Hearthpwn

The conversation that led to this deck is in a post on ZerotoHeroes.com

The road prior to that is long and rambling however -

It probably started here:

With further ideas lifted from Sheng's Basic Starter Basic Warlock.

Guides to basic and other Warlock decks, authored by Sottle on Icy Veins, were also an influence.

Trump, Sheng and Sottle, all respected professional players, had similar ideas about what to put in their starter decks, so it must be good, right?

I made this deck as a result and... I'm not so sure. I had a poor win rate with it, despite doing quite well (rank 16 or so) with some of their other basic decks.

Value minions are all very well, but there are better synergies to be had by flooding the board and buffing en-masse.  My deck is more focussed on this strategy than the pro's lists, and it seems stronger in playtesting as a result.  I expect such a deck will be more easily upgraded to one of the more competitive Zoo lists too, as their basic strategy is also flood & buff.

Hellfire and Dread Infernal very much work against this strategy however, making them very situational in this deck... so I've cut them.

Also, Warlock does not have strong buffs available to it when restricted to basic cards only, so Voidwalker is more-or-less useless as a turn 1 play (most 2-drops can kill it without dying themselves) and is thus also cut.

I intend to write an article on upgrading this deck with cards opened from classic and other packs.  I'll post a link to it in the comments when I do.