Hello! Welcome back to another post (my second one). Today I will go over my Aggro Exiled Dead deck, with which I took second place at a Siren Games Tournament. First, I’ll go over the cards, and then I will give a general overview of this deck.
Here is the Decklist.
OBJECTIVES
I have 3 kill surges: Suddem Demise, Appaling End, and Bottom Feeders. I recommend prioritizing Sudden Demise over all of them if you have a choice. I score it pretty reliably with 4 pings in my deck and lethals. Appalling End is really easy since most of my kills are minions anyways. Finally, Bottom Feeders is useful since the number of times I killed someone with only 1 fighter adjacent to them can be counted on a hand that had an unfortunate run-in with a shredder. Keep in mind, Bottom Feeders is scored on ANY kill, not just attack actions, so you can use Dynamic Cage in a pinch.
I have 3 attack surges: Contest of Equals, Alternating Strikes, and Stealthy Advance. With luck, you can score all in one activation. Stealthy Advance is easy if you place a feature token in no-ones territory. In a pinch, use Regulus or Deintalos since they have a Range 2+ attack. Alternating Strikes is the best objective in the deck since I have multiple ways to make multiple attacks. It’s basically a free glory at this point. Finally, Contest of Equals is easy since you attack multiple times in one activation, giving you more chances to score this.
Forbidden Lore, Force Dynamic, and The Dead Unbound are my passive glory objectives assuming Deintalos is alive. Forbidden Lore is a 2-activation process and comes at the downside of not allowing you to revive your minions (since they lose tokens when respawning) but is otherwise easy glory. The same goes for Force Dynamic, my strategy was to use Puppeteer to let Regulus charge and Marcov make a move action for the token (twice). Finally, The Dead Unbound punishes your opponent for killing Coyl (or any other zombie). Keep in mind it doesn’t work with Regulus, only with Conductive minions.
Finally, my positioning objectives are Lengthening Shadows, Blood in the Deeps, and Sleepless Sentries. Lengthening Shadows is easy since you almost always have at least 4 zombies in your opponent’s territory who try to kill people there, reducing the number of fighters your opponent has in their territory. Blood in the Deeps is basically a free glory; there have been less than 5 rounds I played this deck in which I couldn’t score it (usually cause every enemy was dead). A simple trick is to deploy a token near the back and keep Marcov near it. Finally, Sleepless Sentries is 2 glory for each enemy fighter being within 2 hexes of a friendly fighter. You can move 5 fighters at once and in any direction, so it’s hard to deny this one by moving away from your zombies.
GAMBITS
I included 4 pings, Flame Wisps, Quickroots, Dynamic Cage, and Hold Them Under. All of these make Sudden Demise relatively easy to score. Flame Wisps can be cast on 3 die by Deintalos and Marcov. Dynamic Cage is a great ping with little to no downside. Hold Them Under is not the best, but can do well if you have 3 fighters next to someone (potentially dealing 3 damage!). Quickroots is an unexpected ping yet reliable onto someone. If you scored Sudden Demise, you don’t need these anymore except to annoy your opponent.
My gang-up ploys are Sparking Shuffle, Center of Attention, and Unfair Fight. Sparking Shuffle has a 2 hex range, so you can potentially surround an enemy who was otherwise safe with 2 zombies or use it to score Lengthening Shadows and Blood in the Deeps. Center of Attention is hilarious; use it to surround a fighter who thought they were safe. That, or it’s also usable as a Distraction Lite to move enemies off tokens. Unfair Fight is now usable thanks to the errata allowing reactions to be made, and it’s really easy to get a supporting fighter. Staggering also gives you Overload, and Grievous is a nice bonus.
I have Tangled Roots in there to help stagger everyone for Overload, and it doesn’t affect me as much as the only times I charge are with Regulus.
Finally, my gambit spells are Danse of Deintalos and Quintok’s Bubble. Danse is hard to cast but can be nice if it goes off, however, it loses value late game since it only works on Inspired Conductive fighters. Quintok’s Bubble is to provide extra survivability to someone, usually Deintalos.
UPGRADES
Gloryseeker, Great Strength, and Dark Parasites are my damage upgrades. Dark Parasites is fantastic (give it to Coyl… trust me) since you get one-shotted anyway, even without the +1 Damage thing. Great Strength is general +1 damage, which is always nice. Gloryseeker is to put down bigger fighters and makes Deintalos 2 damage at range 3, since it has no range restriction.
Great Fortitude and Mask of Shadows are survivability upgrades. I always give Great Fortitude to Deintalos, it gets him to 5 wounds and makes him harder to kill. I keep Mask of Shadows around because of Hexbane’s Hunters. It ‘masks’ (makes) them unable to attack me unless they get close (in which case the zombies can always help push them back).
Dynamic Enhancer, Dynamic Stabilizer, and Conquerer’s Circlet are used to improve my minion crowd. Dynamic Enhancer brings my potential damage per turn from 6 to 10 (assuming no Overload)! Dynamic Stabilizer makes my minions super annoying to fight, especially for 2 damage warbands. Conquerer’s Circlet gives all my fighters 4 move, which is really good for uninspired fighters as they are usually 2 move.
Finally, Prison of Grief and Ferocious Bite are accuracy upgrades. Prison of Grief is nice on Deintalos as it will un-motivate people from charging you, as the consequences of missing an attack will be greater (cause of Overload!). Ferocious Bite is FANTASTIC, as all my conductive fighters are beasts (give it to Coyl). It is lethal when comboed with Dark Parasites!
OVERVIEW
This deck has a low glory ceiling but is really easy to score. It might be difficult against warbands who can quickly kill you repeatedly at a range, as you don’t have time to close in on them to kill them. The same problem happens to Scything 2 damage fighters, such as Mollog, Brydget, and the Harvester, as they murder you when you surround them. One of the biggest downsides is you potentially bleed a lot of glory over and over again (I once had a game where my opponent had 27 glory cause of this!).
These are some positive matchups, as in you have a high chance of winning (I try not to consider cards except cards the warband has a 90% chance of running):
– Hold Objective, in general
– Zarbag’s Gitz
– Grashrak’s Despoilers
– Grymwatch
– Sepulchral Guard, as long as they aren’t aggro.
Here are some negative matchups, meaning you will probably lose:
– Fast aggro, in general. A counter could be to bait the enemy into charging you, then surrounding them.
– Flying fighters. They can easily get past your zombie wall, the one I hate the most is Drepur’s Wraithcreepers.
– Hexbane’s Hunters. They have fantastic range 3 and Brydget is a menace to swarm warbands when inspired, due to her scything attack.
– Gnarlspirit Pack, but who do they not counter?
-Skittershank’s Clawpack. I guess a way to counter them is by longboarding and hiding your leader at the very back, but this severely impacts your performance.
Overall, I would recommend this deck to people who like to play pure aggro and not have to focus on anything else!
And that is all for this Deck Spotlight! Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! You can reach out to me on Twitter or Discord (VintroV2#0001) for feedback, and I hope to see you again soon!
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