Top 40 EU Patron Warrior(InDepthGuide)
- Last updated Sep 29, 2015 (TGT Launch)
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Wild
- 15 Minions
- 11 Spells
- 4 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 860
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 9/21/2015 (TGT Launch)
- user-21147150
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Total Deck Rating
98
Hello my name is Ricina and i recently made top 40 Europe using this Patron Warrior list.
It's impossible to change too many cards in a patron deck but the most important change i made is take off a Shield Block for a Coldlight Oracle.
READ BEFORE HATING : The Patron Warrior is a deck that i didn't create. This is just my point of view on the deck after using it a lot. This deck is really hard to use, i'm a former Oil & Miracle rogue player and this deck is twice as hard to play. If you don't want to play it a lot, or if you expect to win every game simply because you read on forum that Patron Warrior is OP this guide is not for you. I started feeling competitive with this deck only after 300 games won and i still feel like i have to learn a lot. So if you are performing poorly with this deck is simply because it has a really high learning curve
Proof of top 40 :
http://i.imgur.com/JBMVzq4.jpg
Edited on 25/09/2015 : added card breakdown, planning to add a detailed Matchup guide in the following days...the more you appreciate the more i'll update !
Edited on 28/09/2015 : Added a Matchup guide for Paladin (Secret and Midrange) and Warlock (zooLock and Handlock), planning on adding Mage and Warrior Tomorrow
Edited on 29/09/2015 : Added the matchup guide for Combo Druid...Changed the layout using Spoiler bracker since the whole thing was quite intimidating and confusing
Card Analysis and general Mulligan
I'll start with core cards in this deck. From my statistics there is a top 3 card that i almost always keep :
Death's Bite : 100% seen/kept. i kept this card every single time it popped in my starting hand for a good reason : Patron is a deck that wants to control the state of the board killing midrangy minions and this card kills almost everything on curve from turn 4 to turn 5. You should always use the last charge to either spawn patron/pump Berserker or setting up a draw engine with Battle Rage/Acolyte of Pain. Don't use it if you can't get profit out of the whirlwind effect . You might be tempted to use the last charge against a board full of 1/1 and some other junk but that's the wrong play. The free whirlwind effect will make the comeback easier later on...and patron is awesome at coming back.
Acolyte of Pain: 87.3% seen/kept. This little dude is really important and you have to learn how to abuse it as much as you can. NEVER play it if you can't draw at least 1 card on your turn damaging it...basically you need to set up Acolyte to draw at least 2 cards out of it (one in your turn, and 1 from the opponent attack). Inner Rage on acolyte might seem weird but is totally legitimate, Death's bite is also fine but hiding this dude behind an Unstable Ghoul is one of my favourite play against aggro and attrition matchups in general. In general Acolyte is an high priority target for your opponent....use it wisely. I love to Slam my own acolyte A LOT.
Side Notes : If you suspect a mirror match Execute the opponent acolyte. It's extremely important
Fiery War Axe : 80.3% seen/kept Once again, you want to control the board in the early/mid game and this card fits this role perfectly. I never kept this card against Priest and Warrior or if i knew the opponent was playing Handlock.
Side Notes : there are list only running 1 Fiery War Axe and there is a great debate about the right number. My take on it is that you can skip the second axe in a heavy control meta but you absolutely want the second in a aggro/midrange meta
Combo Core Card :
Warsong Commander : NEVER KEEP Yeah, it's called Grim Patron Warrior. Yeah it often wins with huge Frothing Berserker...but this deck would not exist at all without this card. Your usual game plan is to use the first warsong to take control of the board with combo and SAVE the second one for your Frothing Berserker....be aware, once you throw away both Commanders in control matchups you are dead...just concede seriously.
Side Notes : Against paladin, Hunter and mech/tempo mage, one of my favourite play is to reverse the aggression making 4 patron on turn 5-6 and then the turn later drop the Warsong Commander to make more patron and activate a battle rage. This effectively makes you combo 1-2 turn earlier against those deck most of the time and the game is over.
Frothing Berserker & Grim Patron : At the start of the game and in the first 3-4 turns you have to decide your gameplan accordingly with your resources. Usually against control you want to go for a Emperor Thaurissan & Frothing Berserker kill (see the combo below) and against midrange/aggro a bunch of patron often do the trick.
Side notes : once you have a plan, stick with it. That means that if you are setting up a Grim Patron you can use Frothing Berserker as a tempo play and vice versa
Combo : The Frothing Berserker kill requires a delicate setup. You need the following cards:
2x Frothing Berserker 1x Warsong Commander 1x Emperor Thaurissan and at least 2 whirlwind activator of any kind. Search aggressively for those card and drop Thaurissan only when you are ready to kill the opponent in the following turn. The perfect kill is : 2x Frothing Berserk 1x Warsong Commander 1x Emperor Thaurissan Grim Patron and 2x Whirlwind.This is you usual kill for CW that stacked up a lot of armor
Draw Engine :
Slam : it's a really nice card, it removes many aggro threats and at the same time it cycle himself in the control matchup. Against Dragon Priest (or dragon decks in general) save it to kill Twilight Guardian with Death's Bite. Remember that you can even Slam your own Acolyte of Pain or Grim Patron
Acolyte of Pain : See above
Shield Block : it's a bad card in this deck. I really hate this card actually since it synergies poorly with battle rage in the control matchup (where Battle Rage is already quite hard to use effectively)...it's mostly used because on turn 3 there is often nothing to do (Acolyte should be saved) but it basically just cycle himself and nothing else. 5 Health are irrilevant in most matchups since you are already ahead in the aggro game where it could matter. I hate this card in Patron.
Battle Rage : Your best card draw engine. Usually using a battle rage for 3+ usually wins you the game and if you have this card in hand you should try as hard as you can to setup your board to abuse it. Don't be too greedy, often even battle raging for 2 is fine if you need to fix your hand.
Coldlight Oracle : So, this is the unusual card i'm using but i find it's a good card in this deck. The problem with Coldlight Oracle is that even if the effect is symmetrical YOU are the one paying for it and you are passing the initiative to your opponent...and that is bad indeed. But still it turns out it's not as bad in Patron Warrior. The point is that when this deck has the right tools it's simply unbeatable and when it doesn't it sucks pretty bad. The point is that the 2 card i'm drawing are going to matter MORE than the 2 cards you are drawing...as simple as that.
Side notes: Coldlight Oracle is amazing against control (handlock & CW specially)... Control decks just plays 1 threat a turn and their turn are pretty much predictable...Especially against patron they usually sit on 9 card waiting to react and that's the case where Oracle shines the most. It backfires against aggro sometimes but i feel Patron is so ahead in the aggro matchup that it doesn't really matter and a big turn of Armorsmith is all you need to stabilize anyway
Activators :
Inner Rage : Never keep Inner rage. is an activator that makes the turn 5 Patron combo possible even without coin but it's a card you want to draw in the 5-6 turn most of the time.
Side Notes: cycling Inner Rage on Acolyte is ok. It puts the dude outside of Cabal Shadow Priest in the Dragon Priest matchup(really important) and it makes it fight the opponent acolyte better in the mirror. If you are playing against a deck that runs belcher save 1 to kill it with a single patron
Whirlwind & Unstable Ghoul: the fill the same role for 2 different matchups : Whirlwind is better against control since it costs zero mana with Thaurissan for the One Turn Kill. Unstable Ghoul is better against aggro. It's literally a nightmare for Secret Paladin (i actually mulligan aggressively for this card in this matchup)
Side Notes : Ghoul is 2 more damage per each Frothing Berserker. Remember that YOU CANT Execute your own Ghoul to proc the whirlwind effect. I lost a game cause of it and the streamer named "Dog" from team Value Town lost a game in the recent tournament since he tried the same thing .
Death's Bite : see above for desription...once again, being cold blooded on Death's Bite last charge and maximize his effect is the first thing you need to master to become a good Grim Patron Warrior. I have no doubt about that.
Emperor Thaurissan : this is the second card you need to master to become a good Grim Patron Warrior....this card makes the impossible possible but it's really tricky to use and it's nearly impossible to list every scenario...but the main rules are:
-Never play it you only have and hand full of activator but no combo pieces (or just 1 combo piece)
-Always play it when you have the cards listed in the OTK combo that i wrote above
-it's fine to keep Thaurissan in the starting hand in the following matchups : Handlock / Dragon Priest / CW or every other control deck
-Mind Trick if the situation is desperate just slam thaurissan on the board....most of the time it will save you 5 health and the opponent will suspect an incoming OTK and will start playing more defensively
-Mirror Match the mirror match requires little to no skill...the first guy who goes off with combo usually wins but thaurissan makes the comeback possible even with a single Frothing&Warsong due to the huge amounts of patron spawning with whirlwind on the opponent side
Other Cards:
Armorsmith : This is you third win condition aganst aggro decks. Save it for high whirlwind turns and they'll usually win you the game even if you don't have patrons on the field. It's an high priority target for the aggro player so you have to optimize this card as much as you can...it's not unusual to finish the game at 7 health and 35+ armor
Execute : Hands down the best removal in the game. Always keep against handlock and hold on against dragon priest for the creature that gets chosen by Velen Velen's Chosen
Dread Corsair : feel free to replace this card with whatever suits your gamestyle/meta better. I mostly used this card lately as a Repenteance checker. I used even Loatheb (surprisingly good, Loatheb is just a really solid card) in this slot or Gnomish Inventor
Matchup Guide :
PALADIN:
Gameplan: It's possible to kill both with Grim Patron or Berserker Combo. In the Midrange version avoid to summon more than six creatures on the field to play around Consacration
Against Secret : - Use Execute as tempo play if needed to stabilize
- Setting up a big Armorsmith turn often wins you the game since they don't have burst
- It's really hard for them do deal with Patrons, any of the 4-Patron Combo is fine
Against MidRange: - Save Execute for Tirion Foldringa nd Boom
- Always kill recruits, and i mean EVERY recruit
- While Equality and Consacration can wipe your board is not worth to play around it. Just don't go All-in with combo
Early game :
There are currently 2 Paladins on the ladder (Secret and Midrange) and both are favorable matchups. You should always mulligan for Death's Bite and Fiery War Axe and in both games it's crucial to keep the opposite side of the field clean. The midrange version is actually harder since they can often Muster + Quartermaster rushing you down really quickly. This is one of the few cases where using a Whirlind effect without value is worth. Unstable Ghoul is a really strong card in both matchup since it blocks Shielded Minibot into Muster for Battle curve.
Mid game :
In both games it's usually worth to make 4 Patron is you have control of the board, otherwise just keep drawing. This is the point of the game when using your resources wisely is crucial, if you don't have combo don't panic and just try to lower the pressure
Late game :
It's usually when you start doing your tricks with big draws an a lot of pressure with patrons...nothing to say here, if you arrived at 8 mana with some health your are going to win the game 99% of times. Against Secret this is either an armorsmith turn or a Patron and warsong turn
Side Notes : Against Secret paladin Playing Frothing Berserker as a tempo play is fine, it captures the attention of your opponent leaving Acolyte of Pain unchecked
WARLOCK :
Warlock is usually a really really tricky matchup. You are either facing Handlock or Zoolock and your choice on mulligan makes the situation weird. If you keep a good hand against Handlock you are probably gonna lose if the opponent is actually a Zoolock and vice versa. The "good" news is that Handlock is so hard for you that is not even worth trying to mulligan for certain cards (such as Execute or Emperor Thaurissan) and your best bet is just to search for cards to counter Zoolock like weapons.
Zoolock:
Zoolock is a creature archetype deck. It revolves around sticky minion and some burst in the form of Doomguard and Power Overwhelming. That said weapons are really good and your win condition is Patrons. You'll always play berserker as a tempo play since their pressure is really really high and your whirlwind will often proc their Nerubian Egg. Once you start making patron the game is over so you just want to keep their board in check and draw into combo. You don't need Warsong Commander and the classical 4 patron turn is often unbeatable for them.
Early game:
Kill everything they drop at you but leave the Haunted Creeper untouched. Most of the time they will avoid playing Knife Jugler in the early game, but when they play it on turn 5 you can often just play Patron and proc the creeper with a small creature for extra Patrons. Surprisingly this works often ! Cycle your Slam play your Acolyte of Pain and Battle Rage even for 2....you really need Patron
Mid game:
At mid game you are basically experiencing a good amount of pressure. You need Patron by turn 5-6 or you can simply concede. This is also the point where you should leave the Voidcaller alive....you can't afford to face Doomguard or Malganis at this stage of the game unless you have Execute
Late game :
Once again if you are into the late game you have won. It's auto-pilot from turn 8.
Side Notes : You might be tempted to search for Armorsmith but it's really easy to remove in this matchup,,,more often then not it will just gain you 4 life and some armor, you can't rely on it to win against zoolock
HANDLOCK:
Handlock is simply the worst matchup for this deck. They have many Aoe, they have big taunts and they hit hard. You can't use Patron to win this game, your only chance is to use Berserker for a OTK and never put him at an health lower than 20 before your big turn. You usually need Thaurissan Frothing, warsong ,a couple of Whirlwind effect and at least 1 Execute. Your tactic is just to draw as much as you can an play a small Patron combo (without Commander) as a tempo play.
Early game:
If they are tapping on turn 2, you are facing an handlock. You should try to draw as many cards as you can. Use weapons to kill Ancient Watcher (since sooner or later they are gonna taunt it anyway or Shadowflame it) and drop your small minions to try a setup for Battle Rage in the mid game.
Mid game:
This is when Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake drop on the field...don't waste your Execute for drake if it's not taunted, always execute the giant to gain more time....cycle your slam on this minions. Whenever is possible try to save the last Death's Bite charge. Use your Battle Rage even for 1, you can't afford to setup it most of the time.
Late game:
In turn 6-7 you want to have Thaurissan Frothing, warsong ,a couple of Whirlwind effect and at least 1 Execute, If you don't, just continue drawing as much as you can and buy some time with your smal taunts. If you have thaurissan and some combo pieces your best bet is to drop it and hope for the best.
Side notes: The matchup is terrible....but i feel you are actually favoured in every game you can play Thaurissan on turn 6. Basically if you don't see Thaurissan and the Handlock player has an average hand...it's pretty hard to win....with Thaurissan your chance of winning change drammatically. Just DRAW DRAW DRAW DRAW.
DRUID :
In this section i'll refer to druid as the combo druid that most likely looks like this :
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Minion (17)
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Ability (13)
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Match Overview:
-So you are playing Patron, a combo deck that usually works either wonderfully or terribly wrong when you are drawing bad.
-The opponent is playing combo Druid, a deck that (exeption for few cards) has been around in the competitive scene since....well, since forever. It's a solid deck, playing efficient and flexible minions and a nice finisher.
In few words it's a match between snowball potential (the Patron) vs solidity (the Druid). Your main plan is to have control of the board at every turn of the game. Druid is eccellent at throwing threats but once he lose control of the board it's almost impossible for them to get it back.
Early game:
With the addition of Darnassus Aspirant is often correct to keep a Fiery War Axe & Death's Bite hand. You are going to use your weapons constantly and they are your best tool to keep them at a steady 0-1 minion on the field. If you don't have Death's Bite never keep Acolyte of Pain. The drawing dude is too fragile in this matchup and will always require an activator (an activator that you can't afford to keep or the ramp nature of druid will tempo-you-out of the game). You can throw Armorsmith out in this game since it's unlikely you are going to outarmor a druid. Frothing Berseerker is not needed to win this match up Patrons are way more than enough, so use Frothing as a tempo play to prepare your board for the mid game skirmish.
Side Notes : You might be tempted to cycle Slam in the early game but that's a bad play (unless of course your hand is terrible). The ideal use of Slam is taking down a Druid of the Claw in combination with Death's Bite...so try to save it whenever it's possible
Mid Game :
At this stage you are probably facing Piloted Shredder and/or Druid of the Claw. This is the most important stage of the game where you either :
-Make a small 4 patron combo ( do this only if you leave NOTHING on the opposite field)
-Buy some time using Execute really aggressively
(Belive it or not the only target for Execute in this Matchup Ancient of War, but even the gigantic taunt is no match if you have a bunch of patron...you'll simply brute force it the old good way without any problem. The other target is Boom...but once again, it's not threating at all if you are already in the Patron business)
-Play Emperor Thaurissan whatever your card is. Similiar to the aggro matchup, it's really hard to get value out of OTK with Thaurissan in this matchup, but still, whenever he is played the opponents needs to play more carefully (not overextending, killing it immediatly etc etc). He also brings back a balance in the tempo of the following turn discounting your activators, and card draws
Mid game is also where you want to be less reckless about your life total in preparation of their combo
Late Game:
Once again in this stage ,if everything went smoothly, you are winning....and aganist druid you are winning badly. They have literally no way to come back...the only "delay" in your winning is when they use the full combo to kill 4 of your patron. But that's on 9 and by that time you probably had a big battle rage and dealt 15-20 damage to him while they are throwing away their finisher
Side Notes : No matter how hard you are winning, if you have the chance for a big battle rage or more damage with some activators ALWAYS chose the big battle rage (this is more a general rule, unrelated with this matchup)....seriously i mean always (unless you have lethal of course)
A legend never to be forgotten..
r.i.p
Hi Ricinax.
My friend just recently bought Naxx and is now finally able to play Patron as his first competitive deck. Im probably gonna set him up with your deck, and i will be guiding him myself because i used to play a lot of patron before TGT. But that is my problem. Do you know if patron has a hard time against Dragon priest? Because i have no clue, and i dont know if i can help my friend win against them. It for me feels like the Twillight Guardians would absolutely stop Patron, but i might be mistaken (again, never played against them with patron).
Do you have any machup specific mulligans, or plans when attacking Dragon Priest? Any help would be appreciated :)
What do you mean with 4 patron?
Very good patron warrior deck, just made a video featuring it! Keep up the good work!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZSR_AY10uo
You don't usually want to play acolyte or armorsmith in your early game, you want weapons, specifically turn 2-3 use your fiery waraxe, and turn 4-5 use your deaths bite. Mulligan aggressively for weapons
You can drop your patron on turn 5 if against classes that have hard time removing patrons. Otherwise you can drop your acolyte on turn 5 to draw cards. or if you didn't mulligan any weapon, you can drop it on turn 3 to draw cards (only if the board is clear).
Armorsmith you drop when you have a bunch of patrons or other minions on board, and use a whirlwind effect to gain massive armor. Or you drop it on turn 2 if you didn't mulligan any weapon. In my patron deck I run cruel taskmaster, so I could buff the armorsmith on turn 3 to board clear. You should save inner rage unless the board condition requires you to absolutely have to play it.
yes koko is correct, and try not to get too stressed out about it (i know i did). also, you say you played tempo mage b4 patrons, i want you to know that patron is very different than playing tempo mage or any tempo oriented deck. i highly recommend you go watch some pro's play patron warrior. it took me about 150 wins (not including losses) to finally get a grasp of playing patron warrior. 80% of the games i played last season were patron warrior, and i still feel like a novice (there are tons of spots where I'm not a 100% sure what the right decision is, and there's so many different ways to go about a specific situation).
when i first started just like you, and i watched other pros play the deck, one thing that "blew my mind" was seeing someone just drop frothing on turn 3. now this is very situational (and some ppl might read this and be like wtf, duh~) but I'm saying this because that really changed my "thought process" on the whole quote on quote "patron" deck when i first started out playing PW. ppl who just start playing this deck probably have seen frothing do some HIGH dmg combo so they try to hold on to frothing for as long as possible until they get all the pieces, but majority of the time you will not get all the pieces and end up losing board control or die too early.
a lot of ppl complain about how "broken" patron warrior is, and it should be nerfed. they clearly don't play patron warrior enough... it is one of the best decks out there, but also probably one of the most difficult decks to play. also, armorsmith turn two is okay against agro decks, but not always necessary against control decks. also if you realise that your acolyte and battle rage only nets you 1 card, you are doing something wrong.
1. Don't stress out (sometimes we forget that we play this game to have fun and enjoy ourselves, i know i do... but i still get pissed lol)
2. go watch other pro's like th3 rat, kolento, strifecro, trump, etc play patron warrior (your mind will be blow)
3. go look up other deck lists, i actually don't use dread corsair, and cold light oracle. i also don't use 2 fiery war axe (although when i first started it really helped that i ran 2, but now i feel like 2 is a bit much especially in the long games) and i run a shield block (and no, i don't run a shield slam but it comes to have a 3 drop 5 armour draw one card, or a 4 drop 2/4 draw one card, it's preference).
4. i highly recommend you go to strifecro's YT channel, he recently posted up a couple games of him playing patron, and his deck list is quite different and he explains things very thoroughly.
3. go put in the work and grind, only way you get better is by putting in the games, as i said before it took me about 150 wins probably about 300-400 games total to start playing the deck somewhat competitively.
good luck, i hope some of this advice helps, sorry for the rambling, i just understand how stressed out i was from constantly losing and feeling lost when i first played PW. cheers~
I can't see how to win in this new meta. I always lose with this deck. The guide doesn't help.
Definitely -1 Coldlight Oracle , +1 Commanding Shout
Draw cards for me: good , Draw cards for the enemy: possibly defeat. With Commanding Shout, we can get patron value, survive to Chillmaw or any 3+ attack minion with taunt, or at least draw one card, but no card draws for the enemy
Sometimes we dont have execute nor enough damage to clean the taunts . Having 3/1 patrons is better than 2-cards draw for the enemy. At least the patrons have pressure, and they can summon another patrons even hitting a Molten Giant,Sludge Belcher, Dr. Boom, etc.
Have you tested the change? Does it work like you expected. I'm curious.
I don't even play this 100% correctly, and I still get free wins.
Grats on thinking you have any sort of skill.
The reality is, Patron is OP. Enjoy the free wins while it lasts. Because it's here to stay. Ben Brode loves his ferrari too much
I thought I was the only one who plays Coldlight Oracle. It's really underrated in patron. When I remember that so many times this card helped in fatigue wars. I've got like around 30% winrate with my Patron so I can't really say much. xD
Anyways very nice guide! Keep up the good work!
Great deck and great guide. Probably one of the most in depth guides I've seen for a deck so far. Keep up the good work and thanks for all future updates as well.
Outside of deaths bite you don't have any 4s. Why not drop shield slam for an inventor? That way if you don't have deaths bite you can at least draw on turn 4. You seem to already have enough draw on turn 3.
Thanks a lot Ricinaz for such a detailed patron guide. i have been playing patron for the past month (did a ton or research/watched countless hours of other pros playing and this was after playing the whole day using patron). i learned so many things (not the obvious otk combo etc. but just the small things which make a very big difference. also your guide against all the classes is very insightful. i know this guide probably took you a very long time and, i wish i could give this like 12 thumbs up but unfortunately hearthpwn doesn't allow it :( or does it? ill just spam the thumbs up button and see lol. keep up the great work, and i hope to see you bring out more guides with different decks in the future. thanks a lot~!
Gratz on the guide, very insightful!
Even though I hate (losing to) the deck, this is a nice stimulus for learning it
Going 10W-4L between rank 10, real good
Guess I'm really unlucky but aside from Paladins which I destroy I lose every match, went from rank 8 to 13 now I'm sad. Maybe it was just a bad time to ladder, faced a ton of OTK decks, be it Pyroblast Mage, Oil Rogue or Druid. When should I consider playing parts of my combo to gain board control? I almost always hold them back but that's probably my mistake.