DE Choke: 1st Place UK Nationals

Version 2:

- 3 Coliseum fighter (great as recurring Terror is, and potential use with Superiority, Raid, Pact, or even just shields is, they aren't great as an early play and this deck needs to win Command)

- 1 Syren Zythlex (She's good enough to warrant 3 and does get killed, but lately I seem to have one sitting in hand whilst one is out)

+ 2 Void Pirate

+ 2 Rogue Trader

Other considerations - I took Vile Raider out for Wildrider Squadron, for the combat punch and versatility, but I do like the Raider for the superior Command, so have gone back to it. Still unsure though.

I kind of want to work in Suffering for the 2 Shields...

I have been working on a DE/E Choke deck, as I love where this 'deck style' is going.  Similar choices.

I'll post a deck list when the first pack is in CGDB.

Ah cool, I look forward to seeing your take on it. I plan on working in Archon's Palace, and will likely try Visions despite the cost. The question will be what to drop to fit them in. 1 Lab will probably have to go, but what else?

Tried this one last night and it had some trouble with the command phase...but I scratched out a win on the 6th planet....I'll do some tooling with this deck as well...it's got potential.

Nice to hear some feedback. I do find it tends to be a late-game winner as early, less relevant planets are sometimes conceded in favour of turning the choke screw with denial on outer planets etc.

I've yet to play it against Eldar or Tau where I feel the command phase could be a struggle. I've had good success against Chaos, Orks and AM. Hardest game was DE/Chaos as they outdid me at command, got a Khymera Den and triple warpstormed me. Despite that I stayed competitive throughout, though I did eventually lose.

Would be interested to hear of any tweaks that work well for you as well as which factions you feel it works well or badly against.

I really want to work in suffering for the 2 shields when I get card flooded. Can't see what to drop though, so any ideas appreciated.

Version 3

-3 Survivalists (controversial!)

-2 Vile Raider

+2 Wildrider

+3 Archon's Palace

I don't drop VR early anyway, so have settled on Wildrider as the better combat unit. By then choke will either already be locked down, or it will have already failed.

Survivalist is good at resource/card generation, which matters more when you're playing denial since +1/+1 when you've drawn all Command struggle is huge, but +1/+1 when both players have got +2/+2 anyways is less huge. However with 2 cost and 1 icon it is a bit naff at the actual choke. It's also easily sniped unless you follow your warlord around.

Archon's Palace has so much synergy in this deck that I think I'll try 3 at first despite the uniqueness. Depending how it goes I may drop 1, or even 2, along with 1 or 2 labs. That could be a way to work Suffering's shield or Visions of Agony in.

V4 - Since Blackmane is delayed our end I've been tweaking pre-Palace

-3 Palace (which was only theory craft anyway)

+3 Suffering

-1 Mandrake

+1 Zythlex

Although I dropped Zythlex in V2 in my post, in the real world I actually dropped Mandrake, but didn't change it here.

Current version is what I've actually been using, and suffering has been immensely useful for the shields. This version managed to win a (very small) winter tournament.

I'll update properly or probably just make a new list later, but the version I ran at nationals was - 1 shadow field - 3 razor wings +2 superiority + 1 suffering and back to the optimal 50 card mark.

Edit: Now updated - best to ignore previous comments as they relate to a much, much earlier version of the deck. I didn't track the last few changes on here.

Cheers.

I actually only remember using Foretell once, and didn't Doom at all during the tournament (I also only played Suffering once as a play, though it was pretty useful when I did, and it's obviously super useful as 2 shields regardless).

In general the theory is that if my draw gets going I can get to the situational 1x if they are really needed. However I have wondered about the value of Foretell vs a 3rd Superiority or Suffering.

Well done on your win mate: I ended up mid pack with my Kith deck, with a near identical deck. You are clearly the better player!1

Each game I lost was Space Marines. Damn, damn, space marines, I really am bad against them

Nice deck. Congratulations!

Congratulations! What warlords did you face?

Cheers.
 
I actually only remember using Foretell once, and didn't Doom at all during the tournament (I also only played Suffering once as a play, though it was pretty useful when I did, and it's obviously super useful as 2 shields regardless).
 
In general the theory is that if my draw gets going I can get to the situational 1x if they are really needed. However I have wondered about the value of Foretell vs a 3rd Superiority or Suffering.

The other two Swiss were both Cato. I've now added the URL for the tourney report which has more detail.

Congrats again GKZukov. It was me who you played in round 5 & then the semi-final. Congrats on a well-deserved win.

Have been playing this deck for a while now and have really enjoyed it. Been thinking about removing the 1xDoom in favor of either 1xNo Mercy or a third Superiority. What do you think?

I think that's a solid move. As I noted above, I didn't actually Doom all tournament, and with more Uniques about to hit the playing field, would probably replace it in future (though the threat of it is nice to have). I'd go for the 3rd Superiority personally, as it reinforces a key strategy within the deck, though if you like No Mercy, by all means go with that!

I kind of wished I'd called it Kithmera Choke for the awful pun (and because actually the swarm and the warlord are a key part of it, along with the choke) instead of just DE Choke, heh, maybe if other non-Kith chokes become a strong thing, it'll need renaming.

Why did you choose to drop Murder Razorwings ? For a choke deck, I feel it's good, especially when u discard a good card from your opponent's hand ^^

I am a fan of Razorwings, and played them from Core up until just before the NATs. However, I feel the meta has shifted, with more alternate card draw appearing (Howl, Ammo Depot) and also DE now have the option to Resource Choke via Sslyths, Raid etc., which can be very effective against Chaos or Eldar, especially if few Resources appear on the Planet Flop.

Essentially this boils down to two things

1) Razorwings isn't useful as often (it's still good when you card choke, but you won't be doing this as often as a few months ago). It also doesn't directly aid command, so is only useful as a win-more if you've already put the choke in place.

2) There are lots of other good cheap units for either command or combat, and other good events (Razorwings in some ways is more of an event than a unit anyway) that synergise equally well with the deck strategy. Superiority, for example, will help the Card choke, but also the Resource choke, so is useful against all opponents and with all planet flops.

Comparing my deck now to my deck out of core, I would say the greatest strength is being able to choke *either* economy.

Ok. So the changes I did are:

-1x Doom (too situational and pricey, seeing as how I don't wanna let the game get to the point where I need this)

-1x Archon's Palace (it pains me, but seeing as how I can send my Syren on Suicide Missions, but simply can't do anything with 2 additional ones of these sitting on my hand, I decided to cut it down to 2)

+1x Superiority (it really is a great card in this deck and imho superior to Murderwings in almost all regards)

+1x No Mercy (still have to have this come up in a match, but I can see it messing hard with my opponent's combat math - especially with Tythlex being a 3of)

I also thought about dropping the Razorwings in my deck. Wanted to give the Colliseum fighters a chance. I think it could be interesting if I'm able to recycle some events But I'm still undecided. Just thinking about isn't that useful 

There's not really enough (crucial) events in this to warrant Colliseum fighters imho.