Hearthpwn

Proof:

MSG Update:

(Put the doomsayers back in after reaching high ranks, but kept the overall greediness of the deck).

So after insane increase of aggro warrior and aggro shaman early on in MSG, I started teching the deck to counter them. Added Doomsayer, Oozes etc. And only after long time I understood that they don't really help that much against aggro, while greatly reducing the winrate against other non aggro decks. The deck works the best when you draw cards and have a big hand, playing doomsayers, oozes etc just delays your demise, you won't get much tempo with small hand. So that's where I got back to the greedy build similar to the build I built when MSG hit, no doomayers, 2 shamblers, 2 bolts, added Abyssal Enforcer instead of Shadowflame, since Shadowflame doesn't have much synergy in the deck, besides Enforcer is a proactive card. The winrate against most decks skyrocketed. Its favorable against Dragon Priests, Renolocks, Renomages, Jade Druids. Midrange/Control Shaman. 50/50 against Miracle Rogue. And the only bad matchups are aggro warrior and aggro shaman, but you just need to face the fact it's a bad matchup, just like face hunter was for handlock before. Having a 72.6% winrate right now with the deck last 3 days and reached rank 4, will be trying to get legend with it as it sparked new hope for the deck in me.

Some examples of how the deck plays out:

Dragon Priest

Dragon Priest 2 (Poor start with comeback)

Jade Druid

Renomage

Insane game against Jade Druid

Some games are missing in deck tracker as I forgot to turn it on 1 session of games.

 

(OLD) Hello. My name is Maximal. I reached top 200 with this deck with a 77% winrate in the legend ranks. I know 22 games is a small sample, so the winrate might come down with more games especially against high ranked opponents, but I don't play a lot, as you can see I played only 22 ranked games in the last 3 days and I am not the one who tries to grind to legend rank 1, simply because I have no time, I have work and life matters to deal with daily.

So a little about me. I am a numerous times legend player, a vivid handlock player, who reached legend numerous times with Demon Handlock, even in the meta, when it was a tier 3 deck and 1 out of 300 players played it.

Classic Handlock was my first competitive deck in Heartstone ever and I have been playing Handlock exclusively upto standard format, Warlock was my only golden hero. I really liked the mechanics of handlock and thinking required every turn, living on the edge of diying. Nothing felt better than smashing those giants into opponents face.

I wanna give my big respect to Lifecoach, because he was one of the few who streamed playing handlock on twitch, back in the day when I started. If not him, I wouldn't be as good as I am with handlock right now.

So standard came and with it came the nerf of Molten Giant, which I completely disliked. I'll be honest with you, I disenchanted Moltens the first day of standard, I thought the card is dead and there is no use to it, I pretty much gave up on handlock at the time and started playing tempo warrior, which became really popular after some time. But I still tried to create a viable handlock deck, with cards like Eerie Statue, Faceless Shambler, Doomsayer etc, but it felt weak, it felt like all I am doing is trying to survive, it was really passive, with to many 4 drops, the reason I called the deck 4lock at the time.

I still kept playing Tempo Warrior, which I really enjoyed, but quickly it lost its effectiveness in the ladder, no one played it anymore, that's where I understood there is no deck I enjoy anymore in heartstone, I was really dissappointed, up to the point I started playing cancer decks (shaman), which I despised thought all my time in heartstone. With dragons all around ladder, I thought I might take a try at handlock with dragons, maybe its gonna work. I took my Demon Handlock deck I used to play before and replaced demon synergy with dragon synergy. I tested the deck and made numerous adjustments. I got a Molten Giant in a pack and decided to test it in the place of sea giants, which I found completely uneffective, when I was testing. And to my amazement Molten Giant still worked, so I quickly crafted the 2nd one and put it in the deck. I also took some ideas from Malylock. In the end it became a mix of malylock and handlock.

Why this deck is good in the current meta?

This deck is a warrior killer. It destroys any kind of warrior. Control, Combo, Tempo, C'Thun, Dragon, Patron, you name it. In fact just like previous handlocks it is the King Of Control, it destroys control decks. With the addition of dragons it also has insane tempo plays now, which makes it really effective against aggro and midrange too. The only so-so matchups for this deck are midrange hunter and aggro shaman, which are still winnable if you play it right. Druids are pretty hopeless against you, because of BGH and silence nerf. They can't simply deal with your giants and drakes now. BGH and silence nerfs really buffed handlock, no more giants getting bghed, creating huge tempo swing, no more 4/1 Drakes, no more silenced taunts. Rogues wish they never have met you.

Notice:

Handlock was always a skill heavy deck, this deck is no exception, it requires a lot of experience to pilot it the right way. It will be hard to play for someone who never played handlock before, so please before saying this deck sux etc consider that.

Someone who knows nothing about Handlock should watch this

Key things of the deck:

• You want to be hurt. You need to tap when you can, you want to get low on health to get value from Molten Giants, you need to play on the edge. You need to know when your opponent can have lethal, if he can have lethal, you taunt up or heal, else you need to apply pressure and play big minions. You know what a bad handlock player does? He heals himself when he doesn't need it.
• Tap first. Its the general rule of warlock. Think about what you are gonna play this turn and if there is any mana left, you tap first and then you make the play.
• Taunted up Giants almost always go face.
• Dont forget to tap then play Mountain Giant for 3 mana on turn 5.
• Most of the time you want to play Twilight Guardian or Twilight Drake instead of Mountain Giant on turn 4 to bait removals fom control decks and so u can tap and play Mountain Giant on turn 5. Exceptions are matchups where you need to apply pressure asap like Freeze Mage, or when you are gonna bust your hand really quick playing low mana minions after that, so get value from Mountain Giant before doing that and making him a dead card.
• Knowing when to play hellfire is one of the keys of playing this deck efficiently, you nned to get the most value out of hellfire. Coin hellfire on turn 3 or turn 4 is sometimes the wrong play against aggro. Hellfire is generally played when you have a big minion on board, when you can setup the best hellfire with that minion completely clearing opponents board after hellfire. Also its great when your opponent brought you low enough to play Molten Giants. However you always need to understand how much damage is too much to pass on hellfire.
• Minion positioning is quite important, make a rule to place minions that can be taunted on the right, and useless low health minions and minions with taunt mechanic on the left. Always put 2 minions that you think you will taunt later close to each other. Protect damaged Giants behind taunts, they represent a huge threat for opponent.
• Find a good use for Farseers. Against the control you don't want to heal urself, you want to heal your big minions. Only heal urself in dangerous situations. You want to get low against control to play your Molten Giants.
• This deck features Alextrasza instead of Jarraxxus as the main Dragon. This is due to dragon synergy and heal plus 8/8 minion on board, which you can taunt up later against aggro. Against control you want to use her to burst your opponent down in 1 turn with Soulfires and POs you got from Dark Peddler. This strategy is very useful against Renolocks, Priests, Control Paladins and sometimes Warriors.
• From Dark Peddler you usually want to get something that is gonna be useful in particular matchup and situation. Against aggro, its Mortal Coil, Soulfire, Voodoo Doctor or any other small minion which can be useful for you. Against Control its usually extra burst in Soulfire and PO.
• Again against control you don't want to play Peddler turn 2, you want to get bigger hand to play your big minions. Only if you have coin and want to play Giant, or keep the coin on turn 4, you can play Peddler before that. Peddler, Farseers, Watchers can be used to deal with Sylvanas, since there is no silence in the deck, So thats the right time for them.
• Think how to use Brann effectively in certain matchups. Against aggro healing with Farseers for 6 is good, against control, you can use him with Corruptor to take out big minion or burst the opponent down. Great to use with Twilight Drake against priest and druid, since they can't really deal with them.
• You need to be greedy and risk from time to time with handlock. You need to understand the concept of racing the opponent. Say you are facing a hunter or shaman and you are behind taunted giants, he has a couple of minions on board and you are low on health, but he can't deal with your taunts. That's where you need to understand that you have to race the opponent, before he finds some burst to kill you. You kill him before he kills you. So instead of trading with his minions, you need to go face and set up lethal the next turn. that leaves him only 1 card to get to burst you down.
• Healing with Alex is only good when your opponent has less damage on board than what you are healing for. But if you can't do anything else go for Alex just to survive for 1 extra turn.
• Get the most use of Corruptor don't just play them to attack face. Use the ability on a minion, since Corruptor is basically a Darkbomb with a 5/4 body.
• Use Mortal Coil mana efficiently. A good example is if your opponent has a 2/1 on board on your turn 2, its sometimes better to tap and kill it off at turn 3 with coil and tap or peddler. You need to understand when you can receive certain damage and when not.
• Alextrasza should most of the time be the last dragon you play against control decks. Either to heal or combo. Keep Alex in hand as long as you can to enable dragon synergy.
• Always try to keep 1 dragon in the hand, those filler dragons usually are Azure Drake and Alex. Remember you can combo Azures with Mortal Coil and Shadow Bolt for higher damage.
• Don't burn any cards, to know when you have 10 cards you can look at the most left card in hand, if it is below the board border, it means you have 10 cards and you need to play a card, to avoid burning the next card you draw.
• Coin is almost always kept to play a big 4 drop on turn 3, so don't just waste it if you don't really need it. Also it's really good to preserve coin to play Jaraxxus and Infernal at turn 10 against control.
• NEW! A little bit on Netherspite Historian (in the decklists where it was or will be present), as I think its really important to make the picks right at the right time. The dragons you usually want to get from it are midrange based dragons only against control decks go for big legendaries, don't be greedy. Best picks are Twilight Drake and Twilight Guardian, Book Wyrm is great against Shaman to kill Thunder Bluff Valiant or say kill a Doomsayer against Freeze Mage, Azure Drake is decent overall, can get value with Mortal Coil or Shadow Bolt. Drakonid Crusher might become a 9/9 in some situations. Volcanic Drake is insane with hellfire/shadowflame against Shamans or Zoolocks. Malygos is still insane with Mortal Coil or Soulfire drawn from Peddler. Midnight Drake is great with shadowflame. hungry Dragon is a great value dragon when you can kill of the one drop with Historian/Peddler/Coil.

Update:

Changed the deck a little bit.

• Added 2 Shadow Bolts. There was 1 Soulfire before, which is a good card, but after playing for some time I noticed you lose power when you play it. For Handlock to be effective you need to keep a big hand and when you play Soulfire you lose 2 cards. One of which might be really useful later on. You can lose value battle to control decks simply, because you played Soulfire and discarded a huge minion. Soulfire is probably better in general Dragonlock, cause you don't really care about your hand size, but more about tempo.
• Replaced BGH with Siphon Soul. I didn't meet many Shamans lately and Siphon is more flexible, being able to remove druids 5/10 and many other annoying under 7 attack minions, which BGH can't remove. Also +3 heal gives a little extra life resource.
• Added Jaraxxus. Just to give an extra card to heal from down low and to out value any other control deck.
• Replaced the last Azure Drake with Chillmaw, since Azure Drake was basically in the deck for dragon synergy activation, rarely played anyway, I though why not play Chillmaw then, it can be useful against some aggro decks and can save your ass from time to time and acts as 3rd AoE. Great against Zoo or Shamans.
• Made quite big changes to improve early game. Netherspite Historian is now in the deck to give more early game presence and at the same time give you the dragon you need, be it a midgame dragon against aggro/midrange or late game legendary against control. Added watcher for flexibility as I started noticing inneficient use of mana in the deck, watchers provide more flexibility and help the defensive nature. Brought back Brann, I guess he is just to good in this deck to pass on him. Removed Molten Giants only because of meta shift. Matchups where they were useful - Dragon Warrior and Zoolock are much less popular now, while matchups where it is pretty bad - Mid Hunter and Tempo Mage are more popular now. Added Acidic Swamp Ooze, a card I never played before really, but because there was a high number of warriors, hunters and shamans in the meta, I decided this tech card, which I really like now.
• Once again huge changes in the decklist. Moltens are back since fall in popularity of hunters and tempo mages. And I believe you really need a minion that cheats mana in this meta (ex. Thing From Below or Arcane Giant). I tried to recreate the deck from my old Demon Handlock decklist and optimise early game and late game the way it was before, so therefore historians are gone and Chillmaw is in (good against shaman). Technicians sort of replace Watchers since the value of watchers fell down a little, because of owl nerf, and watchers become useless sometimes.

Matchups:

• Keep Twilight Drake with coin against aggro if you already have good starting hand.

• Try to keep combine 1 4 mana dragon and Netherspite Historian in the mulligan

Notice:

There were a lot of major changes made in the decklist over couple of months since I put this matchup guide, in particular there is no more Soulfire.

Druid:

Mulligan: Mistress of Mixtures, Netherspite Historian, Twilight Drake, Mountain Giant.

Against Token Druid:

Use Coil to remove early tokens since they will usually mulligan for them, thinking you are zoo, cycle through the deck. The sooner you drop Mountain Giant, the sooner they will concede, although Twilight Drake followed by tap Mountain giant on turn 5 is really effective too. If the druid won't find Innervate Teacher/Power of Wild shenigans early, all he is gonna do all game is try to remove your minions all game, struggling to do that. Its a good thing to keep Shadow Bolt and Mortal Coil, just to remove Innervated Teacher or Fandral. Druid is quite easy matchup if they don't draw superbly early. The only 2 loses to druid you see in the chart were against the same player who played dragon druid at rank 300 and was able to burst me with 2 swipes the 1st game and got really lucky with topdecking Ysera, which won him the 2nd game. I was easily supossed to win those games.

Against C'Thun Druid:

C'Thun decks have almost zero chance against you, be it druid, warrior, renolock or priest. You stack the board with huge minions they can't deal with and their C'Thun can't even clear the board he is played, you simply Siphon him and the opponent concedes.

Hunter:

Mulligan: Mistress of Mixtures, Mortal Coil, Netherspite Historian, Shadow Bolt, Twilight Guardian.

Against Midrange Hunter:

This is quite hard matchup as it always was for Handlock, due to Hunters nature to hunt you down. Try to deny hunters early game with your early cards and lead into Dragon stage where you use your dragons to taunt up, create tempo with Corruptor etc. It's a matchup where you can punish hunter for ignoring your minions with Faceless Shambler. Force hunter to use his burst spells on your minions, by taunting them, you need to be really careful with hunter and stall the game or race him, before he kills you. Get the most use of Alextraza, if you know he can't kill you in any way, play something else before playing Alex. Hunter is quite hard matchup, but I won many times against them while testing the deck in casual.

Mage:

Mulligan: Mistress of Mixtures, Netherspite Historian, Shadow Bolt, Twilight Drake.

Against Tempo:

I didn't meet a lot of them, but I believe this is a really good matchup. Pretty standard start against tempo. Play Peddler leading into big minion, keep soulfire for Flamewaker. Hellfire if the board gets out of hand. Try to spam the board with minions, but don't forget about Flamestrike, play around it and don't overcommit, when you have board control. Don't forget the mage might have a Yogg on turn 10 so don't overcommit too much too.

Against Freeze:

This was always one of the worst handlock matchups. And with silence nerf it doesn't make it easier. I din't play many freeze mages, only 1 in casual while testing. To win this matchup you need to race the mage, drop giants ASAP and damage his face. If he drops a minion taunt up and go face. Hope he doesn't draw freeze and doomsayer and burst to finish you off in time. Good thing Freeze Mage is pretty much extict on ladder and only appears occasionally in tournaments.

Paladin:

Mulligan: Mortal Coil, Mistress of Mixtures, Netherspite Historian, Twilight Drake, Mountain Giant.

Against Aggro:

Typical against aggro start, coil, peddler into big minion. Hellfire when board gets out of control. Try to keep your hand as small as possible from getting punished by Divine Favor. Can't say much about this matchups since they are really rare.

Against Control (N'Zoth, Anyfin):

This matchup was really good for me with demon handlock, but got a little bit harder, because of silence nerf, you can't silence your giants. But its still a quite good matchup. The key here is to bait their Aldors and Uldamans on your smaller minnions, leaving Giants intact. Alextraza plays a big role in this matchup, it's used to finish off the opponent. Fish for Soulfires and POs, decrease the mana with Emperor and when the time comes make the combo with Alex. Always consider equality in this matchup, don't overextend, cause thats exactly what the opponent wants you to do.

Priest:

Mulligan: Twilight Drake, Mountain Giant.

Against Control Priest (N'Zoth, C'Thun):

Handlock was always a priest killer, it doesn't change this time. The deck just destroys priests especially since Lightbomb is gone now. Fill up your hand and play a Drake to establish board control, priest can't do anything against it. This handlock can establish a lot of pressure on control decks due to dragon tempo nature. Kill their 4/3 or 6/3 with Corruptors. Play around Sylvanas by putting a lot of small minions on board than killing her off. Put the pressure on and soon the priest won't be able to remove your minions and heal at the same time. You can easily finish off the priest with Alex combo.

Rogue:

Mulligan: Netherspite Historian, Twilight Drake, Twilight Guardian, Mountain Giant.

Against Miracle Rogue:

Valeera is easy since she spends first 3 turns basically doing nothing while you fill up your hand with huge minions you will play for cheap. Drop a Guardian or Drake to burn removal, follow up by tap giant or corruptor to kill the agent. Rogue just can't deal with your minions, sap is innefective basically and she needs to go throught the taunts to make any kind of combo, by that time she is usually dead anyway.

Shaman:

Mulligan: Mistress of Mixtures, Netherspite Historian, Shadow Bolt, Hellfire, Twilight Drake

Against Aggro/Midrange:

Similar matchup to hunter. Soulfire is best kept for Totem Golem mostly especially if you have hellfire in your hand. The key here is once again to bait the burst of shaman on your minions. A smart shaman will look to get 7/7 on board at turn 4 or turn 3 with coin against warlock, since we have no good hard removal. There are ways to save you from that damage. One is BGH which will most likely win you the game if you kill his 7/7 early. Another way is taunt up either with Guardian and Watcher/Sunfury, that will usually set the 7/7 to 3 or 4 health, you can finish him off with Corruptor or Soulfire, or in case of really bad start of shaman you will get your Mountain Giant earlier than he gets his 7/7. If you will play it right it will come to a point when he has no board and almost no cards, maybe doomhammer in hand which you deny with taunts. Moltens play quite a role in this matchups, if you are able to manipulate shamans damage output you will set yourself on cheap moltens and taunt up, from there on you race the shaman, he has 1 turn to draw something good to finish you off.

Warlock:

Mulligan: Mistress of Mixtures, Netherspite Historian, Hellfire, Twilight Guardian.

Against Zoolock:

Zoo is a good matchup if you know how to play against it. Stall the early game with coil/peddler, maybe farseer, leading into dragons. The key against zoo is to know when to use hellfire. The best hellfire is when you completely clear zoos board and he has no minions to make a comeback on board. So if zoo has not that much damage on board on turn 4 you can play a drake or giant. You trick the zoo player here, because he thinks you have no hellfire, but dropped a powerful minion, so he will spam the board more and ignore your minion. That's where you punish him, you hellfire and kill off everything that is left with your minion, from there you basically win, the only way for zoo to comeback after that is respamming the board with tentacles. Also you can punish him for ingnoring your minion with Faceless Shambler. Now if Zoo has Flame Imps, Peddlers and other high damage minions that easily die to hellfire on turn 4, you hellfire. Usually he will have few cards at that point in hand and it will be hard for him to come back, because the next minion he drops will most likely be killed by Corruptor anyway. Manipulate the damage output and try to set urself on molten range, then taunt up, zoo has no burst, apart from those occasional players who play Soulfire. If you taunt up moltens its pretty much GG too.

Against Reno:

Reno is easy. Drop Mountain Giant or Drake as soon as possible and push damage, apply pressure. play around shadowflame by killing their high attack minions, Don't overextend into Twisting Nether. Keep some big threats in hand incase he removes be board. You are the aggressor in this matchup, and renolock is just trying to survive. The time is gonna come when he is gonna use Reno, you can Alextraza him back to 15 and finish him off.

Warrior:

Mulligan: Mistress of Mixtures, Netherspite Historian, Shadow Bolt, Twilight Guardian.

Against Dragon/Tempo:

Mulliganing against warrior is quite hard since there are so many archetypes of them. But I generally mulligan as I am against control. Ok so dragon or tempo warrior is pretty easy. Contest early game if he drops some minions, but generally draw some cards to be able to play drakes and giants early. He has only 2 executes and if unless he draws 2 of them early he will struggle against your big minions and taunts and board clears. You pretty much take board control at turn 5 and from there you are ahead. The key thing to remember against this matchup is not to overextend into Deathwing and try to keep Siphon exactly for Deathwing is one of the few ways Dragon Warrior can win against you. Also always consider Grom or Rag being in his hand.

Against Control/C'Thun:

Control is also quite easy. Start with baiting removals on Drakes/Guardians, follow up by giants. Don't overextend into brawl. Generally keep 2 Big minions on board, not more. Kill your small minions into his or sometimes even mortal coiling your own minion, just to make your board less brawlable is the right thing to do. Try to build up as much burst as you can with Soulfires and POs during the game. Brann with Corruptor great to kill 6/6 or for extra burst. Alex for heal or for burst. Don't heal yourself with Farseers, get into molten range to use them asap. Soon the warrior will run out of cards and removals and that's where you are gonna finish him off. Also try to keep coin for Jaraxxus or Emperor before Jaraxxus, so you can play the infernal the same turn, to avoid being killed by C'Thun.

Against Combo:

Put the pressure on, they have 2 executes only, bait them on Guardian or Drakes, he can't clear high health minions with Pyro. Clear his board to deny good battlerage. Taunt up, he will be forced to kill the taunts someway, but will struggle until he dies. Just be careful not to get low enough on health with no taunts for him to combo you. Because you never know what's in his hand.

Against Patron:

Just hellfire patrons.

 

I hope you will appreciate the time and effort I put into this deck and guide and upvote the deck.