I will very soon be welcoming a baby! That means I’m not going to be playing for a while and figured this was as good a time as any to take a retrospective look at second edition and what my personal experience has been with various warbands and decks as a sort of meta analysis.

This article OF COURSE has been watered down a substantial amount because of the very recent Worlds FAQ and FaR list, as all of this data is from the whole edition but NOT from this brand new meta we are in. The good news is that most of what I’m going to tell you to try for yourself is now the greener pastures you’ll be looking for after your favorite BARF has been slaughtered.

Here’s the google sheet I store all my data on if you want to dig around and look for yourself, and maybe discover something you want to try for yourself. Or just make fun of how I can’t beat my daughter or my wife. Soon I will be losing to my second daughter as well.

Anyway, this post will mostly be rambling while reviewing my chart and will focus on a few different things. I’ll look at warbands with high or low win rates and commentary – especially those that don’t align with ‘common wisdom’. We will look at my record playing against some things as well. I then do the same thing with various Rivals Decks and Nemesis Pairings (noting such standouts as “apparently Realmstone Raiders is the deck I perform best with”), followed by some quick hits of the decks I play against.

Warbands As Played by Fishmode

There are four warbands I have played a ton this edition and took to major events: Tacoma Open twice, LVO once, and the World Championships. As such, I think we can trust that those warbands have a decent sample size to actually mean something. Those four ranked by win percentages:

• Emberwatch: 77.78% (36 games played)
• Starblood Stalkers; 73.68% (38 games played)
• Gorechosen of Dromm: 73.17% (41 games played)
• Dread Pageant: 63.3% (30 games played)

The numbers speak for themselves, but I do legitimately believe that the Emberwatch is the best and most competitive choice of those 4, both at the time I played them and also in the current meta. All of those warbands can obviously do just fine, but Dread Pageant is a really tough one and looking back I’m still very surprised I managed to do that well with them once upon a time. Dread Pageant absolutely can’t keep up in today’s game and my few tests in the last couple months helped drag that average down pretty steadily.

Outside of those competition teams, there are several that I have played double-digit games with that I can rank with some more confidence in the sample size being meaningful:

• Hexbane’s Hunters: 80% (10 games)
• Jaws of Itzl: 70% (10 games)
• Kamandora’s Blades: 66.67% (27 games)
• Morgok’s Krushas: 60% (15 games)
• Sons of Velmorn: 58.33% (12 games)
• Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz: 35.71% (15 games)

Commentary on these: Hexbane is much better than you think he is, especially with how well they play Deadly Synergy and how lethal they can be with Marked for Death after their update. Jaws makes sense, it’s been really good since launch. Kamandora is half and half old warscroll and new, so it;s hard to pass any real judgement on these numbers, but if you haven’t tried them in a while you might want to give them another go – the warband is actually good.

Morgok and Velmorn landing in the ‘it’s all right I guess’ class makes sense based on community perception. Borgit however, I apparently am just awful with. I have been beaten badly at worlds and elsewhere by it, so I know it can be good. I think this has more to do with me than the warband itself.

There are a few other ‘better than expected’ warbands you might want to give another run. I’m 6-1 with Blood of the Bull, 4-1 with Thricefold Discord, 7-0 with Knives of the Crone, 6-1 with Zikkit’s Tunnelpack, 7-2 with Myari’s Purifiers, 5-1 with Da Kunnin’ Krew, 5-0-1 with Ylthari, 4-0 with Thanatek, and some how 4-1 with Brethren of the Bolt.

As for who I’m exceptionally bad with (or maybe they’re exceptionally bad); Horthgorn is 0-2, Rippa is 1-3 and Headsmen are 1-3.

Warbands Fishmode Played Against

I’m going to be doing things in reverse order this time, since my sheet tracks how often I beat something. If I beat it less often, it’s better, right? So low win rates are actually good for this section.

There are 14 warbands I have played against at least 10 times and so we have some reasonable data to pull from. From first to worst:

• Exiled Dead: 50% (12 games)
• Knives of the Crone: 52.94% (17 games)
• Zikkit’s Tunnelpack: 59.46% (37 games)
• Kurnoth’s Heralds: 60.61% (33 games)
• Mollog’s Mob: 66.67% (SIXTY games!)
• Morgok’s Krushas: 66.67% (18 games)
• Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers: 66.67% (12 games)
• Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz: 66.67% (12 games and a worse glory differential)
• Skittershank’s Clawpack: 60% (10 games)
• Khagras Ravagers: 72.22% (18 games)
• Jaws of Itzl: 72.73% (22 games)
• Blood of the Bull: 80% (10 games)
• Emberwatch: 90.91% (12 games)
• Thundrik’s Profiteers: 100% (12 games)

I have long ranted about Exiled Dead being basically impossible to balance. Their current situation allows them to Deadly Synergy you to death without much issue and you need a specialized gameplan to beat them. They may not win grand clashes but are hard gatekeepers and I hate playing against them personally, but what can we do.

What I think is more useful information is that Knives are actually good – lots of people overlooked them on release. But I am basically coin-flipping against them and am undefeated using them, so maybe give those goth foot girl baddies another spin.

Zikkit is another ‘bet you didn’t see that coming’ one: the warband takes finesse but they’re actually very good if you know what you’re doing. They also happen to be tons of fun so you can really do worse for your next game night.

I play against lots of Mollog. He’s good. You knew that.

Khagra suffers from being understatted and forced into a hold gameplan that the game actively discourages. Maybe with BARF being nuked it will see some more utility, but I fear they won’t be able to keep up without some buffs of their own.

Jaws and Emberwatch are near the bottom, despite them being conventionally strong and high on my personally played list. I blame this on the fact that these warbands are played quite often by new players and as a result the pilot skill really hurts their average. Don’t let this discourage you from playing them.

Thundrik’s Profiteers, however? Garbage. This warband needs a lot of help. I literally have never lots against them in 12 tries, and my total glory differential is +120. I beat them every time, and by an average of ten glory. That’s not OK.

Fishmode’s Deck Piloting Recap

I spoiled it earlier, but here is the screenshot of my deck performance whether I played it in Rivals or as a part of my Nemesis pairing; notice how Realmstone Raiders has the highest win percentage of any deck. That right there defies common wisdom for sure! Over 22 games I went 17-5 (77% win rate?!) And with an average glory differential of +4.9 RR ranks #1 on that metric as well.

I think it’s worth paying attention to this because the community consensus is that it’s possibly the very worst deck out there – literally nobody has taken it to Worlds and it has very few appearances in any grand clashes either. It’s the least popular choice for people playing for fun as well. If those things are all true, it must suck both competitively and vibes-wise as well, right? So how am I winning with it ‘the most’?

I have a few theories. First, I’m not usually using this in ‘competitive practice’, so it might not hold up against harder meta threats. Second, I tend to take it with warbands that are pretty accurate at baseline, so I get to Raid more often. Third, I’m pairing it most often with things that help lend that accuracy like Wrack, Blazing, or Deadly Synergy so allow for Raiding more consistently, or I’m taking it with high scoring decks like Pillage that can make up for its deficiencies. Fourth, I’ve continued to play it when most others have given up on it, allowing me to get more experience while opponents become less and less familiar with what they’re up against. Finally, it has been updated and the new plot allowing you to ‘Store’ a card and then raid it later really helps with some of the surges, as does the ‘you can Raid once even if the bounty of the target is zero’. The deck requires finesse and isn’t the best competitive choice, but I think it’s a lot better than people give it credit for these days and my record suggests that.

The next thing that I think stands out is my competitive record with Wrack and Ruin – I have played it 136 times and won 97 of those – many of these were in Grand Clash situations as I have taken it to three Golden Ticket events. In those events I have gotten Silver, Silver, and Bronze; if Wrack was as bad as people say then that podium consistency with a 71.3% win rate likely shouldn’t be possible. And this is with me not even utilizing the full majesty of the deck, since I only just found out you can combo Wary Tread and Fiery Temper to self-ping and score Living on the Edge in the final power step. It’s a beautiful deck and I urge you to try it again.

There’s plenty of ‘not that exciting’ findings – the staple decks are good and I do well with them. My win rates are surprisingly all 69-70% for The Embergard core box decks and Reckless Fury. What IS surprising is that I also have roughly that same win rate with Raging Slayers, which as everybody knows is a poopypants deck. A lot of that was with Kamandora before the plot card change and with her old warscroll, so maybe it isn’t as applicable. Today though, I still don’t spam that deck with BA/RS or Ironsoul’s Condemnors, so even on ‘hard mode’ I think RS can hold up with the right warbands and strategies.

I was surprised to see that my success with Deadly Synergy wasn’t all that good since I usually rate it as a very strong deck. I did worse with DS as I did with Edge of the Knife, and that should surprise almost everybody. I think Edge is better than most give it credit for, but not better than DS, so I’m not sure what to make of that.

Back to the unsurprising is the bottom of the barrel; Nexus of Power is simply too easily counterplayed and full of too many trash cards to be useful for most warbands and strategies in a game that honestly doesn’t support Take and Hold with the current ruleset. I technically have a positive win rate, but I also have a negative glory differential. That deck kinda sucks if they flip the right tokens and block you from getting Covetous.

The other dumpster deck is Hunting Grounds, with which I continue to struggle. I have only played it 19 times, so maybe I haven’t given it a fair shake, but 9-9-1 isn’t anything to jump for joy over. The Beatdown Problem has no answers as it stands now. I propose adding a Plot Card that provides glory to you if the enemy doesn’t invade, or some incentive for enemies to approach your side of the board.

Decks In Opposition

The other side of the coin is what decks I have fought against and how often I beat those – the rankings are a little different than the decks I chose to pilot. The ones that beat me the most consistently are Deadly Synergy, Blazing Assault, Countdown to Cataclysm, and Reckless Fury. Maybe it’s based on my personal experience bias, but this isn’t that surprising to me. Those decks all have good power cards and/or eminently scorable objective decks.

The four that I beat the most often are Raging Slayers (with a whopping 88% win rate because as discussed, the deck is poopypants), Emberstone Sentinels, Edge of the Knife, and Pillage and Plunder. I’ve already claimed the game hates Take and Hold, we all know Edge is undercooked with effectively a useless plot card, and Pillage is counterplayable at higher levels. I do want to mention that I still hate counterplaying Pillage and think we should just rotate that deck out.

The ‘somewhat surprising’ things are the ones in the middle for me. The four that I have ‘average’ success against are Realmstone Raiders, Wrack and Ruin, Hunting Grounds, and Nexus of Power. I personally think Wrack is good, so maybe that’s why it ‘overperformed’, but didn’t break into the top 4 because I also know how to play against it being so familiar with the cards. I also talked about how Nexus sucks and yet I have a modest record against it – maybe this is small sample size? I do have a +5.5 glory differential average against it though so when I win I win big it seems. Hunting Grounds being middle of the pack is very surprising to me personally, and maybe I need to give it more reps to unlock the secret.

The biggest takeaway? Realmstone Raiders is not in the bottom four. Maybe, just maybe y’all, it’s not as bad as you think. I win with it the most and don’t beat it every time. Give it another try!

A Quick Nemesis Peek

There are a few decks I have played way too often: Blazing/Wrack (80% win rate), ES/Cata (74%), Cata/Wrack (66.7%), and RF/Wrack (67.65%). Maybe I just like Wrack and Ruin.

Excluding those, the things I do best with (excepting the small sample sizes like 1-0 = 100%) are BA/RS at 83%, Edge/Deadly at 80%, BA/PP and BA/RF at 66.7%, ES/PP at 72%, Wrack/Deadly and ES/NP at 70%, BA/CC at 64.7%, and finally RS/Edge and RS/DS (both 62.5%). Some are your very common ‘strong stuff’ you’d likely expect to see here. There are a few that might surprise you though like Edge/DS/RS combos.

The last little bit I’ll call out about my own data is that none of these ‘top combos’ includes Realmstone Raiders. This is because I have played a sprinkling of that deck with most other stuff and only a few games apiece. Despite it being my ‘best deck’ I have not found a ‘perfect pairing’ for it.

For decks I play against, it’s an unsurprising bunch of the ‘usual suspects’ since people like to play what’s conventionally good and I get that, but this article is about finding some new potential avenues to explore for you guys. So, what are the things I have trouble beating that you maybe haven’t tried?

RF/DS, HG/DS, and BA/DS are all pairings I have reasonable sample sizes against yet also have <50% win rates against. I have a positive win rate vs Cata/DS but a negative glory differential. Maybe it’s not helpful to hear that yes, DS is really good, but have you tried it with RF/DS? Shadeborn just won a few things with that recently. HG/DS is pretty nasty, especially with Spiteclaw’s Swarm.

I have a surprisingly low win rate against RF/RR, so maybe start there if you’re looking to do Realmstone experimentation. RF scores just for charging into the right spot, so it can make up for a lot of RR scoring problems. RF also lacks a good power deck, so you can more easily slot in some Emberstone cards and cry less about it.

Wrap

OK, fake data presentation over. I hope you got something out of it, and since your current deck has recently been obliterated by the rules update for Worlds 2026, you need to find something new, right? Hopefully my career of experimenting with everything will shed some light on what you might want to try next.