I think Long Winter might actually be enough to make Judgment playable. The one barrel on Will of the Electors actually matters in a lot of draws, and another development killer obviously makes it that much easier to bingo. Dwarves w/ Ancestral Tomb look to be in pretty good shape against Judgment, though.

I definitely like the Vanguards, too. All the other good cards are pretty unsubtle.

Grandfather's Call might be the worst card yet, even if diseases are really, really good.

Grandfather's Call is shockingly bad - pretty bad even without the unit sacrifice, but as is it's amazingly awful. Doesn't manage to take the crown from Repair the Waystones though IMHO.

ddm5182 said:

You really honestly need to sit down, breath a little bit, and realize how your posts come across in here (in particular, your remarks in the Warpstone thread stand out in this regard). You seem incapable of realizing that 1. other players may have more (gasp!) or at least as much knowledge and understanding of this game as you do, and in point of fact, many have been playing it longer than you as well, 2. that much of what you spew out here as fact is anything but that - it's mostly your subjective opinions, and 3. you're going to win more flies with honey than crap.

We've done this dance once before as I recall, from the very beginning when you showed up in these forums and acted like Queen Know-it-all of W:I and were insulting to people for no good reason It was annoying then and it's gotten worse now.

Get a grip on how you speak to any and all of us in here before daring to call someone else a "troll." And yes, I'm sorry, but Bolt-thrower decks are decent, nothing special. Sorry if that makes you rage - it is what it is.

In response to the original thread, I like Called back. Another card to add to my HE deck that is using cards to bounce units back to my opponent's hand. It worked very well against a DE deck and I'm looking forward to trying it against more decks and with a card like Called back in there.

Long Winter looks like a solid choice for anyone wanting to play Verena and just needed that small bit more to get developments out of the way or good for knocking back a development right before expecting a Rip Dere heads off.

I'm happy to see a few more useful neutrals. I can't wait.

Wytefang said:

Maybe you didn't recognized that ddm5182 is the undisputed world champion of W:I ... neiher I did. His unpolite, untolerant behavior reached that level that I pushed the "Report to the Moderator" button.

Back on topic :

I really like the shape of the new cycle. however I feel that it's only the order side who receives new and new options for an effective resource/card engine... which makes me a sad panda. Bottomless mine maybe the lone exception, as a 6 power in KZ is possible in the first turn without innovation or WE !

The BP is a real treasure for dwarves, but I also like where DE and Chaos is heading to. Wilhelm is strong. Otherwise Orcs and HE seems a little weak/uninovative in this BP.

The noutrals are all seems playable. Dark Abyss is one step forward to an effective milldeck, but also help in graveyard based strategies. (necromancy, Mortella)

Yeah, Orc is pretty weak. Followers of Skarsnik have worser stats than Wyvern Rider. Savage Rage costs more than choppa and only gets at the same level after two turns. Perhaps Fanatic and Stunty could get play, but with all the other strong orc cards...

But Orcs got two resource/draw cards last bp. Squig pen has a good 0.66 PR ratio and that it is a single cards makes it better. And the Great Cave Squig gets you 3 resources if you got Urguck with Scrap Heap.

Wytefang said:

I guarantee you he knows exactly how his posts are being interpreted.

Once again it is apparent that we need separate sub-forums for casual and competitive discussions. It's obvious by your anti Bolt Thrower posts, your advocating of decks larger than the minimum and your regionals deck (that was given to you gift wrapped and tested) you mucked up by adding Orc relics that you really have no business in a competitive play discussion.

Great...

After a self-chosen world champion we also have a self-proclaimed censor to decide who could post to forum-topics and who could not.

This forum is getting nicer and nicer...

Cain_hu said:

Im not following, who's the champion and who's the censor? The Warpstone topic I haven't fully read, but suffice it to say it has degenerated to a 'I argue better than you' debate, so much so that I can't tell who wants said card banned and who doesn't, and should be modded/locked.

Off topic - when everyone talks about thrower decks are they talking about a High Elf thrower deck or the Dark Elf thrower deck (sorry I'm new). Even better, can someone link to a thrower decklist that is (isn't per other's opinion) competitive?

On topic - I'm going to err on the side of 'Cold Winter' is a deceivingly useful card. After all, a development is both a resource (in decks with contested/taal/innovation/etc.) and a capital hp. Been mentioned that judgement decks love it too, and I'd like to see "resetting Empire" reach a better level of consistency than it has in my experience with it... I think Orc would be about the only faction that doesn't get as much benefit out of it, granted they have a few 'better' development busters.

- dut

Wytefang: Why do you refuse to share your decklists so I can critique them?

I am offering to play your decks against ours and outline in detail my strategies and specific lines of play in the matchups. Its entirely possible I am just a terrible player and am doing it completely wrong, and you are absolutely right and thrower doesnt hold a candle to your decks. I HOPE that's the case because I really hate the thrower deck, a lot. So please do us all a favor and rather than settle this with insults, post some decklists so we can settle it with some elbow grease and honest discussion of the results.

I firmly believe I have something to learn from everyone. Everyone has a unique pov that is worth taking the time to understand and learn from. I am asking you to share your pov with me, and offering to share my pov in return. I don't understand why you refuse. What do you have to lose?

dutpotd said:

Forum talks mainly about HE thrower. Personally I think Orc Reaper is better.

Jogo do you have a list you can point me to? We've been meaning to test destruction thrower for a while. Do you just basically play control w/ Naggaroth Spearmen as a finisher, or is it actually playing the Reaper?

Either way, theoretically I don't see it having the tools to beat Skaven since so many of destruction's best tools are sorcery-speed & they have a pretty awful support cardpool (basically why Chaos control can't beat them), and it seems like it loses HARD to the order thrower mirror, but I can't say with confidence until we've tested it.

@dutpotd, HE/Dwarf thrower is the list me, Clamatius, f7eleven etc are referring to when we whine that bolt thrower is choking the format. Clamatius posted a list a while ago that needs to be updated with the latest battle packs but the core of it is basically unchanged. Lots of "fog" effects (Valaya, Gifts of Aeneron), powerful card draw, thrower as a finisher.

f7eleven said:

f7eleven said:

I wondered if you'd show your true colors eventually...sigh. You are actually really wrong on so many points here, the least of which is your determination of anyone else's skill level. That's a good one.

Let's refute the idiocy/arrogance of your remarks in simple point by point fashion so you can understand it, shall we?

1. My anti-Bolt-thrower remarks have said what many other talented and experienced players of this game have said, also - it's a good deck, hardly all that creative (many of us here at the launch of this forum wondered about the unit-less idea), and not as dominant as our resident experts here (LOL!) would have everyone else believe. So since you're actually the one who is NOT correct about this deck's overall capabilities (it's yet, to my knowledge, to even win any championship anywhere, and certainly not multiple ones) perhaps we should edit your posting privileges here instead? That would be in keeping with your arrogant attitude.

2. Larger deck sizes doesn't mean I've advocated 60-70 card decks, but much like Dormouse has also said (along with me), smart players don't whine or worry about an extra card or two, in light of the utility they may offer your deck. Again, something you fail to grasp, apparently, which reveals a shallower understanding of the strategic complexities of this game. And we were talking about how I have no business in a competitive play discussion? Laughable.

3. My regionals deck was not even remotedly gift-wrapped for me and was entirely created by me. Originally I'd sought some good friendly advice but in the end I didn't rely on very much, if any of it, at all. And misjudging the sheer focus put into some of the Rush decks for my first tournament with the game is hardly, HARDLY a damning piece of evidence. I finished middle of the small pack and had I not been nervous my first game, would have probably made the final grouping. Again, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Please, seriously, just stop posting here...you make 15 years old (or however young you are - gotta be fairly young based on your ignorant remarks) look bad. If you have zero useful things to say, don't bother posting. No one here wants to hear your insults or view your ignorance. It's just embarrassing.

ddm5182 said:

There are plenty of reasons why I wouldn't want or need to share any of my deck lists with you or anyone else for that matter:

1. Should I be helpful to someone who consistently belittles other players or doesn't really seem to honestly value their opinions - see: Warpstone banning thread for further insight.

2. If I had some cool combos or insights, would it make sense to share them so closely to the next big tournament? Not saying I do, but it's a fair point.

3. Why should I have to prove anything to you or anyone else? I know what I've seen of the BT decks, and I know that they've won little to nothing. What's left to prove?

4. How would we have any real way to know if you genuinely gave back honest results or not after testing? We wouldn't, so it'd be a useless endeavor, from a scientific or strategically valid viewpoint.

5. Finally, in all honesty, I really don't have the time to get many of my decks down into a list - I definitely need to do this though, if I'm going to be more successful when playing competitively, no doubt about it. I always did that back in the day but not lately. Kids ruin your free time. Sigh.

I do appreciate the change in tone of this message and if we're all just misinterpreting your remarks, please just be more careful how you make your points or post stuff. It's uncool. Don't become the F7 of the forums, he's just all over the place half the time.

jogo said:

Jogo, I experimented with a Destruction-based Thrower deck but never found it totally potent. Have you posted any samples of it or can you explain what has made it more effective now?

We've already posted all of our competitive decks though. So, how about you reverse my offer and post some detailed playtests of your lists vs. ours so I can at least give you my insights on your lines of play with our decks? I don't really care who does the testing as long as the results and lines of play are discussed in a transparent way (not just "my deck totally won 10 games in a row!").

Don't you understand I WANT to be wrong about thrower? I really, really do. I hate that deck and its why I'm not playing standard anymore.

Ugh, I'm spamming this thread now (sorry to others not involved in some of the bile-slinging for the multiple posts here) BUT I do want to say that for the record, I do not consider F7Eleven nor DDM5182 to NOT be good players, based on their postings, they clearly understand the game and have their own interpretations of the strategies and such.

I'm just unhappy with the overall arrogant attitudes - they're just unnecessary. If folks want to start chest-thumping and basing self-worth on how good they are at this game, go play James Hata and learn the agony of true humility as a real CCG genius sends you home packing with authority. Yes. He's THAT good. And he was THAT good at UFS, also, which was an even more strategically demanding game than our beloved W:I.

I should admit that, in all fairness, DDM5182, maybe my experiences playing with the BT decks and against them were tempered by the deck-builds I've used for it. It could also be that what you consider a BT deck and what I do are somewhat different. My experience has been against mostly a HE build that's nearly entirely unit-less or entirely unit-less and I'll also say that I've not done a bunch of research with it since the past 2 battlepacks because it felt weak to me so I saw no reason to test against it or with it since then.

ddm5182 said:

Thx, and to Jogo, I thought it'd probably be the Order build granted the Destruction stuff doesn't have as many fog/defensive survival based cards... I can see why some people wouldn't want such a decktype (defend and build) to be competitive, but it is obvious that the release of the card itself means it was meant as an alternative to unit beat-em-ups.

Whether it is competitive or not is not my place to say, I'll probably build one to practice against/with as prep for gencon. Hopefully, one of the advocates of its strength plays it, because if it isn't shown to be stifling the meta it probably wouldn't be addressed. (If I'm uniformed and it already is winning many local/regional events then I definately need to try it out).

All that said, it seems that there are a number of answers for the thrower deck, from a flat out great rush, to a deck that attacks resources (fogs are relatively costly), to decks that kill support cards, and lets not forget negating the action of the thrower itself. So much so that I'd say having the thrower deck as viable is kind of good for the environment...

- dut

The Order version of the bolt thrower deck is certainly beatable. A rush deck that burns a zone on turn 1 or 2 will usually win, but those kinds of draws beat everyone so I'm not sure that is really relevant. Decks that play narrow hate cards like Grimgor or Mob Up! can beat it too. Also, you can build effectively pre-sideboarded decks that beat it easily (e.g. 6 scout DE with 3x Pillage), but they would be pretty bad against the rest of the field. The issue is more that non-rush decks with no sideboards have little chance of winning. It's not just ddm and I that think that - darkdeal, f7eleven and shubfan found exactly the same thing once they tested the list I posted, so there's 3 independent verifications for you.

It's not winning tournaments because noone is playing it. Noone is playing it for several reasons: it's not fun to play at all (apparently unless your alias is f7eleven), testing it is really boring, it's easy to make mistakes, you will take up nearly the whole round time every match and you need a complete playset to build it. Only the really hardcore players are going to play that kind of deck, honestly.

I haven't played the Destruction version of the deck just because I haven't played the standard format since May and it seemed like it would be less stable than the Order version due to having to allocate more slots to dealing with defense. Single Set is more interesting than standard anyway IMHO.

...except for the lack of Pillage that has us all building around Contested Stronghold with nary a care in the world... lol.

FWIW I appreciate where all sides are coming to in this thread. Understand we aren't trying to come off as arrogant, even though I totally get why we would sometimes. I think what will work best for everyone is the tried and true scientific method... no one should be attached to being right or being wrong, just accepting of a process that arrives at good data. Lets debate and discuss and all that jazz, but at the end of the day we have to resort to testing our ideas and being willing to accept that we're not always right. That goes for all sides. ('ll freely admit I started out playing this game with some baaaaad ideas... I played Empire for like 3-4 weeks ffs!)

The last thing I want this forum to be is a dogmatic "MY SIDE IS RIGHT" "NO U R" slugfest. Because at the end of the day, its really pretty simple to sleeve up some cards, play some warhammer and figure it out.

I LOVE YOU GUYS. LETS HUG.

Clamatius said:

Thx for the info Clamatius. I don't disagree that Single Set is a fun alternative, but it won't be as fun for long I presume now that cards are released in full sets anyway...

What you say is kind of contradictory though (or maybe I'm not reading it right). Example - a) bolt thrower beats most casual decks (i.e. non-rush) vs. but the bolt thrower itself is a hardcore deck because it demands sets of singles and demands perfection. To me anytime a hardcore player + deck plays against casual (non focused/rush deck) it better **** win or else something is wrong... b) you say a side board kills it great vs. the game it wins takes full time (so no sideboard option anways?).

To me it seems like someone just built a really defensive deck, one that normally isn't fun to play against (some people don't like control/strategic games, they like to attack and defend back and forth), and tossed bolt thrower on the end of it when there was already a mill option anways? Then the fact it is still subpar to really offensive decks kind of trumps it's own validity and tells me it isn't worth playing anyways.

I guess the question that stands out in my mind is this - what is quicker/eaiser to do mill/indirect damage with thrower? Both decks would likely defend like mad and therefore be seen as hidnrances to the 'fun' meta.

Tell me if I'm following this wrong.

On topic, there really isn't much in the BP that pushes bolt thrower to a new extreme... Maybe the dwarf rune?

- dut

It's actually the previous BP that helps out the Thrower list - Mining Tunnels is very strong in any dwarf board list. Ancestral Tomb might be worth it but I'm not sold and you'd have to play a dwarf board for that. And yeah, I'm not sure that you got what I was on about, which is undoubtedly my fault.

When I say that a well played Thrower list beats up on unprepared non-rush, I don't mean it wins like 60% of the time, I mean like 80% - 90% of the time with players of equal skill. Something like Thrower vs. Chaos Control is a more lopsided matchup than anything I ever played in years of Magic tournaments. And DE control is similar. DE control is most definitely not a "casual deck", it's totally viable as long as you don't expect to play against Thrower.

It is not subpar to rush. When I was testing against our Orc/Skaven list with 3x Mob Up! maindeck, I was still in the 50% range. What I was talking about was that yes, you lose to the burn-a-zone-on-turn-1-or-2 draws from rush, but so does every other deck.

And I don't mean it takes the whole round for 1 game, I just mean that it's a slow-paced deck so you will be playing the whole time. If you are playing a rush Orc/Skaven list then your games will normally be done really fast. That's par for the course for controlling decks.

I think the mill options available right now are not good. You can try to build that if you want but I would be surprised if it was competitive.

I'm following more than before - thx for your time and posts

I'm also of the opinion a non-unit, non-support, or non-tactic shouldn't be as powerful as the seemingly non-unit thrower is. i.e. I like forced balance to an extent granted it assures variety and resulting fun.

On the other hand, part of me likes alternate win conditions existing (yet they need to be balanced) and I see thrower/mill defense as evidence it exists.

I'm fully aware there will be bad matchups in most/all card games, which is nice because it pushes players to build well rounded decks to win more often than not.

Dwarfs, aided by thrower or as a normal win condition deck seem to be getting stronger and stronger, as you pointed out last battlepack gave them some nice cards and this one is icing on the cake. Wouldn't be surprised if the meta for the game is orcs on destruction vs. dwarfs on order to a large degree (or at least as consistent players/winners) for at least a few more battlepacks of time.

- dut

ddm5182 said:

I have posted an early draft in the deck building forums. Was not working that good but still beating all my friends have thrown at me.
I made some changes (posted in the thread) and have some nifty ideas at the moment I will test this week(i am on holidays) and will post.

The Des order creates a different outcome than the Order ( in magic terms it is blue compared to the Order white), you destroy everything your enemy throws at you while bulding advantage. Orc is great for this, because you pay 2(lobber crew, foot, pickings) to kill a unit or 4 for all units and you need less cards compared to Chaos or DE.

dutpotd said:

You need no fog, because most times only one unit will attack and die the next round.