Hearthpwn

Here are some proofs and stats

Top 20 proof. This deck is incredible

Top 5! We did it! we did one little change but we cracked the top 10

I'll be streaming my climb from now on starting this monday 6 PM PST on twitch.tv/thejiminatorhs

here is a walkthrough by KiwiNbacon


Hi!

My name is TheJIminator, multiple time legend player and I attended Dreamhack Montreal. After a disappointing main event performance, I fell head over heels for Walaoumpa's Tempo Rogue list; to the point where i asked for his permission to run his list in the side event. I adjusted it slightly to deal with druid.  I achieved top 8 in the side event with this list being my most successful deck out of jade druid and kazakus priest (granted my priest list was suboptimal and jade druid was countered by most people).

The changes I made were:
-2 hallucinates
+1 Edwin Van Cleef
+1 Nerubian Unraveler 

Van Cleef was my idea, since i wanted a card that could just sack wins against druid while the second Unraveler was Walaoumpa's suggestion; he believed it would be effective against druid.

So when i came back home; i decided to play the deck on ladder.

That is where the deck really shocked me. Royalty Rogue (as I like to call it) let me climb from the bottom of rank 5 to top 300 legend with a 63% winrate on ladder within a few days. I just hit legend 30 minutes ago and had to make a writeup.

The deck currently has favorable matchups against Big priest, Jade druid, a decent aggro druid matchup, and an EXCELLENT murloc pally matchup. The worst matchups are pirate warrior, evolve shaman and the rogue mirror. Razakus will beat this deck if it curves perfectly, but even then a well timed unraveler can stop a clutch dragonfire or kazakus potion.

The unravelers let you steal games against quest mage, the mirror match, druid and big priest. Also with any buff will win you games.

Cobalt scalebane is effective against priest and might as well be a Canadian military exercise since it snowballs like crazy.

Keleseth is an ABSOLUTE BEAST, especially if you shadowstep it 3/3 to 4/4 patches is PREEETTY GOOD. 

Southsea captain encourages holding your pirate activators to get favorable trades.

the stonehill defenders are lifesavers.

If i get 10 votes i'll write a mulligan and strategy guide.

EDIT: wow that was fast. OK let's write a guide. How hard can this be?

So for general mulligans here are the things you want against almost every class (except if you know you are playing big priest)

Backstab, swashburglar, deckhand, Fire fly,  Keleseth, Southsea captain, SI:7 agent

If you have the coin, you can add  shaku, and edwin and shadowstep. If you have keleseth you always keep shadowstep for those juicy buffed patches.

VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE: unless you are playing against  murloc pally or pirate warrior: DO NOT THROW OUT YOUR PATCHES IMMEDIATELY. WAIT FOR THE RIGHT TRADE OR BUFFED PLAY WITH CAPTAIN.

Druid:
Keep all the standards but keep vancleef if you have 1 cost minions or a backstab. Early cleef will help seal this game. Important to note strategy: your goal is to have two to three 5+ attack minions and at most one smaller minion at a time against jade druid. In aggro druid the goal is just don't let them develop too much of a board and fight them on everything until the living mana is played, then you can ignore thier stuff if you have something big on board and a bonemare.
Also worth note: if you know you are playing Jade druid you can consider 1 nerubian unraveler.

Priest:
there are two important notes. If you play Razakus then just hope they don't have the absolute nuts and play around dragonfire. If you play big priest, then you need to PUSH LIKE NUTS. however due to the slower nature of priest, you can afford to keep Cobalt Scalebane or a Unraveler in your opener. If you know its big priest, consider prioritizing Unraveler over scalebane and coining out the unraveler. Also worth  keeping is the plague scientist if you have the coin to kill the turn 4 priest of the feast.

Warlock:
I don't have enough testing vs this class since i only played one game in my climb up and 1 game in the side event, but theoretically this matchup devolves to your aggro pushes and board states vs thier defiles, so try to set your board to play around defile. 

Mage: Tempo secret mage seems like it would be a bad matchup since you are so reliant on your minion plays and your spells are few and far between. Quest mage is beatable since you can save nerubians or shadowcaster copies for his OTK turn and he nearly always loses.

Hunter:
This matchup is surprisingly easy, so long as you have the early tempo (basically backstab and a pirate). if you have both you should win, since your bonemare recycling will carry you in the late game.

Paladin:
This matchup was the surprisingly easy matchup on the ladder climb. just control the early game and watch the the paladin cry at the fact he can't maintain a board. Then out buff him and smite him.

Shaman:
Just play the trading game and hope you win. 

Rogue:
your worst matchup, since rogue spells so neatly remove your minions.

Warrior:
traditionally warrior's easiest farm; you actually give them a fight with Bonemare value and multiple maindeck taunts. Consider copying cheap taunts with shadowcaster to stave off weapon hits. If not pirate then just play around brawl.