Hearthpwn

UPDATE2 28Oct:  Nobody cares. Added 2 Bone Wraiths (for survivability) and 1 Cobalt Spellkin (extra dragon, extra kill cards, other 1-cost spells).  Got rid of Ironbeak Owl (am not seeing paladins much) and both Tour Guides (rarely helped with combo).

Got to Platinum 3 last season, at Platinum 8 now.

UPDATE:

Replaced Ooze with Zephrys.  Ooze is too situational, and Zephrys helps often enough with finishing or survival.  Still definitely have a positive win ratio against Paladin and Rogue, and Bomb Warrior wins are still rare.

Have climbed playing this deck only from Platinum 8 to Platinum 2, hoping to hit Diamond this season.

The silence is deafening, but as I still come to Hearthpwn looking for info/ideas on off-meta decks, thought I'd share/update.

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Hello lost souls still wandering Hearthpwn!

I've seen quest warlock decks unlisted (Vicious Syndicate) and with very low win rates (HSReplay), but that doesn't match my experience.  It's not great, but I'm playing it at ranks platinum 9 to 7, staying off the floor at platinum 10, implying a win rate near 50% (yes I know about win streak's influence, don't worry they're rare-ish).

I've been playing some form of control warlock (quest, malygos, mechathun, hand, galakrond) primarily for the past 3 years.  I've borrowed some concept from older decks, and have updated what probably started as a Vicious Syndicate deck from a few seasons ago.

"Learnings" this deck reacts to:

- Loremaster Polkelt is a trap / win-more card

- You need to stay fast and AOE to stay on top of aggro/swarm decks

- I've gone light on removal (1 twisting nether + Kelidan the breaker)... miss it sometimes, but seems like an OK trade-off

- Soul fragment cards suck, because they waste your 0-cost draws once you get quest hero power.  I was playing with the AOE soul fragment card and flesh giants, but like this version better.

- Abyssal Summoner and Khartut Defender are too slow to be reliably useful (I won't rule out Khartut Defenders though)

And now for a few things I like about this deck and play tips:

- I like Bloodmage Thalnos, he can work with all of your AOE spells, combo with mo'arg artificers, and likely produce a drawn card in the process.  Plan around his draw effect on enemy's turn to fill hand and force a burned card, consider wiping out artificers on purpose if you have other minions you want to preserve (effect is available to opponent)

- Tour guide works well on turn one with the coin: quest, coin, tour guide, hero power.  If you're worried about life (i.e. against aggro deck) consider saving these for after you get the quest hero power, so as not to accelerate your life drop.  You're typically trying to stabilize your life in the teens or single digits before your late game healing and OTK come together.  Be aware, tour guide effect WILL wait until a subsequent turn to be used, but WON'T survive replacing original hero power with quest hero power.  Use these when they take up your last mana (often whether or not you want to tap this turn).  Don't use these when the discounted hero power leaves you with unspent mana.

- Sky general kragg is an old trick to speed up the deck and helps with swarm/aggro opponents.

- Consider saving your last plot twist in case you draw an undiscounted malygos, as a zero cost malygos is outstanding in this deck.  Be mindful in planning rains of fire (which might kill malygos, and stack if you left any mo'arg artificers on the field) with soul fires (which can discard other damage spells / OTK-components).  Accept the rare case of one soul fire discarding the other as the psychological cost of playing this deck, and in-line with the warlock persona.

- Sometimes you don't need malygos and you have enough reach with just the damage spells.  Look deep for fatal on every turn.  Zero-cost maly + rain of fire + soul fire + soul fire + rain of fire is 30 damage, bloodmage thalnos can take it up from there, discounted thalnos or damage spells can help too, as can nether breath, discounted or not.  Remember to have another activator for nether breath than Malygos, and that a crazed netherwing can be a finisher.

- Ooze and Owl are nice tech cards, especially against Paladin.  Consider silencing key cards early in other decks (priest draw-engine minion, cards that upgrade to "prime" versions, secret-after-hero-power minion).  Consider saving owl to eliminate one-off late threats.  Silencing a paladin minion with many librams on him is sweet.

- Playing against bomb warrior sucks, but rarely you'll pull off a win.  Accelerate your plot twists, and hang on for a OTK rather than spending your damage on his minions. 

- Remember you can use plot twist to search for damage spells mid OTK combo.  A little desperate maybe, but how many undrawn cards are hiding that last damage spell can make this a prudent plan.  I'm getting the results described at the beginning without using a deck tracker.

- Sometimes you want to use sense demons early, just for the card draw and quest acceleration.  Sometimes you want to save it for later healing, maybe combining it with plot twist to double-dip.  Rarely you're actually looking for a mo'arg artificer out of it.

Feedback, recommended changes and your experience are very welcome.  This isn't a great deck, but my contention is it's viable and quest warlock doesn't deserve to be dismissed in this meta.

Cheers!