Zir’An, The Vanguard
Introducing Grindforge
Strategy
I was really happy with the formatting on my recent Surge Swarm decklist thread so I thought I’d apply it to my one true love: Healyonar. Healyonar’s in kind of a weird space right now, CPG’s tried and seemingly failed to diversify the archetype, causing only 1/3 new cards to seem usable for a Zir’An deck that centers around healing. In the past I’ve been very happy with my Zir’An Smash and Tempo Vitriol builds which had me getting increasingly aggressive with the archetype as a response to shifts in the meta. Nowadays I don’t see the hyper-aggressive Tempo Vitriol build working as well so instead I’ve been shifting my thinking towards a more value-oriented approach which I’m presenting for your consideration today. I think it might be the first explicit grinder deck that I’ve seen suggested for Duelyst, so that means I have a new concept to briefly explain.
Most people are familiar with concepts like aggro, tempo, value, control etc but “grind” or “grinder” is far less commonly used as a concept. The most famous example I know is Grinder Mage in HearthStone and the principle is similar here. A grinder deck draws matches out to slowly accrue value over time, wearing the opponent down slightly more than you yourself are getting ground down to then end the match with a small burst of late-game damage. Grinder Mage isn’t a heal deck so it plays very differently but that’s what my self-described Grindforge deck is trying to achieve: grinding the opponent down faster than they can do to you.
The method for achieving this should be fairly intuitive: you just outheal them. This deck is stuffed with effects that keep your General healthy and kicking as the match goes one. You have your Clerics, Mystics, Scintillas, Oaths, Sunstrikes and CoLs to restore at least 31 Health if you use all cards, not counting Hallowed Ground and Blood Surge heals. When things go well, you’re very hard to kill. The way you want to play this is to use Zir’An as the central point for almost everything you do (as is typical for this archetype): you want her to do a lot of the damage and you want to spend most of your healing effects on her as well. Sunforge Lancer is a key card for this, but because of the deck’s slower approach you don’t need to stack every single possible buff onto her as you can in one turn, controlling the board has to take priority a lot of the time. In order to do that you’re also packing a huge helping of control cards. Fortified Assault, Tempest, Sunstrike, CoL, Sunriser, Sterope’s True Strikes and even a single Martyrdom. Tempest is key against Wraithlings and Walls while Martyrdom is specific tech against Mechaz0r, Unbirth, Second Wish and even Magesworn on occasion, or to just get you of a jam. The goal is to maintain your minions and use your removal to simultaneously control the board and trigger your Purity effects.
Aside from Martyrdom (weird for a slow deck) you might’ve noticed two other unorthodox picks: Lightchaser and Vigilator. People are down on Lightchaser but it’s honestly a good early-game card and very useful against decks that draw your cards for you (Magmar and anything running Blaze Hound or Spelljammer). One or two procs aren’t hard to generate for this deck and it survives CC nowadays so you can use it as a Mana Spring grabber and as an Afterglow target even if it gets dispelled that way. People complain that it’s weak to removal but why would I ever complain about my opponent spending removal on my 2-drop? Moving on: I was just wrong on Vigilator and for the same reason I was wrong about Protosensor and right about Void Talon: having a minion encased in a 0/10 shell before it activates is even more useful than I had anticipated. Vigilator’s effect is very nice when you get it off, but a near-guaranteed (in most cases) 3/4 3-drop is so valuable. Many decks can take out an aggressively placed 3/4, even if their board is empty. A 0/10 not so much, and I can immediately attack and then proc a Purity trigger with that freshly damaged Vigilator. In a pinch you could even heal for 10 using Martyrdom. I’ve been enjoying the card very much in my testing with this deck so far.
Notable Exclusions
- Azure Herald is a great card but the deck has plenty of healing already and Lightchaser has more of a potential to pressure and escalate. I prefer Mystic over Herald because of the flexibility and higher attack of the former.
- Draining Wave can be great in Healyonar but because of the shift towards a grinder build the loss of Health and card advantage stings a lot more than it used to. Fortified Assault may be weaker up front but it also develops Hallowed Ground which lets you get a lot more value in this slower build.
- Lucent Beam is a victim of the 40-card deck limit because I really need Tempest to deal with snowballing decks. There’s plenty of single-target removal in this deck already and a lot of the healing procs happen at EoT anyway so it’s not as reliably strong anyway. If I discover I need this card for that finishing burst I’ll reconsider it.
- Gold Vitriol: What could be better for a value deck than Gold Vitriol right? Well, I just haven’t figured out how I’d fit this thing in yet. Maybe I replace Sanctify? The truth is that it seems like an unreliable card in an Artifact-unfriendly meta. I’m ambivalent about my decision though.
- Aperion’s Claim: I don’t own Aperion’s Claim so I can’t speak to its effectiveness just yet. I can imagine it as a replacement for Martyrdom but I really don’t know if it’s worth investing 7 Mana and an entire turn in just removal when I have so much removal for multiple threats already. Plus it comes in too late against Gate to the Undervault anyway.
- Excelsious: I’ve written extensively about this card’s problems in the past so I won’t repeat them here.
- Any Dispel: Between all the removal and the Martyrdom I don’t think I need a Sun Bloom. It sucks against ControlMar regardless of what you do and Lightbender and EMP destroy your own strategy so it just doesn’t seem worth an inclusion.
Key Insights
- Taking Punches: Generally you don’t want your General to be punching beefy threats but Zir’An can really take quite the beating here. Punching something and then giving it the old Circle of Life treatment is completely legitimate if it means you can save your board and pull a few more tricks out.
- Minions as Support: Most decks want to have their minions do most of the heavy lifting but that logic doesn’t apply here. You can have your minions fight–and Lightchaser should be used for precisely that–but most of your stuff is support for Zir’An. Lancer and Scintilla go in the backline and everything else should value staying alive over dealing a smidgen of damage.
- Slow and Steady: I’ve touched on this already; you don’t need to close out games as quickly as possible. Some opponents require an aggressive approach of course, but often you’re the one taking their time to close things out.
- Building Hallow: There is an art to placing Hallow Ground tiles, there really is. My favorite openers are P1T1 diagonal Sunrise Cleric with HG on the center space for a turn 2 proc, or a P1T1 diagonal Lightchaser into T2 Lancer on the spring and Sanctify on the Chaser so you end your turn with board control, +1 Attack on Zir’An and a 5/3 Chaser that’s body blocking your Lancer. Greatness.
- Chasing the Light: Speaking of Lightchaser; do not over-invest in these little guys. Getting them big and strong is a great feeling but losing all that effort to dispel or removal is terrible. As rule of thumb: play like you would if it weren’t on the board (conserving card advantage) and only actively buff it even you can get value from it immediately. Don’t put all those eggs in one basket, just don’t do it.
Again, there are a number of things I really really love about this deck and some that I really dislike about this deck, either in terms of strengths and weaknesses or just my personal preferences. Let’s call them the Beautiful and the Horrible.
The Beautiful
- Fresh Concept: Be one of the cool kids and play a fresh concept! I know a lot of decks have played like grinder decks in the past (Disruption Faie comes to mind) but the approach hasn’t gotten old and stale just yet so get in before the flies start smelling what you’re cooking with.
- Theme: My version of this deck is way thematic, everything just looks like it belongs together, making you feel like part of the family rather than some impartial contractor. C’mon, even Healing Mystic is at least like a second cousin once removed, know what I’m saying?
- Synergy: It’s a lot of fun to play synergistic decks. You can pull out some insane power spikes when the opponent lets you. There’s nothing quite like a double-Sunriser-into-triple-proc play for 12 immolating damage that you were only able to pull off because you were smart about placing your Hallow and your damaged minions.
- Skill: Playing Healyonar in general requires a lot of skill and it’s no different for the Vanguard build. It’s even more skill-centric than usual because matches tend to take more time which in turn requires you to play around more of the enemy’s threats.
- Comebacks: Everybody loves an underdog and coming back from the brink of annihilation after the opponent brought you within an inch of your death (but failing to finish you off) feels wonderful every time. Circle of Life is great for this, especially if you can use it to clear a body blocker so Zir’An can counter-kill with like 4 Health to spare.
- Honesty: Finally, this deck is very very fair. I complained that my own Warlord deck is cancer and honestly, this deck is like chemotherapy by comparison. I don’t expect it to heal the meta by itself but you can feel good about yourself playing and winning with this deck.
The Horrible
- Weak Alone: As is typical, the Vanguard deck suffers from relying mostly on cards that are individually very weak. You need to generate synergy to do much of anything and failing to do so just leaves you falling flat on your face.
- General Disruption: Acting and moving Zir’An is absolutely crucial for this deck so strategies that disrupt her by stunning her or impeding her movement can cause a lot of problems. Vanar is a big culprit of this and while Zir’An is great at tanking Glacial Fissure there are limits to what she can take.
- Runners: It’s been true since forever that Zir’An needs things to get hurt so she can virtue signal with her divine healing. Opponents that can afford to open matches running away can be a pain to deal with because they make it very difficult for you to develop some of your effects.
- Soloists: In a similar vein, the deck does much better against minion-based decks than solo decks. Most of the removal requires target enemy minions and lacking them makes it hard to get things moving.
- Dispel: Lightbenders and EMPs are probably the worst things that can happen to Zir’An and their popularity require you to play around both as well as you can. Don’t overextend into removal if you can help it at all and try to make sure you can reconstitute power after getting hit. This is another reason why it’s so important to keep your minions alive: even without their effects you can still control the board and proc fresh Purity effects with them.
Troubled Matchups
I’ve been trying this deck at Diamond 3-4 with some success (Replay 1, Replay 2) but I have to be real with you: this deck won’t compete with ControlMar. It’s a fair deck that can have fair fights with other fair decks. It’s pretty good against Spellhai, Wallnar, Wraithling swarm, Gate, Banglehai, Decib0t combo and even Eggmar but it doesn’t reach all the way up the meta chain, or so I’m betting. You’re very weak against dispel-heavy opponents so place well against Lightbender and rely on an established board (minions and HG) against EMP. You’re not going to be steamrolling over the meta but you can do well.
I haven’t explored this deck enough to give you hard recommendations so don’t go around crafting cards specifically based on my suggestions just yet. I intend to play a bunch more with it and will report back with my finding. I might’ve just been getting lucky so far or I might really be onto something: time will tell. For now, have fun. Next time I’ll probably be asking you all for advice on how to make a Zeal deck not suck the chrome off doorknobs.
Please post your thoughts and decklists below, I hope you enjoyed the effort I put into this.
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