Ungoro Theory craft CTRL War
- Last updated Apr 3, 2017 (Un'Goro Prepatch)
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Wild
- 15 Minions
- 13 Spells
- 2 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Control Warrior
- Crafting Cost: 7240
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/1/2017 (Aggro Downfall)
- Skilletzorz
- Registered User
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- 4
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- 24
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
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Total Deck Rating
38
Card choices worth talking about:
Tar Creeper- You don't have 3 mana removal plays anymore, you can't run fierce monkey, and Frothing doesn't really make sense because we don't use the face damage well.
Dirty Rat Versus Sentry- Dirty Rat can be swapped for sentry but sentry can be played out on your terms without additional investment far more safely than Rat can. Rat will be better if more combo decks arise, but as one of decks are leaving the meta, decks should be less sensitive to rat pulls hitting win conditions. Rat is not good against quest decks even if the quest is completed and the minion is not played under the logic that every minion quest deck that plays a minion reward is also in itself minion based. Going on a brief rundown
Priest-You don't care about their life total so unless you specifically hit n'zoth this is a value match up for us and we can't afford to throw hard removals away with how little initiative we have naturally.
Hunter- Not only do they run a lot of minions they also likely complete the quest and play the body in the same turn. Sentry has the interesting problem of giving them beasts for synergy cards but realistically you don't play it into a turn where they get to attack with their 3 raptors, and Rat at best has 4 to 6 non-beast targets to hit anyway.
Druid-You will not win this match up if their ancient of wars cost 10 mana, 5 mana or 0 mana, they can just play one or two big bodies a turn and punch you to death as it has been since the days of mid-range combo druid. You do not need to add x innervates to their deck to make the match up even more wonky.
Paladin-Galvadon has the hunter issue but there's actual upside to pulling the body since unlike the other scenarios the reward is much more threatening than the body. However, let's say you miss it. Your ideal scenario is dirty rat brawling a stealthed Galvadon for when things go bad in this scenario. Sentry improves your odds from a 1 in 3 (33.33...%)chance to a 1 in 5 (20%) assuming no minions are on the field prior to Galvadon entering play.) I would much rather have the odds of clearing Galvadon in the event I don't randomly snipe it from hand instead of the chance of randomly sniping it from hand and potentially giving him more buff targets that I don't want to remove like the Devilsaur egg.
Mage: Mage you can't hit their quest but in the case of mage they have to address your armor totals to kill you with a theoretical Antonidas exodia combo or taunts to deal with you in the event of an arcane giant/Alex OTK. In all of these instances assuming they for whatever reason lack any other minions in deck and you rat out a combo piece you certainly win but there's no clear way that deck is going to kill you and trying to play around every variation of a theoretical OTK deck before we have the cards is not quite going to work out.
The other match ups you either can't directly interact with their quest anyway, or they'll be playing a lot of large mid-range minions anyway that we want to slow down with our bigger taunts.
Gorehowl-I vaguely want this card in here for the match ups where we can't just play the quest and win because our life total is being pressured by burn, but most of the time the quest reward will win us value match ups and in aggressive match ups our taunts should out value their minions.
Tar Lord VS Alley Armor Smith vs Curator/Primordial drake- Until the meta shapes out this one won't be clear but in a vacuum
Tar Lord-Ancient of war in warrior. The 1 attack on our turn isn't relevant, we don't need to trade into things for the most part if they're not hitting our face. Bad against aggro, good against mid-range decks, average against control as it should be relatively annoying to remove and it gives you more big removal targets for them to deal with
Primordial drake- Ancient of Blossoms for 2 more mana, and a consecrate attached. The most value, but we don't actually have ways to punch things down to lower life totals to begin with. Could be high value in the right board state, but way way worse against aggro, and should be good against priest, but most mid-range decks you'd need to additionally run sleep with the fishes to make the card functional.
Alley Armor Smith- Not at all good against control or mid-range but quite good against aggro, see it as a 2/7 that heals you for 4 on average? It's also easier to fit into turns but because we have no from hand removal the card is much harder to utilize, and will often die to value trades. Consider it if the other options feel too slow.
My first impressions in 5 games:
- Shield Slam is not reliable before or after completing the quest.
-Cornered Sentry doesn't work very well with brawl, and it's really bad against Hunter or Rogue (Crystal Core) or paladin.
I added Second-Rate Bruiser and Stubborn Gastropod and I'm having more fun.
Five games is not a large sample size but I've been playing since the patch was live and I can admit I see where you're coming from
Shield slam combos with shield block in tempo match ups, and in value match ups you can just activate it by hiding behind taunts.
Cornered Sentry is fine if you aoe in the same turn. I have not qued a paladin but rogue generally can't deal with the body well without blowing a bunch of early removal. Hunter was predicted to be bad with the choices at the time.
Your call, glad you're enjoying the changes!
-1 King Mosh
-2 Slam
+1 The Curator
+2 Primordial Drake
The Curator can help you with the quest, draws cards, and you can fetch the Direhorn Hatchling's shuffled in token, and the Primordial Drakes too.
Hell, even 1 Sleep with the Fishes can be teched in, if zoo becomes a problem.
There's a lot of problems with this idea. You're cutting flexible removal that we just lost a lot of with the loss of bash and revenge and card draw for an understatted 7 drop that conditionally draws cards.
You are also cutting activators for your own removals, your deck would have 4 activators for execute, grommash and sleep with the fishes, and no way to offset the effect of cornered sentry, or cycle your acolytes. You should probably try for a more tempo oriented list and cut out a bunch of the small removals and try to fit in like frothings and battle rages if you really want to try that game plan.
If you just want to play curator go -2 tarlord and mosh for 2 primordial drake and curator. Don't cut slam unless you really can't afford the deck space
i think adding the new elise is good since it provides some extra cards for when there are stalled turns
Early on in the deck building phase, Tar Creeper WAS Elise actually. I always loved the elise function but the deck is so bad at actually winning on value without Sulfuras I didn't really like how things panned out. You probably build this deck very differently if you're trying to win on value.
People take value trades, you don't even need the whirlwind. Usually Mosh reads 9 mana 9/7 randomly clear the board. Again you're entitled to cut it and put in more taunts, but you will have a lot of games where you can't whirlwind enemies and you can activate them with this.
If you're playing Direhorn Hatchling and The Curator, I think you're better off with a 9 mana Dragon and N'zoth at the top of your curve so you can recur your Taunts. If you're going to concede a third of your starting hand to the Quest, you'll probably want to play with 2xDoomsayer or you're not going to be able to consistently stabilize with removal.
I think the Quest is really sketchy, in a meta full of Pirate Warrior you are dedicating a lot of your resources into a weapon that may not necessarily be any better than Gorehowl.
You don't have to hold the quest against aggro, you can just mulligan it. I don't think you understand how the mechanic works for what you're talking about. There is no solid spell removal options, so when your doomsayers don't go off, you're very screwed whereas if your taunt has attack value you're more likely to be able to handle the board and slow them down in a meaningful capacity
You start every game with the quest in your hand starting 3 cards, and you can let go of it if you think you're going to be rushed down. Against aggro, you don't need 2 additional 7+ drops that don't defend you. N'zoth also receives no value outside of the direhorns, which even if we decide to shuffle in more infested taurens and bad death rattles we dilute our deck against decks trying to kill us, with slower taunts instead of answers.
Pirate warrior was also a positive match up for control warrior before ungoro, and before you had a mountain of taunts. I want a deck that could do things to decks that aren't pirate warrior and not just concede that match up either, which old control warrior didn't do. Gorehowl is a card I've been thinking of but the main issue is without justicar we will take a lot of damage and will not have many ways to recover the life values.
Heres my list and some thoughts on the differences in card choices. Last expasion i got on the first VS meta report of the xpac with a reno dragon mage that i went on to finish top 200 legend with in feb and 230 in march (not trying to brag, but hearthpwn is a mixed pot of players and I want to emphasize that I have a pretty deep understanding of the game just so you dont write me off lol). I'm very interested in theorycrafting my "meta breaker" deck in the fresh meta so I sincerely hope this reply sparks some discussion with you because you seem very knowledgeable about control warrior (a deck I have probably over 1k wins with) as well. I've really got my eye on rag warrior as the deck to beat this month, i expect it will be tier 1.
i'll start with the biggest differences and work down to tech choices
Big drops: No grom vs grom (and the inclusion of deathwing). Grom seems really weak in this list. you arent really going for a burst finish and i feel as though he'll end up being a 4 dmg removal most of the time. You discussed running gorehowl and in your list i think gorehowl would be stronger than grom. In fact, im considering adding it to my list but im not sure where the cut would be for it. While 2x slam does provide consistent acivators you almost always want to use slams for removal or tempo earlier in the game and at least one whirlwind is usually going to be saved for mosh. I've also always been a huge fan of deathwing in control warrior and i think that he is even more powerful with a ragnaros hero power to back him up. imagine being able to play deathwing and then topdecking a 2 mana ragnaros in addition to your normal draw every turn the rest of the game. I expect jade druid to remain part of the meta and with the hero power, two brawls, mosh, and deathwing I would go as far as to say the matchup will become even or possibly favored (favored is probably optimistic). He also is very strong against midrange decks that aim to control the board such as jade shaman, not to mention the zoo lists and elemental lists that will be all over the ladder. If he doesnt end up being necesary in the meta id probably drop him for primordial drake to preserve curator consistency.
Primordial drake: you talked about this card and arrived at the conclusion that it is not worth running but I don't think I agree. Four attack is low for an 8 drop of course but in terms of trading it effectively has 6 attack because of the battlecry. Not to mention that four attack is an important damage breakpoint against midrange minions and warrior does not lack for ways to deal an extra 1 or 2 dmg from hand. I think this will be a really strong card and be a "nail in the coffin" sort of card against aggro.
Curator package vs no curator package. Its definitely going to require testing but curator feels EXTREMELY strong in this deck. I think cycle is very important in accomplishing the quest in a reasonable amount of turns and curator tutors at least one and maybe two taunts from your deck. It can pull direhorn hatchling (or the 6/9), primordial drake, king mosh and deathwing. The high chance to tutor one or both of your (almost) unconditional board clears (assuming you have a whirlwing for mosh) seems very powerful as well.
dirty rat vs sentry. Realistically you dont want to be playing either of these on t2 and i think that there are more ways in which dirty rat can be good. we only run four whirlwing effects and i dont think we generally want to be playing one of them just to mop up 3 1/1s. dirty rat strengthens brawl more IMO because you deny them more resources even when they werent necesarily overextending into brawl. You treat pulling quest rewards and combo pieces as negligible but I dont agree. pulling a quest reward into a brawl is gamewinning and to use your hunter example, they will realistically be topdecking by the time they complete the quest and you have a good shot at pulling it.
one ancient of warrior vs two. Not sure about this one, running two could absolutely be correct but it feels weak having two 7 drops that dont also pose as threats. I dont expect aggro to be completely rampant (where this card shines the most) and control warrior has usually won or lost vs aggro by t7. Its important to note that a huge part of AOW's strength in druid is druid's ability to cheat it out early which warrior cannot.
overall these critisisms may seem pretty nit-picky but I'm really determined to create as refined of a list as possible going into the expansion. I think your list is extremely strong and your card choices are well considered as well, so hopefully you hit me back with some counterpoints and one of us can sway the other haha. Have a good one
Defender
I think that stonehill doesnt fit alongside rat for a couple of reasons (and think that rat is definitely the stronger of the two like I said above).
The two issues with adding it are value in the deck and speed of completing the quest. I think having two extra two drops just makes the curve really low and will hurt our win% against midrange and control decks. Aggainst aggro (besides being extremely favored already) we already spend our early turns reacting and removing and I really dont see two more taunts helping very often.
In terms of completing our quest more quickly I think that accolyte actually helps us more than playing two extra cheap taunts. I expect that draw will limit our ability to complete the quest more than mana restictions will so I want accolyte to dig through our deck faster. I guess what i'm trying to say is we want to be playing one taunt every turn more than we want to be able to throw down an extra cheap taunt alongside another. accolyte also doesnt cause the same value problem as sentry since it brings you to your value cards more quickly.
Stonehill defender is not really the same as acolyte of pain and here's why:
Acolyte of pain on average should draw 2 cards, Stonehill defender only ever draws 1 card in exchange for an extra health and taunt.
They both have one attack and acolyte is a priority clear anyway so you're NOT actually gaining value outside of activating the quest. Activating the quest early is not feasible in most match ups but let's say that's our goal for a theoretical dominant match up where our taunts aren't good enough to hold us out and we need to just kill them as fast as possible.
In terms of cycle effiecency you are drawing one less card and you get to one more taunt in your deck in exchange for the inability to draw to executes shield slams and other taunts you put in your deck. In a top deck situation you probably want Stonehill but when you have cards in hand you want acolyte. Acolyte whirlwind into an execute will save you games for sure, but you're likely to draw a taunt off acolyte anyway when you whiff so unless you draw tarlord it's not guaranteed.
The problem with Stonehill defender is the armorsmtih problem however: 1 attack isn't good enough to get good trades in most metagames, so the card you're drawing has to be pretty good. Warrior taunts are actually very good, I'd probably be running 4 bloodhoof braves if I could for example, but what happens when you hit like Pompus Thespian, or faceless Shambler? This deck wants to get through it's cards and eventually kill it's opponent with Sulfuras, we don't actually get very much value by avoiding fatigue unlike the control warriors of old.
I think you'll generally be happier with the acolytes over Stonehill defender in this situation, against aggro, you'll definitely be happy pulling to your shield blocks and answers as opposed to random taunts.
See I like your idea with primordial drake and curator, but you went a little too deep down the rabbit hole with the silence effects and sleep with the fishes.
Fishes could hit, but MSOG showed that it was not a reliable board clear, not because the effect wasn't powerful but you often can't afford to pair whirlwinds with fishes since you often need to use them for their independent value.
If you're playing silence in control warrior, you should be planning on killing whatever you silence anyway, so your primary benefit is that you remove text? That doesn't sound worth a card slot unless I'm hitting something really friggen big. I'll probably make the change on Primodial drake but I'm not sure yet
I agree with your assesment about the curator and the lack of a big threat to drop lategame (especially vs druid, whether its beast, quest, or jade). However, I find myself agreeing with the OP about SWTF and doomsayers. Two card combos are inherantly unreliable and you already are trying to save a whirlwind for king mosh. Doomsayer to me feels like overkill because a taunt control warrior is already going to be heavily favored vs aggro. I posted my list and a pretty lengthy card discussion above if you want to check it out, id be interest to hear your opinions.
edit: as far as silence is concerned, I dont think it will be present enough to worry about when deckbuilding. And if someone is running a silence they are going to find a valuable target somewhere in your deck anways so I wouldnt be too worried about tar lord in particular. I do however share your concern about it not doubling as a lategame threat and think it may be correct to only run one to smooth out your 7 drop slot alongside curator.
If they have a minion you want, Cornered Sentry then Mind Control for a 25% of stealing it. ;)
....but why steal it if I can just kill it? I can't really fit mc tech in this deck really without making my brawls worse. =<
I definitely would find room for Brawl if you can. It's a big part of what makes control Warrior great typically. It also counters the swarm strategies that counter the Rag hero power.
And now I see there are two in the deck... Please ignore me.