Timeline Tuesday: Taru

A Genesis: BoC Decktech Series

Genesis deckbuilding can get a little math-y with balancing chi values, aura pools, and having no card limit, so I’m here to help breakdown some fun archtypes you can expand on or rip apart and completely remake with your own ideas!

We’re gonna take a card and build an entire deck around that card.
and today’s card is…..

TARU!

That sneaky entangling tree Taru has a lot of potential to disrupt plans and give you an edge. And what better place to start on a Taru deck than the biggest, baddest monster in the Taru Arsenal…

Lord of the Hunt!

7 chi, 8health, Front Awareness
Beckon – 16 aura 5 energy
Trigger Conure 2x Taru anywhere in arena
Swift [exert] Earth 5

So, a pretty beefy 6 health, a beastly 5 EARTH damage, and it drops a couple of taru when it enters. There’s a lot to build off of here, to let’s get started with 8 Lord of the Hunt.

Next we’ll pair our Lord of the Hunts with some individual Taru, because the synergy is so high and placing tons of Taru is at the heart of our gameplan. We want enough of both that we’ll see them a few times throughout the game, but not enough that we’ll miss out on our other key pieces.

x8 Lord of the hunt
x8 taru
Card total so far: 16 cards/80 chi total

Now, let’s make these Taru that we’re dropping all over the place really do work for us by adding in some Taru Stags.

The synergy here is immense: Taru Stag’s can’t be targeted while on a Taru. And we’re planning to drop Taru all over the place. Let’s add 10 copies so we can consistently have a few copies in our hand over the course of a game.

x10 Taru Stag
Card total so far: 26 cards, 140 chi

We need some way to ensure that we’ll always have the pieces in hand when we need them. Let’s sprinkle in some Earth Breaks to draw the cards we need.

8x Earth Break
8 cards/40 chi
Card total so far: 34 cards/180 chi total

At this point we have a pretty solid, summon-heavy Mono-Red core to work with. We have enough pieces that synergize with the Taru gameplan while still leaving room to customize the deck.

Given that we’re locked into at least red, our champion options are:

INV: Yuvan (Red/Green), Ligaya (Red/Blue)
ORG: Qureen (Red/Blue), Cato (Red/Blue), Essa (Red/Green), Tashir (Red/Yellow), Shoon (Red/Purple)
J2: Malik (Red/Purple), Idiris (Red/Purple), Long (Red/Yellow), Feng (Red/Yellow), Odara (Red/Purple), Erika (Red/Yellow)

Ideally, we’re looking at a champ that synergizes with Earth Damage and providing some kind of offensive/defensive tool that can disrupt combat in some way.

Top 3 picks for Champions

Invasion: Yuvan (Red/Green) is the top pick here; his ability to stop damage at swift speed is incredible and can disrupt a lot of combos and thwart lots of plans. Green, while a newer colour, has LOTS of really excellent tools to navigate a Taru-infested Arena while maintaining board control.

Origins: Qureen (Red/Blue) is actually a really smart pick here; between Taru Stag’s targeting immunity while on Taru’s and the utility that blue brings (discard, healing, card draw, numerous abilities) allow you to keep up heavy threats even when out of aura by discarding the cards to qureen’s ability

J2: Long (Red/Yellow) is an old champion, but his stats and generic healing ability is actually quite sturdy and can synergize well with the “duck and cover” approach to a Taru deck. Yellow offers big beaters, Dash and Pacify, as well as OTK potential combining elemental strikes and calculated assault.

Whichever champion you choose, you’re looking to fill 16 cards and 70 chi, so more on the 3-4 chi or 5 chi side than the 6+ chi side, but don’t be shy about tweaking the numbers of the core of the deck if you need to eke out a few chi for something special (like Epiphanies/Dedicated Studies for example).

If we choose Qureen, we can add some blue draw and extra spells for the awareness that also play on discard (kabus, excruciation, etc), summons with dash/flight etc. To that end we can add some Dedicated Studies, and fill out the rest with some healing and gap-closers leap/lunge/diving juke and any extra summons or spells.

If we choose Yuvan, we can add tons of green cards that provide negates and counterplay to keep our stuff alive and maneuver it into the right spot for a killing blow. We can add Shunya Rogin, various counters and negates in green from Origins and Invasion. Green isn’t yet as strong of a colour overall due to a significantly smaller available card pool, but the tools it does have are excellent.

If we choose Long, we have access to lots of dash, pacify and it’s synergies, OTK with elemental strikes + Calculated Assault, and lots of high health beaters and movement spells and techniques, there’s a lot of potential here. Many of the summons in yellow will buff allies, giving you a huge advantage as you control the board with your Taru.

Which version would you pick? What changes would you make to the deck suggestions, or how would you sculpt your own version? What other champions would you pair up with to take full advantage of Taru? Let us know in the comments, on the Genesis Facebook page or on the discord!