Hearthpwn

I know everybody likes combo decks that do fancy stuff. Undatakah or Oakheart are just fun interactions. But what if Vanilla cards like Damaged Stegotron make a better deck than the fancy schmancy Oakheart or Undatakah Taunt deck?

If you are interested in a taunt Druid that goes back to the old Witching Hour combo (BOOORING) and even removes the Oakheart interaction (WHHHAT MORE BOORING?) this is the right place for you.

For the Undatakah version of the deck, follow this link.

What is wrong with the old Taunt Druid?

The Taunt Druid could play most of his important minions only after he reached 8 or 9 mana. Moreover, many high winrate Taunt Druids run only one Dragonhatcher. That means that your Oakheart turns are usually gonna be rather meager - you might draw Dragonhatcher first, you might not.

There is just too much luck involved: Do I draw Oakheart on turn 9? Is there a Dragonhatcher left when I draw Oakheart? Are there even Dragons left in the deck after the first Dragon is pulled? Do I pull Hadronox and does it get silenced or hexed?

The chances of drawing Oakheart on turn 9 and having a Dragonhatcher in the deck are, depending on how much you draw, below 25% if you run 1 Dragonhatcher. Add the condition that you still want a least one Dragon in your deck and you are slightly above 20%. Since it's turn 9, you have played on average 2 taunts - one Golem and an 8 cost taunt. You don't really want to pull Hadronox because it duplicates weak taunts and furthermore it is open to hex or silence. With one Golem in the deck, that gives you a 50/50 chance. So the chances that everything goes according to plan on turn 9 is slightly above 10%.

And Oakheart turns do not have the huge impact they have for Big Druid, so the swing turn usally does not win the game. And most of the game you just don't draw it until turn 9. Also you don't want to depend so much on luck to win a game!

Bye Bye Oakheart

So we have established that the Dragon combo is slow and rather inconsistent. What if there was a Taunt Druid deck that is faster and better against aggro and more consistent when you don't draw godlike?

Juicy Psychmelon always draws you Hadronox as well as a strong  Taunt. There is no more premature Hadronox ejaculation with Master Oakheart. You can play Hadronox when you want it!

Undatakah or no Undatakah?

At first I thought Undatakah will surely be the future of Taunt Druid. But the witching hour combo is very consistent, unless you play against Even or Shudderwock Shaman or Big Mage. Since these decks only make up for 5.3% of the decks, the traditional taunt druid still has a higher winrate. One reason surely is that people need to learn how to play Undatakah Druid - Taunt Druid is just a very established deck by now. I think the main point is that Oaken Summons is more consistent without Astral Tiger. You are always guaranteed protection against early aggression. That's why the traditional Taunt Druid fares much better in agressive matchups. Additionally, the Witching Hour + Cube combo is easier to pull off than Undatakah + Spellstone as you might have used Spellstone for enemy minions and that is why I created this version of the deck - without Undatakah and Oakheart.

Strategies

Wait with Juicy Psychmelon against Control Warlock in order to play around Demonic Project

if you play against another Taunt Druid or a similarly slow deck, you might want to keep your Ironwood Golems, Oaken Summons and Rabble Bouncer  (if included) to make your taunt pool more potent.

Card alternatives

vs more Aggro

If you face a lot of aggro decks like Odd Paladin or Zoolock and can't win, try replacing  one or two Damaged Steotrons with Rabble Bouncers.

Recent changes

My firsts version included Damaged Stegotrons instead of Furious Ettins. They could be played one turn earlier and are even stronger than Sleepy Dragony when resurrected. However, they have no synergy with Juicy Psychmelon, so I tried Furious Ettin in my second version. But when I looked at the winrates of the two innitial decks, the Stegotron deck fared  better than the deck with Furious Ettins so I took out Zilliax (which is not doing so well for many taunt decks) and replaced one Furious Ettin with Stegotron to keep the big 5 12 minion but also keep some Psychmelon synergies.

Mulligan

As usual look for ramp!

Against aggro you want to keep Wild Growth, Oaken Summons as well as removal e.g. Spellstone or Wrath vs. Odd Rogue, Naturalize vs Even Warlock and Swipe and Rabbel Bouncer (if included) especially vs. Odd Paladin.