Hearthpwn

About this deck:

This deck is based on the standard vanilla Control Warrior, with a few changes with cards from GvG.

Control Warriors have a lot of synergy with doing damage to their own minions for different advantages, such as card draw, armor and more damage on the board.

 

So what cards are good enough to include in a standard Control Warrior, that makes this different from a pre-GvG deck?

Bouncing Blade; this adds a lot of synergy with the rest of the cards in this deck, and could also be a great way to turn the board around if you're behind, for example if your enemy has two minions out combine this with Execute. It serves the same purpose as Whirlwind did before, but with the potential of more damage to enemy minions, and more card draw/armor/damage for you. Not to mention that this instantly kills off any big minion your opponent has on the board if it's their only one. It's also very effective to keep the board clear long enough for you to get your big minions out, as this instantly kills a Chillwind Yeti, Dark Cultist, or a Druid of the Claw if you've managed to keep the board empty.

Commanding Shout; this isn't something that I thought was good enough in a Control Warrior before, but to combine this with Bouncing Blade will allow all of your minions to survive until one of the opponents minions is dead, all while triggering Armorsmith's, Frothing Berserker's, Acolyte of Pain's. Since you can still attack with all of these minions after the blade stopped bouncing, it can make for quite an effective board clear, or more damage to the face if the situation calls for it.

Shieldmaiden; this is a fantastic class card for warriors, and will be very useful. A 5/5 for 6 mana isn't that good, but considering you get the armor value of a Shield Block for just 3 extra mana makes this card very good. Using this and Shield Slam can be a very effective way to turn the board around to your favor.

 

So which cards didn't make the cut?

Warbot in my opinion isn't good enough, because more often than not your first few turns is just gonna be focused on gathering armor, and using weapons or spells to deal with the opponents minions.

Ogre Warmaul isn't a bad weapon by itself, 4/2 is very good for 3 mana. There are however better (and more reliable) weapons, not to mention there are plenty of other ways in the deck to deal with threats.

Siege Engine could potentially be good, but I think it will be a fast target for many bigger removals, such as Shadow Word: Death, Big Game Hunter, etc. What's good about it however is that if it were to get out of hands and get silenced, you'd still have 5 damage. With that being said, you don't need extra damage for control, and Frothing Berserker would, in my opinion, be a better alternative to boost your minions damage.

Crush isn't a bad card, with a damaged minion on the board you're looking at a more accurate Deadly Shot, but I think Execute combined with many other things would be a better alternative.

 

What are some alternative cards?

The Black Knight is a very good counter card, and can be very good if you play against a lot of taunts.

Hogger isn't that rare to see in a Control Warrior deck, because the 2/2 Gnolls goes very well with together with Armorsmith and Frothing Berserker. 

Cairne Bloodhoof is never a bad card to have in a control deck, it's very annoying to deal with and even if it draws out a silence you still have a Baine Bloodhoof to deal with.

Loatheb isn't a bad idea either, and if you play your cards right (ha ha) can be very effective and win the game. However if you play him at the wrong time it's just a 5/5 for 5, which isn't that good.

Faceless Manipulator's versatility makes it a very good card, but due to lack of space in the deck he had to be cut.

Iron Juggernaut doesn't have very good stats with 6/5 for 6 mana, and most games with this type of deck will be won through pure control, and you don't need 10 damage at a random point (or never), which is why I excluded it from this deck. It would however go through Ice Block since the mandatory card draw happens at the mages turn, but Control Warriors usually win vs. Spell Mages and Secret Mages anyway. If you're sitting on the card however and you lack something else it could be a good addition to the deck.

Gorehowl is very common in Control Warrior decks, and it works very well for control or just 7 damage to the face (especially combined with Alexstrasza).

Ysera was originally in this deck, but had to be taken out due to being to slow. If you feel you play mostly against slow control decks it might be a good idea to put this back in.

 

A similar deck worked very well for me before GvG, and I have a feeling this will work very well also. If you have any suggestions for improvements, share your thoughts.

 

Updated deck v1.1:

After playing a few games after the actual GvG release, I came to the same conclusion that many others noted and posted about in the comments below. Given that the new expansion has caused an influx of both rush decks, and paladin decks (not to mention paladin rush decks), I decided to remove Ysera from the deck, as it was the slowest card in there, and add a Whirlwind.

Updated deck v1.2:

While I felt the deck was doing quite decently, I felt it needed some improvements. First of all, I removed the Frothing Berserkers. They're best played in combination with Armorsmiths and Acolyte of Pains, but there wasn't always the possibility to combo the cards, and without a combo they were often underperforming. Granted, they they did sometimes downright win me the game, but this was somewhat rare and in most cases they never had a chance to go berserk before they were killed.

I decided to add another Whirlwind and a Death's Bite instead to perform better vs. the rush decks, which was the hardest match-up.

I tried the deck out a few times, and the new changes made it much easier to play against most forms of rush decks, but it did lower my win rate vs. control (and especially Handlock) decks.

Sadly enough, the Bouncing Blades lost a lot of it's value when the Frothing Berserkers were removed from the deck, which is why I took those out as well. I really wish I didn't have to, because I think it's a really fun card (probably my favorite from GvG) and it can be really versatile. Having one in your deck might be fine as it can be used to instantly kill anything that a Druid ramps out early, or if a Handlock throws out two big minions and you can combo it with an Execute, or just trigger an Armorsmith or Acolyte of Pain. Depending on what the meta looks like when GvG cools down a bit I might be able to put one back (maybe instead of a Whirlwind) or something. I really hope so.

Without a bunch of blades bouncing around, Commanding Shout became more or less useless, and having it in the deck was just redundant.

Since Handlock was my hardest match-up, and other late-game oriented decks gave me some trouble as well, I decided to add a Big Game Hunter.

There's also a lot of weapons floating around, especially as Paladins is being played a lot more than before, but also due to an increase of Control Warriors (maybe due to Sjow hitting rank 1 on both NA and EU servers). Enough so that I felt that Harrison Jones should make an appearance in the deck.

That left me with one card left to put in, and I decided to go for another Sludge Belcher. Mainly because because it eats two hits from two big minions that Handlocks and any other deck that focuses on the late game can throw out, but also because it can delay a rush deck for a turn or two.

Current stats in ranked since the latest changes:

Class	Type	Win	Losses
Mage	Control	3	1
Mage	Mech	4	0
Mage	Miracle	2	0
Druid	Control	2	1
Druid	Ramp	1	0
Druid	Rush	1	0
Warrior	Control	1	1
Warrior	Rush	2	0
Warlock	Handlock	2	2
Warlock	Murloc	1	0
Warlock	Zoo	1	0
Priest	Control	4	2
Hunter	Huntertaker	4	2
Hunter	Control	1	2
Paladin	Control	4	2
Rogue	Miracle/Mech	0	1
Rogue	Rush/Mech	1	0
Rogue	Mill	0	1
Rogue	Control/Mech	1	0
Shaman	Control	1	1
Shaman	Rush	0	1

Current stats are 67.92 % wins, or 2.12 wins per loss. Win rate has improved now, and is now almost as good as the original deck after Ysera was removed. I am however playing 10 ranks higher than before.