[Firebat] Druid Options Deck
- Last updated May 5, 2014 (Live Patch 5170)
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Wild
- 20 Minions
- 10 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 10680
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 3/15/2014 (Live Patch 4973)
- Firebat
- Registered User
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- 6
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Total Deck Rating
628
If you just want to play the biggest cards in your hand and always slam crap down on the table then this is NOT the deck for you!
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Deck Stats
1st Place in Topdeck #12 3/18/2014
2nd Place in Friday Night Swiss 3/7/2014
Went from rank 2 and 1 star to Legend with only 1 loss
I'd like to explain some of the thought that went into this deck.
Why no Force of Nature + Savage Roar combo?
I personally hate not having options, and one of the easiest way to lose options is to play cards that do not have any effect/limited effect until they are used as a finisher or such. In my opinion Force of Nature is a terrible card by itself, and that's because I judge cards by how well the attribute to my board position. and for a kill spell it takes way too much mana to be worth it and cant be bottle necked by taunts. These clunky cards can sit in my hand and make me feel as if I would be better off without them because I'd have better options for board control. So I started experimenting with new ideas.
Why not the standard Ancient Watcher style
Because Ancient Watchers require you to run Defender of Argus, and Sunfury Protector. Which require you to also draw those cards to activate them, or the Keepers to activate them, but in most matchups I have to use my keepers to maintain board or silence their threats, so I dislike having 2 cards that need 4 specific cards to activate them. Instead of limiting myself to how I can play my cards I choose to use the old school mana acceleration Druid engine from season 2.
Wild Growth Timing Techniques
This is kind of hard to explain, but during the game you need to look at your hand and judge how much you need mana, what you can do with mana, and if that need is more that the need of cards. Wild Growth has 2 uses. Either draw a card at 10 or gain mana at the cost of 2 mana that turn. There are many cases where it is more important to get the card later than it is to get the mana now. The deck is focused around choices and how to use these cards that all can have immediate value, or can be saved for alternate values.
So if combos are clunky why are there combos in the deck list
These combo cards are cards that all still hold high value when played individually.
Mark of the Wild - Independently this card can be used against aggro to hold off a lot of annoying hunters or warlock aggro, it is really a great one of, that can almost always have an opportunity to be played. Unless, you are playing vs a deck like handlock that has a measurable number of threats then you know you are safe to save it for the removal combos.
Big Game Hunter - Although a lot of people don't link to drop this card by itself, it is actually on curve! a 4/2 is a 6 point 3 drop which is normal stats. Behind a druid of the claw it can usually trade up, and in the aggro matchups it can take down Animal Companion, Shield Bearer, and Void Walker, all of which can be annoying for the Harvest Golem to deal with.
Faceless Manipulator - In the aggro matchup you can faceless chargers like Doomgaurd, or Argent Commander which can help you stabilize board. And in the control matchups it is mostly saved for countering rag, or for pulling off one of your own deadly combos.
The Combos
- Mark of the wild enemy minion with 5 or 6 attack + Big Game Hunter
- Mark of the wild enemy minion + Black Knight
- Mark of the wild own minion + Faceless
Also note, at 10 mana Mark of the Wild Faceless and Big Game Hunter can all be played at the same time, so you can buff a minion up, copy it, then kill it.
Taking Advantage of New Changes - Because Tinkmaster is gone people will attempt to silence Ysera and ignore it, because the 12 health is simply not worth cutting through, so after it lives a turn: Mark of the Wild + Faceless on Ysera is GG almost every time. And most classes can't do anything to stop this as of now.
This deck is quite strong indeed. I decided to swap out the azure drake for a leeroy jenkins because i find the azure drake unplayable sometimes due to mana inefficiency. Also, leeroy jenkins can really come in handy to finish games (leeroy+facelessmanipulator).
I wanted to fit leeroy in here somewhere, maybe that's the place to do it, but I find the card draw can really help tilt a game, and occassionally against control the +spell damage is very high impact. But the main reason for azure is for card draw, so not sure if that's the best spot to fit leeroy in because it may cause the flow to be slower.
I can't really explain why but this deck is actually really good against zoo and hunter rush. For zoo the fact that you can swipe/starfall early really hurts them. Keeper of the grove is the 'early game' mvp in that matchup as well. Against hunters, my strategy is usually to try to get a yeti/drake out early and keep hero powering until they deal with it or play bow. The armor gain really messes up their game, and you will always have a better board than them cause your minions are just plain better. The key is just to make sure you're out-damaging him every turn and pop in a surprise heal, GG.
How exactly is a wolf and UTH combo going to kill you if you only have one minion out? That 2 damage sure is back breaking....
The key to beating hunter decks in the first place is not keeping all that many minions on the board and grinding out the win with bigger guys than they have. It's a sound strategy and works very well.
This is an awesome deck!!! currently on a 10 win streak since rank 20 having just started climbing this season. Haven't lost a game yet and hope to keep going strong. Truthfully I'm just happy to have a reason to use my golden Cairne and Ysera :P
3-0 rank 6 with this so far. nice deck
This is a great deck. I never was a fan of the savage roar combo. Personally, I swapped a Yeti for a Senjin Shieldmasta and the Ancient of War for a defender of argus. Not sure if ideal but the extra taunts have saved me a couple times in this aggro meta. Currently playing in and around rank 6-8
nice deck so far but i find myself losing to priests most of all
does cenarius fit into this deck in any way? jw since ive got all those plus him as well
No Ysera or Black Knight for me. On the list to get, of course. Any recommended replacement? I have everything else I would need for this.
I think this is quite a solid deck, especially for tournaments and top of the ladder. Druids are a typically slow class anyway, so I think the Wild Growth work well as it allows you to get ahead in the game, allowing for the earlier big plays, such as turn 3 Yeti as well as turn 4 Lore. Also, this deck actually requires some thinking and thought, unlike the faceroll hunter in the current meta where its just face face face.
I also like the loot hoarder against mages, other druids and rogues as it can stall for tempo on turn 2 and also replaces itself.
Good Job,
xJord
Thanks for the guide. With such a focus on Mark of the Wild, why only one in the deck? With two, you could potentially use 2/3 combos you mentioned instead of just 1. I'm sure it has something to do with your aforementioned curves, even trades, and things that involve balanced spreadsheets and/or higher math. I was just curious what you thought and if you could recommend a card to swap out. Thanks again.
there is only one in the deck simply because of the style of the deck. There are a few ways that the early game plays, either you give up board to wild growth then attempt to take it back with a 4 drop on turn 3, you innervate something else and attempt to beat them down, or you hold on to your cards and play slowly. Often times you do not have board and are fighting for it back, and just having all the answers to fight for board back, whereas mark of the wild is most effective as just a use when you do have board. The combos still work well without board, but chances are the other decks have a target for Big Game Hunter, and maybe even Black Knight, so the combos don't even happen every game, and I don't want to risk it being a dead card.
Understood. Thanks for clarifying, and thanks again for the guide!
Removed both Wild Growth for Healing Touch and Acidic Swamp Ooze, just because I'm facing shitloads of aggro, particularly that lovely huntards :3 (currently rank 10)
Do you think that swaps could work? It's just that I find Wild Growth a bit "slow" against this kind of decks (I may be wrong, if that's the case just explain me please!). I like Healing Touch a lot, saves me tons of times, but I'm not sure about Ooze, I get it's much more situational (maybe add just one Wild Growth and drop Ooze, while keeping the Healing Touch? Doubts, doubts... D:).
And as suggested before, in your opinion Ancient of War > DoA?
Thanks a lot, liked this deck :)
I like the idea of subbing out 1 wild growth for a healing touch. When you're not against aggro, can make a silenced Yesra with taunt much more game ending.
Wild Growth is the point of the deck. The curve is set up to react with Wild Growth, because if you mulligan everything for it you have ~70% chance to get either a wild growth or an innervate in your starting hand + first draw. This allows you to skip your 3 drop turn and play a 4 drop, or innervate something out, or hold the innervate for critical plays later if you have a 3 drop. In Topdeck #12 I put in a healing touch and took out a Harvest Golem as a sideboard in the best of three I played vs a hunter in Round of 16, and when I was vs a token druid in Semi Finals.
Argus is only useful if you play the deck aggressively. Meaning no thinking, just innervating out whatever you can and playing your biggest creatures and pushing for momentum and hoping they can't answer it as you play your cards all out because to get a value argus buff in this deck requires it to buff two 4 or hire drops usually as that is most all of the drops, so it is a huge board commitment and if stopped by some combination of spells will be hard to recover from. Ancient of War needs to be timed to be effective and you need to setup when you are going to play in at least a turn if not more than a turn in advance, and if set up properly can actually be used as a way to establish board control and tilt the game in your favor to setup Rag, or Yesera. It is also a huge threat and can be used to remove an execute or hex or poly to set up the finishers. Therefore, I believe Ancient of War fits the deck and my playstyle a lot better. But depending on your matchups Argus maybe the right choice, mainly just the control warrior matchup if you set it up right.
Not as fun as Savage druid to play but it wins games!
is not wild growth too slow?
when you consider the aggressive decks in the meta, this decks lacks some early game taunt guys.
1 mark of the wild and 2 druid of the claws won't be enough vs aggressive warlock and hunter decks
force of nature + savage roar was played at the druid decks because to finish of the giants warlock decks out of no where, currently many people play warlock giants, I still think that force+roar is a good combination.
altough nat paggle is nerfed he still draws decent cards, may be instead of loot horder?
No its not, it allows you to skip your 2nd turn which is usually not a useful turn, to play a 4 drop which immediately can pressure and control vs even a hunter. Hunter is not the best matchup, but this is not a grind deck this is a deck ment to play towards the top of the ladder where hunters are only like 10% of your games if that. And also in tournaments where you can sideboard to crush a hunter. And boardlock aka warlock aggro can't tradeoff to keep board vs the first 4 drop without soulfire, and even then you follow up with an aoe clear or a 5 drop and you just win the game then and there even if they had their nuts hand.
Taunts suck in a mana acceleration deck because the point is to accelerate things with better stats so that you have better stuff, while taunts have reduced stats so they will trade ineffectually with the opponent in all matchups except the hunter matchup.
I have 100% winrate vs Giants Warlock and hope to continue to have that. I am not afraid of their threats and can just play slower than them, pick off all their threats one by one, and wait until they draw out and I can finish by using Ysera after they have no answers left, or if my hand allows me to I can pressure enough in the mid game to finish at around turn 8-9 by using acceleration into better creatures and completely controlling the board. But that doesn't seem viable every game, so I don't do that method every game.
I dislike pagle because I don't want a card that is only effective if I am the aggressor, because if I chose to play more controlling then pagle is a dead card that will do nothing but soak up 4 damage for me.
The deck might take a little bit to understand and get used to but I am the proof that it does work at the competitive level of top ladder and in tournament play.