Silence or Bust: How Cubelock Slowed the Hearthstone Meta
“This card could potentially just shape the meta game,” Firebat mused about Carnivorous Cube in the Omnistone Kobolds and Catacombs set review. “Everyone’s deck might just be required to be fast enough to kill you so that you can’t play this.”
At the time I thought his take, echoed by Kibler and Zalae, verged on hyperbolic. I was wrong.
While the meta has slowed rather than sped up, we can attribute that change in pace to what Carnivorous Cube has done to the Warlock class, improving Control Warlock’s match-ups with other control decks while maintaining a suite of anti-aggro cards. Cubelock forces fast decks — Aggro Paladin, Tempo Rogue, Face Hunter, Burn Mage — to race to a finish before turns five and six, hoping to defy odds and dodge a devastating Defile or Hellfire along the way.
These fast decks are still viable, and Razakus Priest still dominates, but Firebat was right: Carnivorous Cube has helped to shape the Kobolds and Catacombs meta as we know it, spawning an archetype and a whole lot of Spellbreakers. Cubelock is the new control-combo hybrid archetype borne out of the Cube’s powerful interactions with a few cards. The deck has tools to stifle aggro, out-value control, and sometimes charge down Razakus Priest — and the Cube plays a large part in all of those win conditions.
We Dare Summon Doomguard
In general, the gameplan is to draw cards early and set up for massive swings in both health and tempo with combinations of Possessed Lackey, Skull of the Man'ari, Doomguard, Voidlord, Carnivorous Cube, and Dark Pact. The specific combination you’re aiming for depends on the match-up. Against an aggro opponent without access to a silence effect, Voidlord ends games; Dark Pact on a Cube or Lackey helps you stall to get there, as does Defile, Hellfire, and Mistress of Mixtures.
Against control decks, some versions of the deck can threaten 25 points of damage in a turn. The combo is as follows: cheat a Doomguard onto the board with Skull of the Man'ari or Possessed Lackey, hit the opponent’s face, play Spiritsinger Umbra, eat the Doomguard with Carnivorous Cube, hit face for 10 more damage, and finally use Dark Pact on the Cube to deal another 10. Sure, it’s a fringe, multi-card combo, but the deck has the tools to draw cards and stall to consistently threaten such a play. Bloodreaver Gul'dan then threatens all that damage over again — this time from one card.
But the combo is not an imperative. As with the old Renolock combo — a discounted Leeroy Jenkins, Faceless Manipulator, and Power Overwhelming — it’s merely an option. More than that, it’s a possibility that sends your opponent into a panic. A tempo Spiritsinger Umbra on turn 4, for example, can be played to bait out a silence effect and clear the way for Possessed Lackey, your much more consistent value card. Zalae’s list, which we’ve featured, uses Prince Taldaram and two Dark Pact to push the same amount of damage in the late-game. The flexibility of Prince Taldaram arguably makes it the better version, at least while valuable Deathrattle, Taunt, and Divine Shield minions roam the meta.
A Misplay, or Three
All that said, there are significant difficulties in playing the archetype. Chief among them: it is very, very difficult to assess optimal lines of play against control decks — especially with a clunky hand of incomplete combo pieces. Successful players will need to carefully consider the odds of drawing key cards while using life tap and monitoring their health. They will need to consider sub-optimal tempo plays against aggro and the odds and opportunity cost of jamming a Doomguard onto the board. And they will, in all likelihood, need to draw Mountain Giant early against Razakus Priest.
Also, there’s a little card called Defile. One of the most efficient removal cards in the game happens to be often one of the most complicated. Last month pro player and streamer BoarControl shared with his Twitter followers a screenshot of a full board of minions, offering that there was indeed a full board clear available. These math puzzles are a lot to contemplate in a 75-second turn, so cheers to anyone who can find the clear so quickly. (He didn't.)
Now and Ahead
Competitive circles haven’t yet settled on one list, but many are gravitating toward Zalae’s, which features two copies of both Mountain Giant and Faceless Manipulator to threaten damage versus Priest before their Psychic Scream and Shadowreaper Anduin turns on 7 and 8. Mulligan hard for the giants in this match-up, along with Skull of the Man'ari. If the meta quickens, you can reinforce Cubelock’s dominant position by trading the giants for two Plated Beetle. Against aggro, mulligan for Mistress of Mixtures, Kobold Librarian, Defile, Mortal Coil, and Hellfire — you have many options.
In a month, Cubelock has proven itself a powerful and rewarding, albeit challenging, new archetype. Against aggressive decks, it dominates. Versus control, it is at least viable — and Zalae’s innovative list has made the match-up with Razakus Priest, far-and-away most powerful and popular standard deck, a winnable one. Going forward, expect decklists to change often, sometimes by a lot, as we all learn how to pilot it optimally. And barring a nerf (or two), I predict you would do well to practice playing both with and against it — because after the first expansion of 2018 goes live, Razakus Priest will lose Raza the Chained to Wild and become unviable, while Cubelock loses only Mistress of Mixtures.
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You didn't have defile in the past, or even dark pact, spellstone...the first AoE meant you have to damage yourself further, or have a high attack minion on board at turn 4. It wasn't the same situation as now, you have easier ways to survive further into the game.
How to tech against it: Hex.
Even the crappy neutral Tinkmaster Overspark can be good against a Voidlord.
But then you're playing shaman. And you lose.
It's interesting to think about how these decks really came to power. If Shaman had some reliable form of card draw it would be VERY dangerous to ever play a cube deck in any form. The Raza/Anduin combo is still a 100x more devastating because there's no direct counter to it besides getting a nuts draw with an aggro deck. Even then it's at best a 50/50 chance of winning which really shouldn't be.
When people want a control meta, but then complain when they actually have a semi-control meta.
#logic
There's no control. What people call "control warlock" is played tempo wise.
This is a tempo meta.
#logic
As for the current meta, we have two tier 1 control decks, two tier 1 aggro decks, a tier 1 tempo deck, and a mixture of control, tempo, aggro, and zoo decks at tier 2. The real issue in the current metagame is that we have six different classes represented in the top ten decks, but four of them are priest decks, while druid, warrior, and shaman are largely out of the running. The lack of a viable control mage / warrior / paladin deck is more problematic than the existence of a single tier 1 warlock control deck.
As for comparison to old decks... Cubelock is not far removed from past handlock variants (even adopting Mountain Giant after a couple weeks of experimentation), with a gameplan that revolves around sacrificing health and tempo in the early game to stall for large board swings in the mid-to-late game, followed by stabilization through walls of taunts and healing, and the potential to end the game with a combo.
The Cubelock gameplan is much the same, despite using a different suite of cards. Nearly every card in the new list has one or more equivalent cards from a past variant of Handlock; mistress / beetle for zombie chow, defile for shadowflame, spellstone / dark pact for healbot / reno / dark bomb / imp-losion / siphon soul, skull / lackey / voidlord for voidcaller / mountain / emperor / mal'ganis, cubes for faceless, gul'dan for jaraxxus, cube combo for faceless + PO / maly + spell combos, etc. etc.
The biggest difference is that Cubelock relies less on low end minions (watchers / drakes / belchers / defenders), sacrificing early game stability for late game stability after a more consistent mid-to-late game swing thanks to recruit, deathrattle, and demon interactions.
You know what's funny? that in the end all 3 "horrible" princes saw competitive play, even prince 4 in some decks, although he is clearly the least interesting one.
Other living proof that most of the players here and in reddit are full of hot air in judging cards...
Well, Valanar a meh card, feels like a watered down Corpsetaker and I always prefer the taker. Windfury and divine shield is just way better sounding, even if it's just a 3|3. It's not THAT bad, if you don't have quality 4 drop options (might happen in the rotation for some class), but that just shows how much we lack good neutral lifesteal minions.
Taldaram is extremely niche and being in that one specific deck does not change this. Like Shadow essence and Big priest. You craft it out to play the deck, then doing nothing with it, because even Razakus does not have the place for this. Yes, it's in here, because ALL the copy effects are in here.
But that Keleseth... he is the prince that went from hell to heaven, and being thrown permanently with sh-t, just the reason changed over time.