Top 8 Control FULL Guide by MarioHS
- Last updated Jun 25, 2016 (Old Gods)
- Edit
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Wild
- 15 Minions
- 11 Spells
- 4 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Control Warrior
- Crafting Cost: 15160
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 12/5/2015 (Explorers)
- MarioHS
- Pro Player
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Ladder Decks:
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First day of the season:
- After 3 Hours: Rank 4
- 2 hours later: Rank 2
Long break to study for college exams
Fifth Day: Rank 10 Legend
EDIT: Cards changed: -1 Shield block, -1 Emperor Thaurissan / +2 Frothing berserkers: Frothing berserkers add a turn 3 to the warrior now that the acolytes are gone. It improves the winrate against aggro by a huge margin, as it forces removal or gets value trades early on. Emperor thaurissan although good, is not good enough against the meta I am facing now: a lot more aggro than before. Shield block is great but there are already many ways to get armor.
Update: Rank 8 reached
EDIT: Cards changed: -1 frothing berserker / +1 piloted shredder: Improved winrate over 50 games by 1.3%, by creating an overall better curve and early "sticky" presence against faster decks.
For standard version click Here
A lot of people have been asking: I do stream occasionally: twitch.tv/mariohs_pro
FULL GUIDE: The Begginer guide (a simplified one) is under development completed. A Full Guide which will allow you to master this deck and Control Warrior in General, teaching you all the skills and the mindset, as well as teach you how to tweak the deck against different metas and throughout the history of hearthstone will be written once this DeckList reaches 250 Upvotes :) is under development.
Thank you All (mostly) for your support.
I sometimes stream if you guys are interested: twitch.tv/MarioHS_pro
Also I'd like to let you all know a very good hearthstone Free tournament website: StriveWire. Multiple tournaments per day with prize pool!
Begginer Guide (A short-version. The Full guide is under development):
PS: If you like reading control warrior guides, please check this one, made by one of my students: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/374559-legend-spiders-control-warrior-deck-w-guide
Introduction: For all of you who don't know, I am MarioHS, a competitive Hearthstone player for Team SecondWind. I sometimes stream and I also coach hearthstone. If you are interested in coaching click here. I love helping people so I decided to start making Hearthstone guides. I usually end up in top 100-200 legend every season, having been rank 1 and 2 a couple times. Do not hesitate to contact me through twitch or hearthpwn if you have any doubts or tips in how to improve my guides.
First of all I think it is worth to start this guide from the basics of control warrior. As I usually point out in my coaching lessons, if we think of control warrior as a Warrior who has resources, everything gets simpler.
Resources:
Understanting your resources
Every card you own can be thought as resources. You should always spend your resources wisely and conserviatively. Having said this, you should start spending the resources you already committed to rather than the ones you haven't. We will talk more about this later on. Warriors are a class which have way more resources than others, so it's important to take advantage of that. We will discuss priorities when deciding which resources you should use and when.
Understanding your opponents resources
You are not the only one with resources and that is important to understand. Other classes have them to and it is very important to keep track of these. The general strategy of a control warrior is to use the resources in such an efficient way that you will starve of opponent resource-wise and then start playing your big threats.
Priorities regarding your resources:
As discussed earlier, the priority you assign to each resource matters. This section will be broken into 3 different subsections, according to the different possible stages of a game:
- Early Game: This stage is defined as the opening, just like a chess game. The difference is that you are always conditioned by the gods of RNG. The early game happens between turns 1 and 4. The 4th turn is the pivot turn (the changin turn) where the state of the game changes from Early game to Mid Game.
- Mid Game: The Mid Game, just like in chess, happens after you have developped your minor pieces (a pawn structure as well as bishops and knights). The bishops and knights can be though of as the sticky creatures, like Harvest Golem and Piloted Shredder, wheras the pawn structure can be thought of as the initial creatures like Shielded Minibot, and Living Roots. The Mid Game happens between the 4th and 8h turn. Similarly to the 4th turn, the 8th turn is the pivot between the mid and the late game.
- Late Game: Usually when playing control warrior, you will reach late game, which happens between turn 8 and the end of the game. Here is where control warrior will shine and most other decks won't, to the exception of Control Priest, Control Paladin and Freeze mage. Still, Control Warrior has the best late game of all the other decks and classes. Just like in chess, the late game is where you finish your efficient trades and fight for control, until no more cards are left and the person with the board control wins.
Early Game:
(from the the highest priority to the least)
- Weapons (Death's Bite, Fiery War Axe)
- Bash / Slam
- Shield Slam
- Execute
Situational: Revenge, this card should only be used in the early game if there is a threat of a board you cannot control (For example, the enemy board being full with 1/1 recruits just before the paladin enters turn 5 (quartermaster).
Weapons are the best removal for the early game because they can kill pretty much any minion in the intire game with 1 or 2 swings.
Slam and Bash are cards that do something other than clearing. Slam provides card draw and Bash gives you armor. These should be prioritizes if no weapons are available to use. Bash should always be used before Slam against aggro decks if it is efficient, because Slam provides a better activation of Execute and Bash gives armor which is very important against aggro.
Shield Slam should always be used before Execute, because the later you are in the game the more chances you have to get an activator for Execute. Shield Slam is a bit more difficult to make work because you don't always have enough armor.
Mid Game / Late game:
In the midgame, it starts to get tricky as the priority can't be calculated by card importance but by availability. This means you have to take into account a couple different things when calculating which resources you should use. I will try to explain this better:
- Big Game Hunter: Big game hunter is a great card. A great tempo 3-drop against face decks and a very good Dr. Balanced removal. You should always use Big game hunter on targets more than 7 attack that you cannot clear with bash, slam and/or weapons. Needless it is to say that you should always use it on Dr. 7. It is very important to think about the removal you still have when doing this. (For instance, if your opponent has a 10/8 gromash and you have execute and bgh, you should always use the BGH if your opponent hasn't played ysera.)
- Shield Slam: Should be used when you can't use any other form of removal besides Execute. Very useful combos are:
- Execute: Should be used preferebly on non-bgh targets. You should always try to save at least one activator for each Execute (Death's Bite deathrattle, Slam, Bash, Revenge)
- Revenge: Just like a Whirlwind, when absolutely necessary (the opponent having more than 3 threatening minions with low enough health to die to it. It can also be used even if the oponent only has 1 minion, given that it is big enough. Useful combos with it are:
- Death's Bite deathrattle + Revenge
- Baron Geddon + Revenge
- Bash on yourself if at 15hp + Revenge (your health remains the same but revenge deals 3 instead of 1).
Mulligan:
NOTE: You should never try to get Death's Bite if you already have Fiery War Axe, or vice-versa.
If you already have one card from the mulligan cards, it is recommended to keep it, because you might not get a better one and this way it is safer.
- Warrior (mirror):
- Death's Bite: Most of the time you will face control warrior. Death's Bite is the best weapon in the game. It provides with good clear for Acolyte of Pain, Piloted Shredder and Armorsmith and its deathrattle is very useful against the common control warrior cards, like Sludge Belcher, Emperor Thaurissan, Loatheb, etc.
- Fiery War Axe: Very important to clear early minions, just like Death's Bite.
- Justicar Trueheart: Very important to outlast your opponent.
- Paladin:
- Warlock:
- Rogue:
- Mage:
- Druid:
- Shaman:
- Priest:
- Fiery War Axe / Death's Bite
- Shield Block + Shield Slam: (Don't try to mulligan for the combo, keep it if you found it already)
- Brawl
- Hunter:
Replacements (in order of best to worst):
- Nexus Champion Saraad:
- Loatheb / Harrison Jones if you are facing a lot of weapon classes
- Shieldmaiden
- Emperor Thaurissan
- Ysera:
- Baron Geddon:
- Second Brawl
- Abomination (yea, I know but try it out and then come talk to me).
- Sylvanas Windrunner:
- Justicar Trueheart:
- Shieldmaiden
- Emperor Thaurissan
- Please Craft Justicar fast, it is important!
- Alexstrasza:
- Dr. Boom:
- Gromash Hellscream:
Tech Cards and meta changes:
Here you will be presented with examples of how to tune your deck towards the meta. The examples are in order of importance and efficiency. The examples are to be used as such: If the first change doesn't work, you should try it along with the second one.
- If you are facing a LOT of aggro, as in too much for the deck to handle:
- -1 Frothing Berserker, -1 Piloted Shredder / +2 Deathlord
- -1 Nexus-Champion Saraad, -1 Ysera / +1 Brawl, +1 Shieldmaiden
- If you are facing too much super heavy control decks:
- -1 Frothing Berserker, -1 Piloted Shredder / +2 Acolyte of Pain
- -1 Slam / +1 Shieldmaiden
- -1 Baron Geddon / +1 Varian Wrynn
- If you are facing a lot of shamans and paladins:
- -1 Nexus-Champion Saraad / +1 Harrison Jones
Hope you have enjoyed the introductory guide.
Finally it's updated thanks for the guide!
Man..
And versus freeze mage?
Dont use kezan?
How can i to play with vs freeze?
Freeze mage is widely considered to be one of the easiest matchups for control warrior. Their strategy is to freeze your minions while waiting for the moment to play Alexstrasza, put you down to 15hp and then kill you with spells. Control warrior doesn't have a problem with that since he plays slowly, reacts to minions on the board by removing them one by one and constantly shields up if left alone to utilise the mana.By the moment they have found Alex and the conditions to burn you down, your shield points should be so high that it won't be a problem - plus, you can also heal (in other control warrior versions) by Healbot or Brann + Healbot. Obviously, Justicar is crucial in this strategy.
It's not impossible for a freeze mage to beat you, but it's highly unlikely. Just play very passively, let time work on your side (because it does) and anticipate their next moves.
What ever happened to the full guide?
Really good deck, i started using it recently and while im not legend i am steadily rising the ladder with a very solid win rate. im running Harrison Jones instead of Nexus-Champion Saraad because of the frequency of secret paladins which usually run Tirion Fordring and its just so satisfying to break their ashbringer.
Really like this deck
I made an account especially for this deck. After trying it for about 15ish games in Cassual, I have to admit I can describe this deck as nothing less than utter garbage. You name the meta decks right now, they are better. I lost all but one of the games, the win was due to a disconnect. Say what you want about one's skill and all that, but I have to say, compared to the vanilla control warr, this is extremely sub par
You suck that's it. You made a new account for it? Yeah right, because this is a really cheap deck which you can craft in a few days after making a new account. Go play brainless decks like Cancer Shaman and Secret Pally. This deck is for people with Skill.
This is one of those costy decks which only works for their builder.
Since there are a lot of Pally&Warlock decks to face with and in most cases they r playing "fill board with tons of minions" style, do u think that it is better to have an extra brawl instead of Saraad?
I replaced one of Fiery War Axe and took second Brawl. Works great for me.
that is two mana very handy card for 5 mana card, in deck that is full of high cost cards...don˙t know about that....
Exactly what i did, Much better chance at regaining board control against aggro.
later on i find oupt that solution for this issue has been given in the instruction
"If you are facing a LOT of aggro, as in too much for the deck to handle:
Interesting deck indeed. One question though. Why is [card]Frothing Berserker[/card] in? I don't see how he helps the control-ish nature of this deck...
I see now that it was replaced in the guide with Fierce Monkey, and I really like this choice.
can gorehowl be used in this deck?
Wich legendary I craft, Baron Geddon or Nexus-Champion Saraad?
alex
Alexstrasza can also be used in a few other decks, while Baron Geddon is almost only used in Control/Fatigue decks. Nexus Champ Saraad is a really cool card but rarely used.