Budget Zoolock! (Scholomance Academy, Updated)
- Last updated Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)
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Wild
- 24 Minions
- 6 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Zoolock
- Crafting Cost: 1720
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 11/29/2018 (Boomsday)
- mistermath314
- Registered User
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- 7
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Battle Tag:
mistermath#1513
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
134
P.S. - I do twitch streams now! Please follow me - I'll be streaming card games like Hearthstone and Eternal!
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Zoolock is a deck archetype which tries to flood the board early on, taking control of the game and keeping it. A common misconception is that zoolock works like a face deck - it is NOT. Zoolock players must understand how to correctly trade and keep control of the board, as well as decide when to face and when to trade.
Mulligan guide:
Good 1 drops: Flame Imp, Spirit Jailer, Blazing Battlemage.
Good 2 drops: Bonechewer Brawler, Acidic Swamp Ooze.
3 drop: Shadowlight Scholar
Good against aggro: Acidic Swamp Ooze, Soul Shear.
Good against control: Voracious Reader, Guardian Augmerchant, Bonechewer Brawler.
Game plan and strategy:
Zoolock doesn't exactly fit into either aggro, midrange, or control. It's comparable to both midrange and aggro, and changes its style based on the deck it is playing against.
The current iteration of the deck runs a multitude of cheap minions and plans to refill its hand throughout the game using a combination of Voracious Reader and Hand of Gul'dan. It also runs a small Soul Fragment package to offset self-harm caused by warlock's hero power and undercosted cards as well as power up Shadowlight Scholar.
Against aggro: Zoolock is actually a control deck! Try to contest board and get value trades - such as using your Blazing Battlemage to bring down a Satyr Overseer. A key card in this matchup is Acidic Swamp Ooze - pay attention to who you're facing! Correct usage of this card against a Rogue, DH, or Warrior can mean the difference between winning and losing. Avoid going face until you've firmly secured the board!
Against midrange: Zoolock tries to play aggro in this situation. You should be able to gain board easily, and since midrange often has limited control tools, you can often swarm out your opponents with quick combos. Trade out your opponent's minions when necessary and hit face when your opponent can't punish.
Against control: Zoolock can both dominate and get dominated. As usual, flood the board early on with cards like Beaming Sidekick and Flame Imp. You have to take more care in this matchup, though. Is your opponent a priest? Watch out for Breath of the Infinite. Druid? Better play around those Swipes. Correct positioning and holding back on plays is the key to victory here.
Upgrade Cards: *will edit more when I have time
Magic Carpet: A sticky minion that snowballs and gives value. If you choose to run this card, you're gonna want to drop some of your other cards and add even more one-drops, like Shieldbearer and Murmy.
Sea Giant: In this deck, where you're looking to flood the board with small creatures, Sea Giant will often be a 0 mana 8/8. It's just that good.
Diseased Vulture: A solid body with an ability that is easily triggerable and adds to tempo is absolutely amazing in this deck. Combine with cards like Neferset Thrasher and Darkglare for maximum self-harm synergy.
Chaos Gazer: Not optimal, but not too shabby. 4/3 is an aggressive statline, and the ability can screw up combo decks or just force the opponent to play suboptimally.
Arch-Villain Rafaam: TOGETHER, WE SHALL RULE DALARAN!
On a more serious note, Rafaam can be pretty good. He provides a lategame gameplan for if and when this deck runs out of steam, and is especially good when you consider that there's a fair chance that you highroll Princess Talanji. He's not in the best iteration of this deck at the moment (since you may end up getting rid of the Galakrond in your deck) but if you have him, he's still a fine option for when you go lategame.
Cards you may want to replace:
Anything you want to ask about? Comment, and I'll try to respond ASAP, as well as maybe add it to here!
Edit: 8/12 Revamp of deck. Now includes lackey synergy!
Edit: 8/15 Deleted some text about Leeroy Jenkins that no longer applied to the deck.
Edit: 12/10 Updated for Descent of Dragons, adding Galakrond synergies!
Edit: 12/11 Changed archetype from zoolock to Galakrond warlock (it's both, but Galakrond is more specific). Also, I'm sad to say that Hearthpwn is not considering this a budget deck, even though its only legendary was given out for free. I'm going to ask them if this can be changed, but if it can't be, this deck will not be visible by going to the budget section of the deck searcher.
Edit: 12/12 After seeing the meta shift on D1 of the new expansion, Faceless Corruptor seems to be absolutely insane. Getting it to key off a minion on turn 5 gets you a ridiculous number of stats. Therefore, since it's a rare and very important card, I've added it to the deck.
Edit: 12/16 Replaced Mecharoo with Murmy, since Mecharoo is rotating out of standard in April and is therefore a slightly less efficient craft. Updated the "Cards to replace" section by removing Mecharoo and adding Doubling Imp, which is still better to take out of the deck than Murmy. Also updated texts about Arch-Villain Rafaam and Leeroy Jenkins, who turn out to be slightly less viable than last expansion.
Edit: 1/10 Replaced Fiendish Rites with Devoted Maniac, due to the nerf changing the cost of Fiendish Rites from 3 to 4.
Edit: 1/17 Added Kronx Dragonhoof to the upgrade section.
Edit: 2/10 Added Chaos Gazer to the upgrade section.
Edit: 3/30 Removed Leeroy Jenkins from the upgrade section, since it is moving to the hall of fame.
Edit: 4/8 New expansion! Removed rotated cards, added in discard package. Updated outdated text.
Edit: 4/9 Demon Hunter nerfs might be out, but they're still very strong! Dropped Soulfire and added in Sacrificial Pact.
Edit: 4/10 Removed Fiendish Servant from the deck, since it is not obtainable without paying for the solo adventure. Added Beaming Sidekick.
Edit: 4/27 Added Imprisoned Scrap Imp to the deck, removed Sacrificial Pact and a copy of Serpent Egg. Updated text around Magic Carpet. Updated removable card section.
Edit: 7/28 I'm back to hearthstone and hearthpwn! Updated various text to reflect the current meta.
Edit: 8/13 New expansion! Removed galakrond package, added in multiple new cards as well as the soul fragment package.
Sounds great! I hope you continue to have fun and work toward a fully upgraded version! :D
Is there any place in the deck for Dark Pharaoh Tekahn, The Black Knight, or Deathwing? I love using as many of my legendaries as possible even if it lowers my overall win percentage (lol) and those were the only ones I could think of possibly working in the Zoo archetype. So far I've made the following changes with decent sucess: -1 Soulfire, -1 Mecharoo, -2 Serpent Eggs; +1 Veiled Worshipper, +1 Leeroy Jenkins, +2 Sea Giant (I didn't have any of the other epics you listed as upgrade cards).
Thank you so much for uploading your decklist and creating a thorough write-up! I'm coming back to the game after 2 years so I'm finding it hard to build competitive decks as I don't have many of the new legendaries.
Thanks for the comment! I'm glad I can help. Dark Pharaoh Tekahn is unfortunately just too slow. It's a 5 mana 4/4 with a marginal effect, and requires serious build-around to work. The Black Knight is a card I also happen to like very much. It's probably not optimal, but I could imagine running it over something like Dire Wolf Alpha. It's really a tech card (and arguably a subpar one to Spellbreaker), but it certainly has its uses in this value-infested metagame. Deathwing is just too weak and too slow. At a cost of 10 mana and discarding your whole hand, it's far from worth it.
If you want a full competitive decklist, you could go over to hsreplay (a website) and look at their meta tier list. Clicking on any of the decks there gets you to a page with the most popular version of the deck.
Good luck, and have fun playing zoolock!
Thank you so much for the reply! I really appreciate your suggestions. I'll take a look at that website; should prove to be very useful. Good luck laddering! I'm really enjoying zoo.
Just a wild thought, but why not ditch The Black Knight and put Tinkmaster Overspark in the deck? The way I see it there are a lot of deathrattle/taunt minions you want to potentially polymorph or when you have the board advantage, you can always transform a minion into a potential 5/5 or if you fail it's still a 1/1 who cares. Can backfire, but should be more of a tech card anyway. I'm going to try it out. The Black Knight is an awesome card, but somehow doesn't fit the low cost curve you're going for. You can remove 1x Doubling Imp from the deck and see if it works for you.
I played on this deck. 3 games - 3 shamans. lose all. GG
Sorry to hear about that. Unfortunately, shaman seems to be completely dominating the meta at the moment. Not only that, but this is a budget deck that isn't completely perfect due to its restrictions in cost. I hope your loss streak ends and you find fewer dust-spenders on ladder.
Hey, I have Leeroy and Sea Giants as additional cards, who would you replace? Would you fit both Sea Giants or just one? Any replies are welcome. Thanks in advance!
I would drop the soulfire and the serpent eggs. You should definitely add both sea giants - as I said, they're usually cheap 8/8s that you can get out and smash face with. Against control they come out early and are too big to remove. Against aggro they get easier to play and control the board.
Thanks, I cut soulfire and serpent eggs to fit Leeroy and both Giants. I just came back to the game after a 2 year pause so I only have the basic core and built your deck with 960 dust needed. Figured, why the heck not. So far it's doing good. Keep updating it. :D
Thank you! I hope you have fun :D
Just a helpful tip... if you're hitting a lot of Obelisk Priest, swapping out Argent Squire for Lightwarden can throw a wrench in their quest
Great zoo, much fun. The deck has been updated for Saviours of Uldum, however, much of the play guide still reflects old version (Kobold Lackey ?) I also would love updates for places of where to add Leeroy and other cards mentioned.
Thanks for the comment! I've added a list of cards that don't fit as well into the deck that can be replaced. On another note, Kobold Lackey is very relevant to the deck, seeing as Sinister Deal was added and the Rise of Shadows set isn't rotating for a long time.
Sorry, you are quite right. I mixed generated lackey with an earlier expansion card. On another note, I dropped both EVIL Recruiter and 1 Impbalming for 2x Magic Carpet and Dark Pharaoh Tekahn . That seems to work quite well, however Rafaam appears to be too unpredictable, unless played as last resort, really. I have lost some 2-3 games from around a 50% position, when played him.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience with Rafaam. However, I'd advise you to keep EVIL Recruiter in the deck, since the amount of stats its provides for its cost is insane. I think that cutting Duskbat is better.
Hello and thank you for this guide! If I have Keleseth and Soularoum, should I use both or just the Keleseth?
Thanks!
You should probably run both. Keleseth is obviously a must include, but The Soularium is a really interesting mix-up. While it certainly works better in Discolock than in Zoolock, It's definitely reasonable to run the The Soularium since later on in the game it's literally a 1-mana draw 3. If I'm correct, it's actually in the top zoolock deck right now, so go ahead and run it!
Thanks! What would you recommend taking out for The Soularium?
If you're running keleseth, you're gonna take out the two drops and replace them with soularium, keleseth, and copies of Lifedrinker or Saronite Chain Gang.