I'm wondering why everyone writes only about Marauders while the most buffed race - looking at these 5 cards only - are the High Elves. Helm of Fortune attached to a unit on Return to Glory is an extremely dangerous combination. Right now the HE combo deck on Return to Glory with Elven Scout and Lore Seeker, in any version (with for example Grudge Thrower, Van Klumpf's Buccaneers or indirect combo) is one of the most powerful decks out there. The Helm will make in unstoppable if the player will take right cards.

Marauders are, I agree, strong. But they are not overpowered because of their cost. Empire was totally OP and needed restrictions because of its ridiculous economics and cheap control, while in Chaos powerful cards are adequatly expensive, so that a Chaos player can usually play only 1 such card a turn, save Quest. All of earlier OP beginnings that were shown assumed one thing: Chaos player begins. Still, I agree that Chaos is most versatile race.

Also, new quest is really interesting. I'm sure that after some time combo decks using it will appear. Obviously, I'm not sure if they will be strong enough to be played on tournaments.

At the moment in the game with a balanced card pool,the advantage of starting first is just too great.The games are mostly decided on the dice roll and thats what makes it sad.Unlike other games where there is an option for decks to start second,this game doesnt.If you win the dice roll its so that your opponent doesnt go first.Maybe they should let the person that goes first doesnt get to mulligan in order to balance the game a lil.

Plus with the new chaos cavalry,it pretty much seems chaos can just win the game in turn two by starting first.

That's not true. Rush always wants to go second.

I dont recall orc decks going second,every deck wants to start first to establish economy asap and the faster you do that the faster you get to rush out stuff.

Plus going second your just reinforcing chaos's foothold on the game.

Agreed. The only time you will go 2nd, is when your mulligan was a total bugger and you need to draw one lucky card to get just a little economy.

Going 2nd against Chaos is a huge problem, not comparable to any other matchup. But also with Chaos going 2nd, they will easily come out on top. Because what they are doing while harrassing your stuff, is building up economy. Every other race just can't compete with such an efficiency in harrassing, in contrast they will have to invest in harrassing with tactics, attachments, battlefield units or else and will not get much more cards/gold next turn.

A short list of Chaos features: best unit control (even high hp and mass removal via plague bomb), best support control (maybe equal to orc atm), development control, good and relative fast economy (still having warpstones), don't need to put much in battlefield (because unleashing the spell can finish later), no loyalty problems (chaos spawn, ok starting cards), could support rush or decent combat damage, best card efficiency overall… who else has this??

Btw marauders > Helm of Fortune, HE got a nice boost now though, but for pre - rising dawn decks several tournaments showed that return to glory combos could not compete with well thought out chaos decks.

When I play rush I usually choose to go second so I can attack first in hopes I will be able to get a zone burning before my opponent(not that turn necessarily). In my experience the person that burns a zone first has a huge advantage.

I play rush the same way, getting to attack on turn 1 is way more important than getting a head start on the economy. Especially with my orc deck where economy really is a secondary consideration.

Really there are no benefits from going second, even as a rush. I would like to go second only if I had only units battlefield only on my hand. If that's the case the deck is probably badly built or you just had no luck with mulligan. True story.

That's a bold statement.

I think 5 damage into your obviously open battlefield on turn 1 sounds like a pretty good reason to me.

Rush also dumps their hand quickly and can really benefit from the extra card.

Of course if you are starting with double Warpstone on your hand you can go with 3xSpider Riders into the battlefield as a second. Otherwise you will have one attack and the enemy will kill all your units next turn/make attacking with them pointless. There is just too much unit hate (and too much dark elves/chaos). Also you attack for 6 damage into the battlefield. Empie on second turn (which is not uncommon for them) drops Hemmler to battlefield. Where is your rush now? I would always want to start and drop One Orc's Scrap to kingdom, Warpstone and Village to quest regardless of my deck's build. Unless Und Dokbar suddenly becomes popular

I'm not just talking about orcs, I'm talking about a style of play.

As a general rule if I'm playing a rush deck my goal is to kill you or at least put you on the defensive before you get all your tricks set up. I think a lot of decks do benefit from going first, but if I'm playing rush I will more than likely only need 3 resources to puke out a bunch of weenies and throw some attachments on them. If I do play anything other than the battlefield it would be my quest to replenish my hand.

I feel like if I'm taking time to setup then I'm not rushing as fast as I could be.

I know what you mean, because I used to play just like that with an orc rush through whole corruption cycle up to The Fall of Karak Grimaz when Master Rune of Spite came out. Suddenly loosing almost every unit (except of Clan Moulder's Elite) to one tactic was painful. Then there was Offering To Hekarti, which effectively shuts down every 1 hp unit. I think it was true death of rushes, but you can still suprise your opponent on tournaments with a rush if he's not prepared for it. But the game has sped up so much that even if you swarm me with weenies I can burn your zone using only 2 resources and 3 cards: rip+bloodthirster+warstone experiments. I think first turn set up is mandatory even if you play rush. So it will be always better to go first and be one turn ahead of your opponent. Maybe it's like in starcraft, you can win some games with six-pool but better players will not fall for it.

Maybe in your area rush starts second but imho you'll burn zones faster if you start first.Lemme give you a rough scenario where if the orc starts first and starts dropping grimgor camp a spider rider and warpstone in quest on the first turn.The next turn you proceed to drop the a sneaky git with choppa on it and a crooked teef.That pretty much burns a zone on the 3rd turn of a game with a game ender probablity on the 5th.All this and the 2nd player is just getting his 2nd turn in.This scenario isn't that uncommon though and thats the true advantage of going first.The overwhelming odds of a strong dice roll lol.

I know there is a lot of weenie hate out there now, but I still think rush can be viable strategy. I have play tested against the DE Hekarti build and beat all the ones I played against at regionals with a rush build.( Brayherd is a 60/40 match up in Chaos's favor though)

We could drop hypotheticals back and forth all day, but I will still prefer 2nd with my rush decks. Regardless of how you get there in the end I think burning a zone first is more important in determining the winner than who goes first.

Card Board Gamers said:

Who goes first usually burns the zone first. Either way you will attack after you opponent's first turn. By going first yourself you gain additional turn in which you can build your economy or play units into battlefield even if they can't attack. Honestly I can't see how being one turn behind is good for you, regardless of the deck.

With that kind of thinking you make the game sound like competitive coin flipping.

The best part of this game is the ability to adapt your strategy for different situations. If it were that black and white I don't think I could continue investing money in it.

Card Board Gamers said:

I think this statement is the heart of this discussion. Kaine is saying that laying the thwomp down on his first turn is better than playing some economy cards. The others are saying that having more turns than your opponent is always better, no exceptions. So who's right? I can't really say. Kaine is definitely right in a world with imperfect information, but if I sit down against an Orc board then I am thinking rush and would like to get my cards down that address opponents using lots of units.

So ya, it's an advantage to go first, especially if you know what the opponent is going to do, but if for some reason I don't take action against any sort of rush on my first turn, then the rush deck going second would be a rude surprise.

A case that I think is even more of a challenging question is Dark Elf control. Their control is very much "reactive" (as most is?), with cards like Withering Hex and Mindkiller. If DE control goes second then the other player puts down some cards, the DE player minimizes their benefit and plays cards of his own, creating some sort of resource differential. If DE goes first then they are holding on to all these control cards without knowing what can be developed, or whatever. So in that situation I'd say that there is a case to go second. In that particular case, the first turn advantage could be nullified by lucky DE control draws.

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that as soon as someone says "This is the best rule / deck / strategy" there is always someone out there that manages to crack it in hilarious fashion, to their benefit.

Attacking as second player means you will burn your enemy fastest in 3.
Developing as first player means you will burn your enemy fastest in 3 - but the enemy had one less turn to act.

jogo said:

Exactly my thoughts

Ok, i will think this through now as simple as possible. Consider your opponent going for an economic start no matter what, and yourself having a weenie rush deck of orc.

I go first: +1 for kingdom, +1 for quest zone and a weenie for the battlefield. (maybe go +2 on quest, you need cards!!!) / 1st turn opponent: does economy / My 2nd turn: Good chance to burn a zone, because of higher income, already one battlefield unit, more cards, whatever. 2nd turn opponent: initiates counter measurements, tries to kill everything which is usually more or less succesfull depending on his race and deck. My 3rd turn: either go for it and try to finish or lay back on economy, try to reset later (troll vomit or else), harrass his economy, good options…

Other way round

Opponent goes first: does economy, My 1st turn: I put everything in battlefield, but i have a lower chance to burn a zone (only 3 gold, 1 card drawn, no battlefield unit yet) i will end up doing 5-6 dmg as described but iam not having any economy. 2nd turn opponent: counter measurements, kill maybe one unit, My 2nd turn: no economy, but i can now burn his zone, 3rd turn opponent: finally kills everything and stops me on my run. My 3rd turn: no more options, i'm ded

This way, maybe still a big part of the rush decks being played, play themselves out. For a rush the most important thing is drawing cards. You can go for a kingdom economy of 3, but also with 4 you can support troll vomit or call the brayherd. So economy is the best, and therefore going first is the best, even with a weenie rush - just try it. And yes, some people say you can compare it to dice rolling, but i think there are still many ways to beat a starting player, even if it is chaos itself.

Exactly as i wanted to point out in my post gr4ffi.True i didn't mean that if you go first you'd win due to the dice roll,i just meant that some opening hands specially chaos now just win by second turn due to the lockdown they have and the game is decided.With a chance to mulligan to get that said hand it isn't really impossible.

The game is still balanced if the first player had a penalty of not mulliganing or some sort.It is just a suggestion with the way the game is being played out now thats all.At the moment theres no real downside of going first because in this game you can draw more than 1 card per turn unlike magic and completely make up for the loss of the first turn draw.

I agree with the card draw and understand the importance of the quest when puking a lot of low cost cards.

What I am saying is if you build for it, attacking on he first turn can be used to your advantage to immediately put your opponent on the defensive, especially if you can burn their battlefield early making them place units away from their battlefield. Burning someone's battlefield on your second turn is a beautiful thing and it is a little easier to do it you have already attack once in the game.

In general I agree with going first being a great option for a lot of decks, but to say that it is always better is like saying there is only one way to play. That just seems formulaic and boring.

Card Board Gamers said:

Explain to me how attacking after opponent's first turn is better than attacking after opponent's first turn with one additional turn for setup because I just don't get it.

Also there is advantage in this game for person who goes first. Yes, it is usually decided by dice roll. Deal with it

If you take a huge swing on your first attack it puts your opponent on the defensive, thus giving you the advantage. If you go second you may be trailing with resources, but you have the advantage in damage. Making it the perfect environment for a rush deck. Yes, if the first player can stall out the game you will loose, but you are playing a rush deck, and as the name implies, you are trying to win quickly.

Are you going to GenCon?

At this state of the game, i can say for sure, that nobody in my group of players or in a local competetive environment, will ever go 2nd voluntarily. Just in one case, which would be: You cannot start with the cards on your hand and you already took mulligan!

Just to clearify things, when talking about turn 1,2,3,4 now, it means: turn 1 you, turn 2 opponent, turn 3 you, turn 4 opponent and so on…

The 3rd turn of a game now, is a crucial moment, that is deciding over the rest of the game. The starting player gets the benefit of interacting first with his opponent at this point. Only few interacting cards are playable on turn 2, making this position less viable. You see, 3 gold/+1card isn't usually enough to support a harras and an economy boost unless you have warpstones (that's why they are broken btw!) or a super lucky hand - uncommon! Then obviously you cant harras on turn 1, because your opponent did not start yet It leaves turn 3 !! Most of the time, players on turn 3 manage to remove some economy of their opponents + boost their own, example: sacrifice to khaine and slave pen for 4 gold. This leaves behind a disbalance in the game, that cannot be resolved by the opposite player, most of the time…

I didnt like this evolution of the game either, but harrassing/controlling your opponent has become the most important part of the game. And the faster you can gain board control, the better your chances for a win are. Logical conclusion for competive players was: Starting is best!

Solutions to this problem could be:

- benefit the turn 2 player, e.g. let him draw 2 cards instead of just one.

- bring out more cards, that will either protect you from harrass (caution is needed here, iron discipline is kind of broken too), or bring out cards, that will get you back into a game, when behind in economy/control

Canceling a mulligan for turn 1 player is kind of unfair, then everybody would go turn 2 start ^^ no, but i like the card heroic task. bring in more of those quests, that will give you a bonus for canceling a mulligan.