I figure there will end up being plenty of them, but how could I resist bringing one of my favorite orc warrior setups to the table? For this bounty challenge, I'd like to present the Arena Grand Champion--an Orc Warrior with a deck themed around pleasing the Mountain God by stoking up a furious team of powerful troops and personally wading into the fray to Battle enemy champions into submission. Orc Warriors can get their Battle up to a whopping 5 damage straight to the face--let's see what we can do to capitalize on that, shall we?



Here's the nitty gritty for this one:



Class: Warrior



Talents:

-Fury

-Berserking

-Boiling Blood

-Affinity: Warriors

-Warlord: Agility

-Warlord: Strength

-Warlord: Concussive Blow

-Warlord War Machine

-Training: Combat

-Reinforcements

-Training: Deployment

-Training: Tactics

-Enhanced Training Regiment



Decklist



Resources:

* Ruby Shard x10

* Blood Shard x7

* Ayotochi Coins x2

* Quash Ridge Rubble x4

* Well of Hatred x2



Troops:

* Arena Regular x4

* Bloodsoaked Brawler x3

* Brutal Commander x3

* Fang of the Mountain God x3

* Hunger of the Mountain God x3

* Splitskull Gladiator x3

* Whirling Brutalizer x3

* Te'talca, Orc Gladiator x1

* Lorenzo the Wyrmsinger x1



Actions:

* Contract Killing x2

* Crackling Bolt x4

* Gore Feast of Kog'Tepetl x2

* The Crowd Roars x3



Constants:

* Bloodlust x3



Equipment:

Gladiator Helm (Head) - Arguably the most important equipment in the deck, makes Arena Regular nuts for our purposes.

Banner of Blood (Trinket) - Also amazing, will also quickly make this deck out of control when Bloodlust hits the board.

Mountain God's Vest (Chest) - Straightforward, but excellent--give Hunger of the Mountain God the crush he craves!

Bracers of Brutality (Gloves) - Phenomenal gear, allows Brutal Commander to help us cheat more troops into play.

Gladiator's Dazzlers (Feet) - May not seem like much, but Splitskull Gladiators doling out dazed counters can bog the AI down.

Rending Hammer (Weapon) - Probably one of the most powerful pieces of equipment in Hex, but it's a little unfair from how ridiculous it is. Potentially makes any casting of The Crowd Roars an immediate victory, really.



Mercenaries:

* Clatterclank - We consistently qualify for the charge and it ensures we start being able to Battle more or less immediately.

* Spirit of the Triumvirate - I love how this can couple with Trained troop decks, even if it can potentially hit an already souped-up troop.

* Flexible, I like Hoo'vis O'Shearskin for more free Speed on troops without it, but you can just as readily put another charge-friendly merc here.



As mentioned in the Coyotle Bounty thread, I'm always a big fan of trying to get my characters in the PVE campaign to adhere to a strong, fun thematic core and work to flavor the deck and talents around that as much as possible. I already like trying to stick to same-race & same-class for my troop selections with decks, and happily Orc Warriors have some seriously awesome troops to bring to the field fulfilling precisely that.



There's a lot of brutally effective synergy going on with this deck and talent setup, but the overall gist is the fun and brutality of getting to pummel just about any enemy champion into submission--personally--with Battle and effects that go haywire off of you gaining charges and using your charge power.



How it all comes together:



Arena Regular is the thematic backbone of the deck and works perfectly with the idea of an arena champion-styled orc warrior character bringing heavy hits to the field--not content to merely sit back as a commander! Every troop in the deck except for Lorenzo the Wyrmsinger is an Orc Warrior, which qualifies them for Bloodlust 's effects--and also for Affinity: Warriors.



Every time you play a warrior, you'll gain a charge; every time you gain a charge, all of the Arena Regular s you have in play will deal damage to the enemy champion. Every time you Battle the enemy champion, you'll do a whopping 5 damage directly yourself--and the Arena Regular will pitch in an extra 2 damage apiece. With Warlord: Concussive Blow, you'll also make the enemy champion discard a random card every time you bop them on the noggin too--nice!



Where things get gross is really thanks to Bloodlust with equipment, adding the effect of 'When an Orc you control deals damage to a champion, that troop gets "This deals double damage."' That effect stacks, it should be stated--doubled, quadrupled, etc. Surprise surprise, Arena Regular qualifies for that every time you gain a charge or use a charge power to plink the enemy--and as a result, even having a single regular + blood lust on the board when you play a resource, play a warrior or warriors, use your charge power, etc.--will quickly double and quadruple and so on their damage that they can rapidly and single-handedly deal massive amounts of indirect damage.



For some extra fun oomph, Hunger of the Mountain God is our beefy backup who grows awfully quick when you've got indirect damage and Battle chunking away at the enemy. Fang of the Mountain God are cheap expendable sluggers who also get Mr. Hunger pretty stoked; Bloodsoaked Brawler can very quickly become completely unblockable, and Whirling Brutalizer plays wonderfully with all that indirect damage you can toss out to the enemy champion's face too.



Crackling Bolt is our enabler to keep things popping off: use it for removal against particularly quarrelsome troops or keep leveling it directly to the enemy champion's face--preferably with some Arena Regular s in play. Use the extra charges to keep on Battle-whacking to your heart's content, too!



The Crowd Roars! is a card so good it's unfair, but it fits -perfectly- with the theme of this deck. Use the reveal ability to avoid annoying swiftstrike or otherwise undesirable blockers, keep on pummeling damage in and pop it off with active-casting to occasionally lottery your way into match-winning landslides. Gore Feast of Kog'Tepetl remains a perfectly-themed and powerful card, all the better if you cast it for free with a roaring crowd as your finisher.



Contract Killing is a bit of extra special removal for the occasional pain in the rear like Spitfire Elemental that will give your poor troops a bad day if you take it out with damage; you can also bust it out against troops with undesirable Deathcry effects in a pinch too. Brutal Commander is a meaty slugger who can help us cheat more and more troops to the board in a hurry, and Ayotochi Coins are a flexible source of additional charges and draw cycling in a pinch.



Quash Ridge Rubble gives us flexible choices including extra Rage and you're almost always going to satisfy the Orc Allegiance condition. Te'talca, Orc Gladiator is a singleton fun Orc Warrior who can potentially give you another source of doubling damage after she transforms (the fact that she turns into an Orc Cleric then is immaterial, since we already got our charge from playing her initially.) Lorenzo the Wyrmsinger is the only real outlier from the orc gladiator theme--so let's pretend that he's our Orc Warrior's hype man here to sing up a blazing storm about how you're going to Battle and copy it to deliver 10 damage yourself in one go. Yowza!



All in all, this is a very brutal, powerful deck and talent setup. Warlord War Machine is a fun added perk for having so many Warlord talents--and on the note of that, I did eschew Warlord: Parry in favor of being able to snag Enhanced Training Regimen--doubling the numbed of Trained troops in your deck from 25% to 50% is way more powerful than avoiding taking some measly damage if you weirdly decide to Battle an opposing troop instead of smacking the enemy champion in the face. Get back to smacking the enemy champion in the face!



Pros: Fun, thematic, very very strong synergies, revel in wading into battle yourself and hammering the enemy in the face painfully and repeatedly; the combos in this deck are out of control and can overwhelm very readily.

Cons: Berserking can be a little risky for chip damage if the AI gets ahead of you on the board or you don't get boots on the ground quite fast enough. Some of your key combo troops can be vulnerable to removal from board sweeps or the damned Spitfire Elemental .



Nevertheless, this is definitely one of my favorite PVE setups and I highly recommend trying it out--it's tons of fun to play, oozes flavor, and you can optionally fist-pump and yell at your monitor when you beat down opponents yourself while your troops watch and cheer you on.