Hearthpwn

Hi guys! 

me ( DavosNoskule#2232 ) and my brother ( Mlhovina#2439 ) built this deck the morning of Whispers of the Old Gods launch and made legend top 500 (standard) by the end of the season. We consider it to be one of the most effective face/aggro decks that are currently playable. The best thing about this deck is that it is able to pull-off an enormous amount of burst/weapon damage in one turn, that your opponent most likely will not be expecting. That makes this it something like semi-OTK deck. An example can be 27 damage served from your hand on T7 if you have already Doomhammer equipped by using 2x Rockbiter Weapon + Lava Burst + 2x Lightning Bolt. Also, when your opponent plays let's say Reno Jackson you still may be able to kill them the following turn. We call this deck Faceless Einstein because on one hand it contains a very straight forward 4-drop minion Flamewreathed Faceless, but on the other hand it must be played smartly. More about that later.

As we have promised guys, here is the guide! 

GENERAL GAME PLAN

1. Be stronger on the board and keep your end game cards

2. Equip Doomhammer

3. Surprise your opponent by winning

1. EARLY GAME (T1 - T3): Although this is a face deck, it is important to win the board first. That doesn't  necessarily mean clearing everything, but you should keep the situation under control until you can see path to lethal. Hint: calculate lethal often few turns ahead, most of the time you will be surprised how close to lethal you are. Back to strategy. To occupy the board in the early game use your mulligan minions (see below) and if you have a bad hand, than hero power. Protect your MVPs on the board. In the early game, you should never use your end game cards - Rockbiter Weapon and Lava Burst and ideally save Lightning Bolt as well. In the early game you should play your minions even if they are not giving you maximum value. This is clear in a situation when you can play Tunnel Trogg on T1 without having overload card for T2. We strongly suggest to play Trogg in such situation because, firstly, your opponent doesn't know you don't have an overload in hand and will spend his valuables for removal (Druid will Wrath for 3 and run into card draw trouble, Shaman will spit out his Rockbiter, on the other hand against Warrior you probably shouldn't play it), second, you have about 30% chance of drawing a low mana overload card on T2 or a Flametongue Totem, which works nicely with Trogg, third, if you play aggro, than you have to be aggressive and show your teeth from the beginning for your opponent to start making wrong decisions. Ideal scenario of the early game looks like having plenty of minions on board including boosted Tunnel Trogg or two with defence by Feral Spirit. In such situation your only great fear should be AoE - if you feel like there is a high chance of your opponent having an AoE you cannot overcommit to the board but try to play around the possible AoE’s (bear in mind that your card draw is very limited with this deck).

2. MID GAME (T4 - T7): get your priorities straight: 1. Equip Doomhammer ASAP, 2. Equip Doomhammer ASAP, 3. Equip Doomhammer ASAP.  You will be experiencing a great temptation to play Flamewreathed Faceless on T4 with a Doomhammer in your hand. DON'T DO IT.

If you equip Doomhammer on T5, then you exhaust it on T8 and in ideal case you just hammered your opponent’s life down by 16 points. That means he is under enormous pressure. If you follow the Doomhammer by Flamewreathed Faceless on T6, then your opponent must deal with it as this combination as a mathematical fact means eminent threat to his life. Therefore he has to commit his energy and resources to remove the Flamewreathed Faceless and by that he often clears path for your Doomhammer.

If you play it the other way around and start with Flamewreathed Faceless, then you undertake a risk that you will die before you are able distribute the crucial Doomhammer damage. That is, if you play Flamewreathed Faceless on T4 then your Doomhammer is equipped on T6 and lasts until T9, which might be too late for this deck. Proper order is:

T4 - Eternal Sentinel or anything which doesn't overload you for T5.

T5 - Doomhammer.

T6 - Flamewreathed Faceless.

T7 - Rockbiter Weapon and Spell damage in the face. In theee faaaaaaace.

3. VICTORY: There are two rules to be followed:

First rule: invest your mana into weapon and minion damage first, so later, when your opponent summons taunts, you can finish him with spell damage;

Second rule: do not show your potential. Many opponents have healing capacity or other defence mechanisms, but they will rather choose offensive play as they feel safe at health of 20. So keep your Lava Burst or Rockbiter Weapon one more turn and perform an OTK in the next one.

MULLIGAN

Always keep: Tunnel Trogg, Flame Juggler, Totem Golem, Argent Squire, Sir Finley Mrrgglton

Sometimes keep:

Abusive Sergeant - these guys are probably closest to “always keep group” form this group - if he is your only 1-drop without coin and opponents HP cannot remove him, than keep him and slam him on the board T1

Feral Spirit - keep it against decks with lots of minions, otherwise only if you have a clear play for T1 and T2 without coin or if you have a Tunnel Trogg with coin to follow him up with Feral Spirit on T2

Argent Horserider - only with coin and on condition you have other three minions to play on T1 and T2

Flametongue Totem - works nicely with Sir Finley Mrrgglton and Argent Squire (with coin you can have a 3/3 and 3/1 with divine shield ready to attack on T2)

Lightning Bolt - works nicely with Tunnel Trogg and in certain matchups like Priest, Warlock, Shaman or Mage

Eternal Sentinel - only in case you can already in the mulligan phase see how and when you are going to use him

Never keep: The rest - YES, THROW AWAY THE Doomhammer AND Flamewreathed Faceless (unless you have a coin, 2x Tunnel Trogg and Totem Golem, Flame Juggler or Flametongue Totem -> the key aspect is that if your mana curve is already really good and you know what you’re gonna play for the first few turns, then you can choose if you want to coin the Flamewreathed Faceless on T3 or equip Doomhammer on T4

By class: This section will be completed once this deck gets 100 upvotes!

Selected comments to cards:

Lightning Bolt - can serve as a removal in early game or as a finisher.

Rockbiter Weapon - your key finisher. Doomhammer + one  Rockbiter Weapon gives 22 damage. So keep it for the end and try to do the 8 remaining damage by other means.

Tunnel Trogg - your key opener. Maybe the most important thing is that your opponents will shit their pants once they see him. Try to pair it with Totem Golem, Feral Spirit and Lightning Bolt (great against Mana Wyrm, Northshire Cleric, opponent’s Tunnel Trogg or even Voidwalker) in the early game.

Eternal Sentinel - a very valuable card that can completely negate the overload drawback from your last turn, this turn and the next turn. Also one of the cards that can allow a lethal surprise as your opponent most likely won’t be expecting you to work with overloaded mana crystals

Sir Finley Mrrgglton - although Steady shot is the general choice of Face Shamans, we prefer Life Tap. Running out of cards is a serious problem with this deck as there is only one Ancestral Knowledge. Also, consider that your deck is full of crazy OP stuff and you will often find yourself waiting for any face damage (which the Steady shot can do, except for Priests and Warriors. Anyway, Steady shot should definitely be at worst your second choice, followed by Druid's Shapeshift and Mage's Fire blast (that one is nice against the new divine shield Paladin).

Doomhammer - remember you need four turns to fructificate it. Also remember there are two in the deck.

 

Have fun. And don’t tell your friends about this miracle.

Check out our twitch channel : https://www.twitch.tv/aggrostrojtv

DavosNoskule & Mlhovina

 

Check out some of our friends climbing with the deck!

Kerisofsarus#1255 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TixeeKjTEBo 

Byrd#2322 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3q0GmOuPU8

kiwiinbacon : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETVNIMDkU4M