Hearthpwn

Special thanks to KiwiiNbacon for showcasing the deck. He also pulled off the Glinda+Tyrant Combo! 21:39 to see it in action.

TL;DR: each section is written in a somewhat redundant way, depending on what kind of learner you are. Each section has some unique information, but you're better off playing the deck to learn it rather than studying this guide super hard. My degree was in physics, so I've really strongly adopted the philosophy of just throwing myself into the thick of a difficult, complicated situation to learn the most thoroughly.

Intro

My favorite deck archetypes have always been those that present a range of options for more rapidly adapting to whatever the meta is doing. In diverse times like these, I prefer such decks. This one has a lot of tools to deal with a wide variety of archetypes. So, I made a deck that has a lot of cards that can be combo'd with each other differently depending on what you're doing. It's more than just a "swiss army knife," which would be a deck that would just have a lot of tech cards. No, this deck's playstyle has a lot of powerful combos, and you can reuse the same cards to make different combos that are better suited to different opponents.

Combos

The most interesting combo in this deck is Bloodbloom+Twisting Nether (or Siphon Soul) on Turn 8 followed up by Glinda Crowskin andArcane Tyrant. The mechanic that fewer people realize is that even though Twisting Nether or Siphon Soul cost health after Bloodbloom, they still trigger Arcane Tyrant to cost 0 mana. Hence, instead of Glinda being a cheesy card, she actually creates a powerful combo where you clear the board and fill it up with 27/31 worth of stats (one 3/7 Glinda plus six 4/4s).

It does cost a lot of health, however. And, we've lost 4 health off of Dark Pact healing. So, to compensate, I use Clockwork Automaton with Bloodreaver Gul'dan hero power to deal 6 damage and heal for 12 for a total of 7 mana summoning a 4/4. And if Automaton lives for a turn, it's pretty hard to recover from.

Voodoo Doctor + Glinda is the other heal, healing for 8, but in a versatile manner that often allows Glinda to survive another turn. This is what you use instead of the arcane tyrant combo.

Rin, the First Disciple plays a niche roll. Against long decks, she is very good at baiting out silences and hard removal. She's a potent anti-control combination with the Treachery+Howlfiend+Defile. So, playing your seals after a defile combo can pretty much seal up any game.

Rough Guide

Overview: If I could describe this deck as generally as possible, I would call it a stall-oriented control deck. Its strength comes from its ability to hold off threats and get value out of removal. So, against any present meta archetype, you are usually the controller and not the aggressor, even against other heavy control decks. There are certain orders of operations you need to follow as well.

Against aggro: mulligan for typical control Warlock cards, such as Defile, Tar Creeper. Keep Glinda+Voodoo Doctor Combo for that as well. She can actually serve as a 7 health taunt in this way as well. Either she gets killed, or you play your Voodoo Doctors if she's left alive after turn 6, giving you another 12 health.

Against Control: Play for resources. Get them to play into your board clears, try to clear things without using your board clears, save more time for your combos, use defile+treachery combo. The defile treachery combo comes before Glinda combo if your opponent has a lot of board clears. So, you want to get them to dump that flamestrike, twisting nether, etc. before hitting the board. Against control you'll spend a lot of time not really ahead early on as this deck builds its value against control archetypes later. Evenlock is a harder matchup and might require some teching, like Voodoo Doll. But against most other decks it's pretty good.

Against combo: it can be worth keeping treachery and howlfiend if you already have good cards. If you have a Voidlord or other late game cards with treachery and/or howlfiend, it is usually worth mulliganing them away. If you can shut down shudderwock shaman with the combo, you basically win.

Overall: play this deck with its intention: versatility. It's designed to be multidimensional and adaptable. You can win against a lot of decks with this deck, but the play can be a little bit more convoluted. You need to do the math, think about what you're likely to draw, what cards are in the deck that will help with a given situation, watch your defile+treachery combo, think about when the right moments are to give up on certain combos, etc. It's not at all a cheesy or easy deck to play, but it's very rewarding I've found. Expect to spend less time blisteringly far ahead of your opponent, but aim to win a lot of games by a modest margin with more consistency. Focus on shutting down your opponent's strategy. This deck is mostly reactive and you will lose a lot of games if you don't have a good sense of your opponent's deck.

Some Important Details and Other Notes

• Certain combos aren't useful for certain games. Other combos are created out of the same set of cards for different purposes. This is really the gist of the deck. I.e. vs control, use glinda+bloodbloom+Arcane tyrant with nether or siphon soul. But vs. aggro, use bloodbloom, tyrant and siphon soul. Or, use bloodbloom to accelerate Rin. Or use arcane tyrant to take the tempo loss off of playing that first seal from Rin, while bloodbloom's pure tempo maybe was used somewhere else in the game. And, use Voodoo Doctor to heal up with Glinda if you haven't drawn Gul'dan.
• Clockwork Automaton is effectively a proactive version of Alexstrasza. It usually eliminates a threat and heals you, which against a midrange deck is pretty game winning most of the time.
• There are only three cards that actually end up being dead without specific combination: Clockwork Automaton, Treachery and Howlfiend. Voodoo doctor is sometimes dead, but he also can allow you to cycle with relative efficiency. I.e. a lot of the time you might find yourself in that mode where you can't tap because you are at 10 cards and can only play 1 card per turn. Drawing Voodoo Doctor allows you to clear up some space in your hand, making him at least a little bit useful without Glinda.

Specific Card Roles

• Kobold Librarian: synergy with Glinda, Spellstone.
• Mortal Coil: synergy with Treachery+Howlfiend+Defile combo to make it work. Cycles you into combo cards faster.
• Voodoo Doctor: Combos with Glinda, but also lets you get your hand size down so that Hadronox druid can't burn cards and lets you clear your hand so that you can tap more.
• Bloodbloom: Combos with Arcane Tyrant+Siphon Soul OR Twisting Nether. Allows you to play six if you play Bloodbloom, Twisting Nether, followed by Glinda and Arcane Tyrant six times.
• Treachery+Howlfiend: I included this as a set of cards rather than a single card since they have to go together. With defile at the right time, you can clear a board and remove a lot of your opponent's hand. You will win most games in which you pull off this combo since you remove so many key pieces of your opponent's deck. This is your best win condition against control, but you have to be patient in consolidating the win.
• Tar Creeper: Deals with early game threats and balances the deck out. It's a 3/5 for 3 with Taunt. It slows the game down against Hunter and Rogue decks which otherwise would give this deck a hard time. Combos well with Glinda if she survives.
• Stonehill Defender: this card creates a lot of value and also allows you to make catered decisions with the discover mechanic, playing into the theme of this deck. Also a high value combo with Glinda surviving a turn.
• Tainted Zealot: Combos well with mortal coil and defile. Also an easy hand dump if you've got a lousy hand and need to tap like voodoo doctor.
• Hellfire: You should almost always run two of these in any warlock deck that remotely resembles control.
• Lesser Amethyst Spellstone: I have it as a one-of because I built the present version around dealing with a lot of aggro with some control decks present, and it's better for midrange and control decks since it costs 4 mana and only deals with one target. If you are against a lot of control, drop a Tar Creeper for a Spellstone. But I have always found 4 mana to be a clunky number to work with in a lot of situations, and there are other cards in the deck that are redundant with Spellstone, like automaton. Hence, I kept it as a one-of.
• Despicable Dreadlord: Very good card. It increases the likelihood that you will get all 6 ticks off of the Treachery+Howlfiend combo.
• Arcane Tyrant: Very powerful card with Bloodbloom, Glinda, Siphon Soul, Twisting nether and you can sometimes just drop it on board if you're running out of options.
• Clockwork Automaton: Run only as a one-of. It's a dead card until you get Gul'dan, which is why I only have a couple of other cards that qualify as dead in the entire deck: Howlfiend and Treachery. The rest of the cards are useful on their own under most circumstances. Its combo is extremely powerful and generally instantly ends the game vs. midrange decks that try to shut you down with damage around turn 10-12 because you can kill at least one minion with 6 health which is likely against such a deck, heal for 12, play a 4/4, and generally it just gives you some padding to play Bloodbloom with Twisting nether if you're against a slower deck. Automaton also is effective as not having a high combo investment since Gul'dan can be played on its own so you don't need to have Automaton with Gul'dan to use that combo later.
• Rin, the First Disciple: This card combos with Bloodbloom and Arcane Tyrant very well. You can start getting your seals out faster with Bloodbloom and/or play your seals with arcane tyrant. She also is good at baiting things like hex and silence. She plays a pivotal role in boosting the strength of this deck and she works very well with all of the other cards in it since there is a lot of removal.
• Glinda Crowskin: She combos with a lot of things in this deck. The arcane Tyrant Combo is only one. Voodoo Doctor is also good, and if she lives, your three drops are also very powerful three drops, making her likely to live yet another turn if you plop down a wall of taunts. So, she can both allow you to be more likely to win when you're ahead, and she can allow you to turn the game around. Overall she fits the theme of this deck well.
• Siphon Soul: Pretty obviously fits the theme of this deck.
• Twisting Nether x2: Having board clears in a meta that involves a lot of minion play is pretty effective overall. And, then you can burn one while saving for the Glinda Combo. Furthermore, a lot of people only expect one. The second one often gets the real value, especially if they've been kind of pussyfooting around playing a lot of minions, allowing you to save the Glinda combo.
• Voidlord x2: I don't include accelerators like Lacky and Skull because they're really not necessary in this deck since this deck is designed to go very slow as is. Despicable Dreadlord is a good card for this deck in particular, and if you run it, it weakens Possessed Lackey.
• Bloodreaver Gul'dan: Pretty much an autoinclude in warlock.