Hearthpwn

I just had some hilarious interactions with a rogue where I Echo'd Alex and kept healing myself while holding the board with Molten Giants. He even took out two of my Ice Blocks. I'm still not sold on the dragons but I think the key cards in this deck are definitely the Molten Giants, Alex, Ice Block, Emperor, Mad Scientist, Frost Nova + Doomsayer, Echo, Duplicate, Kezan, Illuminator, Antique, Blizzard and Flamestrike. I've honestly found these to be the core cards that make or break your game. I enjoy having the bigger minions around for Echo value but I may mess around a bit with some other minions. Thanks again for such a fun deck.

:) My pleasure. I agree with the "core" deck. I also almost always find myself wanting at least one sludge belcher and loatheb in there, but there is, of course, still some room to play around with it to match your style and the meta. Let me know if you come up with something else because, as much as I love this deck, I barely have enough time to finish my dailies (and they're not always mage) so testing is slow.

edit: I MOSTLY agree with your "core." Obviously, I don't think mystic is a core card since I don't have him in this list, but it has come in when I've faced more mage, hunter, and druid (they tend to run their own kezans and it is a BIG swing in winability for them going from me winning around 80% of druid games where I don't see a mystic to closer to 55% if I do see one).

edit 2: Thanks for digging this up and being interested; it's getting me back interested in refining this deck.

I like the recent update but I'm just curious why you've included so many dragons. The curve of the deck is quite high so it seems like it would be tough to keep tempo up. I'm a fan of Hungry Dragon and Volcanic Drake but if you're only running only one Blackwing Corrupter, is Ysera necessary? I feel like on T9 you're either almost dead or have to deal with a full board so it might be tough to actually use Ysera efficiently.

Also, why did you add the Snowchugger? I find that it's often an effective tool to keep weapon classes locked down while you flood the board. If you're playing a control playstyle, there's not much for your opponent to use weapons on so perhaps a drop like Sunfury Protector would be more versatile (since it's really useful endgame too). 

I would consider also adding a Kezan Mystic. I know it seems odd but there are so many tempo mages and hunters out right now that everyone runs Kezan. You can use it to steal their secrets or steal back Ice Blocks taken from you by other classes.

Just some thoughts! I really enjoy what you're trying to accomplish with this deck so I'm looking forward to seeing it succeed.

Hey,

Thanks for the read, the suggestions, and the kind words. I have yet to make a decision on Ysera, but the main reason I added her was because I just opened her in a pack and wanted to give it a shot. o__O You are correct that she is sometimes the epitome of "win more," but she is obviously also crazy value against control decks. Without card draw, and given that if a control player is smart they will limit your echos, there is sometimes need for a little more to pull away.

Snowchugger was put in just to give me a versatile option that also helps shore up the early game. I was seeing a lot of rogue and hunter, so the freeze seemed like a nice bonus. But, you are correct that sunfury is also a good option for shoring up late game plays since snowchugger's bonus only worked when he was hitting face, which is at odds with the controllier feel of the deck. I've also been considering taking a page from fatigue echo and doing explosive sheep.

Kezan mystic has been in the deck before and may make a comeback. I do hate it when druids steal my secrets (basically the only way they can win) and you are correct that there are a lot of mages and hunters where I sit on the ladder. Still tweaking a few techier spots, like I did with the corrupter, so I'll have to remember to keep testing and keep updating. :) 

So I've been testing this at Rank 5. The only change I made was to put in Kezan Mystic instead of Ysera. I must say, this deck is great. I'm on a 4 win streak right now. I had some ridiculous Duplicate and Echo shenanigans that led to me having 4 Emperor Thaurissans throughout the course of a match against a priest. Props for such a fun deck. I'm not too convinced of the dragon synergy yet but it seems to be working so far. I'm a big fan of hungry dragon since most 1 drops are 2/1 and easy to kill with hero power.

Nice! I'm glad you seem to be enjoying it as much as I do. I love when the shenanagins really get going. Lots of emperors, moltens, and/or loathebs are always a good time. Hungry does definitely fit the deck well between the hero power and the AoE. Did you end up swapping out snowchugger, too, or sticking to it for now?

I stayed with it. Sometimes I wish I had the additional taunt but it's a pretty nice card to play early on

This deck looks good but I don't know how good Nefarian will be as 75% of spells are terrible.

Thanks. I've also grown a bit suspicious of nefarian--especially as post #1 said--this deck will probably already be pretty good against most control decks that you would think nefarian might help with. I'd put him first on the chopping block for when new cards come out or testing reveals he's not pulling his weight.

The deck looks pretty cool. I like the idea so I'll give it a plus 1. However, how would you deal with early aggression if you don't get a Mad Scientist or Doomsayer? Frost Nova is nice but only saves you one turn if the Doomsayer isn't there. If the enemy only puts down 3 minions, MCT won't come into play and any shenanigans with Hungry Dragon need to wait until Turn 7 or risk getting wrecked.

I feel like some more early assistance would be useful. I think returning some Sludge Belchers, ZChows, or Frostbolts would be necessary. Illuminator is nicer than Earthen IMO. Maybe remove Nefarion and Loatheb? This deck has some awesome potential vs. control as it is. A few more tools for aggro would probably be necessary.

Hey man, thanks for the comment. I currently run a similar deck to this one and, you are correct, the early game can get a bit rough if you don't draw right. USUALLY, what happens is you make a few trades as you can early on, but generally lose the first few turns handily. This is a late-game deck that really starts winning the battles turn 7+. Sometimes aggro is too fast for that--mostly hunter, of course, but my current version still does decently against them. That being said, the current version has a sludge belcher, a farseer, a blizzard, AND a deathlord over this version. Aaaaannnd having just written those two sentences, I'm reaching the conclusion that you are probably right. Even if the meta slows down a bit, there will always be hunters trying to win by turn 6. I'll make edits when the cards are revealed tomorrow and I'll keep this in mind.

Hey, I run a somewhat deck to this (though w/ 2 Blizzard & 2 Flamestrike and some minion differences). It can definitely get beat by early aggro, though it can also often survive. Basically, you're trying to slow and stall using ping, mad scientist, frostbolt, illuminator (especially if duplicate is up) or whatever other early minions you have (chow, loot hoarder, and acolyte of pain are sometimes run). You want to delay your frost nova as long as possible, for many reasons:

• More minions on board = more damage ameliorated
• More likely to draw doomsayer
• Nova on T5 or later can be followed by Blizzard; Nova on T6 or later can be followed by Flamestrike
• On later turns you have to mana to play Nova & develop minions on the same turn, to start hitting their face or clearing their board, depending on the situation.
• Damage taken gets you closer to your moltens

I find Frost Nova to be an amazing card, it's the multi-turn combos that make it good. On it's own, sure, it just stalls them one turn, and if that's turn 5 and your turn 6 play is healbot, yeah you are going to lose. It's all about frost nova into blizzard into flamestrike, or frost nova/molten/molten (or molten/echo/molten) with ice block up, next turn you get to swing with your moltens, and since you have ice block up, they either have to trade their board in (generally inefficient for aggro) while not popping your block, or if they go face to pop your block, you get the second set of swings with the moltens, and that's gg. I'm only playing one doomsayer right now, frost/doom is only one use for the card.

It's not like the arena where that one turn stall does nothing. You have the tools in your deck to do crazy things with that one more turn, like play Alexstraza, or hit them for 16 with two moltens.

Finally, this deck can easily be teched, if you are against a lot of aggro, you can add explosive sheep, chows, belchers, double healbot, lots of options.

^ definitely. Another trick I learned is to play doomsayer on what might be suboptimal in terms of clearing opponent's board in order to set up a clear board the next turn. This is particularly good if you have an emperor to play because it makes it a lot less likely they can answer right away which makes it a lot more likely that you'll get WAY more value than they can handle.