I'm starting to think about Destro decks now that March of the Damned is out. The control style Destro decks get a whole lot out of March - Wight Lord, Slave Pens and Lord of Change are all really good.

The big problem (as usual) is that while I reckon you can make several different archetypes that will have good game against Dwarves (although Judgement Empire will be more challenging, I suspect), they will by default practically auto-concede to Thrower. It seems like your only tools against it in all of Destruction, in order of damage done, are:

• Grimgor
• Pillage
• Burn It Down
• Scouts (Shades die to Master Rune of Spite and Gutter Runners are slow)
• Smash 'Em All (which I do not think gets there)

Maybe Orc control (Vomits, Easy Pickin's, Crew, Wight Lord) that builds to Grimgor? I guess that may have a chance against the Dwarf version (maybe?), although I suspect the dupotd-style Empire version will be very problematic. I don't see Chaos with Lord of Change having a realistic chance, although I'd love to be proved wrong.

Yeah, I got March yesterday and built a Chaos corruption deck today (proxying the new hero from Silent Forge)...This deck's got game now. Even with sub-optimal resource engine (I have lots of decks and hate proxying) I had 8 or 9 resources, 4 cards a turn, and 12 damage swinging on turn 3. It's shaping up....

oh, and that's with setting about 6 cards in for Thrower control

Alright, here's my first shot. I only played one game with this version (against our version of the Empire thrower deck) so far, so it may not work at all. The aim here is to beat Dwarves and Thrower and still have something resembling a game against random other decks.

3 Spider Riders
3 Clan Moulder's Elite
3 Lobber Crew
3 Wight Lord
2 Countess Iseara
3 Grimgor Ironhide
2 Bloodthirster

19

3 Warpstone Excavation
3 Contested Village
3 Armoury
3 Chaos/Orc Alliance
3 Squig Pen
3 Contested Stronghold

18

3 Innovation
3 Rip Dere 'Eads Off!
3 Pillage
1 Raise Dead
3 Troll Vomit

13

Squig Pen was surprisingly good. First turn Warpstone to Kingdom, Pen to Quest is one of the better Destro openers.

Clam, can you explain why Lord of Change is good? I'm not seeing what's so great about his power? Must I always be this myopic?? SIGH!!

Imagine a destruction deck with the thrower deck's resource base.

Now imagine starting your turn with Lord of Change in play.

Now imagine playing 25-30+ resources worth of cards off the top of your deck.

Now imagine losing after you do that... (yeah, I can't either. )

The point is, if destruction gets a support base comprable to order, Lord of Change will be an extremely powerful card advantage engine, letting you literally draw as many cards as you can cast, every turn. Its like reap-what's-sown-ing for exactly as many cards as you can play, every turn, for free. (You can even develop off the top of your deck!). I do not think destruction has a support base that will allow for this deck, yet. But when it does... watch out.

With Necromancy, you can get much more mileage out of the cards that have reoccurring costs to sacrifice cards. Slave Pens and Rock Lobbers are the two support cards that come to mind, and with the Great Unclean One, you can get an infinite indirect damage combo. Even though they rarely work, I love putting together infinite combos. With an Absolute Perfect start, you can even pull this off on your second turn with the initial 7 cards you get.

The 5 cards required for this Combo is Urguk, the Great Unclean One, Followers of Mork, a Warpstone Excavation, and Countess Iseara.

The perfect start requires these 5 plus two Rip Dere 'Eads Off. The setup goes as follows.

Turn One:

1. Play Warpstone Excavation into the Kingdom zone.

2. Play Followers of Mork into the Kingdom zone, corrupting them.

3. Develop Countess Iseara

At this point there is one resource remaining.

Turn Two:

1. During phase 0, spend the one resource left to use Rip Dere 'Eads Off on the Countess.

2. After the Kingdom phase begins, opt to leave the Followers of Mork corrupted. You will have 8 resources with the Countess.

3. During the Capitol phase, play Urguck into either battlefield or quest zone. This leaves 4 resources.

4. Develop the Great Unclean One into the Battlefield, then use Rip Dere 'Eads Off on him. This leaves 3 resources.

5. Use the Great Unclean One's ability to sacrifice the Followers, giving him a hammer.

6. Spend one resource to give the Followers of Mork Necromancy until the end of the turn. This leaves you with two resources.

7. Bring the Followers of Mork into play with the last two resources, putting them into the Kingdom, corrupting them, and putting the two indirect damage onto Urguck.

From here own out, the damage on Urguck can be spent as resources, so you cycle sacrificing the Followers to the Great Unclean one, then brining them back into play spending the damage on Urguck , and as a result putting two damage back on Urguck. Assuming there is no Disruption to the Great Unclean One, Urguck, or the Warpstone Excavation, you can generate infinite indirect damage on turn two.

I mentioned this to James at Gencon and he told me to build the deck and see what happens, so I'm going to do that and see how it works. Even without a perfect start, you should be able to get the Combo to go off within 5-6 turns, assuming that there is no disruption to the chain. It probably will not work, but it will be worth it the time or two that it does.

I am not sure that that works. Once you sacrifice the Followers of Mork, I think they will forget about Iseara's ability and you won't be able to bring them back without spending another point. Now, I could be wrong on that. Necromancy may well be an exception to the usual rules about things forgetting their state, since you can play it from the discard.

If I am wrong, Iseara is quite a bit better than I think and I already rate her highly - you'd be able to pay 3 to get back a Lobber Crew and then only 2 each time after that in the same turn.

I wasn't sure whether you could choose not to restore a unit in your Kingdom phase and I looked it up. You are correct, you do not have to if you don't want to.

That is the only concern that I have with this combo, but there is no precedent to a card giving a trait to something in the Discard pile either, so I am not certain how that will work out. Assuming that the card forgets about Necromancy when it dies, the Countess is a notch lower in power, but still a decent card I think (especially with the Lobber crew).

It is not a trait, it is a keyword.

At the moment I would say it stays, it is not an effect remaining somewhere, the unit text is changed.

Did March of the Damned just come out in stores? I looked all over the internet and could only find it for preorder except Amazon.

It was pre-Released at Gencon.

Hi,

I guess maybe Raise Dead + Grimgor could be the way for a fast support cleanup, you only have to put him into the discard pile somehow.

Maybe you could develop and then destroy him or discard him with DE cards, or move him from the top of your deck by a corpse cart, dark abyss or entropy.

Isaeura helps too if you have enough resources... she is almost a god in herself. With Stunty Smasha, Lobber Crew this girl has some nice reusable effects. Or slaves + Slave Pen if nothing else to resurrect. Vanuard of Woe is also like to be resurrected.

Of course, the same works for other CIP/leaves play units.

BTW : i have no Karak Grimaz BP or MotD yet, but I built a big-resource orc deck with 2 Grimgor, 2 Pillage, 3 Snotling saboteur. (note : I have only 2 core set) I think it's not unrealistic to build a control deck.

We could even speed up our resources (Crpyt Ghoul + many things like Lash the Prisoners/You's bigga/Slave Pen) ... the DE ones works nicely with slaves too. I know this is less than the resource level that order has, but at least something.

All in all : I guess maybe a DE+Orc deck could work. The problem is with the Lord of Change that there are no effects to pair with him in chaos (except corruption) to make him playable, while the other 2 destr. faction has more variable tools to work with.

Cain

You Rip Grimgor if you need to. He won't do anything when you do that other than have hammers, but then when you Raise Dead he will.

This deck does actually seem to work and at least have some game against Thrower and Dwarves, although it is very vulnerable to having the Strongholds removed. The Wight Lords (and to a lesser extent, Iseara) are pretty key - I don't think you would have had a good chance against the Dwarves previously.

Funny play today: I have 3 devs in kingdom (which is burning) and 10 resources on board via stronghold, armoury and a village. Warpstone and Squig Pen in Quest, with 3 damage - my opponent has near lethal damage on the board.

My play there was to Innovate to 13 resources, Pillage my own Warpstone and Grimgor (paying 10) to Quest, killing the Squig Pen. Cleared out my opponent's quest completely and destroyed the developments, burning his zone. I ended up coming back to win via that play.

Calamatus,

I made my own version of this deck with some minor changes (biggest one beng to add Blessing of Tzeench) and it's FUN. Great idea good sir.

I'm not already bought the idea to make a development-based resource engine for a destruction deck, since in that regard our opponents will be quite superior, and every deck pack some support removal.

As you said, if they take out the stronghold than maybe you will be too slow, as the deck is very resource heavy, and you even could not place your second best support there because of the developments.

Regarding the play : Uhm... why the hell you Pillaged your Warpstone ? I could not fanthom this.

I had the same thought but it's a really good choice since he mentioned that he has 1 burning zone and his already damaged quest zone would be a target in the next turn so regardless of Grimgors support and development destruction he would come in corrupted into this zone and with that pillage he has a unit that can block. Clamatius needed another burning zone if he already had one then the warpstone wouldn't matter of course.

grille said:

Oh, now I see I misunderstood his post for the first read. I tought he won by burning the enemy quest with Grimgor.

Yeah, if Grimgor is corrupted there then I am very likely to lose (he only needed to play 2 power of guys I think). I didn't actually win for another 4 turns or so - and even then I think I only won because his Tombs ate 2 of his Longbeards.

Iseara is pretty good for providing instant offense if you have enough resources.

The latest version.

Units (19)

• 3 Spider Riders
• 3 Clan Moulder's Elite
• 3 Lobber Crew
• 3 Wight Lord
• 1 Ugrok Beardburna
• 3 Grimgor Ironhide
• 3 Countess Iseara

Supports (17)

• 3 Warpstone Excavation
• 3 Contested Village
• 3 Treasure Vaults
• 3 Contested Stronghold
• 3 Squig Pen
• 1 Orc/Chaos Alliance
• 1 Armory

Tactics (14)

• 3 Innovation
• 3 We'z Bigga!
• 3 Rip 'dere 'eads off!
• 3 Raise Dead
• 2 Troll Vomit

This is probably the best deck around at Grimgoring people, and obviously thats your plan against thrower. Against dwarves you go over the top and beat down with huge guys, with Grimgoring them obviously a fine and tasty treat to hit them with in the midgame. Wight Lord and Iseara + Lobber Crew form an effective tag team at stopping midrange unit strategies, though the deck is a bit slow to combat rush (hence the 2x Vomit). Vomit is actually one of your worst cards, since once you get going, your dudes are so much more of an investment than the opponent's. Still, opportunities abound vs. most decks to get value out of it, and that's why it hasnt been cut yet.

Note the absence of Pillage. Wasn't an easy cut, but given how tempo negative it is for the caster esp in a deck with many 3+ cost cards, the decision was ultimately made to it and focus on developing the board ASAP in the early game. We have SUPERPILLAGE in the form of Grimgor anyway if the opponent's engine gets out of hand.

The deck stumbles a bit from its own draws... multiple early Raise Deads with no Rip to get fatties into the discard pile is poor, but OTOH your raise deads have a ton of value targets and a lot of synergies with the rest of your cards. Don't miss opportunities to flash in a fatty to quest during the kingdom step for +++value.

I don't love this deck yet, but I love what it's trying to do. Its my favorite deck to play right now, but admittedly is a few cards short of being dominant. It has game against everything though, and it does powerful, cool things without trying to get too cute.

I have been playing something pretty similar to this. I have Stunty Smashas and pillage in this as well. I also wanted to try out a version with Doom Divers. I think they may not work, but I like having another way of getting your big units into the discard pile to bring them back with a raise dead.

ddm5182 said:

And that's from somebody who created said deck.

- with the development based plan you could not race order decks resource engine. Period.

- They have Demoliton (or even Burn it Down) while you have only a 6 cost "SuperPillage" (or 4 cost, but then you need to use multiple cards, but then ot could be Disdained or sometimes even Order in Chaos-d), so that's even more tempo loss.

- The deck has almost 50% "passive" cards (resource engine, innovation, bigga - 23) nearly the same level as unitless BT, and much more than dwarves (around 15-20 based on top 8) which mean less weapons to fight with. 15 of the active cards cost 4 or more. together this two things mean you will have less effective plays which needs to deal with, I guess average 1-2 per turn, while an Empire or Dwarf deck could pour out 2-4 units/tactics/supports in the same time with the same number of resources.

Also note that while they have many passive cards as you (some of them less), but they could replace those with the develpoment/mining tunnel mechanism.

To be clear : I don't think that your deck idea is bad, it's pretty nice, but currently the "beat order" puzzle is unsolvable, especially if you try to fight them in their own terms. (devs+lotsa supports+some support disrupt as a core) It's the same idea as outrush skavens with HE.

I guess Vitamin T's version maybe works somewhat better, simply because he use more cheap cards like Pillage and Stunty smasha.

Have you ever won a game as thrower when you got Grimgor'd?

...I rest my case. 3x Grimgor is absolutely a viable plan against thrower.

The deck's biggest weakness is not its strategy nor its disruption, but its resource base. Contested Stronghold + Treasure Vaults is a plan, but its a fragile plan. If the opponent draws 3 or more Demolition effects and uses them correctly you are just not going to win. You can beat 1 or 2 no problem but by the third you are going to be sputtering, especially if they are putting any reasonable pressure on you at the same time.

If this deck had a building on the power level of mining tunnels it would be *very* good. As is, it is relatively high-variance (compared to dwarves and thrower), and the games you lose tend to be draw dependent and largely out of your control.

Doom Divers is not a bad idea at all, although running more units that die to Spite is not ideal. Maybe x1 or something just for the cases where you don't draw into Rip early.

Cain_hu: as for the general strategy not working, I disagree. The variance of the deck is high right now because the supports suck compared with the ones in Order, but playing less effects per turn but more powerful ones is definitely a plan that can work. Iseara can win a game by herself, for example - she singlehandedly provides a way to kill all your opponents units as well as beating down.

The supports in DE are better and that's maybe something to think about. Having your cheap supports being high on the Demolition target list would be a big win - as is, the Strongholds are such removal bait that it's worrying to run them out there. The big issue with that plan is that the effects you actually want - Grimgor, cheap pressure in the form of Spider Riders and especially Lobber Crew - are all in Orc, and without building substantial Orc loyalty Grimgor is fantastically expensive. Also, Squig Pen is actually a whole lot better than it initially looked, so the Orcs do at least have one decent support.

The biggest problem generally is that decks are going to run a whole ton of support removal to get rid of the Thrower deck. Ramping up resources with units is hard because there are pretty much no kingdom-only units, and units that can apply hammers to quest or battlefield are priced accordingly.

The puzzle may well be unsolvable right now, but I do feel that Dwarves aren't unbeatable. Despite their overwhelmingly dominant early game, at the end of the day they have to kill you with guys. Also, their targeted removal is not great, so there's an opportunity for sufficiently annoying utility units to do some damage.