StanCifka Shares His Top Five Theorycrafted Decks for Kobolds & Catacombs
Check out resident Hearthstone pro StanCifka's top five theorycrafted decks for Kobolds & Catacombs. What sort of decks are you hoping to play with the new cards?
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Armor Warrior
Dead Man's Hand stays one of the least popular archetypes despite being decent at many points in time, but I believe this is mostly due to game length. It has received more support in the new expansion which might finally push it over the line of becoming a deck that you can no longer ignore. Do not look for an easy win condition in the list - what you'll be trying to accomplish is going nearly infinite with shuffling and Battle Rage/Coldlight Oracles, while clearing threats and keeping your life total high. Drywhisker Armorer and Unidentified Shield will help you with the first, while Reckless Fury and Bladed Gauntlet should greatly assist you in the latter.
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Bloom Warlock
Whether or not it will prove playable once again, two mana DOOM! will stay forever in our hearts. The combo is certainly not known for its lack of card advantage, but your life total is a whole different story. That's why you needed fairly ineffective cards like Earthen Ring Farseer to heal up. With Kobolds and Catacombs coming, you can solve that problem way easier thanks to Amethyst Spellstone, which is able to heal you for 7 while also killing a minion - all that for 4 mana! Fueling it shouldn't be an issue with a fresh set of cards post-combo, especially when both of the other two new additions, Kobold Librarian and Vulgar Homunculus, also serve that purpose - while being from good to incredible on their own as well.
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Dragon Priest
Number three is probably the most classic deck you are about to see today and is also the safest bet on which one is going to see the most play. It proved very competitive in the past and although it only contains a total of 4 new cards, it's hard to overlook their sheer brutality.
- Duskbreaker is a discoverable Hellfire that adds a 3/3 body instead of damaging you
- If you are not sure how to evaluate Twilight Acolyte, try to compare it with another long-time staple, Aldor Peacekeeper.
What I see as the biggest argument against Dragon Priest is the fact that Minigun (Razakus Priest) is also going to improve a ton, so dragons' spot in the sun is going to be dependent on how the meta is going to shape up.
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Mill Rogue
Back into the creative waters. This deck goes very deep on new mechanics and is able to attack from many different angles.
- Evasion helps set up your Valeera the Hollow and burying any card advantage your opponent may have.
- Sonya Shadowdancer and Zola the Gorgon can bounce Coldlight Oracles to overdraw/mill slower decks.
- Fal'dorei Strider generates a lot of stats in the process.
- Elven Minstrel brings all the pieces together.
It's certainly possible that one of the standalone cards or interactions will prove stronger than the other and finds home in an existing deck while the rest fades into memory, but for now, before the meta-game settles, you have a great opportunity to play with all the toys at once!
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Secret Mage
This deck is pretty modest as far as the amount of new cards goes, but they sure make up for the quantity with quality. This is where the single best piece of the set (in my opinion at least) Aluneth finds a perfect home. You can drop your hand fast, run a lot of spells so your freshly drawn four has immediate impact and the games end quick enough that you don't have to be afraid of losing to fatigue before your opponent dies from severe frost-burns. It's pretty hard to evaluate Explosive Runes compared to Mirror Entity, I like it way better when lots of defensive minions like Tar Creeper are around, but even without that, it's another great addition to the secret mind games.
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For the same reason we don't use Beneath the Grounds.
The Darkness is more anti-mill than it is FOR mill.
The candles can be milled. Mill decks draw a lot of cards without milling themselves, but they overdraw their opponents. Therefore The Darkness might be good against mill-rogue, but it's bad IN mill-rogue.
Nope, just like Burrowing Mine did not explode when milled.
No, this is the StanCifka who is currently ranked No. 3 in the world.
Being good at playing the game doesn't necessarily correlate to prediction ability.
No.3 in what? Deck making or netdecking?
Really? Anduin and Bonemare? This exactly is HS problem. Lack of creativity.
last season I got bored watching pew pew Priests, Prince-I don't-know-how-to-play-HS so I play Prince rogues or Prince locks, which include the magnificent Bonemare and Scalebane and ofc the Jade druids.
Hell of variety!
Ps. What's your world ranking?
Ps2. Pro players show the way in to new decks
Wow, thats some legendary bs, different from your rank, you can get to legend with luck, time and money, but to top 3 in HS and before that one hell of MtG player, its skill.
Besides, dont tell me that drawing cards its important and decisive in a CARDgame, someone give this man a nobel he just cured cancer.
Wow, everyone on top 18 are currently on losing streaks, that's bizarre.
Maybe you should share your top 5 theorycrafted decks?
It's hard to make pre-release predictions, but stancifka has a history of doing well in tournaments with unusual decks (in both mtg and hearthstone), so his opinion is at least worth thinking about.
Leave Stan alone! He didn't ask for this!
Stan is the man.. always willing to share with the community his decks, guides and thoughts.
Tier 5 decks
Nvm, there is a priest deck.
Wow. You've added so much great content to the world with this post. THANK YOU.
Nice decks but where are the Ooze's???