Hearthpwn

Hey guys Doctor Batman here once again with one of my personal favorite decks known as Handlock. In this guide I plan on going through some of the choices made while building this deck as well as my own personal strategy while playing this deck and 2 others to legend this season.

Card Choices: Rather than list every card in the deck and give reasons for why i played each id rather do this in the form of a questionnaire to explain not only what is in the deck but what i chose to omit as well.

 Why don't you play Jarraxus or Alexstraza? Or at the very least one or the other?

What I came to understand pretty early on here was that they are both extremely slow right now, Jarraxus has the advantage of likely winning the game after 2 turns while Alex is an immediate threat with an 8/8 body. Knowing the risky nature of this deck it would seem wise to have either or in your deck but in truth the cards are rather useless right now. The decks in this meta all have strong finishing combos that laugh at your 15 health and thank you for wasting an entire turn on a 9 drop, but there are advantages to not playing them in your opponent likely thinking you have it. Not only do you not have to waste a slot or 2 in your deck but your opponent likely thinks you did and will spend multiple turns playing around it for no reason. I firmly believe this deck is all about mind games, and this is just one of the many you can play with your opponent.

2 Hellfire and 1 Shadowflame? Dont most people play 2 Shadowflames and sometimes even no Hellfires? 

While a lot of people jumping aboard the 2 Shadowflame ban wagon I'm here to tell you all of them are wrong! Yes that's right, I believe the general Hearthstone populace is wrong on this choice for a few simple reasons. Firstly there are so many aggro decks still floating around, most notably zoolock, and hellfire can be played much earlier and much faster for much less loss as apposed to the 2 cards required to set off shadowflame. 

Ragnaros? I've seen it before in this deck but why? 

The biggest reason to justify Rag is the fact almost very minion you play is a threat forcing your opponent to use a lot of their removals early letting Rag be relatively safe by the time turn 8 comes around, worst case he gets removed after he gets his effect which ain't so bad. The other big reason is that the deck lacks removal oddly enough. You may look around and think that I'm crazy saying that but a lot of your removal is rather small save for Siphon Soul, so Rag gives you a big 8 damage wrecking ball every turn regardless of whether you can aim it. Rag is in himself a win condition which is nice in a deck with so many options to win.

Just one owl? everyone i see plays 2

I've never felt just 1 owl is to little as long as you play it smart. You really need to gauge what kind of deck your opponent is playing and what threats warrant a silence where Siphon wouldn't be as good. Only after you've determined how badly you will need it and about what point in the game, can you play it on a watcher with impunity. Using it on watcher should be a desperate move more often than not based on if you don't have creatures already in hand or no early removal.

Shadowbolt? 

Yes Shadowbolt is a key card to this deck and I hate to see it completely cut from people's decks. it offers you a good turn 3 play when your on the coin which is fantastic, it does the same damage as Soul Fire but without the discard which can be very key in the first 4 turns of the match. All in all the card is very good and will do more than you think.

Card Wrap-up; The deck is by and large similar to a lot of Handlocks out there but I feel the cards i excluded from the original formula set it apart. Handlock can afford to be very heavy on one of's due to the nature of the Hero power and the fact you will see the vast majority of your deck. Thats what allows cards like like the Power + Faceless + Leeroy combo or Mortal Coil to be played.

How to Play the Deck (Aggro Edition): 

Aggro decks are probably one of the hardest types of decks for Handlock to beat as they punish you for spending to much time trying to set up. What I see a lot of people do is avoid Hero Power and focus on early board control, and while that may be right in some cases i find that letting your opponent beat on you early is a very good and most of the time better option. What this does for us is brings molten giants closer which can swing a match very fast with a taunt or 2 and also helps us draw into Hellfire which is key in almost every aggro match up. You need to play with a very high risk high reward sentiment or the match up gets much much harder. I try to shoot for turn 4 Hellfire or if not that just go with the general strategy of Drake or mountain Giant and continue to trade the board away till they are out of resources. Though this match is hard I generally feel its the Locks game to lose still, just play smart and stay patient and you will be able to trump 60% or more of the aggro decks in ladder. I personally played a very heavy amount of aggro decks and had an extremely good win rate vs them.

How to Play the Deck (Mid-range and Control Edition): 

This match up is all about what both of you do and don't have which makes Handlock the king of mind games with a constant 8+ cards in hand. You need to keep your opponent guessing on what you can and cannot do on any given turn as well as forcing them to have the answer to your plays. Got that turn 4 drake or giant? throw it out and force them to have the answer or likely lose. Don't be afraid to lose cards since you will be drawing 2 a turn for a while. Another good example is playing a Drake on turn 4 instead of a giant, hopefully tricking your opponent into wasting their removal on the Drake ideally making Giant safe. Alternatively there is forgoing a molten giant on a turn you could of safely played it, as long as there isn't a clear threat on your life not playing the Molten will likely bait your opponent into making it even cheaper for a bigger swing the next turn. The control match is some pretty high level stuff most of the time so really think about what your doing and don't be hasty in your decisions, its not a race to kill your opponent but more so trying to dwindle your opponents resources in a war of attrition.

Guide Wrap-up: This guide is written with more seasoned players in mind as i do not recommend this deck to any entry level player. Therefore i will not write replacements for budget players, if you are on a budget do not play this deck. Check out my Rogue or Druid deck for any budget players. 

This deck is arguably the strongest deck in this meta with very few bad match ups and the ability to beat any deck from any sort of disadvantage. However the draw back is that it is the hardest deck to play as even the slightest mistake as simple as tapping 6 turns ago when it wasn't necessary can outright lose you a match. The deck punish's mistakes big time and if your new to the deck it will frustrate you, but i implore you to stick with it and watch as your rating climbs higher and higher. 

If you have any sort of specific questions feel free to leave it in the comment section, i check the site daily and will get back to you asap. Happy hunting on the ladder :)

BEGINNER'S GUIDE!!! (It's Finally Here): 

Whelp as promised here is the beginners guide for handlock, before i get into it though I would like to note a few things. First off i will not be using card link for 2 reasons, if your going to play this deck even at a beginner level you need card knowledge so think of this as a gatekeeper of sorts. secondly I haven't gone to bed yet and its 8am so cut me some slack on this bit! Also I will be doing this in a format very much like if i where talking to you in person so expect it to be very unprofessional and sort of jumpy. Without further delay here's the guide!

So the first thing to note about handlock are what cards do you use to kill your opponent? Every deck needs a way to win and preferably multiple conditions as well. For starters there's your giants which are 8/8's that are cheated into play with their effects at an earlier time or extremely diluted cost for their stats. The 4 giants and 2 Drakes form the meat of the deck and are the goal to put on the board. Usually the strategy is to play a Mountain Giant by turn 4 through using your hero power that I will refer to as "tapping". If you are going first you need to tap twice in order to have a turn 4 giant as well as not playing any cards till turn 4, if your going second you only need to tap once and you can also play one card before turn 4 and still achieve a mountain giant. Drakes function as giant removal baits or huge card advantage generators by killing everything your opponent plays. A turn 4 drake with the giant strategy is 9 health which is just monstrous that early on. going second however its not uncommon to want to coin into a drake on turn 3 so you can apply some pressure, this is most preferably done when you don't have a mountain giant, vs aggro or if you want to bait removal so your giant is safe. Molten giant i hope is a bit self explanatory, you just play them for super cheap when your opponent gets greedy and combo them with taunts/shadowflame.

There are 2 other win conditions in this deck as well. Firstly there is Ragnaros which just gets completely out of hand if left for more than one turn, becoming a giant 8 damage wrecking ball of pure death (it also combos with faceless for super pwnage). The other condition is a 3 card turn 10 combo consisting of Leeroy + Power Overwhelming + Faceless. This is 20 damage which is nothing to laugh and and arguably one of the highest damage combos in the whole game (played in a deck that's actually good that is). Combo this with a soulfire or 2 for a maximum of 28 damage and its a recipe for destruction.

Now that I've explained how you win now lets go over the basic concept of the deck and how to play it. The idea behind handlock is to accelerate out cards that have obscenely bloated stats for their mana cost and this is achieved through a very greedy early game. By playing nothing for the first few turns and doing 2 damage to yourself you give your opponent a crucial weak spot that they can take advantage of. Turns 1-5 are by far the most miserable for this deck and outside of changing decks entirely is impossible to fix. You do however have options to soften this weakness with cheap early removal and great aoe, on top of that there are Molten Giants which punish your opponent for being greedy early on.

To achieve the basic goal of this deck I personally mulligan very aggressively for giants and drakes keeping hellfire or soulfire in only a couple match up's (see match up guide above). I play very conservatively with my cards early on only using them if I absolutely need to or there are no Mountain giants i sight. If possible save soulfire for turn 4 to combo with a giant or drake. once you've safely played a creature on turn 4 you attempt to play for board control by wiping everything your opponent plays out, this turns giants into +2's or even more as they rack up kills. Don't be afraid to heal your minion with farseer unless you start to fall to low yourself. As far as Tapping goes in this stage of the game i only recommend it if your hand size is getting a bit to small or you don't have the key cards you need for the coming turns. From here on out its just a matter of poking for damage each turn while continually trading the board in your favor till you con kill your opponent through the massive selection of burn damage this deck has to offer. Now having gone through the general strategy I'd like to share some tips and tricks to playing this deck.

• Your life is a resource... literally! Don't be afraid to tap for cards you don't have, if you win with 1 hp left you still won the match. until your opponent brings you to 0 your fine. That being said make sure you assess how much damage your opponent could potentially do the next turn so you can decide if its safe. 
• You don't always have to taunt your giants up, in fact in certain situations its a pretty pro move to taunt up watchers/drakes or other miscellaneous minions so your giant can stay safe. This is especially true when its at lower health than you'd like (also keep in mind Black Knight... he will wreck your day if you taunt up poorly)
• if you are nearing a point where soulfire to the face will win you the game in a turn or 2 dont be afraid to save it if you don't absolutely have to play it right then. soulfire cost 0 so it can be played at the end of any combo.
• Don't just siphon soul any card this a slight threat, try and save it for hard to deal with monsters or desperate healing situations!
• Always calculate the mana your going to spend in any given turn, if you will have enough mana left over to tap, do it first. You'd be surprised at how often it could change your play.
• Try and set up shadowflame a turn ahead by playing an ancient watcher naked so you can still use other cards the next turn.
• Don't hoard your faceless to much, unless you have leeroy in hand and can game him very soon with a combo just use it whenever a good opportunity arises. 
• Try and play mind games with your opponent by forgoing giants on turns you could play them in favor of weaker turns, this will lull your opponent into a false sense of security and likely have them make plays that are very bad for them. 
• Unless desperate do not use thalnos to draw, always use him in conjunction with a spell.
• Try not to use rag as a desperate spray and pray removal, make playing him count.
• If you have the option to play argus over sunfury generally go with the argus as sunfury is cheaper and can combo with much higher costing plays better than argus.
• Attack before you shadowflame!
• If hellfire would kill you and your opponent at the same time it is counted as a loss for both players and you will both lose rank.
• Try and play minions in places where they can all be optimally taunted up. Basically just always plan ahead.
• AGAIN always plan ahead!
• Don't be afraid of your opponents removal, either he has it or he doesn't. force him to act or die!
• Don't be afraid to make trades that aren't favorable, card advantage isn't a huge deal for this deck as you will always be able to replenish your hand
• Got any other tips to add? feel free to add a comment below and an up vote above and i may include yours!

Well thats the conclusion to my beginners guide, i do hope you enjoyed it! if you have any suggestions on how i can improve it please let me know either through PM or a comment. Till then  Allons-y to legendary we go!