Deck of Fate: Pick a Card, any Card! Each card has one of five EFFECTS: Regain 50% of health, Damage over Time, Damage Boost, Power Drain, or as in all magic it can BACKFIRE.
Zatanna is an unorthodox character that can provide a bunch of fulfilling assets to her, granting her the ability to be in many roles. She can give herself a damage boost, power drain, deal damage over time, or heal her for half her maximum health. But, like all magic, it can backfire. Practice can help, but there is always some luck involved. Pick a card, any card!
There are five cards in her special 2; they are always in this order, but the starting card is random:
Zatanna - Pale blue - Magician: Self heal 50% of maximum health. This takes place right after the special and if the special KO'es the last opponent, will heal Zatanna just in time before the match ends (relevant for Survivor Mode and Breakthrough).
Wonder Woman - Red - Justice: 50% damage boost. Lost on tag out. Stacks up to 3 times for 250% total damage, and stacks with Harley Quinn's boosts.
Batman - Blue - Hermit: Power Drain. This will drain the next opponent if the main damage knocks out the target. This power drain is very strong and will fully drain power if not blocked (which only reduces the drain). It briefly staggers the opponent in an additional hit; if Zatanna is in melee range she can follow up with a basic combo. This additional hit cannot KO opponents.
The additional hit is considered part of the special and negated if the special is blinked or dodged. It also disappears if used against a power drain immune enemy so they won't be staggered, but it will still stagger against an opponent with 2 pieces of LexCorp Set.
While Superman/Injustice 2's passive will also negate this hit if the main part of the special has been negated by his passive, if the main part KO'es Superman's teammate and forces him to tag in, his passive will not interact with the extra hit. This also applies to Scorpion/Klassic's passive.
Missing the special (by knocking the opponent back with basic attacks and then using the special 2) will still hit them with the power drain.
Joker - Green - Fool: Self-stun. This can be negated by block. Deals 2 damage to Zatanna, and this can knock herself out if she is already at that level of health. When used by AI, it might not actually stun her.
Deathstroke - Yellow - Death: Damage over time. This is not a bleed, burn, or poison, and while it is affected by Catwoman/Batman Returns and Quake Engine (both damage boost and retrigger), it deals very low damage (over 3 seconds, for a total of 8% of Zatanna's damage stat)
13 cards will appear in one use of special 2. For example, a possible sequence is: Batman - Joker - Deathstroke - Zatanna - Wonder Woman - Batman - Joker - Deathstroke - Zatanna - Wonder Woman - Batman - Joker - Deathstroke.
The effect is applied after the normal damage of the special 2 is dealt, and can be applied to the next opponent if the main damage knocks out the current opponent. Despite her special 2 displaying a minimum and maximum damage, it does not offer any regular tapping/swipping and will always do the stated minimum damage.
The cards rotate quickly, much more so than Harley Quinn's special 2. This makes it quite difficult to land on a specifically desired card.
While her base stats are not bad and she's a female character (i.e. can benefit from Wonder Woman/600's damage and power generation boost), her SP2 can only deal minimum damage and overall she is significantly outclassed by almost any female card released around the same time or later.
Her SP2 will apply the damage over time effects from The Ibistick, League of Assassins Adept Blade, or LexCorp Helmet V2 4 times each. This means with all 3 pieces, her SP2 can deal additional damage over time equal to 104% of enemy maximum health, although she is not unique in this aspect and some other characters do it more efficiently (Batgirl/Cassandra Cain applies it 3 times on her special 1, for example). The Master's Death Cart can also be used; when her SP2 is used immediately after tagging in (other than her first tag in), it can additionally apply gear DOT at least 3 more times.
It is important to note that the extra damage from Batman and Deathstroke cards are not considered damage dealt by the special for the purpose of the Tantu Totem, and neither is gear DoT mentioned above. Therefore, if Zatanna knocks down her opponent with her heavy basic combo and immediately uses her SP2, the special itself will do no damage and the Tantu Totem will refund power, but you can still apply the devastating gear DoT and gain the card's bonus effect. The Batman card is particularly useful because it staggers the opponent after the special. If they don't block (and they usually don't), Zatanna can move up to them while they are hit by the power drain, use another heavy combo, and then another SP2 until they are KO'ed.
Interactions
Please note that battles are highly situational: this section only mentions cards that have mechanics that, for any reason, are particularly effective with/against, or particularly ineffective against Zatanna. Having a card that "counters" Zatanna does not mean it is always a good choice.
Good With
Catwoman/Batman Returns: She can boost Zatanna's Fire Kiss damage DOT length, making it do magnificent damage.
Wonder Woman/600: With her passive only boosting female teamates, she can give Zatanna/Prime bonus damage and power generation, allowing her to utilize her passive more.
Harley Quinn/Animated: When teamed with Wonder Woman/600, she will be a good damage dealer. Even if she did not manage to land on the Wonder Woman Card which increases her damage until tag out.
Tantu Totem and other power boosting gears as she can use these to get to her SP2 quicker.
Batgirl/Prime: She can give Zatanna a bar of power to reach her SP2 earlier, which is crucial for Zatanna.
Good Against
The Joker/Prime, and The Joker/Insurgency: If Zatanna picks out her own card from "Tarot Cards", she will likely KO the Joker if he's at low health, activating his passive. Zatanna will then recover 1/2 of her health, overriding and negating his passive altogether.
Countered By
Scorpion/Klassic: His fire immunity reduces her SP1 effectiveness because there will be no fire DOT dealt to him.
Superman/Injustice 2, Batman/Dawn of Justice and Wally West/Rebirth: Because of their special dodging/immunity, they cannot be hurt by the effects of her Tarot Cards and Fire Kiss. For the case of the latter evaders, they can then come back to do damage seriously hurting Zatanna.
Abilities
Here are Zatanna's abilities.
Ability
Classification
Description
Usage
Fire Kiss
First Special
Zatanna burns any opponent close enough to feel the heat from a flaming kiss. BURNS OPPONENT.
Rapid tap
Tarot Cards
Second Special
Zatanna summons unpredictable magic energies.
Tap
Avrah KaDabra
Super Move
Zatanna summons her most powerful magic, teleporting to a magical realm where strength is unmatched. UNBLOCKABLE.
[Zatanna] 100% AREA EFFECT: opponent's team takes 15% - 25% damage from Special 1
[EVOLVED] 20% - 30% CRIT chance on Special 1
25,000 - 1,000,000 (upgrading)
Stats
These stats are the final damage and health levels at level 50, per Elite rank, with ALLsupport cards, and without any augmentations. With the 2.13 update, Elite 8, 9, and 10 have been added. The Elite 10 damage and health levels are for level 60 characters. Numbers with a * after them may not be accurate, please allow for a discrepancy of '+1/-1' damage or health due to rounding inconsistencies in game code.
Tier
Damage
Health
Normal
7,047
16,767
Elite I
10.571
25,150
Elite II
14,094
33,534
Elite III
21,141
50,301
Elite IV
24,665
60,361
Elite V
28,188
67,068
Elite VI
31,712
75,452
Elite VII
35,235
83,835
Elite VIII
38,759
92,219
Elite IX
42,282
100,602
Elite X
49,754
129,168
Trivia
Interestingly enough, her in-fight portrait shows her wearing her hat, and her character's card shows her holding it in her right hand and her model-viewer shows her holding her wand in her left hand. However, she does not have either in the actual fight, other than briefly using her wand at the beginning of her super move.
Zatanna is the first character in the game where her passive can affect her negatively, the second being Red Lantern Hal Jordan.
Despite having almost zero impact on the game's meta herself, Zatanna's challenge is sandwiched between Deathstroke/Arkham Origins and Bane/Luchador before, and Raven/Prime and Green Lantern/Red Son after, and all four cards have very powerful passives that would greatly shape the game for a long time.
She was the last character from the console version to be released on mobile.
With the release of Shazam/New 52, she became the only console character to only have 1 card.
She is the only character to have an "Attack Boost" as all other similar effects are described as "Damage Boosts".
Deck of Fate: Pick a Card, any Card! Each card has one of five EFFECTS: Regain 50% of health, Damage over Time, Damage Boost, Power Drain, or as in all magic it can BACKFIRE.
