Hearthpwn

Intro

One of the most legendary, historic, and despicable decks in the game! There's nothing more fun than playing solitaire with the Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Your opponent will watch the screen helpless as you draw 10 cards in a turn followed by 16+ damage from Leeroy Jenkins.

I saw Mryagut play something like this about a week ago. Don't remember his exact list, but I believe it had Emperor Thaurissan and no Cold Blood. He performed quite well so I thought perhaps 5 mana Leeroy isn't so bad; you can still do 16 damage for 9 mana, or 20 damage for 10 mana with 2 Cold Blood. I tried it out to a nice winstreak, demolishing everything up to Rank 4.

Then I noticed, the deck is very similar to the pre-nerf version, as it's composed of nearly all classic cards plus Antique Healbot, Loatheb, and Tomb Pillager. Loatheb getting removed is going to be quite a positive for this deck as you can probably see, and healbot isn't very important; Just replace it with farseer, or a good card that hasn't been revealed yet. Loatheb is one of the main problems miracle rogue faces on ladder along with Sludge Belcher and Dr. Boom. All this considered, combined with the highly likely druid nerf, and I can see this deck or Malygos Rogue being very powerful. 

I think this is certainly better than the Arcane Golem or Southsea Deckhand + Faceless Manipulator versions which require more cards to burst effectively. Do you really want to assemble a 3 card combo to deal 12 damage with the golem, while having a higher potential to draw any of those bad cards when you don't want them? Do you want to assemble the 4 card deckhand + 2x cold blood + faceless combo, not being allowed to use your cold bloods or else missing out on 8 damage? Probably not. At the expense of costing more mana, Leeroy Jenkins-Shadowstep-2x Cold Blood allows you the greatest flexibility and leaves you with the fewest dead cards. 

 

Gameplay Guide

Those who have been playing Hearthstone for awhile will get a nice sense of nostalgia, or disgust, while playing this deck as you drop Leeroy Jenkins and Shadowstep him, then play him again, dealing huge damage. Compared to the old days we now have Tomb Pillager, a nice way to make up for the lost damage, and one of the best cards in the deck.

The basic strategy is to control the board from the early game to the mid game via the very efficient Backstab, SI:7 Agent, Deadly Poison, and Fan of Knives cards. In the midgame you start playing your Tomb Pillagers andAzure Drakes. Then you drop the Gadgetzan Auctioneer, which allows you to draw an obscene amount of cards by playing zero cost spells, then you hit them with some combination of Leeroy Jenkins-Shadowstep-Coldblood.

It's not so simple in practice however, as the deck is by far one of the most difficult to play. A misuse of a Coin or Preparation can cause you not to to draw enough cards off your Auctioneer and never assemble a good amount of damage. A premature Backstab can leave you without a card to combo your SI:7 Agent with, causing you to lose board control. It requires a lot of practice compared to something like Secret Paladin or Midrange Druid. Because you won't be dumping your hand like an Aggro deck, you'll probably amass a large hand by the time you drop Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Many of your cards draw another card, so it can be tough to decrease the number of cards in your hand and thus you'll sometimes be forced to overdraw. It's also quite easy to fatigue yourself with Auctioneer. These mistakes are inevitable as you begin to play the deck and they will go away with time (but everyone misplays once in a while).

A few random tips:

Sometimes on turn 2, you'll want to Eviscerate rather than Backstab a minion with 2 health in order to have a 0 cost card to combo with.

Tomb Pillager is good in every matchup.

CLASS BREAKDOWN/MULLIGANS

General mulligan against Control: Try to get Azure Drake, Tomb Pillager, Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Consider keeping cards like Fan of Knives purely for cycling in the early turns when you won't be doing anything anyway.

General mulligan against Aggro: Try to get SI:7 Agent, Backstab, Deadly Poison, Fan of Knives, Shiv

Druid: Cointoss matchup. Try to get Backstab or Deadly Poison to kill their Darnassus Aspirant. Keep Sap if you have either of those cards. If they Wild Growth into Shredder you'll probably die to combo from taking too much face damage. This matchup will probably be vastly improved for the Rogue once standard comes.

Warrior: Tough matchup. Try to keep any of your good midgame minions, especially Azure Drake and Tomb Pillager, which may keep their Armor low enough for you to finish them off with Leeroy. Without a good amount of damage from the early/midgame, you'll never kill them with Leeroy. Don't buff your Edwin VanCleef above 6/6 and try to Eviscerate their face with Spell Damage. Hit their hero with your dagger a lot to help mitigate their armor. 

Priest: Very easy matchup. Keep Gadgetzan Auctioneer every time, try to get Eviscerate, Sap, and Deadly Poison. Unlike warrior/freeze mage they can't exceed 30 health. Unlike aggro they can't pressure you before your Gadgetzan Auctioneer turn. They don't even play Loatheb, and most of your minions have 4 attack.

Hunter: Decent matchup if Midrange or Aggro hunter. Mulligan for Backstab, SI:7 Agent and Eviscerate. Tomb Pillager or Edwin VanCleef are often your saving grace in this matchup as they usually will just attack your hero, forcing you to race, and Tomb Pillager allows you to lower their HP for a potential Leeroy + Cold Blood burst on 6 or 7 mana. Earthen Ring Farseer or Healbot can also win you the game, especially when comboed with Shadowstep. You'll rarely have time to draw from Gadgetzan Auctioneer unless it's Midrange Hunter. Don't try checking for Explosive Trap unless you have an answer for Bear Trap.

Shaman: VERY hard matchup. Go for Backstab, Deadly Poison, Eviscerate, SI:7 Agent. You have few ways to prevent a huge amount of damage from Tunnel Trogg played on turn 1. Doomhammer is even scarier. You'll never have time to draw off Auctioneer unless they had a poor start. Fan of Knives kills almost none of their minions. An early, high stat Edwin VanCleef is usually your best route to win, not even Healbot will prevent enough damage usually. On the other hand, if it's a Midrange Shaman, you're quite favored. 

Mage: Tempo is a good matchup. Freeze is a poor matchup. Against tempo you want Backstab, SI:7 Agent, Deadly Poison, and Eviscerate. Bloodmage Thalnos or SI:7 Agent make decent Mirror Entity counters. They don't play any deathrattle minions and all their minions will die to 2-4 damage. They can't put up pressure like a typical aggro deck. Against Freeze Mage you want to play much like you would against Control Warrior, trying to get as much minion damage as possible. Keep Healbot/Farseer until they play Alexstrasza and Shadowstep it to get out of lethal range, hopefully on the same turn you pop their Ice Block. This is one of the easiest matchups to fatigue yourself with Auctioneer.

Warlock: Both Renolock and Zoo are good matchups. Mulligan for Backstab, Fan of Knives, SI:7 Agent, Eviscerate. Zoo usually isn't fast enough to pressure you and you can easily kill their early Knife Jugglers, Flame Imps, Haunted Creeper tokens and Abusive Sergeants with your Fan of Knives and Backstabs. The Zoo matchup will most likely improve significantly once Standard hits because most of the deathrattle minions will disappear, forcing a return to cards like Scarlet Crusader that die more easily to Rogue cards. Against Renolock you can often get lots of damage in early with SI:7 Agent, Tomb Pillager and Azure Drake. They will struggle to deal with Conceal + Auctioneer or Edwin VanCleef.

 

Paladin: Good Matchup. Hard mulligan for Fan of Knives, and also try to get Backstab, Preparation and SI:7 Agent. Sap is a great answer for Mysterious Challenger and Tirion Fordring. A tempo play with Preparation + Fan of Knives + Minion after a Muster for Battle is backbreaking to Secret Paladins which have no removal. They usually can't kill an Auctioneer from hand, some of them don't play Truesilver Champion. Miracle Rogue is great against Midrange Paladin for the same reason it's good against Priest. 

Rogue: Mulligan for Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Deadly Poison, Eviscerate, Tomb Pillager. Since many rogue decks are so similar in their gameplan it's a coin flip. However, your combo is much faster than Malygos Rogue. 

 

OPTIONAL CARDS/REPLACEMENTS

There are only about 3 or 4 flexible slots in this deck: 1 Cold blood, Conceal, Shiv, Healbot. They can be replaced with Violet Teacher, Earthen Ring Farseer, Loatheb, Sludge Belcher. If you don't have Bloodmage Thalnos you should use another Shiv or Loot Hoarder as opposed to Kobold Geomancer as some people tend to believe. Edwin is great and should always be used if you have him but if not, you can replace him with Violet Teacher or another Earthen Ring Farseer. If you don't have Preparation you should not play this deck.