Tick Tech
- Last updated Sep 26, 2021 (Demon Seed Ban)
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Wild
- 15 Minions
- 14 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Corrupted Warlock
- Crafting Cost: 17220
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/3/2021 (Forged in the Barrens)
- PowerOfCheez
- Registered User
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- 14
- 57
- 97
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Battle Tag:
PowerOfCheez#1873
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
224
Bottom Line Up Front, or TLDR, is this deck good or just 'fun' ? (revised for Tick Tech on 4/26):
Tick Tech is competitive. Control Warlock decks rarely do well against aggro, but the shell this based on is competitive across all classes, with exception of Warlock itself, and my changes attempt to resolve that.
The question I asked that led to this build was "How can I improve the competitiveness of a Tickatus Control deck across all classes?" The goal is to be even or better odds vs. all classes, not necessarily the best overall win rate. However, achieving this (or even just vs 8-9 of the 10 classes) would make for a far more even and likely enjoyable piloting experience.
This build has a nearly full heal/removal package (missing only Armor Vendors). It also features singletons of several tech cards, which together, give tools to deal with almost anything an opponent can throw at you, except secrets, which require the usual tactics to test and play around.
Will update this periodically as the meta continues to shift and players of the list continue to improve their experience and win rates with it. Would love to hear player's good war stories in the comments!
Prefer Wild? Check this out:
Guide and article here.
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Minion (24)
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Ability (5)
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Playable Hero (1) |
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Behold the PowerOfCheez! This is my latest take on Tickatus Control. Tickatus builds that keep you in the game early give you a chance in most matchups (dominating Priest). Tickatus is one of the few reliable cards against other control decks, especially those which rely too heavily on C'Thun, the Shattered.
This list has the usual win conditions (Tickatus, Y'Shaarj, the Defiler, Envoy Rustwix, and minions in general). Games against control decks often go to fatigue.
Tech choices and play tips:
This is a card many Tickatus Control lists leave out. I found the mirrors (and to a lesser degree, games vs. other class' control builds) really need it to win in the late game.
In matchups against Warlock and Priest, it is really important not to play this too early. The three Primes you get into your deck against Warlock will become either bricks that slow you getting to other key cards or become food for the enemy Tickatus, which is only good situationally.
Against Priest, you can play him early, but have to kill him the turn played, or they can Soul Mirror it and you lose the edge it provides, and worse, they can then rez him back to out-edge you. A frequent play of mine is to play him then Hysteria an opponent's minion to clear the board, load my deck, and often, use two remaining mana for Lord Jaraxxus' hero power.
Ironbeak Owl is in this list in place of the second Acidic Swamp Ooze, so, if you do not like it, that would be the card to sub in for it. The owl gives you a key tool against enchantments (Paladin, Priest and sometimes Warrior and Hunter), Taunts, Deathrattles (like opponent's Taelan Fordrings used in several classes to protect a win con from Tickatus), and end of turn effects, etc.
Helps against the several classes which run weapons... Hunter, Demon Hunter, Paladin, Rogue, Warrior and Warlock all run them. I have seen Mage and Priest running Sphere of Sapience occasionally, also. Have even had occasion to use this against a Priest who got a copy of my Lord Jaraxxus.
Shadow Hunter Vol'jin is tech similar to the Ironbeak Owl, but with the added twist of being able to bounce your own cards situationally, when your hand is right. Can enable a third Tickatus play via bouncing him, or a second Y'Shaarj, the Defiler. Edge cases, but still valuable.
More commonly, its important use is for its Dirty Rat effect, which can force important cards out of your opponent's hand before they get to play them for their Battlecry. This can be crucial, as their hand is the only place safe from Tickatus, and this list has tons of removal and life gain to let you take it out soon after.
Soul Shear and Drain Soul
This builds run both. Soul Shear can net you one additional life over the course of a game (if you don't burn a Soul Fragment than Drain Soul. The price is that the gain is later, and random; that is actually a good thing if you are at full life when you cast it, as you store the gain for when you aren't (hopefully).
Soul Fragments also dilute your deck against an enemy Tickatus, so you usually want to prioritize playing them in the mirror, especially as they approach the ability to play any card that costs 7+.
Note, in some matchups, and when I have a well curved hand with Spirit Jailer and/or either/both of these two removal cards, I often elect to use The Coin to hero power on turn one. It is important to get to the win cons, and because we do not want Soul Fragments or Lifesteal to be wasted, taking two damage and drawing on turn one can be a good move with this list, as long as you can remove an enemy drop on turn 2 (and, if you do not have to, even better to draw again).
Mulligan Guide (in development)
In general, you really want the affordable stuff first, and, in non-aggro matchups, Tickatus (best if you have some other early plays with it, but a keep against the mirror always, as may be Lord Jaraxxus). Taelon Fordring can be a good keep if you have 2-3 other early plays.
Will try to get some matchup specific stuff in here if stats become available.
Baseline Matchup Stats (from usual Control Warlock shell)
Here is a free external link to the HSReplay matchup percentages for an established list that much of the card shell comes from (a high win rate Standard Control Warlock build).
The link in this spoiler (to the deck the shell comes from) should provide more useful baseline data to analyze likely win rates (approximately) against specific deck archetypes. To get archetype specific matchup %s for Tick Tech will require many more games before we get that variety of info.
Would love to field any questions, hear your suggestions or comments. Until next time, (in a James Earl Jones voiceover) "Aaaah, the PowerOfCheez!"
Appendix Spoilers (Deeper Dive stuff, not needed to play):
How do I approach deck building and guide creation?
I always start a new deck with a question and try to answer it. 1.0/2.0 asked and attempted to answer "How do I build and play to most consistently maximize accelerating a Corrupt Tickatus into play?" While those were failures at being competitive, they taught me which cards were really best to achieve improvement toward that goal, and which were too marginal.
It is not always the success of the deck you build (to start) that is as important as what is learned by how you answer whatever question(s) you ask, and how the process informs your future play and build refinements, to improve both. 1.0/2.0 were great examples of taking what is learned from failure to move toward success.
This process has been evident in writing here. Given several positive comments about the quality of the guide (if not the 1.0 and 2.0 decks, lol), I felt like the early effort was rewarded enough to continue the work. I hope the rewards are enhanced now that I have applied the best of what was learned from 1.0 and 2.0 failures and successes to a refined 3.0 build.
This approach drives my building, play choices, and guide writing, not always what will get me to Legend fastest. Experienced players already know most (and more) of this stuff, but illustrating this creative deck building process may help newer or more casual players with how they think when playing other lists or building their own.
I am experienced (over 10,000 wins on the North American server alone, more on the other two), and the 1.0 and 2.0 decks taught me several things, especially about an odd interaction I describe in the guide (which I still have some questions about). 3.0 attempts to harvest just the essential core parts of ramping Tickatus out and slowing the opponent, while reclaiming much of the sustainment of the more standard Control Warlock build.
This is the evolution of how/why I put effort into a guide for a what started as a 'fun' experimental deck, but continued working with it to see if it can become competitive. I thank you if you do read it (or re-read it with the extensive changes), maybe play with the latest version and comment with this context (and thoughts about the post-nerf meta that may impact a 4.0) in mind.
Until then, if you read the guide, hope to see you in the comments!
List Development History:
After a brief experiment with Southsea Scoundrel, reverting to a teched version of the more established proven list. Tech cards in this build give you some answers against almost every threat. Aggro will still be our worst enemy, but the deck does have removal and life gain enough to bring the odds to a little better than even, something a lot of Ticklock decks can not say.
Adding a recent summary of the stats with (3.0) Claws of Tickatus here now that I am trying out 4.0 to try something new. The stats at 2300 games follow:
In 3.0 (Claws of Tickatus) I targeted a 54% overall win rate. As various meta shifts occurred and people learned the deck, it did rise to a 54.95 win rate (4/19) but fell back to 51.42% on 4/20 and has a lifetime 50.5% win rate at 2300 games. It murdered Priest (83.2%) as Control Warlock tends to. Great against Warrior (68.1%). It did very well in the near mirrors against Warlock (58.9%, or 56.4% vs the most played build) as its tech would be expected to give it an advantage there. It broke even against No Minion Mage (51.6%) though was only 47.8% vs. Mage overall. It was sub-par against Paladin (44%), Rogue (43.3%), Shaman (41.8%) and Demon Hunter (40.4%). Hunter (29.7%, as low as 19% vs. some builds) absolutely destroyed Claws of Tickatus.
The rest of the below was written before Southsea Scoundrel Tickatus (4.0) was posted.
List History: Posted the alpha version of this deck at mid-Gold near the end of a fun run with it from Bronze 10 to Gold 2 over two days. Never dreamed it would make front page at that stage, while the deck was still in its experimental genesis stages (Thank you, mates!). Once it was getting tons of views, added full transparency up front (as stated many times in comments and once near the end of the guide), 1.0/2.0 was NOT a competitive deck in the current meta above Gold. The intent was to continue work to refine it and update this along the way.
I finally saw some stats (renewed my stat tracker), and 1.0 was only about 42% win rate (33 vs. Lunacy mage) in @550 games. Made a few changes, and 2.0 gained a point or two, but still abysmal. So I had posted that, until the nerf, play 2.0 only in Bronze thru mid-Gold, in casual or at rank floors after Gold 5 and that I would re-evaluate after the nerfs and keep refining the deck.
I decided not to waste this space on Hearthpwn for that long and to improve this from 'fun' to competitive before the nerf. I did the stat research and after looking at the data (which I had NOT, initially), made extensive changes for 3.0. This list reverts very closely to the standard Control Warlock shell that features Soulciologist Malicia and her support, with only minimal and targeted changes (four cards required to accelerate playing Corrupt Tickatus and two to slow the opponent).
Gone are the wide range of experimental cards which proved marginal or worse at fulfilling the intent of the experiments (see next spoiler). The greed has been greatly reduced, the goal, focused in on. This deck plays much better.
Most recently, Watch Post Tickatus was renamed Claws of Tickatus, shifting the emphasis to the Claw Machines, and in anticipation that the big nerf of Far Watch Post will cause it to need replaced. Personally, I think a better nerf would have been to have it only increase the cost of spells drawn by 1, instead of all draws by 1, as lowering its health to 3 just completely thwarts any cumulative effect by making it so easy to kill. Restricting it to spells would have weakened it a LOT against most aggro, but left it as a good tech card against spell heavy decks.
Oh did not see this reply, thanks for going into such detail about everything! :) if you dont see the other comment, I dont have kargal and went on a mass dusting spree to make some epic wild decks, and kargal got tossed xD Any opinions on if the watch towers are worth keeping without him?
People do run some Watch Posts without running Kargal, sure. See my comment on your other one for some ideas.
superdonk, I am glad you were playing it at 5, so you didn't drop ranks. Thanks for sharing the additional info. I will say, when I play vs. Lunacy Mage, I mulligan different/riskier and play aggressively for my combo. In general, you always want to mulligan for Demonic Studies, Wandmaker, and Far Watch Post (most all decks), tossing back anything else except maybe Venomous Scorpid (and sometimes Circus Medic, Hysteria or any of the lifesteal/soul fragment removal spells against aggro).
But against Lunacy Mage or Token Druid, you want to prioritize a bit different.
Against Lunacy Mage, Demonic Studies, Tickatus and/or one (only) Claw Machine are your top keeps, mulligan away anything else. Demonic Studies, Tickatus and Claw Machine are the combo to get a turn 7 (T6 w coin) Tickatus off, and its pretty helpful against Lunacy Mage. Everything else including Wandmaker is a toss. as you only have like a one in 7 chance to pull Demonic Studies from it.
Against Token Druid, I would also think about hard tries to get the combo for the mulligan, but would prioritize any of the AoE a little higher, where it gets no priority against Lunacy Mage.
With both these decks, you have to use your hero power more early. If I have a two drop like Wandmaker, I will likely hero power on t2, not play Wandmaker (until I can do that AND Wandmaker on turn 4). This helps to try to assemble the combo by turns 5-7. If I cast Demonic Studies along the way, it is only on odd turns (w/hero power). I will NOT play any Demon I draw, because I am saving the discount.
If I have Claw Machine and Kanrethad Ebonlocke but did not get Demonic Studies or Tickatus yet, I will play Kanrethad Ebonlocke on Turn 5 (not before), just in case I draw into Tickatus, so he is will be at 5 on t6 and I can play Claw Machine to trigger him. If you have a five cost non-demon minion, and one discount, you can play Kanrethad Ebonlocke on t4 to make the same gamble in case you draw Tickatus.
If you luck into two Demonic Studies in the first 5 turns, use them on odd mana turns, with the draw or Wandmaker (to the extent you can without over drawing), so that you can be ready to play into a 5 mana non demon minion to corrupt a 4 mana Tickatus.
Kanrethad Ebonlocke can sub for a Demonic Studies in the two discount approach, also, if played the turn before the trigger minion will come down. The Coin can also change the above equations a little - take the time on your turns to think through all the timing considerations if prioritizing this strategy, which is the deck's intent against broken decks.
It is even remotely possible to corrupt a triple discounted 3 mana Tickatus on turn 4 (with 2 Demonic Studies AND Kanrethad Ebonlocke played on t3) if you get god draws, to include a 4 mana creature played t4 (or a 5 with The Coin) then play Tickatus on t5.
Strategy #2 against these two decks is If you do get a Wandmaker early, or cast a Venomous Scorpid and get offered Shadow Council (the spell that changes your hand into random Demons with +2/+2), this is a possible game saver. Also a gamble, it may wreck parts of the Tickatus strategy, but can ramp you into a mid-range beefy aggro wave if your hand is big enough. Some of my wins against both Token Druid and Lunacy Mage have come from taking and using that card.
Admittedly these are all stretch tactics and you may be taking more early damage by focusing on those gambles, but having these tactics available are the reason that the deck is curved the way it is and has the 5 and 6 mana cards it does. This deck wants to pop Tickatus as early as possible, even at the expense of life (except against aggro) then use its life gain, removal and discover stuff to stay in the game till you can stabilize.
accidental post meant to be a reply... as I can't figure out how to delete it (no delete button shows up anywhere, though it did in past decklist threads), i will just repurpose it and link to a video related to the deck's theme. It is the official video, posted by the copyright holder (not me, and not my post, just sharing the link).
hi!
your deck is fun, but i have just played two games so far - lost one vs casino mage, won vs hunter. not sure about geddon, i might replace him with a twisting nether. not a big fan of the 3-mana watchposts, vs. no minion mage its basically a dead card - and there are a ton of them out there lately. ill test i little longer, but i might replace them with luckysoul horder and in the process kargal with another nether... but anyway.. thanks for the deck - its basically the opposite of no-minion mage, the just-minion-warlock ;)
Yeah, my experience may not be representative. I have played it from bronze 10 to gold 2 just since the reset. Let my sub to my deck tracking site expire, so, I don't have exact stats on what is being played and winning where on ladder anymore, but playing at Gold is nothing like Platinum or Diamond usually. If you are already in the tiers above me, I may run into a wall when I get there, and if so, will say as much.
If what you called casino mage is what others are calling Lunacy Mage, that deck is probably the most insane one on ladder right now, due for a nerf, and yes, very popular. I believe I am splitting against it, and feel like its more that I win when their RNG fails. I do mulligan the 3 drop post away against them, for the reason you mentioned, but the 2 drop is good enough they usually try to kill it immediately. The 3 drop does help when they cast the spell to get 3 random minions. It also redirects some of their fire from your face at times even if it isn't spitting out 2/2s.
I did just beat Lunacy Mage a bit earlier with a turn 6 double-discounted Tickatus that burned Deck of Lunacy 4 cards in. He kept playing, and still came surprisingly close, but eventually gave up after I played a 4 minion Kargal on him after he had gone through both Flamestrikes and his freeze spells. But when Lunacy Mage hits its RNG, it will destroy its opponents with no chance for recovery. I feel like being even 50% against them may be the best I can hope for, but would have to check the web for stats.
There are several cards that can be flexed. I really like Geddon because it has won me several games with the direct damage as a finisher, but I chose him because my main goal was to speed up the archetype a bit. The curve is lower and sets people back (or allows you to stabilize) earlier that the Tickatus decks I played and saw before Barrens. So, if you replace him, I would mainly recommend it be with another 7 drop.
For me Token Druid has more consistent success against me. Hunter is probably next. There are some definite lessons for how to play it (as with any new deck) that I have been learning from my mistakes. Things like being sure to heal with the Circus Medics before they corrupt in certain matchups, mulliganing some early cards that are bad against a given class, when to actually keep Tickatus, etc. I will probably add more sections to this in days to come, as I continue to learn things or think of things I learned before.
played it ten times now on dia 5. dont think its possible to get a positive winrate as long as lunacy/casino/random bullshit mage is around. 7 out of 10 games vs mage... as i said, your deck is fun, but in the current meta you have to be a much better player than me to get a positive winrate.