Hearthpwn

Update: April 19, 2014:

- 2 Harvest Golem

- 2 Earthen Ring Farseer

- 2 Defender of Argus

+ 1 Sylvanas Windrunner

+ 1 Ancient of War

+ 1 Healing Touch

+ 1 Faceless Manipulator

+ 2 Wild Pyromancer

Holy updates batman! If you want to see these changes in action, check out my new video at the end of this thread! (or click here!) I've been toying around with the deck quite a bit in the past little while, and I've changed out 6 cards, which is a pretty big deal. That said, these 6 cards have actually made it much stronger in the current meta, I would argue. It's a bit slower on one level, because it has fewer low-level creatures, but on another level, it's faster, because it does have 2 drop creatures now. Additionally, it's actually become better against aggro decks than before, because the wild pyros are incredible in that matchup, and the healing touch is an excellent stall card. Sylvanas is good against aggro decks without a lot of hard removal as well. The ancient of War adds in some more late game resistance against both control and aggro (though it makes for a stronger late game, rather than a stronger early game), and the faceless manipulator is just nice flexibility - copy a doomguard, or copy your own rag!

I took out the defenders because in practice, you aren't going to have a lot of minions out at once - it becomes difficult to justify its cost of 4 mana without that guarantee. Plus, it only encourages you to play into unleash the hounds a bit more, since you want board presence; with midrange hunters being all over the place lately, I felt this was a bad thing. The lower level creatures helped to facilitate that as well, and so taking them out has made the hunter matchup just a bit stronger, I believe. We have more sustain now, and some more options in the late game!

 

Update: April 11, 2014:

- 2 Azure Drake

+1 Starfall

+1 Bloodmage Thalnos (OR Kobold Geomancer if you don't have Thalnos)

So, I've been toying around with the deck here and there, and it's a lot of fun to experiment with - Druid decks are very modular. I've arrived at the conclusion that the Azure drakes just weren't doing it for us. They only really help in slow games - against aggro they're more harm than good. As for a spellpower-boosted swipe, they're not the greatest, since it's 9 mana to do it all on one turn (the ideal thing). So, I've swapped out one drake for a Bloodmage (kobold if you don't have him!). The reason is that the spellpower is still valuable, and you don't lose card draw; it just comes earlier, and is easier to drop all at once (6 mana). I replaced the other drake with a Starfall, because I find I've been encountering zoo a lot more, particularly between ranks 10-8 (they've dropped off some now that I'm rank 5). Starfall helps with that, and also gives you flexibility when dealing with control decks, since it can also do 5 single-target damage. I think these changes make the deck better against aggro without a whole lot of impact to any other matchup.

Additionally, I've been experimenting with one Sylvanas Windrunner instead of one sunwalker, and I haven't come to a conclusion yet. It's pretty good, but I find it doesn't have the impact you'd expect it to. Then again, perhaps that's lack of familiarity and practice - I only recently picked up my sylvanas. In any case, to answer several questions I've been receiving: Yes, you can replace the sunwalkers with cairne or sylvanas, although I would probably keep one sunwalker in there. Having that 6-mana taunt is nice.

 

First, the thing you really want to know:

I built this deck to rank up super fast post-reset in the weird meta that hadn't quite settled yet, and it did its job. In exactly one day and about an hour and a half, I got from rank 17 to rank 10 with this deck, basically on a win streak the entire time. Since then, using this deck in conjunction with a few others, swapping out every once and a while, I've gotten to rank 5. I don't know if it's viable up at the highest ranks and into legendary, although I suspect it probably is. Check out the Trial video at the end of this post; not only is it proof of how good it can be (I did get a win streak in the video, as well), but it's also a good example of how to play the deck!

Premise:

This is a variation on some of the more popular ramp druid decks out there, whose purpose is to accelerate (or ramp) into the late game and play lots of giant stuff. A lot of the more standard decks of this kind tend to have a lot of tech cards (Big Game Hunter, Acidic Swamp Ooze, etc) at the beginning, and then a lot of late game power. This deck removes most of the tech cards for versatility, and, most importantly, consistency. This deck, in my experience, is quite consistent, and usually results in comfortable wins, as opposed to ones that are right down to the wire!

Playstyle:

In the early game, you're hoping for your Innervate and Wild Growth to pop up. If they do, use the wild growths quickly and try to innervate out large creatures; if they don't, just play as you normally would. A lot of ramp decks are screwed if they don't get their ramp cards - not this one! Play the Harvest Golem or Earthen Ring Farseer and just play the curve normally. The deck really shines in the mid-game, where you'll be playing largely late-game cards. Being one or two mana ahead of your opponent is a big difference. Put out many large creatures, taunt them up, and just build an unassailable board presence.

Win Conditions:

There's no FoN/SR combo here; the win condition is mostly just getting to the late game. If the game goes long, you are favored to win. You have so many big threats that the opponent will typically waste removal on your small threats. Once you actually get Ysera and Rag on the table, the likelihood is that the enemy won't have a convenient way to kill them!

Mulligan Strategies:

Keep Innervate and Wild Growth 100% of the time. If you have Innervate, don't be afraid to keep 4/5 mana creatures, but if you don't, you should trade them away in hopes for a faster start. With the coin, don't be afraid to keep four-drops. Against classes like Warlocks, Priests, and Mages, you want to try to get a Keeper of the Grove early on, to deal with things like a Twilight Drake, Lightspawn, or Mana Wyrm efficiently.

 

Individual Card Guide:

Innervate: One of your core cards. This allows you to get a yeti on the table on turn 1, which is the standard dream play, but it also allows you to play 3 4 mana cards on turn 10, which can sometimes be equally as useful. Be smart about it - don't innervate up to 6 mana and only use 5; be mana efficient.

Mark of the Wild: This makes all of your sort of scary creatures into very scary creatures. A yeti with Mark of the Wild costs the same and has the same stats as a Boulderfist Ogre, but also has taunt. This is a great tool to bait removal, and a great tool to get in an extra few damage on the enemy hero. Some people like to run The Black Knight with this, so they can buff and remove their enemy's creatures, but I don't really like that play. it's 8 mana for removal, and Mark of the Wild is better used on your own creatures to force your enemy to deal with them.

Wild Growth: If you've ever played starcraft, this is the equivalent of building more workers (or dropping MULEs if you're Terran!). It spends an early-game turn in order to boost you into the late game much faster. You sacrifice early tempo for late-game resources, and that's almost always a trade you are willing to make. A great play is to do wild growth on turn 2, and then your next turn, which will be four mana, do another wild growth with a wrath or hero-power to keep the board clean. Then, on the next turn, your opponent will have 4 mana and you'll have 6. If you get this opening, it's exceedingly likely that you'll win.

Wrath: Not always included in ramp decks. This is excellent control, and it makes up for not having many creatures in the early game. You can (and should) use this for early-game removal, and what's better, you can use it for card draw sometimes, too! It's a really great tool.

Earthen Ring Farseer: Sometimes, Ramp druids run healing touch to bring themselves back after losing a good chunk of health to early aggression. With this deck, the Farseer replaces healing touch on 2 levels - first, it gives you a small amount of health, but it can also be used to restore health to large taunts in late game, which means it's never a dead battlecry, and second, it's a minion, which means you have a better chance of taking less damage in the early game anyhow.

Harvest Golem: Excellent value at any point in the game. Great target for mark of the wild, and generally, a solid three-drop that will get you in the game faster in the event that you don't hit your ramp cards. Also, it's just a good filler drop. Have 8 mana but only 5 mana creatures? Problem solved.

Chillwind Yeti: I'm not sure this one needs an explanation. Probably the best-value 4-drop out there, a wonderful target for the defender of argus or mark of the wild, and just a nice, solid creature. Also great to innervate/coin out on turn one!

Defender of Argus: A lot of Ramp druid decks run Taz'dingo instead. The reason I've chosen the Defender is that we will almost always have minions on the board; it's a rare day that they've cleared our board entirely when we have so many taunt creatures. Also, this is a great way of getting even more value out of your non-taunt minions, or the smaller 3-drops.

Keeper of the Grove: Today's meta is weird. People are seemingly (particularly at the low levels) experimenting with a number of weird things. Priests are beginning to make a comeback. All of this says that silence is going to be an increasingly important option in a well-rounded deck. The druid, happily, doesn't even have to work for it. This creatures is so versatile. You can silence enemy taunts with it, you can outright kill a number of problematic minions, and it's a great body to taunt up as well: mark of the wild it, and it's a druid of the claw.

Swipe: This is an auto-include in all druid decks, in my opinion, and here is no different.

Azure Drake: A nice, standard 5-drop minion that gives you a card as well. It's a bonus that it gives you spellpower; a great turn 9 play (or turn 7 if you innervate!) is the drake and a swipe.

Druid of the Claw: This is an excellent minion for its versatility. 90% of the time, you'll want it in taunt form, but sometimes, it's nice to be able to instantly do 4 damage to something. Great mid-game (or early game - innervate/coin on turn 2!) creature.

Sunwalker: In my spellsword rogue deck, I mention how sticky Argent Squire and Scarlet Crusader can be. They're really hard to get rid of. If that's the case, Sunwalker is much, much worse. Usually, it will require 3 different creatures to kill it, or a hard removal spell. Even though other creatures benefit from it more, and you generally want to save it for them, a Mark of the Wild on a sunwalker is a scary sight to behold.

Ancient of Lore: This card is incredible for druid control. By the time you get to the late game against other control decks, you're going to want more options, which this card can give you; you won't be in need of health. If you're against aggro, and you're in danger of dying, this card can also save you from that. It's usually much better to go for the cards, but the option to go for the health will win you a few games here and there.

Ragnaros the Firelord: Excellent finisher. This is great for removing big threats (with a little bit of RNG), and always requires a response. The best part is that you tend to bait out the enemy's hard removals very quickly, and so if you play rag toward the end of the game, the enemy will often be out of responses! Also, a fun thing to double-innervate out on turn 4 (or, just to innervate out on turn four after having both wild growths).

Ysera: A great finisher for this deck. All of her cards can be used to great effect, and even if you only get one out of her and bait removal, that's often worth it. Again, though, just like Rag, the likelihood is that your enemy will have already spent a lot of their removal by the time Ysera comes out, so you'll likely get lots of cards out of her! Also: If you know that your opponent has spent all of his removal, certainly use mark of the wild on Ysera; that alone almost guarantees a win.

Video Guides:

Overview:

 

Trials:

New Update!:

 

As always, Feel free to ask questions or just leave comments, and I'll do my best to answer them!