Hearthpwn

Hey guys i'm a player/streamer for Fade2Karma and lately i have been having really good results with Egg Druid.

It isn't as powerful as it used to be without tools like Jeeves, Nerubian Egg and Haunted Creeper however it can still hold it's own on ladder and i have been playing it at high legend.

I want to point out that i do not believe Egg Druid to be a Top Tier deck in the current meta as it struggles against Shaman (The most common deck on ladder), however it is a fun deck which can be used to counter certain meta decks such as Pirate Warrior and Jade Druid.

General Strategy

Your goal with this deck is to flood the board as quick as you can and make your board as sticky/difficult to remove as possible. You want to use your buff cards like Mark of the Lotus, Power of the Wild, Soul of the Forest and Savage Roar on as many minions as possible. 

Games with Egg Druid are usually over very quickly whether you win or lose, so it is important to take your time working out how to build the most annoying board for your opponent to handle with the tools you have in hand. Although Egg Druid is an Aggro deck it isn't straightforward to play, because we have so many cheap cards you often have a lot of options on turn 1/2/3. For example your opening hand could be Dragon Egg, Argent Squire, Enchanted Raven and Mark of Y'Shaarj. The obvious play here would be "Oh i have mark in my hand i will play my raven turn 1 then use my mark on turn 2 to get the draw". However in some situations this is not the best play and could lose you the game. Against Dragon Priest this would be the best play because they have nothing to kill it turn 1 and they are unlikely to coin Shadow Word:Pain to kill it, they also struggle to deal with 4 attack minion so the 4-4 raven will be difficult to remove and will be able to trade into their strong early minions such as Wyrmrest Agent. However against something like Pirate Warrior the raven has a decent chance of being removed by something like Fiery War Axe or N'Zoth's First Mate (Weapon attack + Patches the Pirate. So the best choice here would be Dragon Egg as there are the least possible ways of it being dealt with and then you can follow up with the mark turn 2 to allow trades into early pirates to summon multiple 2/1 whelps.

That is just an example of one of the many turns that can seem straightforward but actually requires a lot of thinking as to which option is most likely to stick and gain value.

 

Mulligan

Generally you are looking for your sticky 1 drops such as Dragon Egg, Argent Squire, Enchanted Raven, Living Roots. I would always keep Bloodsail Corsair even against non weapon classes as pulling patches from it is just too good. Mark of the Lotus is also so good for applying early pressure that i would also keep this. There are some cards you wouldn't usually keep but can be good to in certain hands. For example if you are going 2nd vs Jade Druid and your hand is double Living Roots, Argent Squire and Power of the Wild, in this situation keeping Power of the Wild is great as you can coin double Living Roots on turn 1 and  Power of the Wild on turn 2.

 

What Hero Power is best to pick from Finley?

Life Tap is usually the best to go for as this deck struggles with card draw and the extra cycle to keep the pressure up is really nice. Shaman/Paladin are next as they create tokens which are obviously great with all of our buff cards. Rogue is usually next best as it is good for keeping board control against other aggressive decks. Mage is next best generally. Hunter is only good when you already have a commanding lead on the board and are just looking for a few extra points of damage to finish them off. Generally Warrior and Priest are the worst choices however there can be some situations where they could be useful if you have taken a lot of early damage. 

 

Matchups

Pirate Warrior - This is a good matchup, they just want to go face but if they don't kill of your early minions, you just buff them and then taunt up with Defender of Argus or Mark of the Wild. Occasionally they will have opening turns like N'Zoth's First Mate into coin Southsea Deckhand which can be a real problem for you, but usually it is pretty easy to get an early lead on the board and transition that into snowballing the game.

Aggro Shaman - This is a tough matchup as Shaman has the best tools for early board control in the game right now, Spirit Claws and Maelstrom Portal can be extremely punishing, however buffing a Dragon Egg can be huge in the matchup, you often cannot afford to play around maelstrom on turn 2 because with Egg Druid you really need to get the ball rolling. Bloodsail Corsair is also very strong against their early weapons.

Midrange Shaman - Despite midrange Shaman Usually running  Maelstrom Portal and Lightning Storm, this matchup is actually better than Aggro Shaman, they are slightly slower at getting minions on the board and have some clunky cards such as Jade Chieftein. Devolve can be a real problem but there is nothing you can really do about it unfortunately.

RenoLock - Generally a decent matchup, try your best to play around their early AoEs by buffing your minions out of range, Soul of the Forest is great in this matchup.

Reno Mage - Similar to Reno Lock except they have less early AoE which should make it easier to get an early board to stick, however their hero power can be pretty annoying so try to keep minions above 1 health so they cannot ping them off. Even if they have Reno on 6 if you have enough board you can still win, with savage roar you can sometimes kill them from 30.

Dragon Priest - Generally this is a bad matchup As their early high health minions such as Wyrmrest Agent can be difficult to get through and you can end up having to sacrifice your precious minions very early on, if you can find your way past their first minions it can be easy to snowball though as they don't have much removal and Holy Nova is usually pretty easy to play around, Dragonfire Potion can be difficult but hopefully you will have killed them before that :D

Miracle Rogue - A slightly favoured matchup, play around fan of knives as best you can. They often don't do much on turn 2 and 3 so sometimes you can hold back for the first couple of turns then throw a load of stuff on the board before their Tomb Pillager turn because they can struggle to deal with it. You want to try to keep things off of 1 health to stop them getting free kills with their hero power.

Jade Druid - This is a great matchup, Jade Druid often starts slowly and also struggles to deal with a lot of early pressure, also the only AoE they have is Swipe so they generally struggle to deal with big boards so you can usually overwhelm them pretty quickly.

Hunter - No one plays hunter right now :D

Murloc Paladin - You absolutely have to make sure you can kill a turn 2 Doomsayer if it is possible. Doomsayer going off slows you down so much so i would go all in turn 1 to try to allow you to do 7 damage on turn 2 to kill it, however if with your hand it is impossible then hold back slightly turn 1, for example don't coin out 2 minions on turn 1 if they cannot kill the Doomsayer. It is actually not a terrible matchup as Consecrate is pretty easy to play around usually.

 

Tech Choices

Dire Wolf Alpha - This is an optional replacement for Lance Carrier, it is arguably better however i really like the permanent buff on minions like Argent Squire and Dragon Egg.

Card Draw Options - Obviously this deck runs out of steam extremely quickly, I have tried multiple cards to try to add more cycle to the deck such as Genzo The Shark, Acolyte of Pain, Nourish and Loot Hoarder. But in the end i have decided they are often too clunky and it is better to just be all out aggressive. Cult Master is great in certain situations but terrible in others, it is great vs decks such as Dragon Priest where you have lots of high health minions to trade into, but bad against decks like Reno Mage, where they don't play many minions and you have nothing to trade into (Also, generally when you trade with Egg Druid you are looking to keep your minions alive rather than kill them off).

Violet Teacher - Slightly Too slow for this deck as by turn 4 the game is usually almost decided, on turn 4 we would much rater have a game sealing play such as a Soul of the Forest or just a Defender of Argus to buff our board we should have already acquired. Also we don't run Innervate which is one of the best cards with Violet Teacher. 

Shieldbearer - Surprisingly there are situations where this card is great, buffing it can be really useful against the aggressive decks, however it is pretty bad against control decks. 

 

I hope you guys find this guide useful and have fun playing the deck! If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments and i will do my best to reply :)

To see me playing more wacky decks check out my stream https://www.twitch.tv/j4ckiechan

Or my twitter where i post all of my decklists https://twitter.com/F2K_J4CKIE

Check out my Teammate Control who hit #1 legend NA in wild with Egg Druid! https://twitter.com/F2K_Control