Hearthpwn

This is Handuin Wrynn! I recently got myself 2 Mountain Giants, Molten Giants, and Twilight Drakes to start using my Handlock deck and I decided to use these cards even more. I found a deck that put them with a Mage using Duplicate (I think Noxious made that deck), and it worked pretty well, but then I went my ways and decided what other classes could mimic a Handlock class.

I tried Warrior at first, using cards like Battle Rage, but the issue with Battle Rage is it relied to much on me actually having creatures on the field, and sometimes the draw only net one card (or zero, if I didn't get hit). There wasn't any good consistent draw, so I scrapped the Warrior Class.

Deck has been edited on 9/10. Scroll to the bottom for updates.

Then I made this deck. And boy it works! Cards like Coldlight Oracle and Thoughtsteal will net you +1 in your hand size, and Northshire Cleric can assist with a lot of draws if she's ignored. If she isn't, then she takes a kill spell. Power Word: Shield and Mind Vision are free in the sense that you don't lose hand advantage while using them.

In my Handlock deck, I have about 5 spells that can kill a creature (Soulfire x2, Mortal Coil x2, and one Siphon Soul) and I also have 3 spells to wipe the field (Hellfire x2 and one Shadowflame). This deck has 6 spells that kill a creature (Shadow Word: Pain x2, Shadow Word: Death x2, and Holy Fire x2) while it only has one Holy Nova as a field wipe. I'm not a fan of Holy Nova as a wipe because it deals so little damage, most things are going to survive it anyway, and I'm tempted to replace that and some other card with the Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing combo.  You could also technically call Shadow Maddness a kill spell too, based on the situation.

This deck flows nicely. Turn 1 (Hand size: 4 or 6) - play a Mind Vision (only if the opponent doesn't have coin in hand). Turn 2 (Hand size 5 or 7) - "The light shall burn you!" and heal them. Turn 3 (Hand size 6 or 8) - Play Coldlight Oracle or Thoughtsteal- Hand size +1.  Turn 4 (Hand size: 8 or 10) play Twilight Drake for 4/8 or 4/10 OR play Mountain Giant at 3 mana if you were going 2nd.

If you play Northshire Cleric on turn 1, that works equally well, as you can leech off the opponent's weaker creatures. Anything with power 2 or less will be useful for you. Power Word: Shield should be used as soon as it can, get it out of your hand and replace it with something more useful. Protect a Coldlight Oracle from a Loot Hoarder, or protect your Northshire Cleric even more. Remember that 3 mana Mountain Giant? We have a left over mana? Make it an 8/10.

Running into the late game is fine, just as it is with Handlock because of the Molten Giants. Sure it's not as easy to get them into play, since we can't damage our self, but it works fairly well since we can risk going into low life with the heal ready to go. I'm thinking to remove 1 of the Giants? Maybe for that extra Auchenai Soulpriest combo? What do you think?

Loatheb  shouldn't need an explaination for why she's here. It's a good way to protect the fatties.

The selection of taunt went through evolution. At first I had 2 Sludge Belchers and 2 Faceless Manipulators, but the Faceless just didn't work out. At all. I replaced them with Sunfury Protector to combo with the giants and drakes, but many times I've found them not doing anything. So I removed them for hard taunt. At first I went 2 Sen'jin Shieldmasta and then swapped one for a Deathlord. I'm still testing out how Sen'jin is compared to Deathlord.

Let me know what you think! This deck is great and it's helping me rise a few ranks. It's issues are the same of Handlock with just bad draws really affecting you. The upside of this deck is you can utilize the cards net from Thoughtsteal and Mind Vision to use your opponent's cards against them.

Leave any comments and suggestions or ideas, and if you like the deck, give it a +1 please! Enjoy.

Deck has been edited:
-2 Mind Vision
-1 Shadow Madness
-1 Holy Nova
-1 Deathlord
-1 Sen'jin Shieldmasta
-2 Molten Giant

+1 Circle of Healing
+2 Holy Smite
+1 Inner Fire
+2 Wild Pyromancer
+1 Sylvanas Windrunner
+1 Mind Control

The edits of the deck have been made from various suggestions around many of the good comments I've been getting. Thanks, by the way.

I tried using Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing combo to do a nice field wipe, and it was mediocre. Most of the time, I wouldn't draw the other half of the combo, and other times, I would have to use the whole combo to deal 2 damage to one target, or to kill 2 weak 1/1 creatures. I was suggested to try out Wild Pyromancer, and the deck works beautifully! I can play Pyro and then any of my many spells and start progressively boiling the field. I found myself drawing 6 cards from a Circle of Healing with Northshire Cleric on the field because everything is damaged. If I have to dig for a downside, it didn't help against my opponent's Acolyte of Pain and Armorsmith, but I wasn't winning that anyway :P

So I added around some more control and it balanced pretty good, but the Molten Giants didn't work as well as I dreamed. They were consistently dead cards. A suggestion pointed out to replace them with Sylvanas Windrunner and Mind Control.  Both of these cards are late game plays that punish the opponent for playing their late game plays. I'm already using the opponent's control against them with Thoughtsteal, so not just did it fit the flavor, but it works nicely to replace Molten Giant.

Lastly, I had room for one random card. And nearly every 4 games I've been changing it to this and that. It was a Deathlord, then a Sen'jin Shieldmasta, then another Mind Control... Now it's an Inner Fire. It's been an Inner Fire for a while now, and it doesn't seem to be a bad choice. I've been able to get 10/10 drakes before with it, but I mainly added it to replace creatures with power 4, to something that Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Death can target. I would like some suggestions for what this card should be, but Inner Fire has worked nicely.