So recently I wrote up a whole thing about playing whatever goofiness you feel like and exploring the meta rather than playing whatever is ‘good’. I stand by that, but I wanted to hold myself accountable. Taking a look at my personal log, I noticed I had played a game with every valid pairing in the current card pool, with the exception of one.

Emberstone Sentinels & Raging Slayers. Two decks that ask you to do completely contradictory things, and a Plot Card that makes it nigh impossible to hold treasure tokens. Why would anybody ever put these two together? What kind of madman would do that to themselves?

Hi, it’s me! A madman!

Post-editing update: It ends up I’m not the only madman. ‘Berta’s own G brought ES/RS to NOVA Open ’25 and did quite well for himself, so I terminated the experiment early since I got scooped by a smarter dude than me. Another player took ES/RS to a 7 man event in Denmark using Emberwatch and got 2nd, so it’s, like, a real thing now

Choosing a Strategy

The way I see it, there are three general approaches available to me if I’m cooking up a deck here, and they’re based on which deck is my ‘primary’ scoring package. I can:

• Lean into ES and avoid Enrage-based cards
• Lean into RS and avoid Hold-based cards
• Try to walk to tightrope of insanity and go 50/50

ES has the best scoring package of the two decks, and the ‘safest’ route would be to focus on scoring Emberstone Sentinels hold stuff and just know I have a reroll in my pocket on occasion – especially if I also pack plenty of power cards that remove my enrage tokens. This is the likeliest to win a game in my estimation (though where’s the fun in that?)

I legitimately think overloading RS objectives with just some ES power card support is super hard. I might try it, but am not expecting anything to work out without a very nice warband warscroll to help out.

Going halvesies? Now there’s a challenge that might actually be achievable, but will take some skill and big brain stuff on my part.

Regardless of which approach I am going to aim for with this bad pairing, I’ll try to make the best possible deck out of it. First things first though, I’ll need to grab a warband.

Selecting a Warband for ES/RS

Fortunately, I’m not the only one crazy enough to try this thought experiment. I probably am the only one dumb enough to actually play it though. Staggerers does a Dexamples series where they make decks for every combo, and made an entry for ES/RS with the Emberwatch. They explain why here.

Solid reasoning, as you have potentially multiple pushes every round to get onto tokens for end phase scoring. That’s a better option than most, for sure. However, because I’m a madman as we have established earlier, I’m going to look elsewhere. I’ve played enough Emberwatch recently that I’ve retired them for the time being after their run at the Tacoma Open. So, deciding on a warband, I will want somebody who has the following potential attributes:

• 4 or fewer fighters in case I need to ‘charge out’ for RS Objectives
• Ranged attacks to help make charges (and hopefully onto tokens but away from enemies)
• Warscroll pushes and/or teleports
• The ability to not be pushed/driven back

The core question I need to ask before choosing a warband is which of the three strategies above I’ll go for. In my assessment, some warbands in my collection who might be able to make one or more approaches work are:

• The Emberwatch (as discussed above)
• Khagra’s Ravagers (benefits for being on tokens and help getting on tokens, plus ranged options)
• Ylthari’s Guardians (teleport ability to snag a token)
• Myari’s Purifiers (good range, benefit from the RS reroll, Bahanar can’t be pushed unless he’s enraged if I keep his Aetherquartz)
• Kamandora’s Blades (potential for the Worthy Skull push to get me on lots of tokens)
• Knives of the Crone (RS reroll increases odds to Foretell Wisdom and manipulate my objective deck)
• Morgok’s Krushas (if avoiding enrage, have a guard token in their warscroll, as well as a multipush)
• The Skinnerkin (rerolls = more haunch = potential for Stand Fast, though not on an enraged fighter, once-per-round warscroll push)
• Ironsoul’s Condemnors (love the reroll for inspiring, and at the start if the round can’t be pushed as well as having a range extension)
• Thricefold Discord (good range, multipush)
• The Farstriders (Multipush, every fighter with range, a bonus move, and a warscroll guard token)

Attempt #1: Emberstone Sentinels Focus with Khagra’s Ravagers

Deck Link

For this iteration’s scoring, I leaned almost all the way into hold stuff as discussed. I only ended up taking a handful of RS objectives, none of which mentioned Enraging at all: Supreme Slayer (my leader kills her second thing) Best Foot Forward (I hit with a charge into enemy territory), and Into the Fire (my leader is in enemy and near two other fighters). This is going to require me to get on token, stay on token, keep Khagra alive, and hopefully killing things. I won’t ever HAVE to enrage to score, so hopefully I can do that very selectively.

In the ploys, I took the usual defensive and stuff for ES (as well as Switch Things Up, which is super useful for inspiration since the desecration moves with the token), and was pretty careful about my RS ploys. Venting Strike and Knife to the Heart will let me enrage and immediately un-enrage so I prevent the Poor Footing. What Pain can remove up to two rage tokens should I happen to have them, or could be used as a quick rage-charge-heal-unenrage combo to keep Khagra ticking for a bit longer. If I play this right, I’ll only have an enraged fighter available to be driven back for free a couple times a game. I was really sad to leave Honed Reflexes on the cutting table since defensive rerolls are awesome, but it only applies to enraged fighters and that’s a status I’m working to avoid.

Upgrade wise, I maintained the standard staples from ES to be defensive and capable of brawling when the time comes. From RS I went pretty light again to avoid Enrage-dependence. The three I took are Haymaker (for the big swing when needed, and blessedly doesn’t require enraging), Gifted Vitality (in the event I get it early enough to pop a little extra healing on an important fighter), and Stubborn to the Bone which will allow one fighter to enrage without consequence. I won’t be able to push them with sidestep, duelist, or the warscroll Ravaging Advance, so I have to play it smart, but it also make them unmovable from the opponent’s perspective too so I can potentially plant a charged fighter somewhere and be sure they’ll hold for me the rest of the round.

The strategy will be to hold early and play defensively if needed in order to inspire, then open up a bit and start thinning out the enemy while still holding when and where possible. It’d probably going to depend on more than a little luck and some clever denial since the score might be low on my end, but an end-of-round enrage to help overrun might just work for me.

Test #1: ES/RR Khagra vs ES/PP Kunnin’ Krew

I was fortunate enough to lose the board roll-off, which meant I got to stack my zone with tokens and help inspire, then set out to follow the plan. I was a little nervous because this was very similar to Davy’s NOVA winning list, but I also luckily drew into Venting Strike and Knife to the Heart so I could remove Rage tokens twice in the first round. I killed a grot, managed to inspire and score Supremacy, and was off to the races for round 2. Khagra healed twice, got Great Fortitude, and managed to score me Supreme Slayer, even obliterating Torka with Haymaker. Dice were very kind to me, and my winning priority to claim tokens slowed his scoring down significantly, winning me the game against all expectations. In the end, I don’t know that I could replicate this result, but ES/RR can win, at least if you load up on ES scoring and get a little lucky.

Result: ES/RR Khagra wins, somehow, 15-8

On to the next challenge – an even balance between RS and ES, which will either be awesome or fall totally flat, able to do neither of the things I am aiming for. Anybody can win with ES with a sprinkling of something else, but is a real Nemesis ES/RS deck capable of success?

Attempt #2: Balanced Focus with The Farstriders

OK – why Farstriders? Well, in this round, I am planning to go halvsies and try for more RS stuff I think I can reasonably fit, which will mean getting fighters enraged and into enemy territory, and hopefully holding a treasure or two while I’m there. Farstriders already want to be in enemy territory, all have a ranged attack, have a warband-wide push, an free move action, and a guard token built into the warscroll. While they’re not the greatest warband (and I’m 1-4 with them going into this experiment), their general gameplan isn’t super far off from what I’m aiming for here and they have the tools I’ll need. If I can place 2 treasures in enemy territory, then actually get over and hold them, it might work. Here goes nothing!

Deck link

In the Surge department, I took 3 Emberstone cards and 3 Slayers cards. Unassailable could potential score if un-enraged or to open a round (and I DO have a guard token, plus some anti-push tech), aggressive defender is a piece of cake with ranged attacks, and Sally Forth can score in some of the same ways Unassailable can, as well as pushing back on after getting knocked off. RS surges are gong to focus on getting over there hard and killing with my leader, which was the plan anyway.

For End Phases, I actually only took two: Supremacy (because, how can you not) and Iron Grasp. Iron Grasp is great because I can score it with holding only 1 token if that’s all there is, and could score it together with Supremacy. Everything else is ‘get over there and kill’ which, again, big surprise. I opted NOT to take Slow Advance since I want to be in Enemy territory for everything else, and don’t want to have to turn back to neutral territory and pray I stay there for a single card.

Ploys were a little tough. I took 3 ‘remove your enrage’ cards despite needing enrage to score – but only one score in the end phase for 1 point so I’m ok dumping that one. Hopefully I can delay the cards until the surges are dealt with. Otherwise I took a few ‘get on tokens’ cards, a few survival cards, and Slayer’s Aid which will hopefully allow for crafty token theft and/or a bonus attack.

Upgrades saw the usual staples, a well as United in Anger which I am starting to really like. It gets you a potential dozen sidesteps, though directionally limited, but the potential is huge. I can warscroll push, and then react to that push with this card to push. Extra utility, extra token occupancy, extra enraged melee attacks, gravy.

Test #2: ES/RR Farstriders vs ES/PP Kunnin’ Krew

Poor Andrew, facing the same indignity again. Mr Drex is the type of guy to hand you a couple deck boxes and say ‘pick one of these’ and twice now I have randomly selected this matchup. It worked for me the first time, so now we get to see if either of us has learned any lessons from our first go as ES/RS Dealer’s Choice vs ES/PP Kunnin Krew.

While I ‘won’ the setup roll-off, I still did manage to end up with three treasure tokens in enemy territory – my ES/PP opponent wanted a few for himself and to entice me to walk into his flanked and surrounded trap. I gladly obliged, since that’s what I wanted to do anyway! I had a pretty awesome opening hand with Supremacy, Sally Forth, Knife to the Heart, and Confusion, so I could get on a token (bashing Mannok for 2 while I was at it, +1 for Knife to the Heart) and ensure I stayed there. Twice in the opening round I got back onto tokens with a warscroll push and a crafty Confusion, then popped the warscroll Guard token to stay put with one while using Brute Momentum for the other. Hold 2? Don’t mind if I do.

Poor Mannok bit the dust when he ate a crossbow bolt to leave him on one health, and then my inspired Eagle-eye got to use his “I’m vulnerable and took an action in enemy territory” ping, rolled a hammer, and did 2 effective damage from range. Torka mulched him right after, but like, that’s the dream, fam. If only I was able to score Aggressive Defender at the same time. I then used my warscroll free move to snag a token and stop Strip the Realm in round 2, and Round 3 I managed to score some ‘your leader is cool’ stuff, before flipping enough tokens to block his Desolate Homeland and Torn Landscape (though shutting me out of Iron Grasp). It was a relatively low-scoring affair as we both missed more attacks than you’d like and focused on some counterplay at the end, but the defense tech was online for both teams.

Result: ES/RR Farstriders win, 14-10

OK, some luck required again, but again it looks like you can indeed with with ES/RS in the balanced pairing as well. Which means the only thing left to do is lean all the way into that aggro-crag and…

Attempt 3: RS Focus with… uh, nevermind

It was at this point I realized the jig was up, because somebody had beaten me to the proverbial punch. I was busy deciding between whether I would go full RS with Ironsoul for the inspire, or Skinnerkin because I love them and why not stack multiple bads together? Plus that reroll (on swords…) is the only was I’m getting any Haunch. Then I saw the NOVA results.

I was no longer special for playing something dumb and unique, and even worse, it was done at a large, worlds ticketed event. So there goes that honor. Anyway, let’s peek in at somebody who probably worked harder on this combo than I have.

Live Fire Results From Real Competition

As I alluded to earlier, G (one of the smartest Underworlds players I’ve had the privilege of meeting) decided to take ES/RS to the Nova Open 2025, and ended up taking 4th place overall, just missing the podium. He paired them with Knives of the Crone, selectively enraged, and used the enrage reroll to prophecize and inspire more reliably and manipulate his objective deck to smooth it out. Here’s a link to his deck:

Interestingly G did face Davy’s ES/PP Kunnin’ Krew and lost – so it’s not like this is a solved match-up by any means. From the description Davy gave on the What the Hex Podcast, G had one round of atrocious dice but kept it very close in the second match and it was ‘definitely lose-able’, so sounds like Knives can work with this pairing like I had thought it could at the outset. G went with the ES-heavy focus and a few un-enrage cards, which I also think is the most competitive version of this combo.

To comment on differences between G’s Knives deck and my Khagra rendition, I think it’s a little weird that he took Wrong-Footed Stance. It’s not the world’s greatest domain, especially in a deck where he also took Unrelenting Massacre, but maybe he wanted to punish some Pillage and Plunder teleport shenanigans. I suppose he had less need for Honed Reflexes with the warscroll’s defensive reroll, and as I said before it only works on Enraged fighters which this flavor of ES/RS is trying to avoid. Careful Advance is also a weird include to me, as is Hidden Paths. I also think that Knives, while great for the ability to shuffle through their Objective deck, ultimately struggles with no pushes, guard, etc on their warscroll. In my two test games above, the ability to make free move actions and pushes was instrumental to my success, and G was working with fewer tools. Despite that, he still took 4th at a major Grand Clash!

Wrap

So that’s a lot of words that honestly never needed to be written, and if you read this far – thank you, but also, it’s rude to gawk at crazy people.

All this to say: ES/RS is possible, and was a fun side project for me as it could be for you. I don’t think it has the world’s greatest synergy but wasn’t nearly as garbage as I thought when I first brainstormed the pairing, and with the right warband and a little luck it can hang with the B tier and even some A tier stuff!

Play the weird combos. Try out a new deck pairing, pick up an off-kilter warband, and explore this game. There is so much out there besides BA/PP and PP/CC. Who knows, you might even have some fun! Whatever pairing you choose, get out there and Spend to Glory, and I’ll see you in the next unhinged rambling.