Fast Taunt warrior (ft. Kripparrian)
- Last updated May 25, 2018 (Spiteful Nerf)
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Wild
- 17 Minions
- 11 Spells
- 2 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Taunt Warrior
- Crafting Cost: 6420
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/14/2018 (Witchwood)
- Trimutius
- Registered User
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Total Deck Rating
156
This deck is for trying to finish quest on turn 9 or earlier. That is why it is fast.
Mulligan Guide
Always keep the quest. You have so many taunts and board clears that you will get them against aggro for sure and then finisht the quest and just finish them off with 8 damage hero power.
Also keep any 3 mana taunts if you expect slower deck, keep all board clears up to 5 mana if you expect possibility of aggro (yes keep Brawl, as it is the most reliable sometimes, you might have problems playing some of the others before turn 6 sometimes)
Against Druid keep Cornered Sentry, don't play it though early because if it is Token Druid you can be punished, play it as soon as you are certain he is Taunt Druid though.
Some general suggestions on strategies
Try not to use board clears early... 3-4 small minions can just be ignored for a better board clear next turn.
Keep Phantom Militia for 6 mana or 9 mana turns to finish of quest (play it on 6 mana only if you have enough other taunts to finish the quest) Still keep militia in muligan though against slower decks, as it can be emergency taunt, but otherwise they are very important for finishing quest.
You do get Sulfuras early sometimes, but playing it right away might be certain death against aggro and midrange decks sometimes. Stabilize first and only then play it, or play it if it is your only way to survive (like you need to kill priority target with the weapon or fireballing some huge guy is the only way to remove lethal from your opponent)
Keep in mind that you can do armor up + sulfuras + die insect and have 3 mana leftover to do something else. Or sulfuras + die insect and have 5 mana leftover. If you don't plan to use Die Insect hero power better not play sulfuras at all (with rare exceptions when 4 damage is just what you need and there is no other way of doing it)
Cornered Sentry is Witching Hour counter but can be used easily in any other match up. Against control you can play her whenever board is empty especially if it is early in the game, they most likely will just trade raptors in and you will have a 2/3. Otherwise especially against aggro and midrange play her right before board clear if you have 2 extra mana available. (if it is Warpath play her right before last time you warpath to end up with a 2/5 taunt)
Below is a good game replay against even shaman which demonstrates most of this. On turn 5 it shows an efficient way of getting rid of early huge minion together with all the board and the whole reason Reckless Flurry plus Drywhisker Armorer are in the deck. I had a brawl since beggining but used it on turn 8 when board actually became threatening. Used militia as an emergency triple taunt very late.
I finished quest on turn 10 (which is slightly later than optimal, but mostly because I had to board clear twice) Even though there was scary buffed Al'Akir on board for couple of turns I still kept Sulfuras in hand and tried to stay alive with different means, until my opponent actually went all in and emptied his had, at which point I could play Sulfuras while also playing Tar Creeper and double hero power and leaving my opponent with just one minion, a 4/8 but still can't connect face.
https://hsreplay.net/replay/gV2pxhPHax5t7q3SgpLZrg
Tech substitutions
Cornered Sentry and Acolyte of Pain are tech choices in current version of deck. One of them can be replaced with weapon removal of your choice if you encounter some scary weapons, but after nerfs it seems to not be very often, and Vinecleaver for example is countered by board clears so you don't even need to bother with it.
Budget replacements
Reckless Flurry - can be replaced by second copy of Execute. (Additional board clear is better, but second Execute variation does perform good enough it seems according to HS replay)
The Lich King can be easily replaced because he is not very good in the deck to begin with. Options would be mostly cheaper taunts like second Cornered Sentry or maybe Witchwood Grizzly if you face a lot of aggro.
Quest and 2x Brawl with 2x Primordial Drake are required for deck to work, so if you don't have those don't even bother.
Examples
Here is Kripp playing my deck. He is pretty good at piloting it (somewhere in the stream he says that it is me that suggested it)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/250085191?t=02h02m25s
Update 1
Updated to a better version that Kripp came up with on second day of playing. Witchwood Grizzly was only strong in match ups where deck is strong anyway. So weapon destruction and card draw were teched in.
Here is some gameplay:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/250481518?t=02h14m15s
Update 2
Replaced Ooze with a copy of Cornered Sentry as there are not many weapons that you would remove after nerfs it seems. Weapon removal is not needed until Cubelock comes back (if it ever comes back at all)
Against other taunt warriors just try to get as many cheap taunts as you can in muligan and finishing quest first while not getting hit too much in the face is the goal in that match up. Some other builds would do it better than this one at that though, but at expense of worth match ups elsewhere, so it is a bit of a trade off.
Regarding spell hunter, you are unfavored unfortunately, Brawl, reckless Flurry and Warpath to clear spellstone is main thing to keep in mind, if they coin out 4 wolves on turn 4 it is almost impossible to win from that position if you don't have Brawl in hand. So yes always keep board clears for the spellstone until they played both. But still spell hunter is slightly favored against quest warrior so not much that can be done about that...
This deck worked well for me! Replaced Lich King with Witchwood Grizzly as you said, got 8-9 wins in a row starting at rank 25. I did run into a few situations where having an Ooze would've been handy.
Well question is, did you lose because you didn’t have ooze or was it “handy but I won anyway”? If you lose to certain weapon over and over again then you can replace acolyte with an ooze. Otherwise if your opponent plays weapon but you win anyway then why bother...
Updated the deck with early post nerf specific... will monitor meta for next couple of weeks and will see if any additional changes might be better. For now Ooze seems to be not needed anymore, so did Cornered Sentry which is both Taunt Druid counter and just a cheap taunt which can be played alongside board clear
Deck is a bit outdated now. I will update it after meta settled a bit, but replacing Acolyte or Ooze with a Cornered Sentry seems like a good choice right now.
0:5 thank you very much.
well deck isn't easy... among top tier decks wins consistently only against Paladin and in tier 2 also mostly aggro/tempo decks that suffer against this (except burn mage, it is hard to win against it with this deck)
Also meta shifted. So yeah deck is not as good as it was when it was created, but there is not much that can be done to improve it, it is just a counter to Paladin meta really, and Paladins seem to be slightly less popular lately...
Also yeah requires skill, most important part: Don't use board clears too early. 3-4 1/1s is ok clear when they have 5-6 (be wary of Level Up in odd Paladins though)
So playing this deck, I just had a Priest snag my Sulfuras with Chameleos. That was UBER irritating.
Still pulled it out, but that was still irritating.
Happens from time to time... but luckily Sulfuras by itself is not very good, you need enough board clears for support too, and priests usually already wasted a few to get rid of taunts...
This guy did. He used both of his Psychic Screams earlier to get rid of trash.
Is Acolyte of Pain really needed? What can I put instead?
It is listed in "Tech Substitution" you can replace it with Cornered Sentry
Trash tier deck, no silence
Auto lose against cubelock, aka 50% of the meta
Also too slow against aggro, aka the other 50% of the meta
Well i don't need silence i have board clears for that kind of problem.
Cube lock is a bad match up, but it is 25% winrate not autolose.
This deck destroys aggro decks with board clears as long as you hold them back a little bit and don't use too early (like four 1/1s is not big enough to warrant a board clear) if you play correctly winrate is over 60% against paladins (and actually around 80-90% against odd paladins) deck is so fast and heavy on board clears that you MUST keep your quest even against aggro, because they don't run out of steam usually you finish them off with fireballs to face.
There are VODs attached so you can learn from those to destroy aggro with this deck.
just realised Kripp hit legend with this; amazing deck!!! i'm really having a lot of fun with this.
(P.S. yes, i know it's posted a week ago)
Yeah... deck is legend viable... just a bit frustrating against warlock and spiteful high rolls...
I'm missing Gluttonous Ooze. I know you suggested Acidic Swamp Ooze as a replacement, but wouldn't Harrison Jones be better for the card draw ? Or 5 mana is too much?
Thanks for the deck and guide anyway
Harrison Jones is better if you face mostly control/spiteful decks... but against aggro paladins you sometimes need to remove a weapon on turn 3-4
Though actually even if you are removing Silver Sword or Vinecleaver you still need to play an impactful enough taunt together with it or a board clear... so yeah 5 mana is just a bit too much.
I just wanted to thank you for this deck, I've got legend for first time this morning. The only change I made was to replace 1x Phantom Militia for 1x Spellbreaker (Sometimes useful) and 1x Rotten Applebau for 1x Direhorn Hatchling.
I would upload and image but not sure how to do it.