Extreme Budget Deck - Rakano - Warcry

Part of the updated Extreme Budget Deck series. Criteria are no legendaries, rares or promos.

Play Tips

- In general, you want to mulligan for a curve of units you can play out beginning on turn 1. A combat trick or weapon is a nice addition.
- Elder's Feather allows you to evade most big bodies to keep swinging until your larger warcried units come down. If you find you need more, I'd replace Ornate Katana with Relentless Deadshot.
- Often a warcry can be worth more than a smaller unit, especially if the issue is a blocker that's larger than most of your deck. Don't be afraid to lose units as long as you're gaining face damage or warcries that will help you get more face damage through within a turn or two.
- The most common mistake with this deck is not being aggressive enough. You need to kill your opponent quickly, which often means deciding to race rather than trade. You should be constantly calculating best use of your fast spells on blockers vs. face to minimize the number of turns until your opponent is dead.
- As with any go-wide aggro deck, don't play units unless they lower your # turns to lethal damage--this allows you to recover from sweepers without reducing your current odds of a win.


Build Tips

- If you own the campaign, I would strongly suggest replacing another weapon with Inquisitor's Blade.
- Tailor your removal package toward the current meta or prevalent opponent units which usually cause a loss. I'd suggest:
Varied meta: Sword of Icaria or Flame Blast (can both go face when not needed versus units)
Other aggro: Defiance
Mastery: Inflict Conscience
Recursion: Defiance or Edict of Kodosh
Lifesteal: Edict of Kodosh or Ankle Cutter
Aegis: Edict of Shavka
Big Time (aggro's arch-nemesis): Vanquish
Sites: Flame Blast or Streets Aflame; Casualties of the Cause is also good for this but less versatile versus sweepers or removal piles; Signal Flare only kills smaller sites but is fine versus something like Skycrag yeti.
Avoid removal which requires sacrificing a unit; you really need all of your units.
- I've included what I believe are the best fast aggro weapons, but you can also try relatively inexpensive weapons with good stats and keywords that reward attacking, like Morningstar or Heretic's Cannon (not more than 2 copies to keep the deck low to the ground). If you just need to keep swinging into same-size units in your first few turns, try Crownwatch Longsword.
- Teething Whelp, Ghostblade Outcast, Acclaimed Artisan, and Whirling Duo are all acceptable units to substitute because they carry warcries well (provide benefit over +1/+1 on a normal unit) and work with an aggro gameplan. Shavka Evangel and Kodosh Evangel also carry warcries well and can substitute, but you're unlikely to need the influence fixing and they don't provide quite as much control over when and how you push damage.
- Strength of Many is a good substitute for Finest Hour or a set of weapons if you find you're being outraced by token-based aggro strategies.

Upgrade This Deck
0. Merchants: This should probably be your first purchase. Red Canyon Smuggler is favored for this deck, but you'll eventually want Ixtun Merchant and Winchest Merchant as well--so these are good options if you'd like them for other decks.

1. Market Legendaries (single copy):
- Deepforged Plate: Probably Rakano aggro's single most powerful upgrade. Use this to break Permafrost and push damage through blockers.
- Pristine Light: A great tool for aggro that deals with Big Time or other decks that produce larger units very quickly. Most of your board dodges this removal, and you'll get back all the cards that don't. Use this rather than Harsh Rule. Please, please do not be an aggro player who uses Harsh Rule.

2. Weapons:
- Shogun's Scepter provides another rank of Warcry plus an additional Warcry unit; this would probably be my first choice.
- Vanquisher's Blade and Longbarrel each provide some utility as removal while providing stats or keywords which make them worthwhile to play as-is without spellcrafting.
- Inquisitor's Blade provides another source of evasion and accumulates warcries which remain upon recursion.
- Hammer of Might is a perennial favorite as a top-end weapon for warcry decks. While I don't typically recommend the strategy, new players may be interested to note that equipping one of these on an attacking Navani, Warsinger will Warcry 5 your entire deck.
- Auric Runehammer can typically be relied upon to remove two units and has the added benefits of both denying lifesteal to the opponent and protecting your own health.
- Kaleb's Persuader is the legendary weapon I would recommend for most fire-based aggro decks, as it breaks face aegis for your direct damage, pumps Flame Blast, removes power after T4 to increase the odds you'll draw gas, and generally rewards attacking.

3. Units:
- Highland Sharpshooter, Champion of Glory, and Valkyrie Enforcer (in that order) are the primary units I would recommend as upgrades.
- Pyroknight is a good 1-drop which carries warcries unusually well because it pushes overwhelm damage. It also activates an ultimate to push through or trade with larger units late-game.
- Unseen Commando, Crimson Firemaw, and Eclipse Dragon are all good fliers which reward aggro strategies. Icaria, Valkyrie Captain can be used, but does not reward aggro strategies and is better suited for an Empower-based aggro deck.
- Akko, Inspired Artist, Shen-Ra, Unbreakable, and Varret, Hero-in-Training all reward early aggro strategies. I would recommend Varret as a first set of legendary units for the majority of aggro decks. Be aware that Shen-Ra carries warcries well but cannot use weapons, and Akko frequently requires a T1 on-the-play start or an Elder's Feather to get through.
- Kemmo, Ijin's Apprentice is a decently-statted Warcry unit which provides cheap, insanely-large weapons. You can't depend upon drawing the weapons, and they're seldom worth tutoring, but they're a nice bonus.
- Sheriff Marley is a good inclusion in control metas with lots of removal.

4. Spells:
- A single copy of Bore in your market can liberate multiple units from Permafrost or remove an Avigraft. If you typically only need a single attachment removed to win, I tend to prefer Ruin instead.
- A single copy of Righteous Fury in your market can push extra face or overwhelm damage for lethal, and helps sustain you for an extra few turns versus midrange decks.
- A single copy of Withstand in your market can often substitute for Deepforged Plate as it liberates a unit from Permafrost while providing a few extra stat points to swing for lethal. If you find that you often need to play Deepforged Plate on a unit before the unit can swing and dies to removal, try this instead and apply it at your opponent's end-of-turn.
- A single copy of Cloud of Ash in your market often allows you to A+space for lethal.
- A single copy of Obliterate in your market acts as emergency removal for large blockers, and can often deal direct lethal to your opponent.
- My preferred strategy is often to run Flame Blast main (here it would replace Longhorn Sergeant) and a copy of Obliterate in the market. When I'm relying on big fire spells for at least some direct damage, Obliterate often removes a blocker and deals 1-2 Overwhelm damage to break face aegis, permitting me to Flame Blast for lethal after a swing the following turn.

5. Relics:
- Paladin Oathbook can replace a set of weapons to reward aggro strategies and help decks that rely on snowballing rather than going wide. Xulta Loyalist does the same; this card set is more expensive but does allow you marginally more wins versus midrange.
- Golem Press is a good market card to repopulate your board in a Hailstorm meta, but works better in an aggro deck that relies on weapons or combat tricks rather than buffs which hit your deck.

6. Power:
- Emblem of Shavka and Emblem of Kodosh can help you avoid flooding while giving you more bodies for aggro. This strategy works less well with warcry, however, because you're often dependent on snowballing buffs to your deck.
- Crest of Glory can help you pull a warcried unit or weapon to the top, rather than a power you don't need. Be careful of including too many depleted power in your deck; aggro doesn't fare well unless it can play early units on curve.
- Rakano Banner should almost always be present as a one-of in your market if you struggle with power or influence, because the merchant played for access ensures the power never comes into play depleted.