I've been having fun with War. My last post was on an Empower War deck, but I decided to ditch the empower theme and sub in more traditional aggro pieces and see what happened. The results are about a 50% win rate in Mythic, which humorously is enough to stay in Mythic, but not enough to get there. I will also say that several of those losses were misplays on my part. Multitasking, kids watching me play and asking questions, etc. My two gameplay videos are me beating very successful meta decks (including funky-deservers top 3 WR deception deck!).
The Deck
Code:
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Those 3 games in the deck stats are after I swapped out Thunder Callers for Raid Revellers (more on that a bit later).
There's no Out of Its Misery + Looters in this deck. The only 'slow' card is Enduring Shield, and you're looking to open the game with that for minimal tempo loss. White Fur and Wolf-Cult (the best of the Empowered creatures) stay in the deck.
Budget Swaps
The pricey cards are the two Blades and Martyr of Whiteplain. Warmonger Smiths are a safe swap. An End to War is something to consider. It gives you removal you'll be missing from Blade.
Mulligan
A few more options compared to the Empower Deck, which was light on 1-2 mana cards. Going first with these two feels really good:
For the third card, ideally, you want a Blitzer to play turn two (Axeoman or Tavern Brawler).
Of course, the tried and true Enduring Shield is probably the best. Paired with a blitzer is really nice.
Going second, you want reactive blitzers, Blade of Styx, etc.
Win Conditions
The usual for aggro: go fast. In our case, we ideally want to seal the win with Soul Survivor. Toward that end, I've built some synergies into the deck: hidden, protected, and martyr's OPness.
Hidden and protected greatly increase our chances of sticking a creature on the board for SS. Hidden in particular is so nice that I'm still considering Encumbered Looters. But if you put in Looters, then I'm going to want to add OOIM... Maybe.
Another Round is our other win condition. It's an absolutely fantastic card.
When talking about bang-for-mana-cost, it's right up there with Light's Canonize. Lining up the +1/+1 to hit your Orcish Elite is absolutely bonkers. Competing aggro decks will often make the mistake of going 'all in' and racing you. This punishes them heavily.
Raid Reveller
In my gameplay vid against light, I was still running Thunder Callers. It's a solid card, but we've got good options:
Thunder Caller is easily the best card when already winning. Cast it for three mana, hit face with a relic or creature, and snowball out of control quickly. However, on an empty board, you need 5 mana (3 for him and 2 for GP) to get him to a 4/4. Meanwhile, Mountain Watcher for 4 mana is a 5/4 and grows unconditionally each turn (and even more if they more than 1 card). Similarly, Thunder Caller is the source of the buffs, but can wind up buffing other creatures. That in turn leaves TC easier to remove. Mountain Watcher doesn't have this issue. In my book, that makes Mountain Watcher strictly better.
Right now, I'm playing with Raid Revellers. Better when behind compared to Thunder Caller. In my game against control deception, you'll see how critical their protected is when playing around Rapture Dance. Of course, Raid Revellers make excellent Blade of Whiteplain food. Mountain Watcher can't be eaten, so it's a trade off.
Question for the community: if I empower Mountain Watcher, can Curse of Greed still kill it? @meltysquid? @x-rain ? @agrante ? @cautionfun ?
It's hard for me to choose between them, but Raid Revelers confound board wipes really nicely and Mountain Watchers should really only be played for 4 mana unless desperate, so RR is a bit cheaper. That's my current thinking anyway.
Gameplay 1
Here I face off against funky-deserver's control deception deck. A version of this deck went 16/18 for a top 10 finish, so definitely no slouch.
Going first with a solid mulligan was a big part of that. Enduring Shield + a blitzer is great. I keep the 3 drop Reveller because it fills out the curve perfectly:
T1: ES
T2: Tavern Brawler
T3: Reveller
A T1 ES play also means we can at least get use of it before having it stolen. On T2, I play the Brawler and swing for the exact same reason.
T3 is a great turn. Clear board and have threats in place.
T4 is a nice display of Empower's flexibility. I get to play White Fur on curve when my other options were a little awkward. I want to hold that axewoman to clean up the Armor Lurker. White Fur ends up drawing out a lot of strength steal which would have been a big problem otherwise.
T5 goes off swimmingly. Skollkin hits Tavern Brawler which is some really nice luck. I opt for Felid Tracker. I know there is one more 1 mana strength stealer, and I need to either get face damage in or draw out one of their removals. We soak up the Hunting Trap on a 2 mana creature, which is really nice.
T5.5 is a head scratcher. Holding his pip means one thing: Rapture Dance (or at least the threat of it). If he has it, he would simply pop protect with his Skollkin and then wipe my board. Martyr is going to make him second-guess himself. What's in my hand that might be amazing to combo with Martyr?
T6 the game gets really interesting. I wasn't expecting the Reflection Ele (no deck peeking!). Luckily, we top deck possibly the best Martyr combo in Orcish Elite and go to work. Importantly, hitting the Skollkin first so we can then kill whatever it buffs. I finish the turn by straight-up bluffing that I have Sole Survivor. Turns out, this may have drawn out the Cutthroat! Now if I top deck SS or Blade, we're in great shape.
T6.5 hey look what we got! I think about just sacking the archer into the elementalist and playing something like RR + GP, but I opt to go Blade for the card draw and sanctum play. Since Rapture dance already kills everything on board, I toss a one drop in hopes of baiting it out.
T7 it's the Reveller's time to shine. I'm not afraid of Rapture Dance or Witherfingers. I'm expecting a Demo (he ends up not having them in his deck), but the protected even mitigates Demo value.
Unfortunately, FD clearly has a bricked hand. Any of those threats I mentioned would have kept him in the game (and likely won it). Instead he goes digging for answers and finds them a turn too late. I play Orcish to fill the board and play around Witherfingers (which only sleeps 3). At this point, only a Demo could have saved him.
Raid Revellers got me out of a jam (Rapture Dance proof), but arguably I should have closed the game already. Mountain Watchers are excellent against strength steal. Note that I held my opening Raid Reveller until 7 mana! I always had something I'd rather play. Even Felid Tracker from the Sanctum!
Gameplay 2
Control light! 😒
Add to that we start by playing a lonely Trial Spirit.
T2 I decide to clear board. I know I need to go fast against Control Light, but I want Thunder Caller to survive when played. Trial Spirit will be available to trigger frenzy even if I need to trade again with the relic. Also, 3 to face isn't much when they can heal back 2.
T3 we get to go all face as they bricked their turn.
T4 we're off to the races. If he plays Lips are Sealed, we can Whit Fur right after.
T5 we have to deal with HBK, because of course we do. Dragon board was a dead giveaway. No choice but to trade. I play White Fur to protect my weakened creatures. I'm still fearing order + trade. He plays Eucos which is OK for us. He then goes digging for something. The obvious guess is order. Censure or Lips.
T6 So he's playing some type of order next turn, so I decide to play around Lips. When we play the card draw, Another Round! is the best we could have hoped for.
At 6 mana we not only get to play Another Round, but we also draw Sole Survivor. Only Censure could have bought him the time to reach Mercy, but he didn't have it.
Conclusion
It's a fun aggro deck. Kind of on the border between aggro and midrange. If you draw well, you can end games by 5 mana, but you can also stretch against control as shown in the gameplay vids above. The only thing I'm missing in the fun department is Looters + OOIM. There might be room for 2x Looter and 1x OOIM in the deck. Just not sure what I'd want to cut. 2x Raid Revellers and then a Trial Spirit? If you don't have Martyrs/Blades, then that's the obvious spot.
Give it a spin - even if just in casual. I wouldn't suit up in it to try and climb the ranks, though. My WR with (versions of) the deck was 7/14 in Mythic. Had I been below Mythic, I would have deranked further.