My favourite thing about archer has always been how flexible it is, you can always adapt it and stretch it in various places. Additionally archer is one of the archetypes that reward strong play the best, constantly requiring you to identify the type of game you’re playing, the type of game you can win and how to change the current game into the type you want. This means that it is very rewarding to play both in-game and during deck building and is easily my favourite class in the game.

This build specifically is geared for a more aggressive metagame that I would expect for the lower levels. We have a decent prophecy count and a lot of racing tools. Against control decks we’re looking to burst with savage ogres, allowing us to sneak wins around mantikoras. Don’t underestimate the 5/5 body on the ogre either, 5/5 beats almost everything in a fight and survives all damage based removal, I have used him over best-card-in-the-game belligerent giant in tier 1 archer decks in the past.

In a nutshell, my crafting priority would be 2 belligerent giant, 2 earthbone spinner, tazkad, the 3rd giant and then start saving for the dark brotherhood expansion. The 4-drops (shaman and ogrim) and mournhold traitor are nice but lower priority. Eventually you will want to start on the long blood dragon grind but he is replaceable with other 5’s and 6’s.

As you progress the nimble ally is the first card I would cut. Whilst he is actually one of the better cards we have a 70% ally and that is about the lowest I’m willing to go, as you start crafting the red epics he needs to go. Beyond that the kinsman and the burglar come out easily and eventually you’re going to have to figure out belligerent giant/savage ogre ratios that you like depending on how many you own, whether or not you have tazkad, and how aggressive your meta is. I imagine the full 3 of each is too much. Eventually deshaan avenger will want to turn into the epic 4-drops, blacksap protector will turn into the dark brotherhood 3’s as soon as you get that expansion and fighters guild recruit will be dropped completely.

The dark brotherhood expansion is the best place to drop some money after whatever starter pack direwolf offers at the time and the main card we’re looking for is brotherhood slayer. Whilst we aren’t the best at using the contracts he snowballs the field lane and punishes your opponent for running to the shadow lane which is perfect for us. Beyond that garnag and underworld vigilante are staples, eclipse baroness, astrid and sanctuary pet are serious considerations and protector of the innocent is playable.

For tweaks you can make with your collection I highly recommend the vigilant giant you get at level 20, additionally all of the beefy green and red 5 and 6 drops are solid and you can add any pahmar-raht renegade, snowy sabre cat, blood dragon or child of hircine that you open. Wild beastcaller levels up in the mid 30’s and is also an option.

I am a little reluctant to recommend blacksap protector, whilst I think it is a good inclusion in this deck it doesn’t scale well. All of the rares I recommend crafting here are still used in high level decks except for the protector, so whilst he is correct for a while he becomes useless later. Feel free to swap him for any other pieces of archer you own.

Whilst you do really want the 3rd leaflurker I recommend crafting other epics first if you choose the wood elf (archer) portrait. There are 4 epic wood elves you can receive while levelling, leaflurker and earthbone spinner are useful and both are staples of this deck, grahtwood ambusher is mediocre and camoran scout leader is useless. I recommend delaying crafting the 3rd leaflurker in case you crack one while levelling. If you aren’t using the wood elf portrait craft the 3rd leaflurker immediately.

As always, thanks for reading and I’m going to finish by plugging my stream.
https://www.twitch.tv/turquoiselink