DWARVES!!! I suppose...

They're still not a favourite of mine, but in 4th Edition I find myself hating dwarven decks less and less. They're not quite the healing stall-midgets they once were.

My KING ALARIC deck illustrates this perfectly. It's very similar to the Brymin deck I mentioned yesterday, in that it stars a front-rank warlord and their low-level support.

Alaric is slightly more dependent on his minions than the duchess, as his stats are directly tied to them, and they help him out with healing (Atone) and readying (Mentor). His action advantage in getting to lay down a dwarf in reaction to another being killed is great, but also doesn't directly begin to compare with Brymin's card draw. That's one reason why this is one of my few decks to utilise Meet at the Inn!

The other reason is that Alaric is a semi-uber deck. There are a few actions in there (Thrust and Bear's Soul beside MATI, for example), but unlike Brymin he depends on a solid drawing of well-crafted dwarven weaponry to enhance his relatively meagre abilities. He's ever-so-slightly not as fast as her. But then, he is a dwarf.

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THEKK ROCKBENDER is more of a classical dwarf deck in design, with a cleric sitting at the back to alternately heal and ready his underlings and grind his enemy to paste very freakin' slowly. I never truly grasped the concept in the past (because it offends my delicate quick-play senses), and I still haven't.

Partly I think that I've still not worked how whether he's meant to rush forward to stand amongst his brethren and use his abilities, or hide at the back like a coward. The deck is a painful mixture of the two that doesn't quite gel, and I seriously doubt that I'd risk myself using it in a tournament.

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SIGURDUR is more my speed. He supports like a cleric, but since he's a fighter he's not afraid to run up and hit things when a job needs doing. Admittedly, that desperate last gasp strategy hasn't paid off in the past,but it exists as an option.

The deck possibly packs even more steeds than Kaiten's. Not becuase the warlord gives extra bonuses along with them, but because his fighters don't need much else. The warlord can create weapons for them, so there's no reason not to pack the deck with enough movement to allow them to use 'em.

With the large number of dwarves that came out in Shattered Empires with abilities playing off spending, destroying or retrieving weapons, the character base for the base pretty much assembled itself. Vex Duntan was all the extra needed.

It's essentially a variation on Deverenian cavalry with dwarves, and that alone makes it the dwarven deck I'm least unlikely to use. The fact that I can't correctly pronounce the warlord's name is enough of a black mark to forever keep me from playing it, though.

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Next time, I'm onto elves. They've been my reliable tournament first pick in the past, but at the present time I only have two elven decks assembled, fewer than any other faction - including DWARVES.

What's the cause of this great upheaval? You'll just have to wait.