An Axe to Grind: The Rhinar Resurgence

While you all may know me for the couple of Teklo articles I have published and my adoration of the hero who may just be ready for the spotlight, you may be surprised to learn that the Brute class - and specifically Rhinar - was the first hero I "got good” with. When first picking up the game, I asked some of my locals what would be a good secondary deck to learn around the time Everfest came out, and one of them mentioned Rhinar: not because he was an easy "pick up and play" free win simulator, but because he taught incredible fundamentals like what to block, what to keep for the discard, when to go on the offensive, and when to block down and play the midrange game.

I took his advice seriously, but at the time it was tough for me to get the cards I needed. The Green Mean Machine seemed cool, but discarding seemed counter-intuitive, and I barely figured out how to play Bravo (arguably one of the easiest decks to play). But wouldn’t you know it, no later than a week after that conversation I was cracking open a box of Welcome to Rathe and pulled a Scabskin Leathers! At that point, I was on the Rhinar grind; and after a few months of not winning anything on him, it all finally clicked.

In my experience at least, Rhinar has always seemed to have an interesting position in any given meta, never cracking top tiers but never bad either. He always seemed to remain a prime example of a specialist hero; the deck could go past the "uunga bunga me throw big number" aspect and, depending on the deck composition and pilot, it could really be built to attack a certain niche. A recent example would have to be the current king of the jungle, Eugene C, who has garnered a rather impressive resume with Rhinar and uses his statistics background to really optimize Rhinar’s upsides while mitigating the downsides. Of course, he is also the man who will Sand Sketched Plan for Bloodrush Bellow turn 0, so not only is he a great player, he's also a tough player! I cannot say I am strong enough for such a play!

So with the somewhat toolbox-style way you could build Rhinar, what are some directions you can take him ? Nowadays I would say there are 4 key ways:

• Aggro
• Intimidate
• Disruptive
• Midrange

Which build you go for is entirely dependent on the meta. If you're expecting Ninjas and Dash I/O to run everyone over, The disruption of Erase Face and Strongest Survive are that way, folks. Expecting fatigue Jarls or the new Pleiades? Take your aggressive Alpha Rampage, Massacre, and Show No Mercy to that stalling pack of do-nothings. These options in deck construction and sideboarding make Rhinar the most flavorful and skill-expressive Brute deck available.

For a long time the Brute class - and Rhinar specifically - suffered from the fact that while Rhinar can throw a mean Bloodrush turn and threaten upwards of 30 damage in the right circumstances, with the aggressive slant of most of the metas, intimidate often did nothing. The heavy aggro decks like Fai, Lexi, Aurora, Zen, etc. weren't blocking anyways, and throw back just as much (if not more) damage. The biggest piece missing in Rhinar’s kit was the disruption to pair with the intimidates. Thankfully, with Heavy Hitters and some expansion slots, there have been tools added to help with that. Send Packing and Splatter Skull come to mind as good pieces of Brute disruption, with Rhinar’s hero power making those on-hits more likely to land.

Super Slam put even more gas in the Brute tank, with major standouts being Buckwild allowing for more consistent go-wide turns (especially for Kayo), Strongest Survive (hand disruption), and my personal favorite Show of Strength (Swing Big 2.0). These new tools - combined with Rhinar's own new specialization card Alpha Instinct - have allowed the hero to not only be more disruptive and damaging, but also more consistent.

In turn, Rhinar now has the freedom to use more aggressive cards like Wild Ride, Pulping, Tear Limb from Limb, and other draw/discard engines that have mostly been the providence of Kayo since his release in Heavy Hitters.

This has also brought about the rise in what I would consider to be Rhinar’s new go-to weapon and the de facto choice for deckbuilding once Mandible Claw leaves with the one-armed monster: the Ravenous Meataxe. 

Way back when Rhinar was still Blitz-legal, there were some combo-oriented lists that centered around full hand intimidation, then effectively one-shotting the opponent. Four Barraging Beatdown into an attack was optimal, but tough to set up sometimes; however, Ravenous Meataxe - a draft weapon from Monarch - had a draw/discard trigger on attack. If a 6 or more was discarded, it gave the weapon +2 attack, and also gave Rhinar another trigger. With this, 3 Barragings in hand, plus one blue to pitch, allowed you to completely strip your opponent's hand and, assuming max Barraging value of 2 reds and 1 yellow, you could be swinging Meataxe for 16 damage in total. In a format with 20 life, you can see how effective this is; in fact, the only Skirmish Finals I ever played was strictly due to the power of Meataxe Rhinar.

From an aggressive perspective, those numbers are very good - but Meataxe also provides very good value per turn cycle. If you block 9 and throw 5 plus an intimidate, that's 14 value flat-out, before considering any synergies that you may put together. These turn cycles allow you to keep up value-wise while you set up for a classic Bloodrush 5-card blowback. 

With all this value, it's interesting to note that, for the longest time, CC Axe decks were not very rampant. For longest time, as a Rhinar CC  player I just stuck with the classic Claws build - but I was still hoping one day for a Meataxe CC build to see the light of day.

Prior to 2026's opening Road to Nationals season, I was having a deck crisis and not entirely sure what to bring. At the time I was playing Gravy quite a bit, but between him being a highly targeted deck, the bannings, and the skill required to play him across so many rounds, I was souring on that prospect. Then I was scrolling YouTube and noticed a Calling: Valencia Meataxe build piloted by Carlos GG. I was brought back to that Blitz event, remembering how I wished there was a CC Meataxe - and there it was!

I asked for more info about the list, and learned it was a collaborative effort between Carlos and another discord user by the name of Sigma, a well-known name in all the Brute discords. When talking to Sigma about the list, they spoke highly of what Super Slam did for the deck: 

• Vigor clashes allow for smaller hand play.
• Reckless Stampede leaks damage into defensive heroes.
• Song of Sinew allows you to see the top 4 cards of your deck and sculpt your next draw/discard to hit.
• Another 2-for-8 in Show of Strength.

I was so inspired and had such a blast playing Carlos' variation of the list (which he uploads gameplay of on his YouTube channel), I brought it to my local RTN for an undefeated run in swiss before sadly falling in Top 8. But while I couldn’t close it out, other Rhinars succeeded, garnering a bevy of top finishes and even a respectable number of wins this RTN season. It really showed that new Axe Rhinar builds are not some flash in the pan, but are here to stay, and will be the way to play Rhinar once Claws leave.

Some of you may still be asking, while Axe sounds good, why not just play Claws until they leave with Kayo?

The argument for sticking to Claws is the ability to go wider during your turns and get more base value out of your  Bloodrush Bellow turns. And I won't deny that, as anyone who has seen Eugene C on stream can attest, an old fashioned Claws build can do some insane things. However, there are 3 major points I would argue in the case for Axe over Claws.

For starters, Axe has a higher floor than Claws does. In some cases, all you can do on your turn is swing a weapon, and throwing Axe for 5 plus the intimidate is just better value. 

Secondly, over time there have been a lot more tools to allow Rhinar to go wider than typically allowed by a non-Claws build. Cards like Sea Legs, Beaten Trackers, and Rhinar’s Sand Sketched Plan all offer extra action points to flex onto any attack, while attacks with build-in go again like Wild Ride, Pulping, and Buckwild make a wide Bloodrush turn entirely possible, no Claws required.

For my last point, I'm just going to reference something Sigma told me that really clicked: Axe aids the velocity of the deck. In general, Brute has had some degree of reliance on massive spike turns. Our best games ask that we find one more turn with our key cards. With Claws, you lack that ability to really churn through your deck to look for your power cards. If every turn you are draw/discarding, that just means you are ever closer to pulling the card you need to flip the game, and depending on the matchup, being able to dig through your deck like that can mean the difference between a win and a loss.

With RTN season at a close, Florian going to the great rotwood in the sky, and Compendium's release, what changes with Axe Rhinar? At first glance, nothing major seems to change, and many of the Brute majestics seem Tuffnut-coded more than anything. I could see Bear Hug as a solid 2-for-6 block 3, and Aggressive Pounce as a 2-for-6 go again if you've intimidated this turn (another go-wide with Axe card). There are a few new toys to play with to sculpt your deck even further, getting the ratios you would like while still keeping the strong core of the deck.

I hope this article will inspire you Brute fans to pick up your axe and give the OG mean green machine another try. I have included Carlos and Sigmas decklists below; having played both, I can honestly say these are fantastic lists and the most fun I have had with the hero in a long time, so a special thanks to them for inspiring this article.