In the first block of the World of Warcraft CCG, thematic deckbuilding was more a casual pastime for one's own amusement rather than a strategy for constructing a competitive deck.
In fact, there weren't really a lot of cards available in the first three sets to construct a themed deck around. True, you could try building a racially themed deck: an all-orc deck, an all-night elf deck, etc., but the card pool for these kinds of creations where still small and the resulting decks largely uncompetitive, if not unplayable. There were other options, such as a discard themed deck (i.e. shadow priest) or a mad draw themed deck (i.e. mage), but the cards just did not support these kinds of endeavors.
March of the Legion, however, introduces a slew of cards just begging to have thematic decks built around them. In this latest set, UDE it seems has provided players cards that practically encourage theme decks for competitive play. There are now cards that encourage stealth-themed decks, discard themed-decks, resource-destruction themed decks, as well as further cards that support the old racial-decks scheme that some players strove after in the pre-MotL days.
I'd like to go over a few of the possibilities for theme based decks. In general, thematic deckbuilding I find is a good exercise for sharpening your deck construction skills. Where some players often find it difficult to begin with a strong deck archetype in mind when they sit down with their collection to through a deck of cards together, starting with an easily recognizable theme provides a sound basis with which to choose cards for inclusion in your decks. This also encourages the player to really read through the cards that they pull out, find out what they do, how they might work together and to think of what ways these cards might work well in combination with other cards in their collection.
Thematic deckbuilding is a great exercise not just to put together a deck with a "story" to it, but also to really sit down and examine specific cards in your collection for their competitive potential.
Let's start with an example that I've actually played with to decent success pre-MotL (though a couple MotL cards are now included).
The Troll Themed Deck
Potential Card Pool:
Thwarting Kolkar Aggression (Q)
Berserking (Ab)
Ash'ergi (A)
[Blood Guard Malwani (A)]
Warcaller Zimbawa (A)
Nyn'jah (A)
Yellowspine (A)
[Fa'tafi (A)]
Zy'lah Manslayer (A)
Let's take a quick look at the cards we've pulled out. There's a common theme arising here, that of troll characters dealing more damage the more damage they take. And look at Warcaller Zimbawa. His attack increases for each point of damage on ALL of your allies, and he's fairly cheaply costed (3) and a a protector. Not a bad competitive pool.
Notice I put a couple of the cards up there in brackets. Here's the reason why:
After you've assembled these themed cards, take a look through them and find out which ones are the most effective, the most efficient and work the best together. From there we can cut the cards that fit the theme but don't quite live up to the competitive standard.
Blood Guard Malwani is a pretty obvious first cut. At 4 cost, he's just miles worse than the later ally, Ash'ergi, who for an extra resource has 2 more attack and stealth to his name.
Fa'tafi is a potential cut as well. While she's a great protector, and a troll, she's got that problem of healing at the beginning of every turn, powering down your Warcaller Zimbawas. It's not that she's bad (6 health provides a lot of latitude for damage taking and the powering up of Zimbawa), but there may be another non-thematic card that may work better. Like...
One-Thousand-Battles. I picked him for my troll-themed deck over Fa'tafi. He's half the cost, has the same attack, just one less health and doesn't heal himself of damage taken like Fa'tafi did. In this deck, it seems taking damage is looking like it can be a good thing. In fact, it seems like this deck is encouraging the opponent to:
Go Ahead, Hit Me
Starting Card Pool:
Thwarting Kolkar Aggression (Q)
Demonic Contamination (Q)
Ash'ergi (A)
Warcaller Zimbawa (A)
Nynjah (A)
One-Thousand Battles (A)
Kagella Shadowmark (A)
Zy'lah Manslayer (A)
Elithys Firestorm (A)
Hellreaver (E)
Intensify Rage (Ab)
Commanding Shout (Ab)
Berserking (Ab)
A few parting thoughts:
I chose warrior for this deck, rather than one of the other troll heroes, the more obvious other choice being troll shaman or troll rogue (low health heroes don't seem to fit well in this deck archetype). Going warrior provided me with the following options:
- Hellreaver (swing for 3 for free on the defense, or, go-on just attack my hero)
- Intensify Rage (toss this on Ash'ergi - +3 attack, +3 health that just gets better the more damage he takes... and he's stealth!)
- Commanding Shout (the more health that allies have in this deck, the more damage they can take, the better!)
- Demonic Contamination (in this deck, damage on your allies helps you! this quest lets you pay 1, put damage on 3 of your allies, effectively increasing the attack of many of them by an additional 1 point, and then draw TWO cards)
- Elithys Firestorm (much in the same regard as Demonic Contamination, you've got high cost allies who like getting hit - she'll pump up your berserking when she attacks, and deal damage to those untargetables for you as well)
But this is just a starting card pool, there are still plenty of spaces for other cards with possible synergy as well as other ways that one could put this deck together around the same theme. Building a troll rogue comes immediately to mind.
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So here's a first look at building thematic based decks. Look for part II of this article for ideas on other competitive decks you can build around thematic ideas.
-Madjinn
