Deamons of Vainglory

This is one of my favorite style decks at this time.

 

Great build.

Thank you! 90poundwuss posted a version a while ago but this is the newest version.

Seems fun

Throne is hitting 56% of the time, and effectively generating 2R when it does so. This means that on average its generating back its resource cost in just under three turns, and puts you in profit on average in 4 turns. That seems reasonable, but my worry is that when I pull a starting hand with this deck, I'm tending to look at 2-3 units hitting the table, over 2-4 deploy actions, and with no more than 3-4 command icons between them. Thats a serious sacrifice of command!

 

Clearly its working for you, which is awesome, but to me it looks like a deck that wouldn't be competitive. That you can make it so means that my perceptions don't take account for the emergent play power of this deck, or that your 3 Store Championships had improbably poor opponents, or that you are very very lucky!

 

I'm guessing its the first of the three, but in the interests of science, can you tell us a little more about how your first turn or two tends to look, and what your mulligan rule is? Also, were these sanctioned SCs at different stores, or just informal tournaments at a single game store with the same opponents?

Clearly its working for you, which is awesome, but to me it looks like a deck that wouldn't be competitive. That you can make it so means that my perceptions don't take account for the emergent play power of this deck, or that your 3 Store Championships had improbably poor opponents, or that you are very very lucky!

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There are 2 other options

- crabshack101 is a really really good player!
- the tournaments did not feature top tier decks (Eldorath and Cato both spring to mind as decks that this one would find hard to beat).

I'm struggling to see it too, would love to know some specific strategy with the deck.

Also a question on cards, with every unit being chaos, and with a synergy with Throne, why no Murder Cogitator?

Right, thats a very good point. Apologies to crabshack for missing off that possibility.

 

Re: Throne, what we really need is means to reveal and manipulate the top of the deck. Barring an extremely obliging Urien player across the table, this is currently quite hard to do.

 

If Throne can be gotten to 80%+ hit rate, it becomes a much more solid proposition

Right, thats a very good point. Apologies to crabshack for missing off that possibility.

 

Re: Throne, what we really need is means to reveal and manipulate the top of the deck. Barring an extremely obliging Urien player across the table, this is currently quite hard to do.

 

If Throne can be gotten to 80%+ hit rate, it becomes a much more solid proposition

Sometimes throne doesn't need to be a resource generator. Sometimes you need lots of bodies. Throne can get you there.

Re: Throne, what we really need is means to reveal and manipulate the top of the deck. Barring an extremely obliging Urien player across the table, this is currently quite hard to do.

As I said above, Murder Cogitator helps a bit, in that if you reveal a non unit you know to wait until you have drawn a card in command before using throne.

- the tournaments did not feature top tier decks (Eldorath and Cato both spring to mind as decks that this one would find hard to beat).

 

At one of the store champs this deck was played at. He got knocked out of the top 4 by a Cato player (who took second overall). The match was very close the whole way through, but crabshack101 admitted part of what cost him the game was drawing a Helldrake and then realizing he could afford to put it out with the wealth of cultists he had out, instead of putting out multiple smaller units. I'm pretty sure it got hit with Cato's signature event card and then he had nothing left to fight on the planet.

 

Vainglory decks, from what I've seen, require you to be very vigilant about when you should put out the big deamons and when you instead choose to put out the "cheaper" ones based on the situation at had. Sometimes all you need is a Soulgrinder, other times it's better to put out a berzerker, and a noise marine.

 

And also like Keebler said, Sometimes you just need lots of bodies. Zarathur and a planet full of cultists is scary.

I'm very curious about the effectiveness of this deck, so I'm converting my Chaos deck to this one. I haven't tested it yet, but I do wonder if the Helldrake is a better unit for this instead of Ancient Keeper of Secrets. I know Ancient can combo well with the Cultists, but you need Cultists for so many other things, maybe it isn't a good idea to have yet another unit that requires you to sacrifice them. Just a thought.

You know, looking at my own recent posts on the forum, I'm realising that one of the major things I've missed about Throne of Vainglory is that even when it misses it provides one turn of deploy delay every single turn. Thats actually a notable advantage, and may be something that has been disregarded when people under-rate this card.

 

I admit, I'm still unconvinced by Soul Grinder in this deck, as I find it hard to see how it can ever win command at Soul Grinder's planet. I'd be very much inclined to straight swap these for Gleeful Plague Beasts.

 

As an overall deck concept however, it does look more solid than might be initially obvious. 

 

Re: Throne, what we really need is means to reveal and manipulate the top of the deck. Barring an extremely obliging Urien player across the table, this is currently quite hard to do.

 

I have a fantasy of future dark eldar torture cards, because then crucible of malediction would seriously help with the throne!

I'm very curious about the effectiveness of this deck, so I'm converting my Chaos deck to this one. I haven't tested it yet, but I do wonder if the Helldrake is a better unit for this instead of Ancient Keeper of Secrets. I know Ancient can combo well with the Cultists, but you need Cultists for so many other things, maybe it isn't a good idea to have yet another unit that requires you to sacrifice them. Just a thought.

It also combos really well with Xaveas.

You know, looking at my own recent posts on the forum, I'm realising that one of the major things I've missed about Throne of Vainglory is that even when it misses it provides one turn of deploy delay every single turn. Thats actually a notable advantage, and may be something that has been disregarded when people under-rate this card.

 

I admit, I'm still unconvinced by Soul Grinder in this deck, as I find it hard to see how it can ever win command at Soul Grinder's planet. I'd be very much inclined to straight swap these for Gleeful Plague Beasts.

 

As an overall deck concept however, it does look more solid than might be initially obvious. 

 

Without promotions the soul grinder is a bit hard to reliably win on command struggles with not many other cheap units to pair with it. But assuming your thrones are hitting pretty reliably you may end up only having to pay 2 for it meaning you could pair it with cheaper units or throw down a warp storm on the planet after the opponent over committed units to avoid having to sac one.

After playing a couple of games, I do think that Fall Back! may seemed like a good card, but I ended up holding it in my hand waiting for a chance to play it, then when that chance comes I was out of resource. I'll probably replace two of them with two Promotions instead.

Seems fun but has this deck any chance to win Kith or Eldorath (the best decks ATM)...?

I played this deck against a baharroth deck that was out commanding me at every planet keeping me from getting resources or more than the standard 2 cards per turn. Almost every round he would archon's terror my daemon back to HQ or win the planet when I had a number of smaller units out instead by using empower. Despite this I still ended up winning the game because since he was only postponing the battle against the daemons, and not actually able to kill them, they just kept building up at different planets until he was no longer able to deal with them.

 

Since this deck doesn't rely on traditional resources for it's most important units as much there really wasn't much struggle to get out the bigger units or smaller units depending on what was needed for the turn. plus the delaying action of tapping vainglory helps to pick which planets are the most important ones to fight over.

 

I imagine that kith could result it a similar match up. Eldorath I think may be a little bit more of a challenge. You'd have to create more terrible choices for him to make as to what to exhaust and/or route.

When I as playing demons the kith match was by far the most difficult one. Reign of terror is just bonkers in that match up. You go to the deciding planet thinking your 3 huge dudes are awesome and he reigns 2 and klavexs the other. Then your sails are empty and you are just a sad dude.

The trick is to get as many cultist tokens and little dudes on the board before the last planet . De can murder expensive units with ease. Managing a board full of little dudes is really not what they are equipped to do.