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Talion’s Hybrid Warrior - "Down, but not out!"

"Hey everyone, get back in here!"

UPDATE: This deck has been performing very well so far in my testing. I will continue to test it in the coming days and update the match up breakdowns accordingly!

 

Hey guys, my name is Talion and you might recognize me or the Midrange hunter deck I made that is currently the highest active upvoted hunter deck on Hearthpwn (Huge thank you to everyone that supported me!). Today I want to share with you a deck that I’ve been working on recently that has me very excited! I’m sure by now everyone has heard the news about the Warsong Commander nerf. This update has made a huge impact on the metagame. Patron warrior, once considered the best deck in Hearthstone took a big hit and can no longer perform huge one turn kills that it was infamous for. With the nerf, many people thought it was the end of patron warrior. After doing some testing, I think patron warrior is down but definitely not out. Patron players simply need to adapt to the changes, focus on what strength is left, and back it up with a strong game plan. This is what my deck aims to do.

Prior to the Warsong Commander nerf, patron warrior was very much a combo deck. The deck often stalls until it either had the right combo pieces to obliterate the opponent’s board (while creating a huge one for itself with Warsong Commander and Grim Patron), or simply kill the opponent in one turn with a combination of Warsong Commander, Grim Patron, Frothing Berserker and Whirlwind effects. Without Warsong Commander, patron warrior no longer has an efficient way to give multiple creatures charge and thus cannot burst the opponent. In order for the new patron decks to do well, they have to move on from the glorious days of 30+ damage OTK burst and focus on the strength of Grim Patron itself.

Remember those games where the patron warrior player makes 4 Grim Patron on turn 5 with Inner Rage and Death’s Bite or with coin, Inner Rage and Whirlwind and all the sudden you just feel like you can’t win anymore even though you aren’t actually dead? Luckily, for patron warrior players, that line of attack still exists because Warsong Commander isn’t involved in that combination! With 4 Grim Patron on turn 5, it’s very difficult for the opponent to get the board back and you can continue to press your advantage with additional activators on the following turn.

I believe the new patron warrior decks should focus more on board control and we should start to think of the deck more as a midrange deck with a combo. We want to keep the cards that let us best utilize Grim Patron and fill the rest of the deck with strong midrange creatures to execute our board control plans. Our weapons and removal spells are already great at keeping the opponent’s side of the board clean and our efficient creatures will help us advance our own boards while threatening to make a bunch of patrons later in the game; achieving complete board lockdown.

Patron warrior players rejoice, the new Hybrid Warrior is here!

 

Card Choice:

2x Inner Rage, Whirlwind, Death’s Bite, Grim Patron: I’m grouping these cards together because they are best at letting you make a lot of patrons early in the game. On their own, none of them are particularly exciting with the exception of Death’s Bite but together they can be game winning!

2x Execute: Simply the most efficient removal for warrior. We have many activators and incidental activators for Execute such as Cruel Taskmaster and Death’s Bite.

2x Fiery War Axe: One of the best early game removals but also good at generating tempo because you can use it to kill 2 creatures.

1x Battle Rage: This card was a staple 2 of in the old patron warrior decks because of its huge draw potential. In this deck we are more concerned with a strong curve out and we don’t have a huge OTK combo to draw into like the old patron deck. I could be wrong only running 1 copy, but so far in testing it’s been fine.

2x Slam: This card is very versatile because you can use it as a removal spell or a draw spell. You can also use it with your own Acolyte of Pain to draw 2 or as a Grim Patron activator.

2x Armorsmith: This card offers the only way for us to gain armor against the aggressive decks apart from our hero power. With so many Whirlwind effects in the deck it has the potential to gain us a lot of armor!

2x Cruel Taskmaster: This card is very versatile in the deck; being able to combo with Execute, Acolyte of Pain and Big Game Hunter to name a few. It’s also your best response against a turn 1 2/1 creature from the aggro decks.

1x Loot Hoarder: This card has a lot of value, especially if you can have it trade for a card because it’s deathrattle ability will replace itself. Having some draw in the early game will also increase the chance of assembling the cards to make a lot of Grim Patron early. I’m only running 1 because it has a low impact on the board and most decks are well equipped to deal with 1 health minion.

2x Acolyte of Pain: This is one of our best draw engine because we have so many ping effects that we can use on this card to give us additional draws.

1x Big Game Hunter: This card is a great answer to the omnipresent Dr. Boom. In this deck we have Inner Rage and Cruel Taskmaster that we can combo with to take out any 5+ attack minion. I can even see 2 copies of this card being played depending on the metagame.

2x Piloted Shredder: This card is just a very powerful midrange minion. Having another excellent 4 mana play in addition to Death’s Bite will allow us to pressure the opponent more consistently on turn 4.

2x Sludge Belcher: This card is just great all around. Being our only taunt creature which can potentially save us in near death situations. It also contests Piloted Shredder very well. Just another solid creature.

1x Dr. Boom: Ya… this card is pretty awesome :)

1x Ragnaros the Firelord: I’m not too sure about the inclusion of this card in the deck but the idea is that the deck could use another lategame minion to put pressure on the opponent and Ragnaros the Firelord fits the bill perfectly. If the deck is struggling with the early game then I can see taking this card out.

1x Grommash Hellscream: We no longer have huge burst with Warsong Commander but this card is still very capable of closing out the game. Unlike control warrior, this deck can combo grom with Inner Rage to do 12 charge damage for 8 mana!

 

Cards I chose to omit:

Shield Slam: Without the inclusion of Shield Block and Shieldmaiden it is really hard for Shield Slam to take out big minions. Execute is the better removal spell for us.

Unstable Ghoul: This card is actually quite strong in the metagame because it matches up well vs Shielded Minibot and 2/1 creatures. The old patron warrior could use it as additional Whirlwind effects before with Warsong Commander. It’s harder for this deck to get good value from this card.

Shield Block: This card was a staple in the old patron deck because it offers a draw and survivability which the deck was very interested in. Cantrips are a lot worse in our deck because we don’t have an OTK combo. We can’t justify playing this card because of the huge tempo loss incurred when using this card.

Frothing Berserker: To be honest I’m not too sure about this one. I want to include it in the deck because it’s actually one of the best 3 drop minion for warrior to play on curve. It’s definitely a lot weaker in this deck because the lack of ways to give it charge. Perhaps going forward this card will have a slot in the deck with enough testing.

Warsong Commander: *Tears*

Raid Leader: Just because Warsong Commander got hit really hard doesn’t mean you become playable Raid Leader :(

Brawl: This card is a lot worse when our main game plan is to dominate the board. There will be times when we wish we had it but if we can execute our game plan it’s just gonna rot in our hand because we are ahead on board.

Emperor Thaurissan: This card is purely for combo purposes in the old patron deck and now we focus more on board control than combo making this card a lot worse.

Alexstrasza: A lot of control warriors use Alexstrasza as a win condition in conjunction with Grommash Hellscream. In this deck we aim to pressure the opponent’s life total early so it’s hard to get value from Alexstrasza offensively.

 

Match ups:

Because the concept of the deck is still relatively new I haven’t had enough testing to be comfortable to talk about this deck’s match up. I will come back to this in the future when I’ve played enough games with this deck and update you accordingly.

TL;DR: Patron is not dead! We simply need to adapt and in my opinion the best way to do that is to change the deck from base combo to base midrange with a combo!

 

Thanks for reading! Please leave me any feedback or suggestion in the comments, I try to reply to everyone! If you like the deck please give it an upvote :)

- Talion