Hearthpwn

Heyguys. My name is Kostas, aka "tholwmenos", and I am a competitive Hearthstone player living in Greece. You can follow me on twitter for more information and content I upload, and to support me of course. http://www.twitter.com/tholwmenosHS 

You can also book me as your coach here: Gamersensei

This is the deck I used to finish Rank 1 Legend in September 2016 Season. Proof: http://eu.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20303037/hearthstone%C2%AE-september-2016-standard-ranked-play-season-final-rankings-07-10-2016 (for some reason the link redirects here, so you can copy paste it to your browser to check the Standings).

Screenshot of my last game in September , few minutes before the end of the season.

I chose to post it now on Hearthpwn, 15 days after, because soon after the end of the season there were some specific nerfs, one of them being Execute , which moved from an extremely flexible tempo swinging 1mana cost card, to 2 mana.

As a result, I could not be sure if the deck was about to work with the same win ratio, post-nerf. But now, after testing it within a good amount of games in the new season, I am pretty sure that the deck is still powerful, still works and I wanna share its success with you. It seems that the nerf is not enough to weaken the deck, and the 1mana flexibility difference is really rarely an issue, since Aggro Shaman is gone too.

I reached Legend extremely easily using it, peaked around top 10, have dropped to top 25 Legend right now but I will probably climb higher again ;)

Mulligan and General tips: You should always search for your early game, 2drops, war axe, finley etc. If you have the coin, Alexstrasza's Champion and can clearly see a curve and a decent early game in your hand, you can consider keeping Twillight Guardian, or Azure Drake (extreme, but sometimes correct if you dont have any other dragon and don't want to ruin your Champions). But that's about it, no other 4mana or more card is recommended to be kept . Frothing with the coin and a 2drop is also good most of the time, Ravaging Ghoul with a good hand can be a keep vs. Shaman or another possible faster matchup (eg. Hunter or Zoo if you find any). Blood to ichor is also good sometimes, if your hand can support it and you know that you will clear something efficiently by using it (eg. Totem golem, with war axe).

You must be really careful with the curve, a common newbie mistake is auto-coining a 2drop like Alexstrasza's Champion instantly, then waiting for ever to play the 5drops stacked in hand. Try to plan ahead of the game, calculating the curve is almost everything when playing this deck. Be also aware of the dmg you are pushing to face, avoid unnecessary trades because everything matters to win a game. There are also matchups like the Midrange Shaman, where value wars are really common in early/mid game turns. You must be well aware, though, about when your win condition is just to give up the board and play your outs to win the game with SMOrc.

Why this list and not the new Curator Dragon Warrior? Because I feel like this deck is aggro/tempo, and a 7 mana 4/6 is not tempo enough. By that state of the game, our goal is to completely dominate the board and try to close out the game with our big threats. A 4/6 which draws monkeys to be played on turn 8 , is not exactly what I am looking for this type of deck. But double slam also? Slam does great work on killing annoying minions, with the help of our weaker minions and of course the war axe, mostly 5-health minions like Thing From Below. Is is a great tool to cycle the deck, and can also win games sometimes serving the role of an additional enrage enabler of Grommash Hellscream. Finley Priorities? Fireblast is almost always the best. Consider Lifetap if you are facing a slow control matchup, or if your hand looks like it's gonna have a dead turn. Steady shot can be good sometimes, on the occasion you feel out-resourced in the mid-late game and you need a tool to push additional damage.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, I will try to answer everything. If this gets enough feedback, I will consider writing a full guide on how to approach different matchups.

Follow me on twitter: Tholwmenos

Book me as your Coach: @ EggOneSchool

or @ Gamersensei