Hearthpwn

Been thinking about that... the last Mor'shan Watch Post might be better to remove than Kanrethad Ebonlocke.  It is more situational, and really only great in matchups that are already bad. 

The Far Watch Posts do a lot more consistent work, and Kanrethad Ebonlocke directly supports the deck's strategies.  Even if its only marginally good at that, it is always marginally good, unlike Mor'shan Watch Post, which is sometimes no good at all.  Removing that feels like a lower opportunity cost. 

At  that point, with one less Lookout, Soulciologist Malicia starts to look more attractive in place of Kargal Battlescar, too.

Why not one of the scorpions? Seems pretty insignificant compared to a watchpost.

Discovery feels like one of the most powerful effects in the game to me.  Plus, I like to combo them with Hysteria when the board is right.  You could do that though.  I get it.  

Good point, well then a wandmaker makes more sense to me.

I wish I still had my stat tracking subscription... if you did, you could compare the win rates for Wandmaker vs. Venomous Scorpion vs. Mor'shan Watch Post.  They would be generic win rates, not specific to this list, but would be a good starting point.  That would probably be the logical way to decide.

So i dont really play warlock, but i see a lot of people struggling against aggro. So I was thinking.... add a Defender Of Argus? so they cant ignore the towers?  Also -2 demonic studies for 2 spirit jailer, the extra sustain helps a lot. 

Demonic Studies is so key to this deck, one of the most valuable cards. This deck is gutted without it, if you read in the guide about how integral it is to accelerating Tickatus for early corrupted play. 

Plus Discover is just so powerful.  You can choose cheap demons often, or lifesteal ones, or taunt ones all to help with aggro, too.  This list actually tries to get extra Demonic Studies by playing the Wandmakers, it is so important. If you want Spirit Jailer, I suggest you just play the usual list.

Not personally a fan of Defender of Argus, but you can try it and let us know how it feels/works for you in the deck.  Control decks always struggle with aggro, though... it is the scissors to our paper, so, I doubt any one or three card subs will change that a lot.  A second Mor'shan Watch Post would fit with the list's intent and help against aggro, though at the expense of being more dead against minion-less decks.  Everything is a trade-off.

Can I replace Kanrethad? Missing Tick and him, but plan on crafting Tickatus after I get my dust back from lunacy. Ebonlocke's gotta wait. Maybe Roame instead?

Sure! As a risk manager and student of economics, I always look at things in terms of trade-offs.  Kanrethad Ebonlocke is part of the accelerated Tickatus combo-enabler, but he is the least used, least reliable, least effective part.  To use him for acceleration, you have to play him AND have him survive a turn (you can play him and a corrupt trigger minion same turn, but that means waiting longer, which is ok if necessary, but not as good as the banked discounts from Demonic Studies).  So, not having him is not a deal-killer. 

The other two things he does is give you Kanrethad Prime, which is actually a better reason to have him, because that plays into bringing back a second Envoy Rustwix.  You can make up for that a bit with a Felosophy or, less reliably, Shadow Council from Wandmaker, or Raise Dead off of Venomous Scorpid, etc. occasionally, though often one Envoy Rustwix is plenty.  I consider KB one of the lower ranked cards in the deck necessity wise, just like it because it is cheap, with a couple effects that are powerful for two of the win cons.

I do think Tamsin Roame could work and may be one of the better options to preserve synergies.  The deck features key Shadow cards (Demonic Studies, removal, and several of the other cards from Wandmaker).  She is basically a later game card than turn 3 though, just keep that in mind as one of the tradeoffs.  But if you want to replace it with a card that has similar synergies with the win cons, you could do a lot worse.

If this is basically your tech slot because you don't have it, you can consider any tech card for it, too.  Horde Operative comes to mind, or even Acidic Swamp Ooze.  Or the popular and valued Mankrik. 

Because you asked, I got looking at cards that can actually be played at 2-3 mana and besides maybe a second Mor'shan Watch Post, there are several other viable (or at least interesting) candidates.  Not sure if it would help more than hurt, but to boost the Far Watch Post's effects, but you might try Revenant Rascal or Cult Neophyte?  I may play around with that concept for a different build.

There are a lot of choices, depending on your preference in the trade-offs.  As with an earlier comment, these are not recommendations as much as suggestions on the thought process I would use, but in addition to the above thoughts, Brightwing could add some interesting RNG and additional win cons (or crud, of course).  Educated Elekk might be interesting, but could slow you from digging your stuff out.  Sunwell Initiate has been seeing a lot of play. Sneaky Delinquent could help against aggro some.  Or you could just add some more removal, like a one of Soul Shear.  You could main deck a card like Shadow Council or Altar of Fire.

Season to taste and let me know what you settle on!

Fun guide. Control warlock always gets stomped by aggro so to the people complaining about that stop whining because most control decks do in general. Watch posts at least makes this deck semi viable vs aggro

Thanks!  Agreed!  I often try to use the Circus Medics to gain life against aggro, even though that 4 life costs you 8 potential damage, as you have to live to win, and there are fewer Soul Fragments to help out.  Plus you get that body on the board faster than trying to corrupt them.  Also, when casting Demonic Studies, will be thrilled if I can discover demons with Taunt, Lifesteal or any form of removal.  But yeah, I like Tickatus decks because of how it plays against control and midrange, not how it plays against aggro, lol.

congrats on the guide, but regretfully a control warlock cant afford to run super greedy cards or u gonna get trampled by aggressive decks after u brick on your draws

Excited the deck made the front page overnight.  I see the views climbing and just wanted to say thank you for checking it out!  As you can see in the comments, I try to respond to all, so, just wanted to say, I work today and will not be able to get back on until after work, so, expect replies from me in the evening (EST).

For those checking the list for the first time, who might not have time to read through all the comments, know that I posted this deck and guide as I was playing it from Bronze 10 to Gold 2.  It was competitive for me through those ranks, but I did hit a wall at the top of gold due to the state of the current meta. 

So, please, don't craft anything for this that you might regret, knowing this deck is not competitive at higher tiers yet, and will have to be tested after next week's nerfs (one of which may hit the Watch Post part of this list) to see if it becomes competitive once the meta is rebalanced. 

I believe it will, but don't want you to think that just because this got enough attention to reach the home page (thank you everyone!) that it means its competitive at the moment in high tiers... it is not.  You can have fun with it (I do) at the rank floors and then give it another shot when the nerfs go live.  That's my plan!  Will make more updates at that point in time relevant to the meta change, in case you want to turn notifications on for the list.

Despite the overwhelming effort to write a good guide, I regret crafting this deck at diamond 5. It's really bad in the current meta, and the current control warlock deck I went back to using now is much better (i am back to diamond 3 now). 

Great idea though - but it's one of those decks that sounds nice in theory but in the meta/practice it's just not working.

Thank you for respecting the effort on the guide!  It will continue to be refined more when the meta changes next week.

Hey, sorry if you missed the several times I said this is not good in the current meta above Gold tier in the comments or that there are more effective lists in the current meta in the Deck of Lunacy Spoiler at the end of the article. 

I do believe that it will become competitive at the higher tiers after the 6 nerfs next week, though, as they will bring Mage, Paladin and Rogue down to earth quite a bit, I believe.  So, don't count it out yet, just play more effective lists till then, maybe practicing with this at the 5 and 10 rank floors to get a feel for how to mulligan with it and time stuff, etc. until then.

In general, unless I have a LOT of dust (which I often do on my Americas account, but not on my free to play Europe or Asia accounts), I usually try new lists with subs instead of crafting speculatively, unless it is a meta-defining card I know I will use in other decks.  Most of the cards in this list are usable in other builds and either core, common/rare or free.  I think the only legendary card that is not either a staple, meta-defining, or usable in other builds would be Kargal Battlescar, right?  Hopefully you are not out more than one legendary worth of dust and feel better if you give it another chance after the nerfs.

Hey! I was looking forward to seeing Control Warlock with Tickatus being an even better deck and with this expansion and with your great decklist and guide this is the way to go! Thank you :)

By the way, what card do you think is a good replacement for Kan?

Thanks!  If by Kan you mean Kargal Battlescar, that card is basically in the slot that other Tickatus builds feature Soulciologist Malicia, so that would be my first sub recommendation, which would also require subbing in Soul Shear for Drain Soul and thinking about if you want to sub in any of the other Soul Fragment generators.  At that point, you are moving back toward the more standard version of the archetype, which is fine, but comes with tradeoffs, too.  

If you do not have or want to play either of those, look through your 7-9 cost non-demon minions for other options, and your 8-9 cost demons, and see if any sync up with the role the card has. 

For example, the new Onyxia the Broodmother floods the board AND it replenishes each turn.  That is not a recommendation, as I am sure others in those ranges might be viable, too, with different strengths to play to, and tradeoffs for how soon they can corrupt Tickatus in the early game.  There are a lot of cards you could potentially sub, but I have not treated that as a tech slot and tested any subs for it, so, this is more about suggestions on the thought process than the specific sub.

Once the meta shifts after the upcoming nerfs to Mage, Paladin, Rogue and some neutral cards next week, I do plan to add a sub list based on the meta at that time, which is when I have been saying this deck will become competitive beyond Gold tier.  Since first posting this, I have advanced past the level where this deck works well enough in the current meta, so, won't be testing subs before it level-sets next week.

Ohhh, you meant Kanrethad... sorry, drew a blank.  Hey, see comment #39, I answered that in depth for a different person.  Sorry about the confusion.

This deck looks great at first look. Whats even better? I had all the cards and now I will start playing with it, will come back with a feedback. Also, thoughtful guide, helps a lot.