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In my last article, I talked about converting MMO players to the TCG. In an effort to show them that there’s plenty of room for the „typical Warcraft flavor“ in the TCG, we built a couple of decks revolving around the four already released Dragonkin Aspects. Today, I bring you part 2 of this little article series, where I’ll show you some cool decks featuring [Alexstrasza the Life-Binder], [Kalecgos] and even [Nozdormu the Timeless]!
Let’s not waste any time and take a look at our deck featuring the Red Dragonkin:
Hero: [Souldrinker Bogmara]
Master Heroes: 3
3 [Alexstrasza the Life-Binder]
Allies: 34
4 [Broderick Langforth]
1 [Sardok]
1 [Rhuunom]
4 [Dreadsteed]
3 [Mias the Putrid]
4 [Sava’gin the Reckless]
3 [Cromarius Blackfist]
3 [Hesriana]
1 [Ruby Enforcer]
3 [Munkin Blackfist]
3 [Kazamon Steelskin]
1 [Thrall, Warchief of the Horde]
1 [Korialstrasz]
2 [Garrosh Hellscream]
Abilities: 12
3 [Fel Trade]
3 [Lesson of the Nether]
4 [Bloody Ritual]
2 [Summoning Portal]
Locations: 4
4 [Orgrimmar]
Quests: 7
4 [Dark Horizon]
2 [Dreadsteed of Xoroth]
1 [The Torch of Retribution]
The Red Dragonkin are the protectors of life, trying to maintain the harmony in Azeroth. No easy task when a big bad dragon called Deathwing’s on his way to wreak havoc, but [Alexstrasza the Life-Binder] and the other Red Dragons are here to save the day!
It shouldn’t come as a big surprise to you that their powers provide all your allies with additional buffs. Some of them give allies Protector, while others can make them Untargetable. Surprisingly, we don’t really need these effects in our deck, as our most important ally, [Kazamon Steelskin], is rather impressive on his own. In fact, he’s so good, we want him to affect the game right after he hits the table instead of waiting for his turn to shine. That’s why we’re relying on [Orgrimmar] to get him into a frenzy and start to beat down opposing allies right after he is invited to our party.
When [Orgrimmar] is not around, we can always use [Fel Trade] to search our deck for [Ruby Enforcer] and provide our allies with Ferocity regardless. Our goal is to eventually recruit bigger threats like [Thrall, Warchief of the Horde] or [Korialstrasz] so we can put our opponent under a lot of pressure.
Once we established some board control this way, we can bring out [Garrosh Hellscream] to make our allies even more impressive. At the same time, his power will often be enough to trade our hero for [Alexstrasza the Life-Binder], making our allies almost indestructible (curse you, [Hesriana]!) and often sealing the deal right there!
While this all sounds rather aggressive, the deck doesn’t really go off until turns 4 / 5, when we can first bring out [Kazamon Steelskin]. However, chances are, you’ll quickly find yourself in a good position if you made it that far. [Korialstrasz], followed up by [Garrosh Hellscream], will be enough to bring out [Alexstrasza the Life-Binder] and once you can go trading with your dudes without the fear of losing them (ever), winning the game will be a piece of cake!
Granted, the deck isn’t running a high number of Red Dragonkin, but they fit in nicely and provide you with the right tools to make your game plan come together.
Next in line is our deck full of Blue Dragons:
Hero: [Emerson Zantides]
Master Heroes: 2
2 [Kalecgos]
Allies: 28
4 [Rosalyne von Erantor]
4 [Waz’luk]
4 [Shadowfiend]
4 [Azure Drake]
4 [Azure Emissary]
4 [Dethvir the Malignant]
4 [Cairne, Earthmother’s Chosen]
Abilities: 18
4 [Tuskarr Kite]
3 [Oppress]
4 [A Taste of Divinity]
3 [Mind Melt]
4 [Mist of Corrosion]
Equipments: 4
4 [Halion, Staff of Forgotten Love]
Quests: 8
4 [Proving Grounds]
4 [Darkness Calling]
The Blue Dragonkin have a natural affinity for spellcasting, most notably the powers of the arcane. In the TCG, their powers trigger whenever you play an ability, which is the TCG equivalent of casting a spell. Additionally, most of them deal Arcane Damage, so we can see plenty of similarities between the MMO and the TCG versions of the Blue Dragons.
The goal of our deck is to abuse these features of the Blue Dragons in the best way possible. The key combo works like this:
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Bring out [Halion, Staff of Forgotten Love] together with [Azure Drake]
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Have one of your allies deal some damage to a hero (it doesn’t need to be an opposing hero, so both [Waz’luk] as well as [Rosalyne von Erantor] fill this role nicely)
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Play [A Taste of Divinity] over and over again (if there are not enough opposing allies with 3 health or more, use your own [Azure Drake] and keep healing it with its own effect)
This combo can go off as early as turn 3! It’s pretty safe to bring out [Halion, Staff of Forgotten Love] on turn 2 as most decks can only deal with it as early as turn 4 ([Munkin Blackfist]). Once you have played [A Taste of Divinity] infinite times, you can play [Kalecgos] for free! This is where the fun begins!
One of the things you can do now is completely wipe the opposing board! Whenever you play [A Taste of Divinity], you can copy it with [Kalecgos]‘ effect and deal 2 damage to an opposing ally. The card will still bounce back to your hand as long as you played it on something with more than 2 health (e. g. your [Azure Drake]), so you can keep repeating this procedure until your opponent lost all his allies!
All of your other abilities get twice as good, too. So [Mind Melt] can get rid of up to 6 cards in your opponent’s hand and [Mist of Corrosion] turns into a very cheap and powerful 2 for 1.
If you’re not holding on to [Kalecgos] and you’ve set up the combo, you can also bring out [Azure Emissary] and deal infinite damage to the opposing hero thanks to its effect. Both [Waz’luk] and [Rosalyne von Erantor] are Mages / Warlocks, so they’ll suffice to make this alternative win option work.
This deck can catch many an opponent off guard as they might not see the combo coming. However, when it comes to the element of surprise, nothing beats a deck revolving around [Nozdormu the Timeless]!
Hero: [Sunwalker Nahano]
Master Heroes: 3
3 [Nozdormu the Timeless]
Allies: 20
4 [Broderick Langforth]
4 [Bronze Guardian]
4 [Quakelord Razek Warhoof]
4 [Scout Kurgo]
4 [Cairne, Earthmother’s Chosen]
Abilities: 14
4 [Tuskarr Kite]
4 [Blessing of Kings]
3 [Penance]
3 [Hammer of Justice]
Equipments: 10
2 [Blackout Truncheon]
4 [Voice of Reason]
4 [Scimitar of the Scirocco]
Locations: 3
3 [Eye of the Storm]
Quests: 10
2 [Cleansing Witch Hill]
4 [For Great Honor]
4 [Darkness Calling]
The Bronze Dragonkin are the keepers of time, making sure that certain events happen in the order intended. The progression of a game in the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game is mainly dependant on the number of resources (indicating the current turn), so the Bronze Dragonkin trigger whenever you recruit them and you don’t have any open resources. In other words: If a certain point in time is reached, they start doing their work.
Our deck doesn’t really feature a lot of Bronze Dragons. We got [Bronze Guardian] who wants to hit the field when the turn clock strikes 3 to draw us a fresh card from the top of our deck, but that’s pretty much it. On the other hand, the Dragonkin Aspect is key to our strategy.
When tackled with the question: „What’s the use of having an extra turn after you invested so much to bring out [Nozdormu the Timeless]?“, many players are left puzzled. Quite a few share the opinion that you could have just spent all those resources to bring out some additional threats. That’s assuming that recruiting [Nozdormu the Timeless] will cost you 10 or even more resources. We’re bending the rules a little more as we’ll be trying to play him for free!
This can be accomplished by having some cards on the table with a combined cost of 5 or more + a single copy of [Scout Kurgo]. Even though your opponent will try to get rid of [Voice of Reason], [Tuskarr Kite], [Blackout Truncheon] or [Scimitar of the Sirocco], chances are one of them will at least stick around until turns 5 or 6 together with another ally. Then it’s combo time once more!
Recruiting [Scout Kurgo] will net us 3 extra copies from our hand / deck. While they aren’t too impressive with their meager 1 / 1 stats, they still count towards the cost of all our cards in play. So more often than not, we’ll now have a combined cost of at least 25! This means we can bring out [Nozdormu the Timeless] and make our opponent skip his next turn!
On our following turn, we can play [Blessing of Kings] to turn all of our [Scout Kurgo]s into little fighting machines with 6 / 6 each! That will already be enough to dish out 24 points of damage. Combined with a little beatdown early on thanks to [Cairne, Earthmother’s Chosen] tokens or [Broderick Langforth], some opponents will scoop right there.
If [Nozdormu the Timeless] is not around, we can still play [Scimitar of the Sirocco] on 4, [Blessing of Kings] on 5 and [Scout Kurgo] on 6 after striking with the weapon. If our opponent isn’t too aggressive or if we got [Voice of Reason] to keep us in the game, this can be an alternative strategy to turn the game around in a flurry of Blessing-powered attacks!
These decks aren’t quite tier 1 (yet), but they might be a good place to start in case you were wondering what to do with the different Dragonkin Aspects. Additionally, you can always point one of the „online only“ players to these lists in case they start arguing about flavor in the TCG with you. I’m looking forward to your feedback and seeing some more lists revolving around [Alexstrasza the Life-Binder], [Kalecgos] and [Nozdormu the Timeless].
- Oliver Gehrmann (soulwarrior@soulwarrior.net)
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