Hybrid Druid is new meta (Combo/Taunt)
- Last updated Jul 2, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)
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Wild
- 18 Minions
- 12 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 6060
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 6/11/2015 (Blackrock Launch)
- dimonenka
- Registered User
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- 4
- 9
- 17
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Battle Tag:
dimonenka#2339
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
135
This actually works!
Hello and welcome. I introduce you my hybrid Druid! It is a combination of 2 decks: combo druid and taunt druid. The purpose of the deck is to take the best of both decks and overcome weaknesses they have on their own.
Combo druids have been empowered since BR release with one great card, which is Emperor, so you could use your combos and win games even earlier, considering you have your ramp and your pressure. Still, druids could have been considerably easy killed by aggresive decks with much early pressure, which are very, very popular right now.
Taunt decks of Malfurion, on the other side, are usually pretty good vs agro, as that is their purpose in the first place - to have an unbrekable wall of endless creatures. But the weakness of the deck as i see it is that while they can stop face damage, they dont have much ways to seal the game, they have to trade and release creatures and thats about it. Win condition is only tempo, and often it isn't quite enough as it's too slow, and being slow means giving yout opponent a chance to find burst to end the game before you. And versus control decks it can suck arse as well.
And here comes a Hybrid deck. While having dos combos to seal a deal when needed and ramp to accelerate the process, it has many taunts to prevent you from dying while gathering your combo, and even plan B with winning just by succecfully trading minions with KT and getting a big board. This sounds good in theory and works versus most popular decks nowadays in practice.
Lets get into the cards.
Note, that this is only my opinion. If you get the idea of this deck, adjust it for your own. Innovate!
Innervate x2, Wild Growth x2 - your mana manipulation, as well as Emperor. Must have.
Wrath x2- card draw/removal. Must have.
Savage roar x2 - Must have. Card is very strong as a part of a combo, and as a card itself.
Three mana drops - you might not need a BGH against hunter, but i doubt you can play ladder without it, as now almost every deck has a target; MCTech can be replaced to the second shade, for example, but i personally love the card, it is either an okay 3 drop or a massive tempo swing.
Swipe x2- One of few actual removals. You might take only one, but i strongly prefer both.
Keeper of the Grove x2 - strong card, i consider it as a must have.
Sen'jin Shieldmasta x2 - you actually can replace em with Piloted Shredders or replace one with one Mystic, the choice is yours. I prefer more taunts.
5 mana taunts and Loatheb - you can vary them as well, put a Harrison Jones for example. You might go for Azure Drakes, but i don't like them in this druid, nor in any druid. This deck stil gotta have much taunts.
Force of Nature x2 - yes, you might take only one, but in most, not face-hunterous, matches you'd better have 2.
Doctor boom - still freaking OP, still wonderful with combo.
Ancient of war - taunt. Very, very strong one. Love it. Might have had 2, but have no place.
Ancient of lore x2 - must have. Heal and carddraw and a strong creature, come on.
KT - yes, this is a must have too.
Cards you might wanna add:
Zombie Chow x1 (If you want first drop to control the early board), Robo Cub x1 (Same purpose and a taunt. Yes noone uses it, but still might work. Right? Idk.), second BGH (If that's your fetish), Kezan Mystic (same and same for the following), Piloted Shredder x1 or x2, Harrison Jones, Azure Drake (Please don't), Sylvanas, Black Knight, second Ancient of War, Healbot, Cenarius (You might wonder, why it isn't ong the list. First, i don't really like this card. Second, i don't have it.), Ragnaros? (i doubt it).
Mulligan:
The rule i use for most games is simple: you go for early removal (Wrath), and turn 3-4 drops. If you already have ramp, you should not discard 5 drops as well. If you have all the ramp, doctor boom might be fine too. I hope you get the idea. You should have something to play in early turns. Plus, you need BGH vs Handlocks, you probably need swipe vs Hunters, and so on - common sense is your helper.
Conclusion:
Screw it, i am already tired. Thanks for your attention, try this deck out as it works very well, have fun with this deck, have fun with all the decks, have a good day, have a good life.
Upd about card switches.
Just so you know. Many people suggested to put Kezan Mystic - you can switch MCTech or one of sen'jins or shade for him. Some says that Deathlord is better than shade - so put him in if you lack taunts. It's okay to switch Loatheb for Harrison. But don't replace Kel Thuzad, he is essential.
Ok, you won.
Cenarius seems to be more reliable, so i replace KT for him. And temo mages and hunters are popular, so kezan works, thou MCtech is still good.
Matchups.
So, here is a quick matchup overview by JohnBellHood, who took legend with this deck:
"For the record, these were my stats over the final 3-4 days of the season:
Hunter 9-4
Paladin 12-4
Warrior 13-5
Warlock 5-5
Rogue 4-3
Shaman 1-0
Priest 2-3
Mage 2-6
Druid 1-5
I think that gives a pretty representative sense of what the deck does and does not do well. It has all the tools to dismantle aggro and weapon classes. It beats up on Patron and Control Warriors with the wonderful 31 point combos (double savage + Force + 1 5-attack minion). It has some of the same problems Druids have always had against HandLock. It can struggle against decks that snowball sticky minions, hence Zoo can be tricky, but not unwinnable. Druid mirrors against Combo-Oriented decks are weak. When a Druid gets double Shade or starts playing Shredders against your Sen'jins, it's a bad matchup. Most of the Combo Druids just have more efficient burst than this deck does. Finally, Mage is a bad matchup in both Mech and Flamewaker incarnations. The MechMage has Mirror Entity and BlastMage, which are a pain to face. The Flamewaker snowballs minions that Swipe doesn't really clear. 1 of my Mage wins was against a Freeze Mage; the other matchups are really quite bad. Basically, I would say that if you see a meta without many Mages or Druids, this deck is superb."
Boom should be preferred over Cenarius because it gives you more minions earlier to combo with savage roar. I'm not saying you can't run Cenarius but I would replace KT with Cenarius rather than Boom regardless of BGH value since most decks that run BGH combo druid should beat anyway (Ex. Handlock and Control Warrior).
I honestly dont like MCT that much in ranked play anymore because more often than not he's sitting there.
And even if you do get to a point where your opponent has at least 4, most of the time you're already in a bad situation.
Many people do play around that dangerous 4 minions as well, against druid mostly.
Switch it to Kezan or second shade or Deathlord then!
awesome deck, what would swap out for shades of naxx,sludge belcher and kelthuzad? don't have access to those cards.
currently trying out sunwalkers instead of belcher and sylvanas instead of kel
Loatheb can be swithed to Harrison, healbot or kezan. Shade can be replaced for kezan or Deathlord, which you probably don't have too. Belchers can be replaced to sunwalkers, yes, but belchers are far more effective - lower mana cost, combo synergy. Sylvanas is okay, as well as Cenarius. Put zombie chow, may be.
I personally would replace KT, loatheb, shade and 2 belchers for 1 Sunwalker, 1 kezan, 1 sylvanas, 1 cenarius, 1 Harrison, i guess.
So now all I did was replace shade for kezan and I am winning much more than with shade!
I have been playing a similar deck for a few weeks now, I came to the same conclusion that you had; combine the two Druid decks to get the best of both worlds. I have used it about 80% of the time during ranked play this season, currently sitting at 6.
I have gone through a lot of iterations, this is currently how my deck is different from yours:
-1 Shade of Naxxramas (Felt this card was too slow, that the stuff I was playing early needed to help me control the board, and if I got it late it wasnt much help.)
-1 Loatheb (Its a good card, in general I find myself playing something else as the 'optimal' play.)
-1 Kel'Thuzad (Ran this for a while, found that it wasnt super valuable to boost up to with my Innervates (unlike most of the other 6+ drops), and when I was dropping it late game it didnt turn the tides if I was losing, or helped me Win+!)
+2 Deathlord (It can screw you sometimes, but it can be a fantastic value and be huge against Face Hunters and other fast, low casting cost decks. If you cant stomach the RNG in this game though, certainly stay away.)
+1 Ancient of War (I almost never get caught holding these, I love them.)
I agree with shade and Loatheb switches for Deathlord and Ancient. But KT is still inevitable in my opinion.
Yeah I agree about Kel'Thuzad. He has won me a good amount games that's for sure. Like last night, I had traded my AoL and Keeper into the other player's minions. I had roar and FoN on hand setting up for the KO...I dropped Kel'Thuzad to get my minions back. The other player did not have enough on board to deal with all the minions.
Just like I thought would happen...he traded to get rid of Kel'Thuzad fast (he used silence earlier in the game, so had to trade to get rid of KT), and left my other two minions alone...next turn it was GG indeed :)
Now that setup won't always happen, but Kel'Thuzad is a great addition to this deck.
Loatheb is surprisingly good in the current meta (considering how little play it sees). It locks down Patrons, terribly screws Rogues, stops combo from Druids, and often forces Mages to skip a turn. Moreover, I often found that the 5 attack was helpful for killing Giants against HandLocks-- Loatheb+ Wrath. Several times I found myself in the position of playing turn 3 Innervate Loatheb so that I could meet the Lock's turn 4 Giant.
I tried
-1 loatheb
+1 harisson
First, I lost to a mech mage
Then, Won 8 games in a row
Finally lost to a tempo mage.
I think I'll try
-1 shade
+1 kezan
Some people suggested to replace MCTech for kezan. I personally find kezan valuable as well, i just don't know what to switch. =)
in those 8 games were you able to play harrison? (using battlecry i mean)
Yes man, used it 2 times against Deathbite.
I just can't lose against Patron now.
Used it once against Shaman (Doomhammer) means GG.
and used it once agaisnt Paladin weapon Light Justice.
and finally once agaisnt Hunter.
so, I used it in 5 of my 8 wins.. as I remember..
5 of the 9 class use weapon (paladin,warrior,rogue,shaman and hunter) so it's pretty usefull.
The thing I like the most is against Rogue, Turn 3 innervate + Harisson = draw 2 cards and he lost one turn.
!!! chow man
What is a good replacement for the Shade?
I replaced Kel for Naturalize and it showed great promise for rank 12
I think maybe Druid of the Flame?
I'd replace shade (if you really want to) for zombie chow or Kezan.
And please.. don't replace KT for Naturalize;;
You already have MCT and BGH to beat Handlock.
You can replace KT if you don't have for another big thing, like Cenarius, second ancient, so on. But it's better to have him in the deck. And naturalize isn't a great choice, i agree with kezan and zombie, may be shredder.
IMO you can put a Kezan or Zombie chow. Kezan is very situational only good vs mage and hunter and chow would be your only early minion. Both are fine, You choose. Good luck!
-1 Force of Nature OR -1 Shade of Naxxramas +1 Zombie Chow i've played exact deck with only one Force of Nature.
Also experimented with -1 Sen'jin Shieldmasta +1 Shade of Naxxramas OR +1 Kezan Mystic(actually wins vs mages) and tried Chromaggus without Kel'Thuzad but turned out not so good. Both cards won me some games, but Kel'Thuzad is overall better card.
I saw ramp druid from Kolento which had only 1 Ancient of Lore (which in my opinion is bad) but had 2 Nourishs and Chromaggus. One game Chromaggus survived (Kolento baited out 2 Shield Slams and 1 Execute on other traits) and he used Nourish next turn and guess what? Won game :D endless wave of taunts and 2 Emperrors was crazy, opponent conceded next turn :)
Also you might want -1 Doctor Boom and there's no bgh target, but even bgh'd he won me game when i FoN + Savage'd + 6 dmg on combo :)