Hearthpwn

Quote from tacketra »

Quote from Funshine83 »

The biggest difference between this and blessed champion/windfury with Alexstrasza is that there are tons of ways to remove Alexstrasza and only so many to remove Gorehowl ( ooze/freeze ). Taunt works of course, but just as well vs. blessed champion/windfury.

The difference in OTK is that with alex/gorehowl all damage is done in one turn, from full hp to none. With the blessed champ and wind you spread the damage over two turns. 15 damage when alex hits the board and 15 dmg the next turn.

Also, when your opponent sees Alexstrasza hitting the board, he knows he wants to remove it in his turn. While putting up Gorehowl doesn't always alarm them.

thank you! Also, the 7 drop stealth guy might be better considering it does the same thing and is harder to remove? 

 It works better with the combo but the card is worse in other situations generally. The 7 drop stealth is commitment to the combo, gorehowl can help you control the board if you don't have the combo in your hand.

I've done some research on the term OTK before and the most agreed upon definition of it was "dealing your opponents maximum health in damage in a single turn" so in essence even having a 7 turn setup for it, as long as within 1 turn your doing 30+ damage it's a OTK.

Personally though i'm surprised this deck is as high as people claim because when ever i'm vs a warrior i'll always make sure I have a slime/taunt in hand because theres so many ways they can OTK you, I had a game where I gorehowled turn 7, double bloodsail, warsong, upgrade + 2x inner rage turn 8 for the OTK.

Kisstafer was using a different version of this, I personally think you should find a way to put Inner Rage and Raging Worgen in there somewhere for an alternative win condition.

I have actually been trying out a modified version of this deck, see below. I've added in 1 Inner Rage and Grom Hellscream as a secondary win condition or just to slam into a big taunt. The Black Knight is also there for taunt removal and Sylvanas Windrunner is amazing forBrawl.

I don't really miss Whirlwind or the Raging Worgen and have outlasted a mage with my armor + removal and have also beaten a control druid after going into fatigue against him.

I just breezed up from 14 to 9 yesterday with a version of this deck revolving around the combo, though my take on it is a little different than most of the lists here.  The deck is:

Combo:
1x Alexstrasza
2x Gorehowl
2x Charge

Removal:
2x Fiery War Axe
2x Wild Pyromancer
2x Inner Rage
2x Whirlwind
2x Slam
2x Shield Slam
2x Execute
2x Cleave

Board Presence / Drawing / Survivability
2x Gadgetzan Auctioneer
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
2x Azure Drake
2x Acolyte of Pain
2x Shield Block

I ran for a while with Brawl instead of one of my auctioneers, but it didn't seem useful; it's a way to bring the game back under control, but I find that with this setup it rarely gets out of control to begin with, and so it's often a wasted draw.  This deck as built has absurd drawing ability (Having Alex as literally the bottom card in the deck rarely matters), with the synergy between Acolyte of Pain, Whirlwind, Inner Rage, and Wild Pyromancer providing one strong engine and your Auctioneers and oodles of low-cost spells providing the other, not to mention spot draws with Azure Drake, Slam, Shield Block, and Bloodmage Thalnos.  Great AOE removal passes the murloc test about eight times out of ten, and there's good big-guy removal with Execute and Shield Slam both providing good options.

Yes, there are ways to stop the combo, with a well-timed big taunter or Acidic Swamp Ooze ruining your day, but I find that the Fiery War Axe is more likely to bait out oozes against decks that run them.  It also can struggle a bit against other Warriors or Druids who build up armor, though you can often save up an Inner Rage for Alex on the final turn to get past that last 2 armor.

It's definitely a stylistic meta deck, and it tends to struggle most against your standard progressing beatdown decks (particularly Paladin beatdowns that use lots of divine shield) who draw out your removal and then keep on coming with bigger stuff, but with absurd hyper-aggro Warlocks dominating the meta as I see it right now, this deck performs nicely as it works well against both them and many of their hard counters such as Shaman decks that rely on AOE removal.  Druids that overload on big taunters can be a problem, but if you use your removal wisely you can generally deal with them; the key is efficient removal card usage.

More importantly, to me at least, it's a very fun deck.

@Kali

I really like your version of the deck though I would probably not run the shield slam as I see it at most a 5 damage for 4 mana combo'd with shield block.

It's interesting that all the current trending Warrior decks are based on Gimmicks and strategies bordering on Exploits. Is there no viable/competitive Warrior deck that plays the class in a straightforward manner without any of these tricks?

Quote from k15 »

It's interesting that all the current trending Warrior decks are based on Gimmicks and strategies bordering on Exploits. Is there no viable/competitive Warrior deck that plays the class in a straightforward manner without any of these tricks?

Not really, the warrior hero ability is the only ability that doesn't affect the board state or the game tempo.  It lends itself to a more stall oriented playstyle contrary to what seems intuitive about the class.  The reason these decks work so well is because they work independently of the board/tempo of the game and the warrior class has enough removal through spells and weapons and a built in stall mechanism.

Quote from Ruffys »

Quote from k15 »

It's interesting that all the current trending Warrior decks are based on Gimmicks and strategies bordering on Exploits. Is there no viable/competitive Warrior deck that plays the class in a straightforward manner without any of these tricks?

Not really, the warrior hero ability is the only ability that doesn't affect the board state or the game tempo.  It lends itself to a more stall oriented playstyle contrary to what seems intuitive about the class.  The reason these decks work so well is because they work independently of the board/tempo of the game and the warrior class has enough removal through spells and weapons and a built in stall mechanism.

I disagree on the Warrior Hero power. It can potentially affect tempo/board control because It allows Garrosh to facetank more without dropping into lethal range instead of trading his minions. It could be used to stall (especially if combined with cards like Shield Block), but Ben Brode himself said that its primary purpose is to allow Garrosh to participate personally in board control throughout the entire game. 

Quote from Ruffys »

@Kali

I really like your version of the deck though I would probably not run the shield slam as I see it at most a 5 damage for 4 mana combo'd with shield block.

Thanks.  I like Shield Slam, though.  I get where you're coming from, and it's not a great card against aggro decks where you're constantly under face-pressure (though it's not terrible), where it really shines is up against other stall/control decks when the big boys come out, because in those games you're Armoring Up almost every turn and double-digit armor values aren't uncommon (and one-shotting Ysera for 1 mana gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside).

I disagree on the Warrior Hero power. It can potentially affect tempo/board control because It allows Garrosh to facetank more without dropping into lethal range instead of trading his minions. It could be used to stall (especially if combined with cards like Shield Block), but Ben Brode himself said that its primary purpose is to allow Garrosh to participate personally in board control throughout the entire game. 

I would agree with you if there were more weapons in the game

Quote from KaliShaf »

 

Quote from Ruffys »

@Kali

I really like your version of the deck though I would probably not run the shield slam as I see it at most a 5 damage for 4 mana combo'd with shield block.

Thanks.  I like Shield Slam, though.  I get where you're coming from, and it's not a great card against aggro decks where you're constantly under face-pressure (though it's not terrible), where it really shines is up against other stall/control decks when the big boys come out, because in those games you're Armoring Up almost every turn and double-digit armor values aren't uncommon (and one-shotting Ysera for 1 mana gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside).

The more and more I play this deck the more I tend to agree with you on the Shield Slam.  Only games I've lost are ironically hunter rush down decks that just play a bunch of charge minions as by the time you remove they have already done their damage and a couple of mage games where Alexstrasza was the last card in the deck and by that time mage had enough spells to burn me down.   So it seems like direct damage decks are this deck's biggest counter more so than big taunt decks which can be played around with good Execute usage

I think people are missing a large point.

This and its current variations are about control just as much as the Gorehowl/Alexstraza.  You constantly kill their minions and whittle them down when you can and then go for the set up.