You can't stave off decay!

Unique among the warlords of Legions, Cor'bax offers an incredible amount of versatile power, and the utility of his cards, from common to legendary, can't be beat. Come along and learn how this jiggling sphere of joy and putrescence can make your hideous, tainted dreams come true.

Corbs (and I will henceforth be calling him that,) doesn't play around. His warlord power is one of the best in the game, and his "disadvantage" of low initiative actually helps. We'll get there. For now, let's review:

For 2E, you can poison a RANDOM enemy troop, and he can act again. He heals 1 HP relentlessly to a random friendly, including himself.

Why is this insanely dominant? Poison is the answer to so many problems which otherwise require dedicated card solutions. In other words, it frees up space in your deck for killing power. Stealth? What's that? Duplicitous? What do you mean? 9 health? So what? Poison is the answer, and you have all the poison you can ever want. For those of you who never bother to read the tooltips, poison kills a poisoned enemy after the end of its next turn. Yes, it gets to act once. Oh no. If you can't kill it through normal means, IT WILL GET TO ACT ONCE ANYWAY. PROBABLY MORE. Poison forces terrible choices on your enemies, and you can poison more than one troop in a turn for cheap. In fact, you can poison one (or more!) enemies and then go on to attack with Corbs's respectable 2 attack power.

Lots of decks rely on stealth troops that use abilities - poison them. Lots of decks love a big drop to scare you - poison it. Lots of decks like a duplicitous, hard-to-remove troop who torments you - nope, poison. Shield? Survivor? Precog? Rage? Buffs? Sacrifice? They're all negated. Corbs has a CRAZY amount of removal built in, and as we'll see, it's just one tool in his kit bag. Poison first, worry later.

As if that wasn't enough, he also heals 1 with Relentless every turn. Early on, that means you're trading at a +1 on the enemy warlord's face. Later, it means you're saving key troops through sheer nonsense luck. If you have full health, hit something. You get that health back, make use of it. Very rare is the Cor'bax turn 1 where you don't hit the enemy's face. You're getting it back, aren't you?

Corbs uses the Ruinstorm deck, and oh man, is it potent. Ruinstorm has, in my humble opinion, some of the best commons and uncommons in the whole game. With just the grays and greens you can expect to rise into mid-Mars, with some oranges and a yellow here and there Terra is practically guaranteed. Here are a few top picks. I will expand this section with experience...

The Commons:

Plaguebearer - WOW does this card have utility. A 2/4 for 3, it's already reasonable. Every time an enemy dies, it generates a Mutation, one of the special Ruinstorm abilities. Mutations make or break your deck. They synergrize hugely. They also reduce maintenance on regular daemons, although to be honest, I don't bother with regular daemons very often. +3/0? Survivor 2? Ward? Hell yes, all that and more. Clutch frontline when you're low, clutch Terror when you need to keep a body on the board and remove an enemy, it's all there. Cleave, unstoppable, poison, AOE, you can get a LOT out of a 1E mutation. Plaguebearers are a key early drop when you can kill an enemy. This is made especially easy by Cor'bax's outstanding coin, a 0E 1 damage card that turns the enemy's safe ?/3 into a hapless ?/2.

The Fallen - A 4/3 frontline for 3, zero maintenance daemon you can mutate? Yes, thanks. So what it has berserk, you want to attack with it anyway. It's above cost with its stats and with survivor or a +0/2 poison mutation it's just silly. It matches up against almost any other early card. Still useful late. Just take. Take.

Plagueridden - 4/6 for 5 and any friendly daemon that dies while it's on the board goes right back to your hand. Insane. 4 is more than enough to kill most normal things, 6 is enough to survive the fight, and if the enemy has to cut through frontline to get to it the frontline comes right back into your hand to be used again.

Daemonettes - 4/2 sneak attack is solid, and the fact that it gets stealth if you have no other troops makes it one of the best T2 drops out there. Can eliminate much more expensive cards and stay on the board. Top tier mutation target. Oh, it's T3 and I have a 4/2 sneak attack with survivor 2? Go ahead and surrender and save us both the trouble.

Path of Blood - This tactic gives a friendly daemon a mutation and if it didn't have one, PoB returns to your hand. If it did, you draw a card. Both are good. Use early to turn Daemonettes and Fallen into rage monsters while keeping the card to be used again and again and again. Still got it mid-late game? Throw it on a mutated daemon and draw.

Unrestricted Frenzy - 3E, +1/+1 to all friendly daemons, an additional +1/+1 if they have a mutation. I run one of these. If you can get a board of daemons, much less mutated daemons, it can be a game ender. It's not something to count on, though. With two, you run the risk of having them but no troops to play them on, no bueno. It's a bonus condition, not a reliable outcome. Still powerful.


The Uncommons:

In case you're not already rock hard from the previous section, Ruinstorm offers some pretty impressive uncommon options too. Let's take a look.

Warp Rift - So amazingly obnoxious. WR is a 1/3 structure that reduces the cost of all daemons in your hand by 1 every round. On top of that, its zero E ability gives you back one E. It's a perfect T1 drop. If it gets off one iteration, it almost certainly paid for itself and then some. It also likely soaked some damage from the befuddled enemy warlord. They can't leave it, and killing it is harder than it seems. A warp rift on the board for two turns is practically a guaranteed win. One turn, and it's a solid advantage. Most of the time I don't use its ability for the 1 E, I prefer to let the enemy bang his face on it again just to waste his time. If it soaks a Seek and Destroy? Cool. If it doesn't? Cool, cheap daemons. Caveat - if the enemy warlord is 3/?, don't drop it right off the bat, drop it behind a frontliner. It'll torment the other guy, guaranteed.

Poxbringer - 3/5 for 4, and it heals 1 to ALL your units every round, Corbs and itself included. Nasty beast. 5 is hard to kill, even before the fact that it heals every round. A big board can stay big with this thing, and it's a great mutation target. 4/6 unstoppable is nasty, 3/5 warded healer is nasty, 6/5 is nasty, IT'S ALL NASTY.

Daemon Brutes - 4/5 for 5 and gains a mutation as a rally. Just solid. It can be a heavy hitter, it can be an emergency front line, it can be whatever you need. You can keep mutating it, you can sac it on an annoying enemy, it's great. It can mutate more for 1E but it uses its turn to do so. Usually you want to hit something with it instead.

Fell Reaver - 4/5 frontline for 5, and relentlessly gives all your daemons including itself +1/0. Great mid-tier frontline. Scary with a survivor or ward mutation. Leave it too long and it buffs your board to hell and gone. I run one.

Gida'ljal - Now we're talking. 6/9 (nice.) for 7, relentlessly produces a mutate for your hand. HUGE body, good luck damaging that off in a turn. 6 attack is nothing to sneeze at. Loves a solid mutation. Gives you mutations. You've gotta live it.

Sealed Pact - I'm kinda debating this one in my deck. It produces 3 random daemons that died this game for 10E. The issue is that if they have a rally when played from hand, they don't get it from SP. Not bad, but not that great. Probably my first card to go when I get an Elitel. Significantly better if you've lost a lot of frontliners and/or a Daemon Chosen. Getting those back can tilt the balance hard.


The Rares:

Chaos Fury - 2/3 unstoppable with stealth for 3, gains a mutation on rally. Such versatile. Very fright. Great daemonette alternative for a T2 drop and can play a useful role at any point. Rolls right by those frontliners to smoke the tasty soft underbelly or deliver a surprise 5 out of stealth to the enemy warlord. You'd be surprised how many experienced players forget that unstoppable goes right past frontline.

Unspoiled Land - 1E draw a card, if it's a daemon, copy it. Two Daemon Chosen, you say? Sure, yes, thank you. Ruinstorm needs draw, because they can't use Lectitio Divinatus or Abandoned Supplies. UL is great for that, especially in a daemon-heavy deck.

Ula, Doom of Heroes - He's a stealth killer who can knock off your opponent's weakened big guys AND give you a copy. I don't have him yet, but...want.

Warmaster's Deceit - The only Ruinstorm hard removal. 7E, kills an enemy troop and adds it to your hand. Note that if you have a Plaguebearer out, this counts as an enemy death, and so provides a mutation. Run two, you need removal. Not the game's best hard removal but plenty good for our purposes. Use when you need something off the board NOW, and Corbs's poison is too slow or too random.


The Legendaries:

Don't run that bileblade crap, c'mon. You're a sophisticated Nurglite. You don't need a stupid +1 and you've already got poison.

Daemon Chosen - I.e. "win condition." If you get Ward as an option when you play him, congrats, you just won the game. 6/6 for 6 with a rally mutation, can gain a mutation and act again for 2E. If he's on the board and you have 10E, good luck to the other dude, because he'll be a 19/12 with survivor 4, cleave 4, ward, terror and poison by the time they get to act again, assuming they survive. Stupid good. Note that flank gives him the option to take two more mutations then attack if you're on 10E. Rarely useful, but it can get a lot done.

Elitel - Don't have it, but played it in events. Stealth with "gain +1/+1 on a mutation." Yeah. Welcome to the party, pal, it's turn six and I have a 10/10 before the mutation effects are even counted. OHKO territory. Makes grown men weep.

The others are kinda meh. The 9-cost is too expensive for what it does. Cathedral of the Mark is too slow. DC and El are just dominant, buy them if you see them in the shop.

HH:L is a game of board control. All other things being equal, the guy (and let's face it, we're all guys,) with more and better troops on the board is almost always going to win. As a Ruinstorm warlord, you have strong troops, and as a Cor'Bax player you have excellent removal due to his poison ability.

Early on, cards like Seek and Destroy are the only tactics you need. Otherwise, you should be going for Warp Rifts and 3-cost troops. Daemonettes will stick 3/4ths of the time due to stealth. Chaos Fury, same deal. Fallen are a little more disposable (3 health is a weakness) but they may well have to sac a better troop to get rid of it. Plaguebearers are tough to kill and Plagueridden keep all the other ones around for redeployment when necessary. Early on, seek board control and try to get a mutation or two in your hand for a good opportunity. Resist the urge to mutate the first daemon you have out there - I'm not saying don't, I'm just saying evaluate whether it's worth it. Removing his stuff is the top priority, if you have a board and he doesn't, and it's your turn, you're free to beat on his face.

A top-tier early hand would be Daemonettes/Path of Blood/Warp Rift/Plaguebearers, with Fallen, Chaos Fury, and Seek and Destroy being honorable mentions. With good luck, you go second and get a free 1 damage card. It's better to go second - that 1 damage lets you eliminate so much sticky trouble, and your deck likes to kill enemies early for mutations, provided you have a plaguebearer.

From there, push for board control while keeping up pressure with Brutes, Reavers, and Poxbringers. Later, drop Gida'ljals and remove nasty enemies with Deceit. If you sense yourself ahead and have a Daemon Chosen, drop it. If he fails to kill it before it can act, you win. Desperate circumstances calls for Sealed Pact, but again, I'm probably going to drop it and you should only be using it as a stopgap.

In my humble, low-Terra opinion, some mutations are better than others.

S-Tier:

Ward. It's just too good. Not great on low-health, low-attack troops like Chaos Fury, but otherwise, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You get this on a Chosen and you're golden like a shower. It's great on Brutes, it's murder on Gida'ljal, anything with 5 or more health and ward is just a finger in the eye of the enemy. Best case they're gonna sac something better to get your warded daemon off the board.

A-Tier:

+3/+0. No explanation necessary. Killing power.

Survivor 2. It's sticky. Not QUITE as sticky as Ward, but very sticky. Great on Fallen. Yeah, go ahead and hit that 4-attack troop again. Use your face.

B-Tier:

+1/+1 Unstoppable. Stat buffs are gud. Unstoppable is the cherry on top. Fly right past that frontline and smack Camba-Diaz in his stupid yellow face.

+0/+2 Poison. It's a 2-heal, more or less, the poison is a bonus. Use it to make a Daemonettes a 4/4 sneak attack. Use it to make a Chaos Fury a 2/5 with poison. Heal a weakened Plagueridden. Make a Plaguebearer a 2/6 and watch that Night Stalker cry. Sky's the limit.

Rage, Deal 1 damage to all enemies. It's A-tier vs. Caliban, otherwise, it's ok. Turns a 2-attack into a 3-attack. Not that great on big guys who're either gonna get blasted in one shot or win you the game anyways.

C-Tier:

Cleave 2. There are times and places; again, against Caliban, it's probably B-tier if you can use it to clear out Jaegers with a Plaguebearer on the board. Once in a while you can use it to clear multiple dangerous hostiles or do something clever. Not my first choice. Usually not my second choice.

Situational-tier:

Terror. Many of your daemons don't have THAT high attack, so terror is meh. Daemonettes already have sneak attack, which is a direct upgrade to terror. Can be OK on Fallen killing something with 3 attack, but even then...

Front line. Fallen have it already, and unless you REALLY need a frontliner, it's probably not going to do you much good. Doesn't work at all on stealth, so forget it on Chaos Fury. Once in a blue moon you can throw it on a Gida'ljal or a Chosen and it'll save your ass. Very rare, though. Usually you've got a better choice. 9 times out of 10 when I'm hoping for frontline I've already lost.