Hearthpwn

Hey Hearthpwn, it is Theo here once again with a guide!

I recently hit #1 Legend on EU and #3 Legend on NA with this deck, so I’m here to share my guide on it. It’s gotten quite popular these past few days, so I hope I can help you with this guide as this deck can be quite difficult to navigate in a lot of matchups. It’s a really fun deck to play as you always have a lot of decisions and almost every matchup plays out differently. You can follow me on my Twitch channel if you want to see me play this and other decks!

Proof and decklist: https://twitter.com/TheoHS_/status/985231946988040192 

Stats (almost only top 100 EU/NA): https://imgur.com/8SuaJ8g

VoD of getting #1 on EU and #3 on NA: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/250344906

General Strategy:

Since decks are changing often and the meta hasn’t quite settled yet, I’ll start with some general strategy and after that how you want to approach some of the most common matchups on ladder. I’m only highlighting the three decks I’ve had the most experience against, as I feel I can give the best advice for those matchups. Don’t hesitate though if you have any questions about other matchups. Also you want to adapt depending on your opponent’s deck and don’t tunnel vision on one strategy.

Often people see this as a combo deck where you need Alexstrasza their face and then kill them with multiple Mind Blasts/hero powers, but this is only needed in a small amount of games and matchups. This deck has multiple ways to win and during the game you have to evaluate every turn how you are going to win. Often you want to think first about your opponent’s win condition. Is it through lategame value, board or through face damage? If you face an aggressive deck like secret mage or odd hunter, you want to reduce their damage through board as much as possible and since they don’t have strong minions you can often push a lot of damage with your minions while also healing up to not die to their burst.

If you are facing a more board focused, midrange deck like spiteful druid or odd paladin, you don’t mind taking some damage early and you only really have to take care of the board by turn 5/6 when they get their strong turns with Spiteful Summoner / Level Up. You do have to keep the lategame of your opponent in mind in these kinds of matchups. Whereas a more aggressive deck like paladin can’t really outvalue you or outheal your damage from Shadowreaper Anduin, Spiteful druid can do both things so you have to go on the offense at some point in that matchup.

If you are in a control matchup where you know you won’t beat their lategame, you want to be the beatdown and start pressuring your opponent. Matchups like shaman and any kind of control warrior come to mind. In these matchups you have to be aggressive and set up a plan to kill them as they eventually either kill or outheal you. Use your cards to push the most damage you can, so for example you often want to save your mass dispel to push through some taunts instead of denying a deathrattle.

Mulligan:

Versus aggro: Northshire Cleric, Wild Pyromancer if it’s deck with a lot of low HP minions, Power Word: Shield if you already kept Northshire or Pyromancer, Duskbreaker and a dragon if you have Duskbreaker.

Versus midrange: Northshire Cleric, Power Word: Shield with Northshire, Duskbreaker, Twilight Drake, Scaleworm if you expect to have some good value trades, and Shadowreaper Anduin.

Versus control: Northshire Cleric, Power Word: Shield with Northshire, Twilight Drake, and Shadowreaper Anduin

Matchups:

Cubelock

Mulligan: Northshire Cleric, Shadow Word: Death, Mass Dispel, Shadowreaper Anduin and either Acidic Swamp Ooze or Harrison Jones

This is matchup is a very interesting one and I believe pretty favored when played correctly. What you want to do in the early/midgame is just not let them have any big minions on board. Giants, lackeys and skull are the way they get threats on board and you have multiple ways of dealing with each. What you often want to do is push a lot of face damage early and using for example mass dispel on just a voidlord is fine if you can push 6+ damage. Use psychic scream on 2+ threats and the warlock will have a lot of bad turns where you can either push damage with minions or Anduin. Because warlock has only limited healing now, you often want to get 2 pings with Anduin every turn. Only use Alexstrasza if they have a high health total so if you can put them under 20 with just pings it’s often better to save it until after a Dark Pact. It’s often important to set up lethal so they are forced to use their healing in inefficient ways, allowing you to build a board that can push damage. The way you lose this matchup is by taking too much damage from Mountain Giants or Doomguards, so try to remove them immediately, or by getting outhealed so always try to maximize damage.

Aggro Hunter

Mulligan: Northshire Cleric, Wild Pyromancer, Divine Hymn, Duskbreaker

Against aggro hunter you really don’t want to take too much damage early as their hero power + all their direct/charge damage is very hard to prevent due to not having any taunts until turn 8. This means you need Pyromancer and Duskbreaker to clear the board early and then you need divine hymn to survive until turn 8/9. If you don’t expect to die the next turn, it’s often better to save divine hymn as long as possible to get an extra hero power in. Outhealing them is not the only way to win though as you can surprisingly often kill them quickly with your midgame minions as they never trade (who knew), especially if you save your divine hymn for a while. Hitting them in the face a few times and having a mind blast or 2 can quickly win the game, so always keep an eye out for that as eventually you won’t be able to outheal them.

Even/odd Paladin

Mulligan: Northshire Cleric, Wild Pyromancer, Duskbreaker

This matchup is very favored. You have too many board clears and fortunately these decks don’t snowball that hard early like murloc paladin used to, so you take a lot less damage early on and don’t just die due to a perfect curve. Make sure to remember their power turns (t4 CtA / t5 level up / t6 Tarim) and play with that in mind when deciding when to clear the board. For example you often don’t need to clear an odd paladin board on turn 3 because there isn’t really a buff you have to be afraid of, so it’s often better to wait a turn and deny them their power turn. Lategame just try to keep clearing their board and always imagine them having their best cards and try to keep your answers for those.

If you have questions about other matchups you can ask them in the comments and I’ll try my best to help you.

Flexible cards

If you want to add some different cards to the deck, I’d

• Mind Control – I put this in mainly because I faced a lot of warlock and mind controlling a void lord often buys a lot of time.
• Harrison/Ooze – Kind of depends on the meta whether you want to play one or two weapon removals. Acidic Swamp Ooze, Gluttonous Ooze and Harrison are all viable.
• 2^nd Shadow Word: Death – In case you are mostly facing aggro decks, mostly needed for the Cubelock and Spiteful Druid deck

Tech cards

The following cards are probably the best options to change the deck a bit, although there might be some other cards I’m overlooking.

• Skulking Geist - Great if you are facing a lot of Taunt Druids - allows you to Mind Control their Hadronox since they can't Naturalize it immediately.
• Acolyte of Pain - Great at drawing cards to give you a better chance to find key cards such as Shadowreaper Anduin.
• Binding Heal – Great versus face decks and can cycle versus control decks
• Doomsayer – great versus aggressive decks to buy some time early game
• Chameleos – Fun card and great to provide information, but that’s often the only thing it does
• Tar Creeper / Stonehill Defender – To have an extra early play and nice versus more aggressive decks.

Thanks for reading! If you have questions left or want tips for certain matchups you can leave them below in the comments! I hope you’ll enjoy this deck as much as I did! If you want to see more of my decks you can follow me on both Twitter and Twitch!

Videos: