Rumble Run Warrior Shrine Guide

Akali's Champion is a very powerful Shrine that turns itself into a powerful minion through gaining Armor. When used optimally, it can quickly get out of control and burst down opponents for massive damage. If you pick this Shrine, you will start your Rumble Run with the following 10-card deck:

Warrior Cards	Neutral Cards
Eternium Rover Armorsmith Drywhisker Armorer Fiery War Axe Mountainfire Armor Emberscale Drake	Waterboy Hired Gun Half-Time Scavenger Dragonmaw Scorcher

When using Akali's Champion, your priority should always be to gain Armor by any means necessary. Doing so will allow you to turn your Shrine into a powerful minion to do your bidding, providing huge value in your process. In the early turns, you can use your Shrine to kill off your opponent's Shrine, but later on, especially when you have over 10 Armor, you should be using it to lower your opponent's Health. You should use your minions and spells to control the board at all times to allow your Shrine to deal damage for as long as possible. If you are successful, you Shrine's Attack will quickly hit a critical amount, allowing you to end the game in a few turns and making damage from any of your other minions insignificant.

When picking card buckets, you will want to pick the bucket that gives you the most potential for gaining Armor every single time. Most of the time this will be Tank Up! which contains nearly every Armor card available. However, when this option is not available, you can pick up multiple Armor cards from the Protection bucket and Geosculptor Yip from Legendary. To round out your deck, you can use the Smash bucket to get some additional removal tools, with Bash and Shield Slam being especially powerful additions for an Armor-based strategy.

When choosing Teammates after your second and fourth win, Unbound Punisher should always be your highest priority. The ability to remove all enemy minions with a Battlecry is unrivaled and the resulting Armor is a convenient bonus. If Unbound Punisher is not available, Seasoned Pitbrawler can be picked to pair with cards like Iron Hide to greatly accelerate the rate you can gain Armor and power up your Shrine.

If you manage to defeat the first 6 bosses, you will have the ability to upgrade your Shrine. Everlasting Devotion should be your first choice, as it it will allow you to turn your Armor into 2 big minions instead of just 1. If it is not available, Pact with the Loa can be picked to allow your Shrine to respawn quicker, forcing your opponent to lose minions trading into it more often.

Akali's Horn allows your minions to attack again if they overkill, giving the potential for any single minion to clear the board. While this may seem strong, it is one of the weakest Shrines available and is heavily reliant on a well-rounded deck. If you pick this Shrine, you will start your Rumble Run with the following 10-card deck:

Warrior Cards	Neutral Cards
Inner Rage Warbot Cruel Taskmaster Rampage Fiery War Axe Bloodhoof Brave	Amani Berserker Master Swordsmith Raging Worgen Frostwolf Warlord

In order to get value from your Shrine, you should focus on using high-Attack minions to control the board, making full use of cards like Inner Rage and Rampage to help you trade where necessary. Rush minions are also excellent minions for triggering the effect of the Shrine as they will be able to attack any target, including the enemy Hero, after they are able to attack again. Despite all this, you should not rely on your Shrine too much and focus on winning by using all of your cards very efficiently and grinding down opponents in long drawn-out value games.

In order to succeed with Akali's Horn, you will need to assemble a powerful control deck using a mix of card buckets. The Dragon Heart card bucket is a great starting point, with most of the cards being high-value Dragons with powerful Battlecries. Picking this bucket multiple times is one deck-building option. Alternatively, you can try to pick up some of the power cards from the Legendary bucket, such as The Lich King, Dr. Boom, Geosculptor Yip, and Ysera. To pair with either of these strategies, you should pick up a good amount of removal from the Smash bucket and look for Execute and Shield Slam in particular. To round this out, you should try to pick up copies of Death's Bite or Blood Razor from the Berserker bucket to allow you to leverage your Health to efficiently control the board.

After your second and fourth win you will have the option to add a special Teammate minion to your deck. As with the other Warrior Shrines, you should always prioritise picking Unbound Punisher first. Its ability to clear the board is invaluable when you have no access to Brawl and Reckless Flurry. If that option is not available, you can look for Ironhorn Drummer instead, allowing you to use one of your high-Attack minions to clear the board when used with Akali's Horn.

After 6 wins, you will have the ability to choose from a random selection of powerful Shrine upgrades. As the Shrine itself is not too powerful, you should choose one of the strong Deathrattle buffs to help improve it. Windfall Blessing should be your first choice, allowing you deck to get stronger and stronger every time you Shrine dies. Alternatively, you can pick up Wrath of the Loas to kill off your opponent's Shrine every time your own dies, allowing you to focus your attention elsewhere on the board.

Akali's War Drum is a Dragon-themed Shrine that quickly snowballs out of control as more and more Dragons are played. If you pick this Shrine, you will start your Rumble Run with the following 10-card deck:

Warrior Cards	Neutral Cards
Dragon Roar Fiery War Axe Emberscale Drake	Faerie Dragon Firetree Witchdoctor Netherspite Historian Nightmare Amalgam Ebon Dragonsmith Twilight Guardian Bone Drake

Akali's War Drum is one of the more strategically straightforward Shrines to play. Your aim should be to continually play out Dragons from your Hand with the Shrine active, reducing the Cost of all other all other Dragons in your Hand. Any Dragon you play will allow you to play out your Dragons faster and faster, eventually allowing you to play multiple high-Cost Dragons like Ysera and Nefarian per turn until it is too much for your opponent to handle.

Naturally, you will want to pick the Dragon Heart bucket almost every time it is available to maximise the amount of Dragons you have and the value of your Shrine. However, you should be careful of picking non-Dragons from the bucket like Blackwing Technician, Scaleworm, and Alexstrasza's Champion. While these cards are all unquestionably very good, they are not Dragons themselves and do not synergise with the Shrine. You should use opportunities when these cards appear to consider other card buckets. Sometimes you will be able to pick up Dragons from other card buckets instead, like Nightmare Amalgam and Twilight Drake from Fervent Fans, Emberscale Drake from Protection and Tank Up!, and Nefarian, Onyxia, Ysera, Deathwing, and Deathwing, Dragonlord from Legendary. Alternatively, you can use the time when there are little to no Dragons available to pick up removal tools from the Smash or Berserker buckets.

When choosing Teammates after your second and fourth victory, Unbound Punisher should be your first choice. Despite there being other excellent options, the power level of Unbound Punisher is too high to pass up. If it is not available, Herald of Flame is an extremely powerful second choice and will allow you to accelerate your Dragon strategy greatly. Lastly, you can choose Redcrest Rocker as a way to help over some of the weak early game of using a Dragon deck.

Once you reach 6 wins in a row, you will have the opportunity to choose from 1 of 3 random upgrades for your Shrine. Everlasting Devotion should be your first choice to allow you to double its effect and get to playing your strongest Dragons even quicker. Roaring Edifice is great alternative that will give your Shrine an alternative way to reduce the cost of your expensive Dragons, especially when it is killed in the early game before you can afford to play your Dragons.

Teammate	Comments
Herald of Flame	Herald of Flame is an excellent multifaceted card for Dragon deck. By providing efficient stats, card draw and Rush for your Dragons, it is hard for a Teammate to get much better.
Ironhorn Drummer	Ironhorn Drummer is a reasonable card that is similar to having a copy of Commanding Shout in play each turn. It can find use with any Shrine, but greatly improves Akali's Horn by protecting minions that wish to repeatedly trade for the Overkill effect.
Rallying Quilboar	Rallying Quilboar is a good, consistent early-game minion. It has a huge strategic potential, allowing the board to be manipulated to create key Taunt minions. However, it is overshadowed by many other strong Warrior Teammates.
Redcrest Rocker	Redcrest Rocker represents a great mix of tempo and value, having good stats for a a low cost and being able to generate cards. However, with so many good alternatives, it is very hard to justify outside of a Dragon deck.
Seasoned Pitbrawler	Seasoned Pitbrawler is a great way to amplify Armor gain and can yield great value if uncontested. However, multiple Shrines have very little use for Armor, resulting in Season Pitbrawler only being of any use for Akali's Champion.
Unbound Punisher	Unbounded Punisher is arguably the best Teammate available across all classes. It has excellent stats, is able to fully remove all enemy minions, and has added Armor gain as a bonus. The sheer power level of the card makes it the best first choice for every deck whenever it is offered.

After each victory, you will be offered a choice of 3 different card buckets that you can add to your deck. Each bucket contains 3 cards that fit a certain theme and will help shape your deck in different ways.

The table below contains a list of all the possible Warrior card buckets. The comments section contains further details of each bucket and when to choose them.

Bucket	Comments
Tank Up!	The Tank Up! card bucket contains all Warrior cards that provide Armor in some way. Most of the cards yield low value due to their ability to also provide Armor. However, this bucket is also the highest priority for Akali's Champion due to having excellent synergy with the Shrine.
Berserker	Berserker contains a mix of minions and spells that benefit from being damaged, in addition to weapons and minions that cause board-wide damage. The bucket has a few good standalone choices like Death's Bite and Frothing Berserker, but most of the choices are far too situational to be worth picking.
Legendary	Legendary contains a mix of Warrior and neutral Legendary minions. As Warrior is a naturally resilient class, this bucket has late-game options that can work with all Shrines.
Smash	Smash contains most Warrior single-target removal and damage spells. It is a good idea to pick this bucket up at least once and you should be on the lookout for Execute in particular.
Metalhead	Metalhead contains most Mech minions Warrior can use. As a tribal bucket, it is most useful when you are able to pick it up many times. However, the bucket can also be picked just for Scorp-o-matic, which is an efficient removal tool for enemy Shrines.
Rush	Rush contains a small selection of Rush minions that Warriors can use. It has a few solid choices for any deck like Darius Crowley and Amani War Bear. It can be particularly useful in combination with Akali's Horn to utilise the Overkill effect.
Fervent Fans	Fervent Fans contains a large mix of minions and will offer very diverse card buckets as a result. It can occasionally be picked up when strong standalone minions like Frothing Berserker, Stonehill Defender, or Militia Commander are offered.
Protection	Protection contains a mix of defensive minions that provide Armor, have Taunt, or both. The bucket has few unique options, but can offer some solid choices like Amani War Bear and Alley Armorsmith that can fit into any deck.
Dragon Heart	Dragon Heart contains a large number of Dragons and Dragon synergy cards that Warrior can use. As a tribal bucket, it will increase in strength the more times it is picked, while being fairly weak by itself. It is an essential card bucket when using Akali's War Drum.
Overkill	Overkill contains all minions and weapons that have the Overkill effect. The bucket is very lacklustre with the exception of Sul'thraze and can usually be disregarded.