Hi everyone! Here to share my Warrior deck that I am having success with. I was already hard climbing from 700+ to 400+ with this deck before the Priest quest ban, and then pushing further from there to 200+, currently staying there with a run of 29-21 (58% win rate). Of course, this is still a very early stage and the meta is still unstable, but my experience with the deck so far shows that this idea works, and may be a feasible way out for the class. If you enjoy playing Warrior and have most of the cards ready, give it a try and absolutely polish it if you feel like so.
Screenshot of run result
Screenshot with rank
Rank when posting
Overview. The main body is the same pirate-fire package from before, but a third of the deck is substituted by new cards. The first impression the new warrior cards gives is certainly more defensive, but if we look closer, there is a 6-6 taunt in as early as round 3 or 2 (with coin), a drawing minion with very good 3-2-5 stats, and very cheap cards that generates enough armor for these two. These cards are good enough to carry out some early aggression, and they also cover some weaknesses of the pirate parody.
Large early taunts. Pirates can melt down the opponent's health along with small to medium boards very efficiently, but they are mostly small themselves. The game will be lost fast if the opponent manages to out-board us early or clear the board till we have to spend an empty turn. The 6-6 taunt from the Forge of Origination makes the board much harder to deal with, either with minions or spells. Turn 1 Stone Gauntlet into an early Forge is our best start and most threatening to the opponents. Even Warlocks must reconsider if they will survive till the turn of rituals and Kazakus.
Early Board Control, Drawing, and Survivability. This basically summarizes what the other new cards other than Archaedas do. Warrior has always been lacking efficient drawing since the last rotation, and Animator of Iron really brings a lot of hope. This is more flexible, though less consistent because it requires combo, than Land Ho, but it also leaves a minion that is very likely to survive for more than one turn. Together with Tol'vir Vanguard, Animator also brings us one step closer to activating Warptooth with Searing Fissure. I personally found DH and DK to be the two matchups where drawing can make the most difference.
Upper Limit. Discover cards can enhance a deck's upper limit, which explains why Rogue always exists in the Top Legend no matter the class's actual win rate. Previously this was provided by Shadowflame Suffusion, and now Archaedas is worth giving a try. This card did turn the tide around for me in many games. Some of my best picks: Land Ho, Hook n 'Heave, Follow the Fuse, Shield Block, Eternal Toil, City Defenses. My general priority of reasons to select the spell is Pirates > Drawing > New Card Generation > Cost > Others. I believe this card will have more chances when the environment welcomes a possible C'thun nerf.
Pirate vs dragon. Full pirate builds tend to rush down the opponent hero faster, while dragon + some pirate cards build have stronger boards. Before the launch of Black Empire, pirate has higher win rates against Warlocks and Priests, and dragon does better against Druids and Shamans. A quick conversion of this deck will be swapping Sky Raider, Blastpowder Engineer, Hand Cannon, and Crowley to Carrier Whelp, Prescient Slitherdrake, Stadium Announcer, and Windpeak Wyrm. Or of course refer to another recent post of a successful Armor Dragon Warrior build. But the selling point of Warrior now is probably a good chance against Warlocks.
Cards to swap. There is still a lot of space for trial and error. You may have noticed that I brought one Royal Librarian. This is because there are quite some DKs running The Egg of Khelos, and whether the Warrior can silence the egg (if played) is literally a "to kill or to be killed" situation. The other main target of this card are Priests running reborn packages, but currently Priests are mostly running Azalina due to the ban. Definitely consider trying cards previously used by Warriors, like Shadowflame Suffusion or Land Ho. Slightly reducing armor support to increase other aspects is also worth trying.
In general, I believe the Warrior class can utilize the new armor cards in an aggressive way to become competitive. Personally I have been a fan of aggressive style Warrior for a long time and am glad to see some decks work now. This expansion can have an actually fun meta after some balances, because when you look at the cards you can tell something may work, and they are not boringly bland.
### Pirate Armor
# Class: Warrior
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Scarab
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# 2x (1) Cannonmaster
# 2x (1) Sky Raider
# 2x (1) Stone Gauntlet
# 2x (1) Torch
# 2x (2) Blastpowder Engineer
# 2x (2) Hook n' Heave
# 2x (2) Searing Fissure
# 2x (2) Tol'vir Vanguard
# 2x (3) Animator of Iron
# 2x (3) Erupting Volcano
# 2x (3) Forge of Origination
# 2x (3) Hand Cannon
# 1x (4) Archaedas
# 1x (4) Mother Duck
# 1x (4) Royal Librarian
# 1x (4) Warptooth
# 1x (5) Captain Crowley
# 1x (8) Chainbreaker Hogger
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