I've recently built a Dark Elf/Chaos/Orc deck that I really like AND I've even gone against my instincts and kept it fairly small in size BUT it simply could not handle an Orc deck at all NOR could it handle an Empire/Dwarf build. It really struggled against the E/D deck, in fact.

Are Dark Elves just not good enough yet for hybridize deck-building?

In general, I'd love to see everyone's opinions on how to handle specific deck-builds such as these ones:

--------------------------------------------

Dwarf Healing/Milling decks

Dwarf/Empire Hybrids

Orc Rush

Chaos/Skaven decks

Dark Elf/Sniping decks

Thanks for anyone who wants to post in here, I know who you regulars are!

i'd like to know as well - that's what i'm trying to do with my chaos/orc deck.

hard to have something to take care of every deck, but

Troll Vomit, Nurgle's Pestilence, Brutal Offering for Skaven/orc blitzers is best i can think of for those...

Pillage & Smash em All for Empire & Dwarfs supports

Slaanesh's Domination, Caught the Scent, Shades & other scouts, Journey to the Gate, Will of Tzeentch, maybe Infiltrate quest can universally mess with anyone who has key cards that make the deck tick (not so much a rush deck)

DE seem to be a mixture of everything now but theyve been most useful for me as an augment to chaos sniping deck. hopefully chaos and DE will have more options for hand management in the future

I have a list that is Chaos/Orc with a sniping theme and it is just brutal. I will post the list for you to mess with. About the Dark Elves, they really only have a couple cards that could go into a sniping deck and I think it makes splashing Orcs too hard if you play with the Dark Elves. My list also goes against what I usually do and it is 55 cards;

Chaos Units: 16
3 Chaos Knights
3 Festering Nurglings
3 Bloodsworn
3 Savage Marauders
2 Nurgle Sorcerer
2 Chosen of Tzeentch

Orc Units: 5
3 Lobber Crew
2 Urguck

Neutral Units: 5
3 Poison Wind Globadiers
2 Greyseer Thanquol

Attachments: 5
3 Cloud of Flies
2 Horrific Mutation

Chaos Tactics: 5
3 Brutal Offering
2 Flames of Tzeentch

Orc Tactics: 8
3 Troll Vomit
3 Pillage
2 Smash-Go-Boom!

Support: 9
3 Warpstone Meteor
3 Contested Village
3 Chaos/Orc Alliance

Quest: 2
2 Wolves of the North

Urguck is REALLY good with Cloud of Flies on him. Savage Marauders are also a really good first turn into the kingdom zone. 2 power for 3 resources and he can defend if need be? Sounds good to me.

I chose to stay away from Pestilence because I don't want to hit my units in the kingdom/quest zones and against Orcs, I really prefer to get to the 2 HP mark, that makes Brutal Offering a little better IMO.

I may also cut a Troll Vomit and a Warpstone Meteor to put in 3 Warpstone Excavations. A one time corruption seems easier than the every turn of the Meteor, but the meteor gives me more power. I also have a problem that the Meteor can't be played turn one.

As darkdeal has also discovered, Lobber Crew and Troll Vomit are pretty much THE cards to borrow as Chaos. They're easy to play, complement each other, and complement a lot of Chaos's strengths. I keep toying with the idea of Brutal Offering, but haven't actually added to any of my builds yet. While I have about a dozen variations on it, here is my most straight-forward build of Chaos Vomit:

Units: 20
3 Savage Gors (2-C)
3 Lobber Crew (2-O)
3 Savage Marauders (3-C)
3 Bloodsworn (4-C)
1 Bule, the Pus Lord (5-CCC)
1 Ironclaw's Horde (5-OO)
3 Chaos Knights (5-CC)
3 Bloodthirster (8-CCCCC)

Support: 15
3 Warpstone Excavation (0)
3 Contested Village (1)
3 Chaos/Orc Alliance (2)
3 Warpstone Meteor (3-CC)
3 Banna of Da Red Suns (4-O)

Tactics: 15
3 Flames of Tzeentch (x-CCC)
3 Seduced By Darkness (0-C)
3 Pillage (2-OO)
3 Troll Vomit (4-OO)
3 Rip Dere 'eads Off! (1-O)

Those 2-hammer supports are what allow you to come out of Vomit smelling like a rose. And Banna is actually really good in Order matchups, because you are definitely going to be making 7+ barrels, so they don't really have much of a prayer if they aren't also making 7 barrels. Each Banna is basically a three-barrel swing + a free damage every turn. To pad this deck, you could add another Ironclaw's Horde, a Pilgrimage, and a Festering Nurgling or two, without really changing the focus. FWIW, Lobber Crew is one of the most unfair cards in the game, and will probably get nerfed at some point.

@ wytefang, Re: Dark Elves

The following DE cards are arguably playable as splash cards:

Cold One Riders - A solid unit, but not really anything to build around.

Vile Sorceress - The problem with this card is that you *rarely* want to pay four for her. If you want to use this card, I'd recommend running 5+ banners so you have a decent shot at dropping her with something else on turn two.

Call the Blood - Good against fatties, but you need some way to get that first damage without spending a card - Nurgle Sorcerer is really the only option, and he's pretty pricey.

We Need Your Blood - A decent pinger for one, but doesn't work with Call the Blood. +1 HP is pretty worthless.

Cauldron of Blood - Well, it is two hammers for 4. CS 1 in the Kingdom only is not exactly a game-breaker, but it's something.

The biggest problem with this cardpool in my view is that it pulls you away from the Orc bombs you could be playing. None of this -1HP love-tap garbage matters if you're playing Troll Vomit anyway. OTOH, if you're not playing around Troll Vomit, you can actually put guys on the table and bring pressure rather than just making lots of barrels and drawing lots of cards.

I think if you're going for the "3-way" from the Chaos board, you want to run 6-7 banners, 3 Lobber Crews, and 3 Cold One Riders. After that, you kind of have to choose between 1) the "damage -> kill route" with stuff like Nurgle Sorc, Chosen of Tzeentch, Call the Blood, and possibly Cloud of Flies, Banna of Da Red Sunz, etc., and 2) the -1HP route with Vile Sorceress and We Need Your Blood. Obviously, in either build, you want to run relevant Chaos cards like Flames, Bloodsworn, and some kind of mass damage (Pestilence or Brutal Offering, depending on your guys' HP/Hammers). You can also sprinke the Orc damage-dependent stuff like Boar Boyz, Squig Herder, and the heroes, into the first build, if you like. And Rip is always solid; you could do worse than flipping Cold One Riders.

I'm not sure there is really much of a script for how this kind of deck plays out. Removal in this game is usually about: 1) staving off the rush, 2) giving your opponent an imbalanced Kingdom/Quest, 3) disrupting combos, and 4) getting bodies out of the way of your attacks. How to play it depends on much more than the matchup, but in general I would look to do the following in the following matchups:

Dwarf/Empire - They are probably running big Toughness + Counterstrike with Intervention. You can beat toughness with uncancellable damage + Call or stacked -1HP. CS units are juicy targets for any kind of direct damage. They might also be playing some kind of mid-tempo aggro with Greatswords + Troll Slayers, which should also be vulnerable to removal, though maybe not for a big barrel advantage. Obviously, kill anybody that gets Shrined if possible. Pay attention to how aggressively they are drawing, and go for the decking win if they are too greedy they can't get Infiltrate or Prepare for War to do much for them with your removal.

Pure Dwarf/Heal - If you don't run away with it early by dominating their Quest, then it gets kind of tough without Bloodthirster or Mob Up. Big attacks get Valaya'd and small attacks get healed. Hit them hard if they are not saving barrels. Look for chances to get damage on big guys through combat to turn on your removal effects.

Orc Rush - You basically want to decide if their initial hand can beat you. If it can, play removal on the BF. If it can't, play removal on their quest. React to their guys and don't get in a hurry to transition to offense.

Chaos/Skaven or Chaos/DE - They are doing a lot of the same things you are. Nurgle's Pestilence and Brutal Offering are both pretty good against Skaven. Will of Tzeentch is a fun card for the mirror, since you can get pretty large hands with Chaos.

Hope that helps!

darkdeal said:

Darkdeal, I know a couple of us (mainly Dormouse and I) have butted heads with you (reasonably good-naturedly) on deck-sizes but I have to say that 1) you make some killer decks and 2) it's very cool of you to NOT be afraid to post them for people to examine. Thanks man!

Wytefang, if you post your deck perhaps we can make some suggestions for you?

*ears perk up at the typing of "regulars"*

I'm not going to respond with counters to the specific deck builds, since they are far too generic and a response would require a huge wall of text.

I've been toying around with some deck builds that have been working great.

• Order Attatchment Deck
• Skaven-Chaos Aggro/Corruption
• Destruction Board Control

I've already posted a Skaven/Chaos deck build and it works great.

I will post an Order Attatchement deck build when I have the time to type it out.

And I'm not going to post my Destruction Board Control deck list since I plan on using it for my personal build.

I've been fiddling around with an Order Indirect Damage Deck, but it doesn't have the speed to really be competitive.

Orc Rush is definetely still the fastest and strongest deck, but if a player can survive the first 3 turns, Orc Rush loses its steam. Lots of ways to prevent Orc Rush with Counterstrike, cheap costing units, and control cards.

Brutal Offering is not worth playing imo (with the current card set). It's far too situational of a card and hurts you as well. Since Destruction relies strongly on the battlefield, it's almost stupid to be using Brutal Offering except as a reset card when you've already lost battlefield advantage. Against most Order decks, Brutal Offering doesn't do much.

Hate from the DE is an underrated card. It is a great control card. Before declaring an attack, you can play it to make sure they don't have enough resources for Valaya, Anerion's, etc. During your turn, you can play it to get that one extra resource to a nasty or pull off a combo. It's a versatile card and one that won't make you feel like you need to keep it in your hand, so you can make the easy choice of setting it as a Development. This card will be seeing alot of play in my DE deck builds.

FiendishDevil said:

I think its a bit shortsighted to pigeonhole all destruction decks as aggro. The battlefield is the zone I play to last and I find Brutal Offering to be better against Orc Rush than Pestilence.

I tend to agree with darkdeal, i think Brutal Offering is an excellent card to control Orc rush. Use it on a Savage Marauder and you often times have wiped out most or all of the Orc first wave.

I also love the card Hate . But haven't been able to take full advantage of it without the Dark Elf capital. I can see a very explosive Dark Elf build in the near future though, running 3x Hate and 3x Innovation.

I, too, am liking on Hate - I just wish there were more cards of that nature available right now.

I'm not pidgeonholing Brutal Offering. I'm just making the observation that nearly all competitive Destruction deck builds focus on the Battlefield at some point during the game. And yes, Brutal Offering is good against Orc, but that is a clear example of why it is "situational". It's too situational for my tastes, you pretty much only play it when you have Battlefield disadvantage.

Since I generally build my Destruction decks with a Battlefield advantage as a goal, I don't see Brutal Offering as a viable card slot in my decks at this time. If and when Destruction is able to build a decent disruption/mill deck, then I will be seeing much more possibilities for Brutal Offering.

Hate is a blank card if 1) your opponent spends all of his/her barrels, or 2) your opponent has a tactic they can play in response to Hate to spend all of their barrels. If they have extra barrels around but no tactics to play, then taking a barrel from them is probably not doing a whole lot. Best case is that your opponent has saved exactly the right number of barrels for Sigmar's Intervention or some other kind of effect they want or have to play in combat. Looking at current defensive combat tricks, I just don't think Hate does quite enough:

1. Master Rune of Valaya - Does nothing (they just play Valaya in response). Would matter a little in rare situations where defender had CS, I suppose.

2. Sigmar's Intervention - Stops it if they have two barrels exactly and no Innovation; pretty good in this scenario.

3. Rip Dere 'eads Off - Makes them play it before combat if they have exactly one barrel; decent, unless you are forced to attack that zone anyway.

4. Pilgrimage - Might force them to play it before combat; this will matter occasionally, but probably not enough to waste a card on it.

FiendishDevil said:

I didn't say you were pidgeonholing Brutal Offering, I said you are pidgeonholing destruction decks. Not all destruction decks play to the battlefield. I think Chaos is a good example of this. A controlling (sniping) chaos deck will protect its quest and kingdom zones while shooting at you and once the coast is clear and they have built enough resources in a turn, then they can plop things into the battlefield for a big attack. On top of that, the deck I posted actually takes advantage of damage on my units in some cases, or just gets rid of it. If I have an Urguck in the battlefield and I deal 2 to everything in battlefields with Brutal Offering, I can then spend the damage on Ugruck as though it was resources, basically making the Brutal Offering free (resource cost anyway). I also have Bloodsworn who will heal the 2 damage as soon as the opponents units die. Chaos Knights are just big enough that they won't die from it.

Also, your "situational" statement, while true, is not so bad of a drawback. Orcs will most likely be the most played deck. There are also times against non-orc opponents when it will be useful. Heck, even against Judgement decks, it can atleast be a development that won't force you to throw down cards that could be put to better use in the matchup.

I am just saying that it is better than Pestilence in my deck. Pestilence hurts me too much, and doesn't do enough against orcs or anyone else for that matter other than a mirror match.

cyberfunk said:

Hate (when played during capital phase) breaks

• Grudge Thrower Assault
• Striking the Grudge
• Gifts of Anerion (can be played in response, but element of surprise is lost and you wouldnt attack to make them gain resources).
• Grasping Darkness defense play (played during action window between assign attackers and assign defenders)
• Franz's Decree (can be played in response, but you can just pay for a better unit)
• Forced March (can be played in response, but you can play another unit)
• Nordland Halberdiers surprise defense (played during action window between assign attackers and assign defenders)
• Stubborn Refusal defense (played during action window between assign damage and apply damage)
• Blessings of Valaya defense (played during action window between declare defenders and assign damage)
• Stand Your Ground recursion
• and others...

There's lots of things Hate is great at disrupting. Seriously, underestimated card. Plus, like I said, it can always be used as a development or a way to boost your resources on your turn for unit/support paying. Also, Hate is one of the few tactics cards that targets ALL opponents. This card will be great when multiplayer rules come in.

FiendishDevil said:

The problem is that if they play something in response that uses all of their barrels, then you don't get to seal a barrel because they don't have any when Hate resolves.

As for the cards it can hose, I wasn't intending my list to be exhaustive, but I will admit that Blessings of Valaya and Stand Your Ground deserve a mention.

The other use for Hate (probably the intended use, based on current DE card pool) is playing it during your opponent's capital phase to get a barrel to pay for tactics (Call the Blood/We Need Your Blood) and possibly disrupt their unit/support plays on the early turns (you do have to wait for them to take their first action, though). This just doesn't work that well as a splash strategy, since you don't have a guaranteed DE icon on the table, but it could be good after we get the DE capital board. I agree that the card seems to be written with an eye toward multiplayer, and may be better in that context.

FiendishDevil said:

How does Hate stop Rune of Valaya if they have leftover Resources after paying for it? I'm not understanding how Hate can counter these things, I guess, in terms of the gameplay mechanics.

Wytefang said:

Hate can never stop Master Rune of Valaya. It can sometimes stop cards that have to be played in combat, such as Sigmar's Intervetion. If they have only two barrels, and you take one of them in your capital phase, then they obviously can't play Sigmar's Intervention during combat (unless they have a way to get barrels).

Well I agree that although Dark elf is a good splash for chaos snipping decks, they do not have the cards yet to be a true "partner" in a destruction deck. Not to say they are terrible, but they will not be the difference maker vs the decks you speak of.

It would take walls of text to discuss the question as you wrote it here, and I am not ready for that right now! I think we almost need to break it down and talk about each of those opoular decks and how to play vs them.

I do not beleive you can tailor a deck to the point that it can "take all comers" esspecialy as yopu start adding the situational cards that happen to be good vs certain types of decks.

I have a chaos deck with pestilence in it. Is a great card vs orc rushs, not bad vs empire, but kind of not so usefull vs many others.

I find card denial (scouts,Seduction,Will of Tzeech) are good cards to have vs decks that like to rely on a combo play like judgment decks.

To me the most difficult deck to play against is the rush decks. (I used to say orc, but my newest chaos/skaven is faster and hit harders) Really if you get the right cards to live through the storm, you can be ok, but so often you just get snowed under.

cyberfunk said:

'

That's what I figured but something about the way he wrote his post made me think that he thought otherwise.

About Brutal Offering : Don't underestimate this card !

It's a great rush killer, but also could be used offensively. Just burn their QZ or KZ first, and lets see if he could defend his BF if you have Wolves of The North, Thanquol and/or good "survival" units (Moulder elite, Bloodsworn) etc in your BF and a Brutal Offering ready to play. And also, nothing stops you from playing units into Battlefield AFTER the offering.

Also, it could kill all Counterstrike units in BF for a single 2 power unit... while the popular Blood for the Blood God can't remove even a single Reiksguard Knights, and many other Order units

Offering may work well with Bearmunda, Boar Boys & Co. (maybe playing some Squid Herders and/or Big 'Uns after the offering)

cyberfunk said:

Thanks a LOT, some excellent insights. Sorry I didn't thank you before for posting this.