Hearthpwn

 

 

 

What's up people? It's me RenoJackson again. I've been tinkering with Aggro Discardlock before the new expansion and felt that it was very much under-explored and under-appreciated. Before Rastakhan, Tiny Knight of Evil, with some help from its discard friends, pretty much carried the deck, but now it doesn't have to do that alone anymore! The new expansion, with the introduction of Reckless Diretroll and especially Soulwarden has pushed it into tier 2 territory :) the deck's inherent inconsistency prevents it from entering tier 1, but it's a crazy explosive deck when it works. When it doesn't, it might be a tinyyyyy bit tilting for you and you feel like the whole world hates you, but fortunately it doesn't happen all that often! Here's proof that the pay-off is worth it:

 

 

It took me a day and a half and a record of 57-28 with the help of relatively fast game time to get to legend from rank 5. Here, I will explain card choices and notable exclusions:

 

Tiny Knight of Evil: Where would Discard be without this little fella and his devilish 'HUGE IN EVILLLLLL'? He can so easily roll out of control with a single Soularium, or even a Soulfire is enough to get him out of Rogue and Shaman's ping range and make him a 4 ATK minion, pretty much unkillable in the early game for Priests. I've lost counts of games I got this guy to 8+ ATK, he pretty much carried so many games on his own. It's never correct to cut this card.

 

Succubus versus Darkshire Librarian: There are two main reasons to playing Succubus over Librarian. As a 4/3, it can't be pinged off by many of Rogue's and Shaman's cards, and is untouchable by Priests within the first 4 turns. The reason for playing Librarian is because of the cycle, but the deck has so much cycle in Malchezaar's Imp and Soularium already, sometimes you're even worried that you're fatiguing yourself too quickly!

 

Soul Infusion: A +2/+2 buff for 1 mana? Always good no matter how you look at it. It's not that restrictive to cast and it helps your 1 and 2 drops to stick on board, or help with Doomguard burst damage. Otherwise, because of its cheap cost, you'll happily discard this card with Reckless Diretroll over more expensive cards like Tiny Knight of Evil or Doomguard.

 

Reckless Diretroll: Great addition from Rastakhan! Very so often it discard disposable cards like The Coin or Soul Infusion, and discarding Soulfire doesn't hurt all that much. You'll be surprised how often you can maneuver the situation so that the Diretroll discard Zavas, Silverware Golem and even Fist of Jaraxxus!

 

Fist of Jaraxxus: This deck thrives off of massive early game highroll, and a 0 mana deal 4 damage does just that! You're at the mercy of RNG sometimes, but man does it feel good when this card does the job. It's massive tempo packed in one card and is almost guaranteed 4 face damage for 0 against control deck. Also, an extra Discard outlet is always appreciated.

 

Lakkari Felhound: The card isn't that good on its own, but it helps as a massive taunt. But its main use is feeding energy for Tiny Knight of Evil or Malchezaar's Imp cycle. It discards 2 cards, so you highroll twice as much! (Or mess up twice as much).

 

Blood-Queen Lana'thel versus High Priestess Jeklik: While its been absolutely bonkers in slower standard versions, Jeklik way is too slow for this deck, so it only works in controlly decks (ones with Quest to be exact). We want to be dominating and don't want multiple copies of slow cards that prevents us from discarding more aggressive cards and fill our hands with trash. Lana'thel on the other hand grows bigger quickly and is a strong offensive force when put onto the board. You can play Lana'thel turn 5, and then discard the following turn and see the Queen grows!

 

Loatheb: Just don't discard him! And you'll win many many games against Big Priest, Kingsbane Rogue, Mages and Control when timed right. You can even slow down a couple of turns if you don't want to risk discarding him. Absolute key in some matchups.

 

Golakka Crawler vs Spellbreaker and Shieldbreaker: They are different tech cards that serve different purposes.

 

Soulwarden: This card is crazy! Safe to say Blizzard printed a Drakonid Operative for Discardlock. Remember when you discover Drakonid Operative off of Librarian and keep getting Operatives forever? Just discard one of them and you will get infinite value with the other one! Even if you don't hit the dream, this card allows you to take more risks, knowing key cards like Doomguards, Loathebs and Bloodreaver Gul'dan have a high chance of eventually coming back to your hand. 3 extra cards and a good body? Sign me in!

 

The Soularium: Try playing it with an Imp on board or coining it out turn 2 with Tiny Knight. You'll understand.

 

Bloodreaver Gul'dan: He's crazy value in topdeck mode! Most likely will bring back some Doomguards for that sweet SMORC value, and the Tiny Knights and Felhounds are actually pretty annoying too. If he's drawn earlier, don't be afraid to just discard him. You have Soulwardens as insurance policy, so you'll get to land down that sweet succ eventually.

 

Notable exclusion:

 

Lakkari Sacrifice: WTF??? A discard deck without a quest designed for it??? Well I would've tried to put it in if it doesn't suck so much.  It's way too slow, the payoff isn't that good, it takes up space EVERY turn preventing you from going hard on board, it takes up a space in mulligan. Everything the Quest does slows the deck down, and it is evident that it is not suited for the faster version of Discard at all.

 

Cataclysm and Shriek: Boardclears are obviously not suited for the more aggressive version. I tried playing Shriek but more often and not it's stuck on my hand because I can't nuke my own board.

 

Howlfiend: For the sake of our sanity, we want to have a degree of control over our discards, and Howlfiend does NOT do that. Playing Howlfiend means we are at the mercy of our opponent and they can dictate our discards. While it's very good in the Quest version because of how fast it dumps card for you, it's a big NO in this one.

 

Kobold Librarian: The same reason we don't play Darkshire Librarian. We don't need draw, we need overstatted minions.

 

This decks good matchups are Big Priest, Kingsbane Rogue, Mages and Druids. It does decently against Odd Rogue, Pirate Warrior and Control decks, and is unfavoured against Even Shamans, Pirate Rogue and Paladins.

 

If you want to see the deck in action, check out my stream here!