More Input: Shadespire Tournament Deck (Steelheart's Champions)

   Hi, fellow players, and good evening!

   Today I would like to share with you my Steelheart's Champions Deck for the upcoming Clash in Florence. I changed a lot of cards compared to my first attempt and, what's most important, now I have all the warbands around and I can build a very complete deck for the competitive play. I decided to stick to my beloved Stormcasts until this "season" is finished; the reasons are many, but firstly I love Steelheart's models and in second instance I didn't have the time to learn any other warband at a tournament level.

   My next one will be Ironskull's Boys... I've already painted models, I'm planning to write a tutorial for them and, in future, a post about their deck building.

    Now... straight to the deck!

    Overall Strategy

   Once I used to play quite conservatively, inviting enemy to come to my territory, holding at bay his attacks with my superior defence ability and then striking back with assistance, punishing him. I have found this style of play rewarding, but ineffectual against decks built around what I call the power triad: contained-denial-conquest.

    With this three cards a friend of mine showed me how one can easily, during the third end phase, lose a match dominated up to that point. So I realized that you cannot stay in your territory and passively wait for your challenger, you cannot just playing by reaction. You have to attack. 

    So I started, one step at a time, changing my style of play, orienting towards the attack. After many tentatives and matches against a bunch of good players I finally found the build I want, at this step of the game (just before Blood Warriors and Vanguard Hunters releases). Imagine this deck as a concatenated series of actions that lead straight to the opponent's defeat, (almost) each of them able to trigger others, allowing the player to quickly burn out the deck, without ever being stalled.

    Certanly you have to be a little daring, and know when an entire hand must be discarded but in the end, as long as you keep knocking out opposing models everything will be for the best and the deck will give you a lot of satisfaction. At least, if everything turns wrong, you do not have to suffer the power triad anymore, keep pushing and, maybe, if everything goes well, scoring it yourself.

    Steelheart's Champions Tournament Deck

    Objectives:

Contained

Crushing Force

Lightning Strikes

Swift Advance

Master of War

Awe-Inspiring

Alone in the Darkness

No Remorse

Ploymaster

Conquest

Consacrated Area

Denial

    Crushing Force, Lightning Strikes, Awe-Inspiring and No Remorse are all objectives you can score during you action phase, allowing you to draw a new one each time you achieve one of them and giving you fresh glory point to spend fast for Master of War.

    Denial, Conquest, Contained and Swift Advance are all bound together and are the backbone of the hard-pushing strategy. Also, following this tactic, you'll deny the same objectives in your opponent, forcing him to change approach. 

    Consacrated Area and Alone in the Darkness are tight together too: three points easily affordable with a few of good pushing-ploys. Ploys that lead you straight to Ploymaster.

    Ploy:

Tireless Assault

Distraction

Healing Potion

Shardfall

Sidestep

Peal of Thunder

Daylight Robbery

Duel of Wits
Scavenge
Time Trap
Righteous Zeal
Momentary Madness

    Duel of Wits is a must-have, just like Daylight Robbery. The first one is an always-win card, letting you draw two cards for one. The second will force your opponent (if he suspects something) to use all his glory points as soon as possible to deny you the possibility to steal one of them. Healing Potion will be useful to make your stormcast, few in number but very reliable, more difficult to kill. You can easily afford to lose one warrior, but two will be too much to remain actually in game.
    Tireless Assault has to be always in your hand waiting for that moment when you're going to punish the enemy in close combat, and Shardfall is another must-have card: you can do a lot of things with it, like covering an objective, protecting your warriors, closing enemy's routes or forcing him into another way.
     Righteous Zeal will help Brightshield to become as lethal as her team mates, or gives Obryn or Severin a chance to take out of action an enemy leader. Scavenge will give you one more option to score victory points, as well as Momentary Madness; a good card played with Awe-Inspiring and/or Lightning Strikes in your hand, possibly with the help of the tricky Time Trap. This is a dangerous but powerful combo.
   All the other cards are about movement. It's really important to move your warriors with ploys leaving their powerful activations for something else.

    Upgrades:

Blessed by Sigmar

Great Fortitude

Great Speed

Great Strenght

Legendary Swiftness

Heroic Stride
Cunning Duellist
Heroic Might
Headlong Charge
Solid Stance
Soultrap
Army of One

    These Upgrades are what I believe is, for my style of play, the most balanced choice between resistance, movement and attack.

    Steelheart's Champions:

   That's all from the Mirrored City, for now! Have a great day and see you next time!