Hearthpwn

Hey!

AstroCat here with another control deck. Following the evergreen nerfs, and the fall of Pirate Warrior and Aggro Druid, some interesting decks start to come out of out the woodwork. This deck is based on Sjoesis's pre-nerf Mill Warlock. I made some adjustments to make the deck fit my needs and respond well to the meta rank 5-to-legend meta as I see it.

Why play mill-cards like Gnomeferatu and Coldlight Oracle?

Similar to Dirty Rat, they give you tools to disrupt your opponent's game plan. The gnome is particularly good, because she has no drawback. She's a solid 2-drop that beside milling a card gives you valuable information on your opponents deck. The coldlight is good at punishing greedy control decks, as well as bursting down other control decks in fatigue.

Playstyle

Your goal is to survive until Bloodreaver Gul'Dan. Stall against Aggro, life tap against control. Once Gul'Dan is online, you have the strongest hero power in the game, which is often enough to carry you to victory (except against Priest..). Note that this deck is quite thin on demons. The strength of Bloodreaver Gul'Dan lies in the hero power - not in the summons. So we design the deck to maximize our ability to reach the deathknight stage without dying, and we focus less on pumping out demons.

So do we Life tap all game against control? It makes more sense to tap than to play a Stonehill Defender on turn 3. Late in the game, you want to make sure that your opponent hits fatigue a few turns sooner than you do. Analyze your opponents win condition and card draw ability. Coldlight is often better as fatigue burst damage than as a mill tool if you're down to the last 5 cards or so.

Notable card inclusions:

1xColdlight Oracle: A dead card against aggro and Priest. I find that running two hurts my overall consistency. Strong control counter.
2xDirty Rat: Similar to Gnomeferatu, this guy removes threats before they are played. Very strong in the current meta where utility minions are the name of the game.
1x Prince Valanar: A surprisingly solid card that is strong against aggro. Has drawbacks, but gives you much needed heal. The only really strong 4-mana card is Hellfire, which is a decent trade off as Defile does what Hellfire does, but better.
1x Abyssal Enforcer: This card is strong against Shaman and Mage, but it is weak vs. Hunter and Priest. Running two really hurts in the Priest matchup. The extra resummon is negligible, Void Walker and Despicable Dreadlord are much better.
1xKabal Courier: Flexible, cheap, good vs. control. I'd rather play this than a mana heavy control card, like Lich King. You mostly want to tap into Gul'Dan anyway.
1xCult Apothecary: Decent against Paladin, Shaman, Hunter, and Priest. With plenty of removal and silence, we shouldn't rely too heavily on taunts. 
1xSkulking Geist: Good against Priest, Shaman and Druid.
1xTainted Zealot: Excellent with Defile, very underwhelming without defile. Stronger than Thalnos, especially as we don't need card draw.
2xTwisting Nether: Goes well with the game-stalling focus of the deck. Excellent synergy with Doomsayer.Mountain giant: Dead against aggro. Good against Warlock and Priest.

Notable cards left out:

Bloodmage Thalnos: Card draw is covered by Life tap. Tainted Zealot is stronger with Defile. The card draw from Thalnos is actually pretty bad late in the game.

Mountain Giant: Dead against aggro. Good against Warlock and Priest.

Twilight Drake: Good vs. Warlock and Priest. No real synergy with our stay-alive game plan.

Hellfire: Great vs. Paladin. In other matchups, I feel that we have plenty of other tools. and Valanar is all around excellent. Aggro opponents tend to play around Hellfire more than they play around Defile (until we drop Valanar). Defile is arguably a better card. 

Shadowflame: Can't play this due to Valanar, but it's no big loss. Very slow as we need a minion on board for this. We mostly run low attack minions. Better just stall until Twisting Nether.

Elise the Trailblazer: Great vs. control, but may delay your Gul'dan timing. Excellent in vacuum, playable, but doesn't really fit the game plan.

Dread Infernal: Decent 6-drop in vacuum, but playing a defensive 6/6 in this meta accomplishes nothing. No synergy with our stay alive game plan. Despicable Dreadlord is better in every aspect.

Lord Jaraxxus: Anti-synergy with Gul'Dan. Offensive 8+ mana cards don't really match with our game plan.

Matchups - in short

Favored: Evolve Shaman, Tempo Rogue, Secret Mage, Jade Shaman, Jade Druid

Slightly favored: Miracle Rogue

Even: Control Warlock

Slightly unfavored: Razakus Priest, Mid range Hunter, Mid range Paladin, Quest Mage

Unfavored: Taunt Warrior, Pirate Warrior, Dead Man's Warrior

 Matchups - in depth

Coming soon.