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Writeup

“White Songhai” is an aptly coined term that sums up the strongest ziran decks in a nutshell, one which can push near aggro reva level single target damage, have much stronger AOE damage potential, and the best draw engine in the game. Both of your sources of draw being highly synergistic to your wincon, which also makes these lists some of the most consistent in the game. There are a LOT of variations on these lists as they are usually responsive to the meta in question, I will go over what I consider the best general ziran shell which can easily be fine tuned to whatever meta give or take 2 cards.

Having tried a multitude of ziran lists over the years I now firmly know that ziran’s winrate is disproportionally higher going first moreso than any other deck in the game. If you had the ability to go first every game the optimal deck composition would look something like Niklaren or Ree’s posted last power rankings. Nik’s is the better general list while Ree’s has a better early and midgame but will fizzle out and struggle against the things ziran is already weak against harder, namely big minions, obelysk / midranged vet, arcanyst, high HP swarms. You can brute force high HP single target lists with 3x vit lists by backlining on a tile but eventually you will hit max HP while they build a sizable board and will not be able to hurt yourself while keeping your vitriol stacks intact in a sundrop elixir list. Many of these traditional lists are built assuming optimal curving in mind but often when they go second they have nothing they want to put on board as most meta decks have the ability to remove a lancer turn 2, if not at least playing around it by refusing to put their minions in range of ziran to allow self-damage. This is where warlock or draining wave can be used for counterplay, not being dependent on their boardstate to heal proc, but without 3 drops it never feels good. In general you are wasting your precious heal procs for flimsy anchors that will not survive being put in range of the enemy and will probably not even be able to trade with the minion your opponent plays the following turn, with the choice to bodyblock or run away with the general to completely zone ziran out. Because of this even though a pure burn list has a much higher potential damage output going first I prefer my lists to always have 9x 3 drops for the above mentioned reasons and consistency. Even in traditional lists a turn 2 can be ruined as player 1 if your flameblood warlock gets gotatsu’d, bloodtear’d etc.

3 drops get around these roadblocks as player 2 now has 3 drops it wants to use as an anchor turn 1 without having to risk a lancer every time. Scintilla while having a healing synergy effect is one of these anchors which can safely trade board without worry of being cleared as it’s often too premature to take advantage of scintilla’s effect that early anyway, you often don’t want to overheal at the beginning of the game as it hinders your ability to proc multiple times in one turn. 3 drops also help P1’s curve dramatically as the choice between ramping or blocking top tile and zoning becomes an option now, blocking mana tiles while also threatening a trade to be able to proc a heal the following turn.

As for the reasoning for why certain cards are 2x is simple, these are the cards you often don’t want to see in the first 3 or so turns of any game. Ziran games have a play order that generally go, 1) set up “anchors” on board, 2) damage said anchors, 3) snowball your heal effect cards using cheap heal procs. Vitriol can snowball out of control if you get 2 on but you tend to heal so much as Ziran you will have to damage yourself (and your artifacts by extension) in order to use these vit procs if you equip it too early. Trinity oath while being your lategame wincon feels like a dead card while you are trying to set up a board with 5 cards in hand. You want to get your spelljammer up as soon as physically possible in most games, the optimal turn 2 as player 1 is often blocking bottom mana tile while leaving 1 minion up your opponent can’t remove at top tile, allowing you to healproc from your injured top minion next turn. Regardless of if it gets removed it will likely bring you more anchors (silverguard, scintilla, spelljammer) and board removal tools that will keep your opponent’s board clean while setting up for ramp plays. Playing spelljammer lategame often feels bad as their minions will get progressively stronger and not having an immediate anchor ready that can proc sunriser or vit will often leave their minion up to wreck havoc on your board. One cannot ignore board as ziran for too long as your vitriol procs become less effective the more minions are developed, your sunrisers will get removed immediately after playing, it will be harder to keep anchors backlined etc.

Many people believe sunstrike is bad but I disagree, in most matchups and for most players I could easily recommend the above list with 1 more flameblood warlock and immo in the place of the sunstrikes but as a ladder list there are some threats that ziran cannot deal with without sunstrike. From the straight and obvious ones like bloodtide priestess to less obvious matchups like fault and vaath. Ziran lists in general have a “dip in and out” playstyle, where one wants to stick to the enemy and go face as much as possible with your high ATK general, be within reach of your opponent’s backlined minions that you can clear with sunriser procs and immo, and then run away and finish off the opponent with your spell kit after their board begins to overwhelm lategame. This is the technique that allows you to effortlessly beat fault lists (assuming you didn’t buff with lancer) as you can easily win the early to midgame with your amazing AOE clear and finish off the opponent with a hail of tempests, sunstrikes into lucent beams for a grand total of 26 damage out of hand that can be done regardless of their boardstate. Factor in flameblood warlocks and vitriol after clearing dervishes with tempest and it shows how crushing this matchup can be. In a tourney setting you can remove all your lancers for 1x sunstrike 1x flameblood warlock and 1x vitriol and you have one of the best anti fault list in the game. As for vaath, sunstrike is just a win harder card as the real mvp that saves you is vitriol. As I said before, you can cheese high HP minions if they’re only a 1x on board, which is very often what will happen for vaath’s playstyle. I personally play in a way that makes me not want herald as a 3x but it can be useful for ramping into a lancer and using a heal proc in the same turn T2 as either player, I just don’t use it in this way as 90% of the time it means the lancer you put on mana spring will be removed the next turn.

I also think Powinthekissa’s base list is a good list that utilizes the same playstyle (high hp anchors into 1 mana heal procs) and may do that function better, but is not a better ziran “shell” that can transition into beating nearly every matchup in the game give or take a few cards. Personally I will run a list with skorn / sanctify instead of elixir in scintilla lists as I heal more than I can damage myself except for a few matchups such as mantra. Overall I would say this shell is the second or third strongest list in the game, only really losing to two archetypes decisively and having a 40-60 matchup against the strongest list in the game.

-Kieran