Hearthpwn

Hey Guys, this is the list I used to get top 50 legend in wild this season peaking at 23.

Proof of top 50 here

So why am I playing cubelock instead of renolock? First and foremost I just love cubelock, but there are other meta reasons, while obviously losing the huge reno healing and kazakus potential which I believe more reliably beats aggro, the cube combos allow you to more consistently beat slower decks such as druid, any reno deck, and has a far better match up versus big priest.

So here are some card discussions

Big Game Hunter

This is my way of teching against even shaman, beating the 4 mana 7/7s and sea giants and sometimes the totemcarver is very important as you don't have hard removal for these cards and as a result these cards can easily solo you if you don't have the powered up spellstones. Other people usually fill this spot with Thaurissan, I think this is the most flexible point in the list as I don't think the mana discount of your hand helps that much most games and the body is too low impact. 

Possessed Lackey

Since the nerf, this card is too slow, lackey pact on 7 is too late and you still don't always pull a voidlord vs aggro. So you are relying on Voidcaller and Skull of the Man'ari to cheat out your big demons, this does have implications on mulligans.

Card choices/ exclusions

 If you are wondering why any cards are not included in this list the reason is probably just because I couldn’t fit it in the list and I think my list beats the decks I want it to more consistently due to exact list. But as stated above I think BGH is the most easy to swap out, I would recommend to add faceless manipulator as a probably improvement against slow decks, or vs aggro maybe dark bomb, I would not recommend mistress of mixtures which has been suggested to me but I do not believe it has a place in the meta.

 

Mulligan guide

Always keep librarian and voidcaller with basically no exceptions but don’t keep more than 1 or each. Obviously in mulligans If you have voidcaller and a big demon you should keep it 90% of the time regardless of matchup, the only exceptions would be vs big priest you really want doomguard or Mal'Ganis over the voidlord.

quick overall notes on playing 

When you have doomsayer vs and aggressive deck it is worth holding librarian for turn 3 after the doomsayer to increase chances of buffing spellstone and having a lead on board, also if a odd paladin trys to play around defile by not hero powering or playing 1 health minions you can hold to trigger the defile. Also I would never hold librarian even with doomsayer vs mage, you need to play the librarian before he runs into an explosive runes and hits you for 5. I typically in this guide talk about cubing doomguards or voidlords, of course cubing Mal’Ganis is usually fine in these sitiations too without doomguards or voidlords, but where I reference doomguards/ voidlord being cubed they are priority over the Mal’Ganis if you are given the time, the only situation where Mal’ganis is better to cube in slower matchups is in boards of lots of voidlords/ voidwalkers. 

 

Vs Druid

The type of druid doesn’t really change the mulligan you will want to keep:

• Cube
• Skull
• Doomguard

 During the game you will typically want a fast start cubing doomguards if possible, later in the game you will probably want to build a wide board including a cube with doomguard or mal’ganis in or alternatively you can try to set up a large board of voidlord/walkers and then Mal’Ganis for huge burst. The main thing to consider is how much poison seeds destroys your board and how you can protect it (usually by not popping a cube if the board is already applying enough pressure). The board states can be quite hard to figure out the play and is probably the one which requires more practise to figure out.

 

Vs Mage

I tend to mulligan for secret/burn mage, if you know its reno mage use the same mulligan as for renolock and druid

• Hellfire
• Doomsayer
• Skull (when paired with one of the other mentioned cards)
• Spellstone (paired with librarian and maybe hellfire but this may be too slow)

Here the play is mainly to survive the first few turns without taking much damage, you need to make a midgame push pulling out any demons if possible, this aggressive push is important because they have so much burn in the deck they will probably close out the game even with a wall of voidlords, remember the sources of heal you have in deck when thinking about tapping, always consider fireball frostbolt damage range. Loatheb can stall a turn, confortably playing DK with a decent life total is usually a win so this should be your game plan and typically, your out if you haven’t mounted a big push in the midgame.

 

Vs Paladin

This is basically always odd paladin

• Defile
• Hellfire
• Skull
• Doomsayer
• Voidlord (paired with skull or voidcaller or with a really good removal hand)

 Typically don’t clear the board with defile until going into their 5 mana turn or 4 mana with coin turn. This being said you may need to identify earlier if a board is presenting too much damage for you to take. With doomsayers in hand you should think about the set up from turn 1, obviously the dream is to play it on 3 and it triggering allowing voidcaller on an empty board but if they clear it and develop and the only demon you are pulling is doomguard you probably can’t take this line, you should consider them using weapon to assist killing it and may have to play it on 2 if you can’t clear after they would kill it. Taldaram on righteous protector is a power enough board contesting mechanism early in the game. Cubing voidlords is the safest way to win, even if you can’t pop the cube immediately. But always consider tarim from stonehill and the fact they have multiple buffs they may play consecutively if you spend a turn interacting with your demons.

Vs Priest (Guide copied from an earlier comment I replied to)

Big priest but most priest mulligans should be much the same

• Skull
• Doomguard
• Sylvanas (A bit slow probably only advisable with coin or a voidcaller)
• Cube (when paired with any of the demon cards)
• Loatheb can be kept if your hand is like voidcaller and doomguard

So big priest is probably about a 50% matchup for the deck. When playing I you have to be the aggressive player so that means tapping to get voidcaller, doomguard and cube. Taldaram is also pretty important as you can use it to copy things like rag and the obsidian statue and cubing this becomes quite a power swing in your favour. Another thing to consider as with any deck that runs it is the loatheb timing, if you have a board by turn 5 or so playing it into their essence turn or scream turn is really game winning (consider these when they are on coin too), alternatively you probably don't want to play it on turn 9/10 because they will probably just be playing out and of the minions they have drawn so far. Its by no means an easy matchup, and you need to take some risks when it comes to what you play into, for example I tend to imagine they just dont have death or pain in hand so I often hardcast doomguard, and if it sets up a powerful follow up just play umbra. That being said most of the time I would hold umbra for cube/ sylvanas/ taldaram.

 

 

Vs Rogue

Mulligan Odd rogue, mill rogue is very unfavourable and less common

• Doomsayer
• Hellfire
• Spellstone (with damage card)
• Voidlord (I keep this because the matchup is bad and you may just need to highroll pulling this)

 This matchup is really bad hence why I may keep voidlord in my mulligan, there isn’t much to do apart from try to remove their early game threats and pray you get a voidlord. Always defile turn 1 pirates when you can, hellfire to upgrade spellstones to kill thugs on mediocre hellfire boards. Make sure you clear ahead of fungalmancer if possible. Take risks regularly, I don’t think odd rogue should run silence but some do, so if you do manage to get a voidlord consider taking a turn to get a good board clear and bait out the silence so you can cube a silenced voidlord, but cube pact where you can they probably don’t have silence more often than they do.

 

Vs Shaman (Even)

• Hellfire
• Defile
• Skull
• Doomsayer
• BGH
• Spellstone (with hellfire or librarian)

 Doomsayer on 2 every game pretty much every game, flametounge may still kill it but take the risk. Hellfire/defile ahead of turn 4 when possible to block the guy that gets buffed from totems and 4 mana 7/7. Devolve sucks for us in this matchup so cube pacting/ getting as much stuff on board as possible is the best way to increase the chances of getting a taunt. Careful with tapping but I wouldn’t really play around crackle unless you can afford to as the range is too big but play around eel and jade lightning as burn.

 Vs warlock

Assume renolock

• Skull
• Doomguard
• Cube

 Just to clear this up, this matchup probably won’t go to fatigue as you usually end up drawing a lot more which is why I probably wouldn’t keep DK in hand unless its like skull and double doomguard/ doomguard, skull. You should probably not be cubing voidlords in this matchup and they should probably be kept for only doomguard and malganis as renolock can usually clear big voidlord boards. After they kazakus you should probably try to pop any cubes you play in the next few turns. You can’t play around sylvanas too much in the matchup but using taldaram on theirs to steal it is a very powerful as them stealing doomguards, cubes or Mal’Ganis can seriously hurt your ability to end the game, but at the same time if you can steal their Mal’Ganis with yours it’s a great spot.

 

Vs Warrior

Assume Pirates

• Defile
• Doomsayer
• Hellfire
• Skull
• Voidlord

 You probably need to pull a demon from voidcaller or skull to win here delife probably won’t be too effective. I can’t really remember playing this matchup but I imagine you need to take any board clear when you can, clearing pirates to prevent cultist buffing weapons is important, they probably run silence, so be careful about playing a naked cube. Doomsayer should be played turn 2 most games.