I'll admit. Mono-Empire doesn't do the trick, especially against Orc/Chaos Aggro and Dwarven Resilience. Here is an Empire list splashed with Dwarf and High Elf that centers around hand control. It's pretty good and in testing has managed to beat Orc Weenie Swarms and Dwarf Defense Decks. Yes, I am revealing my trade secrets! Next deck I'll show will be the Dwarven Defenders or the Chaos/Dark Elf unit control decks.

Empire Units

3x Reiksguard Knights

3x Free Company

2x Pistoliers

2x Sigmar's Blessed

2x Thyrus Gorman

Dwarven Units

3x Dwarf Ranger

2x Zhufbar Engineers

High Elf Units

2x Silver Helm Brigade

2x Archmage of Saphery

2x Tyriel

Empire Tactics/Support

3x Forced March

3x Infiltrate

2x Twin-Tailed Comet

2x Sigmar's Intervention

2x Judgment of Verona

Dwarven Tactics/Support

3x Keystone Forge

High Elf Tactics/Support

2x Blessing of Isha

2x Greater Heal

Neutral Tactics/Support

2x Infiltrate! Quest

2x Empire/High Elf Banner

2x Dwarf/High Elf Banner

2x Pilgrimage

General Deck Play

The deck relies heavily upon the Kingdom and Quest Zones. You want to have a Quest draw of 2 to 3 within the first 3 turns. There are lots of single cost units and support cards that you can get into play without needing any extra resources, The goal of the deck is to get card advantage on the enemy. Using your Scout units, Infiltrate! and Infiltrate, you can really force the enemy into limited options.

Opening Hand

If you are going first, you want to play a non-scout unit (Sigmar's Blessed, Reiksguard Knights, Pistoliers) into the Kingdom Zone or a Support card into the Kingdom Zone (Keystone Forge, Banner). If you have a Free Company in hand, save it for your 2nd turn when you actually have a Battlefield Phase.

If you are going second, you will ALWAYS play a Free Company to the Battlefield Zone if you have one in hand, else follow the standard going first above.

Your 2nd and 3rd turn will be concentrated on putting power into your Quest Zone for card draw.

Offense and the Battlefield

Scout units (Free Company, Dwarf Ranger) always go to your Battlefield Zone. You will use them to attack every turn if possible. Target enemy zones that have no units. You want your Scouts to survive. The point is not to deal damage, but to survive so that the enemy is forced to randomly discard from their hand. By disallowing them cards in hand, you have the advantage.

Your primary offensive will be with Tactics and the Infiltrate! Quest. Use Forced March or Pilgrimage to get enemy units out of the Quest Zone thus reducing their draw abilities. Forced March and Pilgrimage can also help to remove tough units that are causing issues.When enemies are going to draw a bunch of cards, play Infiltrate on them so that they only draw one card. When you have cards you don't need, put them into play as Developments, you never know when you can cast Judgment of Verona. When you play your Infiltrate! Quest, make sure to put a unit that has survivability on it (Reiksguard Knights,Silver Helm Brigade, Tyriel, Pistoliers). With you constantly sending the enemy's top deck into the discard, you limit their options and once again gain card advantage.

Defense Defense Defense

This deck is all about defense and card advantage. You can let your Battlefield burn, because your Quest and Kingdom Zones are most important. Most of your defending units will be going into the Quest and Kingdom Zones. Great defending units include the Counterstrike 2 Reiksguard Knights, the draw when damaged Silver Helm Brigade, and the creature removing effects of Tyriel, Sigmar's Blessed, and Zhufbar Engineers. Your Archmage of Saphery and Greater Heal will help to keep your units alive. Blessing of Isha helps to protect against corruption and provides a High Elf loyalty symbol for cheap. If you can let enemies through to damage your Quest/Kingdom Zones, then you can do so, provided you have Keystone Forges out, but generally, you want to defend, because when you defend, you have nasty effects.

When in question, play Sigmar's Intervention and redirect your attack to the zone with the nastiest unit effects.

Thyrus Gorman

This hero is a resource magnate. Easy to get out, he provides 3 power which is 3 resources or 3 extra cards per turn for 2 turns. With an Archmage of Saphery out, Thyrus can provide his resource/cards for longer than 2 turns.

No Greatswords?

I would definately include them, with Johannes Broheim & Pistoliers, you can pump that card up like a shotgun.

Greatswords pumped with Pistoliers/Johannes is too slow of a combo. Plus, the only purpose to pumping in this deck would be to get more resources and/or cards in hand.

Again you outlist me.... Great setup! I never thought about the hand disruption.

Thanks, you gave me the clues I was lacking when trying to build a decent Empire deck. I can't wait to read at your Dawrf Defense deck .

I'm amused at how similar are decks are. I do include Greatswords x2 not for the pumping combo but because it makes my opponent worry about the pumping combo. Having the option available is nice, but certainly not required for the deck to go off.

I'm a big fan of hand and deck destruction.

dormouse said:

Ugh. Now there's a whole different type of meta there. I would field Greatswords if they weren't 4 base cost. At 4 base cost, that means that you gotta hold them in hand early game or development them.

I was wondering.. with your decklists. how many core sets did you need. Did you need to get two or actually get 3 for some of the cards you have in your deck?

Waterbourn said:

This deck does contain some of the "rare" cards from the base set, so you'll have to come up with them somehow, whether that's buying another core set or trading with other people. A friend of mine plays orcs, so I trade most of my destruction stuff to him in return for empire. It'll save you some money that way if you happen to have a friend and are set on a specific faction. You'll need 3 battlepacks to complete the deck too, for Infiltrate.

As a side note, I built pretty much this deck and played at my first league night (minus the infiltrates unfortunately, added some peasant militia etc.). It played reasonably well if I could get the scouts out in time. The infiltrates definitely would've made a big difference and probably could've been gamechangers in a bunch of games vs. orcs with there cheap units. It's a pretty interesting and fun deck to play I thought, worth a look if you don't want to go the development route for empire.

Yeah this deck doesn't do so hot with the orc blitz deck that comes out of the new expansion. I don't mean any disrespect, but i'm having serious problems with the blitzy swarm deck out of orc with skaven thrown in to maximize effectiveness. It is an auto win against me.

P.S. I really like the deck btw. I just can't find a silver bullet against my brother's swarm deck, and I was hoping this deck might have been it.

I use 3 Skavenblight and 2 Core Sets.

@arglor: I'll post a deck list for the anti-orc. This deck has beaten a swarm deck before though. Counterstrike is godly against swarm decks.

Honestly it doesn't seem like orc blitz can be stopped if they draw the right cards anyway. Multiple spider riders out first/second turn spells doom, especially with any sort of support like a choppa coming soon after.

What changes would you do to this list with the new sets out?

Love this deck btw but Orc Blitz still has advantage; at least with me. Might just be my skill though.

Mono-Empire can hold off an Orc Blitz deck with a bit counterstrike, warrior priests and the new hellebardiers. And Mono-Empire can do the trick in endgame with City Gates, Shrine to Taal, Mine and Pistoliers/Broheim. Even dwarfs will have problems blocking a 20 power Broheim plus a 10 power Greatswords.

jogo said:

They don't block, they use Master Rune of Valaya .

Only if the scouts haven't stripped it from their hand.

dormouse said:

Scouts haven't been in the BZ for a long time .

Free Company is a great card in the battlefield, even more if the opponent does not defend kingdom/quest and is instead dropping supports there.

And dwarfs have 3 runes at maximum, you are able to attack more times.

jogo said:

Prepare for War can recycle cards.

Still no protecting from scouting it again.

jogo said:

Grudge Thrower Assault (I think that's the name) can remove those nasty Scouts. Something like destroy one attacking Unit after damage has been assigned.

Kinda pointless, isn't it?

jogo said:

Gets rid of the Scout that's attacking, so not entirely. It did damage, but didn't survive until the end of combat, so Scout-discard ability doesn't kick in. And Scouts pack 1 Power currently, barring boosters.

I did not mean the card, but our discussion.