Hearthpwn

Hi everyone!

As you all know, next month Coldlight Oracle is leaving standard, so i decided to make a deck featuring him in standard for the little time he has left.

This deck is basically a modified control warlock that wins games either by having unbeatable taunt wall of voidlords or by outlasting your opponent and win with fatigue damage.

I played 244 matches from rank 5 to legend with this deck (most of them rank 3-2) in EU ladder, ended up with 56% winrate (136-108), i added some charts and stats in the bottom of the post.

Deck Game Plan:  

We have 2 ways to play this deck, in both ways we win by outlasting our opponents.

1. Against aggressive decks: (Paladin, Mage, Hunter)

Here we play the deck like a regular control lock, we clear their board, try to keep our health high and make a voidlord wall to seal the game. Usually those games never get to fatigue and are over the moment you played Bloodreaver Gul'dan.

2. Against slow decks: (Warlock, Priest, Druid)

This is the part where our little old friend Coldlight Oracle comes into play, in those matches we have 2 main goals:

• Control the board, Neutralize their threats and burst sources.
• Make sure they gets to fatigue first.

As i said before, our win condition is fatigue, so first of all we need to get there alive, the deck has many defensive tools and control tools that should be enough to survive.

Burst is a big problem, the 2 main burst sources are Doomguards (against cubelocks) and divine spirit-inner fire shenanigans (combo priest), for those matchups the deck has some tech cards that can win those games by themselves, Skulking Geist against priests, and Acidic Swamp Ooze against Skull of the Man'ari.

Another important aspect of those matchups is mill, priests and warlocks tend to have 7-9 cards in their hand for big portion of the match (druids too, the turn after they play Ultimate Infestation), so we have the opportunity to use Coldlight Oracle to make them overdraw and mill one of their important cards, another way to destroy one of their key cards is Gnomeferatu (that brings them 1 card closer to fatigue, so it's very important).

Bounce cards:

We have 2 cards that let us use our battlecries again: Youthful Brewmaster and Zola the Gorgon.

The Brewmaster is 2 mana, so you can squish 3 damage with your hero power when bouncing a Coldlight Oracle so it's a better finisher.

Zola is 1 mana more expensive, but it duplicates the target so you have more board presence than with the Brewmaster.

Our 4 Bouncing targets are:

N'Zoth, the Corruptor - sometimes you don't need to get to fatigue to win, a board full of voidlords will do the job just fine, most of the times you can expect to get 4 voidlords from the 2nd N'zoth so it's pretty much gameover if they don't have a board clear (Druids mostly).

Coldlight Oracle - this is our primary target, in the mid game you can burn 4 cards if your opponent has 9 cards at the start of your turn, and in the late game this combo deal TONS of burst after your opponent hits fatigue (more on that later).

Gnomeferatu - one of our main goals was to make sure the opponents gets to fatigue first (or at most 1 turn after you gets to it), by bouncing our gnome we get them 1 card closer and if we're lucky we might burn something important.

Dirty Rat - facing Exodia mage? your opponent played all Rin's seal and is ready to summon azari and destroy your deck? No problem! dirty rat to the rescue!, and if he missed the target, we can bounce him again for another try (With 2 rats and a Brewmaster\Zola you have 3 shots to pull the target you need).

 Oracle's Fatigue Combos Math:

 Earlier i said that Coldlight Oracle has huge burst potential when your opponent hits fatigue, let's see some calculations:

We will denote x to be the fatigue damage your opponent took last turn, and y to be the fatigue damage you took at the start of your turn.

Coldlight Oracle - You are taking 2 ticks of damage for total of 3+2y damage and your opponent take 3 ticks (2 from the oracle and 1 at the start of his turn) for 6+3x damage. (you can use your hero power to make it 2y and 9+3x).

Coldlight Oracle+Youthful Brewmaster - You are taking total of 10+4y damage and your opponent takes 15+5x damage. (with hero power it's 7+4y and 18+5x).

Coldlight Oracle+Zola the Gorgon - Same as before, 10+4y and 15+5x. (this combo cost 9 mana, so you can't hero power here)

Examples:

if you and your opponent just took 3 fatigue damage, then playing double oracle will deal 24 damage to you, and 30 damage to your opponent (essentially OTKing him)

If you just entered fatigue and your opponent already took 2 damage, then you will take only 10 damage, while he will take 25 damage (which most likely will kill him).

To tap or not to tap?

Usually warlocks want to tap as much as they can to generate card advantage, but in our case it goes against our game plan, so sometimes it's wise not to tap.

Against Druids, Paladins, Mages and Hunters you can tap freely (unless you're in danger of dying), those matchups are rarely decided by fatigue anyways.

Against Warlocks and Priests you should only tap when you're sure they will hit fatigue before you.

Some more important points:

• If they're hoarding cards, and you have oracle in your hand, sometimes it's better not to tap, so you won't overdraw when you're trying to mill them.
• You should take into account cards that bring you\them to fatigue sooner, like 

  Possessed Lackey pulling a voidlord or Gnomeferatu burning a card.

• If they draw, it's ok that you draw (as far as they're closer to fatigue than you), so turn 2 tap against warlock, or tapping against priest that casts Power Word: Shield is fine.

• If you need an answer it's ok to use Coldlight Oracle for his draw, even without milling your opponent (it bring both of you 2 cards closer to fatigue, so it's fine).

Replaceable cards: 

Both Dirty Rats are not essential, i like them for their disruptive potential, and as a combo with Twisting Nether.

Mistress of Mixtures and Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, are both here for the aggro matchups, if you feel like they're not doing enough you can replace them.

Acidic Swamp Ooze and Skulking Geist, are both tech cards, as such they're really meta dependent, if you don't get value from them you can replace them. 

1 of the Siphon Soul, this card isn't that great, but i found it good for those cases when your opponent highroll a 12/12 or just play something really big,

Cards to consider:

Spellbreaker - if i could put 31 cards in the deck, i would probably put Spellbreaker, silence has many good target in this meta.

Tar Creeper - great against aggro, i ran them instead of the Dirty rats when i met tons of paladins.

Faceless Manipulator - mostly used to get more copies of voidlord (or get a copy of opponent's voidlord or stolen voidlord), but can be used on other big stuffs.

Mistress of Mixtures/Plated Beetle - good at soaking explosive runes, and as early drops against aggro.

Why not Rin, the First Disciple? That's simple, she is too slow!

She might be fine as another win condition in this deck, but in general paying 41 mana over 4+ turns is really slow even for a fatigue deck, when a warlock opponent play rin against you there are 2 scenarios:

1. He played her early (turn 6-7), and then you will have to either pressure him hard enough so he won't play the seals, or try to use Dirty rat to pull Azari.

2. He played her late (turn 9+), at this point it's irrelevant, He'll hit fatigue before Azari will ever hit the board, plus because he is playing the seals, his hand is most likely full (8-9 cards), so playing double Oracle will get both of you closer to fatigue, and you will mill 3-4 cards (Milling the Dk or N'zoth can win you the game). 

Mulligans:

Warlocks:(good matchup)

Acidic Swamp Ooze - for their weapon

Gnomeferatu is good for early board

Possessed Lackey to get an early voidlord

Coldlight Oracle - for a turn 5-6 milling

Doomsayer - solid early stall, good if it happened to be a Zoo Lock.

Priests:(bad macthup)

Skulking Geist - This is our IWIN card against Combo priests and Control priests, in the best case you can burn 6+ cards many of them important to their gameplan

Doomsayer priests tend to have snowbally early game, Doomsayer shut them down for a turn and clear those annoying 1-3 drops

Possessed Lackey - if you can get your voidlord before turn 7 they can't steal it, just make sure to kill it fast enough before they can.

Druids:(very good matchup)

Skulking Geist, destroying their idols early is probably the most important thing, any 1-2 early drop will be fine to keep too.

Paladins:(good matchup)

Defile, Hellfire,Doomsayer - those are the key cards to stop paladins

Possessed Lackey - voidlords are your wincondition here

any other 1-2 mana drop should be fine too (don't be afraid to use dirty rat if you have AOE to follow, worse case you can pull a 5/5 divine shield, but most of the times it's fine). 

Mages:(bad matchup)

Any early drop will be fine, you have to prevent as much damage as you can in the early game.

Hunters:(very good matchup)

They can't really do anything against you, their only threats are Barnes pulling Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound early and Lesser Emerald Spellstone, therefor you should get Hellfire for the wolves, and Doomsayer+Siphon Soul for Y'Shaarj

Possessed Lackey is good keep too, to get an early voidlord

if you're feeling lucky you can use Dirty rat on turn 3 and try to get their Barnes (you might get Y'Shaarj tho, but it's much much more likely to get Barnes out).

The Rest:

i met only few rogues, shamans and warriors but generally shamans and fatigue warriors are nearly unwinnable matchups (because of Hexes\Devolves, and Dead Man's Hand), rogues are good matchup, just make sure to save Gnomeferatu to burn their Kingsbane when it's their only card.

 Some Stats and Pictures:

Some replays:

Thanks for reading i hope you enjoyed the guide and the deck!