Fear the Wild! (Control-Ramp Druid)
- Last updated Nov 12, 2014 (Naxx Launch)
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Wild
- 18 Minions
- 12 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 9560
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 10/8/2014 (Naxx Launch)
- TheToxicNuke21
- Registered User
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- 5
- 13
- 26
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Battle Tag:
TheToxicNuke#1608
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
489
Introduction
Hi! I'm TheToxicNuke21, a long-time Druid main, and I thought I'd share my favorite deck with you guys. to help give you guys some of the winrates that I've achieved over the past few seasons. This deck was originally used to counter control after the Starving Buzzard nerf in September, as I thought that Hunter would be abolished completely. As we all know, it lives on, but that's not what this deck is about, so if you're seeing a lot of hunters, I'd advise another faster midrange druid, or no Druid at all! However, this deck has very strong (and fun!) matchups against Handlock, Control Warrior, and Death Priest.
While this deck is control, it is faster than most controls due to the very high burst with the double combo. This could also allow you to clear a board with one of the combos, leaving you with one in your deck to use as face burst. There are also many ways of securing board advantage with this deck, such as using cards like Shade of Naxxramas and Cairne Bloodhoof for efficient trading, getting free value through minion kills with Big Game Hunter and The Black Knight, getting awesome board clears with the Bloodmage Thalnos + Swipe combo, or using any of your several other combos to turn a game in your favor, or secure a win.
Combos
- Force of Nature + Savage Roar: This one's pretty obvious, and it's one of your only real win conditions if you don't have board control. If you use an Innervate with it on turn 10, you can play another Savage Roar for a whopping 22 damage!
- Faceless Manipulator + Big Game Hunter/Keeper of the Grove: This play can get you a massive amount of board control and even turn a game around completely if your opponent plays a massive minion or a legendary with a strong effect that you can take for yourself.
- Innervate + Keeper of the Grove: Doing this on turn two can swing the tempo in your favor against aggro decks, namely Zoo.
- Ancient of War + Innervate + Faceless Manipulator: This is a combo that won't happen too often, but when you can pull it off, it's pretty incredible. Going from a potentially empty board to having two 5/10's with taunt on turn 10+ can easily turn a game around for you, especially against an aggro type deck.
Potential Card Swaps
- -2 Shade of Naxxramas, +2 Harvest Golem: You can do this if you're going against a lot of aggro, as Harvest Golem: is very strong at trading with small minions efficiently.
- -1 Azure Drake, +1 Loatheb: Make this swap if you're going against a lot of Miracle Rogue or Freeze Mage. If played on the correct turn, it can really screw up their combos if you play it on the right turn. Against Freeze Mage, play it on the turn after Alexstrasza is played, so that the Mage can't burst you down on that turn. Against Miracle Rogue, play it on the turn after Gadgetzan Auctioneer is played to prevent miracles from happening, but only if you're unable to clear the Gadgetzan Auctioneer that turn. Killing it is almost always better than denying miracles for a turn.
- -1 Cenarius, +1 Ragnaros the Firelord: If you're having trouble finishing people off with this deck, you can opt for this to give you that extra 8 damage push, but I've found that the RNG can potentially lose you more games than it wins, and usually if you save Force of Nature and Savage Roar, you should usually have more than enough damage. However, that doesn't mean you should be greedy and hold on to one forever when you can get a board clear with it.
- -1Ancient of War, +1 Ysera: Make this swap if you're going against mostly control, because Ysera is a very hard card for the popular control decks to deal with (it's out of Priest's Shadow Word: Pain/Shadow Word: Death range, needs a big Shield Slam or something to go with Execute from Warrior) and AoW gets The Black Knight'd a lot, giving your opponent INSANE value and tempo. Thanks to Goakery for the card swap suggestion.
- -1 Bloodmage Thalnos, +1 Harrison Jones: If you're against a lot of Handlock and Control Warrior, this is pretty much a key replacement, as a 5 damage swipe is far less useful against control than destroying a weapon and drawing cards, which can potentially single-handedly win you the game.
Mulligan Guide
When figuring out which cards you want to mulligan, you want to first attempt to make an assumption of what deck type you're up against. Against all decks, you'll want to keep Innervate, Wild Growth, and Shade of Naxxramas. If you're against aggro, you'll be looking for the Innervate + Keeper of the Grove combo to secure early tempo, as well as Wrath to take care of their early minions. Swipe is also quite good to have against Hunters, but you should usually wait it out for the best possible time to use it.
Conclusion
Well, that's about it, so it's time for the shameless self-promotion! I stream occasionally, playing mostly variations of this deck on the ranked ladder. Check it out at http://www.twitch.tv/TheToxicNuke21 and follow me on Twitch to get an email whenever I start streaming. Please rate the deck if you found it helpful, and feel free to leave any questions or criticisms you might have about this deck in the comments or in the stream chat when I stream. It is my first HearthPwn deck, so I'm very open to criticism, but try to keep it constructive. Happy climbing!
Anyway, do you have plans for a GvG update of this deck?
Any room for Druid of the Fang and Mech Bear Cat?
While I like Druid of the Fang's concept, I do consider it a little too situational and a bit slow. I don't really think Mech-Bear-Cat is that good, though, cause of the below average stats. I'd update the deck for GvG, but my honest opinion is that only a few of the GvG cards are actually that good (I know, unpopular opinion) and I probably won't be buying too many GvG packs until I expand my basic collection more.
If you play a lot of Druid and you have ALL of the other legendaries you want, then Bloodmage Thalnos is a good way to go, in my opinion. If you don't have him, instead of using a Kobold Geomancer, just use another good minion, instead of something worse with a similar effect. Regarding your difficulty climbing with Druid, I've come to terms with the fact that it's not a great deck to climb ladder with, as there are more consistent decks against aggro (Handlock, Control Priest, Control Warrior) that you can use instead. I don't believe you're doing anything wrong, but of course this guide would be far too long if I showed how to play each and every matchup exactly. Currently I'm using a Handlock list to climb, and I'm seeing a lot of success.
Again, I'm currently using a pretty default Handlock list, I'd post it but I'm pretty sure it's probably just the same as another deck. I've been back and forth on using Soulfires, as the card quality in Handlock is fantastic, and I never feel good about losing any of them. Taking them out really hurts your Rogue matchup, which is really good with them. Though many people say it's awful against Aggro Hunter, I disagree entirely, as with my list I've played around 8 games against Hunter and haven't lost once to them, though I did come close a few times. I think the best lists to climb with would be Trump's current Control Warrior (http://www.trumpfans.com/decks/?class=warrior), any high rated Hearthpwn Control Priest, and Handlock, preferably a list that doesn't run soulfires, such as: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/114811-legend-s7-no-to-soulfire-handlock (my favorite list right now, with just a few modifications.) Feel free to PM me if you want more info.
All I can really tell you is that you gotta try to bait out their hard removal early on with your annoying/small minions, like Druid of the Claw and Sludge Belcher, (can bait out The Black Knight, Execute, Shield Slam), and then annihilating them with your huge cards later. Again, if you're having trouble with having enough damage, you could throw in the Ragnaros the Firelord, but I prefer Cenarius in pretty much every matchup. Last thing worth mentioning is that you should only unstealth Shade of Naxxramas when it gets you an efficient trade or kills one of their big, important minions. Never use it for damage because then they can just remove it. I've had Shades kill Yseras before, you've just got to be patient. Good luck on ladder!
This is a really nice deck. I've struggled with some of current druid decks out there. The spectral knight decks that seem to be popular in tournaments don't seem to ladder very well. This seems to still have burst but also allows you to get to that burst against agro.
Dont have black knight so subbed it for 5/5 tiger with stealth. feels good to drop that and a shade of nax on the same turn knowing your opponent cant do anything about it
In my opinion, Stranglethorn Tiger usually just trades into one of your opponent's minions and dies, so that's not as much value as I would like, but I could see a tiger in a more aggressive variation of this deck I suppose. It's worth mentioning that it would be quite strong vs Loatheb as well.
What replacements would you recommend if you don't have Cairne Bloodhoof, Cenarius or The Black Knight
Cairne Bloodhoof: Any annoying 6 drop, Sunwalker. or Sylvanas Windrunner.
Cenarius: Any big minion, Ragnaros the Firelord or another Ancient of War.
The Black Knight: A silence, Ironbeak Owl or Spellbreaker.
Hey Kick, I main this deck and know it quite well now. For Cairne I would put a Sunwalker, for Cenarius I would put another AOW and for BK to be quite honest he is irreplaceable ( as is Bloodmage Thal ). but if you have no other choice make sure you replace BK with Spellbreaker as his 4/3 body will be very useful, and a Geomancer is better than a loot hoarder for Thal as you need the SP to clear the board.
All the replacement cards I mentioned will fit your mana curve very nice as well, have fun mate.
Why does this deck not have ysera and ragnaros? Also should i use defender of argus?
Ysera and Ragnaros the Firelord really hurt your matchups against aggro. Defender of Argus is good if you use a more midrange deck with Spectral Knight and Haunted Creeper and such.
All true but in my experience you are going to lose 80% of the time against agro anyway
Thanks for the deck. I wasn't having much success with my favorite class in the current meta but I started using this deck a couple days ago and have gone from rank 6 to almost rank 3. I'm running Ysera instead of Ancient of War due to the popularity of The Black Knight.
So glad to hear you're having success with the deck! Ysera is better in control match ups, so that's a great change if you're facing a lot of control/midrange for sure. In fact, I'll even put that in the card swaps. Do you want me to feature your name in the guide for the idea?
Heya Goak, IMO you should put AOW back in your deck. You can easily bait out BK with your sludge belcher ( if the first SB doesnt work, the second Sb deffo will ). The creator of this deck was very in genius how he went about the deck creation in ways he prolly is not even aware of.
I cannot speak for the deck creator but I am assuming he put only one AOW in the deck as two would be way to clunky. I cannot tell you how many times I was able to faceless a 7 or 8 Hp AOW, so I got a 5 attack & 8 HP AOW for 5 mana... I have not played a lot this season, but next season I plan to take this deck from Rank 17 all the way to Legend.
I know the deck creator suggests switching up certain cards for certain class specs, but dude in all honesty this deck works its magic best in it's original line up. You can hammer aggro with ease, midrange goes down if you are patient and control is also an easy win if you bait out thier hard removal. If you can remember two things then you will have great fun and success with this deck as I have had : #1 bait out Bk with your SB and that will free up your AOW and #2 use one of your FON early in the game ( turn 6-7 to help clear the board ) and they will expect you to not to be running two and they will in turn commit their game finishers early as well.
Hi Toxicnuke,
Druid is my less played class cause i have been unlucky with the ancients and havent pulled a single one yet. I do have both FoNs so when i needed to play druid i resorted to token, but i never liked that archetype.
I was checking your deck and i really liked it, so i decided to craft one copy of each ancient,. When i finally open one ill complete the pair. That being said, i was thinking about 2 possible replacements for the ancient of lore ill be missing: Rag and Sylvanas. Which one would you suggest? Any other possible option? Maybe a drake for the lost card draw?
Thanks in advance for your answer!
In my opinion, Ancient of Lore is really hard to replace, because of how much value it gives you (5/5 for 5 and a 2 mana double card draw? Yes please!), but Sylvanas Windrunner might be the closest card in the game to AoL in terms of value:cost, so it would be a great replacement. In fact, you can even use Sylvanas instead of Cairne Bloodhoof, as he's a bit too slow right now in my opinion.
I didnt had Thalnos... So I put sylvannas in deck :/ Thalnos gives much of a potential to this deck and I will be lack of it. So I thought that maybe I can close that potential with sylvannas by stealing some strong minions :p