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Zarathur Gencon '16 T4
Submitted by
exveer
, Aug 05 2016 03:35 AM | Last updated Aug 13 2016 10:27 PM
The deck plays a little bit unusually. It aims to take over each planet's command with elite hammers, which have the benefit of being generally unsnipeable. It doesn't take over all planets at once, and slowly builds its mass as the game progressed. As the game comes to a close, either through game mechanics (going home at Planet 1), or Teleportariums, it will load up elites on the last planet to have more hit points than your opponent can deal with.
It's far from perfect; due to how little flexibility you get with Elite decks, there are very few moving parts. The elite line up can vary (I went with Prodigal Sons over Vicious Bloodletter intentionally, because 3 hammers is awesome, but I can see an argument for the alternative), but the number is about right. The 2-shield cards can very, but the number is about right. Ultimately you see some weird choices because of this (i.e., 1 Archon's Terror; 1 Possessed, etc.). YMMV
Gencon Matchups were (I'll fix the question marks as I remember them): - ??? (Win) - Nazdreg (Loss) - Shadowsun (Win) - Eldorath (Win) - Worr (Win) - Nazdreg (Win)
Top 16: Cato (Win) Top 8: Eldorath (Win) Top 4: Kith Lockdown (Loss)
Comment regarding Kith: I've not done much testing against Kith in the last few months, as my local group favors Morn. The deck has decent game against Morn -- and probably most of the time against Kith. But his start blew me out of the water. Turn 1 Palace with 4 planets locked down on command, and he hit my Warlord assignment on turn 1, thereby actually winning 4 planets. I definitely underestimated Kith's current power, as I thought the deck more or less dead, and therefore took out Vicious Bloodletter. That said, under normal circumstances, I might be okay if I can get a use or two out of The Prince's Might. But I was never able to get on my feet with his explosive start. qq.
Sample Hand:
Total Shields: 0
Average Shields Per Event/Attachment: 0
Total Command: 0
Average Command Per Unit: 0
we are playing a similar chaos elite deck with a similar playstyle in our group(load up on discounted elites on blue planets and move them via teleportarium). except we use kugath, master warpsmith, and gut and pillage. with kugath we could take advantage of gleeful plaguebeast+warp storm. sathariel and warp rift might be a good addition to our own variant deck. thanks for sharing this top zarathur deck
Beautiful deck mate, too bad you lost at top 4, i would love to see this monster on the finals. My second favorite deck of the tournament, after OOE ofc!!!
Interesting list. I think I'll try something similar when Vha'Shaelhur drops. Probably swap Firestorm for +2 Terror and +1 Gut & Pillage. Maybe swap something for a single Warpstorm and/or Gleeful Plague Beast based on how prevalent swarm is in my meta at that time.
I've been toying around with a similar deck myself though I'm using Rogue Trader over the Void Pirate for the extra resources to play the elites. I wish there was some strong three cost chaos (rather than the usual suspects of Noise Marine Zealots or Seer of Deceit) creatures that we could include to get more work out of Infernal Gateway.
Why Zara over Kugath: I like Zarathur's kit a lot more than Kugath's. Infernal Gateway + Flamers is phenomenal and is better than the liability-strewn signature unit that comes with Kugath. The Support techs well with a number of cards, and the Mark of Chaos puts a ton of damage out (for example, Mark of Chaos + Flamers did 12 damage in one battle, before the Combat phase began). While I believe Kugath would have been better in the Kith match, I do not believe it to be the overall stronger play, especially with the weird rules that surround indirect damage.
Void Pirate: Cards are worth more resources than resources, generally. Making sure you find STC, or Splintered Path, or Promise of Glory is better than 3 resources, in my experience. Plus, if you don't have an Elite drop on any turn, it's pretty detrimental. And if the planets align to favor money planets, you really want those Void Pirates.
It's niche because it relies on a signature support + unit, but if you get Shrine of Warpflame + Sathariel rolling, it gets ugly real quick. Endlessly recurring Tzeentch's Firestorm for shields and a quick 1 resource blast at opposing units over and over again is really fun.
I mean, yes, it's bonkers when it goes off with the signature support, but the support is just extra. Simply having the access to an in-combat Flamers is enough and, as you pointed out, Satharial means that you only have to find one of your two Infernal Gateways to have access to the trick.
I really like this deck, but I've made some major adjustments to this deck due to lack of 3 core sets (only have access to 2). I decided to go a bit different route and experiment and allied with Orks.
Army: (23)
x2 Void Pirate
x1 Rogue Trader
x1 Splintered Path Acolyte
x3 Infectious Nurgling
x1 Chaos Fanatics
x2 Skrap Nabba
x4 Zarathur's Flamers
x1 Possessed
x2 Sathariel The Invokator
x3 Prodigal Sons Disciple
x2 Soul Grinder
x1 black Legion Heldrake
Attachments: (4)
x1 Mark of Chaos
x3 Huge Chain-Choppa
Events: (16)
x1 The Prince's Might
x3 Tzeentch's Firestorm
x1 Promise Of Glory
x1 Outflank'Em
x2 Infernal Gateway
x2 Backlash
x3 Warp Rift
x1 Made Ta Fight
x1 Squig Bombin'
x1 Warpstorm
Support: (7)
x1 Shrine of Warpflame
x3 STC Fragment
x3 Corrupted Teleportarium
Economy: to offset Promise of Glory, Rogue Trader and Skrap Nabbas help. Plus, I feel like it's good to play them out on the field to force opponent to spend resources/cards to try to block those cards. Also, as an alternative, if Skrap Nabba goes to the same planets as your big units and "hides" behind them, if they don't die, you can have more "insurance" that they will keep generating +2resources for more than just 1 round (otherwise opponent could kill Nabbas if they were by themselves). Opponent will be forced to go to those planets so you don't get the +2R bonus.
Units:
I took x3 vs. x2 Prodigal Sons Disciple because of his 1 unpreventable damage, which is spiked by Zarathur. Took out Helldrake to decrease cost curve. Also, the Infectious Nurglings are cheap and fantastic with Armorbane if you attach Huge Chain Choppa to them. If Zarathur is there, you get 7 total armorbane points! Huge Chain Choppa is also great on Zarathur's Flamers- they swing for 6 (+1 with Zarathur), then you sacrifice them for another 2 points of damage. So potentially there are at least 6 targets for Huge Chain Choppa, plus the attachment is cheap.
Tricks:
I chose Made Ta Fight over Fall Back- the elites have good attack, and with Fallback you have to wait till next turn, and your Elites will arrive at the planet exhausted. Plus, you have to wait full combat round to ready them. Made Ta Fight can help win planets/fights immediately vs. waiting for the next round and can be a neat trick during combat that surprises opponent and forces him to discard shields.
Swapping planets to set up your advantage and specific color is amazing! Plus, opponent can spend a lot of resources to set up their forces somewhere for NOTHING if you use Warp Rift. What a fantastic card. And then, Warpstorm I feel is a must. Those 4 cards can be fished out with the Invokator- he is an awesome unit for this specific reason. He can also fish out Tzeentch Firestorm and Infernal Gateway, so there are a lot of targets in the discard pile potentially.
Let me know if anyone tried this setup and if it worked out for you. Thanks!
Exveer, you mentioned your local group likes Morn. Any chance to take a look at their decks?
How did you decide on the number (11) of elites to include? This is lower than other elite decks I've played, but at least Zarathur's sig squad is strong and a decent play with some other cappers.
Also seems like a fairly high number of cards (4-5) needs to be drawn each round to consistently play an elite each time.
Regarding Infectious Nurglings: I actually had them slotted in my deck before the tournament, but had not had a chance to test with them before the tournament. As such, I removed them. Running them with Zarathur seems bonkers good, though, for their cost. Plus, obviously, they are another Infernal Gateway target. But as I said, haven't actually tested with them yet.
Regarding Fall Back: Fall Back is more Doom meta than a battle-save. Elites rarely die organically unless I want them to (and it allows me to make a number of safe bluffs, where if I didn't have Fall Back the bluff would be very costly if it failed).
Regarding Warp Storm: I haven't run Warp Storm in Zarathur in a while because, frankly, I can't find the slots. I'd like to have it as a tool, but I have no idea what I'd take out. That's true for probably 12 other cards, as well. So it goes.
Regarding posting the Morn list: As it's not my list, I'm not comfortable posting it. I'll mention it though. No promises.
Regarding the number of elites: There wasn't a particularly mathematical approach to that number; I want enough Elites to drop one every turn (STC). When I was running 9 I didn't find enough. Once I got to 11, I never found myself wanting. With card slots at a premium, I'm not going to force in extra Elites just because.
Regarding drawing 4-5 per turn: That sounds about right, although I haven't mathed it. I almost always go for card planets over economy planets, since a lot of cards in the deck equate to economy anyway. Given that most of the Elites in the deck have 2 or more hammers, and a good number of said Elites cannot realistically be sniped, I wind up winning most planets I have an Elite at. And in the worst case scenario of having no elites and a bunch of money, Tzeentch's Firestorm is happy to take my money.
How necessary do you find having all three STC Fragments, with regard to ending up with multiples in hand and the like? Might just be my local club but I don't actually see a massive amount of support destruction so running more than two of a unique card rarely pays off for me. Surprised not to see Staff of Change too if you're planning on definitely winning command one planet at a time.
Regarding STC: 3 is required. It's not about keeping it in play, it's about finding it consistently. If they happen to kill it, it's nice to have the second around, but it's really more about consistency than durability.
The deck is so tight with the Elite cards that I don't have room for cards like Staff of Change, sadly.
Fair enough, I guess if you have to get a certain number of elite units into play per turn then it becomes a necessity. Ace deck, would not like to come against it!
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15 Comments
Interesting deck. Why Zarathur over Ku'gath?
we are playing a similar chaos elite deck with a similar playstyle in our group(load up on discounted elites on blue planets and move them via teleportarium). except we use kugath, master warpsmith, and gut and pillage. with kugath we could take advantage of gleeful plaguebeast+warp storm. sathariel and warp rift might be a good addition to our own variant deck. thanks for sharing this top zarathur deck
Beautiful deck mate, too bad you lost at top 4, i would love to see this monster on the finals. My second favorite deck of the tournament, after OOE ofc!!!
Interesting list. I think I'll try something similar when Vha'Shaelhur drops. Probably swap Firestorm for +2 Terror and +1 Gut & Pillage. Maybe swap something for a single Warpstorm and/or Gleeful Plague Beast based on how prevalent swarm is in my meta at that time.
I've been toying around with a similar deck myself though I'm using Rogue Trader over the Void Pirate for the extra resources to play the elites. I wish there was some strong three cost chaos (rather than the usual suspects of Noise Marine Zealots or Seer of Deceit) creatures that we could include to get more work out of Infernal Gateway.
Why Zara over Kugath: I like Zarathur's kit a lot more than Kugath's. Infernal Gateway + Flamers is phenomenal and is better than the liability-strewn signature unit that comes with Kugath. The Support techs well with a number of cards, and the Mark of Chaos puts a ton of damage out (for example, Mark of Chaos + Flamers did 12 damage in one battle, before the Combat phase began). While I believe Kugath would have been better in the Kith match, I do not believe it to be the overall stronger play, especially with the weird rules that surround indirect damage.
Void Pirate: Cards are worth more resources than resources, generally. Making sure you find STC, or Splintered Path, or Promise of Glory is better than 3 resources, in my experience. Plus, if you don't have an Elite drop on any turn, it's pretty detrimental. And if the planets align to favor money planets, you really want those Void Pirates.
It's niche because it relies on a signature support + unit, but if you get Shrine of Warpflame + Sathariel rolling, it gets ugly real quick. Endlessly recurring Tzeentch's Firestorm for shields and a quick 1 resource blast at opposing units over and over again is really fun.
I mean, yes, it's bonkers when it goes off with the signature support, but the support is just extra. Simply having the access to an in-combat Flamers is enough and, as you pointed out, Satharial means that you only have to find one of your two Infernal Gateways to have access to the trick.
I really like this deck, but I've made some major adjustments to this deck due to lack of 3 core sets (only have access to 2). I decided to go a bit different route and experiment and allied with Orks.
Army: (23)
x2 Void Pirate
x1 Rogue Trader
x1 Splintered Path Acolyte
x3 Infectious Nurgling
x1 Chaos Fanatics
x2 Skrap Nabba
x4 Zarathur's Flamers
x1 Possessed
x2 Sathariel The Invokator
x3 Prodigal Sons Disciple
x2 Soul Grinder
x1 black Legion Heldrake
Attachments: (4)
x1 Mark of Chaos
x3 Huge Chain-Choppa
Events: (16)
x1 The Prince's Might
x3 Tzeentch's Firestorm
x1 Promise Of Glory
x1 Outflank'Em
x2 Infernal Gateway
x2 Backlash
x3 Warp Rift
x1 Made Ta Fight
x1 Squig Bombin'
x1 Warpstorm
Support: (7)
x1 Shrine of Warpflame
x3 STC Fragment
x3 Corrupted Teleportarium
Economy: to offset Promise of Glory, Rogue Trader and Skrap Nabbas help. Plus, I feel like it's good to play them out on the field to force opponent to spend resources/cards to try to block those cards. Also, as an alternative, if Skrap Nabba goes to the same planets as your big units and "hides" behind them, if they don't die, you can have more "insurance" that they will keep generating +2resources for more than just 1 round (otherwise opponent could kill Nabbas if they were by themselves). Opponent will be forced to go to those planets so you don't get the +2R bonus.
Units:
I took x3 vs. x2 Prodigal Sons Disciple because of his 1 unpreventable damage, which is spiked by Zarathur. Took out Helldrake to decrease cost curve. Also, the Infectious Nurglings are cheap and fantastic with Armorbane if you attach Huge Chain Choppa to them. If Zarathur is there, you get 7 total armorbane points! Huge Chain Choppa is also great on Zarathur's Flamers- they swing for 6 (+1 with Zarathur), then you sacrifice them for another 2 points of damage. So potentially there are at least 6 targets for Huge Chain Choppa, plus the attachment is cheap.
Tricks:
I chose Made Ta Fight over Fall Back- the elites have good attack, and with Fallback you have to wait till next turn, and your Elites will arrive at the planet exhausted. Plus, you have to wait full combat round to ready them. Made Ta Fight can help win planets/fights immediately vs. waiting for the next round and can be a neat trick during combat that surprises opponent and forces him to discard shields.
Swapping planets to set up your advantage and specific color is amazing! Plus, opponent can spend a lot of resources to set up their forces somewhere for NOTHING
if you use Warp Rift. What a fantastic card. And then, Warpstorm I feel is a must. Those 4 cards can be fished out with the Invokator- he is an awesome unit for this specific reason. He can also fish out Tzeentch Firestorm and Infernal Gateway, so there are a lot of targets in the discard pile potentially.
Let me know if anyone tried this setup and if it worked out for you. Thanks!
Exveer, you mentioned your local group likes Morn. Any chance to take a look at their decks?
How did you decide on the number (11) of elites to include? This is lower than other elite decks I've played, but at least Zarathur's sig squad is strong and a decent play with some other cappers.
Also seems like a fairly high number of cards (4-5) needs to be drawn each round to consistently play an elite each time.
Regarding Infectious Nurglings: I actually had them slotted in my deck before the tournament, but had not had a chance to test with them before the tournament. As such, I removed them. Running them with Zarathur seems bonkers good, though, for their cost. Plus, obviously, they are another Infernal Gateway target. But as I said, haven't actually tested with them yet.
Regarding Fall Back: Fall Back is more Doom meta than a battle-save. Elites rarely die organically unless I want them to (and it allows me to make a number of safe bluffs, where if I didn't have Fall Back the bluff would be very costly if it failed).
Regarding Warp Storm: I haven't run Warp Storm in Zarathur in a while because, frankly, I can't find the slots. I'd like to have it as a tool, but I have no idea what I'd take out. That's true for probably 12 other cards, as well. So it goes.
Regarding posting the Morn list: As it's not my list, I'm not comfortable posting it. I'll mention it though. No promises.
Regarding the number of elites: There wasn't a particularly mathematical approach to that number; I want enough Elites to drop one every turn (STC). When I was running 9 I didn't find enough. Once I got to 11, I never found myself wanting. With card slots at a premium, I'm not going to force in extra Elites just because.
Regarding drawing 4-5 per turn: That sounds about right, although I haven't mathed it. I almost always go for card planets over economy planets, since a lot of cards in the deck equate to economy anyway. Given that most of the Elites in the deck have 2 or more hammers, and a good number of said Elites cannot realistically be sniped, I wind up winning most planets I have an Elite at. And in the worst case scenario of having no elites and a bunch of money, Tzeentch's Firestorm is happy to take my money.
Regarding STC: 3 is required. It's not about keeping it in play, it's about finding it consistently. If they happen to kill it, it's nice to have the second around, but it's really more about consistency than durability.
The deck is so tight with the Elite cards that I don't have room for cards like Staff of Change, sadly.