Thanks everyone for all the offers of help.
The books I've played and enjoyed in the past:
1) Streywood Beastmaster Falcon Swarm Aggro - This book would use a Lair and power out 3-6 Thunderift Falcons to peck the opponent to death pretty quickly. Damage can be augmented en masse by Rajan's Fury, while cards like Acid Ball, Dissolve, and Force Push keep the opponent's defenses in check. My main concern with this book is that anti-swarm counterplay can be backbreaking. It used to be I never saw many Mordok's Obelisk/Suppression Orb type cards, or Ring of Fire type cards, but they were scary threats. To me it looks like Forged in Fire created much more support for Demon and Soldier swarm strategies. Are other swarms on the rise? Have people found them to be better than Streywood? Are anti-swarm cards on the rise in response?
In particular swarming with the Aldremelech Warlock using Wildfire Imps looks somewhat interesting. Bloodfire Helmet offers a very inexpensive mass pump for Demons, and the Flame -2 and teleport abilities offer great ways to beat Suppression Orb and Ring of Fire. The Warlock is also in some ways better at beating down than Streywood, since Fire spells offer the best rate on Damage to mana and I often was splashing for Poisoned Blood or Deathlock to stop healing from happening. On the down side the Imps lack flying, which exposes them to being attacked by all the other creatures in the universe. Anyone have experience with this strategy?
2) Push You Wizard - Boring old Jet Stream / Wall of Thorns combo. Max out on water spells to drop armor, air & force spells to push folks, and walls of thorns to shove people through. Huginn for extra actions and seeing over walls, Mage Tower for extra actions, and a few Gorgon Archers and Whirling Spirits to spice it up. Deathlock and a couple curses to stop recovery, etc. The more wily the opponent the harder it is to anticipate what defense they are going to give themselves. The new Rust curse looks extremely helpful, as you no longer need to guess "equipment" or "enchantment" before they armor up, and now they also need to guess "curse" or "corrode". On the minus side, it seems like a Warlord with Harshforge Plate is a nightmare to keep stripping all the defenses off of.
3) Plant "Pit" Druid - This used to be my favorite book. I would throw down a couple of Thornlashers wherever opponent is standing, and then slowly summon Vine Snappers until they found they didn't really want to be there. (Often too late). I would Dissolve their TP wands, and match them TP for TP to keep putting them back in pit. Vinewhip Staff to give them stuck, etc. Fortified Area for a big boost to the plants in combat. If the opponent didn't have a good plan to get out of the plant pit, it was pretty much always the end for them. I like this book because it is very good at attrition/economy, but also has a proactive game plan. The down side is books with a lot of fire, and opponent's with hardcore mobility spells. (Like, 4x Teleport and 2+x Force Push.) Has the amount of fire spells going around your tables increased? Have strategies moved away from a lot of teleports? (Hah, fat chance, right?)
The Book I've Been Wondering A Lot About:
4) The New Warlord - There are a lot of powerful equipment in the game, and I think the meta has been to 4x Dissolve to stop it from getting out of control. With Harshforge Plate, Armor Ward, and the equipment runes, it seems the dwarven warlord can actually build the equipment combos they want and have a reasonable chance of either keeping it, or bankrupting the opponent on mana if they want to destroy it. I'm not sure what you do with an equipment Voltron, but it seems like either banking a ton of mana and then wanding out some direct damabe (Power -1!) or building a steady stream of tough support creatures could both grind an opponent down?
