Dromm and Thricefold- Why so strong?

Hello! Today I will be discussing a pretty sensitive topic – why were Dromm and Thricefold so prevalent at Worlds, and why are they so dominant?

First of all, lets take a look at the standings and warbands picked at Worlds:

Here we have the top 10 (which is formatted very weirdly but we will ignore that for now). What we will notice is only one of the Top 10 warbands is Thricefold – why is that?

Second, we will notice that Gorechosen make up half of the spaces here. The reason is probably very obvious for some but I will go over it anyway.

Quick note – despite Headsmen’s Curse and Thricefold Discord having the same pickrate in worlds (5 players each), I will not be going over the Headsmen today as they do not seem as problematic. If you wish to talk about them please know that you can always find me on the new Staggerers Discord server – I’d love to see you there!

ABSOLUTE DROMMINANCE

Note – this post only applies to organized play warbands. I will not count Legends warbands when comparing stats.

First – a quick reminder of Dromm’s stats and warscroll:

Uninspired, their stats aren’t too extraordinary. Yes, Gorehulk is one of the 7 fighters in Organized Play who can do 3 damage in the first activation but that isn’t too bad. Their wounds are quite high as well!

Inspired, they get much better. Dromm and Gorehulk are two of the four fighters in the game with a Range 2 attack that can do 3 damage if it hits. Gorehulk also has one of the most accurate attacks in the game, which does 2 damage.

To spice these stats up, lets add a warscroll. This is were things start getting out of hand. Since I don’t want this to be another ‘review’ article, I’ll just go over the implications of each ability.

Blood Tithe, your method to inspiration, generates extremely quick – whenever an instance of damage is inflicted. This means that with a couple of pings and several hits your warband will be inspired – at latest by Round 2. Combine that with Brutal Reckoning and you potentially have Round 1 inspires. Most warbands typically don’t get to inspire that fast, and those that do typically don’t have stats as good as Dromm does. This obviously led to Dromm being able to effectively gatekeep other warbands from doing pretty much anything – if they attacked, Dromm got blood. If the Gorechosen attacked, they got blood. If they got blood – they get the best inspired profiles in the game.

Next, Call of Blood. Ironically this is the hardest to use ability in the warscroll – but even then, it could potentially be a double Distraction as early as Round 1. If your opponent deployed 2 fighters far back, you can bring both of them one hex closer. This enables a lot of early game charges necessary for Blood Tithe. It also makes holding objectives a lot harder, as you have to move/push at least an extra hex, if not two.

Enrage is just crazy – it lets a fighter charge during a power step. The most obvious use for this is to let Gorehulk do a cheeky 6 damage before your opponent even gets a first activation, if the dice align. However, if you think bigger, this ability is even stronger. See, every single Dromm deck at worlds was running the Reckless Fury Rivals deck – out of the 16 glory in that deck, 5 of it comes from each fighter having a charge token (2 from Arena Mortis and 3 from Unrelenting Massacre). While it is possible to counterplay this 5 glory from a normal warband, it is not from Enrage – there is no hiding from it as there isn’t any line of sight requirement. Finally, another major use case for this card is final power step denial. Let’s say you’re playing against a Emberstone/Cataclysm deck combo, and you see that they manage to hold 2 objectives at the end of the round. If you Enrage just one of those fighters, they lose access to a potential 7 glory from Iron Grasp, Set Explosives, and Supremacy. This is better than a simple Distraction as charges will often result in your fighter ending on the opposite end of the board! A Sidestep won’t save you there!

Finally, Frenzily. Final Frenzy. This ability is basically a second life. Since it takes a minimum of 2 instances of damage to kill a Gorechosen, if not more, you will always be rolling 2 dice. That’s about a 25% chance to crit. Since this is the best of the best case scenario, there will often be a lot more dice being rolled. In fact, most players at worlds were rolling somewhere between 12 (88% chance for at least 1 crit) to 17 dice (96% chance for at least 1 crit). Best case scenario, you are forced to spend an entire other activation killing one of these stat-sticks (but before you do – they can attack you!). Worst case, you have to kill a 6 wound Gorehulk all over again! While on another warband this ability might not seem too harmful, on one of the best-statted warbands in the game, it is pretty major as you are forced to give the Gorechosen player at least one activation of them hitting you back with a 3 damage attack.

Some other reasons for the Gorechosen’s strength could be in the fact that they paired extremely well with the Reckless Fury deck. As previously stated, you get 5 glory from just charging (and having everyone else charge too), another 2 glory for just charging yourself (Bloody Momentum), and several of the surges (Frenzied Rush and Best Foot Forward) are trivialized by having two fighters with 3 bounty as well as a 5 hammer attack.

Overall, the Gorechosen’s strength came from several factors.
1. Extremely strong stats that not many other warbands can compete with, a mix of high wounds and damage with a sprinkle of accuracy.
2. Relative ease of access to these high stats.
3. Two powerful tools to deny Hold Objective warbands, which are arguably one their best counters if you just don’t attack/charge them.
4. The ability to Charge several times per round with the same fighter due to Enrage.
5. Second-chance effects like Final Frenzy being particularly strong on these tough fighters.
6. Extremely high synergy with the Reckless Fury rivals deck, which provides good and reliable scoring as well as several great power cards (Utter Ignorance for a second-second life, and Get It Done for a second Enrage).
7. Being an easy to pilot warband, pretty much anyone can pick them up and perform well with them.

This may not seem like a lot of reasons but condensed into one package it becomes a pretty big problem. So what can one do when facing the Gorechosen? Unfortunately, not too much. The best way to win is to pray they miss most of their attacks – which doesn’t happen too often.

What balance changes are feasible and can come to Gorechosen to tone them down? First of all, Enrage as an ability is probably getting reworked. The ability to charge from any point on the battlefield is quite strong, especially if it isn’t during an Action Step! Second, taking away some of their Blood Tithe generating ability is going to hit the warband pretty hard. Most of their strength comes from being inspired, which if made difficult to do, is going to make the Gorechosen much more manageable. While it is unlikely, maybe nerfing the stats of the Gorechosen as well will definitely help out. For example, in V1, the Gorehulk had to choose between an inaccurate but heavy-hitting attack or could go for an accurate, slightly weaker attack. In this edition, he can go for an accurate heavy hitting attack, or get a guaranteed 2 damage in. Nerfing the accuracy will definitely go a long way here! While the stat change is unlikely but not unfeasible, just the first 2 warscroll changes will go a long way to make these guys much better to deal with.

Sidenote – whoever gave Herax Inspired Stagger on his attack is an absolute legend.

A DISCORDANT META

Now time to talk about the Thricefold Discord (3xd/Discord/Thricefold). For them, I’ll start with the warscroll – it’s their main source of power.

They inspire pretty easily – they all have 1 defense, so it isn’t too hard to fully miss that.

Evasive as an ability is extremely strong. Even though at worlds it was ruled to never be able to completely cancel damage from attacks or pings, it can still double the amount of attacks it takes to kill Lascivyr and Vashtiss – which is really huge. It’s also unpredictable, which makes counterplaying this ability nigh impossible. Do I play Twist the Knife now… even though I already do 2 damage, which is all I need to kill? Or do I save it for when I actually need it? Overall, the major problems with it are the fact that it’s always active on two 4-Wound fighters (which can potentially double the attacks necessary to kill) and that no one can predict when it happens, making counterplay extremely hard.

Indolent does make Vexmor very annoying and the hardest early-game Range 2 hitter in the game – but I’d argue this ability isn’t actually too problematic. Sure, it does turn Vexmor into a heavy hitter, but at least there is skill expression in order to actually make use of the ability – and it’s easy to counterplay. Overall – an annoying and strong ability for sure, but not nearly as problematic as the other ones.

Wicked Slice – this is the best ability the Discord have to use. It makes Lascivyr a potential 3 damage hitter in Round 1, which is quite strong. It also lets him do some crazy things like play Improvised Attack, then ping again. He can also use it from any range so with Hurled Weapon he becomes are real damage-spreading menace. Finally, the 2 hex range on this ability is extremely high – there is almost always going to be a target to ping within range, making it extremely strong. Perhaps the best part is it triggers even on a miss, making there near no counterplay to this.

Eldritch Emnity – a strong double push for your fighters. It forces you to push them away from each other, which is a pretty good limitation, but is still quite strong. Overall, not to problematic – some warbands have better abilities. I’d say the biggest ‘issue’ with it is it happens to be on the same warcsroll that gets you Grievous and +1 dice when you have no more or charge tokens – so as long as this ability isn’t used, Vexmor is technically 3 Range!

Feuding – an Inspire switch. Nothing too major here. Sure, it can be annoying. but let’s face it – this is by far the weakest ability on the warcsroll.

Vile Temptations – False Gifts return in a better shape! First, one of the biggest problems with this is it allows you to break an upgrade at any point in the activation – this could be after an attack roll, before a defense roll, after a defense roll but before the re-roll on Agile… this creates a lot of confusion and is likely unintended. It also removes the risk of ‘wasting’ this ability if you were to say remove a +1 Wound card at the start of your turn only to miss an attack. Second, some upgrades are completely unplayable while this ability is in play. For example, Great Fortitude. It’s a downgrade against Thricefold! Playing it lets Lascivyr run up, smack you for 2 damage, ping you (as you aren’t vulnerable), break Great Fortitude, and kill you – which is 4 damage without a single power card. Sure this is an edge case, but still. I’d argue that this ability isn’t as problematic as it seems – back in V1, we had Perfect Blade, which was arguably stronger than this. Still, it’s pretty strong and definitely could use some clarification about when to use it.

Now for uninspired stats – nothing to write home about just off these cards, but we do know that Vex can hit 2 hammers 3 damage potentially – which is the only Range 2 Damage 3 attack on an uninspired fighter in the game. Vashtiss is somehow the weakest here because her attacks all only do 1 damage. Lascivyr is the big problem here, with a potential 3 damage in one activation with his Wicked Slice ability.

Inspired, these guys are quite strong on paper. Vexmor has a decent 2/2/2 attack which can get +1 Dice and Grievous from Indolent – a pretty strong attack, which only Dromm Inspired shares. Vashtiss is a pain to kill, being able to hit from 4 hexes while being on 2 Dodge with Evasive, and also sharing the 2/2/2 attack with Vexmor. Lascivyr is accurate as ever with 3 hammers for 2 damage + Wicked Slice, which makes him a major threat. 3 hammers is one of the more accurate attacks in the game and Wicked Slice can’t miss, so he is extremely consistent. He is also hard to kill being on 2 Dodge with Evasive. He does have 5 move as well, which lets him reach the entire board from certain positions.

Now let’s talk about their pairing with the Reckless Fury deck. The World Champion of Underworlds, Danielle Gorini, played them with Reckless Fury/Blazing Assault (quick ad-break to let you know this deck can be found on the Staggerers Nemesis Deck Repository!). This deck is similar to the stereotypical ‘Dromm deck’, scoring lots of glory for doing not lots of things (mainly charging). On first glance, it seems counterintuitive to run a deck that needs charge tokens with this warband – as Vexmor is really scary without said Charge tokens. Still, it works. They get extra survivability from Utter Ignorance, Vexmor can charge and then remove his token with Get it Done, he also scores Frenzied Rush for free basically. Arena Mortis and Bloody Momentum are quite simple as any combination of these 2 fighters will score both of them. The only fighter with threat range problems in this warband is Vexmor at 5 threat range… which isn’t bad at all, so they can charge you pretty much anywhere.

Here are some community thoughts on the Thricefold Discord in the meta right now:
“Everything in the warband is busted as ****, Sic et simpler.” – Flaviuz (Monkey’s Hex)
“Being a 3 fighter warband Reckless Fury was made for them.” – Godsworngamer
“… the fact that they have 2 dmg 3 options from first turn is pretty big. Also a massive that range and variation of attack profiles. Means you will rarely have to commit to a fight before you want. If the enemy stays back they’ll get plinked” – Konsul/Mikkel
“For me, it’s Lascivyrs ping for sure – dealing 1 with every attack, even on a miss, is just obscene” – tris_siren

So overall, what are some of the big issues for Thricefold?

1. Access to 2 fighters with 3 damage off the bat.
2. Relative ease of inspire, which gives access to high defense and a high threat range, making hiding from them pretty much impossible.
3. Vile Temptations being at any point during an activation (this is easily fixable!)
4. Extremely strong synergy with the Reckless Fury rivals deck (which may be a problem itself!)
5. Little to no counterplay to Evasive, which just happens randomly, and can create lots of NPE for both players.

What can be done to change these issues? The biggest one I would say is to somehow change Evasive. I have no clue how, but it has to be done. Such a powerful effect every attack on a dice roll is really strong and unpredictable, which probably needs a change. Another thing to change is definitely the Wicked Slice ability – I would propose making it only on successful attacks during action steps, or making it on targets within 1 hex of Lascivyr. Finally, reword Vile Temptations to make it clear when one can use it. Despite being a strong ability, I feel it can stay, as it’s a pretty big part of the identity of the Discord. It just needs a little clarification.

There are less issues here than for Dromm, which is a good sign, so I’ll add one more good thing. In my opinion, the Thricefold Discord have much more skill expression than Dromm does. One cannot pick up Thricefold and instantly be the best player in the world. As Danielle has showed us, this warband truly shines when piloted by someone who has lots of practice and lots of experience with the game. This means that even though at first Dromm seems much stronger, over time, the Discord will catch up in strength – as their skill ceiling is much higher.

And that’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed the article! If I made anyone unhappy/angry/negatively impacted anyone, that was not my intention, and I am sorry. If you have any feedback/opinions, please do contact me on Discord (once again reminder about the Staggerers discord server!) Once again, I hoped you enjoyed the article, and hope to see you again soon!