Hearthpwn

Wild Malylock Guide

My name is JSASCS and I have been playing hearthstone since 2016. I have played in many tournaments and have always tried to find exciting ways to beat the meta, and one of my favorite classes to do that with is warlock. I am not a pro player and this is not meant to be a highly competitive deck.

 

Table of Contents

1. Intro & Proof
2. Why Play Malylock?
3. General Strategy  
4. Mulligan
5. Tips & Tricks
6. Possible Replacements and Techs

 

1. Intro

I have been malylock for a long time now and recently decided to give it a go in the new meta, and to my surprise, it worked very well! I went from Rank 15 to Rank 5 in three days with 27 wins and 11 losses. I have tried 6 different decks with different styles of play and there are 2 that stand out. Midrange Dragon Malylock, and Demon Control Malylock. The demon variant works a lot better, but the midrange dragon variant gives you more of the old Malylock feel. This guide will be about the Demon Control Malylock, as it performs better. Proof: https://imgur.com/rU6GXCw

2. Why Play Malylock? 

- Its better than Leeroy + Faceless Warlock, in the new meta, especially against warlocks, there is a ton of taunts that you cant get through with the Leeroy + Faceless combo, but by using Malygos you don't need to worry about taunts because the combo uses spells instead of minions.

- It beats the other warlock decks. I have a 64% winrate against warlocks, as long as you don't bottom deck most of the combo cards you should be fine.

- Its ridiculously fun while not giving up a competitive aspect.

3. General Strategy

The key to winning with this deck is realizing your win condition, which is not always Malygos. I see many people not using combo pieces (Darkbomb and Soulfire) against aggro and midrange decks. While you should try to avoid using them for clear, always use a Ddarkbomb to clear a Ships Cannon or Knife Juggler or a Soulfire to clear a Frothing Berserker against an aggro deck. The Malygos combo is Malygos + Soulfire + Darkbomb x2, which is 25 burst. The plan is to control the game and do one of three things. The first is to whack them in the face for 5 damage throughout the game and pull off the combo, and the second is to use the Death Knight hero power to deal 5 damage. The third is something you should avoid doing, which is using Hellfire(s) to get them down 5 health, the issue with this is that with most people after seeing Emperor Thaurissan and Hellfire know that you are running a combo deck and heal, so try do only do this when there are minions on the board so they don’t suspect it.

 

4. Mulligan

Bolded means it is very valuable in the matchup.

Always keep: Voidcaller if you have another demon in hand, Mistress of Mixtures and Kobold Librarian. I actually keep Voidcaller even without a demon against most decks, because turn 2 and 3 you are almost always going to tap, and most of the time by then you would have a demon.

 

Paladin:

Against Aggro: Keep Doomsayer, Defile, Hellfire, Gluttonous Ooze and Darkbomb

Against Control: Keep Combo Pieces, Gluttonous Ooze and Possesed Lackey

Tips: Mana efficiency is key in this matchup. Always Voidcaller on turn 4 if you have a demon in hand, and it is generally a good idea to Sacrificial Pact it because most decks run silence now.

 

Shaman:

Against Aggro: Keep Doomsayer, Defile, Hellfire, Gluttonous Ooze, Soulfire and Darkbomb

Against Control: Keep Combo Pieces, Siphon Soul and Possesed Lackey

Tips: Against Aggro Shaman be sure to keep your health high, due to the large amounts of burst they tend to run, keep Soulfire to kill a turn 2 totem golem or Tunnel Trogg. But there are very few Shamans in the current meta so I didn’t add lots of healing.

 

Hunter:

The popular Hunter decks are Midrange, Face and Giants.

Against Midrange and Face: Keep Doomsayer, Defile, Hellfire, Gluttonous Ooze and Darkbomb

Against Giants: Keep Doomsayer, Twisting Nether, Possesed Lackey and Voidlord even without a demon in hand.

 

Warrior:

Warrior is almost always Pirate Warrior, so mulligan for aggro unless you know he is control.

Aggro: Keep Doomsayer, Defile, Hellfire, Gluttonous Ooze and Darkbomb

Control:  Keep Combo Pieces, Siphon Soul, Bloodreaver Gul’dan and Possesed Lackey

Control Warrior/Mill warrior is an interesting matchup, the strategy is to play as many demons and draw as much as you can to get to Bloodreaver Gul’dan and then whittle down their health with your hero power.

 

Mage:

The most popular versions of mage right now, and what I predict to be the some of the best decks after the nerfs, are Exodia and Tempo Mage.

Exodia: Keep Combo Pieces, Gluttonous Ooze, Bloodreaver Gul’dan and Possesed Lackey

Tempo: Keep Hellfire, Darkbomb and Doomsayer.

Tips: Against Exodia there isn’t much you can do, I would say hard mulligan for and early Mal'ganis or try to play enough minions to pressure them. The best thing you can do is tech in Dirty Rat, but we will get to tech cards later. Against tempo, contrary to playing other decks, Defile is a bad card because most tempo lists don’t run a 1 health minion and since I don’t run mortal coils it is difficult to get a minion to 1, but Tempo Mage runs a lot of 3 health minions, which makes Hellfire and Darkbomb insanely good in this matchup, Doomsayer is also really good for 2 reasons, it soaks up an exploding rune and if your opponent played mirror entity, its an instant board clear.

 

Rogue:

Rogues most popular variant is Kingsbane Rogue, which so far seems to be this decks worst matchup, the only way I can imagine beating it is teching in Gnomeferatu. But in 54 games I only saw 3 Kingsbane Rogues so I never actually tested it out

Kingsbane: Combo Pieces, Gluttonous Ooze, Possesed Lackey and Hellfire

Tips: In this matchup you want to stall with cards like Voidlord and Ooze so they can’t kill you with their weapon, other than that wait until they fatigue and Gnomeferatu if you teched her in.

 

Druid:

Token druid is a really good matchup for this deck, but the Malygos variant is a very hard game to win.

Token: Keep Doomsayer, Defile, Hellfire and Darkbomb

Malygos: Hard mulligan for Combo Pieces, Possesed Lackey and Demon Cards

Tips: Draw as much as you can and try to pressure them enough so they have to deal with your minions instead of drawing. Also avoid playing minions with 4 or 5 attack when they are at 10 mana to make using Ultimate Infestation awkward for them. Against Token Druid hard mulligan for Defile, Mistress of Mixtures and Doomsayer.

 

Warlock:

Cubelock and Control Warlock are the most popular versions of warlock right now. The easy thing with this matchup is the entire deck is pretty much teched against warlock. We got Ooze for Skull of The Man’ari and Sacrificial Pact for any one of their demons. Sacrificial Pact is the single best card to have in this matchup, so try to mulligan as any cards as you can for it.

Cubelock: Keep Twisting Nether, Possesed Lackey and Demon Cards

Control Warlock: Keep Twisting Nether, Combo Pieces Possessed Lackey and Demon Cards

Tips: You don't have to combo Cubelock, you have enough control cards to just run them out of cards, but really try to avoid using combo cards for defense, you still might need to combo them. But Control Warlock however, the only way to win is by using the combo cards, so avoid using them at all costs, (of course use them to avoid death) but use anything else if you can.

 

Priest:

Big Priest and Reno Priest are the two big priest decks right now, but after the Raza nerf it will be mainly Big Priest on the ladder. I cannot begin to describe my hate for Big Priest on a molecular level.

Big Priest: Keep Demon Cards, Possesed Lackey, Bloodreaver Gul’dan and Twisting Nether

Reno Priest: Keep Demon Cards, Possesed Lackey, Bloodreaver Gul’dan, Hellfire and Doomsayer

Tips: Big Priest is only winnable if they don't draw 3 cards, winning the game is based literally on if they draw Barnes or Shadow Essence, otherwise you win, hence my hatred for Big Priest. To beat Reno Priest try to get Bloodreaver Gul’dan down as soon as possible and then just outheal him, otherwise just burst him down with Malygos

5. Tips and Tricks

-Keep Ooze against Tempo Mage, if you Ooze Aluneth early you almost always win.

-This deck runs little healing, so it's good to know other decklists so you know how low you can go and not die to burst from Tempo Mage or Aggro Paladin.

-A huge thing is know when and when not to use Darkbomb and Soulfire, you learn to pilot the deck better with experience, and everyone's playstyle is different, so if you play this deck a lot and learn how to use it, it’s actually really good

-Don’t Coin + Tap, just don’t, also almost never Coin + Doomsayer,

-Very rarely should you play Loatheb when you have an empty board, using Loatheb when you have 6+ damage on board almost guarantee that it will live to the next turn, allowing you to get them down lower to the point where you can burst them down without Malygos

6. Possible Replacements and Techs

Against Aggro: -Loatheb, +Defile

Against Big Priest: -Mistress of Mixtures, +Twisting Nether

Against Exodia Mage/Paladin: -Mistress of Mixtures x2, +Dirty Rat x2,

Against Kingsbane Rogue: -Defile, +Gnomeferatu

Warlock Decks: -Defile, +Sacrificial Pact

 

I would say if you don’t have Mal’ganis still run the demon package, but if you don’t have Voidlords, don’t run the demon package. In that case, I would switch the demon package with dragons:

-Voidlord x2

-Voidcaller x2

-Mal’ganis

-Possessed Lackey x2

+Twilight Guardian x2

+Book Wyrm x2

+Twilight Drake x2

+Blackwing Corruptor x2

In the scenario you do go with dragons, Twilight Drake and Twilight Guardian is an always keep, but using the demon package is better than using the dragon package.