Hearthpwn

I am a very casual, 4-5 games a day player, who gets more and more tense the nearer I get to Legend, and on the 3 occasions I have made it I have breathed a huge sigh of relief and barely played the game for the rest of the month, despite telling myself about all the great off-meta decks I will experiment with when I make it.

This is a fairly standard Gala Bomb Warrior deck that did me proud, going 35-13 so far from Diamond 6 through to 19k legend now. I couldn't see it anywhere on the site and thought I'd try a 1st attempt at a short guide for mulligans and general - probably paltry - advice!

I generally never kept the weapon, always kept Corsair Cache, and based my other selections on what I anticipated facing. Paladins (4-4), Demon Hunters (9-2), Rogues (5-2), Priests (4-1), and Mages (7-1) were the bulk of my opponents. There is little point most of the time in saving your removal (unless there is a specific threat in the deck you are facing that you are preparing for), as you are very vulnerable early on against aggro.

Rogue - pesky rogues flinging stealth and face damage at you. I tended to keep Bladestorm, Whirlwind, anything to fend them off until turn 4 onwards when you can start to fill their deck with bombs and build armour. The longer the game lasts the more favoured you are, it felt like. A timely Brawl can send them scurrying back from whence they came, so this could be worth keeping too.

Paladin - Coerce, Bladestorm, removal to keep them restrained from building giant minions early. It's worth having a Bladestorm on hand to deal with the inevitable giant minion followed by that pesky Argent Braggart who copies their stats. This always felt a little disfavoured for my deck, despite the even score. Brawl can also be worth keeping, but it sometimes felt like this was redundant when they are building a giant minion, so it can be hit or miss.

Mage - This felt like autowin. I tried to keep a Bladestorm handy for a sneaky Power of Creation crusher. Unless they strike it lucky with Mozaki, Master Duelist you will just face damage and bomb them to death.

Demon Hunter - Again, early removal. Don't be afraid to use a Coerce or even Bladestorm to get rid of a single target such as Glaivebound Adept or Soulshard Lapidary, if you survive the early onslaught you will crush them once you build armour and start the cycling of Wrenchcalibur.

Priest - The current meta versions don't seem to like decks that don't rely on board presence. Once they pop Gala - often killing approximately nothing with the battlecry - they are severely vulnerable and your bombs and face damage will punish them. I tended to keep removal to take out the minion they target with Apotheosis. Be careful of their combos with Wave of Apathy, and try to have an answer in hand to deal with this, I've seen a few games end at the hands of my own Mad Aspect. You get plenty of time to build your offense against fairly reactive priest decks.

Druid - You are looking at a Bladestorm to counter the early Guardian Animals. The few I faced felt like this deck has enough removal to counter their fairly limited arsenal of minions. It also felt like I had plenty of time to draw answers, such as a Brawl if they go down the Ysera, Unleashed or Exotic Mountseller route.

Warrior - If they are a Big Warrior you will have the edge if you keep a sly Bladestorm and Coerce in hand to answer their later game summoning threats. Mirror matches are a case of who gets the Corsair Cache, Upgrade!, and the good Doctor Krastinov first.

I didn't face enough Shammys (2-0 early removal, mid-game Brawl, concede) Warlocks (0-1) or Hunters (not a one) to gauge effectively what might work, but it's not rocket science with this deck - just try to keep the wolves from the door until you are flowing in mid- to late-game. I know I haven't mentioned Galakrond and Kronx at all, but it felt like these were the icing on the cake either for late removal of minions to allow a winning face strike, or to pull out a much-needed supercharged minion to send the opponent packing. The bombs and steady flow of weapon strikes are the star of this deck.

Update (1/9/20) - Facing a few more hunters in the climb now, very bad matchup - they are inevitably fast decks and even mulligans for early removal can't cope with the stream of minions and face damage. Pain Warlocks are slightly less so but still a painful matchup, keeping a brawl and hoping for the best seems our only hope, but I'd be grateful for any insights here. Still not facing many shammies, but they seem more susceptible to early removal and don't quite have the same acceleration as the more kamikaze aggro decks mentioned. Otherwise I am finding Pally an altogether less intimidating proposition than I did initially, if you pull a weapon or a cache, the steady stream of removal the deck has can really confound them ... particularly Bladestorm or Barov/cheap removal or Whirlwind.

 The deck seems to be getting a slightly more play as per stats on HSReplay, and I hope more folk get some pleasure out of what is a pretty fun and competitive set-up.