I can keep going and going and going! I think people underestimate Ziran’s ability to not only get rid of swarms but also remove high stat minions with a little bit of clever positioning with your general.
Overall, I think I fell in love with the game again. Ziran feels absolutely amazing to play and I definetely recommend everyone to give this deck a shot. 10/10 would duelyst again

[snowshot]

You gave up vanar for aggro ziran? Just play rag wanderer and end it.

You do know most of us here have played against or with this exact deck I hope, meaning it is not new and it is fucking broken.
Just remembering playing against it giving me ptsd (I usually won, but it took too much time).

[miguelosz]

Hey, let’s not be too harsh (op is clearly not aware how high the deck is in the meta). I hate aggro Zir’an as much as anyone, but it’s still less seen (at least for me) than Ragnoras and such. And heal combos by themselves are really fun, even if this particular build is pretty broken.

[unktrial1]

Aggro ziran, like most aggro decks, is difficult to deal with, but somewhat predictable.

I usually won, but it took too much time

Yeah, as you probably already know, heal ziran does have the weakness of
1 range and
2 weak late game
so while it is annoyingly strong and takes a ton of patience to deal with, it isn’t complete BS.

[humancalc]

Ziran talks .
Personally don’t like seeing aggro variants but that’s just me.

heal ziran does have the weakness of
1 range

Not really. You can deal with range better than most decks with the abundance of damage removal.

First of all, it completely suits my style. Camp a tile, poke from range, force them to get close and then kill them with heavy sustain.

While not quite spellhai range level you can become quite a ranged threat yourself.

2 weak late game

It is true you that you don’t have a strong late game relative to true late game decks. However I won’t say it is weak. Maybe somewhere in the middle or above average. Simply having tons of heals means you can survive the attrition war against many non-late game decks. You also have a lot of burst to finish people.

Third, the poke from Vitriol is unconditional.

English, english. Don’t change the meaning of unconditional.
The conditions are:

1. Having something with the abilty to heal something.

• Having a card like Healing Mystic
• Having BBS up
• Having a heal tile and access to it

2. Having something damaged that can be healed.

You might consider the conditions easily met but it is still conditional.
Sometimes you just don’t draw a heal card.
Sometimes you want to save a heal card to use with another card instead like Sunforge Lancer.
The second condition is also important. Like not having a minion to heal.
Also when Ziran is full health. Namely the beginning. Which is sometimes why running away from Ziran early is a good idea.
The healing conditions that apply to Vitriol similarly applies to the other cards requiring heals to trigger.

it isn’t complete BS.

Maybe so. I wonder what the Spellhai players who got hard countered would be thinking though .

[unktrial1]

Not really. You can deal with range better than most decks with the abundance of damage removal.

By range, I didn’t mean ranged minions. Rather, ziran likes to camp on heal tiles, and keeping distance from them can really cut down on heal procs.

[bepoest]

get rid of my [whatever] cards

This is the only shocking statement in this thread for me.
/hoarder

[phayze]

Oh, I think I’ve played against you before, tbh, was surprised I beat you with a Songhai deck
I have tried this deck but my conscience won’t let me play it so I’ll stick to control Zir’an

[deathsadvocate]

Sad to see you have gone to the dark-side and picked one of the evil big top four and abandoned Vanar.

Vanar would have been rewarding long term, they just take a long time to get pro with and have a lot of traps that are easy to fall into, but it absolutely can keep pace with any of the top four, it will usually come down to the better player.

But I am glad you are having fun, and Burn Ziran also takes some skill, so if you are enjoying it that’s the most important thing. At least its not wanderer or proper burn.

[phayze]

What are the evil big top four?

1. WandeRag
2. Fault + Kha
3. Aggro Zir’an
4. DW Maehv? ArtiHai?

[atrestia]

I’m on my way to becoming a SpellHai Shidai player.

[deathsadvocate]

Fault+Kha

Burn Ziran

Wander anything

Egg Rag.

[phayze]

Egg Rag is a thing now huh? Interesting

[unktrial1]

What do you mean “egg rag is a thing”?
Have you never gotten hit by a Ripper + buff or Ripper + Wild inceptor + buff instant 10-20 damage combos?

The toxicity of egg rag is higher than Ziran and Fault, right after Wanderer Rag.

[boronian]

Deathsadvocate won’t like that at all

[phayze]

Huh, I’ve never actually met one. All I see are Wanderer, Trial or DW Maehv, Aggro Zir’an and the occasional meme deck

[deathsadvocate]

Egg rag has a pretty high skill cap, but it is pretty blatantly over the top and has a half dozen variations. The big top four have been featured heavily in all the major tournaments. Ziran also has a surprisingly high skill cap but it also has a fairly low floor while being blatantly over the top.

Most Trials/Dying wish lists are usually highroll decks that steamroll people with zero effort or lose badly. But the appeal of easy games, devastating victories, and a fun theme makes them very popular. Where as the higher skill cap lists are played by the smaller minority of people that have taken the time to master them.

…and Wanderer is all of the above, highrolly, top deck RNG bs, easy games, op, with both a low floor and high ceiling skill cap.

@atrestia please no.

@unktrial1 personally I do not find Egg rag to really be toxic as it is a highskill cap deck with a lot of counterplay, however it is pretty blatantly overpowered.
Toxic decks for me in order of most toxic are Spellhai>Wanderer>Burn Ziran>Khanumkha.

[phayze]

I find SoloHai a lot of fun and have been mastering that recently.

Naturally, since I main Vet, I’ve been looking for Vet decks and I ended up with FaultKha, tried it, didn’t like it. Felt slow and boring, was told to look into Reliquarian Vet which I might do at some point (when I can afford to make Reliquarians)
What do you think of ReliqVet and are there other vet decks you would recommend?
I have a soft spot for SimCity Zirix and Combo Sajj and anything that runs Ciphyron I am willing to give a try. I have tried a little of the replace Ciph list and it’s definitely fun but I’m not sure if it’s competitive enough.

[deathsadvocate]

Feel free to check my masterthread, always glad to steer people away from burn:

DeathsAdvocate's Master Thread: Eternal Trials of Mythron

Master Thread With Rotations gone I had a ton of updating to do both to my decks during rotations and the ones right before rotations. Here is where you can find all my most recent deck lists for this expansion. It is a lot easier to just collect and do updates in one space rather then making many different threads as I have done in the past. So I am just going to start small and expand slowly, so be sure to check back for regular updates, both new decks, and improvements to existing ones! I …

I am slowly getting around to updating it again. I do have a Panther/Reliq list up there, but it is mostly a meme. Few other things that might suit your taste that are currently in it:

“Sand Andreas” Zirix is a sim city/fault hybrid list. It is a lot of fun and crazy strong.

Combo Sajj is alive and well, but still remains a tier 2 deck due to the large amount of counters in the meta and it has high skill cap, see my “One Shot Robot” and “Ascension” Sajj.

Big Ciph is really solid and straightforward.

[unktrial1]

Egg rag’s toxicity is pretty infamous. Even the people who created the egg decks are feeling queasy playing their own decks. Take a look at these descriptions:

https://duelspot.com/deck/egg-ragnora/
"Honestly, the deck is pretty toxic and can win any matchup because you can deal stupid amounts of burst damage at just about any point in time. "

https://duelspot.com/deck/raggro/
“Rippers are stupid. Having a BBS that is an answer or die threat is quite good, as it turns out. Ragnora also has access to the world’s stupidest burst combo, egg+hatch+Greater Fortitude on 6 mana for 10 damage. And it turns out that burst combos which deal 2/5 of a genreal’s HP work best in aggro.”

https://duelspot.com/deck/tier-1-5-budget-otk-rag-s-rank/
“So this deck began as a way to ease myself into the whole “budget to S-rank” climbs many S-rankers do to pass time. “Ease” was an understatement. Budget Ragnora tore up ladder, carrying me from bronze to ~rank 3 at which point I switched to faie for the majority of the remaining climb because even on a budget, rag was broken, fighting constructed decks on equal turns and cheesing veterans and noobs alike out of existence”