Big Warrior

Big Warrior (also known as Recruit Warrior) is a control Warrior deck type that aims to summon large minions often without paying their full cost. Big Warrior attempts to survive during the early-game with weapons and spells, and overwhelms opponents in the late-game by summoning multiple large minions every turn.

History
Big Warrior was first conceptualized with the release of Varian Wrynn in The Grand Tournament, however, other supporting cards were lacking.

The next time Big Warrior was brought up as a legitimate deck type was in Kobolds & Catacombs, with the release of Woecleaver. In Kobolds & Catacombs, there were many more supporting cards for this archetype. High-quality big minions such as The Lich King and Y'shaarj, Rage Unbound were optimized for the goal of Big Warrior.

Big Warrior never became a competitive deck during the Kobolds & Catacombs meta due to the highly oppressive Cube Warlock being popular, but was at least an effective deck that could climb the ladder.

The Boomsday Project brought even more support for Big Warrior in the form of The Boomship, Damaged Stegotron, and Zilliax, but Big Warrior was still an unpopular deck. With the prominence of Combo Druid during the Boomsday Project meta, Big Warrior was proven to be rather ineffective.

The following expansions all provided their own support for Big Warrior. With Rastakhan's Rumble came Akali, the Rhino, Amani War Bear, and Oondasta. With Rise of Shadows came The Boom Reaver and Dimensional Ripper. With Saviors of Uldum came Plague of Wrath.

With the rotation of Woecleaver and The Lich King, at the start of the Year of the Dragon, Big Warrior took a large hit; and in Wild, Big Warrior could not compete with Big Priest. This meant that Big Warrior, although rapidly receiving support cards, was still ineffective in both formats.

The archetype received a much-needed shot in the arm in Scholomance Academy, with Commencement and Ceremonial Maul providing ways for the deck to defensively stabilize on its swing turns, and Troublemaker and Rattlegore providing insane value when cheated from the hand.

Common cards
The following cards in played in most versions of this deck.

Core Standard cards
The following cards are run in most or all versions of this deck.

Optional Standard cards
The following cards are played more than occasionally, but not always: