I played a few games with one last night and got a bit of an idea, but SP is still foreign enough for me that I am not quite sure. What are everyone's opinions of the identity of the core, best hyaenids? What non-hyaenid pieces are required to really bring the deck together? Anyone have some sample deccks with proven success? (Success being competitive at legendary level +, not, "Oh I won a few games with it! This is great!")
Nids is all about applying debuffs on enemy, and killing them fast with them, if not in your turn, in their due to DoT. I like them with "pure" module, that means I will only run Nid, no Djinn, no other race. Spells, you use the Meta SP you like, it fits well, and do the job. About the nids: -Breaker: not worth it. -Bulwark: great tank, x1 if want. -Dreamcrusher: antisummon + double jab, nice one. -Executioner: must have, usually x2. -Feshwrangler: good for contesting, VC is nice. -Flamefist: great beater, try at leat x1. -Headshrinker: nice ranged champ, distract is usefull. -Houngan: nice support, but 2-4 range is lame. -Instigator: really nice, usually x2. -Mundunugu: good suport, metamorphosis is great. -Pack Leader: great beater, can deal tons of DMG. -Spearman: solid ranged. -Spiritspeaker: amazing frontliner, really annoying to kill. -Stalker: good champ, I like x2. -Stormreader: use it if you have some nice and reliable Elec dmg source. -Witchdoctor: amazing ranged support. The only rune you can try to run that is not a Nid, is The Exile, but for me he cost too much. The great tip for Nids is to never let then Cleanse, or you will probally lose.
The best Nids are the legendaries annoyingly. and they're probably all worth the 2x autoinclude. Houngan is also solid because twisted essence is a brilliant ability, spirit speaker, spearman, headshrinker, instigator and feshwrangler are all really solid champs too. Outside of that whispers of the mind is good. Alacricity can be helpful too to help sneak in a long range death sentence. The Exile is definitely a solid include if you infact run 2 witchdoctors (fun fact deep wounds amps damage on disease breath). The resistance is also super nice. Useful equips are your typical SP stuff, Earthshakers bracelet, Vicious Harpoon (which again you should run 2 of because long range death sentences). If you wanna try running the Djinn as well, irfit is definitely the best option, but they all provide useful abilities Via GOTJ. And spirit channeling is a nice ability too.
I've never been a theme player of any sort, but a couple of thoughts. A pure, debuff/dot hyaenid theme seems strange because SP doesn't have a readily available source of defile. You can try to kill a champion within a single round, but then you're really overpaying for dots. Relying on executioner seems like a much more effective strategy. Second, debuff and dogpile themes are inconsistent. Debuff relies on having different types of dots on the field--2x rend is just as good as 1x rend. It's most effective when there are more champs on the board with many different dots. Dogpile is inconsistent with that because it encourages one rounding champs by encouraging multiple basic attacks and because it increase the price of hyaenids, diminishing the hyaenids on the board and the number of dots available. Generally speaking, you'll notice this in the cost of nids. they are pretty expensive--none are below 70, iirc. Finally, 2x flamefist and bulwark seem like a good combination--combat awareness + knockback synergize well. These also synergize well with avalanche and eye belt.
Yeah 'nid cost really stood out to me. I am used to a mix of 60s and 70s champs thanks to all of the psychics and semi-aquatics I have been playing lately. Though having a mostly in the 70s theme is much less of a big deal for the nora factions than it is for the others.
It's Crush, SP spell that destroys the next equipment played by your opponent (within 10 turns). Real mvp vs Horn of Order, Chillshard, Firk Mask etc, but doesn't help you at all to deal with equipment that is already played
Diamond mace cons: costs more nora, costs AP, has a positioning requirement, requires an unequipped champion (not a big deal though lol), is an ability (gets screwed by distracted and some other stuff) Diamond mace pros: Reusable Crush pros: costs less nora, doesn't allow your opponent to use the equipment at all, does some minor dmg (6) Crush cons: can't deal with equipment in play, can 'backfire' if your opponent doesn't play any equipment, easyer to anticipate the second crush in a game, is a spell (I'd say this is more con than pro atm) I'd say it's up to prefrence and not at all wrong to run both, Diamond mace for sure is a better 'oh Bane Shift' rune, but crush has done some amazing stuff for me (destroying Horn of Order before it gets any use for example)
Right now there are basically only a few equips that people run at the top ranks that I really needed to deal with specifically: Vicious Harpoon, Slaver's Whip, Firk Mask, Forge Hammer, Horn of Order and Dunewalker's Mantle. Crush is better than Diamond Mace against all of these because they have game-changing value on the turn that they are played and not the subsequent turns. Crush prevents them from being used that first turn, Mace does not.
