This was my list from worlds:

3-Master Rune of Spite

3-Burn it Down

3-Mining Tunnels

3-Ancestral Tomb

3-Slayers of Karak Kadrin

3-Dwarf Ranger

3-Long Beards

3-Demolition!

2-Great Book of Grudges

3-Innovation

2-Grudge Thrower

3-Stand Your Ground

3-Grudgebearer

3-Dwarf Cannon Crew

3-Contested Village

3-Warpstone Excavation

2-Zhufbar Engineers

2-Zealot Hunter

I thought I'd post it in the decklist forum even though I already posted it in the semis report thread in case people wanted to see it.

How were the Grudgebearers? I looked at them briefly to see if a sacrifice-based deck would do it but they weren't working very well when I tried it.

You mentioned in the other thread that you had Hammerers previously - I think Mountain Legion is better off filling the toughness role, esp. when you are heavy into sacrifice since 1 cost vs. 2 is a big difference. Obviously the Legion are worse in the DE matchup but I think you'd be fine there anyway.

I ran Grudgebearers too and found them quite useful - more for Resource-building than combat, strangely enough. I was also one of the few Dwarf players to use them (now I see that I wasn't the only one, at least).

As I said in the other thread, this deck is nearly identical to mine (+/- 4 cards). Super fun deck and a good strong build. Huge Congrats again on the win. What did you win for prizes?

Oh. Right. Congratulations!

(Sorry, I guess my deckbuilder's instinct overtook everything else there. Sorry. Erm. *shuffles off stage to left*)

From an italian Dwarf Player to the new World Champion Dwarf Player: CONGRATULATIONS!

It' s a very solid deck, with a lot of control...

May the spirit of Grungi shine upon your hold!

I knew that Burn It Down was good enough, but others disagreed. It seems that the amount of support/development hate in your deck let you win 3 straight in the top 8 against Bolt Thrower.

The Grudgebearers preformed pretty well for me all day. They made it easier to combo out on a zone in one turn and left a significant threat in play. Obviously the biggest problem with them is that they quickly become vulnerable to Master Rune of Spite, but having such a potential threat for two cost was pretty good. I didnt end up playing them in kingdom or quest that often, there was one game that I used one in my kingdom zone to good effect, I'd be afraid to have them in quest zone, I was normally a turn or two from decking out in most of my matches.

Playing all six support destruction cards was extremely key. Honestly after the event I wished I'd had Order in Chaos as well to get them back extra times!

The prizes were a plaque, a really cool wooden capital board with a spot for wood tokens with each race symbol on it, a playmat (the assualt on ult one), an uncut sheet from the starter set, some wooden recourse tokens that said gencon worlds 2010 on them and best of all getting to create a card.

This deck is a 'players' deck, the 3X Burn it Down and 3X Demolish (rather the total of 6 resource control cards) give you the ability to force the opposing player to play whatever game you want them too, and sometimes their decks just can't do that. Toss in Spite Rune and you say the same to their units.

What we have is a faction, dwarfs, with cheap access to every form of destruction. No need to dual/tri faction, no need to work to control, just play Dwarfs. Oh, they also generate the most resources with Mining Tunnels and the Ancient Tomb.

You are the best 'player' out there for this fine game, not only did you aptly realize the best deck in the format (I firmly believe this is it) you piloted it amazingly well, almost perfectly.

I am deeply honored to have lost to you in two incredibly close games. I know I had bad luck running into 5/6 of your demos/burns in the first 3 turns of the game 1, and I know I had equally bad luck running into 3/3 of your demos in game 2 before you hit the bottom 2/3ds of your deck, allowing you to take out my 4 cost supports (abandoned and stronghold). Long story short, I'd love to play a best of 10 and see what the long term results are without the crazy circumstances I did have to face. Well, we'd need 12 hours to do that, and we'd probably want to play one game a week (they are that mentally draining), but I'd love to do it nonetheless.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing against you and wish you all the best. Chances are very high I will still be playing this game come next Gencon, chances are equally high that if you still are we will see each other in another top 8. I look forward to it.

- Garett (dutpotd)

I think there are probably at least 3-4 "best decks in the format" out there, most Dwarves, but some are versions of the BT, too.

Wytefang said:

I am a firm believer Tim's is the best at the moment. There is always a best, there are always 'top' decks, but there is always a best. There is always a better too, but that is neither here nor there at the moment ^^

- dut

Thanks for the praise Garett. The funny thing was that going into the event, I didnt think that my match against thrower would be as good as it was. This deck could probably due to have Order in Chaos in it somewhere.

I agree that our matchup was very draining, I think tomorrow I'll finally have fully recovered, lol

Vitamin T said:

Order in Chaos is gross, and frankly any deck could make use of it to slow te opponent down or recur a particularly useful piece. 3 ofs become 6 ofs with OiC, who doesn't want that?

I'm still recovering from our matches and think I need a full week. But like you said in my thread, with some playtesting and tweaks my deck would be even better, I'd certainly be able to play it better, it was trial by fire having never played a Bolt Thrower deck before, let alone a crazy Empire one and against great players like yourself. I'm sure you could see I was struggling to figure out what to do, mind you I had like 20 cards in hand that second game where you targeted my Kingdom zone and let me draw - yipes! Too many choices!

- dut

dutpotd said:

Well in all fairness, I'd expect you to feel that way having lost to his deck. I just think it's impossible to truly know which deck is really the best without some seriously insane playtesting against a million deck builds. Maybe if I could just afford that Cray computer I've always wanted...or Deep Blue, I could get it figured out. LOL One thing we do know is that you're obviously both very good players, at least!!

lol... "best" decks are immediately not the best as soon as they are posted anywhere. Once a deck is a known quantity, you can design a deck that has an edge over it. That's why these games are fun, man. Constantly evolving metagame.

I love how this deck is positioned btw... beating the mirror and having some game against thrower, hoping to dodge rush is exactly the right place to be in the gencon meta. I think that's already shifted though. Who isn't thinking about cutting MROS right now? Give it a couple weeks and destruction rush w/ sellswords and rock lobbers is probably going to be the place to be. Fun times, but for all the bolt thrower shenanigans.

Even though logic dictates that a Dwarf player should cut MRoS since it doesn't help you vs. other Dwarves and is totally dead against Thrower, I think you would have to have balls of steel to walk into a tournament with Sellsword-style rush. A Dwarf or Thrower deck with 3x MRoS is going to master your runes all over the place.

It'd be a huge gamble (doesn't mean it can't pay off).

No, I agree... not yet. But there is no way I come packing 3x MROS right now. And from there, its a very short step to bringing sellsword sligh...

ddm5182 said:

I uh, had fun playing Thrower... And against Thrower... Gotta love moving all of their developments to the Battlefield then toasting their Barrels so they can't even use the Thrower sitting on the board.

I was hinting at "Best" being a relative term when leading on saying that there is always a better so don't laugh too hard at me My point is that this deck is/was probably the best 'relatively speaking' for the tourney at Gencon. With Spite for units and support destruction for everythign else, and Ranger shenans to finish games, I really really think this thing had a lot going for it - moreso than any other deck.

And yeah, I could tweak it by a card or two and call it better, but this analysis is all circumstantial anyways.

- dut

Thanks for posting your decklist. I will need to give it a try.

Congrats on winning the championship. I hope you'll be able to defend it next year. After all, defence is what dwarfs are good at.

I'm not quite seeing the connection between cutting MROS and then adding Sellswords??

Wytefang said:

There are too few large tournaments for it to really matter, but you have to look a few steps into the future of the metagame. With the dominance of Dwarf boards and copious amounts of Spite Runes being thrown around at Worlds, Rush players may abandon that strategy for something less "owned" by a single, largely popular card. Then when Rush becomes less and less prevalent in the meta, Spite Rune actually becomes a bad card... the next logical step in the meta shift leads to people removing Spite Rune from their decks... which then leads to pure rush decks packing Veteran Sellswords.

But yeah with so few tournaments, and new cards coming every month, we have an entirely new meta every tournament. The subtle shifts were a bit more recognizable during Regionals, but there was still so much variance between each event that nailing down the perfect meta-busting deck is quite difficult. The 3rd place finisher and eventual champion of Worlds both did very well though.