This is the list I’m running.
A bit heavier on spells but otherwise pretty similar to yours. Not playing Saberspine because I find them to be a bit lackluster when you can’t BBS them to five power. And seeing how Ziran is more of the snowball-y variety, I much rather have a minion that solidifies my board position instead of just removing a threat/going face.
Why the singular Ironcliffe?
Fortified Assault is cute, but I think it’s a bit too narrow. I found myself relying on it mostly to remove critical threats that were otherwise out of range. But this also meant that I couldn’t benefit from the resulting Holy Ground. Also: it’s reliant on me already having Holy Ground, which makes it a bit sketchy in the early phases of the game. Eventually I replaced it with Martyrdom which has its own pitfalls but at least takes care of almost everything though the life gain can end up hurting you. Despite being a snowball-type deck, Ziran’s late game is comparably weak and giving your opponent five to ten life can mean you don’t have enough reach.
I would definitely play Light Chasers. They are a solid early game play and reliably draw removal giving your other pay off cards more room to breath.
I wouldn’t play Scintilla or Vitriol. Scintilla has a weak body for her cost, her effect doesn’t trigger as often as you might think and you have plenty of heal already. Vitriol is too random to be reliable and too dependant on being ahead on board to be of any significant use. I never understood why some people are fans of the card. In none of the games that I played it, I felt like it added anything significantly to the board when I was behind or on par, nor was I ever unhappy when my opponent played one. But different strokes for different folks. Maybe you like it.
Aperion’s Claim is mostly in there because I want it to be good. In reality it’s rather mediocre. Ziran needs at least a somewhat developed board to do anything even remotely unfair and Claim doesn’t really give you that. It removes some/all of the enemie’s threats but at the cost of your whole turn. More often than not your opponent just uses his next turn to set up shop again which means you just delayed the inevitable by a single turn. It’s more a safety switch for games where you are slightly ahead instead of a big swing card. But seeing how shitty Lyonar’s removal is in general, I just like having a catch-all card in my hand. Even if it doesn’t end up doing as much as I want it to.
The three two-ofs: Sun Bloom is only an emergency card. Wouldn’t play three because Ziran has trouble removing threats from the board anyways and if all you do is dispel stuff, you’ll quickly end up being overwhelmed by dispelled minions. Sun Sister is good, but because of how quickly she fills your hand you don’t really benefit from having more than one on board and together with three Oaths I found two to be enough to keep my hand filled. Two Claims because as said they aren’t really the catch all answers that you’d want them to be but just like Sun Bloom rather narrow answer cards.
Good luck with the deck. It’s beautiful when it comes together.
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