Hearthpwn

Hi everyone!

Today i bring to you a new version of an old deck, a modified (WW compatible) Quest OTK Combo Druid deck, 

This deck is surprisingly efficient even after losing Kun the Forgotten King that was a core card in the deck, apparently other decks lost enough power to allow the deck to work even without Kun.

The deck has no cards from WW (let's say the truth, druid got only crap this time), but it has cards from previous expansions that were too weak before the rotation, and now are good enough because of the lower power level of other decks.

I took this deck from rank 5 to legend with 66% winrate (50-25) in EU standard ladder, the ladder is full of warlocks and druids (which counter aggro paladins), so i had relatively easy climb, if in the future aggro paladin will be bigger part of the meta this deck will take a big hit and some anti aggro tools will have to be added.

Important Note: 

This deck is extremely polarize, if played correctly some match are almost an auto win, and some matchups are almost unwinnable. (More info in the pictures in the end of the post).

The deck is not easy to play optimally, many of the cards in the deck are extremely flexible and can be used in several different ways in different situations, so your decisions matter and your mistakes could be fatal.

Matchup Overview:

The deck has few very polarized matchups, that's why it is heavily meta dependent, we can split it into 4 types of matchups:

1. Minion based aggro: (Any Paladin, Tempo Rogue, Aggro hunter) - Those matchups are almost unwinnable, they deck can't handle repeated board floods and can't compete with the early aggression.

2. Burn based aggro: (Tempo mage, Odd hunter) - Unlike the minion based aggro, those matchup are tough but winnable, in the midgame our mid sized minions should be able to take out the early game of the opponent and if we can armor up out of burst range we can push damage to the opponent face with our 5+ attack minions.

3. Midrange: (Spiteful Priest, Spiteful Druid, Cube Lock, Thief Rogue) - Midrange decks are generally slow enough for us to finish the quest before they drop their big bombs, if played correctly (and draws are not terrible) you should win this type of decks, sometimes your opponent highroll ridiculous stuff and there is nothing you can do (like turn 6 Tyrantus or unavoidable Doomguard shenanigans) .

4. Control, Combo, Greed: (Control Lock, Shudderwock Shaman, Control Warrior, Taunt Druid) - Unless your draw is abysmal or something went really wrong, those deck should be an auto win, Control and Greed deck are way too slow to kill you before you can assemble your OTK, and combo deck can't outdraw Druid's insane draw engines. 

In general, the slower your opponent's deck is the easier the matchup is.

Deck Game Plan:

In some matches you can kill your opponent even without completing the quest simply by applying enough pressure in the mid game or by armoring out of burst reach.

But in general the deck has 3 main stages:

1. Completing the quest:

We have King Mukla and Cursed Disciple as our cheap 5+ attack minions, and we have Oaken Summons and Guild Recruiter to increase the odds of getting them early.

Beside those, you should use combo pieces that you draw before completing the quest (thus they don't have cost reduction) to speed-up quest completion, using Faceless Manipulator and Charged Devilsaur to complete the quest is almost never a mistake, Leeroy Jenkins and Ixlid, Fungal Lord should be used only if you have no choice.

2. Drawing the combo pieces:

After playing Barnabus the Stomper your main focus should be on drawing your combo pieces as fast as possible, from this point you should not use Oaken Summons and Guild Recruiter (they can recruit any minion now) unless you already have all the combo pieces and you just need a charger, or if you will lose the game if you don't use them (trying to get taunt\charge\something big).

The deck has 9 cards that can draw (beside Ultimate Infestation all of them can do other things too), so it shouldn't be a big problem to gather the pieces. 

3. Killing your opponent:

There are many possible combos you can assemble with this deck, sometimes something as simple as 12 damage from Faceless Manipulator + Leeroy Jenkins is enough and sometimes you will need full a scale combo of 6x Charged Devilsaur that punch you opponent's face for 42 damage, don't go blindly for the most powerful 5+ pieces combo, in most of the cases a partial combo of 3-4 cards is enough to win.

Possible Combos:

This deck has ton of spare combo pieces (without Kun you need to have those spares just in case you draw some of them before finishing the quest), here is a quick list of some of the possible combos:

On an empty board:

Leeroy Jenkins = 6 damage.

Leeroy Jenkins + Faceless Manipulator = 12 damage

Leeroy Jenkins + Ixlid, Fungal Lord = 12 damage

Leeroy Jenkins + Ixlid, Fungal Lord + Faceless Manipulator = 24 damage 

Charged Devilsaur + Faceless Manipulator = 7 damage

Charged Devilsaur + Ixlid, Fungal Lord = 7 damage

Charged Devilsaur + Ixlid, Fungal Lord + Faceless Manipulator = 21 damage

Against taunts (not include Voidlord):

Carnivorous Cube + Deathwing + Leeroy Jenkins + Faceless Manipulator = 24 damage

Carnivorous Cube + Deathwing + Leeroy Jenkins + Ixlid, Fungal Lord = 24 damage (+6 damage to one of the taunts)

Carnivorous Cube + Deathwing + Leeroy Jenkins + Faceless Manipulator + Ixlid, Fungal Lord = 36 damage

Carnivorous Cube + Deathwing + Leeroy Jenkins + 2x Faceless Manipulator = 36 damage

Carnivorous Cube + Deathwing + Charged Devilsaur + Faceless Manipulator + Ixlid, Fungal Lord = 42 damage (+14 damage to taunts)

Carnivorous Cube + Deathwing + Charged Devilsaur + 2x Faceless Manipulator = 42 damage

The highest possible damage on an empty board:

Ixlid, Fungal Lord + Charged Devilsaur + Faceless Manipulator the Charged Devilsaur + Carnivorous Cube the Charged Devilsaur + Naturalize  your Ixlid, Fungal Lord + Faceless Manipulator the Carnivorous Cube +Deathwing + double Branching Paths = 87 damage

Notes:

• If your Deathwing is 10 mana you can pop the Cube with Naturalize or with your other Cube.
• Only the original Charged Devilsaur can't attack face, any other copy of it (via Carnivorous Cube, Faceless Manipulator, Ixlid, Fungal Lord) can attack face.
• You can use your Charged Devilsaur to kill Voidlords before Cubing them and then use Deathwing to clear the tokens.
• Sometimes you can't OTK your opponent because of mana problems, so it's possible to summon Charged Devilsaur and Cube it without popping the Cube (possibly duplicate it too) and the turn after use the extra mana to pop the cubes and OTK the opponent.
• Don't bother having more than 3 Cubes, after you play Deathwing you have only 6 board spots.
• Make sure you have enough board space for the combo, there is nothing worse than playing the combo just to discover you can't drop your Deathwing because your board is full.
• Leeroy Jenkins, Faceless Manipulator and Ixlid, Fungal Lord are all 5 mana (easier to combo when drawn before quest completion), together they can generate high burst without using Deathwing and Carnivorous Cube.

Mulligans:

General:

You should always keep in your opening hand: Jungle Giants, Wild Growth, Oaken Summons.

In most of the matches keeping any 4 drop will be fine, if you have a 4 drop keeping Guild Recruiter is fine too.

Class Specific:

Druid: 

Naturalize - For their Spiteful Summoner turn.

Hunter:

Wrath - For their early drops

Ironwood Golem - solid taunt

If you have enough early game you can keep Branching Paths for more armor.

Mage:

Always assume that it's tempo mage.

Naturalize, Wrath - to trigger Counterspell and as an emergency removal.

Paladin:

You can throw the Quest because almost all the paladins are aggro, i doubt it will improve the matchup by much but it's possible to do it.

Ironwood Golem - solid taunt

Priest:

Naturalize - For their Spiteful Summoner turn.

Rogue:

Nothing special here, just follow the general mulligan.

Shaman:

Wrath - Keep it for their Mana tide

Warlock:

Naturalize - Probably the most important card for this matchup, killing a Mountain Giant or Doomguard while milling your opponent is great value, you should never kill Voidlord with that unless you have lethal.

Warrior:

Follow the general mulligan.

Replacements:

Ironwood Golem, Wrath, Guild Recruiter and King Mukla are not essential to the deck. you can take them out and the deck will function almost the same.

Cards to Consider: 

Swipe - It's a great card overall, but it doesn't do enough in most matches (can't kill big things, can't kill many small thing with more than 1 health), the only matchup this card is really great is against paladins, but this matchup is so bad that going for 5% winrate to 15% winrate is not enough to justify card that hurts the deck consistency.

Fatespinner - It's a solid card, but it's slow, the AOE is irrelevant against aggro because it comes in turn 5 and pop at turn 6+, as 5 mana card it can't be recruited and the 5 mana slots is crowded enough even without it.

Spreading Plague - Same as swipe, it's a good card but it comes out too late, i found it to be useless in most matches (bad against control, too slow against aggro) so i cut it.

Malfurion the Pestilent - Solid card, but again, too slow for most matchups.

Witching Hour - Our only beasts are Charged Devilsaur and King Mukla, so it's definitely not a bad card, but i feel like other cards have greater and faster impact.

Lesser Jasper Spellstone - Good removal, could be used instead of Wrath, 6 damage for 1 mana is great, but unfortunately it can't kill a Giant or a Doomguard and can't kill most of the minions that comes out from Spiteful Summoner.

 Some Stats and Pictures: 

 

Thanks for reading i hope you enjoyed the guide and the deck!