D e e R F o r C e (Breaking Away from Combo)
- Last updated Apr 1, 2016 (Explorers)
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Wild
- 22 Minions
- 8 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 10560
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 3/24/2016 (Explorers)
- IamFlight
- Registered User
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- 6
- 8
- 23
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
143
"Nature Will Rise Against You"
Hello once again Hearthpwn! I'm very excited to release this deck to you now in rough copy so that everyone has the opportunity to play before all the new cards are released. This is my pilot project for a dominant, Wild Druid deck once WOG comes out (N'Zoth, the Corruptor is certainly a potential contender to make the deck list once formats are introduced). Best of luck in your games, I hope you all have a blast!
Basic How-to-Play
The goal of this deck is to out-value your opponent each and every turn possible by using powerful late game card synergies and utilizing your hp as much as possible to gain board advantage. Your mulligans should be to search for 2 and 4 drops (ideally your ramp cards), though depending on the match up you can keep specific cards. I've even kept Justicar Trueheart in my starting hand against Warriors. By focusing on efficiency each turn, you should by the end of the game have summoned Thaddius once or twice, and have an unlimited number of 9/7 Malorne's going into a fatigue battle.
Key Concept: Health As A Resource
Many people are unfamiliar with just how much Justicar Trueheart can accomplish in Druid. This is because health previously was under-utilized as a resource in order to effectively gain advantages on board. The concept of health as an additional resource can be seen to work well already in Warlock (hero power), and Freeze Mage. When you combine Druid's hero power (and it's upgraded form) with Reno Jackson and Tree of Life, it can be used to direct yourself into "win-condition" board states. These massive healing cards effectively RESET YOUR HEALTH, allowing you to UTILIZE your hp when necessary to gain small advantages throughout the game. Both Reno and Tree have their advantages depending on the situation, but overall they can give you TWO-THREE TIMES THE HEALTH BAR (I know there isn't actually a bar) you normally have to work with. If Tree of Life is able to heal up some high health minions after trading, it's even more crushing. Your upgraded hero power alone is a 4hp swing each and every turn, and can massively impact the board.
Breaking Away From Combo Druid
Druid has been known since day 1 for its consistency and burst potential, and though it does this very well it's also frequently criticized for being a boring way to play the class. Plus, charge minions in general are critiqued for their lack of interactivity and detrimental effect in creating an enjoyable play experience. I have always believed that the greatest strength of Druid is not in it's combo consistency, but in it's synergies through variance and it's reactivity. Being able to choose 1 of 2 possible effects on so many cards allows you to adapt to situations on the fly. No card exemplifies this more than Raven Idol, which is easily the best card in the game for reacting to ANY given situation (and discovering that card for only 1 mana). Having 30 different cards and running a Reno Jackson Druid give the deck pilot MORE OPTIONS and POSSIBLE SYNERGIES than any other deck or class, simply given the nature of the Druid class. This is vital because when playing a control deck, advantages are gained through card synergies and efficiency over time. Druid also however has some of the MOST POWERFUL effects and synergies in the entire game. Moving into Wild Format in the future I believe that Druid decks will be amongst the most powerful, and it's because of cards like Aviana, Astral Communion, and Tree of Life, that will only continue to increase in power as more cards are released. With this deck I want to shake up a little the idea of what Druid can be in the future (one most likely without combo) and get people a little more excited about the possibilities.
Card Replacements and Alternative Suggestions
At least most of the legendaries are from Adventures?
Aviana - Naga Sea Witch is best in replicating the mana affect of Aviana (even though it is obviously much different). This is a good card to consider including regardless, as it works very well on it's own.
"X or Y Giant Legendary" (Usually the Druid ones) - Dr. Boom, Arch-Thief Rafaam are the best two in my opinion, but any other large drop will do. Piloted Sky Golem is a solid threat that works well with Kel'Thuzad. Sunwalker is another good choice.
Faceless Manipulator - Antique Healbot, or another strong early minion like Mind Control Tech or Mounted Raptor
Modifying Against Aggro
Unfortunately aggressive decks are going to be a thing at least until classic card changes come through and WOG comes out, after which point we don't know how dominant they will or will not be. I'm going to keep the posted list as the original, slower one, because that's the way I like it best, but if you'd like to be more competitive against aggro decks I would suggest with some of the following changes to start:
Removing the cards that are strongest in ultra long games: Faceless Manipulator, Justicar Trueheart, Malorne
And replace with: Antique Healbot, Mounted Raptor, Naga Sea Witch, Earthen Ring Farseer, Mind Control Tech, Refreshment Vendor
These are simply my own starting suggestions, and you can make whichever changes you think you'd like best in whichever number you think is necessary. In general, adding additional board clear, early minions, heal, and taunt instead of units focused on the late and fatigue game is the path to follow here. One great thing about Reno Jackson decks is that it's quite stark which cards are and are not working in a particular match up, and so you can swap them out on an individual and more optimized basis.
Gameplay Videos
Though I personally do not have the recording equipment to produce gameplay videos myself at the moment, a couple of players have gone above and beyond and made videos of their own featuring the deck. I'm very proud to present them both here, and I will look into creating my own videos for content I create in the future. Special thanks to both Fur0 and Lifefully for their work in uploading these:
From Fur0: YouTube Link
From Lifefully: YouTube Link
*Note: The video maker has confirmed that in saying they don't play "serious" decks at legendary, they simply mean meta-decks and not DeeRForCe in particular.
With that all said, everyone have fun! If you like the deck or think it's nifty please give it a thumps up! And as always I love hearing comments and feedback, so let me know what you think :)
May all your packs have legendaries.
PS: Bonus points for everyone who gets what "D e e R F o r C e" is a reference to! As well, at the time of this writing I have about a 55-60% win rate with this deck with most of the losses to hyper aggro with a poor hand, or one-turn kill decks.
March 31st Edit: Swapped out Shade of Naxxramas for Explosive Sheep
Awkwardly enough.. I unpacked every single one of those cards.. .-.
at least craft cenarius for druid
This deck is hilarious lol. Just played vs some RenoMage. His last Card in hand was the golden monkey map he got from Ethereal Conjourer and topdecks Reno with it while being on 5 HP. Good Thing my board was Aviana + Kel Thuzad + Cenarius and Belcher but still. Just wow! :D
Really enjoying the deck. Playing it for Fun at Rank 5 and it seems to be viable :) +1
And if you start with Reno and Tree of Life in your Hand vs a Hunter you know who won't have fun =D
How does this improve his DeerForCe if you just make a totally new deck? At Rank 5 the deck works pretty well for me. I actually got Thaddius in 2 of my 6 games (Mage got Faceless from Esportal so i had to trade him right away but still).
If you don't like this deck just don't play it but suggesting that he should just make a totally new deck to "improve" his old one isn't really helpfull imo.
No you didn't say that but your changes are so drastic that it's just a completely new deck.
wow you are stupid
Woo! Success is what I like to hear! Thinking about how exactly each match up plays out and what you need to do differently against each opponent is one of my favorite things. I quite like the MC Tech change! Another great option that's been brought to my attention is Explosive Sheep. PLUS, Explosive Sheep + Poison Seeds = Total Board Clear
I totally get the idea behind this post, but I wanted to add some clarity. You have to play explosive sheep AFTER poison seeds or it doesn't work. The death rattle triggers first, sadly
Hello IamFlight,
+1
nice to see an Aviana deck here :)
See my version without Reno Jackson (
Tree of Life can be added thereupdated):(It's a fun deck that WORKS if you get low mana cards at beginning)
The power of non-reno version is the card draws from x2 Ancient of Lore or it can be used to heal you, depends on situation, also the double Swipe / Wrath can really help in many situations, double Innervate / Wild Growth can also help a lot in reaching higher mana / draw cards.
Edit: I just updated the deck with Tree of Life there instead of Ragnaros the Firelord
I actually made a deck that was decently similiar to this before trying it as a Reno deck and also found that I could make it work. My personality meshes more with the Reno deck, which is why I prefer it but it's possible to make Aviana work without it for sure. Best of luck in your games!
LOL @ Aviana from Deathlord
The lack of early cards is detrimental in an aggro meta, but this decks seems to crush control. For higher consistency against fast meta's I'd definitely look to sub in some more early game or heal like Explosive Sheep, Earthen Ring Farseer, Antique Healbot, Mounted Raptor, etc... :)
Looks interesting! :)
Good luck in your games! Hopefully they're just as interesting.
I've been playing this deck for a bit in the 5-7 ranks. Very fun deck! Went 7-1. My loss was against a Reno Mage who, who had just gone into fatigue, Reno'd, played 2x Molten Giants, Sunfury Protector'd them, and then used Echo of Medivh played everything again (minus Reno). I had two cards left in my deck, one being Poison Seeds, which I could combo with Starfall and take the game back. Sadly, I didn't draw it, and I lost.
My one suggestion would be adding more card draw. I would recommend Harrison Jones as a tech card, and maybe a second Ancient of Lore (I know this slightly hurts Reno, but realistically if you're going to be Reno'ing in the late game, you should be able to draw your one duplicate before then).
Bonus: D e e R F o r C e comes from Super Metroid. The code name for the team that developed the game was Deer Force. Whenever a speedrunner finishes a run of the game, his/her Twitch Chat will start spamming "D e e R F o r C e" when Deer Force goes by in the credits (shoutout to Zoasty!). I know this because Super Metroid is my favorite game of all time and I speedrun it as well!
Definitely did.
WE HAVE A WINNER! Super Metroid is also one of my favourite games of all time, I've speedran it, and have even spent time watching Zoasty shatter records on his stream too. I am SO GLAD someone got it!
Card draw is something that I'm really looking for when adjusting this deck post-WOG, I just couldn't find a consistent option that I was happy with when creating the list. One of the best things about reno decks is that they are very easy to personalize or adapt to particular playstyles or metas, since you can pick and choose tech cards and figure out which ones aren't working quite as well without breaking how the deck works.
I definitely agree on the point of Reno decks, simply because in order to make Reno work, you have to run a lot of "good enough" cards to fill the spots left empty by the duplicates taken out. The "good enough" cards can easily be switched out for other cards. A deck normally running two Antique Healbots could use an Earthen Ring Farseer or a Refreshment Vendor, or you could go for something totally different like Cult Master if you felt that the healing wasn't needed or wanted more card draw.
After doing a lot of testing, I feel that -Shade of Naxxramas and +Acolyte of Pain MIGHT be the best option for card draw. However, Shade is obviously a strong card on the board that can swing board control if dropped in the early game, while Acolyte stays at one attack. I'd be comfortable running Shade in a fast meta and Acolyte in a slower meta.
Gotta love the crap out of this deck. 4-1 so far playing in rank 11, I'll blame the loss on a bad use of innervate. Very fun to play, rather tricky for the opponent, who might be mind-screwed into thinking this is a ramp/combo deck, therefore making inefficient trades or wasting removal... then you wait and see how they run out of resources and the board is yours.
GJ with the list ;-)
Thanks so much! Imagining your opponent's face after making some plays with this deck is just so, so satisfying. I can't help but smile when an opponent uses their removal on something like Druid of the Claw just to see a new crazy threat come down every turn or two for the rest of the game :p
Thanks for the great deck. I don't play Druid much, mainly because I do not care for the play style of what most Druids on the ladder play. Spent the evening working through several quests, and this deck was a blast to play. Druid's one of the few classes I don't have any class legendaries for, so I had to sub out theMalorne,Cenarius, andAviana. Went with Dr. Boom, Elise Starseeker, and Mind Control Tech.