Hearthpwn

Proof of Rank = http://imgur.com/a/zibOg

Basic Mulligan Guide

As a general rule when playing vs. any class, always assume it's the most aggressive version of that class. Slower versions give you more time to draw deeper into your deck anyway, so it's better to be wrong vs. a control deck than an aggro deck. You should keep Fiery War Axe and Justicar vs. any opponent because of this. Aside from this, you typically want to prioritize whirlwind effects and brawls vs. decks like zoo/paladin that swarm you with lots of minions. Single target removal (bash/shield slam/execute) is better vs. decks like shaman, dragon warrior, and druid that play one or two large minions.

Once you're in Legend, the player pool is small enough that you can keep tech cards vs. decks you know your opponent to be playing. That said, for general ladder climbing, I believe the above strategy to be correct.

Matchup Guides

Shaman

The aggro matchup is favorable, but tricky in that you don't always know which version you're facing by its opening turns. Both aggro and midrange shamans can curve out Trogg into 3/4 into Tuskarr Totemic and you'll still not be sure which version you're up against. It's not until you see mana tide totems, finley, or argent horseriders that you really know what you're up against. This is important because the strategy is a bit different for each.

Aggro Shaman

The goal is to kill everything ASAP and preserve your life total. It's great to get down to 11-12 life to turn on your revenges, but make sure you've got Justicar or a Shield Block handy to armor up once you've done so. Aggro can burst you down from as high as 21 damage with enough mana and time to draw into the combo, assuming they haven't used any rockbiters. You want to be using your bashes, axes, and slams on the everything with 3-4 toughness and saving the executes for their 7/7s or minions that they tried to hide behind taunts.

Don't be afraid to use two cards to kill any 4-toughness or divine shielded minions, as they're suiciding card advantage vs. you every turn. Your hero power is card advantage vs. them. Eventually you'll run them out of threats and they'll start stocking up rockbiters, lava bursts, and hoping to burn you down in one turn... which will usually fail since you're gaining 2-4 life a turn and hitting them for 8-10 by then.

Midrange Shaman

It's ok to be a bit more greedy. Outside of Alakir + Rockbiter shenanigans, Midrange typically doesn't have much burst damage, so it's ok to allow them to hero power and build up minions early on. The match-up revolves around three key minions, all of which must be killed on sight. Mana Tide Totem, Flametongue Totem, and Thunder Bluff Valiant all must die immediately. It's important to save your targeted removal for them since a good Midrange Shaman player will hide these guys behind multiple taunts before playing them. You won't be able to war axe or trade minions into them. I personally never Brawl unless a Valiant or unkillable Mana Tide Totem is on the board, as I'm fine going down to 11-12 life vs. Midrange and letting revenge clean up the trash. I'd call the midrange matchup a coin flip to slightly unfavorable, just because you can do everything right and still lose if Tuskarr Totemic rolls a Mana Tide Totem behind some taunts. You only have so much removal after all.

Warrior

This is the most complicated matchup, because there's so many versions of warrior and they all play differently. Again, as a general rule, you always assume aggro until proven otherwise. As such, I assume every warrior is dragon warrior until I see something that tells me different.

Dragon Warrior

This matchup is very favorable. You have answers for everything that they play, the most they can burst for is 15 from an empty board (and that's only the ones that run inner rage), and they're slow enough that you don't fall behind too fast before you're able to stabilize. Their only real out is getting Life Tap from an early Finley, and even then it's only slightly unfavorable as shield blocks and acolytes allow you to draw about as often as they hero power. You spend all game trading 1-for-1 with their minions, until they eventually run out of relevant threats. Don't be afraid to be greedy with your answers. Don't waste executes or shield slams on 3-toughness minions unless you have no brawls and are going to die, and don't worry if you're only able to brawl away 1 or 2 creatures. That's standard as Dragon Warrior isn't really a deck that "goes wide". It's nice to save brawls for when they drop a larger minion, but as a rule I typically brawl whenever I'm taking more than 6 damage a turn.

Face/Pirate Warrior

Lumping the two together since they're basically the same. This matchup sucks for us, and there's not much you can do about it. They hit fast, hard, and since most of the damage is weapon damage, it's hasty and you can't kill it before it hits you. Thankfully this deck gets hosed by the other aggressive decks in the meta, otherwise you'd have to start running Acidic Swamp Oozes to keep up with it. The best thing you can do is try to keep their board pirate-free so they can't upgrade their weapons with bloodsail cultist right away. This means using War Axe or Slam on their Nzoth's First Mate if you have to, despite you not really wanting to. They'll still be able to Cultist on turn 4 or 5, by playing multiple minions in one turn, but it's better than having them upgrade turn 2 or 3.

Control/C'thun Warrior

Just like before, I'm lumping these two together since they play the same. Being good at the control mirror is all about making your opponent act first, and being good at winning the Justicar lottery. The game is primarily a race to fatigue, where you want to get there last.

It's also nice to have more armor than them, but you really want to save your shield blocks to become legendaries later unless you absolutely need an answer immediately. You should make it a point to have all of your value minions kill something of theirs, so that they keep having to spend two cards for your one. Never play Acolyte of Pain unless you're using it to help with your Brawl odds, or to try and give it to them if they leave out a naked Sylvannas.

When it comes to their Acolytes, you should feel free to give them as many cards as possible, ESPECIALLY if you can make them burn cards. We'll give most high rank players credit for knowing not to do this, but you'd be surprised how many people I see slam their acolytes digging for action and killing their endgame chances in the process.

The C'thun matchup has gone from unfavorable to favorable thanks to Tinkmaster, but that's going to change over time. As Tinkmaster becomes more widespread, people will just start shield slamming their own C'thuns, which is why you should be a bit more aggressive in the C'thun matchup. If you can get them to burn a shield slam on any of your minions, it's much more likely they'll keep their last SS hoping to Sylvannas + Shield Slam something. If Tinkmaster becomes widespread though, then they'll always slam their own C'thuns, and then you can just cut Tinkmaster and the meta evolves.... ahhhhh competitive HS :).

Warlock

Zoo

This matchup is slightly favorable, edging back to even depending on the amount of burst damage they can do from an empty board. Decks running a full suite of Leeroy, Doomguards, double PO and Soulfires are the toughest, whereas the newer breed of divine shield zoo and decks running Sea Giants are much easier.

The key to the matchup, much like Midrange Shaman, is to let them to play a bunch of minions before clearing their board. Just as in Midrange Shaman, there's three exceptions: Dire Wolf Alpha, Knife Juggler, and Darkshire Councilman should be killed immediately. The dream is to keep their board clear and always stay out of burst range, but the more realistic goal is to get to 12 life, activate your revenges, and then armor up out of their burst range with Justicar and Shield Blocks. They usually do 10-16 damage to themselves throughout the game, so it doesn't take more than 1-2 hits from a large minion to win once you've stabilized.

Renolock

For simplicity I'm going to lump together N'zoth and C'thun builds. Renolock is obviously an unfavorable matchup, but it's not as bad as Fr0zen makes it out to be. It's a game of patience... in that they're trying to get you to use your Brawls before they drop Jaraxxus. As in most games, the goal should be to not do what they want you to do. It's also important to save your burst damage (Ragnaros, Axes, Bash, Garrosh, Yogg) for until they've played Jaraxxus, because you'll usually have about a two turn window to kill them before they have enough minions out to prevent you from doing so. The tech minions shine in this matchup because it's all of the two for one trades between your minions killing theirs that allows you to keep up with their constant life tapping and avoid using Brawls.

Ideally you want to brawl on their N'zoth turn (or Vek'lor turn for C'thun), or any time they have a taunt minion up that you can't clear otherwise. You want to keep the board clear for Garrosh and follow up with Yogg/Rag and hope they do enough over two turns to kill them.

Rogue

N'zoth Rogue

N'zoth Rogue plays out a lot like N'zoth Renolock, only you're favored because they don't have Jaraxxus to generate infinite value and punish you for having no real burst damage. The goal is to save your brawls for N'zoth turns, and there could be multiple N'zoths thanks to Xaril and potentially shadowstep if they run it. Try to save Tinkmaster until after they've used their Journeys from Below to see if Anubarak shows up. If not, it should be used on Sylvannas or Cairne. The goal should be for them to keep recurring minions that draw them cards, which looks scary but doesn't really do anything but get them closer to fatigue.

Malygos/Miracle Rogue

You'll know if you're up against this version after a few turns. This is an armor race. You want to find/get down Justicar ASAP and get yourself to 35+ effective health before they go for their big turn (or 2 turn sequence in Miracle's case). You're also favored in this matchup as the deck does a lot of casting, but really doesn't do anything but try and shuffle through its deck collecting a set of cards to have one or two huge turns. The goal is to make your answers line up with their threats. Save bashes and axes for their 3 toughness guys, and Shield Slams/Executes for their larger targets.

Paladin

Aggro Paladin

This deck is a tempo battle. It's easy to see a bunch of little minions and want to let them build up and destroy them with a single card, but in the meantime you're taking damage and that just makes their divine favors better. The better way to attack this matchup is to just kill all of their minions on sight and reduce the matchup to a topdeck war. They'll be drawing 2/1's and 3/3's and you'll be drawing monsters and removal. The way that they beat you is by you getting greedy, keeping a 7-8 card hand, and dying to them repeatedly having turns where they buff a minion to 5-6 power and attack before you deal with it.

Nzoth Paladin

This matchup feels like a coinflip to me, but it's honestly so rare that I may be incorrect here. It revolves around how you handle Tirion. If you're able to take it with Sylvannas or use Tinkmaster on it, you've won the game. If they're able to recur it and get a bunch of attacks with lightbringer, then they become the favorite. Nothing else in the deck matters. You have enough removal to kill everything else.

Disclaimer: There's a Murloc/N'zoth Hybrid paladin out there that's definitely in their favor, since you have to get up to 40-50 effective health and effectively clear two Anyfin Can Happen turns AND a N'zoth turn to win... but again it's super rare and I believe the deck performs poorly enough vs. the aggro meta to keep it in check.

Druid

Yogg Token Druid

This matchup is a coinflip, but lots of fun in that there's huge swings between both players, and most matches come down to which player has the better Yogg. The Black Knight shines in this matchup as a huge tempo swing. You should save your targeted removal for Violet Teachers, Fandral, and Emperor Thaurissan. I personally like to keep a Ravaging Ghoul in my opening hand vs. Yogg Druid, as most of them love to turn 1 Living Roots for minions to prevent you from armoring up in the early turns. It's important to be able to keep at least 6 armor up so that your Shield Slams can kill their important minions.

Being able to get to 12 health before armoring up is also nice here, as most good Druid players won't flood the board with a bunch of bare 1/1's. They'll wait until they have Soul of the Forest or Power of the Wild to make them 2/2's and harder to clear.

C'Thun Druid

This matchup is very favorable, as they're playing worse creatures than token druid, The Black Knight ALWAYS has a target, and they have less burst outside of C'thun itself. The difference between the two druids is that you want to get yourself up to 40 effective health or more by the end of the game, because they're capable of using Brann and C'thun in the same turn if you give them all the time in the world to assemble their combo. That's really the only way to lose this matchup.

Mage

Hotform Tempo Mage

You'd think a deck that was designed to armor up and have max health would be favored here, but I'd call it a coinflip at best, to unfavored vs. a good tempo mage player. The matchup revolves around them being able to stick Sorcerer's Apprentice or Flamewaker for more than a turn. If they don't have mirror image to protect their important minions, then they're usually fine waiting a couple of turns and letting you armor up, as they do enough burst to take down 40-50 health easily if they're able to neutralize your Fiery War Axes through either taunt minions or Water Elemental. I'd keep a single Fiery War Axe here, but mulligan away a second one as it's more important to have targeted removal to kill their important minions on sight.

Freeze Mage

Enjoy your free win. It's nearly impossible to lose this matchup unless you draw all your big minions and literally do nothing for the first 8 turns.

Hunter

I have a love/hate relationship with hunter. I used to love playing Camel Hunter and Control Hunter variants back in the day, but Call of the Wild forces the class as a whole into a tiny little box. You either play Call of the Wild or you fail as a hunter. I can't wait for the card to be nerfed to 9+ mana. End rant :D.

Face/Midrange Hunter

I'd classify midrange hunter as slightly unfavorable to even, but face hunter is definitely one of our weakest matchups. Warrior's weakness is charge damage and non-minion damage, and Hunter gets to play with lots of both. Ideally you want to clear out their early drops with war axes and bash, Play a Sylvannas or Justicar on turn 6, and then continue clearing out the board from there. It's important to mulligan very aggressively for War Axe, Justicar, and Bash/Shield Slam as you don't really want to be executing 2-toughness minions. If you clear all their early minions and have a good turn 6 play, you win. If not, you lose.

Yogg and Load

This matchup is anywhere from favorable to very favorable depending on your opponent. They're a control deck, just like you, but they're worse at it and can't overheal. The key is to be patient like it's the Control Warrior mirror and make them play threats for you to kill. Don't play a single minion that isn't killing something of theirs. You want to let their removal pile up in their hand to where they're forced to start playing things for you to kill every turn. Just sit back, use your Shield Blocks to dig for Justicar ASAP, and grind them out.

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If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I genuinely appreciate constructive feedback, so feel free to ask questions and I'll do what I can to respond to them as they come! 

PS: This updated list as a hearthpwn exclusive, as I only recently switched a Soggoth in as a counter to the OTK decks in top 200 legend. Now that I'm camping for the season, enjoy free tech :D.

Update: I'm going to start streaming again, probably towards the middle of next season. Feel free to give me a preemptive follow @ https://www.twitch.tv/hypnotc if you want to be notified when I go live :D.