Hearthpwn

UPDATE 26/04/2018: HEY ALL! THANKS TO THE AMAZING RESPONSE FROM THE COMMUNITY I DECIDED TO WRITE A FULL COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE OT THE MULLIGAN/GENERAL STRATEGY/MATCHUP INFORMATION/FAQs ABOUT THE DECK! I JUST MODIFIED THIS POST TO INCLUDE ALL OF THAT, SO MAKE SURE TO SCROLL PAST THE INTRODUCTION!AGAIN, MANY THANKS!

UPDATE 16/05/2018:

+1 Nightmare Amalgam

-1 Primalfin Lookout

THIS IS A HUGE CHANGE! MUCH BIGGER THAN ANTICIPATED. THE AMALGAM IS A HUGE BODY THAT TANKS THROUGH HELLFIRE, MOST DEFILES, CONSECRATION, AND WITH ONE HEALTH BUFF FROM ANOTHER MURLOCK EVEN SWIPE! IT'S AMAZING! PRIMALFIN WAS A LITTLE TOO SLOW COMPARED, SO I DROPPED IT COMPLETELY FOR THE Nightmare Amalgam

- Added Leeroy to possible card substitutes.

Introduction

Hey guys! Oldog here, I hadn't played Hearthstone for around a year due to family commitments, however now my daughter is old enough it's the perfect game to play!

This deck had a 71% winrate from rank 5 to Legend, which is quite insane for an aggro deck, especially going against the cubelocks, taunt warriors/druids, and bakudins(Or as I like to call them BAKA-dins, ha.. haha..)

Anyways, I saw people complaining on Reddit and other places that Murlocs are dead since the Witchwood rotation, and this is where I tell you that they're wrong! I decided to make this deck BECAUSE of those comments, just to challenge myself since Vilefin Inquisitor and Grimscale Chum have been rotated out. 

Before we get into anything, here is proof of me hitting legend

So I was rank 18 when I made this deck, and I made MANY changes to it to make it adapt to the meta and the rank I was at. Here is a little rundown, but I won't go into too much detail.

I started out with a few secrets, Dire Wolf Alpha and Knife Juggler in there, which worked wonders until rank 13-12~ where I hit a wall, this is where I ended up drafting Call to Arms finally, which I replaced a Dire Wolf Alpha with, this then pushed my deck to rank 9~. Afterwards, I crafted a Gentle Megasaur to test it out, which I replaced Knife Juggler with, you get the idea.

When I got to Rank 5~ I hit a wall, and with much testing, this deck was created! The Consecration is in there for all the bakudins, at rank 3 I actually used 2 in the deck until I didn't face as many. The 2 Spellbreaker I added are needed too, especially against the taunt decks and Cubelock as Voidlord can be a real pain.

Anyways, introductions over, here are the stats of the deck!



As seen above, the "All" line is all of the versions of the deck, from rank 18 - Legend, so if you include my experimentation then the winrate of the deck from them is around 61-62%. However the "V1.13" line is this version of my deck that I've posted, which held a 71% winrate from rank 5-Legend, including 100% winrate vs Priest and a 75% winrate vs Cubelock!

General Stategy

So, this is an aggro/tempo deck, as you should already know, however contrary to how a lot of people try playing this deck, I see it and play it as more of a tempo deck, which means you shouldn't ALWAYS attack face, however it is usually the best course of action, and also you have to think about your turns carefully and make sure you can continuously build up a threat every time your Murlocs are destroyed.

So in general, you should mulligan for:Murloc Tidecaller, Rockpool Hunter and [card]Call To Arms[/cards].

Believe it or not, even in aggro matchups (Baku Hunter and Bakudin included) you should almost always keep Call To Arms, it's too good of a turn 3/4 to pass up, and considering almost half of the deck are 1/2 drops you will almost always have a turn 1/2 play in every game, even keeping call to arms.

So let's run through a few of the most valuable cards in the deck, some are obvious, others are less obvious:

Murloc Tidecaller[Card] - You guys might think [card]Murloc Warleader is the king of the murlocs but I disagree, it's this little guy. If this card isn't cleared by turn 2, it becomes a HUGE threat, with the potential of hitting 6-7 attack on TURN 3. Very good card against aggressive decks, as you can hit face with this and they are forced to clear it using their own cards giving you a really good card advantage.

Divine Favor - This card is actually the bread and butter of this deck, without this, you would barely stand a chance against control decks. Some games, the opponent has 14 cards left as I deck out which is absolutely insane card draw! Against control decks especially, you can almost always get a 3+ card draw, and even an early game 2 card draw if you have no other cards to play is worth it as then the card is basically just an Arcane Intellect. This card is what makes you able to flood the board on turn 4, have it cleared, flood the board on turn 5, have it cleared and repeat for turns 6 and 7.

Coldlight Seer - For me and how I play the deck, this card has probably won me atleast 30-40% of the games on it's own. Dropping this on 2 murlocs at turn 3 drops them out of AOE range on your opponents spells and sets up the board to survive for your Gentle Megasaur and Murloc Warleader. Coldlight Seer has so much power because unlike Murloc Warleader, it cannot be silenced, once it's battlecry has taken effect, all your Murloc friends have a permanent health increase(Unless ofcourse they get silenced, but that's not this little guys fault).

Murloc Warleader - This card is just a powerhouse, a 3/3 is a decent statline for a 3 drop as it is, but with the ability to potentially add 12 damage to your board for just 3 mana, it's an incredible card. It's card text should read "Your other Murlocs have +2 attack, if you control another Murloc, this card has Taunt" because every enemy will focus this card down over your hero. Also, a very important note with this card is DO NOT be afraid to use this on turn 3 with only 1 other Murloc on the board, you need to keep the tempo of the deck going, and sometimes dropping it to build a threat is much better than saving the card.

Hydrologist - This card is actually quite amazing, in almost any Paladin deck I'd argue this is a good card, discovering a secret is a HUGE advantage as opposed to having any secrets in the deck. If you put a couple of secrets in the deck, you may have to spend that one mana for a secret that isn't all that useful, however with Hydrologist you get to pick between 3, and almost always there will be a secret you can use within the next couple of turns that will greatly benefit you. Even towards the end of the game! A couple of games against control decks, I got them to 2-3 hp and then they flooded the board and I couldn't finish them off, so I played Hydrologist and got an Eye for an Eye, the opponents cleared my board and attacked my face without thinking, and I won the game! This is at higher ranks too, so it can happen! Optimally however, Redemption will be played the most, as it synergises with [Righteous Protector[/card] essentially re-summoning the card with divine shield(1 Righteous Protector can take 4 hits this way which is incredible for a 1 drop!), or you will be using Repentance on tuns you know the enemy will drop a 5+ health minion. Usually best to use on turns 4 to keep tempo, or 5/6 to get rid of some of their big drops. 

A generally underlooked secret is Hidden Wisdom where if you're against other aggro/tempo decks, is a game changer! Against these decks you don'y really want Repentance, so if you ever get offered Hidden Wisdom TAKE IT! In these matchups your Divine Favor won't have much value, so this simple secret can play mind games with your opponents to make them misplay, whilst also allowing you to either get a 2 card draw, or force them into only playing 2 cards per turn which isn't ideal! I'd argue this may be the most important secret next to Redemption and in some scenarios even better than it for these matchups. UTILIZE IT!

Now for the "I'm winning, but let me destroy them this turn" machines:

Unidentified Maul - This card is a subpar weapon on it's own, and if you unfortunately roll the "Your minions gain taunt" battlecry, then it's not the best, HOWEVER, if it gets the Divine Shield or the +1 Attack battlecry, your opponent is in for a bad time. Also, the 2 damage stat is very helpful for either threatening your opponents face later in the game or using it to clear some smaller threats that some classes may possess (Knife Juggler for example as it can really ruin your day if you're getting Grimscale Oracle or Murloc Tidehunter out, and even things like Sorcerer's Apprentice can be a threat to get rid of).

Gentle Megasaur - This is the gentle buffer of Murlocs that makes your opponents mega sore.. ha.. aha.. Seriously though, this card is amazing, you can use it on turn 4 on a board of 3 murlocs for absolute domination giving the board a total of +9 attack, +9 health or divine shield, or you can use it on the one Murlocs left, and give it poisonouse to destroy your opponents big taunts. The main thing about this card is again, DO NOT be scared to use it, much like Murloc Warleader this card can be gamechanging yes, but it can also regain tempo for yourself if played on even 1-2 cards! Make the most out of it, because if you don't play it on those 1-2 Murlocs, then your opponent clears your board and wins, you won't get any use out of the card, whilst playing it before on those 1-2 Murlocs could turn the tides of the game!

It is VERY important to always be thinking with this deck, most people using this deck think "Oh it's a Murloc deck, it's aggressive, let's keep attacking face!" however in some situations, focusing on clearing the opponents board is better, you need to always be thinking about "If the opponent uses "x" and clears the board, what can I do next turn to get control back?" etc. It is NOT a thoughtless deck, and this is the reason most people hit <50% winrates using this deck!

Card Synergy

So here we are going to talk about the various Synergies in the deck, apart from the obvious Murloc cards!

Murloc Tidecaller + Rockpool Hunter - The best turn 1-2 in this entire deck, on turn 2 your board ends up being a 3/3 Murloc Tidehunter and a 2/3 Rockpool Hunter which is absolutely incredible, in total you spend 3 mana for a 5/6 board which most matchups find incredibly tough to deal with. More importantly this get's both cards to 3hp, which is out of defile range for a Warlock by far, even if you drop a 1 hp card.

Any 2hp Murloc Cards + Coldlight Seer - This is amazing, Coldlight Seer is one of the best turn 3's to play on a board you have control of, this simple synergy on cards such as Murloc Tidecaller and Hydrologist puts them out of almost all of the popular board clears currently. Defile. Hellfire. Consecration and Blade Flurry are essentially useless and waste their turn, allowing you to keep building up tempo and buffing existing minions. 

Bluegill Warrior + ANY COMBINATION OF Murloc Warleader, Gentle Megasaur and Grimscale Oracle - I tried for a little while without these little blueberry baddies but found I kept getting opponents to <10 hp with no finisher once they started getting to late game. This changes that by allowing a large buff to your Bluegill Warrior. At 8 mana, 2 Murloc Warleaders gets you a 6 damage charge(+ Any other cards on board already being buffed +4 attack which is DEADLY), and any combination of the other cards can potentially buff this even higher.

Matchups

Here I will list the matchups I faces regularly, if there are any newly emerging decks in the meta or if anybody requests a matchup guide for a certain deck archetype, then feel free to ask if I have missed any!

Odd Paladin(Bakudin!) - This deck is quite scary, it has the potential to have an amazing turn 5 with Level Up!, which if they pull off can give them a pretty good chance at winning the game, infact this combo is exactly why Consecration is included in this deck. Against Bakudin, it's very important to get all the 1hp Murlocs out of your hand Grimscale Oracle and Murloc Tidehunter are fairly useless early game in this matchup, and at best will clear a minion each. This is also one of the matchups where your opponent will start clearing their hand around turn 6, so it's important to use Divine Favor before then so it doesn't become a dead card. 

It is VERY important to note that in this matchup, if you keep shooting face, you WILL lost most of the time, if not all. You HAVE to keep clearing the board, this matchup is very 50/50 in the sense that whoever can keep board control wins, you clear the board and hit face with the rest of your damage until they are in a position where you can pressure them enough to win. Got a Murloc Tidehunter? I'd happily trade both of these cards for 2 Silver Hand Recruits. KEEP CONTROL!

Mulligan: Consecration(ALWAYS!), Murloc Tidehunter. Rockpool Hunter, Coldlight Seer and Righteous Protector. Basically, you're looking for anything with 2-3 health to clear as many Silver Hand Recruit as possible. IF you have a Righteous Protector and are going first, mulligan for Hydrologist as if you get Redemption on your Righteous Protector it can carry the early game completely, it can destroy 4x Silver Hand Recruit completely on it's own!

Even Paladin - This, in my personal opinion is A LOT slower than it's Odd counterpart, I had a very large winrate against this deck simply by clearing the board and hitting face like with Odd Paladin, however you end up with a lot more cards left over on the board which just snowballs the game in your favour.

Although, you do have to be careful of the powerful even card that this deck now has access to that Bakudin doesn't, such as Lightfused Stegodon. Consecration and [card]Silver Sword. Usually in this matchup I ended the game within the first 5-7 turns, if it got further and they got Silver Sword, that is when I would almost lose but still pull through, but those games were close. ALWAYS try closing this game early, but controlling the Silver Hand Recruit cards enough that Lightfused Stegodon and Silver Sword won't be very effective, this should be decently manageable as they can only spawn 1 a turn, rather than 2.

Mulligan: Much like with Bakudin, Consecration is very important here, but not a necessity as you can control the board with your minions here, so it's not always advised to keep it over the chance of getting tempo at the start of the game. Murloc Tidecaller, Rockpool Hunter and Coldlight Seer, aswell as trying to lose all the 1hp Murlocs from your hand. Righteous Protector is less important her than with Bakudin, however is still very helpful for creating Tempo.

Cubelock - Now this at first was a real pain in my Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle! But after refining my deck to adapt to the meta and adding the 2x Spellbreaker cards to the deck, their threat was lowered. I considered running a weapon destroyer like Harrison Ford at one point, however soon realised I didn't need to because if I played against the Defile/[cardHellfire[/card] properly and had a board, I could drop Murloc Warleader, Gentle Megasaur or Grimscale Oracle the turn after they play the weapon and end the game right there and then considering playing the weapon does nothing for their board that turn.

It's very important to mostly attack face here, your opponent won't summon anything other than summon Kobold Librarian and try to clear your board, so the most important thing here is to make sure you play VERY carefully to play around Defile which is an incredibly strong card. ONE TIP A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T REALISE IS THAT IF YOU HAVE A 1HP MINION AND A 3HP MINION, DO NOT PLAY Righteous Protector AS THE DIVINE SHIELD MAKES IT COUNT AS A 2HP MINION DESTROYING YOUR ENTIRE BOARD.

Remember, this is the matchup that requires the most thinking, you need to calculate your next turn in advance, if you have a Call to Arms in hand, you can over extend a little bit on turn 3, as if they use their clear(still play around Defile) then you can call to arms the following turn to keep applying pressure, then if they clear that, the turn after use Divine Favor and summon a 2 drop for example, this creates constant tempo and that's the key to winning this matchup. 

Mulligan: Coldlight Seer is the most important card in this matchip, if you do summon a couple of 1hp minions on turn 1-2, and the opponent is waiting for your next minion before casting Defile you can buff your minions to 3hp and thwart their plans. Similarly, if you have a Murloc Tidecaller and a Rockpool Hunter you can Coldlight Seer and make them both 5hp, countering the turn 4 Hellfire. Make sure to get rid of Consecration as your opponent will not summon any small minions, try to keep either a Spellbreaker or Gentle Megasaur for turn 4 as you can either buff your minions to clear your opponents minions, or silence their card to attack face if they have already taken significant damage. The key to this matchup, as stated before is constantly sending out cards, so keeping Divine Favor is very important as you will almost always get a 5+ card draw from it, it's best to use Divine Favor when you already have board and don't want to overextend by summoning more creatures, or when you have 3 mana left and no other cards to play(Hand full of 4 drops, which can happen!).

Cards To Consider

My goal with this deck was to create an affordable, and as budget as possible deck that people could enjoy playing whilst having a good winrate to Legend, which I believe I accomplished, however in doing so there were a couple of key cards that could be included that may push the deck even further past it's limits! 

Nightmare Amalgam - This card is absolutely amazing, even without considering it's synergy with all of the Murloc cards, it's a 3/4 body for 3 mana, which escapes almost ALL board clear used in the meta currently which is absolutely amazing! When you consider the buffs alongside this, it just gets better and better with all of the possibilities. I already took out one Primalfin Lookout as it's base stats are fairly mediocre compared, and even with it's amazing ability that allows you to situationally pick a Murloc to add to your hand, it underperforms in most cases! So because of this, I would definitely consider going -1 Primalfin Lookout for +1 Nightmare Amalgam. If you were considering adding 2 of them, I would most likely wait until the meta changes so the deck either doesn't require the Consecration or 1x Spellbreaker as if any of the 1-2 mana drops are removed it kills the tempo significantly and makes late Call to Arms draws more useless, however feel free to experiment as that's what Hearthstone is all about and how this deck came about in the first place!

Sunkeeper Tarim - This card has been heavily discussed also, the problem I see with this card, is that in aggro matchups, this card will also benefit your opponent and at the very least not be a good turn 6 drop against these kinds of decks as you need to keep the tempo up, and in a 50/50 board it may do more benefits for your enemy than yourself. Also against control decks, if you haven't ended the game by turn 7, it's very hard to win regardless, turn 4 onwards basically becomes 'Flood the board', 'Enemy Clears', 'Flood the board', 'Enemy clears' until either you run out of minions to play or the enemy runs out of removal, and in both of these scenarios I don't see much benefit for Sunkeeper Tarim at all, as even if you play it into a Voidlord, Spellbreaker would be much better! 

However, saying what is said above, many users have been commenting on how they have found success with Sunkeeper Tarim and how it's been a great addition to the deck over the Primalfin Lookout, which I would agree with as that card generally doesn't have much worth as it only has 2hp(But it's a good card for 'Win more' situations, which is why it's included!), but in the CURRENT meta where we need the Consecration] and [/card]Spellbreaker I wouldn't really change anything else for this card!

Sword of Justice - Now, this card has also been heavily discussed as sending out a few turns of buffed Murlocs seems like it would be ideal right? Well I tried this for a little bit at the earlier ranks, and playing this on turn 3 KILLS your momentum. A 1 damage weapon on it's own isn't game changing and won't do much for you, so you're relying on the previous board you set up to carry you through. and if you play it turn 3 with NO board, then you're just asking to let your opponent get to their sweet spot before you can finish them off! It's a good card overall, but in this deck the Unidentified Maul is a far better choice as it's attack can be deadly to smaller threats, but more importantly it buffs your EXISTING board, which can actually be game changing!

IF you did was to include this in the deck however, I would take out one of the Unidentified Maul weapons becuase having 3 weapons in this deck would lead to too many games where you draw too many weapons and ruin your hand, whereas 2 is the sweet spot of power and not losing tempo.

Leeroy Jenkins - The man, the meme, the legendary himself! Leeroy Jenkins is a card to highly consider for this deck if you have it but lack one of the cards, it's a great addition for the final burst of damage and can combo with a Spellbreaker later in the game to get past annoying taunts (Looking at you Voidlord).

I don't know if it has a place in my current decklist, but definitely consider it if you are lacking one of the cards in my list and also if you just enjoy the card and want to use it! It isd a great finisher.

Thanks so much for taking a read of this guide, experimenting with this deck, sharing it and having fun! Also thanks for the Popularity of the deck considering it's my first deck I've posted on here! Let's hope I can share something just as fun next month!

Huge thanks to "kiwiinbacon" FOR FINDING SUCCESS WITH THIS DECK TO LEGEND AND STREAMING THE ENTIRE THING! YOU CAN FIND HIS VIDEO BELOW, HE PLAYS THE DECK MUCH LIKE MYSELF SO IF ANYONE IS STRUGGLING GIVE THE VIDEO A WATCH!

PS: THIS IS MY FIRST GUIDE, IF THERE ARE ANY IMPROVEMENTS I CAN MAKE, ANYTHING I HAVE MISSED YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO DISCUSS, ANY MATCHUPS I HAVE MISSED OR ANY CARDS YOU'D LIKE ME TO INCLUDE IN THE "CARDS TO CONSIDER" SECTION, THEN PLEASE COMMENT AND I'LL DO MY BEST TO KEEP UPDATING THIS PAGE!

Many thanks!

        Oldog