Hearthpwn

Hi guys so this was my first time hitting legend and I wanted to share the deck I built. I'll keep the post updated to see what the highest rank I can reach is.

Highest Rank Hit: 254

I'll break this up into seperate sections to hopefully make it easier: Minions, Spells,  Strengths and Weaknesses

Minions:

I originally thought of this deck idea after rotating between reno dragon priest and reno N'zoth priest. Whilst these decks were high value they were inconsistent and oft relied on top decking. So I decided to drop the singleton package entirely and instead run the quest. Here's the minions I decided to use to compliment this...

Since Saviors of Uldum released the 'Awaken the Makers' has become far easier to complete thanks to the introduction of grandmummy which triggers your quest twice and psychopomp which both summons one of your dead minions and gives it reborn. 

Cards such as Loot Hoarder and Dead Ringer Serve as the decks card draw engine, meaning there is no need to run powerword shield or northshire cleric.

Misstress and Khartut Defender provide extra healing. Whilst Convincing Infiltrator, Tortallan Shellraiser serve as defensive barricades to prolong the game if needed.

Sylvannas is the high the value deathrattle minion you ideally want to try and ressurect in those control match ups and serves as a generally decent method to bait out enemy removal spells or coutner a growing board of minions.

Of course we also have N'Zoth though note unlike in many other deathrattle priests he is not so much a high value finisher but serves as another defense and lifegain mechanism and card draw engine. 

Combing this together we have Benedictus, I can't stress how important this guy is in this deck, whilst he wont do much for facing the aggro decks he is key in defeating other control decks because your win condition for these matches is going to be controlling the board at all times and exhausting your opponent of resources, using there own deck and value cards against them. For aggro decks your win condition will be a mixture of the defensive deathrattles and of course Amara. 

Spells

I'll adress the area of effect first. Plague of Death and Mass Hysteria proved to me at least as the most effective board clears,  with a back up copy of Lightbomb just in case. Thanks to Amara it's quite easy to survive to turn 9 so there should be no problems in the mana cost of Plague of Death although 2 copies are in my view necessary for countering other N'zoth's and Bloodreaver Guldan's etc... Make sure to try and get as much value as possible from them however unless you are in absolute danger of being killed. 

Penance and Spirit Lash combo'd with the Thalnos provide you with a little more anti-aggro and lifegain, not much to say here. 

Senance your going to want to be using on your Amara a lot of the time, sometimes even if you are at 30 life casting the Amara just to get an 8/8 taunt out is great tempo but it can also be highly useful in having two copies for those control games.

Shadow Visions gives flexibility and provides you with lots of answers to whatever situation you may be in. Most the time I found it was vital for picking up a 3rd (yes a 3rd copy) of Plague of Death though it could prove useful for finishing the quest with Twilight's Call if needed.

Twilight's Call can ressurect some powerful deathrattles and also serves as a good tool to completing Awaken the Makers.

Strengths

- Thanks to the addition of more early game deathrattles such as Grandmummy completing the quest is far easier and can be done before hyper-aggresive decks can finish you, at which point the deck basically wins because after amara you can just follow up with any board-clear needed etc.

- Also perfoms successfully against a lot of control decks as long as you can get the bendictus out asap. Make sure you have a strong hand to back you up when you do so though because playing him will lose you some tempo and the enemy control deck is likely going to turn on the aggresion.

- It's an off-meta deck which no one expects, I only faced one big priest from rank 3-1 and I assume the people playing against me were expecting a big priest. This can mess up there mulligan of course which is a plus for you. 

Weaknesses

- I do believe this deck is Meta-dependant, with the rise of secret tempo mage came a lot of control decks. I can see this deck struggling against some archetypes i'll list below.

- OTK decks will destroy you and Big Priest won't be fun either. I did think about adding a Dirty Rat to try and combo potential OTK but thankfully I didn't actually run into any on my climb up ladder (also only encountering one Big Priest). In addition I have no idea how this deck would perform against Midrange as I didn't face many.

- It requires thinking. Hopefully that doesn't sound like to much of a backdraw as yes every deck requires thinking and whilst I wouldn't say its the most complex deck out there if you the type of person who likes to smorc this isn't the deck for you. Knowing what deathrattle minions you want to try and ressurect is vital for the win. Spawning in 6 loot hoarders against another control deck is not something you want to be doing, so try and tailor what you do spawn in, in the more complex matches.

- Long games 

Mulligan Guide

- Against aggro your looking for your Mistress, and any early game deathrattles. Sometimes mulliganing for a Mass Hysteria is actually a safe bet as well. 

- For Control try and look for you card draw enginges. Getting Benadictus as soon as possible is a safe bet, of course Sylvannas is a great pick up as well.