Hearthpwn

Good morning Guys, I got first time Legend with this deck and since I had so much fun with it I would like to share. A week ago I saw a very similar decklist of zoolock with Imprisoned Scrap Imp and Infectious Sporeling and I decided to give it a shot. It carried me from gold 10 to diamond 5, but then the magic ended. DHs were almost unbeatable and cards like Neferset Thrasher often meant suicide if played. So after a few tries and janky brews (like a lackey-dragon zoolock that was a bust but a lot inconsistent) I decided to try Vilefiend and after all that seemed to be a good call. Vilefiend grants life and tempo against FaceHunters and DHs and is also a demon for Kanrethad Ebonlocke.

This deck absolutely crushes GalaRogue and has a pretty good matchup overall against slower decks. I also went 3-1 with this list vs DHs thanks to Vilefiend. I think that the worst matchups are likely Mage and Highlander Hunter.

Always mulligan for Imprisoned Scrap Imp, keep very fast hand without him only vs rogues. Keep Vilefiend vs DHs, Hunters and Paladins if you have a fast hand. If I see that people are intrested in this deck I will go more in depth (it's my first time posting a deck and actually I don't know if I can give good advices...). 

UPDATE 27/04

Currently playing this at 5K Legend, I climbed very fast from 27K to 8K and then got a bit stuck because of DHs (still tough matchup, most of my wins came from  Imprisoned Scrap Imp + Vilefiend) and the increasing popularity of damaged warrior (sometimes is very difficult to play around Risky Skipper and Armorsmith shenanigans). On the other side Highlander decks are still a good matchup and GalaRogue it's almost an autowin. From 9K I started to take note of the winrate and right now I have a good 67% of wins.

UPDATE 29/04

Wow guys, I want to thank you all for the ups and the comments, I wasn't expecting all of this! Right now I'm tinkering with other lists of zoolock to make the matchup against DHs more winnable (actually I was a little salty because of a bad streak of games due also to crazy RNG and conncetion problems). I saw this deck became quite popular and so I want to make this guide a little more detailed...

UPDATE 11/05

Hi again guys, I decided to update because today I got Legend again with this same list! I feel like I've improved a lot in playing this deck and I learned how to deal against some bad matchups like Warrior and DHs....I got a 62% winrate including the last few days of the past season (though times, I tried different playstyles and I also missplayed a lot). I think this version of zoolock has a better matchup against warriors because it doesn't rely only on Imprisoned Scrap Imp (for example Expired Merchant for a double Kanrethad Prime is a very huge late game changer).

MATCHUP ANALYSIS (in my experience/opinion)

Favorable: GalaRogue, GalaLock, Highlander Rogue, DragonPriest, Big Druid

All this decks lacks efficient way to interact with our board while putting pressure on us. As I said before rogues are our best matchup by far, we only have to be aware of Shadowjeweler Hanar and Heistbaron Togwaggle. Against Galalock we must be careful to predict and counter their Plague of Flames but more often than not we can put them in awkward position with lethal on board just too fastly. Against DragonPriest and BigDruid we just put pressure over and over again (those are the kind of matchups where Infectious Sporeling shines and even the Prime could be game ending.

Even: Highlander Hunter, Highlander Priest, Highlander Mage, Facehunter, Mirror

All the highlander decks aside from Rogue are even matchups because it depends on luck and rng. A timely Zephyr, the Great could just steal games so try (if possible) to play also to counter that. Against Priest and Mage the gameplan is pretty much the same, put some pressure on board but always have a plan to rebuild after a boardswipe. Against Hunter be aware of all the possible ways they could kill you (I lost some games after passing the turn with lethal on board and 15 life...). Facehunter is a strange matchup where we often put them on topdeck and without a board but where we also could die like every turn...keep in mind that all the damage you took on your turn triggers Deseased Vulture and Darkglare so you can do some pretty crazy turns if you exploit their Leper Gnome and Explosive Trap

Unfavorable: tempo DH, damaged Warrior, Murloc Pala

Here we are, unfortunatly DH is still a bad matchup for us...I don't know if it is the rng or else but Dhs just seems to have always the right card at the right moment. The gameplan is pretty much the same against FaceHunter, but you have to face even more way they can just kill you out of nowhere, face boardswipes from Altruis, the outcast and you can never put them truly on topdeck because of the crazy carddraws. Half of my losses came from a Skull of Gul'dan into another skull or Altruis...I have to keep on trying to improve myself and the deck for this matchup! Damaged Warrior as I said before it's a matchup where all is on if they have Risky Skipper at the right moment or not, but obviusly their deck is made to be sure that this happens more oft than not. Remember however that warriors most of the times can only use the skippers as boardwipes so you can deal with them by forcing a skipper to a not so huge board. Murloc Pala is strange, sometimes it feels like a very good matchup but other times feels almost unbeatable. I think this is a bad matchup overall because they basically have better trades than us and can rebuild faster.

I hope this guide can help a little, also if you're intrested I can share some of my replays if you think they can be helpful!

Thank you all for and good game to everyone!