Hearthpwn

✌️

Interesting deck that farms aggro and has decent chances vs control decks

Gameplan

You basically have 2 ways to win a game of Hearthstone:

1. Overwhelm opponent with big boys (Mountain Giant, Twilight Drake, Bewitched Guardian) early in the game, take the tempo and snowball (or just SMOrc with Giant LUL)

2. Token-based combos, when you flood the board with small minions and unexpectadly lethal opponent with Branching Paths for 2x Explore the Darkness and/or Savage Roar. Speaking about tokens, you can generate them by

 1) A great spell Wispering Woods , which can be combined with Soul of the Forest on 8+ mana or just next turn earlier in the game, so single board clear cannot deal with your board (only the mighy Lord Godfrey)

 2) Fire Fly, Tortollan Forager, Stonehill Defender, Treant from Witchwood Apple

 3) Spreading Plague, that can single-handedly win you vs aggro, if they have full board of small minions of course, and that scenario is quite common nowadays with all those hero-power Palladins. Or not that obvious one - after Bloodreaver Gul'dan was played. In the second case it's also nice to follow it with Soul of the Forest for 10 mana combo (as you are at 10 mana obviously).

Mulligan

This deck has a new "Wild Growth" for this druid archetype - Witchwood Apple, so you want to see it on your mulligan every time. However, you don't really want 2 copies of it. Also almost always you want Wispering Woods.

Pure Face-like Aggro (Palladins, Odd Hunter, Odd Rogue, etc)

You look for any early game options you have - Fire Fly, Tortollan Forager, Stonehill Defender. You may also keep Swipe vs Odd Pala with a good hand to prevent lvl 5 Level Up!, and Spreading Plague, however I don't really like it. 

More midrangy (Spiteful decks, etc) and kinda-control (Cubelock, Animation Shaman, Warriors, etc)

As mentioned above, Witchwood Apple and Wispering Woods, + Mountain Giant. I usually don't keep anything else and hard mulligan for these cards. Twilight Drake and Bewitched Guardian are ok to play but not worth keeping, turn 3-4 Giant is much better in most scenarios.

Matchups

Odd Hunter

Face-aggro decks are easy ranks for us, early-game drops followed by taunts, and bunch of armor gain from Ferocious Howl and Branching Paths for Loot the Chest, just make them concede. If they did not, Malfurion the Pestilent and his heropower for armor will force them. In all the aggro matchups, prioritize playing for board over gaining armor/draw, and trade a lot, because 90% of games you win just by not losing to their damage first 5-6 turns.

In this specific matchup you may not want to play Wispering Woods if you don't have any attack buffs for lethal next turn and have other options to play, to play around random Unleash the Hounds. Also usually your hp can afford to play smaller taunt to bait Ironbeak Owl before the bigger one you have, so they concede faster.

Odd Rogue

Very similar to odd hunter matchup, but may become hard if they highroll t1 1drop into t2 1drop+Cold Blood on first 1drop, and you have no board. Don't be afraid to use 2 Lesser Jasper Spellstone for that minion or for Hench-Clan Thug that started to grow out of control.

Odd Palladin

Good matchup for us, the only card that is really bad for us early on is Level Up!, so don't be afraid of using Swipe turn 4 in the face to clean 4+ Silver Hand Recruit, and you often can read if they have it in hand: do they trade recruits or other minions, do they heropower or play 2 1drops, etc.

Save lvl1 Lesser Jasper Spellstone for Raid Leader and lvl3 for Stormwind Champion, if they happen to have board.

At turn 4-6 you should have good board presence, if not - Spreading Plague will help, trade a lot and don't miss Branching Paths-Explore the Darkness and Savage Roar lethal. 

Even Palladin

Similar to odd one, but probably a bit worse for us, however less popular deck. Trade to play around Blessing of Kings, Spikeridged Steed and Sunkeeper Tarim, use Lesser Jasper Spellstone for Knife Juggler and Dire Wolf Alpha early on, remember about Equality+Consecration and possible turn 8 plays of Primordial Drake, The Lich King or Tirion Fordring.

Spiteful Priest and Druid

Playing vs spiteful decks is kinda race to kill them faster then they kill you with turn 6+ Tyrantus. They don't have any board clears, with exception of Primordial Drake sometimes, that is turn 8 and the game is usually decided ty that time, or Duskbreaker (but noone mulligans it vs Druid), so your tokens, especially Wispering Woods, followed by the attack buffs, should carry you.

Cubelock

Everyone says it is a bad matchup, but I have a positive winrate with them.

Of course, it is not a free win, but a pretty possible one. It is good to know, how their deck plays (by playing it yourself before or watching pro players doing that and understanding what and why they do) - helps a lot overall nowadays in hearthstone, not just with this deck. It is a slow matchup so you want to make value plays.

Your gameplan is to pressure them with Mountain Giants, Twilight Drakes, Bewitched Guardians early-midgame, then play tokens (always with Soul of the Forest followup!) for lethal setup if they don't clear (they have a lot of clears, but you have a lot of board refills too, and SotF makes it awkward for them). Save Spreading Plagues to play after Bloodreaver Gul'dan. Also you often want to get Frost Widows from your Malfurion the Pestilent, and consider fatigue, the game can easily go that way.

Warriors (Quest, Baku-control, etc.)

You don't want your tokens at the start of the game, if it is a quest warrior - they work great after Sulfuras was equipped. Start game with Mountain Giants, Twilight Drakes, Bewitched Guardians, they would have a hard time removing them and they work much better vs all the taunts. You can easily win a value game with your high-stats minions, and when warrior has wasted a lot of resources removing them, play your Wispering Woods+Soul of the Forest and finish them up with Branching Paths-Explore the Darkness and Savage Roar.

OTK-Shaman

Start game with Mountain Giants, Twilight Drakes, Bewitched Guardians, follow full board of tokens with Soul of the Forest, be aggressive. Don't let them draw a lot by killing Mana Tide Totem asap. Remember they have a lot of heal, so use your Branching Pathss and Savage Roars to close up the game, not just deal damage. Also you don't want to kill Healing Totem, as it makes Volcano weaker. 

Combos

Doing some math for you, as power of multiple Branching Paths-Explore the Darkness and Savage Roar is huge and can easily steal games you didn't expect to win. I name those as attack buff cards, counting just for minion damage, but if you play 1/2Savage Roar(s), you have +2/+4 damage more with your character. Also having Treants (from Soul of the Forest) instead of Wisps (from Wispering Woods) gives you +1 more damage for each.

7 x Wisp + 1 attack buff cards = 7 * (1 + 2) = 21 damage

6 x Wisp + 2 attack buff cards = 6 * (1 + 4) = 30 damage (fully healed hero, no armor)

7 x Wisp + 2 attack buff cards = 7 * (1 + 4) = 35 (fully healed hero + DK armor)

4 x Wisp + 2 x Savage Roar + Branching Paths = 4 * (1 + 6) + 4 = 32 damage (!) 

7 x Wisp + 2 x Savage Roar + Branching Paths = 7 * (1 + 6) + 4 = 53 damage (!!!)  (full hp Control Warrior with 23 armor)

Card choices and card substitutions

Flexible slots in the deck: Fire Fly, Tortollan Forager. You may replace Lesser Jasper Spellstone with Naturalize at more controlish meta, but now I like it more, and it also has good synergies with Malfurion the Pestilent, Ferocious Howl and Branching Paths so it is easy to upgrade it.

Why not:

Power of the Wild - I've tested this card, it was in my very first version of the deck, but I ve found it underperforming. Let's think, how is Power of the Wild useful? Panther is bad for this deck obviously, let's take a look at buff part. We go even deeper now :) Buff reads +1 attack and +1 health. For +1 attack you have better Savage Roar and Branching Paths, for +1 health you have better Soul of the Forest - it's better because now everyone runs board clears vs 1-2 hp minions (thanks top-tier AggroPalladins!), but it is hard to play 2 board clears the same turn. If they do, we have much more tokens and 2nd Soul of the Forest. Because of these reasons I removed PotW and play 2 Roars, 2 BPs, 2 SotF, and I find these 6 cards extremely good for the deck and won't replace them with anything. Adding PotW with them is too much effort for tokens, and it doesn't help much, as most popular decks run aoe's that doesn't really care, if your minions have 1 or 2 hp. And even more, I don't see any cards I want to remove to add PotW now, maybe at slower metas you can add it

Cenarius, Onyxia - too slow in the current meta and not really doing much

Violet Teacher - not the type of a deck

Epilogue (honest opinion after 100+ games of different kinds of hand druid)

I would rate the deck as bottom tier 2. I would not recommend new players to play it and would not convince anyone to craft it. However, it has unique playstyle, that reminds old combo druid, and it is really fun to play it. I can compare it to one of the other my favorite decks, miracle rogue: it involves a lot of decision making, resource distribution, knowing opponents deck and meta, and games are different (not just playing green cards and getting turn 6 16-16 LUL). And, as miracle rogue, it is very meta dependent: in aggro meta it just farms everything, but in meta of control warriors and control warlocks it may be not the best deck, however it doesn't autolose to any deck and can steal unexpected wins. After 100+ games I find this list the best one. I got rank 2.5 with it, and it still has 55+ winrate after 50+ games on ranks 4-2, in spite of me playing it a lot into bad matchups just for interest and guide. And that's what it easily does, when meta is good (rank 5+ to 3+, 70% winrate):

Thank you for interest and support <3

10 upvotes - general gameplan guide

20 - mulligan guide

30 - matchups part 1 (Aggro-ish decks)

40 - matchups part 2 (Cubelock, Spiteful decks)

50 - matchups part 3 (Animation Shaman, Warriors), main combos

60+ - card choices and card substitutions, and pretty much everything I know about this deck

Gameplay videos (not mine, all the credit to creators):