Actually, blowing up the thrower itself usually does absolutely nothing. When they have enough resources they can just activate it many many times in response to your Pillage or Demolition (etc) and kill you. It's invariably a better idea to kill abandoned mines, mining tunnels (esp in the early game), contested strongholds and treasure vaults, although I haven't 100% figured out what is the best thing to destroy. If you have scouts, it's abandoned mines for sure.

It's all about timing with the thrower deck and hitting the throwers as early as you can helps. Thrower also goes down to decks with toughness. Thrower just isn't what it used to be in my area. The dwarves and orcs have killed it for the most part by thrashing the developements, the thrower, or just assigning damage to units with toughness.

In my area it's

DE/skaven super mill deck (4-12 cards milled a turn from various sources)

Dwarf Spite if that's what it's called

Orc Rush

And Skaven + put your capital here rush.

Other than those I'm seeing some progress in the high elf "pillgramage/called back/banish" department. Nothing concrete yet but the player in question almost has his win condition down.

You are playing thrower wrong. Dwarves cannot beat Flames + play thrower + kill them in the same turn.

We've cut High Elf's Disdains from the current thrower list because it just doesn't matter except v. Mob Up! and we'll take that negative equity (for now). If you sequence properly dwarves really cannot win. Their only match wins come from your deck killing you, like all 3 bolt throwers as the last 3 cards in the deck, etc.

A few things on SpiteThrower... While it has no "bad" matchups, it is quite week against certain decks primarily Orc/Skaven rush. That deck is so quick it can disrupt and burn part of the capital on turn 3, without breaking a sweat. Example from GenCon

turn 1: Grey Seer in Quest, 2 damage to Battle

turn 2: Pillage a Kingdom support (probably a Mining Tunnels), 2 damage to Battle

turn 3: Spider Riders and Clan Moulder Elite/Pump Wagon, swing for burn on Battle

The key there was the Pillage... it forces Thrower to take turn 3 to buy new supports instead of waiting to Master Rune of Veleya. This puts us on the clock for the rest of the game. As for Thrower vs Dwarf, you need to set the pace early. While Dwarf can't use Spite on Thrower, it can use Master Rune of Veleya to cancel damage during Battle phase so it can Thrower's Spite. Or the other rune that redirects 2 of the damage to a different unit, also almost every Order deck I have seen was either playing Demolition or Judgement or both. And while Judgement may not scare many thrower players, Will of the Elector should.

Also as I learned during the 3-on-3 tourney today, it is way too easy to mill yourself.

ddm5182 said:

Flames is good to clear Dwarves out of their mountains for Thrower, but any good Dwarf deck is going to have Developed out the wazoo. It generally takes two solid blasts with Thrower to take them down. Pre-Battle phase Spite seems to work better.

In your orc example... who cares? They need to swing for 8+developments twice to win, not once. I am not fogging their turn 3 attack that burns one zone. I don't care if they burn one zone. Do you realize how RUINED your orc board is when I play MROS the next go? Nice Clan Moulder's Elite and literally nothing else on your side of the table. Meanwhile I'm drawing a million cards and unless you have triple innovate into Grimgor the game is already over.

Will of the electors does... nothing, man. I have infinite developments in Kingdom and Mining Tunnels is just about all I ever need for a draw engine. You blow up my quest zone by time walking yourself and I'll a couple supports there the next turn and shrug it off like its nothing. If you're thinking of using Will to 'counter' bolt thrower, well, learn the correct line of play and develop battlefield the turn before you play thrower (playing around demolition too).

One shot w/ thrower is plenty. Are you using the same deck we are w/ Treasure Vaults/Contested Stronghold etc? Shooting for 30+ by turn 8 or so is not at all unreasonable, especially if you Gifts into Flames to start your turn, or sandbag some Innovation/OICs.

Milling yourself should never happen if you can do math. Ever.

I guess I have to accept that it is somewhat difficult to play thrower correctly, at least compared to other top tier decks. But it isn't really that hard to beat any of the hate cards or strategies in the game right now, except Grimgor, and even he can be outraced or disrupted pretty easily.

That's the big thing that has me sad right now. The Orc deck with a couple of random Grimgors seemed to be ok vs Thrower at least, although it was getting owned by Dwarves. But the Thrower deck with triple MRoS is pretty solid vs Orc rush and that was its only real threat.

I've pretty much run out of ideas on other ways of beating it, honestly. I think the last thing to try was the Rip+Bloodthirster Orc rush deck with 2-3x Grimgor, which might have a shot I suppose.

I don't know the players in your area seem to have the magic with flames of the pheonix and getting the whole thrower deck together very very quickly then. I'll build one and try again myself this time but even my slow orc deck with the new cave squigs leading the charge tends to break these things quickly and my dwarf deck routinely keeps up with orc rush on a similar damage out put so maybe it's just that the thrower deck just can't seem to last those first 3 critical turns. Now the dark elf/skaven mill deck... that's been scary where I am. It's a mid to late game winner but it's consistant and it keeps you on your toes trying to keep your victory condition on the table while it mills you to death.