Hearthpwn

1. Introduction - History of the Concept

When Echo of Medhiv and Duplicate were both "Standard" legal, control mage with an endgame combo of two echoes alongside Molten Giant and Mountain Giant (and eventually Frost Giant replacing mountains) to flood the board was my favorite thing to do in Hearthstone. With careful play, it was resilient to one and sometimes multiple clears such as Brawl and Lightbomb due to the sheer number of zero cost giants you could fill your hand with. 

You could stall the game with freeze spells, board wipes, ye olde Sludge Belcher, etc, and then heal back up with Antique Healbot and Alexstrasza, often able to get value from multiple copies of each.

Alas, standard format eventually became a thing, and some of my favorite cards were shown the door. Another big nail in the coffin that prevented me from immediately hopping into the new Wild to keep playing the deck was the nerf to Molten giant.... R.I.P.

2. Heading back into the Wild

I've toyed with the idea of stopping with standard and throwing myself into Wild for a change, and spicy cards like Reno Jackson and Kazakus felt nifty but couldn't by themselves synergize well for a giants deck. So instead I played reno-mage in standard with an Archmage Antonidas finisher.

Well, the release of Open the Waygate felt like the call I needed to wade back into the jungle of the eternal format. In a Reno shell full of 1-of's, I was sacrificing a significant level of consistency, but in return I gained a way to functionally give my giants "Charge" so that I could burst win immediately--a strict upgrade over hoping that enough giants lived past the turn.

I got to brewing and testing and after about two dozen games and probably a couple of games above 50% winrate, I came up with this list!

3. Core Strategy

There are actually multiple ways to win, as sometimes you end up being able to out-value an opponent (surprisingly, given this meta) and simply get there with a couple burn spells, a giant, and handful of other help. What you are looking for in the endgame, however, is to do the following:

1. Complete your Quest, Open the Waygate. HOLD ON to the reward.
2. Get your giants down to zero, or low enough, if you can Emperor Thaurissan the echo or the quest reward.
3. When you're ready to go off, play Giant --> Giant --> Echo of Medhiv --> Giant --> Giant --> Time Warp (this will cost 9 mana).
4. OTK swing on your extra turn.

4. Card choices and notable interactions

There are 9 spells (excluding if you duplicate one of your minions, etc.) to help you complete your quest. I think this is a good number that has worked out consistently well.

Arcane Giant and Frost Giant are the giants of choice, as they are by far the easiest and safest to get down to zero cost. Nerfed molten just doesn't make the cut--plus, if you're in a control mirror and can combo off but are at high hp, a molten feels very, very bad to have.

One notable combo is to use Alexstraza on your Time Warp turn if you can only have 2 giants on board.

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....More coming soon! Including notes on matchups (boo new rogue Quest!)

Please leave a comment with your thoughts and feedback! Happy laddering!