Yeah, Slyss'tok. He was quite a powerhouse! Too bad for him that the Slaanri themselves were so bottom-of-the-barrel compared to all of the other independent troops.
I'm not sure when you stopped playing Nikolai, but zone of control dancing (keeping a unit of scouts or shadelings engaged with you to sap your morale and keep you from hitting buildings, but always having them run away from combat) grew to become pretty much THE dominant skill. At some point it became more about dancing than everything else (similar to how last-hitting rules DOTA), and the resulting gameplay became flat and boring (my opinion only
).