Hearthpwn

Reno Druid

Introduction

Hey everybody, this is my first deck in a while and I have decided to share this list as it has helped me reach legend for the first time! Looking for things to do in quarantine I decided that this is the month to hit legend playing 244 games. I have tried a variety of lists including Darkglare Zoo, Discardlock, Kingsbane Rogue and Reno Priest, but ultimately this was the deck that helped me get through the grind of Diamond 5 to legend and had my best win-rate.

Reno Druid Legend

Guide

Game-plan

This deck was inspired by and is very similar to Guardian Druid which has been taking the Standard Meta by storm after Scholomance. This deck looks to utilise a similar playing style while taking advantage of the highlander package and stronger wild cards. Aggro decks have always been a weakness of this type of Druid in which the highlander package offers greater flexibility when dealing with these decks (particularly Kingsbane Rogue). 

The two main ways of playing pretty much depend on if you are versing Aggro/Tempo or most other decks.

Aggro:

Definitely more difficult than other match ups, however having Zephrys the Great and Reno Jackson is really crucial in these matches as they can often make the difference between a win and a loss. This is where the highlander edition really stands out compared to the regular Guardian Druid version. Spreading Plague is a great addition from wild which works wonders against minion heavy Aggro decks as well as Overflow. The addition of the Exotic Mountseller package with Animated Broomstick can also help provide a board clear, while you can also use Animated Broomstick with other cards like Anubisath Defender to help contain the board.Card Name

Tempo is very similar to Aggro in terms of game-plan except more favourable as they tend to give you more of a chance to set up your plays. 

Mulligan:

The Mulligan is mostly broken up into looking for a mixture of 3 things:

Ramp: 

Wild Growth , Jade Blossom, Innervate, Lightning Bloom, Overgrowth and Breath of Dreams - but only Breath of Dreams if the rest of your hand is quite strong and you have a Dragon.

Answers:

Zephrys the Great, Spreading Plague, Speaker Gidra, Reno Jackson, Guardian Animals, Overflow, and Anubisath Defender (with a relevant spell card) - additionally, either Lake Thresher or Card Name or Teacher's Pet can be kept when desperate, but are not ideal as that greatly reduces the power of Guardian Animals.

Other:

Nature Studies, Wrath and Bog Beam are often good keeps as Nature Studies can help with Ramp and also find a potential answer. Bogbeam  and Wrath help clear minions as well as Wrath being potential cycle.

Ultimately, a balance of these tend to be a good mulligan, but it's really about setting up a proactive play and having answers for early aggression.

Sideboard:

These are a few good options to put in your deck if you fins you are coming across a large amount of Aggro decks:

• Crystal Power
• Darnassus Aspirant
• Archspore Msshi'fn
• Groundskeeper
• Crimson Hothead
• Swipe
• Malfurion the Pestilent
• Escaped Manasaber
• Gluttonous Ooze (Particularly against Rogue and Warrior)

Control/Mid/Combo:

Control, Mid and Combo decks are the bread and butter for this deck. Being a fast paced Ramp/Control makes this deck highly favoured against control decks who struggle to keep up with the pace of threats coming at them. Additionally the slower nature of these match-ups helps mitigate the problems caused by a bad hand, which is punished a lot more by aggro. Elise the Enlightened can play an important role in these matches as the potential to duplicated cards like Zephyrs the Great (as well as cards generated by him), Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, Ysera, Unleashed, Survival of the Fittest, and Exotic Mountseller (with accompanying cards). There are many potential outcomes as a result of this and usually the value overload becomes too much to deal with as many of these decks don't run as much board removal as in other metas.

Key Cards/Combos:

• Guardian Animals
• Survival of the Fittest
• Forest Warden Omu and Germination into big spell
• Ysera, Unleashed and Animated Broomstick (give the portal dragons rush)
• Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
• Exotic Mountseller and Animated Broomstick
• Elise the Enlightened 

Mulligan:

The mulligan for these match-ups is simpler as it pretty much revolves around Guardian Animals and your other ramp cards. Overflow and other threats can also be good to keep if the hand suits.

Sideboard:

• Kael'thas Sunstrider
• Shan'do Wildclaw
• Alexstrasza
• Siamat
• Kel'Thuzad
• Loatheb
• Malygos package

Statistics

 Reno Druid Overall Statistics Reno Druid per Class Statistics

Here are the stats that I collected using the HSReplay Deck Tracker for my run to Legend from Diamond 5+. There were no glaring specific class weaknesses and Warlock seemed to be a specifically strong match up. The Darkglare Zoo match-up can be trickier as it requires a higher skill level. I benefited from playing the deck a lot myself, in which Spreading Plague was an important card to slow down the giant swing turn, as well as playing around Loatheb and Enhance-o Mechano. Out of the 7 Losses, 4 were Aggro, 2 were Control and one was thrown by a personal misplay.

Notes of Caution!

There are two quite easy to do misplays that can greatly affect your match to avoid (sadly I found out one the hard way).

Ysera, Unleashed will stop all your highlander cards from working! Keep this in mind and plan ahead to avoid ruining your future plays by adding duplicates to your deck

Embiggen often seems like a good pick from Nature Studies which it normally would be, except it must be played after Guardian Animals if you plan to play Guardian Animals. This is because it increases the cost of your beasts by 1 making them no longer summon-able from Guardian Animals.

Final

Thank you for checking out the deck! I hope the guide was helpful and feel free to comment any thoughts or suggestions I'm all ears and acknowledge that this deck list can be quite flexible! Good luck and I hope you have the same if not more success than I did.

I also seem to have issues putting photos in so I have put links to my legend proof and statistics.