Hearthpwn

This deck HAS been tested and refined at legend tier, though the release of new cards in TGT means that it will need refining once again. This is not some gimmicky combo deck which will win 1/3 games in ridiculous fashion, and gets stomped in the other two. This is an actual competitive deck meant to climb the ladder and abuse the current state of the meta. It's current recorded win ratio is ~64%, and this is from play at legend tier. Bare in mind that this win-rate is due to the fact that I try to play this deck only when the meta favors it. The deck has SO FAR peaked at rank 51 in S13. Unfortunately, the highest ranking screenshot I have is this one, which also comes from S13.

 This deck hit legend in S14 as well, and I climbed through the gauntlet (ranks 5-legend) almost exclusively using this deck (I think i won a total of maybe 10 games with Midrange Hunter due to daily quests, and lost around 6 games with aforementioned deck). My S14 peak is rank 341. Below are proof of me hitting legend with this deck and proof of rank, respectively.

I hit legend in S15, though I did so via climbing with Mech Shaman, as S15's meta did NOT favor this deck at all! The ladder was full of Zoo, Patron Warrior, Midrange Druid, Midrange Hunter, Control Warrior, Shockadin, and the occasional Tempo Mage, Midrange Paladin, and Handlock. However, the overwhelming majority of matches that I faced with this deck were disfavorable, which made climbing in S15 with Dragon Lord Velen a rather poor idea, regrettably.

I hit legend in S16 with my own variant of Japanese Priest, though mostly because I was experiencing nostalgia for the good old days, and because my variant of Japanese Priest has a ridiculously good match-up against both Handlock and Patron Warrior, which were the two most popular decks in S16. After hitting legend and falling to ~1,000, I did start climbing with this deck (the Malygos variant of it) and peaked at rank 124.

Since S17, and for the foreseeable future, I will be working both a full time job and as a full time student. This means I likely will not be getting legend again any time soon. It also means that my ability to field test this deck post TGT will be very limited.

For the sake of statistics I have intentionally played this deck into some of it's worst match-ups (which rewarded me with legend 2,236 in S13, though this intentional rank-wrecking was not recorded in the deck's win/loss ratio, as playing it with the intent of climbing when I did would have been suicide) to determine just how bad these match-ups are, how best to play them, and whether or not the deck can be modified to make these match-ups not so terrible. As such, any deck listed as a "bad match-up" will always be favored against Dragon Lord Velen. Any deck listed as "relatively even" may range from being a slightly favorable match-up, to being a slightly disfavorable match-up which can be remedied with a few minor changes. Any deck listed as "favorable" is a deck against which Dragon Lord Velen should win the majority of matches against, regardless of minor tweaks.

Favorable match-ups:  

 

Dragadin/Midrange Paladin-(87%), Face Hunter-(83%), Handlock/Malylock-(75%), Tempo Mage-(70%), Mech Shaman-(66%), Mech Mage-(66%), Midrange Shaman-(66%), Oil Rogue-(66%), Control Priest-(66%), Totem Shaman-(66%), and Grim Patron Warrior-(60%).  

 

This deck has a lot of taunt, extremely strong minions considering their mana costs, and with a high amount of spell damage, can use Holy Novas to devastating effect. This all results in a highly favorable match-up against most aggro decks and midrange decks which either are spell based, or which run inferior minions. Many of the aggro decks that Dragon Lord Velen is favored against are favored when combated using the Defender of Argus + Kezan Mystic variant of this deck.  

 

 

Relatively even match-ups:  

 

 Freeze Mage-(+/-66%), Mid-Face/Nose Hunter-(60%), Dragon Priest-(45%), Zoo-(45%) Shockadin/Mysterious Midrange-(40%), and Midrange Druid-(40%)  

 

While Dragon Lord Velen runs minions that are very strong for their mana cost, this does not mean that you are guaranteed board control. This said, Nose Hunter, as I have been calling it, is just as weak to Deathlord as Face Hunter is, and this means that a strong opener, especially one including Deathlord basically seals the game. All in all, not the most difficult match-up.  

 

Freeze Mage may be good at clearing boards, but the point of the matter is that since Dragon Lord Velen is so good at drawing into more gas, you will always have a reasonably large board to threaten a Freeze Mage with. Through intelligent play of cards such as Holy Smite and Mind Blast, you should be able to maneuver yourself such that you always have a way to kill the Freeze Mage next turn. Sometimes Freeze Mages will have enough removal to make it to turn 9-10 with their first Ice Block still intact though, and the Freeze Mage will therefore be able to last long enough to kill you. The +/- symbol is to indicate the fact that teching in a Kezan Mystic over Twilight Whelp changes this match-up to be 95% in favor of Dragon Lord Velen.  

 

Midrange Druid can compensate for it's slightly inferior minions via Wild Growth, which enables Midrange Druid to go faster than Dragon Lord Velen in a manner similar to Midrange Hunter (though not as consistently). Additionally, Midrange Druid can occasionally recover via exceptional silences, the source of which being 2xKeeper of the Groves. Try to save Shadow Word: Death for Dr. Boom, as that is the only minion which Druids should be able to use to recover tempo. Cenarius simply comes in too late. Dropping Alexstrasza for Malygos and one Lightbomb for a Loot Hoarder or Nat Pagle is most effective against Druids, as the early card draw engine allows you to go faster than Druids most of the time, and Druids have a really tough time dealing with large minions like Malygos.    

 

Dragon Priest is an interesting deck. I personally do not think that it is stronger than American (Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing) Control Priest in the new meta. Yes I know that Tempo Storm will tell you otherwise, but American Control Priest has an incredibly strong AoE suite, and with the crazy synergy between Justicar Trueheart and both Auchenai Soulpriest and Confessor Paletress, the deck can dominate both midrange an aggro decks with ease, and Control Priest is already one of the kings of control, so those slow match-ups are a breeze. Despite this, the high minion quality of Dragon Lord Velen is mirrored in Dragon Priest, only Dragon Priest has a far greater number of minions. This means you will often lose the board, though Dragon Priest's slower nature and lack of healing spells means that combo'ing them to death is not uncommon. Regardless of who wins, these games are always extremely close.

 

Shockadin and Mysterious Midrange both have a lot of damage and its minions are much harder to remove due to their abuse of Divine Shield than are the minions of most other aggro decks. This means that an aggro/secret paladin does not let go of board control if they obtain it early on in the game. Even worse is the use of Divine Favor, which is a game winner for paladins against this combo deck, which draws about as many cards as a Handlock. Hence, a strong opener which you can dump onto the field to keep a relatively empty hand is required to combat the deck, which requires more luck than I would like... but this decks inherent strength vs aggro decks and the lack of healing run in aggressive paladin decks means that recoveries are not uncommon. Coupled with the fact that this deck does not necessarily need to attack face to win, paladin secrets are far less game swinging against Dragon Lord Velen than against most other decks. This said, they are still game swinging.

 

Zoo is simply faster by nature, but again, Dragon Lord Velen's superior minion quality and abundance of taunts often allows for wins. Sometimes Zoo will draw a very fast hand, and through cards such as Imp-losion abuse the fact that Dragon Lord Velen runs such a small AoE removal suite. In other games, Dragon Lord Velen will draw a rather fast hand, and the Zoo player will never be able to recover the board, given that Zoo also runs a rather slight removal suite. Dropping Alexstrasza for a Vol'jin can bring this match-up full circle to being 60/40 in favor of Dragon Lord Velen, though dropping such a powerhouse creature damages many other match-ups, and is not recommended unless the meta consists of 80% Zoo/Midrange Demonlock and 20% other things.  Chillmaw surprisingly had minimal effect on this match-up, as Zoo players often abuse him to trigger cards like Nerubian Egg ETC.

 

 

Bad match-ups:  

 

Control Warrior-(20%), Midrange Demonlock-(25%), and Midrange Hunter (33%), the former two being almost un-winnable, and the latter being difficult at best.  

 

Control Warrior gains too much armor, and can gain weapon value with a reasonable degree of efficiency against this deck. This means that you can't win via board control unless you flood (which requires a lucky draw AND that the warrior doesn't have Brawl), and that you most certainly cannot win via combo. Warriors are also able to deal with Twilight Drake and Deathlord with devastating efficiency, which makes obtaining board control even harder. The warrior will simply have too much armor to combo him to death. Dropping Alexstrasza for Malygos improves the match-up to 30/70, but warriors can often deal with Alexstrasza just as easily as Malygos. The only reason why Malygos is superior is that A: He can't be BGH'd, and B: if he is not dealt with, the damage ceiling of your combo can reach as high as 76 damage, though 40-54 dmg combos are more common (which is still more than enough to burst most control warriors IF Malygos sticks to the board for a turn).  

 

Midrange Demonlock plays the same game that Dragon Lord Velen does, but has more consistent card draw, and stronger late game minions. These strong late-game minions will often force you to use Shadow Word: Death and Lightbomb before Mal'Ganis comes out. This means that in the majority of match-ups, Midrange Demonlock wins by virtue of it being slightly more consistent in it's Midrange tactics than Dragon Lord Velen, and the fact that Mal'Ganis makes the user invulnerable.  The counter to dragons, as it turns out, is turtles.

 

Midrange Hunter simply goes faster than Dragon Lord Velen, and does so rather consistently. This combined with Freezing Trap means that Midrange Hunter will simply not allow you to set up any semblance of a combo. That said, it is still possible to establish a small board and then use Defender of Argus. This creates a taunt wall AND a counter to Freezing Trap, which gives you time to set-up for the combo assuming the hunter does not have Hunter's Mark.  

 

 

All of these match-up win ratios are subject to change should the Emperor Velen deck archetype become popularized, which would result in players learning how to play against it. The current ridiculous win-rate is based on the fact that players will almost certainly misplay by virtue of the fact that they will have no idea what it is they are playing against until it is too late.

If you find the meta to be full of aggro decks and/or those midrange decks which Dragon Lord Velen is favored against, than playing Dragon Lord Velen should net you a 66%+ winrate. If the meta is instead full of rather disfavorable Midrange match-ups (like Midrange Druid, Midrange Hunter, and Midrange Demonlock) and Control decks, then playing this deck is unwise, and shouldn't net you much more than a 40% winrate, if you are lucky. In such a meta, I would recommend running something like Control Priest instead. Most metas contain a mix of favorable and disfavorable match-ups, leaving Dragon Lord Velen's average winrate hovering around 45-55%, depending on which decks are most dominant.

A good way to analyze the meta is either to play 2-3 games with Midrange Hunter/Midrange Paladin (as both decks have a roughly 50% win-rate in the majority of match-ups) in order to get a feel for the day's meta, or to go to www.tempostorm.com to check the latest meta snapshot (though lately I have consistently disagreed with the ranking of various decks on the ladder by tempostorm's authors) ESPECIALLY with how highly they rank Malylock, Oil Rogue, and Patron Warrior.

Dragon Lord Velen's strengths and weaknesses are in stark contrast to Midrange Druid, which is strong against most control/outlast decks but weak to aggro, while Dragon Lord Velen is weak to most control/outlast decks and insanely strong against most forms of aggro. The two also have opposite win ratios against most Midrange decks other than Midrange Hunter and Zoo (which has been shifting more towards the midgame lately). This means that Dragon Lord Velen performs best in a meta which consists largely of aggressive decks, where-in most of Dragon Lord Velen's bad match-ups are kept down by the other aggro and midrange decks that it performs so well against, while Midrange Druid performs far better in those metas which consist largely of high value late game decks. Perhaps the biggest difference between Midrange Druid and Dragon Lord Velen though is that Dragon Lord Velen is a lot of fun to play, and I cannot say the same for Midrange Druid.

There are no substitutes for Prophet Velen nor Emperor Thaurissan.  If you don't have both of these cards, don't bother trying to run the deck. It won't work.  

 

Bloodmage Thalnos can be swapped out for Loot Hoarder for aggro metas or Nat Pagle for heavy control metas. This does make the deck perform slightly worse in some midrange and control match-ups, though it does present a rather significant improvement to some aggro and midrange match-ups (such as Oil Rogue).   

 

Against an aggro heavy meta Deathlord can be swapped for Defender of Argus and one Shadow Word: Deaths can be switched for a Kezan Mystic or a Loot Hoarder.

No, Twilight Drake cannot be swapped for Twilight Guardian. I have done a lot of testing with our new guardian friend, and have determined that even with the relevant dragon type, and 1 more health than a Sen'jin Shieldmasta, he is still about as relevant. The sad truth about taunt minions is that they either need high attack to be able to trade with powerful minions (like Chillmaw), or insanely high health to be relevant against all of the sticky early game minions. Twilight Guardian has neither. This means that a Twilight Drake which has been hit by Defender of Argus is far preferable to Twilight Guardian.

 

Against more Midrange oriented metas, one Shadow Word: Death can be swapped for either a Loot Hoarder or Kezan Mystic depending on how heavily Midrange Hunter and Grinder Mage / Freeze Mage are being played.    

 

Against extremely control heavy metas, swap Bloodmage Thalnos for Nat Pagle and one Defender of Argus for Vol'jin. Taunts aren't crucial against control decks, and while still useful to force / prevent trades, do not require a full 3 deck slots.

 

One other change which I have been testing which worked quite well in S16 is swapping Alexstrasza for Malygos and one Shadow Word: Death for a Loot Hoarder. Malygos is superior against control warrior, druid, and rogue, and the second Loot Hoarder is used to simply go faster than druids, rogues, and most aggro decks. This change worsens your Handlock match-up (though not by much), your priest mirror match (which is now horrendous), and drops your face hunter match-up by a good 25%, though most other match-ups remain relatively unchanged.

 

Tech decisions can be found within the match-up table. You may notice that every class has a suggested retooling. This current variant of the deck is not the strongest against any one class, but is on average the strongest variant of the deck if you are queuing into a meta which is not completely stagnant.

Warrior:  

 

Twilight Drake, Blackwing Technician, Acolyte of Pain, Bloodmage Thalnos, Emperor Thaurissan, and Lightbomb can all be kept.  

 

Generally speaking, Twilight Whelp should be saved as a dragon trigger, and Bloodmage Thalnos should be held as a source of spell damage when he is needed, especially against Patron Warrior. Try to always have 1 dragon in hand, as often that dragon will be more effective in hand than on the field. There is no urgency to play cards, as stocking up a large hand for Twilight Drake is an effective strategy. Warrior heavy metas should result in a control retooling for this deck. Bloodmage Thalnos can also be swapped for Harrison Jones if control warrior becomes too powerful *cough Varian Wrynn.

 

Shaman:  

 

Northshire Cleric, Velen's Chosen, Blackwing Technician, Twilight Drake, Defender of Argus, and Acolyte of Pain can all be kept.  

 

Don't bother building up a large hand for Twilight Drake, as it's going to get Earth Shocked anyway. Try to save Bloodmage Thalnos for Holy Novas and/or a Spell Damage Holy Smite so as to always have an answer to Flametongue Totem. Beyond that, it is of utmost importance that you do not lose board presence. Once this happens, cards like Thunderbluff Valiant and Fire Elemental will lock you out of the game.  

 

Rogue:  

 

Defender of Argus, Acolyte of Pain, Blackwing Technician, and Twilight Drake can all be kept.  

 

Try to distribute buffs on your creatures to play around Sap. Beyond that, your high minion quality coupled with Defender of Argus should make any rogue cry. If it is mill rogue, you auto-win, as combo decks are naturally favored to an insane degree against mill decks. If it's Oil Rogue, you are still favored, though do be careful around Blade Flurry. See warrior for tech changes, as the same changes should be made for rogues as were made for warriors. Revenge of the Priests baby!!!  

 

Paladin:  

 

See Hunter for mulligans  

 

Try not to exceed 3-4 creatures on the board at any one time. Sylvanas Windrunner and the Equality+Consecration combo are highly punishing otherwise. This said, most paladins don't even run Equality nor Sylvannas Windrunner anymore, as aggressive paladin decks have been dominating the meta. Against the new secret paladin, try to control the board in the early game as much as possible, and save a Shadow Word: Death for that Mysterious Challenger. Midrange Paladin decks tend to struggle against Dragon Lord Velen, as your superior minion quality makes most of their weapons useless, and a complete lack of ways to recover early board control is extremely punishing for paladin players. See Warrior for retooling against midrange, and Hunter for retooling against aggro.  

 

Hunter:  

 

Holy Smite, Northshire Cleric, Bloodmage Thalnos, Blackwing Technician, and Defender of Argus can all be kept. Keep Twilight Drake only if you have Blackwing Technician and/or Twilight Whelp in your start hand.  

 

Against Hunters, caution gets thrown to the wind. If you have a minion which you can play, play it. If you need a minion to play turn 3 but you can't trigger the dragon text on Blackwing Technician and have no other options, oh well. You need creatures to use as removal, and to use with Defender of Argus to stay alive. Heal every turn once you have 2+ minions on the board, and if mana permits, every turn you can. Aggro retooling should be made for hunter heavy metas.  

 

Druid:  

 

Keep Northshire Cleric, Twilight Drake, Defender of Argus, Acolyte of Pain, Velen's Chosen, and Blackwing Technician.  

 

Try to trigger dragon text as much as you can against Druids, as your minions will be of far superior quality to theirs if you do, and you should be able to take board control early and maintain it with relative ease. That said, if you lose the board, you lose the game. Sometimes it will happen and there is nothing you can do about it, other than topdeck Lightbomb. Try to distribute buffs as much as possible, just as you would against rogues, as stacking too many buffs on one creature allows a Druid to recover and steal the game with a single Keeper of the Grove. As previously stated, dropping one Lightbomb for either Loot Hoarder or Nat Pagle and Alexstrasza for Malygos is most effective against Druids.  

 

Warlock:  

 

See Hunter for mulligans. Lightbomb is keep-able in Handlock heavy metas.  

 

Use early Holy Smites on Flame Imps and Knife Jugglers. If you draw them late game, save them for the combo, as Warlocks aren't known for maintaining high health totals. Prioritize healing minions over healing your face unless you are at risky of dying (which is ALWAYS possible if you are at 12 hp or less). Save Shadow Word: Death for Sea Giants and Doomguards against Zoo, and be sure to ALWAYS save one in hand for Mal'Ganis the Turtle against Midrange Demonlock. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. If you are up against a Midrange Demonlock, you either save Shadow Word: Death for Mal'Ganis, or you pray to God that he never draws it. You can't combo someone who is immune. Warlocks are tricky. Swapping a Shadow Word: Death for Lightbomb is great against Handlock, and is decent against Zoo, but often times leaves you more vulnerable to cards like Doomguard. Even though warlock has so many different deck archetypes available to it, all of them are best combated by the double Lightbomb build seen here.  

 

Mage:  

 

See Hunter for mulligans.   

 

Against Mages, you have to determine in the first few turns what type of Mage you are facing. If you are playing against Mech Mage, play the game similarly to if you were playing against Zoo. Try to save Holy Novas for use with Spell Power where possible and try to trigger dragon text whenever possible. Against Tempo Mage, try to save a Northshire Cleric or some other small minion for Mirror Entity, but prioritize card draw over playing around Mirror Entity. Chances are you will draw into another small minion soon enough, and such cards as Acolyte of Pain and Bloodmage Thalnos still serve as reasonably strong counters to aforementioned secret. Aggro retooling is effective against any kind of mage deck.  

 

Priest:  

 

Keep Power Word: Shield, Northshire Cleric, Defender of Argus, Blackwing Technician, Velen's Chosen, Twilight Drake, and Emperor Thaurissan.  

 

Against Priests, do your best to trade favorably and maintain board control. This match-up, as a result, tends to take a long time, as other priests will often hover around 25-30 hp as a result of you having to play the value game and control the board. No, this issue isn't solved by going face, that's how you lose board control and the game. This is the case against every Priest deck, be it American, Japanese, Dragon, etc. Given that Dragon Lord Velen has so much more draw power than other priests, you should be able to draw... well the entire deck in the majority of games. Once you have Prophet Velen and 2xMind Blast in hand, play Emperor Thaurissan to set up the combo and then use Alexstraza to set the opposing Priest to 15 hp. The most that any current priest deck is likely to heal for is 5hp in one turn assuming he removes Alexstrasza. Then you blow his mind. Control retooling (excluding the Malygos change) is effective against priests.

2x Holy Smite

2xPower Word: Shield

2xNorthshire Cleric

2xMind Blast

1xBloodmage Thalnos

2xShadow Word: Death

2xVelen's Chosen

2xAcolyte of Pain

2xBlackwing Technician

2xDefender of Argus

2xTwilight Drake

2xHoly Nova

2xAzure Drake

1xLightbomb

1xEmperor Thaurissan

1xChillmaw

1xProphet Velen

1xAlexstrasza

2x Holy Smite

2xPower Word: Shield

2xNorthshire Cleric

2xMind Blast

1xBloodmage Thalnos

1xShadow Word: Death

2xVelen's Chosen

2xAcolyte of Pain

2xBlackwing Technician

2xDeathlord

2xTwilight Drake

2xHoly Nova

2xAzure Drake

2xLightbomb

1xEmperor Thaurissan

1xProphet Velen

1xAlexstrasza

1xMalygos

2x Holy Smite

2xPower Word: Shield

2xNorthshire Cleric

2xMind Blast

1xBloodmage Thalnos

1xLoot Hoarder

1xShadow Word: Death

2xVelen's Chosen

2xAcolyte of Pain

2xBlackwing Technician

2xDeathlord

2xTwilight Drake

2xHoly Nova

2xAzure Drake

2xLightbomb

1xEmperor Thaurissan

1xProphet Velen

1xAlexstrasza

2x Holy Smite

2xPower Word: Shield

2xNorthshire Cleric

1xTwilight Whelp

2xMind Blast

1xBloodmage Thalnos

2xShadow Word: Death

2xVelen's Chosen

2xAcolyte of Pain

2xBlackwing Technician

2xDefender of Argus

1xKezan Mystic

2xTwilight Drake

2xHoly Nova

2xAzure Drake

1xEmperor Thaurissan

1xProphet Velen

1xAlexstrasza

2x Holy Smite

2xPower Word: Shield

2xNorthshire Cleric

2xTwilight Whelp

2xMind Blast

1xBloodmage Thalnos

2xShadow Word: Death

2xVelen's Chosen

2xAcolyte of Pain

2xBlackwing Technician

2xDefender of Argus

2xTwilight Drake

2xHoly Nova

2xAzure Drake

1xEmperor Thaurissan

1xProphet Velen

1xAlexstrasza