I had the good fortune this week to find this item in my Randimar's: Oversized Pick. I immediately knew that this was something special. This was the item which would catalyze my best multiplayer build yet, something which would rocket me to my desired Elo range almost effortlessly. The key of this build is to abuse Raging Strike. In my run of games with this build, I have heard tons of praise: "Wow" "Ouch!" (a VERY common quote) "I've never seen so much damage on turn 1 before" "That's a lot of rage" "I'm literally dying over here" I present to you my prototype build, nicknamed "Team Dunce": Red Level 10 Elf Warrior Oversized PickRapier Of RageRapier Of RagePerilous RingmailAcrobat's AegisWyvern Hide HelmetInfernal BootsWarinessSavvy Attacker1 x Acrobatic Flip1 x Demonic Revenge1 x Impaling Stab1 x Absorbing Block1 x Slicer1 x Team Run1 x Quick Step1 x Impaler1 x Loner5 x Violent Spin1 x Large Weapon1 x Thickened Mail1 x Quick Reactions4 x Potent Stab1 x Thick Hide Armor1 x Cautious Sneak1 x Reliable Mail3 x Traveling Curse8 x Raging Strike1 x Elvish Mobility Spooky Level 1 Elf Priest Giant Skeletal ArmDemon's Golden BladeJet ArmorSlippery ShieldSalazar's SandalsThe DeadonomiconTome Of The Withering SourceTome Of The Withering SourceApprentice EvasionFocused Piety3 x Obliterating Chop1 x Massive Chop1 x Elvish Mobility1 x Rusty Armor5 x Unholy Wellspring3 x Hard To Pin Down1 x Unholy Frenzy1 x Team Run3 x Altruism1 x Loner1 x Dash1 x Traveling Curse1 x Inspiring Presence1 x Demonic Feedback1 x Energizing Move7 x Demonic Revenge3 x Raging Strike1 x Frenzy Aura Spoooky Level 1 Elf Priest Axe Of The Dark SoulGlinting Eye HammerJet ArmorDefensive BucklerSalazar's SandalsThe DeadonomiconTome Of The Withering SourceTome Of The Withering SourceApprentice EvasionFocused Piety1 x Block2 x Mighty Bludgeon6 x Demonic Revenge1 x Defender's Block1 x Powerful Bash1 x Rusty Armor6 x Unholy Wellspring3 x Altruism1 x Team Run1 x Purge2 x Weak Chop2 x Loner1 x Dash1 x Demonic Power1 x Elvish Mobility1 x Energizing Move1 x Healing Rays1 x Traveling Curse2 x Raging Strike1 x Frenzy Aura Regarding the strategy of play: A key strategy of this deck is to maximize the use of Demonic Revenge, Loner, and Traveling Curse. These cards, being traits, cycle your deck faster to help you draw your all-important Raging Strikes. Make sure to buff up anyone who has drawn one or more Raging Strikes with Unholy Wellspring, signifigantly increasing the character's damage potential. Also use your Demonic Feedbacks to draw for more of those all-important traits and Ragings. On a typical first turn draw, you will have gone through several traits and have a buffed up Rager ready to go. At this point, your opponent should be shaking in his shoes in fear because you have cycled through so many cards and still haven't even moved your team! The next step is to group your team up, using your awesome elven moves to cross the map and make a scary clump of units. Once you are all standing together, use team moves (Team Run, Elvish Mobility, and Violent Spin [Violent Spin is key to this build!]) to swoop down on your opponents in a pack. People are not used to seeing formation movements in Card Hunter so they will be extra intimidated. If your pack of elves have not entirely reached the enemy team by the time you run out of movement cards, don't worry! I'm sure you'll get to them next turn. Before you pass to end the round, make sure to use any attack cards you are still holding (especially Obliterating Chop and Massive Chop. Chops are key to this build.) on any available target. It is not good to hold onto attack cards in this build. If you follow the steps I've outlined, I'm sure the rest of the game will conclude quickly and easily. Results: I know anyone can post a random build and say it is strong to use. I know people can even post their recent match history to show anecdotally how well the build performs. Since I know these things, here is my recent match history. Note the 100% consistancy that this build brings. Every single match ended in the same way! Also note that the longest game took only 3 rounds to complete! WOW!
Yes, yes, and yes. You do, however, lose out on the extra intimidation factor of having less Violent Spins. Some of my finest moments using this build came once I had gathered my team together, and spun 2 squares at a time towards the enemy team like an unstoppable tornado of rage. I usually didn't make it all the way there, but by damn, I just knew my enemy was scared out of his wits (it also helps to name your vampire elves something appropriately frightening).
I wasn't happy at all with the changes to Demonic Revenge and this is why. Allowing Demonic Revenge to bypass armor increases the effectiveness of this build beyond fairness. I realize healing in this game isn't supposed to be more effective than damage, but even with a pure healing team it is difficult to counter the strategy of this build. Has anybody had any luck using a discard build?
Taking a look at the options available for a discard build: I thought at first that stacking Leadership would be a good bet, but it turns out that you are forced to draw a card for every one you discard when you play it! What a ripoff! Then I thought about abusing Superstitious, since it makes the target discard his entire hand! Unfortunately, someone has to die first to trigger this effect, which can be difficult to achieve as you will be too busy forcing discards to worry about damage, and your opponent cannot be relied on to deal damage fast enough for the effect to be worthwhile. This is actually a large weakness in the discard build in general - the best control (or, in this case, the highest amount of discards) is death... I put together a build with 3 wizards, stacking as many Short Perplexing Rays, Counterspells, and Forgetfullnesses as I could. The results don't look to satisfying, as all of these cards force random discards, which actually ends up having a negative synergy for the build as a whole. You end up discarding cards you would want to keep so that you could use them to force more discards... I'm posting my build here, and will give it a whirl, but I doubt the results will be as consistant/effective as the Rage stacking team. Tessa Level 5 Human Wizard Redrune Staff Counterblast Staff Simin's Glowing Mirror Axander's Twisted Circlet Runcible's Bracelet Spellbane Scepter Robes Of Forgetfulness Boots Of The Foolish Perfect Flexibility Electroporter Novice 3 x Short Perplexing Ray 1 x Jarring Block 2 x Stone Spikes 1 x Spark Inductor 1 x Dangerous Maneuver 6 x Counterspell 1 x Memory Loss 2 x Acid Blast 2 x Advanced Battlefield Training 1 x Forgetfulness 1 x Penetrating Zap 1 x Zap 1 x Wild Run 1 x Flimsy Block 1 x Wall Of Illusion 2 x Dancing Cut 1 x Resistant Hide 1 x Big Zap 2 x Sorcerous Blast 1 x Spark Generator 1 x Dropped Guard 1 x Surging Blast 1 x Dimensional Traveller 1 x Quick Step Green Level 4 Elf Wizard Counterblast Staff Counterblast Staff Axander's Twisted Circlet Simin's Glowing Mirror Spellbane Scepter Bewlin's Baffling Bauble Robes Of Forgetfulness Marmot Boots Untrained Evasion Electroporter Novice 1 x Wild Run 1 x Dash 2 x Jarring Block 1 x Stone Spikes 1 x Dimensional Traveller 6 x Counterspell 1 x Memory Loss 1 x Slippery 1 x Spark Inductor 6 x Short Perplexing Ray 1 x Zap 1 x Walk 1 x Wall Of Illusion 2 x Surging Blast 1 x Resistant Hide 1 x Big Zap 4 x Sorcerous Blast 1 x Spark Generator 1 x Dropped Guard 1 x Shuffle 1 x Superstitious Brown Level 4 Elf Wizard Counterblast Staff Counterblast Staff Simin's Glowing Mirror Axander's Twisted Circlet Befuddling Stone Befuddling Stone Robe Of Opposition Marmot Boots Untrained Evasion Electroporter Novice 4 x Sorcerous Blast 1 x Dash 2 x Jarring Block 1 x Spark Inductor 1 x Cloth Armor 1 x Superstitious 1 x Slippery 6 x Counterspell 1 x Stone Spikes 1 x Dimensional Traveller 5 x Short Perplexing Ray 1 x Zap 1 x Wild Run 1 x Walk 2 x Surging Blast 1 x Big Zap 2 x Force Bolt 1 x Spark Generator 1 x Shuffle 2 x Maze
There would be some good synergy between Raging Strike and Blind Rage too. But that would mean removing one of the travelling curses.
