Hearthpwn

After days of revision, it is finally complete. Here is the completed list that i run for my Illidan Token druid, below will be a guide explaining how the deck works as well as possible replacements

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The goal of this deck is to flood the board with your minions, keeping the board dominated while you either chip away at the opponent's health over time or finish him with a finisher (Savage Roar and Power of the Wild).

Most cards in this deck are replaceable, and i will talk about them and their potential replacements in a moment, but first, here are the cards which are essential to the function of this deck:

•Illidan Stormrage - The entire purpose of this deck's creation was to test if Illidan is viable in the current meta, and from what i have seen this deck do, it has more than proven that, Illidan is essential for this deck, acting as setup for some insane moments, and at worst acting as a 7/5 that the opponent spends a turn dealing with, although he usually leaves behind 2-4 flames before he dies since not many run Big Game Hunter.

•Violet Teacher - Her stat distribution is perfect for her purpose, she doesnt need attack, she needs to survive, and she is great at that, and when she doesn't survive, it is usually because the opponent either spent two or even three cards removing it, or because he sadrificed a few minions to remove her, and due to her low cost, often she has already spawned a few of her students before the opponent has a chance to do anything about her

•Power of the Wild - In This deck, giving all of your minions +1/+1 will almost always  mean the difference between 11 damage and 16-18 damage, Power of the wild is an excellent card with excellent value for it's low cost

•Savage Roar - Similar to Power of the Wild, the value of this card in this deck is insane, the ammount of damage this card allows for is incredible (+2 damage per character, including hero), this card is irreplaceable

 

Below will be the replacements which can be made:

•Sylvanas Windrunner for Hogger or Hogger, Doom of Elwynn - Honsetly, if you have either of the Hoggers, ge rid of Sylvanas for it, i personally would take Hogger if you have boh. The fact of the matter is that Sylvanas does not fit super well into the theme of the deck, but hogger certainly does, summoning 2/2 taunts for free once per turn is amazing in this deck, and I recommend making the switch as soon as you can

•Azure Drake - While i am not sure what it would replace, i do think that Azure Drake does have a place in this deck, turning the combo of Fandral Staghelm and Wrath into 6 damage and card draw for the price of 6 mana (if you already have Azure Drake out), and he has some other uses which are pretty insane (Swipe, Starfire, and Living Roots to name a few), so i do believe that he certainly could be fit into this deck

•Starfire for Starfall - while i personally think that the ability to go face and the card draw of Starfire makes it better than Starfall in this deck, i do realize that it is possible to swap Starfire for Starfall, so i thought it would be worth mentioning.

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Matchups:

Vs. Mage - Against mages, this deck will almost always win, mostly because Arcane Explosion is not as crippling as it seems against this deck, making the only form of mass removal Flamestrike, and usually by turn seven the game has been won against a mage because they can't really do much to stop the onslaught

Vs. Warrior - This deck does really well against aggro warriors, but control warriors will win nine times out of ten due to cards like brawl, as well as the fact that they almost always have removal on hand to take out your everything (its like magic)

Vs. Hunter - Unless you draw complete trash and they draw perfect, this deck crushes hunters of all shapes and sizes. Face hunter? No problem, this deck crushes it like a soda can. Beast hunter? No problem, this deck crushes it like a soda can. The deck just does really well against hunter. (The Swipe and (potentially) Starfall don't hurt)

Vs. Warlock - Against Warlock, this deck does well sometimes and poorly others, depends widely on how much removal they draw, what removal they draw, and if RNGesus smiles upon them, more often than not this deck wins, but it rarely wins by a landslide like it does against hunters

Vs. Paladin - Typically, Paladins are simply too slow to keep up with this deck, especially if you can draw savage roar, due to this, paladins will be unable to touch you a good 80% of the time, and even when they do, they don't do too much

Vs. Shaman - This deck will almost always win against a shaman UNLESS you draw absolute trash and they draw gold, shaman is just unable to keep up with the damage you will output

Vs. Druid - Against other druids, there are a few possibilities, this deck will often beat out ramp druid due to being able to outpace it (yes, it outpaces ramp druid quite often), C'thun Druid has no chance at all, this deck will almost always bring the opponent to 0 before Dark Arakkoa comes into play and even when it doesn't, it will just run over them and continue to face

Vs Priest - Against priest, there are mixed results. It mostely depends on if they draw Auchenai Soulpriest and Circle of Healing. If they do get the two, it is game over for you, if they don't you win nine times out of ten

Vs. Rogue - I have not had sufficient testing against rogues to really get a proper feel for it, but from what little i have seen, this deck does do well against them.