JayNite currently sits at #4 on ladder with his armory deck. While armory was previously considered a Tier 2 deck, perhaps there is a reason to revisit this classic. The wipe changes nerfed everything else and gave this deck a buff in the form of Scheme:

Scheme allows the deck to dig for the correct answers to counter and punish opposing strategies. Against aggro, this deck looks to trade relic weapons with units to stop the aggression. Then it will dig for the correct answer cards (e.g. Harsh Rule, Auric Runehammer) or Icaria as a finisher. Against control, this deck will look to beat down with relic weapons since control decks tend to be bad against relic weapons.

Lifedrinker is an interesting addition that helps the deck combat an aggro-heavy meta.

Deck list

3 Inspire (Set1 #129)

4 Seek Power (Set1 #408)

4 Torch (Set1 #8)

4 Rakano Artisan (Set1 #312)

3 Vanquish (Set1 #143)

3 Lifedrinker (Set1 #275)

4 Scheme (Set1 #213)

4 Sword of Icaria (Set1 #315)

4 Armorsmith (Set1 #163)

3 Auric Runehammer (Set1 #166)

3 Rise to the Challenge (Set1 #320)

4 Harsh Rule (Set1 #172)

2 Smuggler’s Stash (Set1 #396)

1 Starsteel Daisho (Set1 #328)

1 Icaria, the Liberator (Set1 #329)

1 Sword of the Sky King (Set1 #186)

7 Fire Sigil (Set1 #1)

7 Justice Sigil (Set1 #126)

1 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)

4 Seat of Chaos (Set0 #60)

4 Seat of Glory (Set0 #56)

4 Seat of Vengeance (Set0 #55)

27,900 shiftsone according to EternalDecks.cards

Winrate stats

Over 40 games that JayNite tracked, the winrate was 60%.

Win Loss # of times the armory deck lost to screw/flood Rakano Plate 5 5 1 Stonescar Burn 6 4 1 Shimmerpack / Shimmerpraxis 2 1 Feln control 2 2 TJP control 1 0 Skycrag control 0 1 1 Icaria Blue 1 0 Stonescar Jito 1 0 Haunting Scream 0 1 FJP Control 3 0 Stonescar midrange 1 2 1 4f control 2 0 Totals 24 16 60.00%

Against Tier 1 decks (Rakano, Stonescar Burn, Shimmperack variants), the winrate was about 56-57%. Against other decks, the winrate was around 65%.

Closing thoughts

It will be interesting to see if this deck can continue to post consistently good ladder results.

Playing against this deck often consists of rolling the dice repeatedly… either the armory deck has the right answer card or it doesn’t. There aren’t a lot of opportunities to outplay the opponent other than carefully playing around Harsh Rule.

Links

RNG has a series of posts on the rise and fall of armory: