Welcome every one MMDoC fan!

As many of you probably know, a new tournament has been announced to start soon. The main feature of the tournaments is that you can only choose one hero, but can switch cards and entire deck if you wish between different games.

In this series of posts I will share my thoughts on hero line-ups of different factions and what heroes are more suited for the upcoming tournament.

I will cover only STD format, because I'm much more familiar with it, but I suggest you register for both formats, as I have already done.

Before I start, though, let's decide what are strengths and weaknesses in this format are.
First of all, and I think the most important, you have to play a hero that has several different play styles. Because if your deck can do only one thing, no matter how strong it is in it, you will get easily countered. So, HERO DIVERSITY will be my first rating.
Secondly, the heroes will be rated on how they can adapt their playstyle to the opponent at hand. How easy or hard it is for them to add different technical cards to react to different opponents. ADAPTABILITY is the second rating.
And last but not the least, the heroes will be rated on how likely they are to get back in the game if they fall behind due to matchup, bad starting hand or mistakes. Having access to board clears, ways to rebuild board and card drawing/tutoring is very important here. RESILIENCE is the third rating.

Having said that let's move on to the first faction in this highlight:

HAVEN

One thing common for all STD Haven heroes is that all of them have access to Light school of magic. That means that every hero has potential access to dispels. Another notable thing is the Haven fortune called Tree of Truth, that is used to dispel enemy fortunes. Compared to Magic Deal or Price of the Void (neutral fortunes available to all factions), it is cheaper and has no additional costs (sacrificing a creature or taking damage, respectively).

SIEGFRID

Siegfrid is strong, no discussions. He is probably the strongest Haven hero in STD format. However, this is the tournament where he is much less useful. Siegfrid is pretty one-dimensional hero. He is good at quickly playing Barracks (he is I think the only hero who can play 2 Barracks on T2), ramping them up with cheap creatures and using Blind Justicars to clear the opponent blockers. If your opponent can shut down your barracks, you are left with very few options.
This is accentuated by the fact that you have limited access to technical cards. Yes, you have potential access to dispels, Warding Inquisitors and Angel Protectors, but actually utilising them on Siegfrid is very hard with 0 starting Magic. Dealing with opponent threats is also difficult, you are limited to either Broken Bridge them back or having a big stack with Blind Justicar in hand.
While not having board clears of his own, Siegfrid can rebuild the board fast if he has a couple of barracks in play, especially with self-tutoring cards like Griffin Crossbowmen and Griffin Legionnaire, unless you shut his barracks down.

HERO DIVERSITY: LOW
ADAPTABILITY: LOW
RESILIENCE: AVERAGE

OVERALL RATING: LOW-AVERAGE

CASSANDRA

Cassandra is a staple Haven hero. As all Seeker heroes she starts with 1 extra fortune stat which lets her play Barracks on T2 (via Haven fortune Construction). While being slower that Siegfrid, she can support her stacks with magic and angels, having some variability in deck builds.
She has a great access to technical cards doubling as creatures, even if they don't help ramping her stacks, like Benevolent Angel, Angel Protector and Warding Inquisitor.
You also have a way to deal with enemy threats, with Lightning Bolt, Lightning Strike and Blinding Light at your disposal.
Cassandra has a limited access to board clears with Word of Light and can't retake the board as easily as Siegfrid does. Unlike Siegfrid, she can easily restock her hand with Night of the Rising Moon, if she is built for it, discarding unnecessary technical cards and drawing 4 at a little cost.

HERO DIVERSITY: AVERAGE
ADAPTABILITY: HIGH
RESILIENCE: AVERAGE

OVERALL RATING: AVERAGE-HIGH

JEZZIEL

Let's be honest, Jezziel decks have been relegated to the status of "fun deck" a long time ago. While Invoker stat change opened up rush possibilities for other faction heroes (Kal-Azaar 3/2/X rushes and Mother 2/4/0, 2/6/0 and 3/6/0 rushes), it did nothing for Jezziel. Haven doesn't have 1 mana creature with 2 attack, their 2/3 mana options aren't great either, her hero ability doesn't help rush, like it does for Necro, Inferno and Stronghold Invokers, and she has problems running Barracks, either straight or via Construction. However, she makes up a bit with several different ways of playing: you can play Light creatures with support spells, you can try cheating big Angels in play via Sunrise or you can go for Time Jump Mercenary OTK. This makes it harder for your opponent to straight up counter you.
3 magic schools give a lot of opportunities for technical cards, be it dispels, utility angels, protecting your big creatures with Holy Sacrifice and Martyr, or stalling for late game OTK with Celestial Armour and Cyclone. Utility angels can also be recycled with Sunrise or brought back with Town Portal to trigger their ETB again next turn.
With 3 magic schools you also have a lot of options of dealing with enemy threats, with Prime adding possibilities of TPing them back, playing Disintegration or Void Ripple.
Board clears are still not available and having 0 starting fortune, you will have a hard time drawing. If you lose a board, you better have a stalling mechanism ready in place until you can slowly get back into the game.

HERO DIVERSITY: HIGH
ADAPTABILITY: HIGH
RESILIENCE: LOW

OVERALL RATING: LOW-AVERAGE

KIERAN

Kieran has been considered to be the best Haven hero before Siegfrid era began. His 2 starting Might allows him to play Barracks on T2, and access to Prime with Time Jump gives him a strong finish. Like Siegfrid, however, he is pretty one-dimensional as well. Kieran gameplan consists of playing early Barracks, ramping the stacks up and finishing with Blinding Light, Time Jump, Blind Justicar or a combination of the above. It's possible to try building him Jezziel style, with angels and Sunrise, however, to surprise your opponent.
Access to Light and Prime magic gives Kieran ability to dispel and spot removal, however it comes at a price - removal is costly, both in terms of resources and Magic stat. He lack Cassandra's Air school which gives her an edge in earlier supporting spell damage. With 0 starting Fortune it's basically impossible to use Campfires, Broken Bridges and Construction, which cuts on his stability.
Kieran's hero ability adds little in terms of board clears, he is having a tougher time rebuilding lost board and card drawing options are really limited.

HERO DIVERSITY: AVERAGE
ADAPTABILITY: HIGH
RESILIENCE: LOW

OVERALL RATING: LOW-AVERAGE

MORGAN

Morgan, while being a bit of a meme with "209-card Morgan" decks, is pretty strong and has quite a few options in deck composition. You can build him in standard Barracks style, make a Light creatures deck or angels/fliers deck supported by Frozen Wave and other water-based spells.
Access to Water gives Morgan access to a mix of assorted AOE damage, buffs and protective spells. He may encounter some problems with single strong threats, however, due to lack of Prime/Air single target nukes.
He has strong board clears, and can be built to have good draw engines, if you need it. His passive ability, when he gets it going, also helps him survive if he falls behind in board control. His problem lies in his early phase, as he is a bit slow at the start, and tends to have quite a few high cost/high requirements cards. If he can survive the initial rush though, he is very likely to recover.

HERO DIVERSITY: HIGH
ADAPTABILITY: HIGH
RESILIENCE: HIGH

OVERALL RATING: HIGH

ALIA

Alia, having Fire magic available, bring a new possible play style to Haven table - Mass Rage control, which utilises combat protection/retaliation abilities of Haven creatures while limiting opponent's ability to outmaneuver/overcome them with forced attack at the beginning of each turn. Moreover, Alia's hero ability let's her heal her creature in the lategame, removing any damage from last turn attacks. At the same time, you can still play her with Barracks or angels, if you choose.
Fire magic lets her utilise buffs and low cost supportive damage spells, like Fire Bolt and Forked Firebolt to finish any creatures damaged by previous turn retaliation. Dispelling is harder though if you play her with Mass Rage, due to the lack of cheap targeted dispel. What Alia lacks is high-damage, single target spells, so she may have problems dealing with big threats.
Arkath's Wrath gives her premier, but costly board clear ability and in the case of losing the board she can wipe it empty or use creatures with specific protection abilities to slowly contest it back, especially if enemy creatures are tied by Mass Rage. Alia isn't usually build with extra card draw in mind, but you can easily do it, using NotRM events and adding technical fortunes like Block Supply Lines or Conflicting Orders, which have a good sinergy with Mass Rage.

HERO DIVERSITY: HIGH
ADAPTABILITY: AVERAGE
RESILIENCE: AVERAGE

OVERALL RATING: AVERAGE-HIGH

CHARITY

Charity is the progenitor of different Haven retaliation decks. Having long been a subpar choice, due to considerably high cost of her hero ability and the fact that it is single target, retaliation decks have seen a resurgence after ToR release, which added several cards crucial for this play style.
Earth magic gives her an ability to deal with opponent buildings, a bunch of different protective spells and cheap AoE removal. She may, however run into some problems with dispels, like Alia does, when you have to lose your own ongoing spells to get rid of opponent's ones. With a lot of high retaliation creatures at her disposal, she can use Blind Justicars for single target removal.
Insect Swarm gives her good board clear ability, and in the mid-late game you can possibly play two Swarms in a turn or combine a Swarm with a Word of Light. With access to Stone Shield and Truce of Elrath she can stall losing board for quite some time and a single well-timed Falcon Holy Priest can let her wrestle the board back in a moment. With a mix of technical fortunes and spells you can easily build her for card draw with NotRM in events.

HERO DIVERSITY: AVERAGE
ADAPTABILITY: AVERAGE
RESILIENCE: HIGH

OVERALL RATING: AVERAGE-HIGH

SLAVA

Slava is the second Haven hero to have 3 magic schools available to him. Compare to Jezziel, he trades Prime for Fire, and an extra starting Magic stat for Fortune stat. This gives him a lot of flexibility in building the deck and you can utilise almost any play style possible, though maybe not to the fullest extent.
With a mix of Fire and Air you have low-cost spells to finish one or two creatures off, single taget high damage spells to deal with threats and high damage AoE board clear. You may have some problems with stalling tactics, however, due to both Celestial Armour and Arkath's Wrath having a high cost and Magic requirements. You also have the same problem of dispelling your own Mass Rage if your deck runs it and you need to dispel enemy ongoing.
Clearing the board for Slava is easy as well as stalling to rebuild it, but as have been said before, doing both things at the same time can prove to be problematic. With high Magic requirements for premier spells your early game weaknesses can be exploited by an opponent, and you should have a plan how to handle it before the game starts. Building Slava for card drawing theoretically is possible, but with 3 magic schools to choose spells from you may not have room for enough fortunes to utilise NotRM effectively.

HERO DIVERSITY: HIGH
ADAPTABILITY: AVERAGE
RESILIENCE: AVERAGE

OVERALL RATING: AVERAGE-HIGH

ANTON

For a long time Anton decks have been seen as low skill requrement ladder deck for noobs. I still remember a lot of whine posts from Ubi forums about him and Anastasya, where new players cried about those heroes being OP. However, without his ability Anton is basically a worse Cassandra, so to utilise him to full extent you have to learn when and how to use it.
The answer seems obvious at first - just include more cheap Haven stackables in addition to Griffin Crossbowmen and Griffin Legionnaires, put in a couple of Garrisons, use Reserves fortune, maybe even neutral Pao Hunters... But wait. That really cuts into your deck space and you want your deck to be as tight as possible, right? To put in all these cards you have to get rid of dispels, or damage spells, or resource ramp or other utility cards. While you still have the same options available to you that Cassandra has, you may not use them as effectively. Either you leave some of them out completely, or cut the number of copies, which lessens deck stability.
You still have almost no board clear like Cassandra, and while your ability may help you in retaking the board, it will worsen your draw ability and Anton struggles in effectively using NotRM.

HERO DIVERSITY: AVERAGE
ADAPTABILITY: AVERAGE
RESILIENCE: AVERAGE

OVERALL RATING: AVERAGE

OVERALL FACTION RATING

Overall I rate Haven as a faction to be AVERAGE.
Best picks - MORGAN and ALIA.
Honourable mention - CASSANDRA
Sleeper picks - CHARITY and SLAVA.

Next time we will cover Necropolis faction and see what their heroes can bring...

Отредактировано ftr_midnight (2019-05-04 15:50:31)