Hearthpwn

Hey there! Former COlesk here, now going by the nickname Reckoner25. How's it going? 

I play Hearthstone since beta. Been able to reach legend a few times. However, in 2019 I did not like the meta and, as my time shrinked between other games, work and study, I barely played HS at all. That said, even when I did reach legend it was only the dumpster ranks. Also, it's important to state that because it means I already had a collection of cards. The definition of "cheap" deck varies a lot on "are you able to craft it from 0" to "it's reasonable to invest some dust on that", and Galakrond Warrior attends the second line. Keep in mind, tho, that the deck includes only 4 legendaries (although a lotta epics), and 2 of those are free to get (and the other 2 are REALLY good legendaries). The deck relies a lot on cards that are actually new -- which means they won't rotate out this April --, so the investment is reasonable.

Y'all tired to see "80% winrate deck!!! Must try!!!". That's a cheap clickbait, but it works most of the time (fortunately or not). Well, this decklist has actually exactly 81% winrate (suck it, priest), and it drove me from rank 17 to rank 5 in a few hours - 3, to be precise. I know you all could get that list from any meta sites you'd like, but I will make a card-by-card explanation here, plus some informations on how I played this deck and how I got that devastating winning-streak. 

As I said, and I can't stress this enough, I'm not exactly a great Hearthstone player. I do understand the basics of the game and, well, of many card games, but I'm not a marvellous top-finisher or something like that. Keep that in mind. What I'm trying to say here is why this is a good achievement for me, and why I felt like sharing it here: it might help people like me. 

So, let's talk about our deck choice. Galakrond Warrior. I was looking into cheap decks to make, so that I could dust my about-to-rotate-but-good-cards, and flirted a bit with Aggro Hunter. Hunter is one of my favorite classes, the very only one I have golden (back when it meant something). But I was disappointed with the deck. Not only it's hard to master, it's not as fast as I thought it would be, neither claims victory as easy as I thought it would. Forgive me for falling into the "I just wanna win" principle here; if I was trying to get legend already, it would be fine to lose-and-learn games, but in rank 20? Cmon. Then, I made an Embiggen Druid and fell in love with the deck. Got a record of 7-1 -- lost only the mirror, and I don't have Winged Guardians (I did not buy the adventure). But I quickly grew tired of it because it took some time to close matchs. Sorry again, I wanna go fast. Gas, gas, gas. Y'all know that taunt is cheat, and I don't like cheating too much. Galakrond Warrior got into my eye. It seemed a super aggro deck! Nice! We love super aggro decks. 

Galakrond Warrior isn't a super-aggro-the-face-is-the-place kinda deck. It's a pressure oriented midrange/tempo. I discovered that on my very first playtest. "Cmon, Reck, dafuq is a pressure-oriented-midrangy-tempo?". It's a deck that intends to set the opponent into a certain amount of life (16, to be exact), winning the board with minions instead of removals and clearing the way for devastating mid-game cards, like Galakrond himself.

"U lyin' Reck, I can go face all the time with my galakronxxx and win hehe" yes, but that would fall into the same problem as aggro hunter falls: Consistency. Galakrond Warrior, as most midrange decks, excel on one thing: All the games are pretty similar one to another. You close them very similarly, the winning turn is always about the same and so on. You can FEEL it when you lost the game. It's hard to turn around a match where you got dominated, therefore the build tries to avoid that. 

The main difference between my build and most other Galakrond builds is that I chose to play SN1P-SN4P over 1 Cruel Taskmaster, even without Zilliax. That's it. That's the only card-wise thing that's different, and not THAT different. "Why da heck u writtin' this wall of text then, bruh? Just copy the list, add 80% win-rate to the title and be happy with views" yeah sure, but I have time. People in Hearthstone -- and most other meta-oriented games --, myself including, tend to copy a list and play it based on how much other people had success with the list, without cutting some tiny edges I hope to help you cut here. Let's get on that.

How did I play the deck:

Honestly, the most important thing for me in midrange archetype is to not waste resources early on. Sometimes, doing 4 damage for a 3 health minion while protecting your board is good; sometimes, it's not (you wasted ONE FREAKING POINT of damahe). This deck refils the board with ease, using the attack-factor of Invoking Galakrond as both pressure tool and board stabilizer. If you're facing a slower deck, consider doing plays such as a turn 2 Temple Berserker into Awaken! or into Inner Rage+Bloodsworn Mercenary; it's a disgusting power-play for turn 3, and having the opponent trying to deal with that without big spells is always good to see. 

I know it feels awkward playing that Awaken! into nothing just to hurt your Temple Berserker, but that's 3 mana 5 damage, and this is important. AWAKEN! is a card that loses value over time, and playing it on curve allows that your Galakrond is fully invoked faster, which is the main winning-scenario for us. 

Also, try to invoke Galakrond as your main priority. It wasn't uncommon for me to play Devoted Maniac as a 4 mana 2/2, because if that would assure I have Shield of Galakrond on 5 -- or just a twice invoked Galakrond -- it would make the game much easier. 

This deck has an insane synergy. Every card adds-up to each other. Sometimes, greedy is good, but most of the times, you don't have to worry about it. Invoke Galakrond twice, estabilize with Scion of Ruin, then invoke Galakrond two more times and play him on 9. That's the plan. Piece o' cake. 

Sometimes, though, you will HAVE to play a not-fully-invoked Galakrond. Is that the end of the world? Well, if anything, it means we are not doing so well. When you feel FORCED to play a not-fully-invoked Galakrond, it surely means you are behind, and you are NOT supposed to be, due to the power level of our cards early on. It doesn't mean that you lost the game yet (unless the opponent kills you, of course), because of the huge tempo-swing Galakrond can perform. Drawing a +4/+4 Scion of Ruin is just disgusting for the opponent. Keep in mind that this isn't a how you MUST act all the time, but which are the optimal (or, at least, optimal for me) choices. 

Hearthstone/cardgames unofficial rules still apply to this deck. If you are on the play and have a Ritual Chopper and a Temple Berserker, the choice is always, 100%, play the Temple Berserker. What I mean is: If the board is empty, you don't have to agressively try to hit your opponent unless it sets up lethal. Also, "don't float mana" does not mean "hero power instead of playing a Town Crier on 2". With this deck, the less you hero power, the better.

To summarize, what you should do is:
 - Aggressive mulligan for your 1 and 2 drops is key. I don't believe you keep neither Galakrond, nor Kronx with this deck. 
 - Try to not float mana until turn 7; less value but more pressure is better;
 - Always look for lethal options. Remember that Kor'kron Elite + Inner Rage + Bloodsworn Mercenary means 12 damage for 8 mana (if you are Galakrond, that's at least 15 damage for 10 mana). 
 - Understand your opponent. Druids, for instance, will have big tempo swings with their decks, either by healing 12 and making a 6/6 taunt or by playing 2 enourmous minions at the same time. Try to make those plays either obligatory or less good for them. What I mean is: sometimes, you just want to force a quest druid to Swipe you on four, because that effectively means you got one more turn. 
 - A fully invoked Galakrond on turn 9 is better than a twice invoked Galakrond on turn 7. "Hurp that's obvious". Yes, it is. Don't get the urge of drawing huge minions dominate you. 
 - This deck can kill from 16 life easily. Plan your turns; sometimes, going face instead of doing a trade is correct, even though most of the times you just want to trade.
 - Aggro decks can be hard to beat (yeah, trust me). Remember that Etherum Rover is a mech and SN1P-SN4P has magnetic, for instance. It should help you to estabilize or even snap-win against hunters or token druids. Don't try to race aggros, you will lose that race. I know it's uber counter-intuitive.
- Aim to extract the most of cards like Battle Rage. Don't be shy to Awaken! your own board into Battle Rage (in the same turn, for the love of all that's sacred). Drawing 2-3 cards for 2 mana is sweet. If you don't have any other plays, it's fine to cycle it as well. 

Cards that I tested (and opted to not use): Cruel Taskmaster, Acolyte of Pain, Zilliax, Restless Mummy.

I think that's it. Here's to some Frequently (never) Asked Questions:

Why do you play SN1P-SN4P? Without Zilliax [/card]it's bad and Cruel Taskmaster is an enabler of many combos.
That's only partially true. Snip-snap is a very solid 3 drop (which we lack) and a very reasonable 6 drop as well (which we also lack), besides being a much better card to draw with Galakrond. [card]Cruel Taskmaster is a card aimed to be played out-of-tempo (he excels at turn 4 and 8), value oriented, and I don't believe this deck is suited for that kind of play. 

Why don't you play Zilliax? It's amazing with SN1P-SN4P. 
Because Zilliax, as far as I believe is the best neutral legendary card in Standard right now, does not have Charge. Charge is important in this deck, because we are not an uber-late game value deck -- we would lose too fast too easy to druids, priests, warlocks and such. The deck tries to capitalize on the early turns and close the game quickly with the "big plays", hence we don't have space for another drop 5. Our choice for turn 5 big dude is Leeroy Jenkins simply because we can easily do a 8-mana-3-card-combo that does 16 damage in the worst case scenario: Inner Rage the Leeroy then copy it with Bloodsworn Mercenary. When that sneaky priest player seems to have stabilized the board after a Mass Hysteria - heal - go turn, we can kill him outta nowhere with that, and Zilliax wouldn't let us do so. Also, Leeroy adds redundance in the deck (16 damage combo), which is VERY important for midrange decks.

Why don't you play cards that are good in warrior, such as Brawl, Plague of Wrath and Supercollider? 
Because that's not what our deck aims to do. Those cards are high-impact value cards, which means they plan to stabilize the board -- empty it, in other words --, not pressure the opponent. Those cards excel in decks that have HUGE late-games, such as Dr. Boom, Mad Genius decks, hence they don't "agree" with our gameplan. Imagine how lame would it be to play a Scion of Ruin on 4 into a ... Brawl? Just playing Shield of Galakrond after that is so much better.

I don't have those super expensive epic cards! You lied to me! This deck expensive! Me want hero-pawa-hunter!
Okay, here's some replaces you can make:
 - Snip-Snap for Cruel Taskmaster (I dunno if you can get free Snip-Snap anymore, I got it logging into the game a lot of time ago); 
 - Scion of Ruin for Restless Mummy (keep in mind it's much worse);

Cards like Bloodsworn Mercenary, Kronx and Leeroy are pretty much not possible to replace. If you don't have them, I'd strongly advise you to play another deck (maybe Embiggen Druid?). 

That concludes my big wall-of-text. I'm sorry for spelling: English isn't my native language and it can be a little bit rusty for you. If that's the case, don't be shy to reach me on twitter @Reckoner_25.

I hope you enjoyed the article! Feedbacks appreciated. Hugs and g'morning!