With the cards available at present, there aren't a whole lot of High Elf cards I would want to play with. Actually, there is only 1, Repeater Bolt Thrower. This only became a desire after the FAQ confirmed that indirect damage cannot be assigned in excess of what was needed to kill/burn something.That led me to look for other cards that dealt indirect damage. I found one in Surprise Assault, a tasty looking tactic. Both of these cards require developments in the battlefield zone to be in the kingdom zone to be useful, and the RBT requires and equal amount of resources. This made me think that the best pairing for this specific strategy would be to fit it into a Dwarf development deck.

This strategy is not even close to enough to fill an entire deck so I had to think of a subtheme. I thought, if I am dealing an amount of indirect damage every turn, the opponent isn't going to want to pile it all on his/her capital and just let me win. He/she will most likely spread some among the units in play on their side. So I then questioned myself, how can I limit that? Some type of resource denial so that they can only play a bare minimum of units a turn could be viable, so that is the way I went.

After the opponent is only able to play 1 or 2 units a turn, and I am dealing 4 or 5 indirect damage a turn, it will be very hard for the opponent to get back up. If I have units with toughness in play, an/or am healing my capital, it is even harder for the opponent to recover. The one option that I see the opponent having is to play down units in the kingdom zone, but then they are not attacking or keeping pressure on me and that seems like a bad move against dwarves who, in my opinion, shine in the late game. Even then, the indirect damage can force them to kill their units in the kingdom zone, while I am attacking their other 2 zones with my beefed up Troll Slayers.

In typical fasion, at least for me, I try to build my deck focusing on 2 of the 3 zones. It seems a bit too hard to try to protect them all when in the end you are spread so thin you really aren't protecting any of them. So the quest zone kinda gets left out here, which is hard because I would like to draw atleast 2 cards a turn. I do have a couple things that can go there in any case, just nothing to defend it a great deal. There are also some hard decisions for card choices and I assume the next BP will make it even more tight.

I will now post my initial list for review and then post some cards that I would have liked to play and some flaws that I see in the list.

Units: 19
3 Dwarf Cannon Crew
3 Hammerer of Karak Azul
3 Dwarf Masons
3 Troll Slayers
3 Ironbreakers of Ankhor
2 Runesmith
2 King Kazador

Support: 16
3 Alliance (Dwarf / High Elf)
3 Keystone Forge
2 Armoury
2 Rune of Fortitude
2 Repeater Bolt Thrower
2 Abandoned Mine
2 Contested Stronghold

Tactic: 15
3 Innovation
3 Burn It Down
3 Surprise Assault
3 Demolition!
3 Wake The Mountain

The first problem that I see, atleast on paper, is the small number of units. I should still draw into about 2 units every 5 cards but that is low. I rationalize this by saying this is a defensive deck and once I get a couple guys with toughness out and some Keystone Forges, I am typically ok. I would like some more units that fit the one of the themes of the deck, but I couldn't find any.

Some of the cards that I liked but had to cut were Gromril Armour (I felt I had too few units for this to be reliable), Master Rune of Valaya, and Master Rune of Dismay (contradicts Dwarf Cannon Crew). None of them are units which was another reason for cutting them. I was really considering Master Rune of Dismay over the Rune of Fortitude, but the 4 cost versus 2 swung me for the fortitude. That still may be the wrong decision however.

One option I see is to go for more than 50 cards. I really like keeping my odds of drawing a specific card as good as possible though, and this deck doesn't go crazy with the quest zone drawing cards. I have a couple Runesmiths that I would like to drop in the quest zone and thats about it.

So tell me what you think. How can I modify this to make it stronger? Has anyone else tried something like this? Are there any other Dwarf/Helf lists out there that can be shared?

Any successful card gamer will tell you, never go over the minimum card count. You're watering down your draws if you do. Also, you're right, your units count is too low. There aren't enough "control" cards in WH:I (not yet anyway) to build a deck without a steady supply of units.

I have to say that I really like your deck idea, the repeater bolt thrower stuck onto my eye immediattely when I read the BP cards . I'll probably test out somekind of mix going 'round with dwarf cannon crew + shrine of taal + bolt thrower when I have time to make the deck. I would consider adding Mountain Brigade, they can take a lot of punishment and share even a 'lil bit of their own - I've found them quite good against those darn greenskins.

Unit count is a serious problem, and your thought that a few good deffenders is good enough is not sound, mainly cause you think an ironbreaker can hold the line, but a simple corruption card takes him of the play and you burn. Also IMO the deck is too slow and lacks stalling abaility vs fast decks.

That being said, I like the concept a lot and am thinking and working on a simaler list.

I think even a little bit of card denial can help a bit. You must have quarrels in the deck, they are handy in the quest zone, but get that scounting skill in the battlefield early....

The high elf allaince concept is kind of weak cause really the bolt thower is all you have, not worth having allaince banner cards over. I would say you are better off having a empire allanice and get city gates and freecompany into to the deck, keep the HE bolt thowers and just be preparied to pay for them.

The problem with hand denial is that if the opponent doesn't have the resources to play things, discarding them isn't really a drawback. Its just another card in our deck that could be more efficient.

I would also argue that, from my experience, the only really fast deck is orcs and I have beaten them. The corruption thing is valid, but those decks are typically not fast enough for me to only have 1 defender when they can burn a zone in one shot. They also tend to spread their units more than the faster orcs.

Honestly, I think the deck just needs to be playtested so that some real results can come out instead of theory. The idea that every deck must play more than half the deck as units, some that don't fit at all, bothers me. It makes it sound like the only viable deck concept at this point is rush.

There is a new Helf unit in the new BP that looks really good though. He reduces all damage he takes to 1.

darkdeal said:

While rush is certainly not the only viable deck concept, I strongly agree with Dywnarc that a deck should consist of many many units. Simply because they can do basically everything that is necessary. They attack, defend, provide ressources and card draw. All other card types are much more limited in their purpose. A real combo deck like in Magic where certain combos can kill your opponent outright are at the moment simply not possible.

Just cause a deck is mostly units donlt means its only a rush thing, I play against orc decks as fast as anything and beat them with control decks, but I do have a high unit count.

You are right about scout though, not as usefull in THIS deck.

I respect attempts to make different decks, it makes the game, and this board, more interesting.

When you have a lot of experience and know the cards well, you do not always have to play a deck before you know how it will work, The very nature of the key direct damage cards is such that they will not be strong till late game, This is ok, but you have to have the survial till then, and surviing means deffenders.

I dissagree that the orcs are the only fast deck, they hit harder, quicker, for cheaper, but even dwarves can be fast if they stick to cheaper units and cheap support cards like warpstone excavations and villages, I have scene dwarve rush decks, not as effective as orc ones, but they work against decks not ready for them or played well.

I would not support the notion either that everyone thinks you must have 1/2 units, it may appear like that on this board, but that is mostly my crusading about it! I am the one running behind every deck post telling everyone they do not have enough units! SO really, its just me...... And even this "unit count is king" crusader is open minded about exceptions, but this deck you propose is not one of those, it needs units to survive a bit.

I get lots of games in, I play 30-50 games a week, will test your deck tomorrow vs a few standard types and pet you know. Like I said, I was thinkabout this deck as well, have not put pen to paper about it yet to see how different it is to yours.

Dywnarc said:

That would be great. I am still trying to build up a player base in my area (Terre Haute, IN), which has a large number of Magic players. It is easy to teach them the game and they enjoy the strategic planning involved in unit placement.

I also agree with you that more units would be useful. I just don't want to take out cards the fit the theme for cards that don't just because they are unit filler. There is a new High Elf unit that looks like it would be good in here and with the new damage dealing rule, it basically stalls someone from damaging your capital in that zone for 3 turns.

I think you could work with a few less support cards. With innovation in your deck, you should get the hammers you need in kingdom, also units in kingdome do the same job and deffend the zone, you want some balance as protection from troll vomit though. As an aside, this deck is almost immmune from empire judgement decks, which appear to be another of the more feared decks.

I do not feel you need 3 copies each of demolation or burn it down. Oppenents can only place one dev a turn unless they are like you, So I would rather try to overwhelm there abality to heal, then to fill my deck with a card that just removd one, also oppenent support cards are not that much of a threat to you, each of these cards down to one or two each, this makes room for a few more dwarves. Dwarf miners a nice fit. They jump into a zone, heal a few points of damage, and boost the power in that zone for next turn, also it is annoying, but you can but them out early just for the cheap unit/hammer boost, if yopu have little else wirth playing in the kingdopm on first turn. A wake the mountain and innovation in opening hand could be nice to get some high end units out early.

I think you are on the verge of a workable deck, a few less of the more situational tatics, a support or two and get some muntain brigade and dwarf miners in the deck.

Dywnarc said:

I could probably cut some of the support cards that don't really have any ability on them like the Armoury and possibly the Alliance.

The Demolition! and Burn It Down are there to kill support cards, not developments. Its not that I worry about the abilities on the support cards either, its the hammers that they are providing when in the kingdom zone. I want to keep them choking for resources. They have the added benefit of making Judgement a lot less one sided as well, but like you said, that probably isn't a big deal. If I had to cut one or the other, I would cut all of the Burn it Down before I cut a single Demolition! just because it is so much more efficient resource wise.

So I could go -2 Armoury, -1 Burn It Down, +3 Dwarf Miner

Good good, I would squish in mountain brigdad as some suddested, 52 cards will not kill your consistancey