Hearthpwn

Do you have any information you could share on your matchups against Handlock? 

I'm having a lot of troubles against them and would really appreciate it if you could give some tips.

I believe my record against Handlock last season in Feb was an anomaly, and I didn't have that many match-ups. This deck is traditionally poor against Handlock, and it caught up with me this season, where my record is 33%. That said, last season I ran TBK instead of Harrison which helps deal with some of the big Taunts at mid/end game.

The main problem is that this deck has trouble pouring on pressure in the early game, and doesn't have enough burst to take the opponent down from 16-20 health. You can't let your opponent hover at less than 14 for fear of huge Molten Giant tempo swings. On the other hand, you can't win the long-game against a Handlock unless by some miracle you get a KT out with other sticky minions, and they don't have a way to Silence or remove it. They simply have too much health, too many large minions for you to deal with, too many Silence targets, and can constantly put out threats post Jaraxxus. 

That said, I believe that the games I won I was able to pour on decent pressure in the early game, and then close it off with a Keeper for Silence to get past Taunts, or had 1-2 Swipes for direct face damage. 

You need to Mulligan for Keeper and BGH to deal with minions, Wild Growth and Innervate to get some earlier pressure, and a Zombie Chow to both trade with the silenced Twilight Drake or as a hedge in case it's a more aggressive deck. Keep very close track of Handlock's health and hand, and consider how cheap/expensive a Molten or Mountain Giant would be. At some point, you're likely going to make a read or just gamble that he doesn't have 1-2x Molten + a Taunt giver and go face, and the earlier the better. Having an additional Keeper or Swipe in hand to bypass Taunts or do direct face damage is key, and you should consider holding your Zombie Chows in hand.

Try and play around devastating Shadowflames. 

The main advantage you have in this match-up is that most Handlocks are assuming they're going up against Fast Druids, so will probably value holding on to Hellfires in the opening mulligan to to clear out Shades and/or Piloted Shredders. This deck's minions are more resilient against Hellfire. Also, since the Handlock needs to worry about getting bursted down from as low as 14, they probably can't afford to keep Moltens in hand against you. So, depending on how far into the match-up you are, you might just need to assume that they haven't drawn into them yet. 

I know at least a couple of the games I lost this season to Handlock were due to me being too worried about Moltens. It never feels good to go for it, bring the opponent down to 5, just to watch him drop 2 Moltens and a Sunfury, and then Shadowflame, but I have to say, it feels worse losing the long game knowing that he didn't draw Moltens until later.

To beat handlock Or any heavy control deck u need 2 big game hunters for the giants, ragnaros and dr boom, keepers of the grove can take care of the twilight drakes, u need the shades of naxxramas and try to get the out asap and make the grow big enough to trade them with the big guys. U need also the black knight for the taunted giants or the ancient of wars in the druid matchup. Put ysera too and play her when u think its safe she is queen in the control matchup, i prefer her over sneeds old shedder, sneeds doent give u an instant effect and if it gets silence its just a 5/7 on the board that cost u 8 mana. Ragnaros is good but vulnerable to bgh, thats why i prefer ysera. i got 0 bgh targets my deck. I runs cenarius, ysera, kelthuzad, sylvanas and the black knight, no dr boom or ragnaros so i dont lose my high mana miniosn to a stupid bgh. My 2 cents, i hope i helped :)

another tip, play ur shades of naxxramas as early as u can so at turn 4 hellfire wont kill them. Keep ur keepers of the grove for the twiligt drakes of the taunts u cant get past if u dont havw the black knight available, dont waste the black knight on a taunted ancient watcher, save it for taunted giants or infernals. Play safe ur ancient of wars and ysera. Mulligan for big game hunter to kill mountain giant On turn 4.

dude pls tell me , im trying -1kezan -1zombie for precious combo ,is it worth it ?

Personally, I don't see a lot value in adding Combo. This deck rarely has an opportunity to attack face, which you need in order to whittle the opponent down to combo range. It is SO important to keep the board clear and get the most value out of your minions possible. You never want your Ancients of War or Sneed's, or even your Druids of the Claw dying to a single card. You need to 2-for-1 or better, which means you're usually attacking minions. If instead you attack face with your minions, you're risking huge value and tempo swings from single removal like Sap, Polymorph, Fireball, The Black Knight, Hex, etc. 

I really think that Ramp + Combo is too greedy. If I run Combo, I'd go with the Midrange/Faster Druid that runs Shades + Piloted Shredders, and additional card draw from Azure Drake to draw into Combo. 

You say that Ramp+Combo is your second hardest match up at 33% why not include a copy of combo in your deck then?

Sometimes you need to fight fire with ice, not fire. Combo Druid decks work because they have sticky minions like Shade or Piloted Shredder, and benefit more by drawing cards in order to get Combo, so Azure Drake also has a purpose. Since they usually have a more aggressive opener, they also sneak in face damage earlier on in the game, and then threaten lethal with 14 damage plus whatever's on board by turn 9, or turn 7 with Innervate.

My Taunt Wall Ramp Druid doesn't have sticky minions; it has BIG ones. They are more defensive, and usually the opponent's health isn't threatened by turn 9 unless I'm running away with the game, in which case the Combo would only help me win more. Throwing in Combo would necessarily remove 2 cards, which I could probably fit in, but overall the flavor of the deck (defensive, win by overwhelming with larger minions over the long haul) doesn't match Combo (stay on the board with minions threaten them with lethal).

I experimented with a copy of Combo in a Taunt deck before and overall I felt that I was using the FoN and Savage Roar for removal, at the expense of having more consistent 5+ drop minions. 

If I were to stick a copy of Combo in here, then I'd probably end up just going all out and swapping out Sen'jin for Shredder, find a way to get 2x Shades in there, and probably a Loatheb to help set up Combo.

Really a fabulous deck having pretty good success with it however I seem to be dropping games to mech mage a lot... As they don't run many secrets Kezan Mystic can't really get lots of value. I was wondering if you had any replacements you could recommend that might gear my deck towards killing those mech mage hordes the plague the lower ranks so I can get out of the low rank meta! Thanks

I had a 58% win rate against mech mages with this deck at ranks 5 or better, so I think of it as a slightly favorable match-up. If you need help, happy to jump on a Skype or spectator mode and watch and comment on some games. 

Kezan Mystic is in there as must to be defensive as it is offensive. If they get a Mirror down and you don't have a Chow or MC Tech in hand, you are in a lot of trouble. If you have to drop a Sludge Belcher or Ancient of Lore into Mirror Entity, you are pretty screwed. Probably the best 5+ option is to play a DoC to charge into something. Stealing the Mirror is huge to save you from letting them get a big tempo swing on you. You usually don't end up getting much value out of the Mirror, but if they've emptied their hand already, you might get lucky.

The other upside of holding Kezan Mystic is that it lets you use the Keeper's ability on something else besides the Mad Scientist (say a Shredder, or just use 2 damage). 

Against Mech Mages, I suggest just going all out for a few key cards: Zombie Chow, Wrath, and Innervate are all must keeps. Chows deal with early aggression, Wrath for the Mech Warper and/or other annoying cards, and Innervate to help catch up on tempo. A few other cards are situational:

• Wild Growth (if you have a Chow, or if you are going first and have a Keeper/Sen'jin)
• Keeper/Sen'jin (if you otherwise have a good early curve, or a Wild Growth will get you to 4-mana by T3 and you are going first)
• Belcher/DoC if you have an Innervate or you otherwise have plays for turns 1-3 
• Kezan Mystic if you have a great start already
• I'm up in the air on Swipe. It's good for dealing with Azure Drakes, Tinkertown Technicians, and Blast Mages, but the 1 extra damage doesn't usually do much for you unless they're dropping Gnomes. I'd only keep it in the opener if I had plays up until 4-mana. Typically I'd rather have Sen'jin. 

Ideal curves are something like:

1. T1 Chow
2. T2 Wild Growth
3. T3 Sen'jin/Keeper
4. T4 Belcher/DoC

or 

• T1 Chow
• T2 Wrath
• T3 Chow + Wild Growth
• T4 Belcher/DoC

Keeping Wild Growth when you're going 2nd without a Chow is a bit of problem. Coining it out on T1 doesn't really help you get to 4-mana faster, so unless you have a follow-up Wrath on T2, it's usually better to save the Coin. 

You want to stall their early aggression with Chows, and you don't mind drawing Frost Bolts and/or Fireballs on your Sen'jins or 5-mana taunts. Ancients of War are REALLY hard for Mech Mage to deal with as they don't usually run Silence or TBK. You just hope they don't have Reversing Switch (1-mana 5 dmg basically!). Getting a Sylvanas on curve is pretty good as well. 

If their hand is fizzling out, play conservative. You're going to win the top-deck war. The late game threats are Antonidas and Dr. Boom, so you need to think about ways to deal with that. BGH of course is a huge swing against Boom and DoC + Wrath helps deal with Antonidas. Ancients of Lore lifegain can help you put the game away, but don't be afraid of drawing the extra cards if you've got the board and are at decent health (say, 17+, or lower if Antonidas and/or Fireballs are gone). 

This was a really huge help thanks a lot!

i run something like this but i realized something: i only need one innervate. having two i would always end up drawing both as my "out of cards need to top-deck" draws. having one allows decent plays, but you are much less likely to end up having a useless innervate in hand.

i may just be insane/stupid/bad though, but it works for me.

I hope it works for you! The main reason I have 2 is to maximize my chance of drawing one by turn 1, not that I necessarily use both throughout the game. 

Do you think Dr. Boom is a good replacement for Sneed's Old Shredder? Or is that one to many 7-drops? The alternatives are Ragnaros the Firelord or Ysera I assume?

I ended up replace the following:

- 1x Ancient of War, - 1x Sneed's Old Shredder

+ 1x Dr. Boom, + 1x Ragnaros the Firelord

Seems okey to me. :-)

Those are definitely feasible replacements. The only reason I went away from Dr. Boom and/or Rag (I used to have Rag in an earlier Ramp I used to hit Legend in Oct) is because I wanted to avoid any BGH targets. The deck is vulnerable to TBK, which I'm thankful isn't being played as much. However, Ramp already has a lot of trouble establishing board presence since it's a slower deck, and if Dr. Boom and/or Rag get BGHed, then it was often a death knell for the deck. The AoW puts up a wall that the opponent has to get past or Silence.

Also, because you're often up against decks that are playing many smaller minions, Rag's randomness has a high likelihood of hitting a bunch of little guys. It does help you more in the Hunter matchup since it doesn't proc traps, but I do like Sneed's in that 8-drop. 

My prediction: your setup will do better for you against control decks but worse against aggro and Hunter decks (Dr. Boom and Rag are both worse against Hunter, I think, due to UTH/minion swarm). 

Agree!

I love playing Druid decks that don't run combo. It gets so old and is not satisfying to win with it. I hope to see more decks out there that stray away from this.

I tried combo a couple months ago but just felt like having 5+ minion drops was too inconsistent. I also think Ramp is a more straightforward deck to play. :D

It also does better against all the Hunter and Mech Mage, although it's definitely worse against Oil Rogue and Paladin.

+1

I have exactly the same opinion!