Trying Out Viking War

Intro

Last weekend I tried a few games with the Viking War deck primarily because I saw it as the only deck fast enough to beat Dralamar. I won one and lost one against the deck, but playing it is surprisingly enjoyable. I was actually surprised at the number of misplays I've been making - particularly around Enduring Shield usage (example in gameplay). I thought I would practice some during the week and see how it went.

The Deck

Deck Code:
GU_1_6_CBZCBZBFvBFvCBaCBaHAFHAFCDZCDZBAiBAiCDqCDqCDzCDzCBBCBBCAZCAZCClCClIDkIAZIDmCCjCCjCAXCAXIDr

As you can see, I didn't create this deck. It's been played 247 times and has a great win rate of 70%. It's not 6-mana Dralamar good, but 70% is probably in need of a nerf. The deck is also cheap with only Out of Its Misery costing ~$12 or so.

When I get "I need a Weapon", I want to test replacing one of the Enduring Shields with it. 4/3 Blade of Styx is amazing. You do run the risk of pulling a 2/3 Enduring Shield, though, which slows down the deck a lot. It might be pretty decent.

Mulligan

Going First

You're looking for either Viking Warmaiden + OOIM or an Enduring Shield combo. Examples:

OR

Going Second

Enduring Shield is OK, but you're really looking for blitz creatures and Blade of Styx. This is a particularly good high roll:

Tavern Brawler + OOIM can often be a great play, too.

Playstyle

This is a face rush deck. If you can make favorable trades (e.g. your creature lives), I usually will, but otherwise you should be going face and looking to end the game at 5-6 mana. Slayer can help you get those last few points of damage to close out.

Misplays to avoid

When playing a blitz creature with Enduring Shield equipped, think about which you want to attack with first. In my game against Light, I make the mistake of using Shield first. I should have hit with the Axewoman (it lives) and then finish Vexing Vicar with Shield and protect the Axewoman.

Similarly, try to use blitz creatures from hand to clear enemy creatures. This leaves your creatures on board able to go face and keep up pressure.

Gameplay

My first video is a satisfying win against Light. I get punished a bit for my opening misplay with the Axewoman and Viccar (should have attacked with Axewoman first). But Warmaiden + Out of Its Misery puts us way out ahead on the next turn. Our opponent makes several misplays as well that help us out.

In game 2, the unthinkable happens: our hand bricks! We only had 3 cards out of 30 that would be completely worthless to draw and we drew all 3 back to back. This should be extremely rare, though, so I'm not changing up the deck. Just really unlucky.

Note on 3Speak

That second video is my first one using 3Speak, which is part of the HIVE ecosystem (https://3speak.tv/). HIVE is to Reddit as 3Speak is to YouTube. It looks like people can upvote your videos just like they do your blog posts. Very nice! Setup wasn't the easiest, but that was because there was some active development going on (according to folks in discord). Hopefully, everyone else has an easier time getting signed up and getting their HIVE account linked.

I'm going to start uploading all my videos there. I'd much rather support 3Speak/HIVE than Google/Youtube!

Still learning as I go.