[HGG Win] Stancifka's Demonlock
- Last updated Aug 31, 2017 (Frozen Throne)
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Wild
- 19 Minions
- 10 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Demonlock
- Crafting Cost: 9480
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 8/31/2017 (Frozen Throne)
- StanCifka
- Pro Player
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Country:
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Tournament Decks:
50
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Ladder Decks:
163
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Submitted By:
Hello everyone! I am back with yet another Deck Guide. You guys have chosen on my Twitter that it should be Demonlock, which is what I was hoping for to be honest, so here we go!
As it usually goes with all my favorite decks, your main goal is to protect your life total and take over the lategame with your superior card quality. When you play Warlock your life total represents card advantage, as tapping for extra cards is by far the strongest hero ability in the game if you can afford to do so without dying.
Warlock has also gained a very strong Death Knight which is much stronger than it seems at first glance. It partially changes your card selection when building the deck, but makes sure that lategame is extremely hard to lose.
The Deck is very hard to pilot properly, so expect some mistakes in the first 50 games or so before you fully grasp all the possibilities and interactions within it.
There is no Bloodbloom combo in this deck, which makes the mulligan pretty straightforward. Keep the cheap cards, and get rid of everything that’s expensive. As a good rule of thumb, if it costs 5 or more mana, then it is mulligan for sure. That being said, there are of course some exceptions.
You should keep all the one drop creatures, Mistress of Mixtures and Voidwalker are good in almost every matchup. You want Mortal Coil only if you are playing second, going first I would mulligan it.
Defile, Doomsayer and Shadow Bolt are also a good keep and you won’t make a big mistake if you never mulligan them. I would also always keep Golakka Crawler if you opponent can have a pirate.
Tar Creeper is really on the edge here, and your decision with him depends on the rest of what you already have. If you got some cheaper stuff ready then he is OK most of the time, but it is really hard to generalize with this card.
Bloodreaver Gul'dan is the ace card in Warlock mirror and against Priest, these are the matchups where you are interested in keeping it. It's pretty good when facing some particular versions of Mage as well, so you can consider holding on to it if the rest of your hand is decent.
Overall, mulliganing is extremely complex with this deck, but you'll get a pretty good feel for it after a couple games.
Setting up a Defile sometimes requires a ton of imagination, but is very crucial to increase your board clearing potential, which directly translates into your win percentage. You are more prone to play Mortal Coil without drawing to setup the Defile chain if there are no 1 health minions chilling around, so don’t be afraid to do that.
Doomsayer has no Frost Nova combo in this deck so you mainly try to use him in the early game when you think that your opponent will have a lot of trouble clearing him. You also don’t have to be afraid to play him on an empty board, because while this leads to card disadvantage, it gains you a ton of tempo as it acts as a pseudo Time Warp – you can protect your life total easily if your opponent cannot develop any minions on his turn (someone please insert „smart guy“ meme here).
Golakka Crawler is partially a metagame call, but this is not a “hit or miss” card, but more like OK-ish minion with huge upside potential. If your opponent is playing any pirates, which is likely with Patches the Pirate being fired from his cannon everywhere, this card is really broken, and if not you get a two mana 2/3 minion, which is not perfect but definitely not the end of the world.
I get a lot of questions about Ironbeak Owl as it really hasn’t seen much play since it got more expensive, but the thing is that silence effect is just too important to have access to, and it sure doesn't hurt to have a 1 health minion to fuel your Defile.
I am running Prince Valanar in this deck, which is very strong against aggro and gives this deck much needed life gain. Because of him I am not playing any more 4drops. Yes, that's how I roll. However, if you don’t have him or you are not playing against aggro at all then he is very easy to substitute in this deck as mentioned below.
Elise the Trailblazer and The Lich King are here to provide a ton of value, which counts as your win condition. These cards are just too good to pass up, especially The Lich King where you really appreciate that taunt as your life total might start running low around turn 8.
Bloodreaver Gul'dan is a new addition to this deck, and changes a little bit on how you approach the game. There are 6 demons in the deck to go with him, and because you are planning on playing him quite late in the game (it’s not like you have the option to just slam him on turn 5), it is not that unusual that he will bring 5 or even all 6 demons along. Thanks to him your hero power becomes a real powerhouse, but you expect an immediate impact from your 10 mana cards. Luckily, he also delivers in this department, as he will immediately gain from 8 to even 15 health thanks to Voidwalker and clears the board from small minions thanks to Despicable Dreadlord trigger (or even two of them). That should be good enough for you to survive until the next turn, at which point you basically start cheating with that “kill your guy gain 3 life” ability if these 6/6 bodies from Abyssal Enforcer aren’t good enough to straight up finish the game.
Skulking Geist is a very real contender for this deck, and while I have posted here a full decklist that we used at HGG, I would fully recommend taking this guy to your ladder climbing as it single-handedly improves your matchup against Druid from totally horrendous to a close one. Not running it originally was caused by the HGG format, where I was able to decide not to take Warlock in case I could play against the Druid, which is not a luxury you can afford while climbing the ladder.
Twilight Drake used to be a staple in every Handlock there was, but nowadays he is fighting for his spot with Prince Valanar. You can easily switch those cards to improve your game against controls, but your winrate versus aggro decks will take a significant hit.
Tainted Zealot + Bloodmage Thalnos are also cards that I like a lot, as they really help you with that Defile setup, although keep in mind that if they die somewhere in the middle of the loop then it just starts dealing only 1 damage again. You can play them in place of Golakka Crawler or Abyssal Enforcer as a metagame call.
Elise the Trailblazer is very good in mirror and against Priest, but she is not as mandatory in the deck as she used to be, so feel free to cut her for Ironbeak Owl or any other support card if you feel like it.
That’s it for today, thanks a lot for reading! Also don’t forget to check out my Youtube deck guide, which should explain a lot of questions you might still have. We made a brand new format of the video, even doing a very deep game analysis of my HGG match which I stabilized while only having 1 life!
Cheers
Stancifka
I'm playing a slightly modified version of this deck to incorporate Geist and because I don't have Prince, but I'm having a HORRIBLE time against Priest. Is there something I can tech in to help that matchup? Or am I just playing it wrong? How do I approach Priest games? Every other class I have a feel for and have a pretty good win rate, but Priest I'm finding impossible.
Great deck, love playing it. Never played warlock but since I have Gul'dan I thought to give it a try.
Why voidwalker?
why are you making a guide and letting ppl craft stuff and then use another deck ( different variation ) to climb ?
maybe next time u try out first , before doing a f..ing guide
This is a tournament based deck, which does not always translate to ladder. If you do not have space in your peanut sized brain to innovate, or make tech changes based on what you are facing on ladder, go to https://tempostorm.com, enjoy Net-decking those decks that include very short guides.
did i say i am losing with this deck ? No . My point is , i did craft a deck and after 6 days ( 4 days he didnt play this deck on stream and yesterday he did play a complety different warlock deck ) he did stop playing this deck .
and here we go again , where is the point of making a guide/deck and then dont use it anymore after less then a week ?
(plus where did he say this is a tournament deck , on twitch he said this deck is good on ladder , so maybe u check first ur infos?)
dont get the dislikes , this is an honest reply what he is doing wrong , but what ever, looks like here are to many fanboys Lol
He also says in the guide (that you apparently did not read) that his deck was intended for a tournament environment and that skulking giest would be a good addition for laddering. Maybe if you had read the guide you would be able to play the deck without watching him play on it on stream.
very nice warlock deck, best one maybe?
change -1 prince valanar +1 twilight (as suggested) and -1 twisting +1 skulking (lot of druids in my rank)
here my game vs murloc paladin and evolve elemental shaman (sorry for little misplay) enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-8MPIb_uOs&feature=youtu.be
You need to jam face damage in, it's definitely an unfavored matchup for you, but Exodia mage is extremely rare due to the prevalence of Aggro and Jade, which both have favored matchups to Exodia.
You run twilight drakes and faceless like youre supposed to
Faceless Shambler is not good, as there are no Mountain Giants.
Skulking Geist doesn't really do anything against druids. You play it early you fall behind and develop a crappy minion, and playing it late is hard because you need to keep up with their board while staying alive. It really is a 'win more' card in that its only purpose is to kill one of their win conditions. And those few matches where you fatigue them and have no Geist to counter are already lost. By then your decks out of steam. Even if you geist you will die form fatigue or their remaining jade cards. On average this card is only good when you can afford to skip a turn or risk playing it and fall behind.
I've found that Jade druid can't do anything against the Krul/Bloodreaver decklist. Their weakness is not being able to counteract flooding the board, and when your board is average 6/6 demons they usually just concede. And as a bonus you don't need to run a bad card in your deck. I'm pretty consistent with my list against druids, only drawback is getting out paced faster. If their ramping to 8-10 mana before you draw mountain giant/removal you can lose to being out-tempoed by Litch King or Kun UI.
Hey Stan!
Love the deck. Any opinions on Medivh in here?
actually, he said in his video that you can use Medivh instead of Lich King maybe (if you don't have it, like me), for another big minion and you have the sinergy with the spells too, so you can give it a shot I guess :)
why the f do you need 2x
Golakka Crawler?
there is a lot of pirate warrior on ladder, so it is still a good deck tech for ladder, people are not retarded copying a deck that can beat a lot of matchups, even if this not go in favor of Druid.
Awesome deck!! I have had more success replacing Elise with Medivh.
Very good description and a nice video as a bonus. Just great.
When you say, for laddering you would add a Skulking Geist, what would you leave out?
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