Hearthpwn

Handlock is back! Thanks to the Molten Giant buff this deck is finally playable again. Accelerate out powerful threats by manipulating the life loss and card draw of the Life Tap hero power. This is abused further with Genn Greymane reducing the cost of Life Tap. We aim to be the beat down and kill our opponent before they can stabilize.

 

Notable Includes:

Mountain Giant + Twilight Drake: The core of the deck, these cards allow us to play powerful threats as early as turn 3 if we are on the draw or turn 4 on the play

Molten Giant + Hooked Reaver: These cards allow us to abuse the fact that our Hero Power costs life  to cheat out more powerful creatures

Bloodreaver Gul'dan: While this card may look odd at first, since we have a minimal amount of demons, it allows us to win against control matchups or can help us stabilize against decks faster than ours

Vulgar Homunculus: Part of our demon package for [Bloodreaver Guldan] which also allows us to lose life for Molten Giant and Hooked Reaver whilst developing a board presence against aggro decks

Sunfury Protector + Defender of Argus: Taunt up your giants and watch aggro decks crumble. Don't be afraid to cast Sunfury Protector for no value against faster decks

Genn Greymane: Most of the cards Handlock wants are even anyway and the 1 cost hero power allows us to get bigger drakes and faster giants.

Defile: This card is one of the best cards in your deck, a wrath against aggro that barely touches your threats. Keep this in your opening if you are against aggro.

 

Notable Excludes:

Glinda Crowskin: Cute with Molten Giant but overall I found her rather lackluster since we don't have many cards that benefit from echo.

Pit Lord and other demons: I tried a more demon focused build but it was a lot slower and very reliant on Bloodreaver Gul'dan. I think if you really want to add more demons you might as well play Renolock.

 

Guide

Mulligan into Twilight Drake and Mountain Giant. Life Tap aggressively until you can play a big threat and start beating down. You can cast a Dark Peddler whilst maintaining the number of cards in your hand which is useful for setting up giants on the following turn. When you get low drop your Molten Giants and Hooked Reavers and then (depending on the matchup) either heal up using Lesser Ameythst Spellstone and Bloodreaver Gul'dan or taunt up your giants with Sunfury Protector or Defender of Argus. Two giants is a two-turn clock so you don't need to overextend into a wrath. 

 

Matchups

Shaman: Tough matchup, Devolve can allow them to bypass your taunts and Flametongue Totem and Crackle can represent lots of burst damage. Beat them down quickly before they have a chance to get within killing range.

Priest: Easy matchup, you can easily outrace them, often even the resurrect something big they are too slow to compete with you. They never pack enough removal to deal with all your threats. The only way you lose is if you overextend into a Lightbomb.

Druid: Good matchup, the armour they generate is never enough to matter and your threats are always bigger than their jade statues. Cards to watch out for are Poison Seeds and Malfurion the Pestilent.

Warlock: Easy matchup, they struggle to remove your threats so just beat face with 8/8's. Just be careful of Reno Jackson

Rogue: Good matchup, taunt up your minions to prevent a Cold Blood/Leeroy Jenkins kill and hope they don't have an Ironbeak Owl.

Mage: Awful matchup, Good luck with this one, they have so much burn they can easily kill you from low health, avoid tapping and just drop some early threats and pray you don't queue up against another Mage.

Warrior: Good matchup, Although their weapons can be a threat they have very few ways to deal with a taunted up giant so you should be fine.

Paladin: Good matchup, They can go wider than you very quickly, try and stabilize the board with Defile, Hellfire and Shadowflame. Divine Favor is good against you but if you already have control of the board you should win through it.