Hearthpwn

Is this a tier 1 deck? No.

Is this a deck to easily climb ladder with? No.

Is this an easy deck to play? Absolutely not.

Is this deck fun to play? Hell yeah! It’s the most fun deck of them all!

The two main win conditions of this deck are Coldlight Oracle and Kingsbane. You can either mill your opponent to death by fatigue damage or hit him in the face multiple times with a buffed Kingsbane. Truth is that you often need to do both to win your games. It depends on the matchup, but I’ll talk about it the specific section below.

Kingsbane Mill Rogue could not be the best deck to climb with, due to the constant presence of aggro decks in the Hearthstone ladder. This deck, in fact, has a really low win rate against them.

Down here there are my statistics from rank 15 to 10 with this list (my latest one, with Captain Greenskin). I’ve found it to be the best one I’ve tried so far. 61% win rate is very good, but it went down to 53% when I tried playing it at rank 5 (too many aggro decks!).

https://imgur.com/a/bPY4C

• Backstab. Very good card against aggro and very useful to activate combo cards, such as Elven Minstrel. Against control is much less useful and in some cases you’d want to get rid of it from your hand, because it’s easy to fill your hand while trying to mill your opponents. In a heavy control meta I’d say you can even run only 1 Backstab.

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• Preparation. Apart from exceptional cases, Preparation should be used only in combo with Vanish. I’ve seen some lists playing only 1 copy of it, but because it’s very difficult and inefficient to play Vanish without Preparation, I truly advice you to run 2 copies of it.

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• Shadowstep. Same here: apart from exceptional cases, it should be used only in combo with Coldlight Oracle, to mill your opponents. In some cases, if you struggle drawing Coldlight Oracle or Cavern Shinyfinder, or if you desperately want some minion to buff your Kingsbane, you may have to use it with Elven Minstrel. In some cases, that is true also if your opponent has (almost) no cards in hand and you don’t want him to draw.

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• Deadly Poison. It’s maybe the strongest buff for Kingsbane. Dependently on your opponent’s deck, you could have to play them as soon as possible to avoid them being destroyed by Skulking Geist or keep them in your hand to copy them with the Shadow Reflection of Valeera the Hollow.

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• Doomerang. It works as a 3rd Cavern Shinyfinder, or better as a second Captain Greenskin. It’s really strong if Kingsbane has already a Leeching Poison enchantment because Doomerang will heal you. So, against aggro you can attack with Kingsbane and get it to 1 durability (healing you), play Doomerang to kill an enemy minion and healing you again for the same amount. This combo kept me alive so many times against aggro decks! Another important thing to note about Doomerang is that you can NOT use it to kill your Southsea Squidface and at the same time buff your Kingsbane! Don’t do that, because your Kingsbane would not be buffed! However, it’s a card that is good in 1x. Two of them would be too many, because it’s completely useless if you don’t draw Kingsbane.

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• Kingsbane. It’s the king of the deck (I’m sorry for the pun!). If you buff it enough, it can even do 15 damage per turn and most of the times it’s your main win condition. Use it carefully, especially in the beginning turns of a game. 99% of the times you don’t have to play it on your first turn, because you can easily kill early minions with your hero power (without expending Kingsbane charges). I usually play Kingsbane on turn 3, that is the turn before playing a 4-drop minion that can buff it. I play it before turn 3 only if I have a Deadly Poison in hand and a minion with at least 2 health to kill. Another powerful use of Kingsbane relies on its capacity to don’t let you die by taking fatigue damage. In fact, if you don’t have any more cards in your deck, you can attack with Kingsbane, then use your Wicked Knife hero power and shuffle Kingsbane in your deck. Next turn you’ll draw Kingsbane without taking fatigue damage! And you can do it every turn. Another way to avoid fatigue damage is to use Shadow Reflection, copying your Kingsbane and shuffling the real copy in your deck. Note that the copy will NOT have all the enchantments from the original one!

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• Cavern Shinyfinder. It’s one of the cards that makes this deck possible. It’s really important to have it in your starting hand. If you don’t draw it fast enough, the game could soon transform into a disaster! But don’t panic: use your card draws (especially Elven Minstrel) and at the same time try to keep the board clear without spending too many resources.

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• Leeching Poison. I remember that in the early weeks of Kobolds and Catacombs it was used as a 1x. In my experience that one copy was in the last four cards of my deck most of the times and I did get upset many times for this reason! And since it’s a very strong card (especially against aggro) I decided to add a second copy of it, days before Kolento started to play two of them. I want the copyrights for that! Jokes apart, one thing I want to say is that if you draw your second copy and you don’t have many cards in hand, don’t play it immediately (to get rid of it), even if you have unspent mana during a turn. But instead use it wisely, for example to activate Elven Minstrel’s combo. Sometimes it can be very useful.

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• Sap. It’s another important card for the deck. It can be used to gain some time or as a 2-mana Assassinate, if your opponent has already 10 cards in hand.

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• Fan of Knives. This is a flexible spot. I really like to use this spot with a card draw, to have more chances to draw Kingsbane or Cavern Shinyfinders. It could be replaced by Shiv (which costs 1 less mana), but Fan is better against aggro.

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• Blade Flurry. It’s the only AoE of the deck (if we don’t count Vanish as AoE). Remember that Blad Flurry does NOT heal you if you use it while your Kingsbane has a Leeching Poison enchantment! The best use of Blade Flurry should be when your Kingsbane has only one durability left.

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• Elven Minstrel. It’s a very solid card draw. Its best use is on turn 3 with the coin, whether you need to draw Cavern Shinyfinder or a 4-drop to buff your Kingsbane. Remember always to track the remaining minions in your deck and calculate the probabilities you have to draw what you need.

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• Southsea Squidface. His mother does love his face, we love his buff! Recently it keeps getting silenced due to the massive presence of Spellbreakers in this meta, but when it doesn’t, its buff is really strong! It will rotate out with the new expansion. We have to hope Blizzard will create another weapon buff.

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• Vanish. This is one of the key cards of the deck. Apart from exceptional cases, it should be used only in combo with Coldlight Oracle and Preparation. But there will be always cases when you have to use it just to buy one more turn. One of its better uses is in the turn after you play Valeera the Hollow, because your opponent will play more minions and he will not be able to attack you. So you’ll return to his hand even more minions. Another thing is: use Vanish with care! Don’t throw it if for example when you can heal yourself with Kingsbane for all the damage that you would receive by all enemy minions on his following turn.

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• Valeera the Hollow. It’s one of the strongest cards of the deck. It enables many combos with the Shadow Reflection and it can buy you one more turn to stay alive (especially against combo and aggro decks). I think it’s a not replaceable card, even for the budget lists, because it helps you really much! I’ll talk about all the possible combos in another section below.

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• Doomsayer. Since I was facing almost only aggro and midrange decks, I chose to add 2 Doomsayers back to my deck. They offer a GREAT help, because of the lack of removals for a 0/7. Use them also if your opponent has only 1 minion, playing one of yours (especially a Squidface) on your following turn. Another way to use them could only to gain a free turn, when your opponent will not play any card. 

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• Coldlight Oracle. It’s the second iconic card of the deck (after Kingsbane) and the most important one while your opponent is fatiguing. Use it in combo with Shadowstep and Vanish to keep getting it back to your hand, to have the possibility of using it again. One fundamental rule is that you should never play your last Coldlight Oracle without having a way to take it back to your hand (unless you have lethal, obviously!). It could happen, however, that you have to use your last one without those cards, because you are dying and you need to draw cards. Use this possibility only as a last chance when you are desperate! And if this happens, remember that you cannot win anymore by fatigue and that you should focus on winning by Kingsbane attacks. So if you still have Shadowsteps, use them on Captain Greenskin or Naga Corsair for example.

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• Captain Greenskin. I know that many of you don’t have it. Personally, I found it twice in the last two years and I disenchanted it each time, because I thought it would have been forever useless. I guessed it wrong! But here we are, at last I decided to craft it, to give it a chance. And I found the extra durability to be very useful in many situations.

The number one priorities to search for in the mulligan phase are: Kingsbane and Cavern Shinyfinder. If you have one of them, keep it, whatever the matchup is. If you have none of them, mulligan away everything (with some exceptions, see below). If you have them both, it depends on the matchup and on the other cards you have. Usually you keep the Kingsbane and mulligan the Shinyfinder. In this way you will have two other chances to get Kingsbane after you finish with the one you kept in your opening hand.

Keep one or more weapon buffs (especially if at least one of them is Southsea Squidface or Naga Corsair) only if you already have Kingsbane or Cavern Shinyfinder, otherwise mulligan them.

The only case in which you should keep both Kingsbane and Cavern Shinyfinder is when you are against aggro and you have at least one between a weapon buff and a Leeching Poison. In that case, keep them all. The extra way to get Kingsbane will help you kill all the early minions (hopefully while healing you up).

• Always keep these cards against aggro: Kingsbane, Cavern Shinyfinder, Backstab, Leeching Poison (only if you have at least a way to get Kingsbane).
• Always keep these cards against control: Kingsbane, Cavern Shinyfinder, Elven Minstrel (only with the coin).

 In general, don’t keep Leeching Poison in your opening hand (except in the case explained before), because you have two of them anyway and you have some card draws.

In some matchups like against Cubelocks or Control Warlocks in general, I like to keep a Coldlight Oracle (and a Shadowstep if I have it) if I go first, since my opponent will start with 4 cards + the coin and he’ll use Life Tap a bit. In this way I can make him burn some cards.

The ways in which you can use Coldlight Oracle are really countless: whether you use it to burn some cards (especially against combo decks) or to deal fatigue damage, you need to know what is the best way to do it.

When possible, Coldlight Oracle should be used always in combo with Shadowstep or Vanish. Oracle (or two Oracles) with Preparation + Vanish is one of the most classic combos you can do. You can make your opponent draw 2 cards (or 4 with two Oracles) and then Vanish to kill all of his minions if he already has an almost full hand.

One play that does make little sense is to use Oracle for example only to make your opponent draw two cards, without burning any on them. But sometimes you’ll have to do it anyway, when you’ll desperately need to draw. Maybe with those draws you could get a Shadowstep and you could thus play Oracle again.

One of the most important things to always keep an eye on is your opponent’s next fatigue damage. When your opponent is in fatigue (or close to it), the key is to calculate if you have lethal with Coldlight Oracles at the beginning of each of your turns. You must be fast to think and calculate, so make peace with math! It’s very crucial, because you could easily miss lethal and at worst you could lose the match on your opponent’s following turn. To easily take track of your opponent’s next fatigue damage, you can use the Hearthstone Deck Tracker. It shows your opponent’s next damage below his decklist. If you don’t use it, I highly suggest installing it to play this deck! When you are about to play Oracle or Minstrel, it’s so much easier to know how are your probabilities to draw what you need.

This deck shines when you are able to spot very tricky lethals with Coldlight Oracles and Valeera the Hollow. If your opponent is in fatigue:

• One Oracle means 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 damage (remember always to count also the damage from the draw of his following turn).
• Two Oracles mean 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15 damage.
• I could continue, because with Shadow Reflection or Shadowstep you could even play 3 Oracles in a turn (28 damage), but beware! You can die in the process! So, if you have less than 28 hp: play 1 Oracle → attack with your leeching Kingsbane → gain life → play the remaining Oracles.
• (Don’t read this if you don’t like complicated math. You won’t need this combo 99,9% of the times anyway). You could also play 4 of them with a Shadow Reflection AND Shadowstep, but do it only if you have a leeching Kingsbane with a very high attack damage, because 4 Oracles mean 45 damage to your opponent but also 36 damage to you (if you are in fatigue too). So, if you plan to do such a combo, be sure to have some armor from Valeera or at least 37 hp among your hp at the start of the combo and 8 lifestealed damage from your Kingsbane. That means, play some Oracles → attack with Kingsbane → gain life → and THEN play the remaining Oracles.

Some math sums that can help you count fast are: “1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10” and “1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15”. Start from here. If for example your opponent has already taken the first fatigue damage and you plan to make him draw 4 cards, use the second sum subtracting the “1”: 15 – 1 = 14. Don’t manually count 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 every time, because time is precious and you have to be very fast! As I said before, you should do these calculations at the start of each turn while your opponent is in fatigue or close to it.

Try to find a Leeching Poison as soon as possible.

Try not to make your opponent draw cards with Coldlight Oracle if he has few cards in hand. As opposed to control, aggro decks are able to “vomit” their hand into play. So, making them draw like that is not the smartest play.

Accept the fact that your chances against aggro are very low. I know that repetitively losing against aggro can be really frustrating, but don’t discourage yourself and keep playing the deck! ;)

In my opinion it’s useless to add to your deck some tech cards against aggro. I’ve tried to do it for example with Tar Creeper, but the win rate doesn’t change. And on the other hand your deck could become worse against control.

Exploit the fact that control decks draw cards. Wait for them to have for example 8 or more cards in hand and at that moment start playing your Coldlight Oracles.

Take advantage of the fatigue damage. Most of the games against control decks will go to fatigue. So keep at least 1 Coldlight Oracle in your hand and make them fatigue to death.

Kill their biggest threats, returning them to your opponent’s hand when it’s full. Some combinations of Coldlight Oracle + Shadow Reflection + Shadowstep + Vanish can create really nice combos to fill his hand and kill his big minions in play with Vanish.

Be aware that if your opponent’s hand is full and you return a deathrattle minion to his hand, it will die and its deathrattle effect WILL TRIGGER! Remember it especially with Voidlord. In this particular case, you’ll NOT be able to attack face after you Sap or Vanish it. A mistake like this one can really cost you the game.

Watch out for silences, weapon removals and Skulking Geists, the current meta if full of these cards.

In some matchups you’d want to keep some weapon buffs in your hand, to play them doubled with the Shadow Reflection. They can give you a great advantage! So, if it’s not strictly necessary for you to play Deadly Poison, wait for Valeera and then copy the poison with the Shadow Reflection.

Aggro Druid. Like against all aggro decks, you’ll have to fight for your life points since the beginning of the game. Vanish could be the key, since many of his cards would be used to buff minions. In the remotely case that your opponent does not know how your deck works, he will play Living Mana and with Vanish you can make disappear all of his mana crystals!

Jade Druid. It’s a difficult matchup, that involves strategy and calculations, but I had some of my best wins against them. The main problem is that if your opponent plays well, you can’t win by fatigue. So, the objective is to build up a giant Kingsbane and start going face every turn, while returning his big minions to his hands and killing his taunts. Remember: it’s useless to return taunt minions to your opponent’s hands (except when you have lethal, of course!). He’ll play the taunts again on the following turn and the problem will reoccur. Return them to his hand only if you have Sap/Vanish for enough turns to kill him.  So: taunts must die! For this purpose, a great card for this matchup would be Vilespine Slayer. I played it as a 1x for over a month before replacing it with Captain Greenskin. Since Coldlight Oracles are almost useless in this matchup, you can use Vilespine Slayer in combo with Shadowstep and Vanish to kill your opponent’s taunts or his 10+/10+ Jade Golems. Try not to throw it on the board without a card to return it to your hand. It can do an awesome work in the end game! Another advice: try not to use a big leeching Kingsbane on his small or mid-sized minions, since you'll heal up every turn. Let him build a board of 3-4 minions and THEN use Vanish. For example, if your Kingsbane has Leeching Poison and 15 attack and your opponent has some minions in play for a total of 15 attack, GO FACE! He can’t do 30 damage in a single turn. At most, he could attack you for 15, then Swipe your face twice and use his hero power: 15 + 4 + 4 + 1 = 24 damage. So unless you’re taking 6 damage from fatigue, go face! I won matches with my opponent at 50+ life/armor going face for 15 damage every turn for 4 turns, while using Saps and Vanishes!

Here is an example of a game against Jade Druid:

Hunter is maybe the worst matchup, either if it’s aggro or midrange (like the Spell Hunter version). Really… I’m not able to defeat them. Sometimes even a 5-attack Kingsbane with life leech is not enough to stay alive. Sadly, I’ve not a single advice to give you for this specific matchup: after the patch nerf I’m 0-12 against Hunter.

Big Spells Mage. This is a favorable matchup. The only problems could be the Water Elementals from Frost Leech Jaina or the eventual Skulking Geist. Big Spells Mage is a really slow deck, so you have all the time you want to assemble a big Kingsbane. The games against this deck end up pretty much all to fatigue. It’s important to kill all the Water Elementals (because in the fatigue turns you’ll need to attack your opponent every turn) and the Arcane Artificers (because if you keep them alive, your opponent can gain much life). It’s also important to notice that you can kill your opponent while he has an Ice Block on. This type of play works against all types of mage decks: calculate the damage you can do in one turn with your Coldlight Oracles and your Kingsbane and try to take your opponent to 1 hp (if his next fatigue damage would deal at least 1 damage to him, or to 2 hp if his next fatigue damage would be at least 2, etc.). He’ll take the lethal damage on his turn, when Ice Block won’t trigger. One last thing: be careful with your own hand size, since many versions of this deck run Coldlight Oracles. Your opponents could burn some of your cards, thus try to stay at most with 7 cards in hand.

Quest Mage. The key is being as fast as you can. Ignore his 1/1s and attack face every turn. He will try to draw as many cards as possible, so he’ll always have the hand almost full. Therefore, keep Coldlight Oracle in your opening hand and make him draw. If you are lucky enough, you could mill some of his combo cards; if not, with 10 cards in hand he cannot play cards like Cabalyst Tome. So it’s good anyway. Valeera the Hollow could be a match changing card if you play it the turn before your opponent will start the two-turns kill combo.

Tempo Mage. It’s a very difficult matchup. You have to hope your opponent doesn’t have the best start or you simply can’t win. Arm yourself with Leeching Poison and try to kill his early minions as soon as possible. If you think he has an Explosive Runes up, try to playing minions like Southsea Squidface: you’ll take only 2 damage, your Kingsbane will be instantly buffed and you could kill minions with 2 more hp. If you think he has a Counterspell up, don’t make him counter your Leeching Poison or your Doomerang. Use other cards to bait the Counterspell. One notable way to win is when they play Aluneth and you’re not almost dead. In that case you can use your Oracles to make him draw some more cards. He’ll soon get to fatigue and, if you don’t die in the meanwhile (leeching life with Kingsbane), you can finish him with another Oracle. 

Here are two examples of wins against Tempo Mages:

Control Paladin. This is an easy matchup. It’s a slow deck and it doesn’t have some crazy combos to win. Just mill him, use Vanish and in the end attack face with Kingsbane. Watch out only for tech cards like Skulking Geist and weapon removals.

OTK Paladin. There are two ways to win against this deck: mill some of its combo pieces or kill him before he draws his entire combo. Take advantage of his hand size (because it will be always almost full) and make him burn cards.

Aggro / Silver Hand / Murloc Paladin. Which one is the next class? Priest? We’ll talk about Priests. Wait, it’s the turn of Aggro Paladin you say? Ok… We’ll talk about them… As Hunters and Tempo Mages, this deck is almost impossible to beat. You have to hope they don’t have a fast start and you must have a good start of your own. Kill Knife Jugglers as soon as they come to play, or they’ll deal your enormous amounts of damage. Righteous Protector can be very unpleasant to deal with, because it can protect other key minions that need to be killed instantly.

Spiteful Priest. This is a favorable matchup. Not an easy one, but unlike other decks we have a way to deal with their 10-drops on turn 6: Sap and Vanish are two very important cards in this matchup. Don’t waste them too early or it would be difficult to win. This kind of Priest doesn’t have any burst, so if his side of the board is empty and you are at 1 hp, don’t worry: he can’t kill you on his following turn (except for a charge minion from Free From Amber). And if he copies cards from your deck, he’ll have almost nothing that could deal damage to your face (except from SI:7 Agent and Kingsbane, which would not have any enchantment copied, thus only 1 attack). In addition, your opponent’s Mind Controls can take a 5/4 at most, so it’s not that big of a deal for him.

Here's an example of game against Spiteful Priest:

Inner Fire Priest. Watch out for the OTK! Twilight Drake is the most dangerous card, because if you return cards to his hand, Twilight Drake will get bigger. And the double of “bigger” could mean your death with a single attack (from Divine Spirit + Inner Fire). Try to keep your opponent’s minions low on hp, even if it means attacking them with Kingsbane without killing them. The base strategy is the same as against the other decks.

Big Priest. Your win rate against Big Priest deeply depends on whether your opponent has Barnes on his 4th turn or not. If he does have it, I truly recommend using a Sap on the 1/1 (if you have it). I know it’s a 1/1 and it’s easy to kill, but if you kill it, he’ll resurrect it on his following turn. And it would be much worse! One more tip: the perfect turn to use Vanish is when your opponent summons Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound (or better when he has a 1/1 and a 10/10 Y’Shaarj), because it (or they) can summon the last minion(s) from his deck. Consequently, if you return all of his minions to his hand and he does have more Shadow Essences and/or a Barnes in hand, they’ll become useless. In addition, he has to play his big minions from his hand only one per turn!

Kingsbane Mill Rogue (mirror match). This is a matchup where face damage can decide the winner. Personally, at the start of a match, if I know that my opponent is a Rogue, I mulligan as I already knew it will be Kingsbane. In the current meta it’s the most common Rogue deck played. So mulligan in search of Kingsbane and all its buffs. Leeching Poison is another crucial card, because if you have it and your opponent doesn’t, you’ll likely win the game. I never played a mirror in which both me and my opponent had Leeching Poison. I think that only in that case such a game would get to fatigue. This matchup could be seriously conditioned if one the two players doesn’t draw Kingsbane in the early turns. Tempo plays are very powerful: for example, if both of you have a Southsea Squidface in play, instead of trading you could Sap it and attack face. Do all you can to avoid him buffing his weapon. If during a turn, your opponent breaks his Kingsbane and shuffles it in his deck, you could try to make him draw many cards and mill it. In that case, most of the times it would mean an instant victory. If both of you have a Kingsbane with a non-negligible attack, but you are behind in life points, Valeera the Hollow could a perfect card in this matchup. Attack his face and then use Valeera. He will not be able to attack you and on your following turn you can attack his face another time and thus gaining life two times in a row. This could make you turn the game to your favor.

Miracle Rogue. This is another interesting matchup. If your opponent plays the full combo with Leeroy Jenkins + Shadowstep + 2x Cold Blood, you have to know that from turn 10 on you can get killed by a 20 damage combo. So, unless you burn some of his combo pieces, be sure to stay above 20 hp from turn 10 on. Other than that, Gadgetzan Auctioneer shouldn't be a problem: if your opponent draws many cards, he does you a favor. Watch out for Shadowstep used on Fal'dorei Strider, because his board could fill up very quickly! Therefore, be sure to always keep a Vanish in your hand for those situations. And to prevent the possibility that he could play those spiders again from his hand on his following turn, try to fill his hand first and THEN use Vanish. If you burn all of his spiders with a play like this, he won’t have any other great win condition against you. In addition, you have to remember that if your opponent already has 10 cards in hand and he draws a Spider Ambush!, it will be burned, without summoning a spider! So, take advantage from knowing that!

Tempo Rogue. After the nerf patch, there aren’t that many Tempo Rogues anymore. But if you face one, they are a bit less powerful and less fast. Consequently, this matchup is very similar to Spiteful Priest: you have to expect minions played on curve, but without an explosive start. Try to play some 4-drops on turn 4 and 5 and contest the board. In the meanwhile, build your Kingsbane and search for your Leeching Poison. There are no other specific suggestions.

Here's one of my games (against a pre-nerfed Tempo Rogue):

Evolve Shaman. This deck is not a big threat to us. We can use Vanish after a big Evolve turn and stall all of those expensive cards in our opponent’s hand. But try to close the game as soon as possible, because (like in the Jade Druid matchup) Evolve Shamans can have really big minions in the end game. And if you play all of your Saps/Vanishes, it could be tough.

Cubelock. This is generally a favorable matchup and it’s pretty fun too! Take advantage of the fact that your opponent will always have an almost full hand. And because this deck has a lot of combo cards, you have good probabilities to burn some of them with Coldlight Oracle. This is why I like to be a little bit more offensive with the Oracles in this matchup. If you burn a Doomguard or Bloodreaver Gul’dan, you’ll then know that the game will be much easier! One basic play would be returning a Carnivorous Cube to your opponent’s hand, but if he’s a good player, he’ll never play a Cube without sacrificing it. Try to stay always above 15 hp, to avoid the “Doomguard (from Skull of the Man’ari) + Carnivorous Cube + Dark Pact” combo. If your opponent plays a Mountain Giant in the first turns of the game, there’s a combo I really like to do: Coldlight Oracle to fill his hand and then Sap the Mountain Giant, destroying it. Regarding the Doomguard, this move is a little bit different, depending on the cards you have already burned: if his Gul’dan is gone, then return the Doomguard to his hand when it’s full; if his Skull of the Man’ari is gone, you can return the Doomguard even if his hand is not full (to play it again he’ll be forced to discard two cards!); if nothing relevant was burned, choose to kill it, instead of Sapping it. A general type of suggestion against all kinds of Control Warlocks is to kill as many Voidwalkers as you can before your opponent plays Gul’dan. For example, on turn 9 avoid killing his last Voidlord if you can’t kill also the Voidwalkers, otherwise it would be more likely for him to resurrect his big demons with Gul’dan.

Rin Control Warlock. This matchup is pretty similar to the previous one, but with some differences. The first difference is the card that names the deck: Rin, the First Disciple. If played early, it can be really painful to deal with, but there’s a trick to nullify its effect: if you play Coldlight Oracle and fill your opponent’s hand, you can then play Sap or Vanish on Rin to destroy it. It’s deathrattle will trigger, but since your opponent’s hand is full, The First Seal will be destroyed too! In the last turns of the game, your opponent could play N'Zoth, the Corruptor to resurrect Rin. But at that moment it should be late to destroy your deck, so it won’t be a real problem. Then there are the Dirty Rats. Pray the RnGesus (or Yogg, or Ben Brode if you want), because the Rats could ruin your game if they take your Oracles! Try to always keep some other minions in hand. Another card that characterizes this deck is Gnomeferatu. While it is a normal card against any other deck, it can be a real problem for us! In fact, if in the last turns of the match Kingsbane remains the only card in your deck, your opponent can play Gnomeferatu to destroy it. And if your opponent does know how to play against you, he could use his weapon removal card (they always have one in this deck) on your Kingsbane while your deck is empty. Then, using the Gnomeferatu, Kingsbane will be gone! To prevent a game like that to become a sure loss, you must rely on your other win condition: Coldlight Oracle. In fact, most of the times in the end game against Control Warlock, Kingsbane will be either gone (with Ooze + Gnomeferatu) or blocked by an impenetrable wall of taunt minions. Between Dirty Rats, Stonehill Defenders, Voidlords and resurrected minions from Gul’dan and N’Zoth, your Kingsbane will have many problems to attack face. So, rely on the Oracles: count your damage every turn and fatigue him to death!

Here's an example of game against Control Warlock:

Zoolock. It’s a matchup similar to Aggro Paladin: minions on curve and some buffs. Thus, it’s very difficult to deal with it.

I’ll be fast with Warrior. It has a lot of really cool decks, but none of them has a place in the current meta.

Armor Warrior. One of our easiest matchups. All they’ve got are armor cards and removals. Minions are only a few and not very threatening.

Fatigue Warrior. Extremely slow deck. You have all the time you want to build a giant Kingsbane. If your opponent plays the version with 2 Dead Man’s Hand, then you can’t fatigue him (except if you’re lucky to mill one of those cards). Rely on Kingsbane and use the Shadowsteps on Captain Greenskin and/or Naga Corsairs. In addition, don’t keep your hand almost full, because that version runs 2 Coldlight Oracles: he could burn some of your cards!

Quest Warrior. Not an easy matchup, since the taunts will prevent you from attacking face with Kingsbane. You have two possibilities: try to be extremely aggressive with your minions, if you have your 4-drops (but if your opponent has the perfect taunts at the perfect times, it will be very difficult to proceed); make him draw many cards and win by fatigue before he can kill you with DIE, INSECT! Also, watch out for Dirty Rats!

You can use Valeera the Hollow to effectively double many cards in your deck: from the Kingsbane buffs (like Deadly Poisons and pirates), to the Saps, from the Coldlight Oracles (afterwards I’ll explain better what I mean) to Kingsbane itself.

Let’s start with the Kingsbane buffs. Let’s say you have 10 mana, with a Deadly Poison and Valeera the Hollow in hand. You also have a Kingsbane with 6 attack. Do you play Deadly Poison now to deal 8 face damage this turn and 8 next turn or do you attack face for 6 this turn, play Valeera and keep the poison for your following turn, doubling it and dealing 10 damage? The total damage in these two turns would be the same (8 + 8 = 6 + 10 = 16), but after those turns, in the second case you’ll have a Kingsbane with 10 attack, instead of 8. In particular matchups, having a slightly bigger Kingsbane could mark the difference between a win and a loss. Obviously, if you have to necessarily kill a minion with 8 hp in the first turn of this example, you’ll have to play the poison. But if you make a long-term plan, the second option would be the best.

Doubling the Saps is also very important, especially in matchups like against Jade Druids. When he plays a 10/10 and a 11/11 Jade Golems and you have a 11-attack Kingsbane, you HAVE to go face! You must not waste your turns killing those giant golems, or you could lose the game. In cases like this one, doubling a Sap with your Shadow Reflection is one of the most powerful plays you can do with this deck!

For “doubling the Oracles” I don’t mean only in play. Let’s say you have only 1 Coldlight Oracle left and your opponent’s board is full. Let’s then say that you’ll need more Oracles to win, but also your Shadowsteps are gone. What do you do? You can double your Oracles with a play like this: play the first Oracle, play the Shadow Reflection into Oracle, then Preparation, then Vanish. At the end of this combo, you’ll end up with 2 Oracles in your hand! On your following turn you could thus play 3 of them, since you’ll have another Shadow Reflection and you could make your opponent draw 6 more times! But… this is not a dream combo. There something you’ll have to keep an eye on before starting the combo: your hand size. Drawing too many cards after playing Valeera is in fact the most common mistake. Keep in mind that if you use your Shadow Reflection, you must end your turn with at most 8 cards in hand, since you’ll have another Reflection on the following turn, plus the card you’ll draw. So, here is some math about this combo, if you want to play Oracle + Reflection into Oracle + Preparation + Vanish and you have no minions in play:

• If you have at least 5 cards left in your deck, you must have at most 6 cards in your hand at the start of the combo (Reflection included) or you’ll burn some cards: playing the first Oracle you’ll go to 7, playing the Reflection you’ll go to 8, Prep → 7, Vanish → 6, two Oracles return to your hand → 8.
• If you have at least 4 cards left in your deck, you must have at most 7 cards in your hand at the start of the combo.
• If you have at least 3 cards left in your deck, you must have at most 8 cards in your hand at the start of the combo.
• And so on…

Having in mind these numbers will prevent you from wasting too much time thinking and calculating each turn. You must be fast, because in the last turns of a game, you have to calculate too many things to avoid missing lethal.

Last duplicate: Kingsbane. You can duplicate your Kingsbane to avoid fatigue damage. Here is how it works: let’s say your deck is empty and you have Kingsbane in your hand. Play Kingsbane, attack with it, play Shadow Reflection to copy your weapon: your buffed Kingsbane will be shuffled into your deck and you’ll have an unbuffed and equipped copy of it. On your following turn, you’ll draw the original Kingsbane. Play it and its copy will be shuffled into your empty deck. And so on… In this way, unless you play an Oracle, you should never take any fatigue damage.

• Evasion. I tried it for a few days, but I didn’t like it at all! I found it to be useless in every situation. Against control decks is an almost dead card. It’s not an Ice Block, thus a big source of damage could kill you anyway. Against aggro, it lets you live another turn, but it’s useless anyway. Rejected!

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  Cheat Death. After playing if for several days, I realized that people know exactly how to play around it: they don’t kill your minions and go face. It’s not completely trash, but there are many other cards that I like better for this deck.

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  Shiv. Nice card draw, maybe I should replace the Fan of Knives with it, but I’m not sure because Fan is better against aggro decks.

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  Edwin VanCleef. I didn’t like it. It’s incompatible with cards like Vanish. There are turns in which you NEED to play Vanish, but if there’s VanCleef in play, you lose all his buffs. In addition, every time I forced some plays like with “Preparation + Fan of Knives” to play a bigger VanCleef, my opponents always had a removal for it. Rejected!

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• SI:7 Agent. I used to play one copy of it, but I replaced it for a Doomsayer, because I was facing a lot of aggro decks. If you don't, consider adding one Agent to your deck, because the deck struggles when you don’t draw Kingsbane. The main purpose of SI:7 Agent is to help you in these cases. 

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  Fal'dorei Strider. I don’t like it for the same reason as for VanCleef. The spiders could fill the board when I need to use my Vanish. I could fill my hand with spiders and burn cards. Rejected!

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  Vilespine Slayer. It’s a very good card in many situations, especially in a heavy control meta. It used to be my dream card against Jade Druids and some other minor matchups. But I was facing way less Jade Druids after the nerf patch, so I replaced Vinespine Slayer with Captain Greenskin.

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  Tar Creeper. It tried it for one day, for the aggro matchups. But it didn’t give me the help I wanted. So… rejected!

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• Naga Corsair. I used to play it as a 1x, but I replaced it for Doomsayer. If you don't face a lot of aggro decks, you can run 1 or 2 Corsairs in your deck.

• Preparation. If you don’t have both Preparation and the dust to craft it, I guess you could use Counterfit Coin. It’s NOT the same thing. Preparation is really important for this deck! Your Coldlight Oracle + Vanish combos would be much less effective. You won’t be able to do: Oracle (3 mana) + Oracle (3 mana) + Cointerfit Coin + Vanish (5 mana) = 11 mana! But I guess you can do it in a non-competitive list.

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  Doomerang. It saved me so many times that I can't count them, in particular if Kingsbane had already a Leeching Poison attached. If you don’t have it, you could use Cheat Death. You can combine it with the Oracle for the best use, but if you need more Kingsbane charges, you can use it with the Cavern Shinyfinder, to get it back in your hand. It would be like a Doomerang, more or less.

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  Captain Greenskin. I wouldn’t say it’s an indispensable card, but it’s a nice addition to the deck. You could replace it with a 2nd Naga Corsair or, if you already play two of them, with a SI:7 Agent or a Vilespine Slayer.

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  Valeera the Hollow. I think Valeera is not replaceable. It helps you in unimaginable ways. There’s no card that can remotely be as good as it. So, I don’t have a replacement to suggest you. It should be the number one priority to craft if you want to play this deck!

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About possible other cards you want to add: don’t add too many minions! Try to maintain the minion number around 11, because if you add some of other ones, your Elven Minstrels would become worse and your probabilities to draw Oracles and Shinyfinders would decrease.