War-Enchanted Groble x2
Upgrades: 12 Speed, 51 hp, Resistance: Physical 1, Resistance: Fire 1 - 96 Nora

Thorn Collection x2
Lifeshield x2
Mend x2
Herbal Antidote x2
Impervious x2
Last Stand x2
Righteous Deflection x2
Repair x2
Disarm x2
Hammerstrike x1
Desperate Heal x1
Unobstructed View x1
Butterfly Wings x1
Invisibility x1
Swiftwind x1
Vortex x1
Elite Blade x2
Oaken Mace x1

This week we have a deck I played some at the start of the expansion and which has since been experimented with by many players, the War-Enchanted Groble deck. The Groble, as with the Elven Ancestor, is very well suited to a deck revolving around it as a lone champion. This is due to the powerful Adaptive: Ironfist ability and the potential long term power of Spellswallower. Compared to the Ancestor deck, which is fairly low tier, the Groble deck has one major advantage: Last Stand. This spell is naturally very powerful in a deck like this, and the HP bonus stacks with itself and with Adaptive allowing you to get your HP and all other stats up fast. Generally, your strategy with this deck will be to get out the Groble and Last Stand up and running on him, which will jump to huge stat numbers immediately. These numbers will rise as the game continues. Once your Groble is out, liberal use of spells to support him will keep him going strong and allow you to deal with a variety of situations.

Most of the spells in the deck normally have rather limited uses. However, since we can pad our build here without loss of valuable champion space, the hard counter nature of these effects is very valuable. The most important spells are Lifeshield, Last Stand and Repair. Last Stand, as described above, gets you going. Repair keeps you going by providing excellent single target healing. Lifeshield counters many of the spell based counters to the deck, allowing you to set up without fear. The rest of the spells should be used as applicable for extra damage or utility as the situation demands - the ability to become unstoppable, invisible or flying at will is very useful in a small deck like this. The Ironfist spells, in particular, should be used as freely as possible. Each casting is going to buff your Groble, after all. Righteous Deflection and Impervious should be chained on cooldown as much as is feasible. Finally, the 3 equipments provide you with something to occupy your equipment slot (preventing negative equipment) and also give you access to physical attacks, key in a deck with limited typing such as this.

When playing this deck, you have to be wary of a number of things. Magic Immunity is obviously a problem - Elite Blade/Oaken Mace is your only real option here. Don’t be shy about disarming yourself if necessary to use both equipment in a single turn. Single target spells are a threat, so Lifeshield should be up at all times. Clever opponents will probably ignore your Groble in favor of attacking the shrine - be sure to save your Repairs and Desperate Heal when this seems likely, as you will take a lot more damage from Defender of Chaos than from being hit normally. If they’re going for your shrine, your best bet is to go for theirs first - your high speed makes that quite doable.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Cyclops Chieftain x2
Upgrades: 9 Speed, Magical Bomb 3, Surge: Behemoth 2 - 106 Nora

Firk Mindweaver x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 43 hp, Absorb Illusion - 71 Nora

Voil Transporter x2
Upgrades: 41 hp - 63 Nora

Glowing Slider x2
Upgrades: 46 HP, Transfer Life 2, Vulnerability: Fire, Vulnerability: Acid - 43 Nora

Cyclops Nemesis x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 58 hp - 50 Nora

Firk Mindshredder x2
Upgrades: 45 hp - 62 Nora

Firk Botanist x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 47 hp, Vulnerability: Magical - 65 Nora

Cyclops Shaman
Upgrades: 9 Speed - 69 Nora

Massive Anuran
Upgrades: 9 Speed, 57 hp - 62 Nora

Intimidation x2
Tribe Wars x2
Avalanche
Feeding Frenzy
Marsh Song x2
Monsoon
Echo Chamber
Tribal Post
Moga Bartering Post
Darkmarsh Helm x2

Hello everyone. It’s been a while since we’ve done a battlegroup, I know. This time around I’ve got a fun deck enabled by the most recent expansion Broodcall. The central theme of this deck is Surge: Behemoth on the Cyclops Chieftain - one of the broadest surges around. In order to enable this, we primarily use two different runes. First, the new Firk Mindweaver and the Shattered Peaks spell Tribe Wars. With two Mindweavers out, a single casting of Tribe Wars gives our Chieftains +12 damage! We can support this effect with a number of other runes to get a pretty cool deck. You probably won’t dominate the ranks with this given the difficulty managing massed 2×2 units. However, you can definitely surprise opponents with some insane numbers on your Chieftains and clutter the heck out of the board to boot.

Cyclops Chieftains are the center of this battlegroup, and our build on them is forced by CP concerns to get all the basics maxed out. Mindweavers are key rune #2, and are kept cheap. They should be protected, though with absorb for healing they can make solid back line fighters early on. Following them we have support staff which is 2 Voil Transporters. They give us the mobility we’re going to desperately need and 2 Glowing Sliders add a lot of healing support for our Chieftains. Next up is combat champs and the Cyclops Nemesis is a no brainer since he gives us more illusions to surge off of. This is boosted by the chieftain, which also has excellent stats. Firk Mindshredders and Firk Botanists give us some ranged damage that’s cheap. This is very helpful in a deck that relies on playing a 106 Nora champion. Trailing the lineup is a Cyclops Shaman, who is a solid ranged choice that counters Nora Generation. It gives us a pseudo-cleanse and is boosted by the Chiefs, not to mention a Massive Anuran for early game help and more surge. The Anuran can be replaced with almost any other champion in FS though.

Beyond champions, our key runes are threefold. First, Tribe Wars enables the core combo. Second, Intimidation which will always have greater numbers with this deck, so is very helpful. Finally, Darkmarsh Helms are key in protecting our Chieftains, and give us a way to make hitting them with range and spot removal spells hard. In addition, once you’ve gotten going an assassination from a Helm’d Chieftain, this will kill pretty much anything in existence. It’s possible to do 80 damage or more. To further pump the Chieftains, Bartering Post, and Tribal Post are excellent relics. Backing up this central assortment is a number of more generally useful spells like damage spells and Marsh Songs for nora.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Pox Doombringer (FW) x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 11 damage, 50 hp - 99 Nora

Abomination x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 51 hp, Vulnerability: Electricity, Berserker 3 - 73 Nora

Executioner x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 54 hp, Exertion 3 - 81 Nora

Blood Fiend x2
Upgrades: 47 hp, Blood Frenzy 1 - 44 Nora

Demon Lich x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp, Swarm: Deep Elf Skeleton - 84 Nora

Nefari Dragon x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 52 hp, Flamestrike 3, Vulnerability: Frost - 71 Nora

Scorched Dwarf x2
Upgrades: 24 hp, Nora Miner 2, Mason 2 - 29 Nora

Nefari Messenger
Upgrades: 48 hp - 72 Nora

Eternal Lich
Upgrades: 11 speed, 44 hp, Dark Favor 1 - 94 Nora

Sacrifice x2
Retribution x2
Fireblast x2
Price of Victory x2
Mobilization x2
Essence Drain x2
Sacrificial Dagger x2

This deck relies on AP generation and making attacks cheaper through spells or at the costs of a unit’s own hitpoints. All of the Forsaken Wastes champions can sacrifice their HP to gain extra attacks or AP except the Eternal Lich. This, coupled with Drive, Price of Victory, Ally: FW and Mobilization means that you can cover lots of ground and attack twice as often. This is especially powerful because most everything will hit in the mid-teens for damage. To compensate for the lowering HP, Sacrifice, Retribution and the Sacrificial Dagger give you ways to turn your low HP units into resources. Sacrificial Daggers on the range 6 Doombringers are especially deadly.

Aside from the main combo runes, the rest are mostly support. The Demon Liches are good recipients of the AP boosts by letting them get finishing blows, and provide global AP on drop. The Messenger is a Drive engine, which makes Sacrificial Daggers much more deadly. The Dwarves obviously provide nora as well as Mason, and considering how harsh you can be on your own shrine, you’ll probably need it. The Nefari Dragons and the Eternal Lich simply provide some additional solid ranged support. Finally, the Fireblasts and Essence Drains allow you to translate double attacks from your champions into kills, especially in the case of Essence Drain. An Executioner with essence drain support can move 6 spaces and kill a 60 hp champion in one round.

Lonx Hurler x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 49 hp, Lay Trap - Frost 2 - 69 Nora

Lonx Striker x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 48 hp, Vulnerability: Fire - 66 Nora

Lonx Recruiter x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 50 hp, Vulnerability: Fire - 74 Nora

Lonx Adept x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 50 hp, Vulnerability: Fire - 82 Nora

Yeti Shaman x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 46 hp, Majestic 2, Vulnerability: Fire - 75 Nora

Nora Beast x2
Upgrades: 66 hp - 47 Nora

Tracker Gnark
Upgrades: 11 speed, 55 hp, Leap 3, Vulnerability: Fire - 99 Nora

Glacial Titan
Upgrades: 12 speed, 69 hp, Arctic Camouflage - 117 Nora

Lonx Ambusher
Upgrades: 51 hp, Assault, Vulnerability: Fire - 75 Nora

Yeti Berserker
Upgrades: 9 speed, 55 hp, Leap 3, Berserker 3, Multiattack 1 - 86 Nora

Crystal Pheonix
Upgrades:28 hp, Divine Favor 3, Vulnerability: Fire - 55 Nora

Gale Force x2
Ice Storm x2
Deep Freeze x2
Call of the Tundra x2
Conjure Ice Block
Cleansing Storm
Flag of Unification
Ice Shard
Provincial Marker

The rule for this deck is only wild champions and no Jakei, angels or elven ancestors. This restricts our options quite a bit, but there are still a good number of champions - the biggest penalty is the lack of long range units. Elders and angels are usually the long range slots but to compensate here we’re running with a good number of midrange units and using all of the available damage spells. The deck shines in close quarters, naturally, with the Glacial Titan, Berserker, Gnark and even the Hurlers and Recruiters giving melee options. Whe first 3 are being able to cover a lot of ground as well, between 13 speed and/or leap.

Generally Lonx Adepts will be your best support tool in this deck as they give good midrange damage and also provide your only pseudo long range in their Frost Aura granting ability. Strikers will be your “ranged damage”, as they are cheap and hit decently hard. The Ambusher serves as an anti-range tool - a sudden engagement behind lines with assault can be brutal. Recruiters aid here too because of assault, though their primary purpose is to pump out the cats. Gnark or the Titan are your tools for breaking stalemates and turning games in your favor - the titan is not always a favorite, but his offense is still huge even at melee. Just be cautious with him around FW or other factions with dangerous spot removal.

Your support options are mostly self-explanatory, with a few odder choices. The Flag of Unification is a big help in a shorter ranged deck like this with evasive and charge - optimally you’ll put it on a snowcat, but a Yeti Shaman also makes a good target. Cleansing Storm is not always included these days, but is still a good surprise and being tied down can easily be deadly to something like Gnark or the Titan, so it is a decent investment. The Ice Shard, finally, makes a slot not for frost damage champions, instead mostly to protect you from opposing fire without access to the Extinguisher and with so much Vulnerability.

Acid Elemental x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp, Acid Bomb 3 - 85 Nora

Sheoul Demon x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 62 hp, Vulnerability: Frost, Horrific Aura 1 - 92 Nora

Nefari Dragon x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 52 hp, Vulnerability: Frost, Flamestrike 3 - 71 Nora

Draksar Rocketeer x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 42 hp, Ammunition 3 - 74 Nora

Skeezick Cannoneer x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 38 hp, Regeneration 1 - 68 Nora

Magma Elemental x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp - 67 Nora

Demon Lich
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp, Amplify Fire, Swarm: Deep Elf Skeleton - 89 Nora

Acid Dragoleech
Upgrades: 9 speed, 36 hp, Regeneration 1 - 59 Nora

Nefari Messenger
Upgrades: 48 hp - 72 Nora

Deep Elf Summoner
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp, Invigorate 2 - 70 Nora

Fireblast x2
Firestorm x2
Draconic Pulsar x2
Price of Victory x2
Draconic Benediction x2
Retribution
Sacrifice
Forbidden Fruit
Dragon Skull

An old standby. This deck is based around the inherent synergy of fire between these two factions along with some other useful tricks and generally powerful rune selection. The basic premise is simple - get out a Dragon Skull and do an awful lot of damage with spells. With 6 fire spells you can definitely do just that. Firestorm and Pulsar will hit for 17 and Fireblast for 15, a pounding that will crush groups without fire resistance. The skull also kicks up the damage of a large number of your units - Acid Elementals hit for 15, Rocketeers can shoot for as much as 20, Dragons Flamestrike for 20 + 5 char and the Nefari Messenger’s drive can kick things up even more. Aside from the skull the deck still has strengths - good long range stopping power and 4 AP generation spells among them. You won’t be able to get the Skull out every game, so don’t hesitate to use your AoEs - when you do get it out it is amazing as a stallbreaker.

Most of the runes in this deck are fairly self explanatory, being for the most part combat champions. The Leech is your only weapon against nora, so be cautious with it - it may be worth switching something for the second one if you have trouble. The Summoner and Forbidden Fruit are there to instakill big threats. It is very hard to stop the Summon, Fruit, Invigorate kill, so you can rely on it to remove at least one problem a game. You should not sacrifice the Summoner to get a kill off however, because you will be losing Nora most of the time. The Demon Lich’s swarms are another good target for the fruit, as their attacks cost 2 AP, the same amount granted by Draconic Benediction and Price of Victory. The Lich is also handy for his fire amplification and set ablaze, which will do around 20 damage with a Dragon Skull out. Sacrifice is the last somewhat oddball rune, as is great for reclaiming a Rocketeer that is out of ammunition as well as being your main form of sudden nora advantage, but you must be sure not to use it with a Leech out or you will shoot yourself in the foot.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Poison Elemental x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp, Lay Trap: Poison Cloud - 82 Nora

Massive Anuran x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 57 hp - 62 Nora

Firk Botanist x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 47 hp, Vulnerability: Magical- 65 Nora

Firk Sensorate x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 55 hp, Resistance: Magical 3 - 71 Nora

Firk Mindshredder x2
Upgrades: 43 hp - 54 Nora

Eager Cyclops x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 62 hp, Blood Frenzy 1 - 67 Nora

Moga Cannon x2
Upgrades: 54 hp - 71 Nora

Hyaenid Spearman x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 48 hp, Poison 1 - 71 Nora

Sonic Elemental x2
Upgrades: 53 hp - 69 Nora

Voil Transporter
Upgrades: 41 hp - 60 Nora

Avalanche x2
Unstable Ground
Poisonous Fumes x2
Marsh Song x2
Font Eruption
Cyclops Eye Belt x2
Slaver’s Whip

We have another gimmick deck this week. This deck revolves around setting up incredibly painful death traps for your opponent to walk in. With Poisonous Fumes, Poison Clouds, Unstable Ground and Sonic Elementals, we can potentially create spaces of terrain that deal 35 damage per space moved. This is essentially an instant kill when combined with knockback. Of course, this situation will basically never occur in a real game - however, it is very possible to get terrain up to 20 or so damage and then move enemy champions a few spaces through it with knockback or possession. Once you get to the point where it can set up a death trap effect, you’re in good shape, but there is a little to worry about early on. However, these two factions have a very strong early game when combined, so you can generally handle yourself well offensively until you can set up a massive damage knockback combo.

The key champions for your main combo are the Poison Elementals, Sonic Elementals and Massive Anurans. The Poison Elementals are key for clouds and charge, which massively increases your terrain damage output - they are also one of your most solid all around champions. The Sonic Elementals add to the damage of each space while serving as excellent early game units, naturally. The Anurans are your main source of champion-based knockback with the excellent massive leap, which can hit groups of enemies - nice when your terrain effects are all AoE. The Mindshredders find their way in because you’ll be able to control the enemy’s movement pretty well to ensure consistent pinging. The other units are generic combatants for the most part. They are kept cheap with a mix of ranged and melee, and can easily be substituted (Harbingers are a good choice if you have them for early game). You want to keep ranged units alive for Cyclops Eye Belting - Moga Cannons are probably the best here, with the highest hp and longest effective damage range.

Unstable Ground and Poisonous Fumes are your key spells for setting up your terrain damage. Backing them up is Avalanche, which allows you to spontaneously knock any enemy through a cloud, aura or over unstable ground. Following this main group is Marsh Song, which serves as your nora generation. Font Eruption is your last spell, and is essentially a wildcard - it helps with your early game, which can be pretty useful. The SP equips are all there to get you moving through the pain area. Slaver’s Whip can potentially do the most damage, depending on your opponent’s AP, and drive is nice with Eager Cyclops and your relatively low damage ranged units. The Eye Belts are more consistent if a bit harder to use, and can also be used to add 10 damage to hits with engagement in a similar manner to Gale Force, which can set you up for one-roundings quite nicely.

Moga Trapper x2
Upgrades: 31 hp, Lay Trap: Fire 3, Lay Trap: Stone 3 - 40 Nora

Moga Trigger x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 41 hp - 49 Nora

Skeezick Trapper x2
Upgrades: Lay Trap: Fire 3- 49 Nora

Master Trapsmith x2
Upgrades: 35 hp, Grant Frost Trap, Grant Stone Trap - 69 Nora

Moga Slinger x2
Upgrades: 31 hp - 39 Nora

Moga Assault Team x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 64 hp - 59 Nora

G’hern Thrower x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 50 hp, Overseer: Moga 2 - 83 Nora

Varu Howler x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 45 hp - 53 Nora

Draksar Rocketeer
Upgrades: 9 speed, 42 hp, Ammunition 3 - 74 Nora

G’hern Taskmaster
Upgrades: 9 speed, 51 hp, Overseer: Moga 2 - 68 Nora

Acid Elemental
Upgrades: 9 speed, 53 hp, Acid Bomb 3 - 85 Nora

Avalanche x2
Draconic Pulsar x2
Firestorm x2
Draconic Benediction x2
Echo Chamber
Tribal Post

This week’s deck is a fun gimmick deck. It revolves around traps and the Moga Trigger’s ability to get seriously buffed by eating a lot of them. With 6 units that are capable of placing at least a trap per turn, you can easily get a trigger up to damage in the 20s-30s if given half a chance. This is not as hard to do as you might expect, because the traps are a good delaying tactic. Once you have him buffed, a thrower and a drive or DB lets him get in and maul some opposing champions. With all 4 basic trappers out for 3 turns, you can eat traps and immediately bump your trigger up to 40 damage (a setup like that only costs about 200 nora). It’s pretty satisfying to smack someone for 80 damage in one turn with a little moga. This isn’t exactly a practical competitive deck however, and it isn’t going to walk all over the competition. Expect it to hold its own in mid to high ranks but not dominate.

The Trappers and Trapsmiths are your key runes, giving you a good long game and letting you set up Trigger shenanigans. Basically, you want to get them out as early as possible and keep out of harm’s way - though they are cheap enough that in a close match you shouldn’t ignore their combat potential. The G’hern Throwers are key in allowing your trigger to actually get hits off, and make decent overseers in general - go to the Taskmaster first if you can unless you are setting up. The Taskmaster provides drive and is the optimal early game G’hern. Moga Assault Teams and Moga Slingers are great damage in the early game and come out fast - same for the Varu Howlers. The two Rocketeers are generally good units and also provide ranged knockback, which works excellently with traps - setting up a trap square and explosive shotting someone back onto it is very profitable. Finally, we have the Acid Elemental, who is basically a wildcard slot - a number of things can work here, such as a Sauropod for more traps or a leech for some nora advantage.

The spells and relics in this group are mostly just basic choices. Draconic Benediction is standard, and works well with moga and on Trigger turns. Firestorms and Draconic Pulsars give you damage that the deck otherwise is not too heavy on in the early game. Avalanche is a standard good AoE, and the knockback is very powerful with traps - with two Moga Trappers and an avalanche you can do 50 damage to a champion in one turn by knocking them onto a stack of 4 traps. Echo Chamber provides contestation and distract when needed, and the Tribal Post helps out greatly with the low hit points on most of your Moga Champions.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Poison Elemental x2
Upgrades: 53 hp, Lay Trap: Poison Cloud - 78 Nora

Toxic Anuran x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 48 hp, Poison Cone 3, Ally: KF - 75 Nora

Boghopper Spitter x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 36 hp, Poison 2 - 71 Nora

Tidemaster x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp - 74 Nora

Massive Anuran x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 57 hp, Ally: KF - 60 Nora

Sporegill x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 36 hp, Poison Cloud 1 - 41 Nora

Garu Shaman x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 52 hp, Heal Champion 3, Poison 2 - 74 Nora

Ranger Elite x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 52 hp - 75 Nora

Elder Garu
Upgrades: 9 speed, 68 hp - 76 Nora

Poisonous Fumes x2
Marsh Song x2
Nature’s Wrath x2
Brambles x2
Thorn Collection
Herbal Antidote
Drown
Oaken Mace
Rejuventation Ring

(Note: All speeds listed include the KF half bonus)

This deck revolves around the inherent synergy of the KF and FS poison units. It gives you access to a ton of Ally units and a few very good targets for amplification, as well as a ton of map control. The main theme is obviously the poison synergy, and that can get pretty crazy - with 2 poison charges and all the amplification out a Poisonous Fumes spell can hit for 14 damage. Considering that you have 4 poison cloud champions as well as an excellent source of knockback in the Massive Anuran, you can do some incredible things on a major turn - Fumes + A cloud + 2x poison charge + massive leap will do about 44 damage to anything in the AOE 2, and only uses up 35 nora’s worth of expended resources. If you can stack clouds or Fumes on such a turn you can guarantee kills on multiple units at once. The biggest problem with this deck is poison resistance - it’s fairly plentiful. You have to be careful to keep some of your non-poison units out (you do have a good number), though you can usually still control Undead or Elementals with poison cloud abilities.

The Poison Elementals are your key champions, doing high poison damage with great stats and offering excellent AoE and board control from their clouds and traps. Their poison charge ability is also the best way to quickly boost the damage of your poisonous abilities and spells (it also adds 2 damage to the first tick of a DoT). The Toxic Anurans serve the role of your general all purpose champion - they hit pretty hard at range and up close with Ally: KF and their poison abilities, and aren’t too costly. They also do physical melee damage, making them very valuable against the many poison resistance champions you’ll face. The tidemasters are your prime amplification - they are fairly cheap and long ranged, so you don’t need to put them in harm’s way. They aren’t going to hit very hard (though you do have enough hoppers to get some surge), but the extra damage they give will add up. Tidal wave is also an excellent offensive AoE, and fuels your capability to drown.

The Boghopper Spitters and Garu Shamans are your main ranged attackers, both throwing down DoTs at range and hitting pretty hard with support out. The Spitters are fragile and have to be played cautiously - however, the Shamans are tanks, with solid defense (helped by the attack debuff) and the ability to heal they should be used on the front lines. The Sporegills are amazing for their cost, though they take a while to get into the fight. If you aren’t pressed, get them out immediately - they’re so cheap that they’re pretty much impossible to kill without them earning back their cost, and they amplify themselves and your other units as well. The final major component of the deck is the Massive Anurans, who provide knockback, which is super powerful when coupled with poison clouds and have incredibly cost efficiency with Ally (62 hp, 13 damage for 60 nora). The Ranger Elites and Elder Garu are essentially filler, and can be replaced by any solid champions that don’t do poison damage - their main role is helping out against resistance units and killing shrines.

Spellwise, Poisonous Fumes is your keystone, dealing potentially huge amounts of damage and controlling the battlefield excellently. K’thir Forest gives us access to a bunch of solid AoEs, which is very helpful when dealing with poison resistance and in general - also, with 2 Brambles and 2 Poisonous Fumes you have excellent board control. Herbal Antidote serves its normal purpose mostly - it can also give you poison immunity on demand, which can be very important if you’re blanketing the field in poison clouds. The Marsh Songs give us the nora generation to compete in long games. Drown is our final spell, and may seem a weird choice with no water generation - however, with Tidal Wave it is very efficient and you can deal with the dead slot if you cannot use your Tidemasters. Following up our spells are 2 equips, who are in for general utility - Oaken Mace also lets you do physical damage with a poison unit if necessary.

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Kaervas Assistant Game Designer

Essence Devourer x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 64 hp - 62 Nora

Collection of Souls x2
Upgrades:11 speed - 79 Nora

Death Harvester x2
Upgrades: 39 hp, Dead Eater, Detection 3 - 63 Nora

Executioner x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 54 hp - 62 Nora

Tomb Lord x2
Upgrades: 43 hp, Boost: Skeleton 3, Summon Undead 1 - 79 Nora

Lich King x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 11 damage, 45 hp, Teleport 1 - 100 Nora

Eternal Lich x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 44 hp, Dark Favor - 85 Nora

Crossbone
Upgrades: 10 speed, 40 hp, Poison 3 - 69 Nora

Toll-Taker
Upgrades: 10 speed, 44 hp - 73 Nora

Domination
Essence Drain x2
Dark Rising
Hungry Dead
Chain Lightning
Mobilization x2
Unholy Tomb
Tome of Hate
Elsarin Vex
Graveyard x2
Cursed Blade

This deck revolves around fueling Essence Devourers. The most effective way to do that by far is to get out graveyards, as a graveyard keeps a Devourer going as long as they’re both out. Since we’re having the graveyards, we may as well use them to their fullest, so along with the Devourers we use Death Harvesters and Collections of Souls. The Harvesters grab the nora globes with dead eater and also produce 7 nora whenever a champion (including the graveyard spawns) dies, so once we get rolling the nora generation of the deck will be pretty significant. While your graveyard engine is going and you are using your Devourers to eat face and run interference you will hopefully be able to get out the Collections, who will get pumped by the dying spawns (and whatever else dies). Coupled with the cooldown bonus you have a very nasty late game deck.

The majority of the other champions are there for simple combat purposes. The Executioners fill an early game role and are not a huge loss if they get devoured during combat. The Eternal Liches are solid offensive units and will come back if they happen to get devoured, which is nice. Lich Kings are Lich Kings, and they’re invaluable in standoff situations and for dealing with enemy long ranged units. The Tomb Lords make the cut because their summons can provide a stopgap for the devourer before you can get out your graveyards - when you do get the yards out, however, be sure to keep the graveyard spawns away from the Tomb Lords and their summons nearby, so that the graveyard units will get devoured first. The Tomb Lords also make powerful combatants when tag teaming, and enable the use of our last two combat units, the Crossbone and the Toll-Taker. These two ranged units provide a little utility (DOT and nora denial) and are generally pretty solid while boosted.

The spell spread is a fairly generic Forsaken build for the most part, with good utility in a variety of situations and plenty of single target lethality in Domination and Essence Drain. Dark Rising is the one oddity, serving as an emergency measure for Devourers and a surge boost for a Tomb Lord duo. As far as relics go, we include the obligatory Unholy Tomb and our two Graveyards, along with a Tome of Hate to counteract the constant drain on your shrine in long games (going Avatar puts a hard cap on how many graveyard spawns you can create, which can be bad). The lone Cursed Blade is there mostly to delay enemy equipment and to be useful in small scale fights.

This deck relies heavily on setting up its engine, and thus can be kind of slow to play. Because of this it isn’t likely to take you to the very top, but it can certainly compete in the middle high rankings. It’s something different from the norm, and it can be pretty fun to try and manipulate what is killed by Devour in tight situations (for you and your opponent as well).

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Kaervas Associate Game Designer

Collection of Souls x2
Upgrades:11 speed - 79 Nora

Death Harvester x2
Upgrades: 39 hp, Dead Eater - 59 Nora

Executioner x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 56 hp - 74 Nora

G’hern Tyrant x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 59 hp, Surge: Moga 2 - 59 Nora

Lich King x2
Upgrades: 11 speed, 11 damage, 45 hp, Teleport 1 - 100 Nora

G’hern Taskmaster x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 51 hp, Overseer Moga: 2 - 68 Nora

Moga Assault Team x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 64 hp - 59 Nora

Moga Slinger x2
Upgrades: 31 hp - 39 Nora

Reckless Spellhack x2
Upgrades: 32 hp - 29 Nora

Cylcops Nemesis x2
Upgrades: 9 speed, 54 hp - 39 Nora

Cyclops Battlefiend
Upgrades: 7 speed, 60 hp, Unstoppable - 74 Nora

Domination
Essence Drain
Hungry Dead
Mobilization x2
Unholy Tomb
Totem of the Muses
Tribal Post
Cursed Blade

The main point of this deck is to get stronger as the game progresses and your champions die. Your main tools for doing this are the death harvesters. If you play one of your cheap SP units with the warbanner out and get the nora globe with a death harvester, you are looking at a total refund of 28% + 13 nora (+20 on nemesis champions). Between that and your unholy tomb generating nora off opposing units and any nemeses you play, you can literally be swimming in nora by the end of a long game, and any Collections of Souls you have out will likely be hitting for 20+. Of course, the difficulty lies in setting up safely.

The Death Harvesters are the keystones of the deck, and should be played ASAP to begin generating nora. Following them, the Collections of Souls and the Battlefiend are your most important bruisers in this deck. They can easily get up to massive damage numbers. It’s recommended to play them as early as you can (even if the enemy has only a few units for your Collection to link with, it will get enough hp from deaths to make up for it). If you are using an early Collection, use it as a curse platform until the damage is able to ramp up. Once you have some a Harvester and a Death Benefit attacker out (or before, if you’re getting rushed early) you want to spam your moga and Cyclops Nemeses. They should be tossed forward to get hits where able, and any losses they may suffer are for the most part ignorable - they cost very little for you. Don’t neglect the huge damage on the Cyclops though, it is worth firing a mobilization to get extra hits from them often times.

The Tyrants have two purposes in the deck. They can either come out in the endgame when totem has given them plenty of surge fodder to work with, or they can be cycled early to provide cheap overseer and a large nora kickback from their nemesis. Ideally you’ll get to do some of both, their cooldown is nice and low due to the half FW bonus. The taskmasters are there for a more permanent overseer and to add drive, which really helps get the most out of your disposable champions, who are all only 9 speed. The Executioners and Lich Kings are primarily there to give you more solid champions to spend your nora on later in the game (you can get to the point where you are recycling lich kings endlessly because of your nora advantage if a game goes really long).

The spells are mostly there to provide some general utility. Mobilization is the one key spell, allowing you to get the most out of your cheap units and later making it impossible to avoid your souped up Collection of Souls or Cyclops Battlefiend. Essence Drain lets you deal with otherwise very troublesome tanks like Euan. Hungry Dead lets you slow down the game and deals some direct damage. Domination is Domination, and is full of utility.

Unholy Tomb is important to this deck’s long term strategy. It also is somewhat under your control here, because you can deploy up to 4 nemesis champions to generate nora from. The Warbanner is used because we’re constantly cycling our cheap SP units, and the Totem is also used for the same reason - the Totem pups also power your Tyrants late game and can gum up the works in an early match. The single Cursed Blade is mostly an antirush tool, and you can expect it to draw enemy anti-equipment most of the time, but as long as it does its job of buying you time it is still worth it.

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Kaervas Associate Game Designer