Path of the Balrog

By saikyo_crusher, in UFS Deck Building

This is the deck I had considered taking to Worlds. It has a little trouble with control, but I haven't had too mcuh trouble with that. This deck should draw cards consistently during it's turn to go aggro and during your opponent's turn due to Path of the Master. It has a fairly decent track record when I have been running it recently. I would prefer not to run it dual-symbol, as such, this is why you see no Monster Lariats in the deck. Be mindful that is just the most recent revision of this deck. I run it off Chaos and thought it might just work, because rogue decks are janky like that, but now I may be switching to ::R. Mika::. Enjoy

.::Balrog::. 6/30

  • 4x Path of the Master
  • 4x Punching Bag

  • 4x Galactica Phantom
  • 4x Dash Low
  • 4x Crazy Buffalo--
  • 4x Demonic Drubbing
  • 4x Power Drive

  • 4x American Made
  • 4x Feelings of Friendship
  • 4x Soul of Ling-Sheng Su
  • 3x Former Champion
  • 4x Thug
  • 4x Sting Like a Bee
  • 4x Visions of Destiny
  • 4x Communing with th Ancients

Side Deck

  • 4x The Red Lotus of the Sun
  • 4x Destiny

Your deck looks to be interested in stringing a bunch of attack together to keep a constant threat on the opponent, which is great, but being able to throw that much + pumps + POTM, do you need thegiant difficulty attacks at all or are you better off having more stuff you can top deck?

G phantom will always need help to pass and is not so great down the line, and crazy buffallo is a lesser G phantom to some extent with a 2 check. I think your best bet with this deck might actually be to throw less but more effective attacks.

Some cards I would consider are Stained Honor to help pass the later attacks, and some lower Difficutly foundations like Powerful style which really does have a great ability.

The Proto-man speaketh the truth. I think you'd be better served by tossing off strings off 5 diff or less attacks, and making 'em nice and beefy with American Made, et al, because while Galactica Phantom may pack a wallop, it's hard to pass, requires setup for its damage-buffing E's, and it's easy to block, which isn't the best combination out there. I took the liberty of looking up good, low-difficulty Chaos Punch attacks for ya, and here are some of them:

Demon Cradle (4/3 4M4 +1M; Punch, Reversal) (Chaos, Earth, Life) - A very solid all-around attack, it can help stop opposing aggro decks if you play its Enhance when you Reverse your opponent with it.

K:A:M:I:K:A:Z:E (4/3 5M3 +2M; Punch) (Air, Chaos, Death) - It has very similar stats to Senkyutai (it even sports a better block), and while its effect is not the most universally applicable thing out there, it can come in handy against folks like Yi Shan, who love their face-up momentum.

Spinning Back Fist (4/3 4M3 +2M; Punch, Reversal) (All, Chaos, Life) - Life gain after you get socked, which is nice, and it gets out of your card pool while it's at it, too.

Vulcan Punch (5/3 2M4 +2M; Multiple: 1, Punch) (Air, Chaos, Good) - While it may be slow, it has Multiple, so it gives you 2 chances to get your punch in, and Multiples will certainly love all the damage buffing you have available.

I have tried the lower cost attacks as a means of playing more in a turn, my only concern is having them hit for enough damage. I was trying the Phantoms not only for the damage pump, but because I thought the interaction with Path was quite good (potentially +12 damage and +3 cards without having to play all 3 symbols on my character). Along the lines of cheaper attacks, I have considered Demon Cradle and Steel Slammer as good alternatives (ie. 4D/3CC 4M/4D) as solid stats. I do like the thought of Stained Honor and did consider it when I threw in the Ling-Shengs, but I only have one. May see if I can pick up more.

Yea stained honor is fantastic to carry extra points from balrogs ability as well as dash over to other attacks.

My only real issue with the deck is that i think the crazy bufs should just be foundations. No 2's plus stronger opening turn potential

Pretty interesting deck. I run a Balrog::: with All as my focus. I do have a question though as I have not been able to find this card anywhere online. What in the heck is Path of the Master and what does it do?..a picture would be splendid.