Hey guys, recently I played agaisnt some KF dude that had a few units with declare hunted. I have no idea if he was running a dedicated bg, but it brought the ability to my attention, so I decided to give it a go. Since I have little to no experience playing KF and have none of the more expensive runes I decided to get some feedback on it before actually getting the runes. So the following bg is still only the initial idea. https://poxbase.com/deck/Cd-coxCoCzlcx5Chxc5AcunciCxxs3WS3qs5-s1vs1as5Ws4Kr2Yr2zrUe2Fe31e2ue2w Centaur Archer is actually Centaur Bolter and Crown of Petals is Inhibit Power. I'm still debating if I want a Bowmage or a Flamemage in there. While Flamemage has less synergy it has dispel and inhibiting touch. The main idea of the bg maximize Declare Hunted potential. So comboing it with Bullseye + Elven Strategist + Horn or Order will generate insane amout of damage with very little setup. For instance Centaur Bolter hitting a non flying champ boosted by Battlemaster will deal like 25 dmg with a cast of Bullseye. So these are the power turn enablers. On the off turns, the ranged champs will be stacking 4 different types of DoT. As I said, I don't have much experience with KF, so I'm sure the spell/champ selection could still be improoved. One thing I couldn't find any options was ways of dealing with summons. How KF usually deal with them? Anyways, I would like to hear some criticism from KF players.
Naturalize seems like a decent option since its only CD4. Included the ranger exactly because of battle leader. What did you think about the champ choices or the bg overall?
Just my thoughts. You're running a lot of archers. You might want to consider running Archer Commander and/or Fire for Effect. I'm not a huge fan of Fairy Trickster due to its cost and low hp - kinda depends on why you're running it whether you want to leave it in or not. I'd probably swap it out for Dugon for another Battlemaster source - another way to go would be Combined Arms since you have a pretty diverse bg. I'd probably swap Horn of Order for Murder. What's the reason for two Arrowsingers? I'd run Bowmage over Flamemage. You have Cleansing Emerald already and if you're going for burst damage you're trying to one round everything so you're not overly concerned by healing. You really only need either Escape Magic or Protection. They're good, but they take up slots. Since you don't have a lot of healing Protection is probably the better choice. I like Dreambox, but it's a defensive choice which seems to go against the style of this bg, you've got enough Elves to make Epochal Oasis a viable choice in its place.
Thanks for the suggestions! I didn't include Fire for Effect cuz it overlaps with Burn from Arrowsinger. I included two of them due to their ability to improve range, magical dmg, Burn and Aim/Preparation. Seems like a unit that's pretty valuable in a ranged based bg but maybe two is too much. Archer Commander might be a nice include for the AoE. I wonder if those work with declare hunted, the wording suggests that it should. Why murder instead of Horn? I don't think this bg would have problems with high def. Horn adds ap gen, dmg boost and a perseverance counter. It fills a ton of roles and works well with the healing fairy spare ap. Flamemage would be included to dispel and prevent healing. Anti healing would pair well with all the DoT stacking. Bowmage is more focused on CC and anti def with illuminate. Maybe Archer Commander on this slot. Fairy Trickster is in there for utility /harassment /hex. Dreambox would go well with it and is a counter to relics. I'm thinking Naturalize instead of Dreambox. Regarding Dugon, I think he's too expensive and has no synergy with the rest of the bg. Maybe another Strategist or a Fishkisser for some tanking. Lastly, I included both protection and escape bcuz most units seems to be really squishy. Maybe swap one for Epochal for some hit and run tactics.
Arrowsinger is great in range, but the problem with the range bg's is you run out of space quick. You're really weak to bg's that have a lot of Absorb and Arrow Eater and you need to have things to fill those holes. Archer Commander is good because it helps to get around Arrow Eater with the AoE as well as granting AoE's to other nearby archers. I prefer Murder to Horn due to Strike. KF champs tend to be low damage and boosting them up by allowing them to ignore defense is pretty nice. Horn is really strong, but these types of bg's really rely on a lot of champs and so Horn becomes out of reach a lot of times. Murder is a lot less expensive an equip. Also Horn makes your healer a priority target and it hurts to lose that 50 nora equip before it does much good. Nora Thief is also nice if you can get enough charges to use it. If you're looking for a good counter for Perseverance Withering Fern is pretty nice. I get what you're saying about Flamemage. I prefer the stun from Bowmage when you already have spot cleanse that's pretty easy to apply. When they're stunned you can either ignore them for a bit or use the -2 as an opportunity for focus fire. Either is good though. Naturalize is pretty good. As far utility and harassment I prefer other options, but Hex is definitely a point in Trickster's favor. Experimental Warspirit might also be worth a slot for you. Dispel is pretty nice. Dugon is fairly expensive, but pretty useful if you can get him out. His use for the bg would be primarily for Battlemaster and Triumphal Roar. Dreambox is great vs FW, but it's often not that great a deploy, although the stealthed portion of it can make it useful for font contesting. Run both Escape Magic and Protection for a bit. My guess is that you'll run one more than the other after a bit and then find yourself not using one, but it might work well for you to run both. I used to run both when they were less expensive. They're nice but again they're defensive rather than offensive which seems to work opposite how you want this bg to.
You forgot to mention Shatter Summoned on Fae Dreamer. It's why she's really good even outside of Faes. In Garus there's Warcaller Fiorn with Battle Leader and in Vashal there's Vashal Quillquip with Provision: Utility (grants shatter summoned) and Vashal Cavalier with Battle Leader. KF has a fair bit of anti-summons but they're theme-specific apart from naturalize.
The thing I don't like about multiple instances of Declare Hunted is that the champion closest to battle may end up getting most of the "hits" of Declare Hunted, diminishing the power of the ability. I've suggested to Sok that Declare Hunted would be much better if the ability targeted the "closest opposing champion without Hunted." A deck with multiple instances of Declare Hunted would be nice then!
Very true... maybe he needs a few Elven Strategist then. Relocate, deploy a declare hunted champ, then power turn.
While it would be much better, I believe it would be too good at that point since they're whole deck would be vulnerable to yours. The way the mechanic is set up it is still very useful but the effects will not be seen till later in the match. What i mean by this is that when you declare one of your opponent's champ with hunted they will become more defensive in their play and not recklessly charge in their champ due their newfound weakness. The opponent will start to turtle and drag the game out. As this is happening you can apply the hunted condition on other champs and build on your advantage. The point i'm making is that this is ability is not really on burst damage, but late game damage instead. I'm sure you can get spots here and there during a game where you can get a burst kill but ability shines in the late game.
