The New Deck to beat?

By â—�Kefkaâ—�, in Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game

Well, now that Haunted City is banned and we're all friends again, what deck do you guys think is going to take its place?

I've been a big fan of Kairos builds recently. I never thought I'd use Burn it Down as my main source of support destruction, but with the synergy of Savage Gors and Kairos it's a pretty good fit. Not to mention that the Sorceror and new 2 cost character do a good job of sniping without taking up valuable tactic space. Every game I've played, the turn Kairos comes out he's burned a zone every time.

What do you guys think? What's going on in your playgroup?

Chaos for sure. The amount of damage to units it can deal out is insane. It didn't take the VTHC ban for Empire to not be able to stand up to this. And Kairos is incredible, but I'd consider the safer option of going without him so as to not be that vulnerable to mass unit removal.

At least in our playgroup this deck is the one to beat:

3 Fledgling Chaos Spawn
3 Innovation
3 Wolves of the North
3 Contested Village
3 Warpstone Experiments
3 Braying Gor
3 Burn it Down
3 Desecrated Temple
3 Ungor Raiders
3 Warhounds
3 Plague Bomb
3 Sorcerer of Tzeentch
3 Will of Tzeentch
3 Blood Dragon Knight
3 Bloodletter
3 Light of Morrslieb
2 Kairos Fateweaver

50 cards

http://deckbox.org/sets/48033

Before the ban it could handle Visit decks very good. It has such a strong unit control that it's getting nearly impossible to win at a certain point of the game. The empire player also couldn't get his units protected and not enough developments to have the punch needed to win. An early Will of Tzeentch can also decide games. In an earlier build it also had Savage Gors for obvious synergy but they weren't needed anymore and needed to go out for something else.

I guess an orc deck that has development control and Troll Vomit stands a chance. Dwarfes together with some lizards is also solid as ever and I wouldn't wonder if Reclaim gets a little revival at Gencon since destructions unit control (Chaos, Offering to Hekarti, Troll Vomit) is dominant at the moment.

The Kairos Fateweaver/ Sorcerer of Tzeentch/ Plague Bomb/ kill everything that gets in your way deck. With so many damage possibilities, once it gets rolling(and it doesn't take much) it can easily sweep the field clear of opponent's units. And after that, he'll never catch up.

Titan said:

The Kairos Fateweaver/ Sorcerer of Tzeentch/ Plague Bomb/ kill everything that gets in your way deck. With so many damage possibilities, once it gets rolling(and it doesn't take much) it can easily sweep the field clear of opponent's units. And after that, he'll never catch up.

Have you come up against multiple Church of Sigmar? All those effects mentioned are targetting effects, hence CoS makes them extra-costly.

When you have Kairos out, and a few developments in the kingdom, you get enough hammers there to pay the extra cost for Church of Sigmar and Iron Discipline. And the Churches are your prime Burn it Down targets anyway.

Awww...look how baby chaos is all growed up. used to be the runt of the litter and laughed at. Now everyone wants to be his friend. Isn't that special.

Dam said:

Have you come up against multiple Church of Sigmar? All those effects mentioned are targetting effects, hence CoS makes them extra-costly.



Empire might have some interesting counters, but at the moment, I don't feel it's enough to beat in the majority of games. Stuff like Church of Sigmar and Iron Discipline can slow it down, but not stop it entirely. Kairos isn't affected by any of it, Bloodletter isn't affected by any of it.. Unless your opponents has a ton of Churches, it just takes one or two extra resources to unleash the Sorcerer. Iron Discipline is only good for one turn and one unit. Next turn, they come at you again. In the meantime, cheap units like Savage Gors and Kairos' developments can deal a lot of damage. There are just too many holes to plug. The key is going to be keeping chaos' economy down so that they cannot get rolling.

On the other hand, I can see that if the developers see the need to balance this type of deck, they can come out with more cards that may deny targets to it. In this way, I think this deck will be more manageable than others have been.

Titan said:

Dam said:

Have you come up against multiple Church of Sigmar? All those effects mentioned are targetting effects, hence CoS makes them extra-costly.


Unless your opponents has a ton of Churches, it just takes one or two extra resources to unleash the Sorcerer. Iron Discipline is only good for one turn and one unit. Next turn, they come at you again.

Already said it in the restrict Visit thread. Titan is right. 1-2 Churches aren't a problem that much because you are using a costfree trigger. 1-2 resources to kill a unit? Sounds fair in relation to other tactics that either need to be comboed or are more situational. Otherwise you surely play Burn it Down in any competitive chaos deck so it's a natural countercard. You are just holding back your Plague Bomb or Warhounds until CoS is removed. Iron Discipline only protects 1 unit so if the opponent uses it you can aim for other targets either with your second development (if you have Morrslieb) or other unit removal stuff. It only holds off the inevitable for 1 turn. Usually my first Sorcerer gets into kingdom, so there is still the possibility to pay that 4 resources if it's worth it and a questing Visit unit was it. Compared to Shield of Saphery it's not a 100% reliable protection.

People often say that a Kairos deck needs to be fast but I disagree a little bit. If you want Kairos out for more than 1 turn you'll propably not play him until you have at least 1 development in every zone or other units that are able to defend. I like to play him when my zones are already established and the enemy board is cleared by my units. In my version I try to play as much cards on the board as possible and rely on control. So every turn 1 development and play what I can afford. I want to have my handcards as low as possible so that Will of Tzeentch is more of a card draw and not waste. But it usually hurts the opponent way more than myself. I had some first/second turn Will of Tzeentch that disrupted the opponents starting hand so much that he couldn't get something into play for 3 turns (happend against dwarf and DE). It also really helps against decks that like to act within your own turn or beginning of their own one. By the time SoT has at least 3 tokens and the opponent doesn't have a quick removal (or mass removal) it's time to forfeit. I'm really excited how the players will adapt to this and espacially with which deck Vitamin T will surprise us soon :)

Regarding Gencon I can imagine that dwarfes can aim for the top because they are really flexible in their deckdesign. They have good tools against developments (Explosive Charge or Spite Rune when Kairos hits the table) + great unitcontrol combined with some lizards. Maybe Reclaim will have a revival if unitremoval is so dominant. But overall I think it's really balanced now. There are at least 4-5 good deck types and you always have to be prepared for fast orcs. At the moment Kairos seems like the strongest and easiest way but this deck still has some vulnable points. Major anti-Kairos cards should be Master of Spite, Troll Vomit and Flames of the Phoenix. Am I missing something?

The deck seems very nasty but as per usual for Chaos, it has trouble with supports since Burn It Down is not all that. Ramping into huge units or other win conditions via support hammers seems like the most obvious way to beat it and there are lots of ways to build that kind of deck. The challenge is to build something that has good game against that but also general strength against the rest of the field.

Kairos and the Sorcerer seem like they are really the threats that most decks will be actually concerned with. The hounds and Dragon Knight are just strong cards, kind of like Lobber Crew.

It also has problems against orc rush. Since few weeks we are playing control decks that shine in their early midgame but if you play against really quick orcs it's troublesome if you can't interact in their turn. But that indicates more playable metadecks since orc is very fragile against DE so there is some kind of rock, paper, scissors. DE-skaven with Offering to Hekarti seems also really strong.