Heal Lyonar is Great for Duelyst: A Hypothesis
Introduction
Oh, how the times have changed. I’ve been seeing some players complaining about the power of the newly-prominent Zir’An heal decks (Healyonar) following the release of RotB! They find it difficult to contend with an archetype that can so easily summon such a large volume of healing which makes it very difficult for a lot of common decks to punch through and finally take down. I’ll be arguing that a strong Healyonar presence is actually excellent for Duelyst as a whole, based partly on the specific properties of the archetype, and my personal theorized impact it has on the gaming meta from at least Gold Rank and up. Disclaimer: I have a strong personal pro-Healyonar bias as many will know, so I will likely be overstating things here. I’m also a Gold-Diamond Rank player.
Healyonar Archetype Properties
First off, let’s have a look at three key properties of Healyonar that makes it almost a perfect fit for Duelyst in terms of fun game play.
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Non-Burst Reliant
Healyonar decks are typically mid-range or control and don’t finish off their opponents through large bursts of damage in the mid-game after early skirmishes. Unlike all of Magmar, Faice, Spellhai and Tempo Argeon these Healyonar decks do damage over time in increments, allowing for a significant amount of counter play. You rarely feel as if you got taken down out of nowhere and Healyonar typically needs to build up their advantage if it wants to do a lot of damage. Double Lucent Beam can and does definitely end matches but typically only after an enjoyable back and forth between players. 15 out-of-hand damage is pretty much unheard of. -
Position Reliant
Related to the first point, Healyonar is strongly reliant on positioning! The archetype uses a lot of minions that need protecting, so using smart positioning to keep key minions alive on the board is key. In addition, their minions need to be damaged in order to get healed, so making sure your minions are in range of something they can hit is key to actually getting healing triggers off. The opponent is also encouraged to be smart with their positioning, even if it just comes down to backing off for a turn to deprive the Healyonar player of a key turn! Finally, Sunriser is completely positioning dependent, which delivers a challenge for both players to contend with. -
Skill Reliant
And finally, Healyonar is very difficult to play well! Hand management, positioning, play order, tactical replacing, knowing the enemy: these and more are all factors that Healyonar players need to master to actually make the deck work. You can’t just go face and you can’t just stall the game: you need to mix and match your actions to the game state at each and every turn. Healyonar encourages high-level decision-making and skillful anticipation, and Duelyst is all the better for it.
Meta Impact
After painting that very pretty picture, let’s move on to the benefits Healyonar prominence brings to the game overall.
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Checks Aggressive Decks
Aggressive decks can’t beat Zir’An? Good! Duelyst has had trouble punishing overly aggressive decks in the past–made only worse by the release of a lot of insanely efficient draw cards–which makes the meta very one-sided and potentially stale. Healyonar is a mid-range deck that is fast enough to survive the early aggressive onslaught by these decks in order to reach the mid-to-late game where it can out-value and overpower most of of these decks a significant amount of the time. This discourages an over-abundance of face decks in the meta, slowing things down to make room for a greater diversity! Speaking of… -
Promotes Control Decks
Healyonar is good at checking aggressive decks but it doesn’t itself have an inevitable win condition in the way true control decks do. Healyonar doesn’t have a Variax, and Obliterate, a Meltdown etc and this gives it a hard time surviving against true control archetypes. This means that in order to beat Healyonar it makes sense to start running more control decks! The slower meta facilitated by Zir’An opens up space for these slow decks to shine because they’re less likely to be consistently blown out by aggressive decks. In this way Healyonar acts like a mediator that diversifies the meta by replacing an Aggro < more Aggro paradigm with a cyclical Control < Aggro < Healyonar < Control paradigm, delivering a game state that is not only more fun, but especially way more diverse.
Conclusion
If you like seeing a diverse Duelyst meta you should totally go play some of your own Healyonar decks! Punish the aggressive decks again and again until a lot of players decide they need to hop on the bandwagon themselves or start taking up a control deck again to overpower all the smug Healyonar players like me.
Don’t hate the Healyonar, embrace it.
Thoughts?
