In his article, Jonathan discusses “watching the queue”. He explains how to do it, and why he feels it is a necessary skill. I wanted to take a second to explain why this particular trick is not featured on Duelist101, in general.

Rank Matters

First, and most importantly, Jonathan’s Death Wizard has 2100 rank. The potential pool of matches for him is a bare handful of opponents. This makes it incredibly easy to know who you are facing, and “watching the queue” is much more simple. When I decided to rank to the moon years ago, by the time I was at 1800+, most of my potential matches got added to my friends list simply so I could know when it was possible for me to sign in the queue and get a match.

I explain this to point out: This technique is much less effective at lower ranks when there are so many (and such random) potential matches that you cannot know who in the queue is your potential match. Especially if you play at peak hours when there are several pages of players in the queue and the list is constantly shifting.

It is easier to pull off at low ranks if you play during off-peak hours, when the queue is very small, but still not reliable unless you’re watching the list like a hawk and have some idea of who the other people in queue are.

We Think It’s Broken

The PvP system in Wizard101 is a mess. If you know your opponent beforehand and can set your deck/gear specifically to shut them out, the ensuing PvP matches are horrible. The only thing that shelters us from this problem is the randomness of the matching system.

We do not encourage this particular activity because it pushes PvP towards a meta that is much less fun, and unplayable for many players. At Duelist, our guides get read by thousands of players. Sometimes tens of thousands. We have a responsibility to not contribute to issues which potentially turn the game into a misery for the average player. That’s why you won’t find a guide to “watching the queue” written by us.

Addressing Accuracy and Resist

One of the biggest drawbacks of this build is the low accuracy. We deal with this problem and generate Armor Piercing at the same time by relying on Accuracy/Piercing buffs. If you do not have Infallible running, your Fire attacks should be enchanted with Extraordinary. If you have Infallible up, depending on the situation you’ll be able to choose between Colossal and Extraordinary.

One major benefit of training Extraordinary is that Balance players cannot lock our accuracy down with SuperNova.

Another interesting aspect of this Deck/Gear is that the damage is incredibly reliable. Since you’re not using colossal, you do less damage on average, but you will tear 70% shields down to 20%. This means that DragonGlass is slower than many current builds, but its damage is much harder to stop.

Healing Suppression is Huge

The biggest problem when facing Jade Gear is keeping their health down. That’s the primary reason this build favors the Death Amulet – to keep Doom active without depleting us of pips. Between Doom, Infection, and Lord of Night, you can juggle enough healing suppression to take a Jade player down most of the time. The major exception is when multi-heal pets decide they want to be active.

Lord of Night as the Centerpiece

LoN really shines with this build. Forcing opponents to choose between Death and Fire shields makes it harder for them to predict and stop our damage. More importantly, it’s a super efficient play. LoN simultaneously damages our opponent, adds health to us (even under Doom), and further suppresses their healing.

In this age of crazy heal boosts and over-active pets, it’s rewarding to take the healing option away from an opponent and slowly drag them down. I’m not saying this is a reason to go for a similar build, but wow, it felt good.

Balance Woes No More?

As a pleasant side effect, this build does very well against the popular Balance setups. Getting around Super Nova and cutting those Crit heals stifles their game plan. As long as you can keep them from spiking damage with a Judge, these matches become easy wins from first and second.

My only loss to Balance came on my second match against the same player, where he knew what was coming and maxed out Death shields. I went second and he managed to lock me down with Mana Burn, knowing that I would have to hit into a shield or clear the Death Shield and give him more pips to Burn away. I still had a solid shot at winning this match, but I reshuffled too late and found myself without a tower, ate a Shrike -> Judge and died.

Long Term Thoughts

If someone were to adopt this strategy long-term, I’d suggest keeping a few Poison TC in the side deck. This would eliminate the problem I mentioned above, and make it easier to clear Death shields. Our wand deals death damage, so it wasn’t much of a problem for me, but it’s worth considering.

Also worth considering Strangle (Death Dispel), if you are concerned with countering the Jade/Juju build. It’s one way to disrupt his heals and Bad Juju.

New Fangled Decks

I didn’t list a Deck in the Gear section because I do not yet own a new L95+ deck. I just used a deck which allowed 6 copies of off-school spells, because I wanted the extra Doom. The new decks offer the same space, a bigger side deck, and an extra Pip at the start of battle. Highly recommended.

Stocking the Side Deck

One of the hardest parts of setting up this build was getting enough Sacrifice and Dark Pact TC’s.  I spent a long time farming the Bazaar, and pestered my friends for ones they weren’t using.

Sacrifice can be gardened from the Ivy League plant. Dark Pact is only available as a drop, so there’s no good option besides farming the Bazaar.

MayCast Cleanse Charm

In terms of countering the Juju build, the MC Cleanse Charm talent from the Piranha Hunter pet might be worth looking into.

• He generally avoids Death players because they can easily shut down his trap stack.
  • Self-Damage spells are Kryptonite to his build.
• His counter to Shrike is Bad Juju, every time.
  • This means a clever player can force him to Juju whenever they are ready, which makes it easier to remove the Trap Stack without damaging yourself heavily.
  • This is also one way to deprive him of pips, and push for a resource lock.
• He will counter the resource lock with Empower, but this is still preferable to him having a rack of golden pips and having more turns to spend being counter-productive to you.
• To kill minions, he has nothing except Wands.
  • This means that Minions generally live for a few rounds at least, and help you to control his turns.
  • This also means that using minions regularly forces him to burn through his deck faster, in search of wands.
• The biggest hurdle, in my opinion, is his Triple Heal Pet.
  • Those pets do a stellar job of removing all types of infection.
  • This means you have to rely more heavily on Doom.
  • It also means your minion can work against you, triggering heals more often.
• His Death counter involves locking them out of Reshuffle using Unbalance.
  • This is the only reason we have an Elemental Blade in the deck, for stripping Balance Dispels.
  • It’s probably worth adding some more protection against this lock. Like a few Balance Dispels of your own, and some more low-pip Balance spells.

I asked a few days ago, but have yet to receive a response from Jonathan about doing some tests together. In the absence of him personally, several people contributed to Anti-Jade testing with this build. Apollo did several matches using a regular Jade setup, and Prince of Shadows did 3 matches using a Jade/Juju build that replicated the guide as closely as we could.

The first few tests were not very promising, but adjusting the deck and dialing in the gear, we managed to succeed. I was able to effectively take out the “standard” Jade build from second, and take out the Jade/Juju build fairly easily from first.

That said, I’m not sure how well this would do vs Jonathan’s build from second with an experienced PvP’er at the helm. I don’t find that very disheartening though, because nothing does incredibly well going second to an experienced player, 90% of the time. Having a good advantage from First and any hope at all from Second is about as good as it gets, I think.

The bigger problem is that our build does less well against a Jade player that isn’t married to their traps/OHKO. Attacking regularly turns Doom against us, and it becomes a question of whether we can heal fast enough using Lord of Night. Not using Bad Juju opens them up to Shrike, but makes it much harder for us to remove traps or use other self-damage spells. Our huge armor piercing presents a problem here, hitting us fairly hard even with a shield up. This is not to say that we don’t have a shot, because we do. Just that different “Jade” playstyles fair better, even from second.

Doom is an Art Form

Timing your Doom is an art form. The better you get at timing Doom, the easier ranking up will be. You’ll need to be at a solid health advantage – Infection and Lord of Night will make this possible – and even then you’ll need to be relatively sure that your opponent can’t drop your health too quickly. That’s when Doom goes up, and you’ll start trading damage back and forth. Generally, they will damage faster, but Lord of Night will return health to you, and give you the edge. Keep a second doom in hand, in case they try to change the bubble and heal up. LoN’s infection will help minimize that risk, even from second, but you still need to be dominant with Doom when it counts. Don’t be afraid to discard a few of these early, knowing you have six in deck and won’t need them until later.

Until you are ready to lock out healing, it’s very important that you are able to heal with Sacrifice. Casting Doom and Gloom too early seals your own fate. Recognizing this turning point and capitalizing on it will be the key to your success.

A Bigger Hammer

It’s worth considering the addition of King Artorius for creating knockout combos. Having a heavy damage spell would help this build to generate faster kills, and the stun is always useful.

Non-Standard Matches (Jade Gear, Ice, Balance)

This build excels at the matches which throw a wrench in the works for normal strategies. It has no issue generating enough pierce to deal with Ice and Jade Gear. It’s even better against Ice because with TC Infallible your Death damage will cut their resist down to zero.

Against Balance, attack regularly to keep your pips out of range of Mana Burn and shut down their heals with Doom. Use Lord of Night to keep your health up, and you should not have trouble dragging their HP down before they get yours. Be sure to discard for your Towers, because it’s important that you don’t take too much damage from them.