Hearthpwn

I have been working on control decks for quite a while now, and finally I landed on a great fun/winrate compromise. My goal was to build a genuine control deck, value-based, that could compete in the Wild meta without relying on OTK combos to win. I found that Reno Mage was a very nice option to work on, and climbed from rank 5 to Legend with a 65% winrate.

The Wild meta is a rather tough one, including a variety of tempo and aggro decks, such as Pirate Warrior, Token Druid, Tempo Rogue, Aggro/Face Shaman, Evolve Shaman, Token Paladin, Zoolock and similar, as well as control and combo decks such as Randuin Priest, Exodia Mage, Jade Druid and Big Priest.

To fare well enough against all of this, a control deck obviously needs to include early removal and board clears, some life gain, taunts, as well as a good stream of efficient threats to pressure greedy control decks or win the board against tempo.

I found that a mix of good dragons, elementals and deathrattles would accomplish exactly that, considering that each card is by itself an efficient tempo-control card and that their synergies with Frost Lich Jaina and N'Zoth, the Corruptor generate value and survivability in the late game.


Let's look into the specific matchups.

Pirate Warrior, Aggro/Face Shaman: Both decks win the board by turn 1 or 2 and start pushing immediately for damage. If they loose the board, they will try to finish you off with a great deal of face damage in the form of weapons, chargers, spells. Cards like Mad Scientist and Arcanologist, together with Ice Block and Ice Barrier, help you contest the board and gain survivability trough the secrets. Mana Wyrm and Manic Soulcaster are nice tempo cards to keep contesting the board, in the hope to gain enough time to hit a good Kazakus potion, Volcanic Potion or later board clears. From turn 4 on, taunts and strong mid-game to late-game minions should start sticking to the board and winning it back. If you manage to win the board, you mostly need to make sure that you survive direct damage. Reno Jackson, the secrets and Frost Lich Jaina + elementals are the tools you are looking for at this stage.

Token Druid, Tempo Rogue, Evolve Shaman, Token Paladin, Zoolock: The early game is similar to the previous case, but in these matchups it will be harder to win the board back. Generally, they have less direct damage, so the focus here is really to make sure you win the board. Tempo Rogue will try their best to remove your minions and never loose the board, buffing their minions with cards like Cold Blood, Cobalt Scalebane and Bonemare to crush your dreams and hopes. The same holds for the others, but they have less removal and more board-flooding potential, so you will probably need to remove boards again and again to avoid loosing it to single-target and board-wide buffs. Cards like Blizzard, Chillmaw, Primordial Drake and Meteor, in addition to the mentioned Volcanic Potion, will be of great help in these matchups.

In case you find yourself facing a big minion, such as Tirion Fordring, Doomguard, Bittertide Hydra, Flamewreathed Faceless, Edwin VanCleef or any Evolve or Bonemare target, cards like Polymorph, Fireball, Meteor or Sylvanas Windrunner should help you out. Oh, and of course Primordial Glyph, whatever specific answer you may need.

Exodia Mage: This is a hard matchup. You really need to go for the strongest tempo plays and try to pressure your opponent. If they pull off the combo and you manage to survive through Ice Block, you will still need to play your Reno Jackson, kill an Archmage Antonidas as well as an army of Sorcerer's Apprentices, all in one turn and witout a board (because, Fireballs). Then, your opponent would still have a bunch of Fireballs.
As your board will be constantly frozen and occasionally removed, a nice card in this matchup is Ragnaros the Firelord, as it keeps dealing damage when frozen. Moreover, you should save removal such as Polymorph, Meteor or Fireball (although the latter would be better cast upon your opponent's face) for Doomsayers in order to protect your board against their strongest board-clearing option.

Jade Druid: As always in this matchup, the highest pressure you can apply in the early game the better. The ridicolous amount of value that you have in the late game, though, together with the efficient removal, allows you to actually keep competing for the board and finish off your opponent with a N'Zoth, the Corruptor or other tempo swings. Cards like Sylvanas Windrunner, Kazakus shine in this matchup. Sindragosa and Pyros are also great, as standalone cards and through their synergies with Frost Lich Jaina and N'Zoth, the Corruptor.

Big Priest: Once more, the more pressure the better. Your best cards in this matchup are Polymorph, Kazakus and Sylvanas Windrunner, to deny early resurrections or even steal big minions. The late game is rather tricky, as your opponent can and will pull off a gigantic amount of value, but you can definitely compete with that given the efficient removal and value that you have yourself.

Randuin Priest: Here you want to deny your opponent's card draw as much as possible, and hope that they don't draw their combo too early. Win the board to start pressuring them as soon as you can, and play a bit around their board clears. If they don't manage to pop your Ice Block without exposing their OTK pieces, which should be the case if you play Frost Lich Jaina early enough, then they will have to play their combo into your Ice Block hoping that you don't have Reno Jackson. As that should happen late enough in the game, hopefully you will have him by that time, and that should win you the game, as you definitely have more value than your opponent.
As it often happens against Randuin Priest, this matchup is rather decided by how soon you get to your final form. Priests include more card draw but they need two cards to achieve that, while you need only one. While Shadowreaper Anduin may arguably be a bit stronger then Frost Lich Jaina with a zero-cost hero power (apart from OTK potential), the same doesn't hold with a normal-cost hero power, and your elementals should be able to tank / heal back the priest's damage.


As for the cards I've not included in the deck, balancing dragons, elementals, deathrattles, removal and board clears wasn't an easy task at all. There are a lot of cards I would have liked to include, but I didn't get to. Let's take a look at them.

Why on earth isn't there a Flamestrike in this deck? Well, obviously we're talking about a great board clear that would work very well against this whole bunch of board-flooding decks around in the meta. On the other hand, it seems rather weak against decks like Randuin Priest, Big Priest and Exodia Mage, where Meteor works better. Meteor is probably the card to take out if you prefer Flamestrike, but in several cases it will work as well if not better, and for a lower cost. Moreover, people will play around Flamestrike that you have it or not, but unlikey will they play around Meteor.

Generally speaking, I feel like there are already a great deal of high-cost cards in the deck, so I had to cut on other popular high-cost inclusions. One of these is Firelands Portal, obviously a great card. I have no doubts it would be probably better to include it and take out other high-cost cards from the deck, but then I get sentimental and I can't do it.

After all, a very early version of the deck included cards like Bone Drake and Deathwing, Dragonlord. I'm greedy and I know it. Include these if you want to troll your friends in a friendly control matchup.

Another very nice inclusion would be Baron Geddon. If you face token-based decks, and similar, over and over again then you want to replace Ragnaros the Firelord with this. What I don't like of this card is that nukes your own board, which you may not be ok with.

As for the rest, you might want to develop a theme rather then others and include more elementals, or dragons, or deathrattles. cards like Deathlord, Piloted Shredder, Mistress of Mixtures, Twilight Drake or mabe Blazecaller are probably eligible. You might also want to include more card draw, in the form of Arcane Intellect, Acolyte of Pain, Loot Hoarder or Bloodmage Thalnos.

Oh, and of course Doomsayer (+Frost Nova).


Clips of the last games to legend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-DzcI95Hxo&list=PLnOTwGzPtHF2tpSR5j0fMA1P8HIvjrxif

I am very happy with this deck, and even though it might not be 100% optimised, I had a lot of fun playing it. Reaching Legend with a fun deck was really satisfying, even more so considering that most decks on ladder aren't fun at all and it gets frustrating sometimes to have to choose between winning and playing a deck you enjoy. I hope you can have a good time with this deck, if you feel like trying it out.

EDIT:

-1 Flamewaker
+1 Brann Bronzebeard