Childlocksucks said: For my 2p, I just don't see how putting 3 copies of each of two cards which might be considered controlling (Lobba Crew and Pillage) into a deck with 44 other cards, all of which are foot-to-the floor eyeball-deformingly fast rush, can really constitute 'diluting it'. He's running every single available card with 1 / 2 cost with power equal or better than its cost. If I may add a third penny; the crew and pillage are not played in isolation, you put men into the battlefield and pressure the opponent as well. Then if you set the opponent back a turn he simply doen't have the resources to stop you. It's a 'controlling' action, but it is extremely aggressive if you see what I mean. Its not just Lobber Crew and Pillage that dilute the "rushiness". Its Innovation, We'z Bigga, Lobber Crew, Pillage, and every other card that is not a unit meant to attack. This deck runs less than half units meant to attack, meaning on average it will draw 3 attacking units in its opening hand. Most units in the deck are not impressive, its the amount of them you get into play that is deadly. So if a deck can deal with those first 3 or 4 units and then handle the 1 or 2 it may draw a turn, it's too slow for what it is supposed to do. Its really easy to stop 3 or 4 units when they have 1 or 2 HP each. I'm sure there are god draws that can completely blow out most decks (triple hate on your first turn still trumps that though), but that is the opposite of consistency.

Units: 31 3 Veteran Sellswords 3 Spider Riders 3 Crooked Teef Goblins 3 Squig Herders 3 Followers of Mork 3 Snotling Pump Wagon 3 Lobber Crew 3 Clan Moulder's Elite 3 Clan Rats 2 Greyseer Thanquol 2 Deathmaster Sniktch Support: 11 3 Warpstone Excavation 3 Contested Village 3 Choppa 2 Totem of Gork Tactic: 8 3 Innovation (We'z Bigga!) 3 Waaagh! 2 Mob Up (2 Ugrok Beardburna) The cards in parenthesis are what I used to play, but with my DE/Skaven deck playing Call the Blood, We'z Bigga has become a liability. Because of that, the units that benefit from damage on them have also gotten worse. I don't really like Mob Up! and will probably cut it for another Greyseer and another Deathmaster just to increase the odds of getting them in my hand. I also did not, and rarely do, mention putting supports into kingdom as a priority over quest. In rush decks that is just silly thinking. I almost always write it as kingdom/quest because nothing is absolute and there are situations where you would want to play things in your kingdom (or you have to with cards with Lobber Crew). Before the Deathmaster came out, I played Rat Ogres in that spot. Also, during play, I often had my first 2 support cards killed by pillage and my first unit destroyed with Lobber Crew and I still won. Mostly due to the Orc Rush deck not having much left in hand in the way of units. For reference, here is the first draft of my DE/Skaven list. Units: 30 3 Shades 3 Clan Rats 3 Vile Sorceress 3 Greyseer Thanquol 3 Deathmaster Sniktch 3 Poison Wind Globadiers 3 Gutter Runners 3 Clan Moulder's Elite 3 Walking Sacrifice 3 Rat Ogres Support: 8 3 Contested Village 3 Warpstone Excavation 2 Har Ganeth Tactics: 12 3 Hate 3 Chittering Horde 3 Call the Blood 3 Chillwind I would like to add Innovation and maybe cut a Rat Ogre, but I haven't gotten to testing that yet. Call the Blood is pretty good anyway, but the Poison Wind Globadiers make it really good. Just another way to get rid of opposing Clan Moulder's Elite. There are 6 scout units making it hard for controlling decks to keep a hand. And, just like my orc deck, there are a lot of units that can be put into kingdom/quest zones to help build your economy while still adding power to your attack. Walking Sacrifice is pretty good with Har Ganeth to draw an extra card every turn for free as well.

dormouse said: darkdeal said: There really isn't anything beyond that, but some would call all "casual" or "non-competative" decks tier 3. I prefer to just call them non-competitive. Being that tiers are typically results based, there really isn't room for a deck that is the "best" to not be ranked. If a deck is really good enough, it will be played and it will post good results. That would lead to it being played more and if it consistently posted good results, it would be classified in an appropriate tier. The whole argument that Dormouse makes doesn't really happen. The biggest complaint I have with these forums is they completely ignore the largest group of players of this game, and so do all arguments about banning and nerfing cards. Thankfully FFg does not. And yes, the whole argument I put forward does happen. I saw it in Magic when I played when they first started their tournament program and it got worse with the pro-tour and net-decking. I've played other games that managed to use different classifications that were more generalized and the player-base never developed down the highly stratified lines of those that have. This isn't really theory-crafting. Psychology being what it is I have no solid control roup by which I can prove my point but the research done in neuro-linguistic programming and gestalt principles do support this. dormouse said: darkdeal said: There really isn't anything beyond that, but some would call all "casual" or "non-competative" decks tier 3. I prefer to just call them non-competitive. Being that tiers are typically results based, there really isn't room for a deck that is the "best" to not be ranked. If a deck is really good enough, it will be played and it will post good results. That would lead to it being played more and if it consistently posted good results, it would be classified in an appropriate tier. The whole argument that Dormouse makes doesn't really happen. The biggest complaint I have with these forums is they completely ignore the largest group of players of this game, and so do all arguments about banning and nerfing cards. Thankfully FFg does not. And yes, the whole argument I put forward does happen. I saw it in Magic when I played when they first started their tournament program and it got worse with the pro-tour and net-decking. I've played other games that managed to use different classifications that were more generalized and the player-base never developed down the highly stratified lines of those that have. This isn't really theory-crafting. Psychology being what it is I have no solid control roup by which I can prove my point but the research done in neuro-linguistic programming and gestalt principles do support this. As I said, with this game, it is probably premature to rank decks in such a way. But in a game as large as M:tG is now, or even smaller games like World of Warcraft TCG, it doesn't really happen. It is exceedingly rare that somebody finds some new tech that others do not find. It is also rare that it is casual players that find it as they aren't the ones putting in thousands of hours playtesting decks or spending the money to have the perfect cardpool. It will also get less likely when W:I starts changing the tournament scene to limit what sets can be played in decks. Truly casual players don't pay attention to those restrictions. As a note, there is always a point right after a rotation, that is when a new set comes in and older sets rotate out of being legal for tournament play, that there are no tiered decks as the entire format basically starts over. But as soon as there are a round of tournmants to show results, decks start falling into place.

But against rush, who cares if they pillage your Warpstone Excavation or Contested Village when you have units beating their face? The problem was it is supposed to be rush and it didn't do that. There is too much non-rush in the deck for it to compete against rush. In my opinion, this deck lacks focus. It is trying to be rush while at the same time have control elements to beat control type decks like bolt thrower. Rush should beat bolt thrower decks anyway, so there shouldn't be a need to include the cards against them. The inclusion just reduces the chances of beating a more dedicated rush. My rush deck wins a vast majority of its games by turn 3 to 4. It is a "glass cannon". If the rush is stopped, it will lose, but the opponent has a very small time frame to do so and it usually doesn't happen. Pillage is a good card, just not needed. We'z Bigga and Innovation are too redundant when you are taking units out of the deck to play both. Play Innovation and cut the We'z Bigga (they do the same thing, why damage yourself?). Lobber Crew is incredible, I was just saying that it doesn't do much if you aren't drawing units to attack with.

I wanted to make sure everyone knew this, but I killed a Clan Moulder Elite today with a Deathmaster because I realised that Deathmaster counts the opponents skaven as well. He does not specify "skaven you control". He says "number of Skaven cards in play" meaning that if I have 4 skaven counting the deathmaster and the opponent has 2 CME in play, I can use my DM to kill that 5 hp CME as there are 6 total skaven in play. So, based on that, if both players have a deathmaster in play along with just 1 other skaven each, both deathmasters would die if they tried to kill each other.

So I copied this deck and played it some today. I took out the Bloodaxe for another Waagh though. I was not impressed. It lost 2/3 of its games against my DE/Skaven deck (more control than rush) just because of the inconsistency of it. It plays so much acceleration and utility that it wasn't very good at rushing. There were hands with 2 Innovation, which normally would be good, but when you draw pillage, and wez bigga, and lobber crew, and the other support cards, you aren't left with much to use the acceleration on. I think I will be taking out the innovations and putting in more units. Wez bigga may get cut as well. I prefer the orc rush to have more skaven in it to help with quest/kingdom development with units that still add to attack strength. I'm not sure Pillage matters either. You should be able to win by the time pillage would matter. Maybe there were just a lot of poor draws when I played this deck, but it doesn't seem optimal at all.

A more thematic unit mechanic for orcs, instead of having so many cheap "rushy" units, would have been units that cost 3 or 4 or 5, but come into play as multiple units. For example, the pump wagon has several units on the picture. It should have cost 4 and put 3 orc units with 1 power and 1 HP into play. You could represent the copies with dice or whatever (I would prefer they made actual full card art with no text box to use for this). They could make a 1/1 orc token pack and have multiple units put varying amounts of orc tokens into play. That way they dont really rush, but they swarm.

Wytefang said: I think the whole "type 1" or "tier 2" labeling is rather confusing (no offense at all to Fiendish, he's the man with our spoilers after all!). If everyone agreed on what decks fell into which category (unanimously), then labels like these would make sense but I doubt we all can agree on the quality level of every deck out there. I'd agree with calling Orc/Skaven or most Skaven builds as being "better decks or top decks" but any other kind of nebulous labeling seems confusing to me. I dont think he meant the "type 1" and "type 2" to mean anything in specific, but more as variables as in algebra. He could have just as easily said deck X and deck Y. The tier system actually does mean something and the people who said it is within the context of a specific metagame are correct. The part that is wrong is assuming that decks labeled "tier 1" are somehow not the best decks. The idea of tiered decks in W:I is really premature I think as there really aren't that many tournaments (and matches within the tournaments) to determine a solid tier system. People can right now say that DE/Skaven and Orc/Skaven are probably Tier 1 but there still aren't really enough results to say for sure. To further define the tiers. Tier 1 are tournament winning decks that win consistently. They define the metagame in a way that if you are playing a deck that isn't tier 1, your deck has to be able to beat the top tier decks or it isn't a viable deck to take to a competative tournament. Tier 1 decks typically comprise the majority of decks at most tournaments (the two skaven decks are probably pretty close), and that is why your "rogue" deck has to be able to have game against them because you WILL play against the tier 1 decks during the course of a tournament. Tier 2 are decks that are somewhat competative in that they are decks that DO NOT have a large showing at a tournament and can potentially win if you get lucky with you pairings. These decks are typically weaker against some of the most played decks but can still win through luck or playskill (moreso if you can capitalize on a play mistake by the opponent). This is where the Bolt Thrower deck falls as it is close enough to pull some wins but still loses out to the tier 1 decks a majority of the time (more than 50%). There really isn't anything beyond that, but some would call all "casual" or "non-competative" decks tier 3. I prefer to just call them non-competative. Being that tiers are typically results based, there really isn't room for a deck that is the "best" to not be ranked. If a deck is really good enough, it will be played and it will post good results. That would lead to it being played more and if it consistently posted good results, it would be classified in an appropriate tier. The whole argument that Dormouse makes doesn't really happen. If there are enough tournament results, the decks typically stay the same. When a new bomb is printed in a new BP or something, it could alter the metagame and the tiers may shift (they usually don't, the new deck is typically just considered to also be tier 1). If a card were printed the made skaven completely obsolete, THEN, yes, they would probably move away from tier 1. As I said though, i'm not entirely sure we have enough data to date to classify the decks as of now. We can classify them like I have above, but the margin of error is greater than it would be given more results. Some definitions for those who may not know. -Rogue deck = A deck that is new to the public. It is a deck that someone designed and has not made a tournament appearance with. Once a deck gets recognition, it is no longer rogue. Synonymous with "homebrew" deck. -Have Game = A good chance to win. Synonymous with "have good odds against".

Dam said: darkdeal said: I also think that Disdain is now required with Orc Rush decks packing Pillage to off your Bolt Thrower. It can also help against dedicated Judgement decks that may be able to manipulate your developments enough to wreck your board. Will Disdain become less useful once people get their grubby paws on Arcane Fire: SNOTLING SABOTEURS (x3) (Orc Unit) 3OO P 3HP Ranger. Action: Spend 2 resources and sacrifice this unit to destroy one target support card or development. Or is that too pricy and slow in an Orc-rush environment? While it costs more than Pillage, it is still a unit where Pillage is not so it may or may not be used. Pillage may still be better though because it is cheaper depending on how fast someone needs to kill a support or development. I think Disdain will only go up in value though as more and more tactics are printed.

darkdeal said: It may be a strange suggestion, but with the upsurge of bolt thrower decks, maybe a couple Smash 'Em All! would be good. You can get it online first turn with walking sacrifice and Har Gareth is really bad against a unitless deck. Once you have your scouts going, it would be really hard for that deck to recover from an activated SEA drawing only 1 card per turn. I guess my suggestion is -1 Caught the Scent -1 Har Gareth +2 Smash 'Em All!

It may be a strange suggestion, but with the upsurge of bolt thrower decks, maybe a couple Smash 'Em All! would be good. You can get it online first turn with walking sacrifice and Har Gareth is really bad against a unitless deck. Once you have your scouts going, it would be really hard for that deck to recover from an activated SEA drawing only 1 card per turn.

Strategy wise, the problem with "virtual card advantage" in W:I is that no card is truly dead because of developing. So they have built in cards in their deck to fight against your Judgement. Playing a development is also free so while you are spending resources to destroy their free developments so that you can possibly get a Judgement to hurt them more than you, you are giving them more time because you give them that resource advantage. I think Judgement is more powerful when it forces the opponent to make hard decisions on how to play around it. If they have to put a card down as a development that might save them later on, it costs them. I think playing units is still better. It opens up other card choices (quests) that are really good in a bolt thrower deck. Thinks like Seduced by Darkness don't matter because you weren't going to defend with the unit anyway. Someone using their Lobber Crew isn't real different either. If Lobber Crew is dead against you and they decide to place it as a development and you pay 3 to destroy it, how is that any different than you paying 3 for a unit and they sacrifice Lobber Crew to force you to sacrifice your unit? The cost and card count is the same both ways, but in most cases, your unit really should cost less than 3. Deathmaster is annoying, but he can be played around and he is ultimately kinda slow compared to the rush decks out there. You can also just play out a unit that has a decent HP total so that the skaven player really has to overextend to kill it and thus walk right into your devastating effects. If they a Deathmaster and 4 other skaven to get so close to kill your 4 HP questing unit (just an example), then that Judgement is that much more win. I also think that Disdain is now required with Orc Rush decks packing Pillage to off your Bolt Thrower. It can also help against dedicated Judgement decks that may be able to manipulate your developments enough to wreck your board.

If you really think about it though, most terms regardless of if they have a history or not will need to be explained in some capacity as they are typically just made up. A tier is not a new thing. The podiums that olympic athletes stand on to get their medals are "tiered" so that the better is "top" or higher. The only way I can see W:I having unique terms that won't require some kind of explanation is if the term is a direct rip-off of a keyword or something, like "corrupt", and then it's not slang. If I made up some completely unique term for just W:I that has no link to an existing W:I term, it would still need to be explained. Because of this, I think people really need to get off of blaming the other games and just go with the terms that are most common and understood that can be transported over. Tier, and bounce, and metagame are all broad card game terms that can be used for W:I, so I see no reason to make up some other term just for the sake of being different.

So that thing deals 8 damage when it attacks. That seems really good and just the finisher that High Elves need. It is still about 4 months away though so hopefully one of the battlepacks before that gives the high elves more power.

Or the skaven epic could cost 13 and just have text that says it costs 1 less to play for each skaven card in play, under your control, up to a reduction of 3.

Maybe a weird twist could be "return all units in your discard pile to play corrupted". I don't know who would be best with that flavorwise, but it sounds useful in some capacity.

The way I see it, if they are playing a rush deck and they have all that in their hand and 2 or 3 developments for innovation, then they are probably in a pretty bad board position to start with. They could have just as easily built up their quest zone in order to stock their hand, but then they aren't generating a lot of resources to keep up either. It just seems like the right play to me. If your opponent has the nuts draw to dump their stuff and blow you out that way, there probably wasn't much of a hope anyway as they would be in that situation where they can have more rats in play than they need for DM.

They need a support card that makes it so corrupted units cannot be restored. Order only maybe, but it would be powerful in a DE or Chaos control deck so I dunno. It would be a good hoser for skaven too.

The deathmaster conflict should usually not matter. Any good player with a deathmaster in play first would just use its ability to kill one of the other random skaven in response to the opponents deathmaster being played so that they wont have enough to kill yours. It would also not matter if you shot first if you had enough skaven in play even after the deathmaster was gone to kill the opponents.

Yes, it is with the HE quest Wake the Dragons. Once you have 3 tokens on it, you can just bring back your Gifts of Aenarion every turn and there isn't much a battlefield oriented deck can do about it. Just have a Disdain in hand for when orcs decides to Mob Up or Troll Vomit.

It looks good to me. I was looking at demolition but the achilles' heel of skaven/orc or any rush deck for that matter is card draw. They need to draw a lot of cards to make up for the quality of their units. You can use Demolition to take out the things they play in the quest zone to keep them only drawing 1 card a turn. That makes for a tough decision when they plop down a Lobber Crew as to use it or leave it for card draw. Either way it is probably better for you. The only problem I found in testing was that I never had enough resources of my own to play both a demolition and a blocker in the same turn so I was still not able to recover. (always one turn away). Innovation is good enough that you may want to go to 3x just to make sure you get one early. Multiples are also not that bad. On a side note, maybe you could try going for more high elf stuff and put in the infinite tactic plan. Dwarves have early stall with Master Rune of Valaya and High Elves get really good later game stall with Gifts of Aenarion.

In all honesty, bannings are usually just easier to remember than errata. There is already a ton of "errata" in this game just due to the vagueness of some cards plus some others that do have real errata.

Orcs - Destroy all support cards (controlled by opponents?) The dwarf epic spell would also not be more powerful than an epic that removed a burn token as healing does not heal from burning. Once burned, it's burnt no matter how much heal.

Honestly, I do not know if there is a private message system on these forums. If there is, it would be nice to learn of. If not, that is one reason for facebook. Another reason for facebook would be to get the word out more about the game. Facebook is huge and I'm sure more than a few people would be interested in this game that may have never even heard of it.

If the -hp were permanent it would be a sentence on its own. Target unit gets -1 hp. That unit gets +3 power until end of turn.