The Warhammer franchise has attracted fans from every corner of the world. The amazing setting and fantastic writing behind the universe of Warhammer has earned every game set in the Warhammer universe a cult following. Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions is one of the newer entries in the Warhammer universe and finally brings the series into the TCG genre.
The game has had mixed reviews and can be complicated to grasp at first. What makes it so unique is that it features both digital and real-life gameplay that only a handful of games have attempted before. Players can choose to play the physical or digital game much like MTG or similar games with both real-life and digital cards. But Champions has gone a step further and allows for hybridized gameplay as well.
Four starter campaign decks have been released to get players started, but choosing one of the four can be difficult. Each deck has the essentials needed to play the game. You will get four champions and a quick reference sheet to give you a rundown of how the deck plays. Each deck has a unique playstyle to use in-game. Here is a brief summary of the four starter decks for Age of Sigmar: Champions and which one you should choose.
Chaos
The Chaos deck is a bit of a glass cannon. It focuses on boosting your damage but doesn’t have a lot of effects for keeping your health up or preventing incoming damage. The deck makes heavy use of combining multiple cards and their effects to deal massive amounts of damage to your opponent.
This deck starts with four unique champions, the Chaos Champion, Aspiring Deathbringer, Iridescent Horror, and a Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury. The Champions are all about dealing damage and increasing the amount of damage you can deal overall. They capitalize on combination attacks and effects.
The remaining units, spells, and blessings of the deck are all geared towards increasing your damage output. This is a very aggressive deck similar to the Destruction deck that is geared towards players that like fast-paced aggro strategies.
Death
The Death starter deck is all about increasing your health and getting the most out of your discard pile. This is a more technical deck that relies on effects and forethought to be able to get ahead. Players that use this deck really gain momentum during the mid-game when well laid plans can start coming to fruition.
This is one of two decks that have two copies of the same champion. It features two Skeleton Champions along with a Hungering Vampire Lord and a Bloody Vampire Queen. The Champions are designed to increase your health and keep your hand full of units.
What makes this deck so troublesome for opposing players is that it will keep your health high and mitigate incoming damage. The blessings and spells for this deck prevent incoming damage or let you put discarded units back into your deck to use later. They also allow you to shuffle the deck fairly frequently which can be very useful if you happen to keep getting a bad hand
Most of the units have effects that will either increase your health, remove an opposing unit from play, or add a card to your hand. The deck also allows you to frequently manipulate your opponent’s units and force them to place cards they have in-play back into their deck.
Destruction
Destruction is the “strongest” of the starter decks because it can generate a lot of damage very quickly. It is geared towards the fast-paced aggro strategy used by more aggressive players. It is a very “top-heavy” deck that is great for bringing down opponents in the early game if you can get enough momentum. Destruction and variants of it are the most prominent decks in the current metagame. It is able to generate lots of actions in a short period of time but isn’t very effective in the late-game.
The deck features Champions like the Megaboss on Maw-Krush that are designed to be quickly rotated for small bursts of damage early in the game. The champions let you start the game with higher health, but this can be offset by the overall lower defense and more aggressive playstyle needed to use the deck effectively. This deck features two copies of the Orruk Boss champion.
The blessings for this deck capitalize on benefiting Orruk units. They can easily allow you to overwhelm your opponents with a steady stream of units. They also can keep plenty of cards in your hand throughout gameplay. The blessings can help you maintain an aggressive momentum throughout a match and can save you if you get caught on the backfoot.
Order
The order deck is a more technical deck that has a variety of effects to make use of. This is the only starter deck that is geared towards the late game. It focuses on maintaining your health while slowly chipping away at your opponent with well-balanced units and effects. This is a good all-around deck for players of every type but is really best for people that prefer to play the long game.
The deck’s four Champions are Liberator-Prime, Knight-Heraldor, Lord-Relicator, and Vandus Hammerhand. The champions manipulate your card rotations throughout gameplay allowing you to get the most out of each unit. Vandus Hammerhand is the only Champion in the deck that is designed primarily for damage instead of controlling gameplay.
The units, blessings, abilities and spells all have a variety of effects used to control the field and the flow of the game. They allow players to easily manipulate their opponents as well as their own units to get the upper hand in the late-game. It is easy for this deck to become absolutely infuriating for opponents simply because it can undermine just about any strategy through control effects.
