I frankly wonder nobody complained about the new orc cards yet. In my eyes, with the Iron Rock, they once again wasted a great opportunity to balance the game just like they failed with our poor high elven tree-huggers.

Boy, how i tried to build pure orc decks. But i had to compete against Chaos, Dwarf and DE (Empire is kinda banned in our little round of players ^_^ ) and i may say that we are at least trying to play on a high level - constantly orientating on tournament decks but also experimenting. Now let me ask you tournament players out there one question, answer honestly: Is it possible to beat high class Chaos, Dwarf or DE decks with a pure orc deck (including the new bp) ?? At least get a win rate of lets say 40% ??? I really want to know.

The best you can do is an undead deck i guess. The new undead support is great. But i never heard of any Orc/UD decks in top5 of a tournament, oc i want to know what it looks like if there was one anywhere.

Ok, so what did orc need to compete:

- Just one good 2 cost / 1 power support for economy with a decent effect. What are playable orc supports? One Orc's scrap. That's about it :(

- Something that gives loyalty, like a 0 cost unit. (Teef ritual is great, but how would you have that many loyalty in a non-fluff orc deck?)

- One imbalanced card! Everyone's got one in the last months, look at the new chaos quest, unbelievable, also bleeding wall, empire will get the zoo and also a far better quest card! So i'm basically stuck with the new orc quest, which has a fairly shitty effect and does me cost lots of shitty supports i have to take in my deck to trigger it. Nice!

- A focus on one aspect. We got introduced to self-dmg orcs, big units orcs, squig orcs, but we are again with rush orcs and oc undead orcs ^__^~ So self-dmg is nothing more than a nice fluff until here, it's slow like the big units thing. But hey, let's introduce the squig deck: Tried to build that one as well!!! Ended up with like 35 cards of my deck blocked, but hey, thank god i got my cool squigs with all that cool effects they have, maaaan they are really giving me control above my enemy :D NOT

So instead we got a wild mixture and no card is really "WOW". Ritual is a good card, don't get me wrong, also the ambush is neat. But balance?? No :(

Take the Toof Trader. Did you see the 3 orc creature cards??? hahahaha, at least one squig is in it, isn't that something ?? ;) And giving such a card 0p and 1hp is the joke of the century.

But maybe i'm speaking against a wall whining myself out for injustice like a poor high elf. Guess everybody wants to see empire weakened, my idea would be to strengthen the others. Also you can post your cool squig decks right here in this thread. I will post mine for sure !!!! bet they all look the same -.-

@gr4ffi - Are you serious? In my meta Orc's are one of the best races, and they constantly win many tournaments (both control and rush).

They have one of the best economy (We'z Bigga, Squig Tracker), rush (Spider Rider, Squig Tracker) and Control (Vomit and Pillage).

There are some concerns if Mork's Teeth Ritual can be a little bit broken - it can put Gringor in opponents turn, or Bloodthirster as a defender!

Jaszczur

Could you please post me a card list of such a winner's decks? I would be glad, and yes iam serious and yes iam not THAT MUCH into the scene to know every last tournament there ever was and who's won it. My intention with that post was to see wheather somebody could actually give me proof of an orc deck that can compete with tournament decks of stahleck for example.

BTW i tried squig trackers, you gotta have some squigs in your deck to get a good boost from that one and even when taking all squigs in and making your deck worse, you might fail. Also with 3 loyalty it's not a starter...

Jaszczurr said:

Rip Dere 'Eads Off! can also put Bloodthirster as a defender :P It can be countered by Long Winter, though.

gr4ffi said:

I agree that orcs, except for two tactics and a quest (that requires you to take rather weak supports to work...), didn't really get anything useful. However I would disagree that they're weak. It's just boring that we have to depend on core set cards for so long. Not mentioning that we HAVE TO play orc/something alliance because of lack of good supports besides One Orc's Scrap...

Exactly my point, pure orc decks can not compete with other pure race decks. And it was given the opportunity to change that with the iron rock, but they failed again. I don't want to say, that orc is weak, but it would have been nice to see them on one level with chaos, dwarf and empire, that can all build fantastic pure decks. It did not harm the game when chaos got buffed.

Also, do you see any new orc card, that has to be in every orc deck? I want cards like Derricksburg Forge, Dwarf Canon Crew, Militia, Iron Disc, Whatever... for Orc, just to have a solid base for deck building. Tribal Tattoos was the last one :(

gr4ffi said:

Only If by pure you mean no neutrals. Orc can easily smash all races, but empire, from my experience. In my deck I ran only one card from other faction. I think they only failed in not giving us good support, but as every capitol cycle battlepack has one fortification and one unique support, it looks like this couldn't have been avoided. No playable unit is another thing however...

gr4ffi said:

And I don't even play them

I just played this list here:

3 Expendable Wall
3 Warpstone Excavation
3 We'z Bigga!
3 Choppa
3 Contested Village
3 Crooked Teef Goblins
3 Spider Riders
3 Clan Moulder's Elite
2 Followers of Mork
3 Lobber Crew
3 Pillage
3 Squig Herders
3 Squig Trackers
3 Squig Pen
3 Waaagh!
3 Blood Dragon Knight
3 Troll Vomit

It was quite constant and Squig Trackers was a good boost although the 3 loyalty can be a minor problem sometimes. I played against empire and played aggressive so I didn't really have the option to play Expendable Wall. Because of that I can't really estimate how good the orc fortification is.

I guess Jaszczurr has a stronger deck list but it's a good start I think.

The reanimator/control archetype is also strong. I couldn't play a deck this type since the new cards but Morks Ritual and Snotling Ambush seem like strong cards but I can't make a decision what tactic either of these can replace. Pillage seems like a must, I also don't like to loose Rip or Raise Dead. Troll Vomit is also a card that I play in nearly every orc deck. We have to playtest more to make a choice.

I honestly cannot see you having a chance with that against a good chaos deck for example. Chaos is so strong atm, it can control you completly while building up economy (raiding camps, war hounds, tzeentch) and it can sucessfull destroy rushes through den of inquity, long winter combinations or seduced by darkness or even plague bomb.

Here is a start of chaos i actually experienced once, btw. when he is up first you are doomed ;)

tzeentch, spawn and raiding camps + spoils of war  --> what will you play? he can kill supports and units in his 2nd turn and will constantly build up economy, you decide to attack in order to get control of spoils of war... mb he just wanted to force the attack for you can get no economy, he corrupts your attacking unit with seduced by darkness... next round he can kill your battlefield unit and it costs him zero.

when you are first, you should start with supports in order to avoid war hounds, but orc has no good supports and not many and he will have the quest later. sometimes you will end up with a unit start just because you had no other options.

And i really don't believe that an orc deck could get over 50% win against such decks.

Of cause Chaos is very strong at the moment but I only responded to your demand of a 40% winning chance against any deck but it seems now you want a deck with at least 50% against Chaos.

"tzeentch, spawn and raiding camps + spoils of war --> what will you play? he can kill supports and units in his 2nd turn and will constantly build up economy, you decide to attack in order to get control of spoils of war..."

Ok that's really a good start but how realistic is it? Spoils of War is a 1 card per deck and when I play Chaos I don't often have the possibility to play a first turn Raiding Camps. Also you still need a questing unit wich makes the chances of having that starting hand further rare. Clan Moulders Elite and Blood Dragon Knight, which are usually played in any orc deck that isn't focused on odd numbers, are also units that Chaos can't remove instantly. Chaos also suffers from Troll Vomit and without Fledging there is also the danger of Lobber Crew. So I think Chaos it isn't that much ahead in this matchup. You can also switch to a reanimator/control deck packed with a little development control when you are afraid of Chaos economy. If you feel to have too little unitcontrol you can also take Easy Pickings or Foot of Gork in exchange for Waargh or Expendable Wall. I mean it's not the best orc deck that I can imagine but it's a solid base when you have no clue what to play.

"Chaos is so strong atm, it can control you completly while building up economy (raiding camps, war hounds, tzeentch) and it can sucessfull destroy rushes through den of inquity, long winter combinations or seduced by darkness or even plague bomb."

I think you have a quite onesided view in your card combinations. When I assume my opponent has the correct answers against me every game and every turn then I (or fast/rush orcs) wouldn't ever win against dwarfes, empire or HE because every turn I would get a damage canceler, Chain Lightning or Master Rune of Spite. But that's not the case because orcs can still play quite cheap and can therefore recover from a reset or against control better than other factions. I would be interested in the Chaos deck you play. The tactics seem: Long Winter, Seduced by Darkness, Plague Bomb. The chaos versions I play or play against don't always have Plague Bomb because it's often weak against Empire and HE. Unleashing the Spell is also very common and now with Khorvak there is also Blood Summoning. The quest is great of cause but you can't rely on it only so I still play Burn it Down. That makes a lot of choices but I wouldn't play more that 12 tactics because you still need a decent count on units for questing and you also want to play a fair number of support for quest synergy.

Snotling Ambush is a nasty nasty card. Played against it several times this weekend. It essentially forces you to lose your turn and gives the orc player an extra turn. Powerfull. Especially when Grimgore is sacked and brought back with Raise Dead. Or Bloodthirster. yeah...that hurts.

My first impression was: so the best card in the Orc BP is the Empire one?

However, while some of the Orc cards are pretty useless, I find both Snotling Ambush and Mork's Teef Ritual amazing. I put them in my reanimate deck with Grimgor and Bloodthirster, and am quite happy with their performance. The three loyalty keep the Ambush from being too strong. They won't however find their way into every Orc deck, and the BP appears to be lacking such a generally good Orc card.

Expendable Wall, apart from the name, feels like a Dwarf card to me. Either way, I consider it rather weak. Boss Pit might be the weakest capital center yet. 

It would have been nice to get a card or two for self-damage decks, which while not competitive are fun in casual play.

Beastman Shaman obviously fits nicely into Chaos' self-corruption theme, and Countermoves is another good way to remove units and get Hekarti counters for the Dark Elves. The High Elves once again get a card with very narrow applications, and a weak effect considering those. Seriously?

@ grille: Jaszczurr and you conveyed me of the idea an orc deck could get 50% win-rate, neither of you two seemed to agree that orc in general is the weaker race compared to the others (except high elf). Also neither of you two could show me an actual tournament winning deck :(

In my opinion you should not have much more then a 1/3 chance of winning against empire, dwarf or chaos. Against DE it could be nearly 45%. But that is only for a rush deck. Those races have too many options to stop you early and kill your economy. I'm looking forward to the new reanimator deck with the new cards especially ritual while i still think that you can not get that many loyalty on the field. Maybe you could post a deck list here or open a new thread. It would be nice to discuss such a deck as i think it's quite difficult to build (so many tactics now).

I sadly can not post the chaos deck here, cuz my dear friend built and played it. The start i mentioned is of course out of this world, but besides i had to quit against not so lucky chaos starts many other times, it might show you one thing: When a start like this is possible, outright ending nearly every option for your opponent to even just get in the game and when this particular start happens with increased regularity because of new cards that will support it in the near future, we are really heading towards a coin flipping game here. And just because of such starts and the fact that starts are becoming more and more evil, i think that orc is really underpowered here. Maybe we should get more cards like lobber crew, that are kind of inert against early game pressure. Anyway, they have to do something.

Orcs got 2 great tactic in this BP.

I am not an orc player, but i've seen enough lately to tell you that Orcs are for sure one of the best races. Here goes a common deck list in my meta (North Poland)

3 Mork’s Teef Ritual
3 Tribal Tattoos
3 Warpstone Excavation
3 We'z Bigga!
3 Contested Village
3 Spider Riders
3 Warpstone Experiments
3 Clan Moulder's Elite
3 Lobber Crew
3 One Orc's Scrap...
3 Snotling Ambush
3 Squig Herders
3 Squig Trackers
3 Squig Pen
2 Blood Dragon Knight
2 Great Cave Squig
2 Troll Vomit
3 Bloodthirster

You can aswell put Raise Dead here and Grimgor instead of Squig cards or even... warpstone experiments. Moreover Rip your heads off can be played again :)

I hope you will love new orcs as much as I hate them as a HE player :)

Iam currently testing this deck here:

3 Mork’s Teef Ritual
3 Warpstone Excavation
3 We'z Bigga!
3 Contested Village
3 Spider Riders
2 Easy Pickin's
3 Lobber Crew
3 One Orc's Scrap...
2 Pillage
3 Snotling Ambush
3 Squig Herders
3 Squig Lobber
3 Squig Trackers
3 Squig Pen
2 Squig Hopper
2 Raise Dead
2 Troll Vomit
3 Grimgor Ironhide
3 Bloodthirster

It went well in the first 5 to 10 matches building up economy very quickly. Squig trackers are triggering nearly 99% of the time in this build. I put in Squig Lobbers (2hp possible with we'z bigga) to get in some more squigs and to have something i can sacrifice for bloodthirster beside spider riders. And i feel like the number is now at its optimum with 14 squig cards.

Damage output is ok, spiders, squigs and bloodthirster are providing a decent amount.

Unit control is up to pickin's, lobber crew and troll vomit as the last call although it is hitting my own stuff from time to time.

Support control is super effective. I can get to 4 or 5 loyalty very quick and grimgor will be able to get out super fast. Teef Ritual is a hell of card :) Also it is a nice answer to opponent targeting one of your units. Simply sacrifice and bring the big one out. I dont even need 3x pillage in this. Often times i would pay the 6 for him instead of using Raise Dead, but it is nice to have that option.

So far about that. I had a 1-2 against a DE discard hand deck. I guess i should've played that games more defensevly, building up economy and having patience is number one priority, but i feel like i could be having problems against early control and loosing my loyalty.

Also i did not test against imp with rodrik (which is restricted now, so should be not that big of a deal as imp is very slow now) and against dwarf (demolition). Those are two things that are dangerous for my squig pens. Also verena could be a problem, but it should be possible to counter it with ritual-grimgor killing of his developments to ride him in with me.

Suggestions? Please discuss. I'd like to improve this deck as far as possible.

I have a big problem against DE HP-killing Decks in casual play with my self-damage Orc deck. In my opinion, it is too slow and needs too many cards in play to work (Big Uns, Savage Big Uns, War Paint etc...) How could I get a chance to win?

thx a lot for answers... Brülla