Happy weekend and a very Merry Christmas to all! Now, are you struggling to build momentum in the Ranked event this weekend? Well then Santa Jumpmaster has got a gift for you! But don't tell anyone, it's only for you!
(Credit: https://media.npr.org)
So let's pull out our Death decks and take a look at it's God Powers. But wait, for this is a choice that can make or break your entire experience of playing with Death decks. So let me share why I argue for use of one specific God power with Death decks, and what I think it can provide to your gameplay.
Enter...Blood Ritual. A 2 mana God Power that can massively turn the tide in entire matches. In fact, before I saw the potential of this God Power, I can’t say I used my Death decks very often, but Blood Ritual literally gives me reason to make hay while the sun (or rather, the dark!) shines in the Afterworld! I’ll kick things off with my absolute favorite feature of Blood Ritual, and that is it’s ability to destroy a creature with 1 health point remaining. Now at first that seems pretty similar to Selena’s Mark or Orfeo’s Distraction, but there’s one major difference that accounts for all the cookies. And that is…this God Power isn’t inflicting 1 damage point (which could be stopped with protected or armor), it is instead literally destroying a creature with 1 health. So if a creature that has 1 health point and protected…doesn’t matter, the protected is ignored and the creature is destroyed (sorry Trojan Battlemage!). Or if you’re stuck whittling down a creature that has a lot of armor, it doesn’t even matter if it has 5 or 8 armor, if it only has 1 health point remaining under that armor, Blood Ritual will take….it….out. BOOOOOOOM. And that absolutely blows my mind, because that can literally be the difference between winning and losing a game, especially if the armored or protected opposing creature is blocking your way with frontline. But…we’re not done yet, because Blood Ritual then also heals your own God for 1 health point too…as if the damage wasn’t enough. There’s honestly too much good stuff here in this God Power, and unlike Selena’s Mark, which targets a random opponent, Blood Ritual lets you target which specific creature you want. Finally, Blood Ritual has an incredible alternate use, similar to Orfeo’s Distraction for Deception decks, which makes it lethal in yet another manner. And that is that Blood Ritual can also be used on friendly creatures. Now at first, you might be thinking, but why destroy a friendly creature that’s down to 1 health point? But here’s the thing, sometimes it’s intentional for what comes next! And I’m talking about the Living Container card that’s increasingly popular in Death decks. You see, Living Container destroys a friendly character on the board only to bring a 1/1 Living Container onto the board for the time being, which when destroyed, summons the original character back onto the board with +2/+2 stats! So if you want to heal your God as well as bring the stronger version of your original card onto the board faster, you can always destroy your Living Container with Blood Ritual, and unleash the upgraded version of your original card, all the while healing your God for 1 health point. Thus, Blood Ritual has many tactical uses and can dictate game strategy quite significantly when using Death decks, as such making it the standout God Power from Malissus, Goddess of Death!
So what are you waiting for? Go and use some Death decks with Blood Ritual to rack up some wins!
Best of luck out there fam!
-Jumpmaster
Solid post. I have been intrigued by death for a while now. I am still trying to sort out my nature deck to where I think it is as solid as it can be. Then I am going to move on to another God. My first thought was war, but now I am starting to think about BWD. Death just has so many tools to frustrate your opponent. Keep up the great postings and I look forward to seeing more of you in the community.
It's definitely a different kind of deck to play with compared to what I'm used to with War and Nature, but you're absolutely right, Death has a lot of different options to wipe the board, or delay your opponents victory till you can launch a bunch of zombies with leech to make a comeback haha. Have been using it a bunch more and hope to keep doing so as I learn it better!
Yea currently BWD seems to be the meta. The sleep is really annoying as well. But with the core set refresh coming I am sure we will see some things shaken up a little.
Yeah, sleep kills me when I'm playing against it, even with my own death deck. It's super tough. Stoked to see what the core set refresh brings!