I want to talk about Lyra the Sunshard for a second too. For the same reasons you don't include Elise:
"Oh but it won me this game and that game and I like her and she cost me 1600 dust so I have to play her, also, value".....most of my wins vs priest came off guys who ran elise, and all my losses were vs big priest or a highlander that got the combo faster than i did.
I don't run Lyra. You know what you need to get value from Elise? Cheap spells. You know what cards I don't want to cycle that aren't being used as the finsher? Cheap spells. Running Lyra means you're wanting to cycle spells while simultaneously spamming 2 damage at face each turn, which means you're running a card you cannot play until you've drawn and played both Raza and DK. Like your situation with Priests who run Elise, most of my wins in the mirror are also from players running Lyra. Lyra wastes a turn doing something fancy that doesn't contribute to the win, IMO. The dream of using Lyra + Radiant to cycle and burn your opponent with repeated cheap spells just doesn't happen often enough. And like I said earlier, the list I'm running includes specific cheap spells that I want to use with Radiant + Velen for upwards of 28 burst from hand.
tl;dr - I think Lyra is fun but doesn't belong in an optimized Razakus list
What do you use as replacement?
idk if you consider it a replacement, I'm just running a different list.
I want to talk about Lyra the Sunshard for a second too. For the same reasons you don't include Elise:
"Oh but it won me this game and that game and I like her and she cost me 1600 dust so I have to play her, also, value".....most of my wins vs priest came off guys who ran elise, and all my losses were vs big priest or a highlander that got the combo faster than i did.
I don't run Lyra. You know what you need to get value from Elise? Cheap spells. You know what cards I don't want to cycle that aren't being used as the finsher? Cheap spells. Running Lyra means you're wanting to cycle spells while simultaneously spamming 2 damage at face each turn, which means you're running a card you cannot play until you've drawn and played both Raza and DK. Like your situation with Priests who run Elise, most of my wins in the mirror are also from players running Lyra. Lyra wastes a turn doing something fancy that doesn't contribute to the win, IMO. The dream of using Lyra + Radiant to cycle and burn your opponent with repeated cheap spells just doesn't happen often enough. And like I said earlier, the list I'm running includes specific cheap spells that I want to use with Radiant + Velen for upwards of 28 burst from hand.
tl;dr - I think Lyra is fun but doesn't belong in an optimized Razakus list
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Velen is definitely more of a key card in this specific deck, although Thalnos is versatile in nearly any deck or meta. You lose the ability to Thalnos + Spirit Lash if you don't have him, but you can still Velen + Spirit Lash if you need to heal back up to full (if you didn't know, Velen makes Spirit Lash deal 2 dmg aoe and 4 dmg lifesteal).
Tar Creeper > Stonehill by a long shot. I'm running Second Rate Bruiser as a second taunt and it's working out great (hit legend last night!)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Kabal Talonpriest - I ran this card for a long time. I'm trying the deck without it for now. Most of the time it's simply a 3/4 on a bare board. I thought, if that's the case, what is it really doing to support the win condition? Not much. For now, I'm trying a second taunt minion, Second-Rate Bruiser. The only other taunt minion in the deck (Tar Creeper) is - in my opinion - somewhat weak because it lets the opponent dictate trades and doesn't allow you to make favorable trades of your own. Also, unlike Tar Creeper, SRB isn't vulnerable to Shadow Word: Pain (arguably the second best target in the mirror, after Priest of the Feast).
Acolyte of Pain - this is almost always a 3 mana "draw one card" and often a 3 mana "use up removal". I honestly don't see this card getting a lot of value in most matchups. In the mirror, it's vulnerable to Potion of Madness and Silence, and does not contest any turn 3 board whatsoever.
That's a fair point about Lyra being one of the hardest soft taunts in the game. I just don't like dead cards in my hand.
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
I want to talk about Lyra the Sunshard for a second too. For the same reasons you don't include Elise:
I don't run Lyra. You know what you need to get value from Elise? Cheap spells. You know what cards I don't want to cycle that aren't being used as the finsher? Cheap spells. Running Lyra means you're wanting to cycle spells while simultaneously spamming 2 damage at face each turn, which means you're running a card you cannot play until you've drawn and played both Raza and DK. Like your situation with Priests who run Elise, most of my wins in the mirror are also from players running Lyra. Lyra wastes a turn doing something fancy that doesn't contribute to the win, IMO. The dream of using Lyra + Radiant to cycle and burn your opponent with repeated cheap spells just doesn't happen often enough. And like I said earlier, the list I'm running includes specific cheap spells that I want to use with Radiant + Velen for upwards of 28 burst from hand.
tl;dr - I think Lyra is fun but doesn't belong in an optimized Razakus list
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
Velen is definitely more of a key card in this specific deck, although Thalnos is versatile in nearly any deck or meta. You lose the ability to Thalnos + Spirit Lash if you don't have him, but you can still Velen + Spirit Lash if you need to heal back up to full (if you didn't know, Velen makes Spirit Lash deal 2 dmg aoe and 4 dmg lifesteal).
Tar Creeper > Stonehill by a long shot. I'm running Second Rate Bruiser as a second taunt and it's working out great (hit legend last night!)
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
Can we discuss two cards please:
Kabal Talonpriest - I ran this card for a long time. I'm trying the deck without it for now. Most of the time it's simply a 3/4 on a bare board. I thought, if that's the case, what is it really doing to support the win condition? Not much. For now, I'm trying a second taunt minion, Second-Rate Bruiser. The only other taunt minion in the deck (Tar Creeper) is - in my opinion - somewhat weak because it lets the opponent dictate trades and doesn't allow you to make favorable trades of your own. Also, unlike Tar Creeper, SRB isn't vulnerable to Shadow Word: Pain (arguably the second best target in the mirror, after Priest of the Feast).
Acolyte of Pain - this is almost always a 3 mana "draw one card" and often a 3 mana "use up removal". I honestly don't see this card getting a lot of value in most matchups. In the mirror, it's vulnerable to Potion of Madness and Silence, and does not contest any turn 3 board whatsoever.
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!