Recently, GUDecks released an update that added a few new deck archetypes to their list of meta decks. One of the rising archetypes was the Beefy War deck archetype, boasting a 60.9% win rate in the Mythic bracket over the last three days.
The Beefy War deck archetype is exactly what you expect - War decks that have bigger creatures than your average aggro War deck. The rise of the Beefy War deck archetype also coincides with my personal observations that I saw mid-game War much more than the Frenzied Aggro War archetype in the past two weeks.
Having played lots of Frenzied Aggro War previously, I was curious to see how well this deck performed. Here are my first impressions of the deck after playing a few games with it.
Archetype Overview
Let's first take a look at the overall deck archetype and its components in the Mythic bracket.
Source: GUDecks
The main standouts are Hector, Prince of Troy, Grand Hall, Hyrtacus, and Strength in Numbers. The rest of the cards are often included in the aggro War version.
Hector often enters the board as a 6/6 with Blitz, Protected, and Twin Strike and can deal with 2 large units at the same time. It's no wonder that people have started including Hector in their decks more often, especially when almost no additional effort is required to stack these effects on Hector. Blitz? Many meta cards have this. Protected? Oddi and Raid Reveller. Twin Strike? Orcish Elite.
Grand Hall is a card that's not as useful in aggro War but is pretty good in this deck archetype. Since this deck aims to stretch the game into a turn 8-12 game, Grand Hall can keep you alive against the hordes of aggro decks with a board Leech buff. It can be a little 'eh' at times though.
Hyrtacus rewards you even if you draw it early, and can be a monster if it patiently sits in your hand, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Sadly, it's one of the costlier key cards in this deck that I don't have due to its cost. (~0.05ETH, I'm pretty ETH-broke now)
Strength in Numbers is this deck's answer to control decks. As the game stretches longer and longer, this deck can lose steam and you can end up with no cards in your hand. Strength in Numbers aims to fix that at a rather hefty cost of 7-mana. I'm still on the fence on this one, 7 mana is a high price to pay at any point of the game and this slot might be better filled with another card. You can get extremely unlucky and obtain 4 creatures without Blitz, leaving you wide open for a finishing blow from the opponent.
Deck Overview and Performance
Deck Link: GUDecks
As you can see, Hyrtacus is missing. Other than that, this is pretty much a rather standard Beefy War deck with a few chickens thrown in. So how did this deck do?
In 15 games, not too bad - 11 wins with only 1 game being a throw from the opponent. As you can see, the games can get pretty long; I had a 19-turn match against a Magic player and still won! The higher curve of the cards does mean that bricking your hand on the first few turns is possible, but as with any deck with high-cost cards, you just have to settle with an "okay" hand instead of getting greedy in the mulligan phase.
The deck is relatively easy to pilot if you've played any mid-range decks before. The key thing that I now realize is the power of playing any 1-health creature, bag (+1 mana), into Out of Its Misery on turn 1. Getting a 5/6 Tavern Brawler can make the match a cakewalk. Even though the Expectant Chickens are the most expensive cards in the deck, I feel like they aren't actually that great here, and including 2x Nokkvi Pillagers (3-cost 3/3 with Twin Strike and Leech) might be better just to boost the consistency of Hector getting Twin Strike.
I think I played Strength in Numbers three times across all matches and found it a little slow. I guess if you tweak the deck to be more of a control variant with Demogorgons and Avatar of War, it may be a little more helpful.
Conclusion
Did I enjoy playing the deck? Yes, but I also think it's quite similar to its more aggressive counterpart, just that this one has less consistent early-game draws.
Did I find the deck strong? Well, it's OK. It's treading into control territory but often doesn't win against control decks since it has no good large single-target removal. One Helian Elite (8-mana 10/12 Frontline with Protected) is enough to stop the entire show. Of course, if you tweak the deck into a control variant you have a much larger chance of winning these match-ups, but then you'll have to fork out a good amount of cash for the meta late-game cards that you'll need. Although Hector is a really good 7-cost card, it simply can't hold its own against larger creatures, so you need to aim to finish the game before your opponent reaches the 8-mana mark.
Should you try it? If you already play War decks, definitely. The cost to get a Hector and some of the Divine Order legendaries shouldn't be too high. You might even find yourself liking this variant more than the more aggressive version. However, if your aim is to win as many games on the weekend with the cheapest deck possible, then no - I don't think a cheap variant of this deck can hold up against the other decks out there. Nature, Deception, and Magic decks might be more relevant in those cases.
I hope you enjoyed reading this, let me know your thoughts on this deck archetype if you've played it!
Post Header Beef image source: DinosoftLabs on Flaticon
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