Echo of Medivh & Molten Giant - the backbone of the deck. The play you are looking for is big Moltens + Echo turns. Something like 1 Molten + 1 Loatheb/Healbot + 1 Echo with 1 minion on the board is the play. 2 Moltens + 1 Echo is perfect, 1 Molten + 2 Echo with a minion on board is also nice. Just don't flood the board too much with Moltens against Handlock (Shadowflame), Warr Control (Brawl), Priest (Lightbomb) or Rogue (Big Blade Flurry).

Alternatively you will use Echo to get multiple Loathebs against control decks like Warrior Control, Handlock, Priest, Freeze/Fatigue Mage & Druid and Miracle Rogue or to get multiple Healbots/Illuminators against Hunters and Mages.

Against Aggro decks, Molten comes out faster with Duplicate/Echo or without it to help stabilize. If you reach endgame against these decks, you are going to win because of heals and card advantage.

Echo of Medivh will punish players playing around Duplicate.

 

 

Duplicate - similar functionality as Echo, it works great with strong battlecry minions like Loatheb, Healbot and complements the core strategy by enabling 2nd Molten Giant for Echo play, getting rid of the BGH in the process. Getting Loathebs for future Echoes/2nd Duplicate is game changing against late game/spell heavy decks as you can see in the screenshot below

 

 

 

Frostbolt & Fireball - early to mid game removal in most matchups, try to save them up if possible against decks like Handlock, Freeze Mage, any kind of Fatigue decks as alternative win condition - 15 points of direct damage for 10 mana

 

Polymorph - late game removal to deal with cards like Rag, Sylvanas or against any kind of sticky deathrattle minions against faster decks, I tend to use 1 Poly early against Acolyte in Warr control matchups to deny card draw.

 

Mad Scientist - 1 of 2 cards you want in your opening hand every game, helps with stabilizing/early minion trades and fetches important Secrets early. You are not going to duplicate this guy though.

If you need to survive, play other secrets then kill Mad Scientist to setup an Ice Block fetch - puzzle vid here:   Surviving with Mad Scientist 

Arcane Intellect - vital card for digging deep into your deck searching for the combo pieces, just watch out to end the turn with max 7 cards if you have a minion on the board and Duplicate secret up. A. Intellect is a keeper in opening hand agaist all mid-to-lategame decks. You are really digging for them.

 

Ice Block - key card that helps you with setting up easy Molten boards when low on health or healing yourself with Alexstrasza or Heal bots the turn after Ice Block trigger

 

Vaporize - tricky removal card that allows Mad Scientist to trade with 2 minions, changes the Force + Roar math, but mostly helps with Rogue Oil decks, Warr Control and Shaman charge burst reach, Arcane Golem combos and  deals almost single-handedly with OTK Warrior

 

Unstable Portal - very strong card with a random element to it, you can mitigate part of the randomness with the Echo, getting value from random crap for zero mana just throwing it down in your Echo turn to get an extra minion. If you get a strong minion, you can multiply the outcome with your Duplicate card instead. Another point to Portal is that it helps you with the mana curve considerably. Instead of portals I would run some threaths* like Dr. Boom, Mountain Giant or Faceless - all high mana costed minions. The Portal fits well there just because it helps you with the flow of the game and being mana efficient early game

 

 *A threath is a card that will win you the game if not dealt with.

 

Loatheb, Antique Healbot and Alexstrasza - all of them are minions with strong Battlecry effects and perfect targets for your Duplicates/Echoes (extra copies from Duplicates snowball into more copies later with Echoes), Healbot can stall games almost infinitely with the help of extra copies, Loatheb is extremely valuable in this deck and can win games all by himself, Duplicating Loatheb is always a high priority against Mid-to-Lategame decks. Alex is a natural inclusion in any Ice Block deck as it can be used both offensively (with double giant ready on board or Frostbolts/Fireballs in hand) or Defensively after the Ice block cube is triggered.

These are my stats with the deck above rank 4 over last 2 seasons.

 

 

The worst matchup was pre-nerf Hunter with Undertakers being dominant early game and with sticky minions later like Creeper, Shredder, Belcher and Highmane. It was often impossible for me to get back into the game once behind with this late game oriented deck. The best matchups are the Priest and Rogue decks but with not enough data to really support that claim. As I see it Priest happens to be too reactive with all kinds of wrong anwers, and it cannot exert enough pressure on you  (Priest really needs that Lighbomb to harm you). Rogue generelly aims for the late game with Miracle Rogue variants being popular again, but is worse at it than this deck. Oiled charge burst gets Vaporized. Both Priest and Rogue succumb to Loathebs. Warrior control matchup is in your favor if you follow your gameplan strictly, but still very hard. It's easy to make mistakes there.

 

Aggro Matchups - Opening Hand and Strategy (Hunter, Zoolock, Mech Mage)

 

If you face any of these classes, always assume it's an aggresive early game deck and keep cards accordingly. If you guess wrong (and meet Freeze Mage/Handlock instead), you will have enough time to draw more useful cards.

Keep Mad Scientist, Frostbolt, Unstable Portal, Explosive Sheep, Illuminator and Moltens. Against Hunter keep one Healbot as well. If you already have some of these cards in your opening hand, keep Arcane Intellect as well. Send everything else away.

 

Slow your opponent down, with your early game cards. Be mana efficent every turn. When you have nothing else to play, you can always double ping 2 health minions with your hero ability. Against midrange decks its often correct play to take more damage to use double ping play early, but against these aggro decks you should just avoid it.

In these fast matchups it's all about survival, so you will use your Moltens early outside of the combo, because if you survive, you are going to win anyway with so many heal, card advantage and value cards.

 

Plays that will help you win against aggro decks:

 

Molten + Echo + Molten + Sunfury Protector (6 mana)

 

Duplicate + Healbot next turn

 

 Control Warrior - Opening Hand and Strategy (Warrior)

 

 Keep Arcane Intellect, Loatheb, Mad Scientist, Unstable Portal, Polymorph, Frostbolt in that order. If you have Loatheb in your opening hand, keep Duplicate as well.

 It's very easy to stall against Control Warrior, but quite hard to win. At some point in the game, you have to drop your health below 10 to enable Moltens and use your Iceblocks before the Fatigue phase of the game (Ice Block is useless with no cards left in deck, Fatigue will kill you on 1HP with Iceblock on). So don't be too afraid to go down in health, but do not allow Warrior player to build up a bigger board than you can manage in the process.

 

The other hard part is managing your hand properly as there may be more than 9 cards you want to keep for the next turn at some points and you actually need to drop down to 7 cards to use Duplicate. At some point in the game, you can see yourself shooting Frostbolts and Fireballs to reduce armor just to free up your hand for duplicating Loatheb.

 

You do your Molten combo, but never more than 2 giants at a time because of a Brawl. After the first Brawl, you can flood the board with Moltens and other minions at will.

 

Try to save Vaporize for Gromash if possible, that can be a game winning move.

 

I tend to use 1 Poly on Acolyte early, to deny card draw and free up my hand. 1 Poly should be saved for Rag/Alex.

 

Rag can help you get down to the health range where you can use Moltens for free.

Story of Many Loathebs and One sad Freeze Mage

 

Illuminator topdeck at 1 HP healed me back to full HP

 

Art of Bluffing - Vaporize Edition

 

I will survive!

 

Unstable portal video compilation is coming soon...

2nd Explosive Sheep - great option for metagame heavy on heavy Paladin/Zoolock/Shaman 

 

2nd Vaporize - tech card that will grant you an advantage against other combo decks and charge burst decks (Gromash, Al'Akir, Arcane Golem, Cold Blood, Power Overwhelming)

 

2nd Illuminator - trades favorably with early game minions and heals you later in the game, I prefer double Healbot and only 1 Illuminator atm

 

Faceless Manipulator - great card when Ragnaros is popular. Faceless + Poly turn is a game winning move against many decks. Good synergy in this deck with Duplicates and Moltens.

 

Dr. Boom - arguably the best minion in the game right now, solid Echo target but his 7 mana cost  prevents you from using Echo + Dr. Boom in one turn most of the time, also imrpoves matchups that are solid already

 

Blizzard - great anti aggro and stalling card, works great with Moltens, Alex and setting up combos in general, saying this I would still prefer 2nd Explosive sheep over Blizzard atm

 

Sludge Belcher - staple card in control and stall decks, which happens to be good with both Duplicate and Echo, I prefer Healbots though as I need to go down in health to enable Moltens and heal up myself later.. Healbot put you out of Kill Command/Fireball/Eviscerate range. For chargers you have Vaporize.

 

Zombie Chow - virtually no drawback as you are looking to end the game with army of huge giants anyway, solid opener against any Aggro deck and it fits the 10 mana Healbot/Loatheb + Zombie Chow + Echo play, you don't want this to be Duplicated though

 

Feugen & Stalagg - TidesofTime recently used Feugen and Stalagg as an alternative win condition, these guys goes really well with duplicating effecets (unless Hexed/Polymorhed)

Arcane Nullifier X-21 - taunt that cannot be removed by spells is very useful safety insurance, 2/5 body is great for dealing with Zoolock/Hunter onslaught, but beign targetable by owls/keepers is the downside of this card, also Illuminator compares favorably with similar body and stronger game effect

 

Mountain Giant - solid lategame threath but clunky to use, situational and even at 3 or 4 mana it's kinda expensive for this deck.

  

Frost Nova & Doomsayer - favourite combo of all stall decks.. works great with heavy card draw decks, but this is not the case. Your card advvantage is gained from copying your minions and you would find a hard time assembling this 2 piece combo together without that heavy card draw. Also it does not really contribute to the control role alternative play route you can take with this deck.