Deck List of the Week: Warrior Weapon Deck
by JR Cook - 11 years ago show comments
There’s a cool evolution to deck building. For me, when the beta began, I decided to play a Rogue, solely because I’ve always enjoyed the flavor of the class. I unlocked all of the basics and started scrounging up dust in order to unlock more cards. I played the deck, took it to a tournament and had a good time, and then decided I’d like to basically ‘roll an alt’. My fondness for Garrosh Hellscream is well-documented and, on top of that, the Warrior set is viewed as one of the weaker ones in set. Given that Rogue is, at present, arguably the strongest set in the series, I figured I owed it to my street cred to get out there and try and be successful with a ‘lesser’ deck.
An aggressive Warrior deck is totally feasible, but it’s not nearly as potent as an aggressive Rogue. For starters, the spells in the Warrior set have reasonable mana costs attached to them, where as Rogue spells tend to cost anywhere from free to two. On top of that, while Warriors have direct damage options, they’re not nearly as savage. The cherry on top though is the lack of Headcrack. The brutal spell is in need of a light tapping from the nerf bat, because it effectively removes hand management from the list of issues a Rogue needs to deal with. Combo intelligently, build a deck with some low mana non-combo spells/creatures, and proceed to Headcrack your opponent to death.
This is not to say Warriors go entirely hungry. Their unique assortment of weapons, combined with the spell Upgrade! make them capable of dealing a wicked amount of burst damage in the span of a couple of turns. The trade is, in order to do that, they have to play at a control deck’s pace for the first portion of the game. That’s what this deck is based on. Control the board, whittle their hand size and then go in for a couple of massive blows through the use of weapons and minions with Charge. It’s another very affordable deck, and in its most recent incarnation features no epic or legendary cards. Although, if I ever do get a Grommash Hellscream, it’s totally going in.
The deck, titled ‘Those Who Fight Further’, draws its name from the boss battle theme from Final Fantasy VII, because, you know, I’m a huge nerd.
Card List:
- Execute x 2
- Upgrade! x 2
- Whirlwind x 2
- Elven Archer x 2
- Fiery War Axe x 2
- Cleave x 2
- Heroic Strike x 2
- Slam x 2
- Ironbeak Owl x 2
- Novice Engineer x 2
- Mortal Strike x 2
- Kor’kron Elite x 2
- Arcanite Reaper x 2
- Azure Drake x 2 OR Gnomish Inventor x 2
- Argent Commander x 2
Mentioned earlier, for the first few turns, you want your opening hand to feature spells such as Whirlwind, Cleave, Slam and Execute. Ironbeak Owl should also be a welcome sight in order to deal with the current metagame of Twilight Drakes For Days™ along with the odd Demolisher you’ll come across. In the beginning, deal with whatever they put out as resourcefully as possible and try and gain card advantage. Fiery War Axe is a solid early game card because it’s effectively two mana and some health in order to trade one axe for up to two minions. If you don’t have anything between turns two and four, don’t be afraid to just dump mana into Armor Up!. It’ll give you some survivability, and this deck needs it where it can get it.
Use Slam intelligently. It can be used to set up an Execute and get you a card in the process, which is the strength of the card. Cycle through your Gnomish Engineers, Gnomish Inventors/Azure Drakes in order to get to your weapons. Upgrade! them before swinging, if you believe your opponent does not have an Acidic Swamp Ooze. Try and use a buffed Arcanite Reaper to deal crushing damage to your opponent. Combine it with Heroic Strike and listen to the crowd ‘ooh’ and ‘awe’ as you bring the pain. Kor’kron Elite and Argent Commander (lovingly referred to as ‘Better Kor’kron Elite’) will assist you in keeping the board clear and can even be used as four damage gut check in the right circumstances. Argent Commander is especially amazing because he’ll likely require two cards to take down, feeding you some card advantage.
Unlike a control deck, this deck will probably never ‘fully’ lock down an opponent, but it can get them low on cards and pressure them into playing defensively. If they do that, you’ll probably win because of the incredible burst damage this deck can achieve. Aforementioned Oozes, and the few freeze mechanics in the game can give this deck problems, alongside Warlock decks featuring Blood Imp and Murloc swarms. If you see a Warlock, try and get a whirlwind in your hand early to diffuse the situation.
Here’s a video of the deck in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuBT0n-V0Vc
The most important tip: Yell LOK’TAR OGAR whenever you hit someone. It’ll make you do more damage, probably.
LOK’TAR OGAR!
LOK’TAR OGAR!