Hearthpwn

So this is my take on an "Echo Mage"-type deck. This seemed to me like the most fun new deck type coming from the GvG (copying giants is fun! And naughty). So I started opening GvG packs and drew a golden Illuminator. "Huh", I thought. I need to put this in my deck! It's shiny and golden, and who doesn't like gnome priests in their mage decks?

I quickly discovered that duplicated Illuminators give insane amount of healing versus face decks. As long as Ice Block is up, you get much higher return from this card than from good ol' Farseer. That seems counter-intuitive when you consider that primary win condition for this deck is copying Molten Giants. However, staying alive to low hit points, and having two giants and echo in hand, and managing taunt them up -- all of that requires a lot of stars to align, while in practice you often die from rush decks just because you didn't draw second ice block or got your mad scientist silenced at the wrong time.

So, I still keep Molten Giants, because they have the highest potencial for insane Echo/Duplicate combos, but Illuminators give me the option of stabilizing against aggro decks and add another win condition: fatigue!

Two important cards this deck list lacks are Alexstraza and Doctor Boom. There is a simple reason why they are not there: I don't have them in my collection. So instead this deck has Unstable Portal, which has a chance of pulling you both Alexstraza and Doctor Boom (but never does, of course). This has been the most fun card in the new expansion for me. Sure it can give you something completely useless, but it also procs legendaries more often then you might think. Getting Grommash Hellscream is fun. I managed it twice.

So, here you have it. This deck has a lot of removal and healing against aggro decks, while also allows you to overwhelm control decks by continuosly throwing giant after giant at them, with polymorph helping against big threats. Will it take you to legend? I honestly can't answer this question yet: I am a casual player, and didn't take this deck to high ranks yet. I am also still tinkering with it, and learning from my own mistakes (which I make in abundance)

Current concerns: 2xFrostbolt + 2xFlamecannon seem to be too much of early removal. It may be actually not that bad with the abundance of mech warper/undertaker/micro machine decks, so I still need to figure out how much of them I can cut and what would be a good option to include instead. Sea Giant seems like an interesting choice against aggro (and you can get surprisingly big board with this deck), while Ice Barrier or second Healbot will give even more fatigue resistance. Sunfury Protector is also a good potential addition for stabilizing in late game when that second ice block evades you.

Update: Reached rank 10, but then after a losing streak dropped to 12.

Turns out Zetalot came up with a really similar deck, except half of his card list is different :) I am going to keep 4x giants 2x echo in my deck, but will probably drift closer to his list. Still no Alexstraza or Dr. Boom, but I am saving my gold to buy many packs at a time. Also, keeping one portal

Update 2: I can haz legendaries!

So I stopped playing for some time, because I got annoyed with facing aggro decks and getting screwed by bad draws. But of course, eventually after buying a new tablet, I couldn't avoid Hearthstone for too long! So now I have Boom and Sneed, and of course I included them in this deck.

Let's get to what I cut. I cut all the card draw, because it seems like this deck generally didn't need it too much. Besides, when you face a board full of mechs, Arcan Intellect and Acolyte of Pain are just too slow. Also, fatigue/mill decks were driving me nuts, maybe they will be easier to tackle without draw. Echo and Duplicate kinda substitute the card draw (another thing to consider is that acolyte is not a very good minion to echo/duplicate)

I replaced Mountain Giants with Twilight Drakes. Shaman are pretty rare on ladder, and even when I meet them, they kill me in 4 tunrs with their buffed zaptomatics, because I NEVER have a removal in hand, when this damn thing enters the board. So getting my drakes earth shocked isn't really a problem. On the other hand, Mountain Giants are very awkward to get off from a hand, especially against aggro decks. They are also hard to combo with Echo of Medivh, especially since I always try to include Illuminators in the combo. Molten and Sea Giants on the other hand often have their cost cut to zero, which makes them ideal for GIANTS EXPLOSION.

Oh, and portal is staying. It is too damn fun.

Update 3: Replaced Sneed with a second Healbot for more reliable healing

Update 4: This is a version of deck I took to a local tournament. Surprisingly, I got to Ro8. I also ran a handlock and a fatigue druid, and had to win with all 3 decks in every match. I didn't expect to win even one game with fatigue druid, but RNGsus was merciful to me this day.

Thaurissan is in. Obviously. 

I removed twilight drakes and added second mad scientist, so that secrets are more reliable. With that, I also added ethereal arcanist, but removed one healbot.

Water Elemental vs Pilotted Shredder is a tough choice. I decided to go with a Shredder for now.

Finally, acolyte is back, since Thaurissan benefits from big hand sizes (and I haven't actually run into a fatigue deck for a long time)

 This actually seems like a good time to retire this deck, so it may (or may not) be its final revision