Hey guys. Lolman here. Coming back with this really really strong new meta variant of the splashyard deck now! f you are 4k+ you might have seen this on ladder as well.
This deck features the Ice Golem (yep he’s come back boys), and Night Witch. Other than that it’s more of a typical splashyard deck. Each card serves its own purpose.
Splashyard v2.0
I will suggest some ladder substitutions if you want to use this on ladder but levels aren’t up-to par.
I have had a lot of success with this deck in tournament play. Because some of my cards are quite a bit under levelled so I probably won’t use the deck on ladder for about a week or so. When I’ll be able to get some close to the level, I’m comfortable with to push with the deck. Oh and like splash yard this deck is a no Log, Log bait destroyer. So yeah, rip lob bait 2k17.
Card Breakdown
Graveyard- Arguably the best legendary card in the game. Main win condition of the deck. You have… 2 win conditions if you consider Night Witch as a win condition.
Now Night Witch and Graveyard synergies really well if your opponent has Arrows because an Ice Golem, Night Witch, Graveyard Poison combo has 2 Zap targets.
The insanely high DPS Skeletons that spawn around Tower. Or the Bats who literally have the same DPS along with the Night Witch?
Killing the Night Witch is also a questionable play because that will increase the Bats behind the Ice Golem which can be deadly. Just make sure you know where to place your Graveyard.
Ice Golem– Now there are several reasons I use Ice Golem instead of Knight here.
Ice Golem is not as great on defense but at the same time it’s far better vs Graveyard if they don’t place it well and push Graveyard to the corner.
Ice Golem is cheaper than the Knight, allowing you to have enough for a Poison much faster. Also Ice Golem frost nova can help at times as well. Also slow movement speed make it the BEST kiting card in game.
Skeles are somewhat the same but your timing with Skeletons has to be ON POINT. Otherwise say you want to kite a Baby Dragon. It will splash all 4 Skeletons and you’ have wasted 1 Elixir which could have been used elsewhere. Now might not seem like much but in 1x Elixir that’s over 2 seconds of delay in gaining back that missing Elixir which can cost you the game.
For ladder play, the Knight is recommended because it’s far more easier to level up.
Night Witch- Can be replaced with E-Wiz but Night Witch has several roles in this deck.
Night Witch is the only defensive card that gets 1 shot by Lightning here. Use Ice Golem to tank and Night Witch destroys a Golem push! With Baby Dragon and Mega Minion, If the opponent uses Lightnings to kill Night Witch, her DPS increases drastically. The 4 Bats combined add ~ 268 DPS which is crazy. Bear in mind that they do die to the Golems death damage.
She also acts as an Inferno counter. If you plop your Night Witch in front of the Executioner and the opponent plays Inferno Tower and uses Goblin Gang to deal with Graveyard, fear not, the Bats will distract the Inferno and when she dies, there are even more Bats, allowing Executioner to survive and you will get a +1 trade.
She also synergies well with Graveyard. Typically, against Splashyard, you can Lightning or Rocket the push and almost ignore it and deal with Graveyard. But with Night Witch in town, you need to try and either deal with Bats + her at same time with an Executioner or keep her alive till Graveyard dies that way you can deal with Bats.
You have to Zap either the Graveyard or her Bats. Which can be REALLY tricky. Use Fireball+Log or Rocket on the Executioner + Night Witch combo might seem like a +3 trade but… in reality her Bats are still alive so you will need to spend 2-3 more Elixir on them this not as positive a trade.
You have to Zap either the Graveyard or her Bats. Which can be REALLY tricky. Use Fireball+Log or Rocket on the Executioner + Night Witch combo might seem like a +3 trade but… in reality her Bats are still alive so you will need to spend 2-3 more Elixir on them this not as positive a trade.
Also great thing about Night Witch is that if someone uses a spell and kills her, you can rush with Ice Golem Graveyard with Ice Golem tanking for the Bats as well.
The moment he Rocketed my Night Witch, I placed Ice Golem at bridge and used the Graveyard. He could place Goblin Gang on either. The Graveyard and Bats would shred the Tower anyway. Or in this case he used E-Wiz on Bats and logged the Graveyard which was slightly smarter but his mistake was Rocketing the Night Witch.
Baby Dragon– Also can be replaced by E-Wiz but the fact that you can bypass Inferno Tower and he’s flying also does wonders.
Say you place an Executioner on the wrong lane and the opponent rushes you with Giant Night Witch? Baby Dragon Tornado is very viable thankfully so you can defend with that.
Something I like doing is to use Baby Dragon Graveyard and then using Tornado to pull troops so Baby Dragon would kill all of those the Minion Horde or Goblin Gang and also splash the Tower. This should only be done in 2x Elixir, and or if you don’t NEED it on defense.
Tornado- Without Log, you need this to activate your King’s Tower. Get rid of enemy Hogs, also on defense vs beatdown.
Your lack of high DPS units except Night Witch is prone to Lightning and Zap if your opponent sees value. So you have to utilize your two spell resistant troops.
Executioner and Baby Dragon also lack of DPS so you need to splash to make up for it. Which is optimized by using Tornado.
Executioner- Arguably the best card to use with Tornado. Executioner is the best defensive card in the game in my opinion.
He synergizes so well with Tornado. It should be almost illegal to run Executioner without Tornado. Try and protect your Executioner with Ice Golem and wait until the opponent Lightnings your Night Witch because ultimately he is your defensive MVP destroying backend troops with his axe.
Poison- Paired up with Graveyard, Poison is deadly on offense.
Should be saved for 3 Musketeers as 3 Musketeers decks somewhat hard counter this. Either go for early Tower and get slightly lucky or play for the draw vs these matches. This will be addressed below in matchups.
Try and get value with the Poison, otherwise be conservative in 1x Elixir.
For example, don’t Poison a Knight defending a Graveyard. Etc.
Here I didn’t even Poison the Tower w/ Graveyard. I poisoned the pumps and the 2 Musketeer + Tower for insane value. Poison for value rather than damage.
Skeletons- Cheap cycle card. Mainly meant for cycling but can be used on defense and to kite units like Baby Dragon, Knight, P.E.K.K.A etc.General Gameplay
Early game
At the beginning, I start VERY passively.
Ice Golem in the back, split Skeletons, Night Witch in the back. I try and avoid cycling Baby Dragon or Executioner but If I have the both of them, I would simply hang onto Executioner and not be worried about cycling Baby Dragon but those 2 should be your last choices.
Try not to overcommit early on because you need a lot of Elixir to answer certain pushes.
Try not to rush with Ice Golem Graveyard . You will get punished if your cards aren’t in a good rotation.(Poison is last card for an example).
Try and figure out what your opponent is playing first and then think of a gameplan.
3 Musketeers? Hang onto Poison and optimize your Tornado usage.
Beatdown? Prepare to rush other lane and don’t let them pump up. Etc.
For example, 8+ Elixir to deal with counterpushes in most cases for an Executioner+ Tornado so be aware of the potential to get punished even if you do massive damage early on. 1-1 you are at a rather large disadvantage. Especially because Graveyard+Ice Golem in pocket doesn’t do nearly as much damage as say Giant in pocket.
Mid game
Now that you know your opponents deck! Try to not play random Graveyard Poison combos. This is not Miner cycle where you can cycle back to a Poison super fast so you need specific cards in hand at certain times.
For example, around this time as it’s still 1x Elixir, you will want to keep your Tornado in cycle if facing a Hog deck. Executioner in cycle for defense vs any sort of beatdown decks. This is why I like the Baby Dragon. You can use him on offense while saving your Executioner who really is all you need for almost any push not assisted by a Lightning+ Log.
Around now you can make small predictions like Poison etc. Be aware though! Sometimes your opponent might switch things up and try to take down your tank while simply Logging away Skeletons etc. So around this time, hold your Poison till the last moment before dropping it.
Late game
You can play a bit more riskily (Poison offensively with every Graveyard push for example).
Also, know when to go for a trade. For example, you are a Tower up, only do so if you are sure you can either significantly damage or take your opponents Tower in that push because you don’t want to be completely shut down by your opponent.
As for how hard you will go on the offense will depend on the match-up.
Vs say Beatdown you want to ideally counterpush because that lets you build up a push. Similar to Splashyard, where you play Bowler, then Graveyard on the counter with your Baby Dragon, and/or Knight following it.
So you can have 2 play styles by this point. Simply cycle cards on defense and quickly Ice Golem Graveyard or you build counter pushes.
Also more of a side note. Just because how cheap the Ice Golem Graveyard combo is, you can always switch lanes.
Something I usually do is to start a slow push in the x2 Elixir time with Night Witch and Baby Dragon at the back. By the time they reach the bridge, I’d have 10 Elixir at least. Then the opponent might commit some of his best defensive cards to that side. I will rush other lane immediately with Ice Golem Graveyard, or Baby Dragon Graveyard or something similar.
Match-ups
Exenado, Poison and Night Witch. There isn’t really much this deck is weak to with these cards.
The only real hard counter is 3 Musketeers Heal but so far I have about a 60% win rate vs 3 Musketeer decks. You simply have to play smart and ideally you MUST get an early Tower in order to prevent them from building an advantage and cycling 3 Musketeers so often that you won’t even think about Graveyarding anymore.
Lavaloon- Honestly, post Night Witch, this deck has lost its luster. I hardly ever see it in challenges because how good Lava hound is at accumulating Bats behind the Night Witch, which can be deadly on a counter. All the same, this is a really easy match-up as you have Executioner+Tornado and Baby Dragon+Tornado to take care of the lot.
Out of 3 challenges. I faced 2 Lava hound decks and 0 replays are available because of how scarce this deck is in the current meta in challenge play.
Giant or Golem beatdown w/ Nightwitch-
Nowadays, Night Witch is a staple in beatdown. Now 2 things you MUST keep in mind:
You need to use Tornado wisely!
Baiting out Lightning and then torpedoing with Baby Dragon tanking for Executioner.
Try and rush other lane if opportunity arises or this is more of your counter push deck where you don’t want all your units to get caught in Lightning because you WANT to counter push.
Usually decks like this overextend by Lightning+ Logging your Executioner. Capitalize on that and go for the kill once you show them just how impenetrable your defense is and you’ve asserted dominance in that game and made them cry because of how op Executioner Tornado is.
Hog Rider- You have several answers to the Hog: The Night Witch; Knight + skills; Tornado.
Ideally first push you want King’s Tower activated. Try to not much that up because that can result in an additional Hog swing at the very least which can be very costly.
Try and keep the Tornado in cycle for the Hog. Try and not give opponent Fireball or Lightning value. Two spells which are rather common in Hog decks.
Once king is activated though it’s really easy to counter the Hog suffering 0 damage.
Siege- Not really that popular except in top of ladder.
I like to have Ice Golem tank from center and Executioner snipes Mortar and or X-Bow. Then Tornado to pull things together so building still gets hit as well.
Play conservatively and try not to give too big of an Elixir advantage to your opponent which can have you broke when they place the building.
Graveyard- Now this deck is rather popular. My 12th and 11th wins in a challenge were pretty much Mirror match-ups. That goes to show how powerful this deck is. It’s the new Splashguard. It’s stronger than Splashyard as well. In my opinion at least.
Vs other Graveyard decks. I don’t hesitate to Poison the Graveyard early on. This might mess your cycle up but you can cycle back to a Poison while defending before you yourself go on offence. Utilize Tornado to clear troops.
You can pull troops out of Tower range and have your retarget on the Skeletons. This is a move a lot of pro players do and it’s rather simple, especially if the King’s Tower is active or you are 1-1 this comes in handy.
This deck works vs Giant in pocket too. To defend Giant Graveyard, you just need Tornado and something to get rid of the Skeletons.
My main account uses Hog nano, I will include a screenshot of the move that won me a game vs Giant Graveyard because this deck also has Tornado.
Also wanted to address giving up a Tower. Here I saw he placed 6 Elixir and that Tower was done so I for an even trade. I took his Tower while prepping to use Hog on other lane while his Giant just took my Tower.
Know when to give up your towers
Using Tornado to pull Giant out of 2x Tower range while Skeletons were able to kill the Giant. Allowed Executioner to get Tower to Lightning range because he ignored it and I took the game.
Similar concept vs Bowler yard. Knight Tornado’d is an even trade. You can maybe place Skeletons in the Graveyard or even your Ice Golem till the 2x towers then take care of the Skeletons rather easily.
Mirror matches for win 11 and 12 in a challenge.
3 Musketeers – Now facing 3 Musketeers is really hard using this deck.
You need an early Tower. This way you can always snipe down a Musketeer or two before they even cross the bridge! Night Witch + Skeletons is enough to kill 2 Musketeers for a +1 trade if they place the 2 muskets in the towerless region.
Now you need to use Tornado properly and Poison on defense once you have that Tower. If you don’t get a Tower by 2x Elixir. Just defend for your life because they will continue cycling 3 Musketeers in the center.
It’s down to luck of rotation!
The moment they pump up, go all in and take the Tower. It’s not that hard to take the Tower but if you miss that window, you are done.
YATO’s major mistake was to use the Heal early on his lone 2 Muskets, which I countered with a Night Witch once one locked onto my Tower. Counterpush with Graveyard took is one to 150 then with solid defensive cards like Executioner , Baby Dragon Tornado you can defend in unpredictable ways.
For example, Ice Golem Night Witch on 2 Muskets and Skeles on 1 musk. Night Witch also shuts down Battle Ram which is really helpful too because she unlike E-Wiz, she kills the Barbs as well.
Conclusion
This deck is really solid! I really enjoy playing this deck and it is really powerful in the current meta.
Its only real weakness is 3 Musketeers deck. Especially big tank + 3m decks with pump because it’s harder to defend with Executioner Tornado.
Try it out, it is not the easiest deck to learn but all the same it can be very rewarding once you do learn how to use it!
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