First Impressions: Beefy War Deck Archetype

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Recently, GUDecks released an update that added a few new deck archetypes to their list of meta decks. One of the rising archetypes was the Beefy War deck archetype, boasting a 60.9% win rate in the Mythic bracket over the last three days.

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The Beefy War deck archetype is exactly what you expect - War decks that have bigger creatures than your average aggro War deck. The rise of the Beefy War deck archetype also coincides with my personal observations that I saw mid-game War much more than the Frenzied Aggro War archetype in the past two weeks.

Having played lots of Frenzied Aggro War previously, I was curious to see how well this deck performed. Here are my first impressions of the deck after playing a few games with it.

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Archetype Overview

Let's first take a look at the overall deck archetype and its components in the Mythic bracket.

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Source: GUDecks

The main standouts are Hector, Prince of Troy, Grand Hall, Hyrtacus, and Strength in Numbers. The rest of the cards are often included in the aggro War version.

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Hector often enters the board as a 6/6 with Blitz, Protected, and Twin Strike and can deal with 2 large units at the same time. It's no wonder that people have started including Hector in their decks more often, especially when almost no additional effort is required to stack these effects on Hector. Blitz? Many meta cards have this. Protected? Oddi and Raid Reveller. Twin Strike? Orcish Elite.

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Grand Hall is a card that's not as useful in aggro War but is pretty good in this deck archetype. Since this deck aims to stretch the game into a turn 8-12 game, Grand Hall can keep you alive against the hordes of aggro decks with a board Leech buff. It can be a little 'eh' at times though.

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Hyrtacus rewards you even if you draw it early, and can be a monster if it patiently sits in your hand, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Sadly, it's one of the costlier key cards in this deck that I don't have due to its cost. (~0.05ETH, I'm pretty ETH-broke now)

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Strength in Numbers is this deck's answer to control decks. As the game stretches longer and longer, this deck can lose steam and you can end up with no cards in your hand. Strength in Numbers aims to fix that at a rather hefty cost of 7-mana. I'm still on the fence on this one, 7 mana is a high price to pay at any point of the game and this slot might be better filled with another card. You can get extremely unlucky and obtain 4 creatures without Blitz, leaving you wide open for a finishing blow from the opponent.

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Deck Overview and Performance

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Deck Link: GUDecks

As you can see, Hyrtacus is missing. Other than that, this is pretty much a rather standard Beefy War deck with a few chickens thrown in. So how did this deck do?

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In 15 games, not too bad - 11 wins with only 1 game being a throw from the opponent. As you can see, the games can get pretty long; I had a 19-turn match against a Magic player and still won! The higher curve of the cards does mean that bricking your hand on the first few turns is possible, but as with any deck with high-cost cards, you just have to settle with an "okay" hand instead of getting greedy in the mulligan phase.

The deck is relatively easy to pilot if you've played any mid-range decks before. The key thing that I now realize is the power of playing any 1-health creature, bag (+1 mana), into Out of Its Misery on turn 1. Getting a 5/6 Tavern Brawler can make the match a cakewalk. Even though the Expectant Chickens are the most expensive cards in the deck, I feel like they aren't actually that great here, and including 2x Nokkvi Pillagers (3-cost 3/3 with Twin Strike and Leech) might be better just to boost the consistency of Hector getting Twin Strike.

I think I played Strength in Numbers three times across all matches and found it a little slow. I guess if you tweak the deck to be more of a control variant with Demogorgons and Avatar of War, it may be a little more helpful.

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Conclusion

Did I enjoy playing the deck? Yes, but I also think it's quite similar to its more aggressive counterpart, just that this one has less consistent early-game draws.

Did I find the deck strong? Well, it's OK. It's treading into control territory but often doesn't win against control decks since it has no good large single-target removal. One Helian Elite (8-mana 10/12 Frontline with Protected) is enough to stop the entire show. Of course, if you tweak the deck into a control variant you have a much larger chance of winning these match-ups, but then you'll have to fork out a good amount of cash for the meta late-game cards that you'll need. Although Hector is a really good 7-cost card, it simply can't hold its own against larger creatures, so you need to aim to finish the game before your opponent reaches the 8-mana mark.

Should you try it? If you already play War decks, definitely. The cost to get a Hector and some of the Divine Order legendaries shouldn't be too high. You might even find yourself liking this variant more than the more aggressive version. However, if your aim is to win as many games on the weekend with the cheapest deck possible, then no - I don't think a cheap variant of this deck can hold up against the other decks out there. Nature, Deception, and Magic decks might be more relevant in those cases.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, let me know your thoughts on this deck archetype if you've played it!

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Post Header Beef image source: DinosoftLabs on Flaticon

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19 comments
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This is exactly the sort of hilarious and then super useful post I'm thrilled to see posted at what, for me is stupid early in the morning. I spent quite a good moment's time just imagining the look on anyone's face who came across "Beefy War" out of nowhere while checking GUdecks.

Whoever at GU who was goofy/bold enough to go with that for the archetype name def deserves some props!

Props also to you for the very useful breakdown of what makes this archetype tick and be unique enough to be more then a typical aggro build. Very handy to have the deck analysis paired with conclusions made after actually giving it a go for a decent run of games.

I haven't personally gotten into War much yet, other then some rather unsuccessful attempts at making Bearstriders work. Not being able to command ranks of hyped-up warriors riding bears into battle was so sad I had to take a break from War for a while.

I do however hear people asking for solid info on War stuff all the time so now I've got a good place to send them!

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Indeed, the name is a little strange but I guess whoever named this archetype thought it was a good idea 😂

I took a look at Bearstriders and honestly it'll probably almost never see play in its current state due to how much effort it takes to give it a +1 strength bonus over the neutral Wetlands Ogre. Maybe one day in the future when GU decides to go crazy with some Damaged mechanic though...

Glad you found the post helpful! Always happy to hear that. Cheers!

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I'd have to agree that Bearstrider is unplayable as a straight-forward deploy. If you don't have something to immediately trigger the +3 Strength, it's a hit to your own tempo.

Because of this, it's something I only include in Enrage decks (or a Viking deck if I had the cards for it) where I view it as a 5-cost 6/4 (4 +1 for Enrage) that can balloon out of control if you're running creature-ramp (Spoils of War, Blood Rage, Call to Arms, Sound the Charge, etc.). A common win-condition for me was playing a 3/7 Tamed Mammoth (thanks to Call to Arms) followed by a 6/6 Bearstrider that bumped my Mammoth to a 4/7.

This would hit the board early enough that other forms of control weren't quite ready to remove them, so I'd get enough face damage that it was only a matter of time before they keeled over.

You could argue that all of the Blitz alternatives are better/faster/stronger/harder. . . wait. . . I mean more immediately useful, and to a certain extent I'd agree. It just seems like for an archetype named "Beefy War", there's a distinct lack of beefening effects beyond Out Of Its Misery!

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Interesting! Haven't really seen this version much, but it sounds like it could be more viable if a few extra cards were tailored for it. I'll take a closer look at this sometime soon, thanks a lot! 😄

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Looks very similar to war control to me :p But definitely beefy XD

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I'd say that in the GU Deck archetype page Control Warrior does fall under "Beefy War", but I think most variations of this archetype max out at 7-cost creatures, making it more mid-range than control IMO 😄

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You just add the Demos and it becomes control 😅

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Maaaan, y nobody luv mah Enrage God Power?

I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only one left still using Enrage :*(

I'm also surprised that "Beefy" applies to Ravenous Chimera while leaving Mercenary Daemon out in the cold. Heck, even a Mountain Greatwyrm looks mildly appealing in this archetype, buuuuut then I'd have to mention Enrage, again ;)

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😂 I think it just doesn't work too well currently, but then again I haven't tried it ever since I graduated out of F2P school. Lmao, I'm not sure what the GUDecks team was thinking when they named this. Every other deck archetype sounds pretty normal, but then you have "Beefy" 😂

Would definitely like to see a deck that centers around Enrage though!

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I pretty much main Enrage in all of my War decks.

For me, the main appeal of Enrage is the ability to drop Blitz creatures with unexpected threat ranges, setup Blood Rage combos, and spend leftover mana pumping up Armor creatures like Strix Conscript.

This shuts down early Control Magic, for example:

T1: Enduring Shield
T2: Bladecaster + Protect (baits 2-card removal from dummies, else Health ramps)
T3: Strix Conscript + Protect (immune to Magebolt, also requires 2-card removal)
T4: ENRAAAAAAAAAGE that dang Owl! (+1 Strength through the Protect!)

This works whether you go first or second, and it's not even a particularly "specialized" opening, as it's just one option for dealing with "plinker" (1pt of damage) Domains. It even extends to options like Hearts of Bronze, Guild Enforcer and Phalanx Lieutenant. If you're running a Control variant, even Bronze Gate can be Enraged!

My dream Enrage deck combines creature ramp with Armored Creatures for truly "Beefy" monstrosities that have no business ruinin' peoples day. I just need some of the more expensive Genesis/TotG cards, first :P

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Oh the Strix Conscript + Enduring Shield combo sounds pretty sick, not sure how consistent it'll be but I can imagine that it's really annoying to get rid of.

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I tried a version of this deck too lately. I would say that it is definitely better than the aggro version. Also found Strength in Numbers a little lackluster, but that can be attributed to the fact that true control decks are still rare on my rank (diamond, bottom of mythic).

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I don't think there are that many more control decks up the ladder to be honest, and it's probably just that Strength in Numbers wastes too much tempo for it to be useful in 90% of cases 😂

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It does feel bad to spend 7 mana and not getting anything on the same turn, for sure.

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(Edited)

First of all Beefy War, sounds like a new flavor for those instant cup noodles (sorry GU Decks) -- I definitely share the same opinion here with @rckmtl that it's a hilarious name for a deck build. :)

Expectant chicken is kinda creative -- I haven't seen it used in this type of deck in the meta but it does make sense.

You are right that without Demos and Avatar of War, this build might be closer to the aggro frenzy / mid rangy type and might not be that optimized for Strength in Numbers. I've seen jrok96 build that utilizes Tenderizer as its top-end card and that might be a good option to use if you like a faster alternative and gives that last "oomph" to finish the game.

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Nice one bro! I sometimes face difficulties going against those creatures... damn

Ya never expect the dude to heal himself so much out of nowhere!

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Yeah, a Hector with Twin Strike + Leech is almost going to ruin anyone's day 😂

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