In the wake of the championship I wanted to talk a bit about the most dominant strategies to present themselves at GenCon first I want to dive Into Brat Conway's devastating control deck!
That is one intimidating line up. And a pretty atypical one at that. Hogbox is the easiest choice here, without the Breaking Point change that will be added with Clash he is tied with Capri for the strongest shepherd in the game. He is even stronger in the context of this deck. This team is going to have no problem at all sacrificing Licky and Noggin in the end Game to turn Grinder into an unstoppable powerhouse. Feeding into Hank's life gaining ability!
This deck runs two support goats and one end game striker. In order to win this deck needs to lean on Grinder's defense in the early game then take tempo back with his devastating Mean in the mid-game. A popular deck in the preliminary round used Grinder + Twiddle to exploit soft spots in the enemy line up using direct damage like Flay Mind and Spin Attack. This deck is going in a different direction with Grinder. It is going to focus more on cards like Taunt, Callus, and Grinder's Glory to punish enemy offense until Grinder can come over for the win.
If Grinder has one weakness it is that he grows very slowly. Unlike Gusto (who is also a slow-growth high-cap mean gruff,) who brings tools like Rev Engines to counteract this weakness, Grinder really needs to spend several turns growing in order to get ahead of the Damage/Defense curve. Which means his perfect partner is Noggin.
Not only does Noggin profit of of every turn spent to get Grinder into fighting order, he also brings a lot of tools to get Grinder there faster. Cards like Bulk Up, Augmentor, Invigorate and Maximize cost a lot but are sure to put your damage ahead of your enemy's defense. Additionally, For Science says that in any late game stand-off you are going to be able to outlast your opponent! This deck has a high crazy requirement and is throwing around a lot of mutations, which brings us to the suprise favorite of 2016 Licky.
Licky is a bold move here, by not taking a sturdier gruff this team is left without a defensive line (and without tools like Block and Intimidate) Obviously the risk was worth the reward in this case. As you have already seen Grinder and Noggin are already going to be bringing enough mutations to keep Licky happy. Licky also has the ability to move mutations around the board meaning that using Lick on Callus or Grinder's Glory can offset the costs of not bringing a tank, while earning the benefits of massive amounts of resource generation (Something this team desperately needs.)
So how do you defeat a deck like this? The slow nature of Grinder's build and the attack deflecting nature of the deck leaves this team wide open to combo builds. Zumberg, Skullheim, Bubbles and Brine would be my choice to knock this team off it's pedestal. Part of Brat Conway's brilliance is that neither pod drafted the gruffs that would be required to take this team down.
So how do you defeat a deck like this? The slow nature of Grinder's build and the attack deflecting nature of the deck leaves this team wide open to combo builds. Zumberg, Skullheim, Bubbles and Brine would be my choice to knock this team off it's pedestal. Part of Brat Conway's brilliance is that neither pod drafted the gruffs that would be required to take this team down.
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