Hearthpwn

Hi, my name is MTGOStark and I've been playing strategy games for the better part of a decade. I've placed either at Rank 1 or somewhere in the top 100 in nearly every strategy game I've played, including League of Legends, Dawn of War II and Magic: The Gathering Online. I started playing Hearthstone in June, and was able to get a peak ranking of Legend 27 during the June season with this deck. I consider this a credit to the deck, as I'm fairly new to Hearthstone yet can still reach a high rank with it.

The deck is named Junk Midrange as a reference to a similar style of deck in Magic: the Gathering that focuses on playing efficient creatures, heals, and card draw for a solid midgame strategy that has a decent matchup against everything, and can easily take over a game if your opponent stumbles even slightly. 

This deck plays large and efficient creatures in the early to mid-game, and then finishes with Force of Nature+Savage Roar combo, threatening to deal 20+ dmg with any board presence at all. 

The main difference between this and the stock builds is the focus on healing. With 2 Earthen Ring Farseers and 1, optionally 2 Healing Touches, you gain a lot of tempo and card advantage vs. aggressive/burn decks, and are also able to stabilize the board after trading by healing your own creatures. Notably, it also takes you out of range of combo in a binary fashion (they can either OTK you, or they can't). This makes a lot of matchups such as Tempo Rogue, Aggro Paladin, Hunter, and Mage (aggro and control) extremely favorable, and also improves the matchup vs. Zoo and Miracle.

 

Strategy

Generally you are mulliganing for Wild Growth and Innervate. Keeping Yeti is fine if you are on the draw, as you can coin it out on turn 3, or if you have Wild Growth/Innervate already. 

If you can Innervate something big out turn 1-3 it is generally correct to do so. You would rather have a 4/5 Yeti on board than an Innervate in hand, although the exception is if holding the Innervate allows you to have a much smoother curve over the next 2-3 turns.

Wild Growth should only be played prior to having 6 mana crystals, as the additional benefit is unlikely to outweigh the additional card in a few turns, although there are exceptions such as opening the possibility to combo to win the game next turn. 

Unless your life total is low, it's almost always better to use your Hero Power rather than a Wrath on an x/1 creature. Wrath's 3dmg effect is much more important to have available than to cycle it.

BGH and Black Knight are included as silver bullets, i.e. cards that will win you the game in a certain situation almost instantly. Because decks are only 30 cards, it's fairly easy to draw into them when it's relevant. When their battlecry effects aren't useful, they still have acceptable fighting stats.

Half combo: Using savage roar with 2-3 creatures on board is pretty much as good as using it full combo, and you shouldn't hesitate to use it if it will clear you opponent's board, or bring them down to a debilitatingly low life total.

Super combo: Force of Nature + Innervate + 2x Savage Roar = 22dmg. Something to consider depending on your hand composition.

 

Card Choices

Argent Commander: In a deck that already has a lot of midrange creatures and card advantage, Argent Commander finds itself to be a little redundant, and a little high on the curve. It's not big enough to take out many of the bigger creatures, and it's not fast enough to take out many of the smaller ones.

Bloodmage Thalnos: The deck doesn't have that many damaging spells, and those that it does have you typically use early on in the game, when you aren't able to pair it with Thalnos. In the token version of the deck with Moonfires I could maybe see this as being viable, but in most cases it will just be a bad Loot Hoarder here.

Twilight Drake: This is an interesting card that I tested for a while; most of the time it will act like Yeti #3 and 4 which is quite good, but unlike in Handlock it's a little bit smaller and less consistent so ultimately I decided to stop including it.

Gnomish Inventor: Another interesting card to fill the 4-drop slot, ultimately I decided to cut it due to its Battlecry being a bit redundant.

Hogger: I tested this card for a while because I considered it to be a mini-Cenarius, however its 4 health really stops it from being over the top, since it dies to every common removal in the game. 

Cenarius: A 9-mana card or combination of cards should make you win the game almost instantly, unfortunately all Cenarius really does is play you into enemy AoE. Similar to Hogger, if he lives you generally win the game, however if you are behind he is too easily countered. Also, he doesn't play well with Wild Growth to draw a card at 10 mana, where I would wish he was literally any other card.

Ragnaros: Powerful in a lot of decks, but having a singleton 8-power creature as a win condition is a bit sketchy vs. Big Game Hunter. I had mixed success with this card.

Ancient of War: This card would be insane if Black Knight wasn't in the meta, but from what I've seen it's quite prevalent (even in Zoo) which makes playing this 7 mana card an instant-loss if they have it. It's also fairly weak to Sap.

 

Matchups

Aggro Hunter (90/10)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF

Aggro Hunter has very few early creatures, so it's more important for you to be aggressive than defensive. Use heals and hero power as needed, and the matchup should be a breeze.

Aggro Mage (90/10)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF, Wrath, Keeper

Keeper is really good against the most troublesome cards (Mana Wyrm, Knife Juggler and Sorceror's Apprentice). With heals to counter their burn, it's very difficult to lose this matchup.

Aggro Paladin (80/20)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF, Wrath, Swipe, Keeper

Your hero power counters theirs, and most of your cards are higher quality. Keep Health above 15 or so, and play out as many cards as possible from your hand every turn to play against Divine Favor.

Aggro Warrior (40/60)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF, Wrath, Swipe, Keeper

Aggro Warrior is kind of an interesting matchup because they do damage in an unconventional manner; you could lose to nothing but Arcanite Reapers, War Axes, and Upgrades. About on par with Zoo, although keeping your life total high is more important since they have a lesser board presence but more burst damage. This matchup isn't very common though, so I always mulligan for Control Warrior when against Warriors.

Control Warrior (70/30)

Mulligan for: Azure Drake, Yetis, Druid of the Claw (you don't want Innervate/Wild Growth in this matchup because you can't race them against their wall of removal in the beginning anyway, so better not to lose card advantage)

This is a favorable matchup because you will out-card them by the time the mid-game is over, however it also must be played carefully. They have 2 Shield Slam and 2 Execute to deal with your larger threats, which isn't enough to take care of all of them. Your creatures also just eat Armorsmiths and Taskmasters. You will usually have 3-4 more cards than them by the end of the midgame. The issue is when they hit 7-8 mana and start playing bombs turn after turn; if you can't kill the Warrior or the threat in time, a Ragnaros or Vsera can easily take over, even if you were significantly ahead before. Warriors also have a 10-12 dmg burst in the form of Whirlwind+Grommash or Taskmaster+Grommash which you should keep in mind (this is even more if they have a weapon already equipped). If you make good trades and keep the pressure on however, the matchup shouldn't be too difficult.

Druid (50/50)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Azure Drake

Druid is pretty much battle of the 4/5's, there's no point in playing smaller creatures like Harvest Golem early on, and ERF should be saved for healing your own creatures after trading in most cases. You want to ramp into significant threats early for tempo, and have cards like Azure Drake, and later on Ancient of Lore, to gain card advantage.

Freeze Mage (85/15)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF

Freeze Mage is a fairly favorable matchup because they play no significant pressure against you, and by the time they play Alexstraza you will have BGH. Play 3-4 creatures on the field to pressure, and use Force of Nature to clear Mirror Image. Triggering their Ice Block is the most significant goal, because that leaves them only two options: play another Ice Block or Alexstraza. Alex dies immediately, and Ice Block just postpones the inevitable. Remember that your Keepers can also silence their Doomsayers, which is the same as killing them.

Handlock (80/20)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Keeper, BGH, Black Knight

Handlock will burn itself down to below 20 (and with a little help from you), all you need is a creature on board and combo. You also have 2 silver bullets against this deck in Big Game Hunter and Black Knight, and Keeper counters their drakes and their taunts. Clear their board and draw cards. This matchup is quite favorable unless they get some of their best draws.

Miracle (30/70)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, ERF, Harvest Golem

This matchup is slightly better than with most stock lists, but is still somewhat difficult. Sap, Eviscerate, Backstab and SI:7 stops a lot of your early-mid game tempo, and if they have the turn 5 Gadgetzan+2 Prep draw (which is surprisingly common) it becomes very difficult to win from there.The best way to deal with this is to eliminate most of their creatures as soon as possible, and keep your life total high so that they can't OTK you, while applying as much pressure as possible to bring them into combo range. 

Priest (70/30)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF

Priest relies on card advantage to win, but most of its card advantage is relatively slow, so it's important to be aggressive against them and to kill their card advantage engines (Northshire Cleric, Aucheni High Priest) before they can set up a scenario where they draw 4 cards for free or something.

Shaman (50/50)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, Wrath

Shaman is very RNG-based on their side. You have the better late-game, so it's important to just survive the early game Feral Spirits and Flame-tongue totems, after which you should be fine. Always clear boards of totems unless you have lethal, as they can easily buff them into significant threats (along with their passive effect). Remember to keep life total relatively high ~20 to play around Doomhammer/Al-Akir + Rockbiter Weapon, or Leeroy+Windfury.

Tempo Rogue (80/20)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF, Swipe

This is a generally favorable matchup, but it's possible for them to get some insane starts. As long as you can nullify their early plays and heal up, it should be a win. Also remember you can use Bananas on Mukla and BGH it. 

Zoo (40/60)

Mulligan for: Innervate, Wild Growth, Harvest Golem, ERF, Wrath, Swipe, Keeper

In the early game, take a bit of damage to play out creatures. In the mid-late game, make your life total priority over having creatures on board, as you can finish them with combo.You almost always want to make efficient trades with their creatures, although depending on your hand composition it may be more worthwhile to race them. If you are above 20 Health at Turn 5, you will probably win. Unfortunately this is still not a favorable matchup for Druid, although it's an improvement over the ~20/80 matchup it is with conventional druid lists.

Side note: Always mulligan as if you are playing vs. Zoo when against Warlock, except if you have either 1 BGH or 1 Black Knight in your original hand; keep that and mulligan the rest of the cards for Zoo. Keeper is good against both decks.

 

Conclusion

This is a midrange strategy that has no glaringly weak matchups, and is very strong vs. a multitude of aggressive strategies. Its removal suite, ramp, efficient creatures, heals, and combo elements allow you to play a consistent, flexible game that rewards strong play.