While we don’t know anything for certain, history would suggest a new season and therefore a new core box will be headed our way sometime in the neighborhood of October. If we can rely on precedent set in the Championship days (and the rotation of Illusory Might/Deadly Depths in the interim), that means that sometime in the next two months we will possibly be losing access to the Gnarlwood Rivals Decks in competitive formats. While it can be fun to play with our new shiny toys or look forward to what might be under your Christmas tree this year, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the good times we had with Gnarlwood, the advent of the Nemesis Format, and the short meta where these 2-4 decks were all we had, really.

Decks (probably) soon to rotate are Tooth and Claw, Daring Delvers, Fearsome Fortress, and Beastbound Assault. I’ll touch on each in turn to share what I liked about them and how they were best used before. Looking ahead to their retirement, I will also talk about how I have been playing them with their horizon fast approaching and what last minute projects I want to squeeze in before these decks hit the Relic pile. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter as well!

Tooth and Claw

The original ABC, premier Aggro option for a long time, and definitely the most popular deck in my home group by a country mile. On one hand, I’ll be happy to see it go since I’ve seen it so many times (and it’s quite strong). On the other, I’ll be sad because the art is so cool, and once it’s gone it will be replaced by Breakneck or Parasite which are both also scary to face. In any case, the game plan of ‘get in there and punch stuff’ will always be fun, and you have to thank Tooth and Claw for letting us brawl with abandon to open the Nemesis era.

Historically strong pairings in my experience were:

• Gnarlspirit Pack, which blended the range 1 aggro with the beast mode and tied with the objectives very smoothly
• Rippa’s Snarlfangs who love invading aggro and have some good overlap in objectives
• Gorechosen of Dromm can utilize the Khorne keyword with Goreswamp (also a Domain, which they like), honestly need the dice accuracy help, and some mobility bonuses can help you sneak in Overhead Smash.
• Crimson Court can lean into nearly any playstyle, but with the 4×4 brawling ability and the increase in offensive output reliability, they do quite well here. The warband’s biggest issue is damage output, and TnC has multiple +damage options for them.

I have been playing TnC with the following warbands recently as a sendoff:

• Ironsouls Condemnors have been on my list of recent TnC uses, in part inspired by Mike Prime/Sleeksbowl and his Iron Claw deck that he took to LVO and the first Pink Slips match. It plays surprisingly smoothly for an older warband, and you love to see all that damage 3-4 rocking their socks off
• Khagra’s Ravagers are an old favorite that never really managed to get off the ground in the Championship days, but legitimately have play in Nemesis, at least with TnC. It’s been fun playing them with the fun pushes and bonus damage/dice.
• The Skinnerkin, which really only care about hitting specific attacks rather than getting kills, so the +dice and mobility boost actually gel quite nicely with their own scoring package.

I’d like to try these ideas before it’s gone for good:

• I’d like to give Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers a go, recognizing that they can benefit from some added mobility and a little extra push for the range 1 attack, but mostly because I really like the fluff for the card Leaderless Pack, which has Hrothgorn holding a dead and limp Sarrakar Blackwing by his head, menacing down at the rest of the GSP, saying “Better run, little men”. Will it be good? Probably not! But if I score that card I’ll be a happy boy.
• Xandire’s Truthseekers are another on my wish list, considering Mike Prime/Sleek also wrote up the Truth and Claw Guide and has had a lot of fun with the pairing. Xandire’s have a special place in my heart and I haven’t personally gone this angle with them yet.

Daring Delvers

When DD first came out, it was seen as the ‘obviously inferior’ of the two fully realized Rivals Decks in the core box. That changed over time once people figured out the utility it had and the ways positional play and invasion could be done without overreliance on the unfortunately under-scoring Exploration mechanic. Notably Aman Khusro won Adepticon with the Heakrakka’s Madmob using this deck, making use of the pings to set up a Wallop and Primacy grab. While that is a premier pairing for the deck, you really can do a lot with the deck so long as you’re willing to invade and occupy feature tokens while doing some fighting, and bonus points if you have a wizard and/or leader willing to do the same.

Historically strong pairings were:

• Headkrakka’s Madmob for the aforementioned reasons
• Starblood Stalkers as detailed by Bridget on this Underworlds Underground episode
• Myari’s Purifiers who like to hold objectives, have a wizard, and don’t mind getting access to a range 4 upgrade.

I have been playing DD with the following warbands recently as a sendoff:

• Xandire’s Truthseekers was fun (they usually are) and while I haven’t been pushing very high in exploration court, I have been piling up bodies pretty reliably.
• Ephilim’s Pandaemonium – I faced this pairing at the 2023 Tacoma Open and while it’s not their best it feels more interactive and ‘fair’ than some of the other choices EP gets to play with

I’d like to try these ideas before it’s gone for good:

• Zondara’s Gravebreakers can effectively abuse the exploration mechanic with feature token placement. I have seen them score Uncovered Secrets (a surge for 10 exploration count, so it has to be done before the 3rd end phase) which beforehand I felt was effectively impossible. They have a wizard and don’t mind a little invasion, and it could be good fun to just meme the Gravebreak reaction even further.
• Skittershank’s Clawpack, as I’ll be invading anyway and Enshoruded shot pairs really well with Prehensile Tail which could be funny (and help score Killer Supreme)

Fearsome Fortress

Fearsome Fortress was my favorite deck when it came out and in many ways still is. While the game at the time (and arguably still now) can be characterized in Nemesis as ‘midboard brawl’, FF asked you to do that in a way that kept the fight out of your territory without fully invading, asked you to hold tokens that were not necessarily in the enemy’s zone, and opened up plenty of ‘flex’, albeit in a way that placed you at substantial risk to open the game. I loved it! Man the walls, fight on the point, and stay alive for as long as you can. Don’t let them break through! How thematic.

Historically strong pairings were:

• Headkrakka’s Madmob, as championed by Skyler of What the Hex has the ability to push two fighters at the start of the game and can be on tokens before dice are rolled, which really smooths out some scoring options for them.
• Sons of Velmorn (details here though ‘strong’ is a relative term), which works better than you’d think, especially after the Command Counter boost.
• Ephilim’s Pandaemonium – slightly less reliable now that the errata to the Change Sequence reduces your odds of a good opening push, but still a pretty considerable pairing with lots of hold/fight overlap

I have been playing FF with the following warbands recently as a sendoff:

• Zondara’s Gravebreakers have an interesting angle for FF as they can move tokens quite easily. This has opened up scoring Raise the Walls (three tokens adjacent in Fortress Territory), Raw Materials (so long as you’ve killed one enemy), and Bold Sortie (pop the feature under Ferlain and then charge him for an easy activation 2 glory). They can’t Hold objectives, but they sure can stand on tokens!

I’d like to try these ideas before it’s gone for good:

• Brethren of the Bolt: while they fold far too quickly for their own good, do have some synergies here with their card package and their stagger effects. It’s gotta be better than my failed Paths of Prophecy experiment anyway, right?
• Sepulchral Guard are the premier hold warband right now, and while this deck isn’t probably as nice for them as Rimelocked, I never actually took this pairing and would be sad to miss my shot.
• I’ll be honest and say I probably have to give Velmorn his last dance with the deck despite the fact I’ve played it to death already

Beastbound Assault

Beastbound Assault was somewhat the black sheep of the four in Gnarlwood (and arguably of the full range right now). A deck that wanted you to have fighters with certain keywords, or apply upgrades that conferred them, it really was limited to those warbands that already had the keywords in question. Then, they had to be interested in invading aggro and not prefer one of the other two better invading aggro options. It has a lower glory output and generally less useful cards, but is still fun if you want to help your lil’ minions do some punching above their weight.

Historically strong pairings were:

• The Exiled Dead – with five resurrectable beasts and the desire to march into enemy territory and attack with those minions many times, it’s hard to find a cleaner fit for BBA
• Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers have a beast and three minions, and enjoy the added utility for those fighters. Hrothgorn himself doesn’t mind the denizen upgrades and when properly equipped becomes quite scary
• Mollog’s Mob – They’re beasts who will be assaulting. What’s not to love? Mollog has plenty of denizen upgrade space as well.

I have been playing BBA with the following warbands recently as a sendoff:

• Spiteclaw’s Swarm: with three resurrectable minions and their newer deck effectively demanding you play the Beastbound Assault gameplan, it was a decent enough pairing. A couple of Choose Gambits in there doesn’t hurt, but it wasn’t perfect.

I’d like to try these ideas before it’s gone for good:

• Thorns of the Briar Queen: While The Everhanged lost the Minion keyword, you still have four that can flood the enemy territory, appreciate pushes, and provide lots of support for your bigger hitters as well as wanting to stand on tokens here and there. It’s risky feeding Chainrasps to your opponent, but that’s BBA in a nutshell!
• Zondara’s Gravebreakers may not be the best pairing here (especially since it runs a little counter to the Salvaged Intelligence gameplan), but you have four beasts, one of which is a pretty good fighter. Is there an angle for getting all up in their business and making some Amberbone weapon attacks? Only one way to find out!

Wrap

What about you? What will you miss most about the Gnarlwood Rivals Decks? What plans do you have to take them out with for their retirement party? Let me know by writing to SpentGlory@gmail.com and however you choose to celebrate the end of an era and our first full Nemesis rotation cycle, be sure to enjoy spending that glory.