Blood-Crazed Daedroth – Uses and Synergies

Blood-Crazed Daedroth is one of the first three new cards revealed for the Jaws of Oblivion expansion that is coming to the Legends store on October 8. When you looked at this card, maybe you thought: Why did Bethesda reveal this card in particular? Well, it’s a Deadra, so it’s right on-theme for Oblivion. But, I agree, they indeed could have found a more spectacular card for their first reveal. In fact, I think they did reveal Blood-Crazed Deadroth because it promotes an existing mechanic. Many players have pledged Sparkypants on the r/elderscrollslegends subreddit to push some of the longer-existing mechanics and to make them more viable. And it just so happens that Blood-Crazed Daedroth synergizes well with self-ping decks. So will Jaws of Oblivion promote some of the existing mechanics? I sure hope so, too!

But before we dive into the details, let’s start with some basics about the Daedra. Being a non-native speaker, the term Daedroth was pretty confusing…

Daedroth in Elder Scrolls Lore

So what is a Deadroth? Experienced linguists will point out that “Daedroth” is the proper singular form of “Daedra.” At the same time, the term is also commonly used to denominate a particular species of lesser Daedra. In this context, we find “Daedroth” as singular and “Daedroths” as plural. Daedra is then used as the generic term, and some use it as both singular and plural.

Daedroths are crocodile-headed bipedal Daedra, associated with Molag Bal and Mehrunes Dagon. They are a strong, animalistic type of Daedra, but still a dangerous foe with powerful clawed arms and moderate magical ability. Though some have been known to use weapons and wear simple armor, most attack with bare claws. Some are man-sized and spit poison or shock magic, while others tend to be larger and belch firebolts instead. These larger Daedroths initiate battle by shaking themselves, invoking a protective shield.

About Deadroth – Taken from the UESP Bestiary

Blood-Crazed Daedroth in Legends

The Blood-Crazed Daedroth is a 3-cost 3/2 Daedra in the red Strength attribute. When you summon the Daedroth, you get to draw a card if there is a Wounded creature in the same lane. A Wounded creature is one that has been damaged or had its health lowered by a debuff. In other words, you get card advantage for having contested the board before (and lost the battle). This should let you draw cards to keep contesting the board and to regain trade priority.

Blood-Crazed Daedroth during Opening

During the opening phase of the game, Blood-Crazed Daedroth is a slightly understated body for 3 magicka. The card assumes that you open the game with a higher health creature that can survive the attack of a 2-drop (e.g., a 2/4 Wily Keeva, a 2/3 Barrow Stalker or a 4/4 Mournhold Traitor). Alternatively, it wouldn’t be a problem if your opponent opened their game in the very same way and had a wounded creature on board. It’s actually happening pretty often these days that either one of these conditions is met.

If you really get a catastrophic mulligan and your opponent is on a very aggressive deck, you can still play the Daedroth without triggering the summon ability. You can possibly still trade-up.

Let’s see what other 3-cost creatures can support the fight for board and will draw you a card.

• The 3/2 orc Stronghold Patrol requires you to have two other red cards in play – a condition that is more difficult to meet.
• Cunning Ally and Daggerfall Mage also provide card advantage, but they don’t draw from your draw deck.
• Discerning Thief draws a card once he pilfers, but also requires you to discard a card. A similar issue exists with Cornerclub Gambler who draws two but requires you to discard one card.
• Goblin Skulk draws a 0-cost card from your deck when he pilfers.
• Eastmarch Crusader has better stats, but draws a card only, if you manage to break a rune before (which is difficult by turn 2 or 3).
• Indoril Mastermind unconditionally draws a card but comes with a 2/1 stat line, only.

So there are a few, and Blood-Crazed Daedroth seems to be a good inclusion for the Warrior class, in particular because card draw is not found as easily in red and purple.

Blood-Crazed Daedroth at Parity

At parity, where both players rely on their top deck draw, the conditional nature of Blood-Crazed Dadroth’ summon ability causes an extra challenge. If either side has a wounded creature on board, the ability to draw an additional card, paired with a 3/2 body can help you out.

However, if no creatures or no wounded creatures are on board, the Blood-Crazed Daedroth can be a pretty lousy draw. The stat line is not great, and not drawing an extra card during this phase of the game feels really bad. The question will then be: can you afford not to play the Daedroth and to wait until you can wound your opponent’s creature on your next turn? It certainly requires a deck designed particularly for this purpose to at least have a chance. In a nutshell, Blood-Crazed Daedroth leaves us with some question marks at parity.

Blood-Crazed Daedroth when Winning

When you are winning, Blood-Crazed Daedroth is a small additional body that can join the fight and extend your hand resources. You will likely have remaining magicka to play the other draw even this turn to keep pressuring your opponent. Therefore, the Daedroth is undoubtedly not a massive threat in itself, but can definitely help to strengthen your board further and keep your assault rolling.

Blood-Crazed Daedroth as a Turnaround

When you need a turnaround, Blood-Crazed Daedroth is rather weak. The 3/2 statline does not add any immediate defensive capabilities. Here, a keyword like guard or drain could help a little bit. You only get to draw another card, IF you are lucky enough that your opponent or you (still) have a wounded creature in a lane.

Card Evaluation Summary

Blood-Crazed Daedroth allows you to extend your resources under a condition that is relatively easy to meet during the opening phase of the game or when you are winning. However, at parity or when you are losing, the card will often be a weak draw. Here is our rating based on quadrant theory.

Rating Scale: 1 – Very Weak. 2- Weak. 3- OK. 4- Strong. 5- Very Strong.

Since the card has weaknesses in two quadrants, Blood-Crazed Daedroth will perhaps not be used in your average good stuff deck. The Daedroth needs a deck that can easily and consistently generate Wounded creatures on either side of the board. The ability to draw a card will be appreciated by midrange and control warrior decks, that often find it difficult to extend their resources. Let’s look at a few synergies and deck archetypes where the Daedroth can be a good fit.

Synergies

Decks with Low-Cost Ping Effects

Decks with low-cost ping effects will be able to trigger the Daedroth’s summon ability more consistently. Cards like Nord Firebrand, Rapid Shot, Sharpshooter Scout, Archer’s Gambit, Tiny Dragon, Archer‘s Gambit or Hlaalu Sharpshooter provide this synergy. If you have such a deck and it was rather weak on resource extension, you will need to consider the Daedroth.

Curse- or Ping-based Removal

Control decks that leverage curse-based or ping-based removal packages around Finish Off, Leaflurker and/ or Shearpoint Dragon will also appreciate an additional early-game option to extend their resources. These decks usually are to be seen in Archer, House Dagoth, the Ebonheart Pact and potentially even in House Hlaalu.

Self-ping synergies

Self-ping decks are based around the idea of wounding your own creatures (with pings or regular creature combat) to gain buffs or other benefits in the process. Typical creatures in self-ping decks are non-Daedra like Frenzied Alit, Fearless Northlander, Gristlehide Dreugh but also the daedric Fetcherfly Golem. Typically, these decks would run ping effects even to damage your own creatures to earn these benefits. This would make Blood-Crazed Daedroth a possible addition to those decks, mainly if they lacked resource extension.

Summary

Blood-Crazed Daedroth supports existing mechanics around ping-based removal and self-pingdecks. This alone makes me look forward to more cards from Jaws of Oblivion. We are just at the beginning of reveal season and don’t yet understand the new Invade mechanic and what other synergistic cards might be ahead of us. Nonetheless, it’s another good point in time to start to theory craft with the new cards that we will get to see over the next few days.

Sparkypants is putting out new content for The Elder Scrolls Legends consistently, and this makes the game unique and fresh every 3-4 months. Blood-Crazed Daedroth may not be the big staple that you will want to include in every red deck. But, it can hopefully help an archetype that has been close to be playable on the ladder to win consistently. Let’s hope Jaws of Oblivion will have more of those cards…