Disclaimer: This deck is made with 2 core sets. It's an aggressive orc deck with 2 cards from chaos (2x Bloodthirster). You want to end games early with this . I haven't played much with this deck but I've put a lot of thought into this. There might be a better build with more chaos cards mixed in, but I wanted to do a close as possible pure orc deck, so I can do another chaos deck. There are cards which I wish were better, but with limited card pool it's the best I could do. Any feedback would be nice .

Overall Strategy:

Field a lot of units, use Totem of Gork(s) and Waagh! and try to deal as much damage as you can . Use Bloodthirsters as developments in Kingdom and Quest zones and trap attackers with Rip dere 'eads off after they've declared attackers. With 5 power and 8hp damage soaker defender the attackers are most likely in big trouble. With Bloodthirsters there you need only minimum to none defenders. With some luck the defense holds and attackers have to lick their wounds for a while while you finish the game. Bloodthirster + Rip combo could also be a game finisher.

(58/ 60) Cards :: I think this might be optimum number of cards for an aggressive deck . You have some resistance of decking out and still have mostly good draws.

Units (24 / 26):

3x Crooked tree goblins :: Cannon fodder. Do not worry about losing them. Use as developments or for early damage dealers (it's frustrating to attack with 10+ damage to a zone with 1hp, those early damages might pay back really good). Some might say that they're good when Waaagh! or Totem of Gork comes up -they might be right, but IMO when you get that damage rollin' you don't miss 1-2 units, you'll deal plenty .

3x Squig herders :: If you get these early, put them in Kingdom/Quest zone, preferably with We'z bigga for a cheap 2 power unit.

2x Ironclaw horde :: This unit I'm not a fan of. Too expensive for a 2hp unit . Hard to get into play early on but with luck will deal a lot of damage to a defensiveless zone.

3x Followers of Mork :: Not much to say here. Usually as an orc you need atleast one damaged unit, this get 's the job done.

3x Black orc squad :: Damage soaker. I'm not that big of a fan of this unit either . Use as a defender in Kingdom/Quest or as an attacker with Choppa in the battlefield. Awesome unit if you can gain toughness.

3x Boar boyz :: Now this is a unit you want to field in your offence! Not worthy to field unless you have atleast one damaged unit though.

2x Urguk :: Not much to say here also, get damage from Followers of Mork or from We'z bigga.

(2x Grimgor Ironhide) :: This would be no-brainer if the "enters play "-action worked with Rip dere 'eads off, but it doesn't (read it from an other topic which had an answer from designer/playtester or whatever. Most people would like to have this in their decks, but I'm concerned it might interfere with Rip dere 'eads off and Bloodthirster combo. Could be a poor man's alternative for Bloodthirster though. It might be also risky to field this if the enemy moves this to quest zone you might deck out.

3x Lobber crew :: One of my favourite units. If enemy is low on cheap units, just sacrifice these . These can be also used defensively after enemy has declared attackers; the enemy has to decide if he weakens the attacking force or sacrifices potentially good units from Kingdom/Quest zone. Highly situational.

2x Big 'uns :: Not that great an unit, but not much alternative units in the card pool yet.

2x Bloodthirster :: See overall strategy section in the beginning. Just awesome.

Support (17) : This section I'm a bit uncertain, but lets give it a go.

2x Rock lobber :: This is just fun. Lob the dying guys in the damage assigned phase or units that have been nuked to death. You can also lob the guys that have been brought to life with Rip dere 'eads off! after they've done their duty. Might only need 1 of these in the deck though.

3x Choppa :: Chop dere 'eads off! High hp-units are less risk free for this, but don't underestimate the early damage a cheap unit with this can do.

2x Totem of Gork :: Use in the Kingdom/Quest zone only if you're desperate. Otherwise in the battlefield.

2x Banna of da Red Sunz :: Possible alternative: Armoury. Atleast Banna gives loyalty symbol .

2x Grimgor's camp :: This one is also a questionable card. Armoury would give a better benefit cheaper if you place developes in kingdom. Atleast this one gives a loyalty symbol.

3x Contested village :: Preferable use in Quest zone since there are already Lobber crews, Banna and Grimgor's camp

3x Warpstone Excavation :: See Contested village. Cheap (free!) power symbols in the quest zone. Does not interfere with Rip dere 'eads off animated units since they don't "enter play", they're "left in the play"!

Tactic (12):

2x Smash-Go-Boom! :: Use to finish off zones or interfere with other cards that benefit from developes (Troll slayers, armoury etc.).

2x Rip dere 'eads off ! :: If you've read everything to this point, you should have a pretty good idea what to do with this .

3x We'z bigga ::

2x Pillage :: Early game this can be used to disturb resource gathering, or in the end game to weaken the defence.

2x Waaagh! :: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

1x Troll vomit :: I think the only thing making this card not-imba is that it's in orc deck. As an orc-player you want to field more units than the other guy, so if you have to use this you're propably in trouble anyways. In the early game could be useful if the other guy fields more units.

Quest (3) :

2x Smash 'em all! :: Why two of these? Well, you want to have this one as early as possible, atleast it doubles the chances of getting one early.

1x Prepare for war :: A very questionable card to this deck . Gives you some chances of not decking out if the other guy has a good decking-out deck. Did I say I love Rip dere 'eads off!, this makes it possible to play them again . It doesn't cost anything to play in the table atleast. If the other guy attacks your quest zone, defend with the unit that's questing here and then sacrifice him after he's done his duty .

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Biggest Strenghts:

A lot of damage potential in the offence. Suprise damage potential in defence. Potential to disturb resource gathering or make the other guy lose good units by you sacrificing weak ones. Already dead-to-be units can be put to use.

Biggest Weaknesses:

The strenght potentials might not come to be actual benefits. Rip dere 'eads off! + Bloodthirster can be countered using corruption or anything that makes the unit not be part of defence (there is a window to use tactic cards before declaring defenders). Beware of Judgement of Verena in the battlefield.

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If I had 3x core deck I would add in another Rip dere 'eads off! but mostly the deck would stay the same.

Well I guess that's it. Depending how this one is received, I'll think about it if I do similar breakdown of my Chaos -deck or 90+-cards-Imperial-Dwarves-hide-in-a-hole-and-hope-the-other-guy-decks-out -deck

EDIT: Rock lobber was in the wrong section

Why not 3 bloodthirsters?

vermillian said:

bloodthirsters in otherwise pure orc deck needs "rip dere 'eads off!" to play and I only have 2 of them anyways .

After further play, I streamlined this deck a bit. I removed 1x rock lobber, 1x prepare for war (I'm still on the fence about this, it could be proven usefull with it's 0 cost and sacrificing the unit only when it would die defending anyways), 1x troll vomit, 1x smash 'em all bringin the total cards to 26 units (withouth grimgor ironhide, I miscalculated that in the original post), 16 support, 11 tactic and 1 quest ( 54 total ).

The beauty of orc deck is that you don't need to have a strong kingdom / quest zone presence to field an efficient army in the battlefield and also the bloodthirster + rip combo removes the need to defend those zones to some extend. The benefit of building developments is also questionable with orcs (other than 1 per zone against Judgement of Verona) so you don't have to draw that many cards as someone who builds a lot of devs.

I would go so far as to say Rip dere 'eads off! is the best card in the game, even better than judgement of verona . Btw, always see if you can sacrifice units to gain benefits that are going to die from a played card like judgement of verona (lobber crews!). And an other thing: When you go into offence against dwarves you can use Bloodthirster to change the damage to uncancellable type!

Innovation is easily the best single card in the game.

Wytefang said:

No point adding it to orc deck if it's build like mine. Or in any deck that doesn't benefit from developments in kingdom. But true enough, Innovation is a 0-cost neutral card and Rip dere 'eads off is an orc card, so technically you could say Innovation is the best card for most of the decks

It's good even for Orc decks if you're not hung up (like many are who carry baggage to this game from pre-existing CCGs/LCGs) on the deck-sizes. Any card that gives you Resources for free (basically) is insanely helpful - you could argue that it's even more potent for an Orc deck which relies on a super-fast start to really do well. Even 1 or 2 extra Resources could prove decisive.

I keep seeing 'Judgement of Ver o na'. Though I can say that Verona is a nice city, the name in the card is 'Verena'.

Wytefang said:

Sure, it could be helpful or not , but I'll try to keep the card amount minimum what I have to shuffle between decks.

If your orc deck rely on one Contested Stronghold to pump out resources Innovation is quite useful.

jogo said:

Well, I don't

Any development except Bloodthirsters is a waste of a card draw in an orc- rush deck imo

Only if you could play all cards you got. And if you dont have enough resources it is not a waste. Especially if you are first player it is normally stronger to play an eco card (contested X, grimgors camp), than filling the battlefield with useless creatures in the first round.

jogo said:

The only weakness of this deck if played right is the card draws unless I get early contested villages / warpsone ex. / squid herders to quest zone, it doesn't take many rounds to finish most games off and every card "wasted" on developments makes it harder if the game continues longer than it should be. Imo orcs are ridiciliously overpowered atm except agains chaos that's getting good draws.

Granted, I don't have the first battle pack, but what I've read from spoiler list the new units just make orcs stronger.