"I have defeated this earthworm with my words. Imagine what I would have done with my fire breathing fists?"
Charlie Sheen


I'm back, and boy things are heating up. With the World Cup taken to the United States for a year and War of the Elements weeks away from initial release, the picture for the Realm Championships is almost set. I'm going to talk about one of the leading front runners, a deck that started a year ago and has evolved tournament to tournament to be a beast of the top tables. I am of course talking about none other than the unique stylings of [Death Wish].

Billy Postlethwait led the charge for the archetype in the latest block at the Darkmoon Faire in Orlando. One of the archetype's biggest perceived weaknesses going into the rotation was the loss of [Vindicator's Brand] and [Puncture], meaning that it had lost its flexible card destruction. This basically forced its hand into playing [Heroic Throw] and [Demolish].

[Heroic Throw] is perhaps the most important part of the new puzzle. Solo decks generally play a lot of weapons to ensure very few turns pass without being able to strike out with your hero. This often leads to a redundancy, and [Heroic Throw] takes advantage of this to remove particularly troublesome answers, or indeed to just add more damage. When paired with quad [Reconstruct]s, it doesn't matter if it's a [Jin'rohk, Destroyer of Worlds] or a [Hailstorm] that is thrown at their heads. You can get them back at a moment's notice.

Let's see how these changes impacted on the [Boarguts the Impaler] list Ben Isgur played as part of the Warriors.

Hero - [Boarguts the Impaler]

Allies - 4

4 [Broderick Langforth]

Abilities - 23

4 [Bloody Ritual]
4 [Heroic Throw]
3 [Keys to the Armory]
4 [Reconstruct]
2 [Demolish]
2 [Absolute Poise]
4 [Death Wish]

Equipment - 20

4 [Guardian's Plate Bracers]
2 [Fleshwerk Throwing Glaive]
2 [Hailstorm]
3 [Greaves of Ancient Evil]
2 [Jin'rohk, The Great Apocalypse]
1 [Perdition's Blade]
1 [Edge of Oblivion]
1 [Betrayer of Humanity]
1 [Shuriken of Negation]
1 [Amani Mask of Death]
1 [Bonefist Gauntlets]
1 [Cloak of the Shadowed Sun]

Quests and Locations 13

4 [A Rare Bean]
4 [Darkness Calling]
2 [A Question of Gluttony]
3 [Tanks for Everything, Dalaran]

There is a huge advantage to playing a deck full of equipment because the majority of decks in the Core format only play 3-4 removal cards, and most of these won't impact a board until it's too late to disrupt the synergy. With ten each of weapons and armor you can suit up whilst cleaving with wanton abandon.

With a plethora of metal back-up, an opponent more often than not won't know which card to destroy, and with seven cards to find a replacement or put it back into play it's impossible for them to generate card advantage against you. [Hesriana] is only outstanding when she can hit 1/3 of the opponent's deck, and to put it simply nobody packs such a card for your equipment. With [Reconstruct] and [Keys to the Armory] effectively acting as equipment cards anyway it's closer to half your game-plan that cannot be sufficiently interrupted by the rest of the field.

Such an aggressive form of defence means that opponents worked out that the best way to stall a [Death Wish] deck is to make use of [Eye of the Storm] at opportune moments. [Squall Totem] is not your best friend, and with no way to look at an opponent's hand you have to plan very carefully whether or not you can afford to go all in and blow up the world with a massive Jin'rohk strike.

Shaman decks are a particularly potent problem because of the plethora or exhaust cards at their disposal, not to mention healing from [Voice of Reason] before a [Great Elekk] inspired [Spark] bursts you out. Paladin is equally calamitous but fortunately sees very minimal play right now ([Hammer of Justice] is the gold standard of Azeroth card design!). With Zorks having an awful time against every other top deck, [Lord Jorach Ravenholdt] is unlikely to turn up and spoil your day either.

With [Tuskarr Kite] providing the majority of draw power to the format, Death Wish is fortuitous in that because its cards are hard to counter it can generate card advantage by simply not losing anything whilst it beats up opposing allies. However, this is sometimes not enough and [Bloody Ritual] combined with your pinpoint portals gives you indefinite flexibility to ensure that even though you can’t answer the Kite once it is in play you can make sure there are no allies around to fly it on the beach. [Heroic Throw], especially when fuelled by a [Hailstorm], will make sure that no dodgy mounts hang around either.

Fortunately you really don't care about the majority of allies in the format because you can normally tear them down in one strike. As Boarguts you have the added advantage of Broderick as the perfect ticking clock and early removal, but you can rest assured that it is an advantage worth having when a lot of aggressive decks really don't want to see turn one Broderick with or without the Plate Bracers backed up by turn two Death Wish.

What I really enjoy about this deck, besides its resilience, is that it can make some really neat plays. Anybody that has ever Reconstructed a [Betrayer of Humanity] can attest to its winning ways. What is really sick is abusing the [Greaves of Ancient Evil] with both Tanks for Everything and [Heroic Throw]. Throw a spare weapon at yourself, block the damage, and you can sometimes push through even more ridiculous Jin'rohk damage, or you can simply ready up your hero after it gets exhausted to [Eye of the Storm].

Of course this new found aggression means that you don’t really want [Kel’thuzad] clogging up your deck’s precious space when you’re very rarely ever going to want to cast him. Your gameplan is turn seven: on turn seven you want to row your seventh resource and make a Jin’rohk out of somewhere to destroy 3-6+ resources and cards and make sure your opponent can’t come back no matter what is in their hand. Repeat that trick on turn eight and you can expect an imminent hand shake. As such, the alternate costs of various cards allow you to reach your Jin’rohk much faster than before, dropping it onto a secure board state. As [Reconstruct] only costs two you can even float three resources with [Absolute Poise] as back up and still swing with your new toy even if your opponent made a mean play to deny you.


What can this deck do going forward? With very few allies scaring you perhaps there is no need to pack [Shadowmourne] unless you're really worried that [King Varian Wrynn] is going to turn up really early. As such this deck is going to sit resiliently as the Realm Championships creep ever closer, waiting to catch people unaware with the Armory doors smashed down and an angry behemoth charging out of the stables.

-Jack Fejer

Jack Fejer has been a consistent mainstay in the WoW TCG writing community. He has been playing the game, doing tournament coverage, and writing for various sites in the community since 2006. He is also one of the biggest voices for the United Kingdom in the WoW TCG, and has been working on his own website and community for the UK, Zapped Giants, since the start of the game.