Crusher Deathadin [Legendary]
- Last updated Jan 23, 2015 (GvG Launch)
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Wild
- 17 Minions
- 11 Spells
- 2 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 3020
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 10/24/2014 (Naxx Launch)
- HSCrusher
- Deck Architect
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- 12
- 23
- 46
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
1574
Peak NA Rank (Season 7): 135
Mission Statement: Take control of the board early with cheap, sticky deathrattle minions; reload your hand with Divine Favor; then close the game out fast.
Story: Having done tempo, midrange, and control decks already, I felt it was time I made an aggro climb. I settled in on an aggro Paladin that uses a similar spell/weapon package to Shockadin, but uses a deathrattle minion set. The resulting deck isn't as fast as Shockadin, but is much harder to remove. It's less face oriented than Shockadin, but not quite as board focused as Zoo either. This deck only has one legendary and one epic, and the legendary isn't critical, so it is easy to make a budget version by adding Dancing Swords instead.
Mulligan Strategy: Mulligan aggressively for minions you can play on curve the first three turns (count Noble Sacrifice as a minion). Keep Divine Favor against control and Consecration against aggro. Keep Avenge with Haunted Creeper. Keep Noble Sacrifice with Knife Juggler (extra juggle and protects a high priority target). Toss everything that's not a deathrattle minion with Undertaker (except maybe Divine Favor against control). I would pretty much always toss Coldlight Oracle, and I would also toss King Mukla unless I was really expecting my opponent to neglect the early board (like Ramp Druid perhaps). Those are two cards you usually want later. All the spells I haven't mentioned I would toss; you need minions early.
Matchups: This deck was actually fairly average against some of the more popular decks in the meta like Hunter, Zoo and Control Priest, but it had solid matchups against everything else except its one weakness, Deathrattle Priest. This was my longest climb in number of games (154), but in time it wasn't so bad because of how short games were. The following win rates are from rank 5 1 star through making legend. They are listed from statistically strongest to statistically weakest. Only matchups I faced more than 3 times are listed with everything else aggregated in the Other category.
Handlock: 7/8, 88%
Ramp Druid: 6/7, 86%
Other: 14/17, 82%
Midrange Shaman (5 bot, 5 not, all wins against bots): 8/10, 80%
Miracle Rogue: 7/9, 78%
Control Warrior: 12/20, 60%
Fast Druid: 4/7, 57%
Control Priest: 6/13, 46%
Zoo: 6/13, 46%
Hunter: 18/41, 44%
Deathrattle Priest (the counter to other deathrattle decks): 2/9, 22%
Some Card Choices: We all know now that Undertaker is incredibly powerful, and consequently the cheap deathrattle suite is strong and resilient. I'll comment on a few cards whose inclusion isn't obvious or have a novel synergy with the deck.
Avenge, Noble Sacrifice, and Mad Scientist: Mad Scientist is crazily efficient as effectively a 2/2/2 cantrip that plays a 1 mana card for free. The buff to Undertaker is a nice bonus. Avenge got kind of a bad rap because it didn't fit into any previously existing archetypes. I think it fits quite nicely in this deck and works well with Nobel Sacrifice, which forces your opponent to destroy one of your minions.
Equality: This is the key to breaking through big taunts that a deck like Handlock might get out. Almost functions like an all silence card, but actually lets you kill them. Easily comboed with Consecration, Avenging Wrath or just tokens like Spectral Spiders or Silver Hand Recruits.
Knife Juggler: Equality makes juggles lethal. Play Harvest Golems and Haunted Creepers first then next turn play Knife Juggler before you trade them away for extra juggles.
Coldlight Oracle, Divine Favor, Dancing Swords, and King Mukla: Divine Favor is the key to the deck. Everything is cheap and tries to be as unsituational as possible so that you can dump your hand and reload it up to your opponent's size. King Mukla and Dancing Swords can make your opponent's hand size larger for Divine Favor (and Mukla is just strong in a deck that is good at maintaining early board control). I found that double Divine Favor and double Loot Hoarder weren't quite enough card draw, so I added a Coldlight Oracle. You should be able to spend cards faster than your opponent so it will make your next Divine Favor stronger too.
Truesilver Champion and Avenging Wrath: These are your major damage sources, but they don't have to be used on face only. Avenging Wrath can be used with Equality for a board clear and Truesilver Champion is good at clearing taunts.
Deck in Action: See me face streamers from their perspective.
Tides of Time - Control Warrior (caution: language, audacity)
GvG Update: I've added Jeeves in place of Coldlight Oracle. They function very similarly but Jeeves has less downside and can potentially sustain you for longer. I tried running two Jeeves, but found that the second was usually unnecessary and was taking away from the decks damage potential.
Write any questions or suggestions about matchups or card choices in the comments. For anyone who gives this deck a shot, let me know how it goes and good luck! By the way, I've already heard that one player took in from rank 3 to legend within a day of me posting this, and he beat me along the way, haha. Congrats man!
News: Matt Sparks spotlights Crusher Deathadin in his segment Big Deck Playa. Check it out for card explanations and some gameplay!
Yup, no matter what you want to use, those three, esp the Hunters and Warlocks are 80-90% of what I am seeing. So much fun.
Hunter was also what I faced most often. All of these matchups were still near 50%, so I was able to make up for them with the other decks I would face. If deathrattle priest were to become more popular, that would be would be a serious problem.
I've been playing a Deathrattle Priest deck lately and I've been killing Paladin big time (beaten almost every one I've run into in the past week). I absolutely love playing Paladin - but had trouble winning with my Shockadin deck past level 14. Before that I could win turn 4 or 5 sometimes. Your build is interesting and definitely worth a try - but it's similar to some of the builds I've been killing with Priest - so I'll need to hope I don't run into my other deck. :-)
Find this deck okay to play, doing about 50/50 with it, and yes I know how to use it.
Too many games were King Mukla, Coldlight Oracle,Divine Favor, never show up and if they do, too late to be of any use.
So in that case lack of cards will hurt.
Grats to those with success though.
Yesterday night i had a crazy game against a control warrior.He dropped 2xAccolytes of Pain and i dropped a Knife Juggler and i empty my hand.all the knifes went on AoP,.He emoted me well played cause he had 9 cards and then i cast Divine Favor.God,i love that card!!!!!Gz on that deck mate!!!i was looking for a nice deck to get back to my paladin Hero
Sounds fun.
Love your decks crusher. Especially a big fan of the Crusher Shaman deck that I use on and off when the need arises.
This has worked very well for me to crack my barrier of rank 14 (which I never used to get past). I'm currently 1 star away from single digits!
Do you have any recommendations against miracle rogue? It's been the only matchup I have had difficulties with.
I think I was a bit lucky on my rank 1-5 run. I'm finding Miracle Rogue to be a more of a 50-50 thing in legend. Unfortunately I don't feel like I have any general suggestions either. I'm still getting a handle on what Miracle means in today's meta.
I actually just started playing Crusher Shaman again yesterday. It really hurt my legend rank at first, but once I made a couple adjustments and got in the swing of it again, I started slowly climbing again. Kel'thuzad has been just hilarious. I think the deck got even more fun with Naxx, though the extra silences that appear make it a bit dicier too. I've switched out Loatheb and Unbound for Earthenring and Wild Pyromancer. I miss Loatheb though.
Why noble sacrifice instead of redemption?
Redemption can easily redeem tokens. Sacrifice forces avenge proc.
Amazing deck! I struggled with El Diablo deck due to meta shift , the second i switched tot his deck i won 5 matches in a row against control warrior x2 , priest, hunter and druid. rly rly rly strong one it requires a bit of knowledge about counter classes but unless you are completely new to the game this deck will make miracles, well played!
Any replacements for avenging wrath?
Hey Crusher, Thanks for another fun list! I made a deck a while back that used similar principles, but murlocs instead of deathrattle minions, I had a lot of success with it. Even so, after playing your deck, I realized a few tweaks that would help. Thanks for the solid deck building, as I learn a little each time I play one of your decks. Hope to have a match between my Locodin and your Deathadin some day in legend. :) Feel free to give me more suggestions on ways to improve the deck. --Thorgrif
I think I'd go Dancing Swords. I think Blessing of Kings is too expensive giving your opponent a good removal target whereas that removal would otherwise just be sitting in their hand. Blessing of Might gives you almost the same attack for much cheaper. Avenging Wrath is a substantial upgrade over any of these options though.
True, but it was also very funny :)
indeed :)
He beat my undertaker score /:
Mine died to Fireball + ping
Instead of Mukla and blessing of might. I put in Hogger for late game and Owl for a lil bit of control for Sylvanas or bigger issues.
If you're relying on the late game with this deck, it doesn't really make sense seeing that aggro decks aim to finish by mid game.
If you cant land your draws to finish midgame having that back up helps.