Hearthpwn

This deck is a variaton of zoolock, meaning so is your playstyle. Normally on turns 1-4, your sole purpose is to lock down the board via efficient trades using your unimportant minions, but buffed up with your other cards. Afterwards, you want to keep heavy pressure on your opponent, dropping their health every turn.

Against Control:

Most control decks don't run too many minions, meaning you should develop your minions ASAP. Often the best starting turns are to coin out two 1 drops on turn 1, followed by a 2 drop the next turn, and keeping the pressure on from there. Don't overextend, if you have a single card in hand and 6 minions on board, save the card, chances are it will die as no more than a pretty face to their AOE. Wait until they clear the board, THEN play it.

Against Aggro:

Believe it or not, this matchup is a war for the board. The person with the most minions can trade away the opponent's minions with ease and continue to snowball themselves, which is why it's important to almost always trade away their minions. If you have. say, a 5/4 against a 2/1, don't trade though, you are still a SMOrc deck at heart, just be smart.

It's important to try to play your discard cards last, after you drop your important other cards. You want to try to "target" the card you want to discard, so drop all of your threats then play Soulfire in order to increase the odds that it discards what you want it to. Also, you often just have to accept the fact that you'll be in the situation of having two discard cards in hand, and can't keep them both. If you want to try to play them both, you can fill your hand with other cards first, in the hope that one of them will be discarded, as opposed to the second discard card.

Often you want to play a discard card while you have a large hand to minimize the odds of discarding a key card, FOR EXAMPLE: imagine you have Soulfire, a Silverware Golem, a Doomguard and 3 other cards in hand on turn 4. You want to play the Soulfire [/card]before playing the other cards in order to decrease the odds of discarding [card]Doomguard, because not discarding your key cards is more important than discarding your disco-synergy cards. You can play Doomguard the next turn to have good odds of discarding the Silverware Golem anyways, yes it's a turn late, but it'll just die to Lightning Storm anyways, right?

Honestly, this deck really can't be substituted easily. Obviously, the main focus is the discard package (Malchezaar's Imp, Soulfire, Darkshire Librarian, Silverware Golem, Fist of Jaraxxus, Doomguard), which requires much of Karazhan. So if you don't have Karazhan, you might as well play regular zoolock. As far as the rest of the cards, they're all really cheap to make (not a single epic or legendary), so just save up some dust and you'll be there before long!

Some specifics you might not have:

Imp Gang Boss         For         Darkshire Councilman

Dark Peddler            For         Defender of Argus

When positioning minions, always think of their relationship with Dire Wolf Alpha, because often something as simple as the a Flame Imp being on the wrong side of the Knife Juggler leads to the loss of a game.

Outer to Inner
First of all, always try to place the Dire Wolf in the center, so a relatively equal number of minions are on both the left and right of it, meaning that when one dies, it can "pass" it's +1 buff onto the next minion. Always place "HVT minions" on the outside of the board. These are generally minions with effects that you want to keep a hold of, such as Knife Juggler and Malchezaar's Imp. Also try to place minions with high health, such as Doomguard, on the outside, because it's harder for them to die and actually pass the buff along in the first place. Inside of them, place the "Cannon Fodder" minions. these are minions with no useful effects, only stats which can be traded away with (or hit face, of course). Try to position low value minions directly adjacent to the Dire Wolf Aplha, such as Darkshire Librarian, since you want it to die first, and draw you a card.

Dire Wolf Alpha and Argent Horserider
First, play the Wolf, and let it buff two existing minions on the board. AFTER the existing minions get the extra damage in, place the Argent Horserider adjacent to the Dire Wolf Alpha (between the Wolf and the minions that just attacked), so that it also gets the buff that turn. Effectively, the Wolf gave +3 damage in a single turn, where it otherwise would've given only +2.

Dire Wolf Alpha and Possessed Villager
Contrary to what you may think, Possessed Villager should be placed in the "HVT Minion" section. The reason is because if it is near the center of your board, it would get buffed and traded away, yes, but the 1/1 it summons would  take the position of the Villager, meaning it would prevent the passage of damage from reaching the next minion (since it has to wait another turn to attack). If you know that the Villager will die before the Wolf is played, then by all means place it near the center, so that the 1/1 it spawns can be buffed. Otherwise, keep it in the outer ring.

TL;DR: Look at the pretty picture.

Thanks so much to everyone who did coverage on the deck. I know it's cheesy and cliche, but it really is awesome to see such positive feedback to the deck, I really appreciate it! Also thanks for just looking at the deck (and making it this far through the guide)!

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