INTRODUCTION
War is quite good in producing budget-friendly decks, however, the meta has shifted to Control war archetypes which utilize expensive cards such as Out of Its Misery, Hyrtacus, Aeneas, Avatar of War, Magic Missile Launcher, Demogorgon and Jason, Medea's Muse, and Pyramid Warden.
So is it still possible to build a budget war deck that can compete in mythic ranks? This deck proves it's very achievable!
DECK CODE
GU_1_6_HADHADHAFHAFCDZCDZCDqCDqIDjIDjCBBCBBCAZCAZGBMHAcHAcIDoIDoIDmCBqCACCACCAXCAXIDiIDrIDrCCuCCn
DECK LIST
The main difference in this deck build compared to traditional Frenzied and Control War lists is I don't have any spells other than Carnage Sweep and Sole Survivor. Buff cards like Another Round! and Redfume Serum is a staple but I find that having too many spells can brick your hand more often than not. Out of Its Misery is not also within the budget range so it's automatically not included in our deck.
War's main weapons are Relics and Blitz creatures. I strongly believe that Spells should not occupy more than 4 slots in a War deck and anything more than that might have diminishing returns.
We have leech from Nokkvi Pillager and Grand Hall to sustain a bit of damage from using our relics and early minions from our opponents. Ravenous Chimera is an option but to keep the mana curve low, I have opted for using Nokkvi Pillager.
Ares Runeblade is a very controversial card choice. An 8 mana card does seem to be very slow but after reviewing my previous matches, I have seen that a lot of games played beyond 12 turns. 5 Damage for 8 Mana is also very underwhelming but...
... this relic also has Godblitz and if your opponent does not deal with it you are sure to deal 10 damage to their face. At this stage of the game, this card can enable you to sprint to the finish line by dealing the final blow, or if you are behind the board, you can deal damage, clear the board of small minions and gain life at the same time, giving you a chance to come back from a deficit.
Also this late in the game, your opponent must have used most (if not all) of their relic removals and since this card is not seen a lot in the meta, there is a surprise factor as well.
This card got me to win games that I had no business in winning. It's also used 1.4% in games with a win rate of 49.3% in mythic at the time of this writing as per GUDecks. So it looks horrible but it works on this deck build so I would trust my win rate more than the stats in GUDecks.
Again, I would emphasize that this is a budget deck, we make do of what we have, and while this is not a popular card it serves its purpose and then some.
A little less controversial but also not a popular choice is Dockside Prowler. Being a 1 mana target for Sole Survivor and hidden makes it harder to kill and helps get another damage out in your next turn instead of getting killed by a spell or another creature with blitz. Tartesian Improviser and Leviathan Hunter are good war cards and target for Sole Survivor but 1 health card gets easily picked off by spell removals and certain god powers -- more often than not it will not survive on your next turn wasting at least 4 points of damage.
Having shadow until your opponent's turn will ensure that more often than not it will be able to survive a turn so you can use it to attack and deal damage to your opponent's face or board.
MMR RECORD
I was able to rank as high as 67 using this deck. At the rate I was winning with this deck, top 20 is within reach but I just don't have enough time to play that many games, unfortunately.
| Domain | Wins/Losses | % |
|---|---|---|
| Magic | 7/7 | 100% |
| Deception | 2/3 | 67% |
| Light | 3/3 | 100% |
| Death | 5/7 | 71% |
| Nature | 7/7 | 100% |
| War | 6/9 | 67% |
BREAKDOWN OF MATCHES PLAYED
The above is the breakdown of the matches I played. Surprisingly, I played well against Magic which I find as one of the toughest matchups on my Weekend Ranked matches. I attribute my success to playing more aggressively and dealing direct damage as quickly as possible before they can set up their Scepter of Artisty and/or Monolith of Storms.
Deception is a tricky opponent because War has no way to deal with Patient Pickpocket in the early rounds especially if they can put 2 of them on the board. The good thing about this deck is it has a lot of ways to come back mechanics with the use of Sole Survivor and Carnage Sweep. Killing Ludia's Dedicant is also a priority.
I faced Board Wipe Deck (BWD) twice. It was a close match and was a Slayer God Power away from winning the first match. But in the 2nd match, I got disconnected, unfortunately. The downside of being a budget war deck, your offensive weapons are quite limited compared to the top-end Control war decks that we see dominate in the Weekend Ranks. Fortunately, there's not a lot of BWD running around so you don't need to worry that much about facing this archetype.
Light is War's favorite menu. They have no way of retaining board (even if they go first) as long as you mulligan your early threats -- especially when you get your Blade of Styx + Warmonger Smith combo, you'll have no problem clearing their early minions and putting pressure using your blitz creatures.
I didn't lose any game against Nature and I think the main factor is the mana curve of this deck. The low mana curve allows you to play faster than Big Beasts Deck compared to the traditional Control war decks. War creatures can produce more damage per turn than a single Giant Pangolin. As such, instead of trading my creatures I just go for face damage until they find the concede button.
Our fellow War players have given us the toughest time based on the W/L record -- specifically Frenzied aggro war. But those matches can go either way and most of the time it's just a matter of who has a better draw that wins the game.
CHEAPER CARD ALTERNATIVES
Grand Hall is an expensive card now compared to when I bought it previously. You might opt-in putting another copy of Nokkvi Pillager instead of that card. Hector is expensive but it's a core card so most likely you would have this in your collection already. If not available, then a copy of Redfume Serum will give a similar source of burst damage to your deck (I know this will be the 5th spell card in the deck but necessary to cut corners).
ALTERNATIVES & WAYS TO IMPROVE THE BUILD
If you have some $GODS to spare, Iron tooth goblin is a great upgrade instead of Svart Basilisk. If you have an option to add Oddi, you can make room by removing a copy of Valka's Captain.
CONCLUSION
That's my take on a budget war deck. I will also be using this in the upcoming Weekend Ranked Games so I will have another update later on.
Please give it a shot and leave a comment on how it worked / didn't work for you. Any kind of feedback is appreciated.
May the mulligans be in your favor!
POST WEEKEND RANK UPDATE
I finished 17/25 this WR. I made changes to the deck by changing Svart Basilisk to Bronze Servant and sadly, I changed Ares Runeblade to Another Round! as I had run a bit of bad luck and kept drawing it on my first 5 turns.