Dev Download: Zen

Welcome to Dev Download, where we share red hot tips and tricks fresh from the game devs at Legend Story Studios so you can pick up a deck and play like a pro! This week we’ll be covering how to play each of the heroes in Part the Mistveil, focusing on Booster Draft and Classic Constructed!

Today we are walking the path with Zen, Tamer of Purpose!

Booster Draft

Part the Mistveil is a dynamic Booster Draft experience, with 30-card decks, the new blue-focused Mystic talent, cloaked equipment to keep the opponent guessing, and the ability to transcend and unlock Inner Chi!

Zen is the Ninja of the set, building wide combat chains of attacks with go again to stretch the opponent’s defenses thin. Zen creates small attacks called Crouching Tigers, which aren’t very formidable on their own, but they enable powerful combo cards that require the last attack to be a Crouching Tiger.

Key signals that Zen is open are Mystic Ninja cards that create a Crouching Tiger in your hand if you’ve pitched a blue card, like Harmony of the Hunt, Tiger Form Incantation, and Companion of the Claw. Having a large number of these cards available is key to enabling your devastating combo attacks. Keep an eye out for red copies of Pouncing Qi, Qi Unleashed, and Breed Anger, as these are your best payoffs for creating a Crouching Tiger. Mask of Wizened Whiskers should be an instant slam dunk if you see it, as it allows you to not only recycle those crucial combo attacks for later, but also handpick a combo card from your graveyard that you need for your next turn when you have an Inner Chi in hand.

Aim to pick up at least 3-4 red combo attacks throughout the draft, and a slightly higher number of cards that create Crouching Tigers to support them, ideally 6-7. Without an Inner Chi in hand or a way to create a Crouching Tiger, your combo cards become extremely weak and often not worth playing out. Stride of Reprisal is an easy get-out-of-jail-free card for turns where you don’t have a way to create a Crouching Tiger, otherwise it can often pay to hold a spare Crouching Tiger in your arsenal. Another way to get great value out of spare Crouching Tigers is with the Emissary attacks, which each require you to place a card from your hand on the bottom of the deck. Lastly, you’ll want to include a similar number of transcend instants to the number of combo cards in your deck, especially Preserve Tradition, The Grain that Tips the Scale, and Rising Sun, Setting Moon.

Classic Constructed

On the surface Zen appears to have a relatively simple hero ability, but unlike previous Ninjas, he can be incredibly complex to build. Whether you enjoy the balls to the wall wide aggression of Fai, the puzzle-solving combo conundrum of Katsu, or even just the slow and steady chip damage vending machine that is Ira, our latest martial master has a different playstyle for everyone to enjoy. The trick is just to avoid trying to do everything at once. So, let’s start with the basics. Tiger Stripe Shuko is the bread and butter of any good Zen deck, giving your Crouching Tigers a paw up while also ruining your local Illusionist player’s day. You have a few different choices of headpiece, but Mask of the Pouncing Lynx along with any ratio of Salt the Wound and Tenacity gives you a solid sideboard plan against a huge range of heroes.

Alright, let’s get to the good stuff. We know you wanna resolve Art of War and slap your opponent with a billion attacks until they need therapy. Zen excels at these power turns, not just from playing Crouching Tigers, but from banishing them for Art of War’s draw-2 effect as well! Being a deck that spawns many cats out of seemingly nowhere, you also have the ability to go above and beyond with cards like Roar of the Tiger and Head Leads the Tail for some truly devious turns. A wide Zen deck playing these cards should make sure to load up on cheap Crouching Tiger-focused attacks like Biting Breeze, Chase the Tail, and Growl.

Another take on Zen is to focus on the utility of Crouching Tigers, by tucking them away for cards like Enlightened Strike or Emissary of Wind, or by granting them new names in order to fulfill specific combo requirements. This version of the deck uses Shifting Winds of the Mystic Beast to turn your Crouching Tigers into Hundred Winds, then uses Zen’s ability to fetch actual Hundred Winds for massive amounts of damage. If you can get a Tiger Swipe off somewhere in the middle, things can get out of hand very quickly. This deck does have some Inner Chi requirements, which means you should increase the number of blues and 3-defense cards in your deck in order to survive long enough to transcend and assemble your kill turn. Maul and Predatory Streak are also excellent additions to this build.

As a Mystic hero, Zen gains access to one of the most powerful Legendary cards ever printed - Traverse the Universe. It’s extremely rare to see an equipment that offers such a potent payoff with no tricky drawbacks or conditions. Traverse the Universe has a place in almost every version of Zen, as the amount of playlines it opens up is beyond vast. You could have no cards in hand, then by simply defending with Traverse the Universe and Stride of Reprisal or Pouncing Paws, suddenly on your turn you have two Tigers and a Pouncing Qi, hitting your opponent for 1 into 4 (using Tiger Stripe Shuko to bump up the second Crouching Tiger). Control Ninja players rejoice! Another neat trick for a more defensive Zen build is to use Pouncing Paws along with a single copy of Territorial Domain for a quick and easy 6 defense off a single blue card.

Zen has many paths to choose from, and it’s up to you to guide him on his journey to true enlightenment. Find what direction works best for you, then begin honing your skills through rigorous training. Be disciplined about what you are trying to do, and what you must let go of in order to do it.

If you’re interested in taking Zen for a spin casually at your local Armory or just among friends but don’t want to commit to expensive Legendaries just yet, try out our Budget Zen Decklist below!