Hearthpwn

 

Update 19.07.: In the current meta this list is suboptimal. The only list that worked well for me this meta is that one: https://twitter.com/ArcherknightHS/status/1019287883327434755

Update 09.07.: -1 Wrath, +1 Starfire. Gives more burst and fits very well into the mana management during a burst turn for additional combinations. Also combos well with Tyrants to a pseudo Firelands Portal as a midgame tempo play.

Update 28.06.: After trying all the pro's lists popping up lately i came to the conclusion that mine is still the best. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I made some small tweaks tho: -1 Innervate, -1 Spellbreaker, + Bloodmage Thalnos, + 1 Wrath. This lets us go into fatigue faster and gives us an additional/alternative reach combo piece and also better boardclear while still being able to keep Taldaram. Howls are cool and all, just not good enough not to play Taldaram, imo. Peaked at top 300 this season with this list with not a lot games played.

Update 08.05.: Made Legend today by exclusively playing this deck all season. Proof: https://imgur.com/a/qHfhr6n

Update 06.05.: Hit Rank 1 today with it and will attempt the final push within the next days.

Update 03.05.: Just made a 12-1 Brawliseum run with this deck on my first attempt. Also added a feature video section to the bottom of the guide.

 

 

Hello, folks.

I'm a regular Legend player and always on the lookout for cool and original decks that actually work.

As promised, here i present you the deck that carried me to Legend this season. It is the successor to my formerly submitted Legend Malygos Druid list from 2 seasons ago. I tried around a lot with different solutions to compensate what was lost by the set rotation and this is the list that performed by far the best. I find it even more fluid than the old list. Overall i would even say it is the better deck in its current meta. If you're interested, what the old list looked like, it can be found here: https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1046288-legend-malygos-druid-list-that-actually-works

Due to the rotation, the original deck lost a lot of its signature cards, so the current deck has the same basic chassis, but plays quite differently from the vanilla version.

I will keep this guide a tad shorter than the last one, while still keeping it thorough.

 

First off i will tell the main reasons of takin out the core card of the vanilla deck, Ixlid, and also the reason why i added a unique card like Togwaggle:

Why no Ixlid? Because in the old deck, his overall best and most practical combo was with Giants. Without Giants being a thing anymore i can not justify putting in a card like this in the deck anymore, just for the full Maly combo (which is interacteable on top of that, via weapon removal). The rest of the game and the rest of situations Ixlid will just be a dead card in this new deck. Therefore, i made the deck lose its gigantic burn reach in favor of more practicability by takin away half of the effectiveness of one of its combos, but adding a whole new combo, that is less interacteable with by the opponent and therefore more failsafe, namely Togwaggle. Also, without Ixlid and Giants there is really no reason to play Faceless Manipulator, so that one is not in the deck anymore either.

Why Togwaggle? Because he provides a very reliable win condition vs slow decks and synergizes greatly with the rest of the deck. Depending on situation he can resemble either a Loatheb, delivers another ton of burn to the opponents face or can be used as a  ridiculously high value tool. Also, with him the situation i sometimes had with the original deck, namely being out of steam, does not exist anymore. You will always have a way to win a game. Read more in the card choice section, where i went deeper into the subject. Just to sum it up, he is not in here for meme reasons! He is in here, cause he is the best possible tool to complement a Maly Druid currently, cause he synergizes greatly with the whole game plan.

 

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Explanation to card choices

Innervate: Getting UI, Plague, DK, Ramp, etc. 1 turn earlier can be the difference between win and loss. Also, being able to UI one threat AND remove another threat with Innervate + Naturalize/Spellstone is huge. Also, our second win condition, Togwaggle, just requires us to get into fatigue asap, so additional mana to do so is appreciated. Also something for emptying hands so we dont burn important pieces while powerdrawing comes in handy as well. The deck just gets a lot more "fluid" with Innervates in it.

Moonfire: Bread and butter. Special role in the Secret Mage matchup, where they let you safely cast UI on 10, Nourish on 5, Plague on 6 and so on. Also, free pings and 6 dmg for free vs aggro/midrange are always good.

Jasper Spellstone: Just a very good removal. Great synergy with Innervate and Branching Paths/UI.

Naturalize: MVPs right there. Bread and butter for both possible Togwaggle strategies. Vs control, use them only if the pressure is too high, otherwise try to keep them for Tog. Vs midrange and aggro, where Tog is neglectable, just use them, when the pressure tells you to. Great synergy with Innervate.

Wrath: Good card in the current meta. Also in a deck which wants to get to fatigue asap for one of its combos, the more draw, the better.

Taldaram: Vs aggro best used on small minions with a lotta keywords. Vs control best used on Maly on Twig turn, on our own Lich King or one one of their threats/value drops. Blows Faceless Manipulator out of the water in this deck, cause it is the superior anti-aggro card and also the better combo card in our deck, since we got nothing that we wanna copy for stats alone. Costing 2 less mana enables so much broken shit.

Branching Paths: Clearly a 2 of. Love this card, offers so much versatility. Suits different roles depending on MU. Vs control mostly draw or additional burst dmg, vs aggro mostly heal. Great synergy with unupgraded Spellstones. Ferocious Howl didn't make the cut, its versatility makes Paths still the better card for our purposes, even tho it costs more.

Spellbreaker: Also a really important card in the current meta. Just helps a lot in slowing down the opponent in many ways, so we can get to our combos. Also enables the occassional board burst lethal or lethal setup. However, it is the card which is most replaceable, imo. I like it more than Keeper of the Grove, since it provides a more pressuring body, which i value more than the flexibility KotG offers.

Twig of the World Tree: In a vacuum one of the weaker cards in the deck, cause it provides nearly no tempo in the turn played nor the following turn out of itself, but in a deck with as much stall as ours, it works like a charm. In this new version of the deck we play it a lot differently compared to the old one. This version does not depend on Malygos in any matchup anymore and therefore doesn't depend on Twig as much anymore either. Vs the matchups we formerly had to go for the full combo we now have a more failsafe win condition in Togwaggle. This brings us in the great position of being able to just jam Twig mainly as a ramping/tempo swinging tool, whenever we want, the sooner, the better, and swing away: Vs control we still keep the last charge for some major burst/tempo/value turn, vs aggro we use the 20 mana turn to definitely swing the game in our direction and do whatever is needed to survive. Work towards breaking it by just repeatedly hitting face or the lowest attack taunt, even if that doesn't kill it. If you want to combo the breaking point with other specific cards, plan ahead accordingly. Vs most matchups it is now decent to keep Twig in mulligan. Also note, that another very useful application of breaking Twig is together with Togwaggle in a situation, where you realize that you cannot make the opponent burn King's Ransom OR use the fatigue damage to finish him off, but still want to steal as much value from him as possible. In this situation you can break the Twig right after playing Tog and follow up with UI or Nourish/other draw.

Arcane Tyrant: Really good tempo card and free body, which is always good for board buff situations or vs Tarim. Helps a lot to buy us time to get our combos. Its damage alone is a great deal of chipping opponents down to a reasonable healthpool anyway.

Spreading Plague: Singlehandedly wins games vs flood decks. Stalls till combos vs control.

Malfurion the Pestilent: Serious chip damage, removal and survivability. Not much to say, top notch card.

King Togwaggle: Our second main win condition vs anything we cannot just exhaust by other means. Vs aggro and midrange he can be seen as a Loatheb type of card: You can just tempo him out and your opponent will have a subpar next turn. Since we got ramp he is online pretty soon. Especially good, if you got a slight tempo lead on the board already. In worst case he can be read as a 3 mana 5/5. But in those matchups his role is not a big one at all, just wanted to show that even in those matchups he is not totally terrible. However, his main strength is vs control decks. Here he got 2 different modes of application: The first one will lead to you outvaluing your opponent by stealing his deck without him being able to get it back. For this option you wanna get as close to fatigue as possible, as fast as possible (faster than your opponent), clog his hand with Naturalizes, play Togwaggle and win by outvaluing the opponent. This option i would choose vs high value decks, in case you were NOT able to chip the enemy down to around 15 health +/-. However, IF you already brought him that low you can just use Togwaggle to outright kill him, which is a lot safer obviously. ;) Therefore just go into fatigue completely, then play Togwaggle and then deal 15 dmg by double Naturalize + pass turn (1+2+3+4+5). You see, Togwaggle enables us to play A LOT more aggressively and less concerned about value stuff, than with the old version of the deck. Also, Togwaggle transforms something that is normally a weakness, being out of steam, into a game winning strength. With this deck we draw as much as we can, whenever we can. There is nearly no exception to this. What i love most about it is that with him we do not need to think too much about keeping Maly combo pieces and Taldaram: As long as we survive long enough to reach Fatigue, we likely won. Also note, that another very useful application of breaking Twig is together with Togwaggle in a situation, where you realize that you cannot make the opponent burn King's Ransom OR use the fatigue damage to finish him off, but still want to steal as much value from him as possible. In this situation you can break the Twig right after playing Tog and follow up with UI or Nourish/other draw.

The Lich King: Holy cow, this card is like made for this deck. I mean, TLK is a very solid card on its own, but in this deck he is so far above its usual pick scenario's synergie level, where you just wanna pick another strong threat without any situational weaknesses. In our deck however EVERY single one of his possibly created cards is of use! And that is due to Togwaggle, who makes even the deck thinning cards (Army of the Dead, Doom Pact; just make sure you got Togwaggle and both Naturalizes in hand already) useful in any situation where you just want to get to fatigue asap to finish your opponent off. Army of the Dead is also useful if Malygos is hiding in the last couple cards of the deck or got shuffled back into by Psychic Scream. So you pull him on the board for 6 mana followed by a burn barrage. Death Coil and Death and Decay (hello, Voidwalkers) combined with Maly or on their own are great anyway. So is Frostmourne (mainly for bringing opponent fast towards the critical health, but also for buying time via value) and Obliterate (stalling). Also Anti-Magic Shell is bonkers for Plague board burst. Normally i would never implement a boring "i just need a strong 30th card and am too lazy to think some more" card like Lich King in any of my decks, but in this deck he simply is outstandingly important.

Malygos: Eponym of a plethora of different decks since the beginning of Hearthstone. However, in this deck he is the core card only in a handful of situations. Besides using him naked on board paired with Spellstones, Moonfires as single target removal, the most basic face dmg combos are with Taldaram + plethora of burn, both, either combined with breaking Twig or just Innervates + Moonfires. In a breaking Twig scenario he is also your board reset with Swipe.

Ultimate Infestation: $$$ You have not lived, if you haven't yet UI'd your opponent's face, followed by attacking with a 1 charge Twig, followed by UIing your opponent's face again for 36 mana worth of actions in 1 turn. ;)

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Matchup strategy + Mulligan

• Always keep Wild Growth, Innervate and Nourish.
• Keep UI only if you got at least 2 other ramp cards, but never vs very fast decks.
• Matchup-specific Mulligan (in addition to what is written above) was added right after the matchup's name in Italic in the section below!

Quest Rogue (unfavored): Twig, Malfurion the Pestilent, The Lich King - Still rough matchup due to Scalehide negating Quest Rogues main weakness: Its vulnerability to face dmg. Anyway, SMOrc away, build tempo, bait a premature Vanish and remove as much as needed. Lich King and DK are super good to close out the game quickly. Twig is even the best for that purpose, but it is hard countered by Glacial Shard. The nerfs hit Q Rogue pretty hard , they cannot crush your Plague wall anymore for example and also the overal burst potential got hit quite a bit. It's still a tad unfavored but a lot better than it used to be.

Taunt Druid (unfavored): Twig, The Lich King - Tough matchup due to him having lots of armor gain and you having a hard time to apply chip dmg through the taunts, which renders Togwaggle useless in this matchup mostly. A Twig into Maly+Swipe swing turn is your best take on a winning move. So is board burst, if he got only singular taunts up yet. Also, if you manage to bait out his Naturalizes with e.g. Lich King, thats good. Togwaggle is only useful via the value route and only if you get really lucky.  

Big Spell Mage (even): Twig, The Lich King - Only matchup whose difficulty is solely decided by if he runs a certain card or not, namely Geist. Other problem is an early Jaina. Without the Ixlid/Maly combo the old deck had, it is very hard to burst him down with that and you need Togwaggle. IF he runs Geist tho, you are in a really bad spot. If not, you simply win. So it really all depends on that. Also get that chip dmg in, either by DK or Branching Paths on a 2+ sized board or with Lich King. If you get Frostmourne you won and can just SMOrc him down easily. He cannot deal with few medium threats in an economical way in terms of resource management. Take care not to get chain-frozen by his Water Elementals with an equipped Twig, if it is your last resort! Also take care of weapon removal, if your Togwaggle combo got disabled already by Geist!

Cube Lock (even): Naturalize, Twig, The Lich King - The only deck besides Quest Rogue that unites high tempo pressure, sustain and value, so if he draws the nuts, we got a hard time handling all of it at once. Good news, this deck has an easier time vs them, than the former one. The matchup is not unfair anymore. Cube Lock is most dangerous between turn 4 and 7. If you make it further than this mark while being able to stabilize and stall, then you can play vs them like you would vs slower decks, namely draw into your Maly or Togwaggle combos. Even tho some lists run 1 Nether, going for board-creating Tempo combos can be the right play situationally, even more since we got Spellbreaker now. If he pulls a Voidlord and you got Plague on hand this likely is enough to stall for some time. If he gets early giants and Doomguards its a different story and you definitely need Naturalizes and upgraded Spellstones asap.

Secret Mage (even): Spellstone, Malfurion the Pestilent, Wrath - Swingy matchup. Use your plethora of cheap spells to check for CS, especially before UI and stabilize by armoring up via Paths and DK and using Plague to potentially absorb some burn. After he played Aluneth you can even Naturalize him into a quick fatigue death within some turns. This MU like any other Aggro MU is about surviving, not killing him. Use your few high health minions to soak Explosive Runes. If you can afford it, wait until you can react on the occassional Mirror Entity via one of your many removals.

Spiteful Priest (slightly favored): Twig, Naturalize, Spellstone - Can get out of hand if he curves out perfectly. But still, i had plenty comebacks even vs perfect curve with Plague, followed by tempo swing. He cannot deal with multiple threats, since MC takes his whole turn, so he is in a dilemma of having to remove, but not being able to afford removing. Also watch out for Grand Archivist.

Inner Fire Combo Priest (slightly favored): Naturalize, Spellstone, Twig - Naturalize and Spellstones fuck them up badly. Just remove the board all the time and exhaust their ressources until you can finish them off with one of your big boys. If you can, bring chip dmg in on their high hp drops to minimize burst potential.

Control Warrior (slightly favored): Twig, The Lich King - You win by Togwaggle vs any Control Warrior deck. Quest Warrior is hardest, but still not rly hard. Just keep your board at reasonable size to dodge the balls until you pull your Tog combo.

Spiteful Druid (slightly favored): Spellstone, Wrath, Twig, Naturalize, Wrath - Not much to say, just remove his stuff and win via tempo swings.

Even Paladin (favored): Swipe, Spreading Plague, Spellstone, Twig, Malfurion the Pestilent, Wrath - Wait for the right moment to use swipe/Plague. Beware of their board buffs at 4, 6 and 8, their single target buffs at 4 and 6 and their Avenging Wrath. Besides winning by the attrition route, a very common way to win is to just burst him down with Branching Paths after a Plague turn, when he doesnt have Tarim+outnumbered or Equality to remove.

Odd Paladin (favored): Swipe, Spreading Plague, Spellstone, Twig, Malfurion the Pestilent, Wrath - Wait for the right moment to use swipe/Plague. Beware of their board buffs at 3 and 5. Taldaram on an early Argent Squire or Righteous Protector will buy some time. Besides winning by the attrition route, a very common way to win is to just burst him down with Branching Paths after a Plague turn. He got no removal, so just slam your big boys asap.

Odd Rogue (favored): Spellstone, Twig, Malfurion the Pestilent, Wrath - Fairly easy and straightforward matchup, like most aggro matchups. Just survive while outvaluing them and draining them dry.

Hunter (favored): Spellstone, Twig, Malfurion the Pestilent, Wrath - Any hunter deck is fairly easy to beat, cause they are less explosive than Secret Mage and also got less draw. Just stabilize via taunts and armor up.

Miracle Rogue (favored): Spellstone, Naturalize, Spellbreaker, Wrath - Just remove his stuff and outvalue/exhaust him. He can't deal with boards. If you're at stable life, wait with Plague till spiders hit the board. Naturalize for Van Cleef. It might be cause i know miracle rogue by heart, but i never lost a game vs one.

Control Lock (highly favored): Twig, The Lich King - Applies no pressure. Free win, his only semi-out is Geist to destroy your Togwaggle combo. But then you just go for Malygos combo. And even if he destroys your twig you still got a chance. You draw faster than he can develop Rin, so that's not an issue either.

Control Priest (highly favored): Twig - He got no Geist? Free win. Stay out of Mind Blast Range via armoring up. Go for Togwaggle combo mainly.

 

Please ask anything you want to know in the comments and also let me know your thoughts about possible improvements after you tried it for some games.

Have fun!

 

 

 Kiwiinbacon once again made a little showcase video for the deck: