Hearthpwn

INTRODUCTION

Hello my name is Nuszi form EU,

If you ask me what my favorite card in hearthstone is my anwser would be Dreadsteed no doubt about it. This is why I decided to build an entire deck around my favrite card about a year ago, but it wasn't untill Un'goro that my Dreadsteed army became more then a gimmicky deck and found some real consistency in the winrate of the deck.

This is all thanks to one card and one card only Spiritsinger Umbra. Umbra was the first card I crafted from the Un'goro set and man should I say dust well spent. The highest rank I have been able to get useing this deck only, is Rank 9 (I dont have enought time to grind much further than that).

I have devided this guide into a couple of chapters where I go over some things in detail:
-Card synergy
-Deck strategy
-Mulligan
-Matchups
-Replaceble cards

So much my intoduction let's get into some things I learned while playing the deck.

CARD SYNERGY

Spiritsinger Umbra + Dreadsteed
Don't be afraid but im going to do a little math here to try and explain the sheer value dreadsteeds can provide.
Turn 3: coin + Dreadsteed
Turn 4: Spiritsinger Umbra -> kill your Dreadsteed
when you kill your Dreadsteed and summon a new one you will proc Umbra's cardtext. This means that you will summon a total of 5 extra Dreadsteeds. Now for the math, 5x4+4=24. This means that by playing Umbra and killing your dreadsteed you will get 24mana worth of minions on the board on turn 4!...... Yea you can redo the math, it checks out :P

Baron Rivendare works the same way but is just much much slower then Umbra since you only get 2 dreadsteeds instead of 5. But paired with things like Sacrifical pact or Power Overwelming you can still fill your board in one turn. I kept Rivendare in the deck so I don't solely rely on Umbra for my deck to work.

Anima Golem + Dreadsteed
Then there is Anima Golem, a card I have never seen anybody use. But when paired with dreadsteed it becomes a huge powerhouse. Since Dreadsteed can't die the Anima Golem will never be alone on your side of the board and thus become a 9/9 minion for just 6 mana!

Mal'Ganis + Dreadsteed
Since Dreadsteeds have the Demon tag they benefit from Mal'Ganis his aura. This basically gives you an 6x3=18 dmg burst from your Dreadsteeds to surprise your opponent. Also Mal'ganis makes you invinsible makeing it possible to survive fatigue dmg indefenetly, as long as he is on the board.

Ravenous Pterrordax + Dreadsteed
This one is pritty obvious. With Dreadsteeds Ravenous Pterrordax just becomes an 4/4 adapt twich for 4 mana. I recomment you pick the most offensive Adapt's you can, the best once being Windfury, +3 attack, +1/1 in that order. Windfurry has his own synergy with Poweroverwhelming making it possible to have a 7+2x4=15 dmg windfury minion on turn 5.

Void Crusher + Dreadsteed + Sir Finley Mrrgglton
Void Crusher and a board full of Dreadsteeds is terrifying for your opponent. Since everytime you use your heropower you destroy one on there minions and you only have a 1/7 chance to lose your Void Crusher because your Dreadsteeds will just resummon anyways. What makes this synergy truely strong though is Sir Finley, no longer will you have to pay 2HP to kill your opponents minion but instead you can be gaining 2HP or armor.

DECK STRATEGY

This deck is designed to do one thing and that is fill you board with Dreadsteeds. Dreadsteed is a very underrated card in my opinion since it opens the door to some realy awesome cards synergies that on there own have a huge disadventage untill you play them next to a dreadstead.

You will be using your Heropower in the early game a lot to draw into Spiritsinger Umbra and Dreadstead. After that you want to just keep clearing your opponents board with your Dreadsteeds and spells until you find either an Anima Golem or Ravenous Pterrordax and use them to attack face whenever possible.

If you don't just straight up kill them with these big minions and your opponent uses hard removal on them that is not a problem at all. I have never seen a deck run more then 4 hard removal spells and this means that they won't have anything to kill of Mal'Ganis making you basically win the game after you play him.

If for some reason your dreadsteeds end spells aren't enought to keep your opponent from building a board you can just play Void Crusher at turn 8 or after to just destroy there biggest minion every turn and using your Dreadsteeds to go face and chip there HP down little by little.

At last there is Sir Finley. I always play Finley ASAP after I have drawn Umbra. After you have filled our board with dreadsteeds your heropower becomes useless since you won't be playing many cards anyway with only one free minion slot on the board. Sir Finley makes you able to not just waist all your mana turn after turn by letting you pick another hero power depending on what you need. I'll give you a short tier list for what heropower is best to pick (this is not set in stone, some games ask for something specific this is just a general list).
Best: Warrior, Priest
Good: Druid, Mage
Fine: Hunter, Rogue
Never take: Paladin, Shaman

MULLIGAN

This deck is pritty flexible during the mulligan stage depending on your matchup, sure there are surtain cards you always want to keep or always want to mulligan.

Must keep:
-Spiritsinger Umbra
-Baron Rivendare
-Mistress of Mixtures
!Keep only Umbra or Rivendare not both, and always pick Umbra over Rivendare since it gives you WAY more value when you play a Dreadsteed.

Must Mulligan:
-Mal'Ganis
-Void Crusher
!These 2 especially since you can draw them from your deck realy easily with Sense Demons, but you want to always mulligan everything that cost's 5 or more mana.

MATCHUPS

Here I will be going over sertain matchups as you play this deck, going in a bit deeper on what to mulligan and when to bring out your Dreadsteeds since playing them to early on can cost you the game all by its self.
-Aggro (hunter, pirate warrior, quest rogue, murloc decks, token druid, zoolock)
-Controll (freeze mage, jade druid, quest warrior, priest)

Aggro
Against aggro decks you really want to hard mulligan for your cheap boardclears like Doomsayer, Demonwrath and darkbomb in the hope they run out of steam and don't kill you before you have even drawn any of your combo pieces.

Don't play your Dreadsteed on turn 4 (or 3+coin) as it is way to slow. You are better off just using your heropower and hoping you draw one of your <2 mana minions or spells. Only play your Dreadsteed if it is save to do so, either when your opponent doesn't have a huge board you just have the mana to spare.

Also playing Sir Finley at turn 1 (if you dont have mistress of mixures) or at turn 3 is a smart move VS aggro decks.

VS Zoolock
You also want to mulligan Demonwrath since it won't help you clear his Flame Imp, Voidwalker or Imp Gang Boss. Instead you want to hold on to your Sacrifical Pack and I think it is clear why XD

VS Quest Rogue
Im sorry to say but this matchup is hard to win since this deck is always to slow to kill Quest rogue before she finishes the quest and after that your 6 1/1 dreadsteeds can't kill her army of 5/5's. The only tip I got is mulligan away all your spells and try to get board controll with minions ASAP and hope she has some realy unlucky draws. Luckely for us there is a big Quest Rogue nerf incomming so i don't think we will see this type of deck alot in the future.

Control
Against control decks you can take a bit more of a risk during the Mulligan, you can try to hard mulligan for Umbra to get your dreadsteeds army on the board ASAP. I also would advise you to mulligan your AOE boardclears and look for the more single target removal like Darkbomb or Shadow Bolt.

VS Quest Warrior
Easy match up, just hard mulligan for Umbra and a Dreadsteed and get them out ASAP since Warrior has no way to remove it. Next to that there is the fact that his quest is totally useless as soon as you have your 6 Dreadsteeds since there is only a 1/8 or 1/7 chance to hit you in the face.

VS Freeze Mage
Try and use mostly your spells to clear the mages board and go face with your minions as much as possible. When the mage has <18HP just play Mal'Ganis and proc Iceblock with your mighty steeds. Mal'Ganis will buy you the one extra turn you need to get around iceblock 9/10 times.

VS Jade Druid
Just as with Quest rogue this is a matchup you are bound to lose. It is just impossible to value out value druid since even fatigueing him isn't an option. You can try to win and from time to time you might but i'm sorry to say that it's not very likely :(

Final Matchup
There is just one final matchup I want to talk about. And it is the saint of thievery and the purifier of demons, the Priest. Priest is in my opinion the most frustrating class to play agaist. The sheer amount of options Priest has to either silence your dreadsteeds or steal them from you is just to much.

I advise you to wait playing a dreadstead untill you got Umbra and either play them both on turn 8 or hope he won't steal your one precious horse on his turn after. 

REPLACEBLE CARDS

There are quite a number of cards you can swap around in this deck. The only real core of cards are:
Dreadsteed
Spiritsinger Umbra
Mal'Ganis
I build the whole deck to just make it as consistent as possible and I picked the cards that had the most synergy with the Dreadsteed.

If you want you could choose to swap out these cards for example:
Doomsayer -> Hellfire
Anima Golem -> Void Terror
!combos good with Power Overwhelming, downside is the chance for you to draw a dreadsteed with Sense Demons decreases alot.
Sir Finley Mrrgglton -> any strong early minion
!if you cut Finley I recomment to also cut Void Crusher since you wont be able to heropower everyturn for a cheap assassination because you will kill yourself with the 2dmg everytime.
Sense Demons -> any sort of card draw can work
!I prefer Sense Demons since it has at least a 75% chance to draw you a Dreadsteed.
Siphon Soul -> Blastcrystal potion
Dark Peddler -> any other strong 1 or 2 mana minion
!I like Dark Peddler because it might give you an extra Sir Finley and thus an extra chance on a good heropower.

Thank you
Well that was it for this guide on the Dread Army deck. I hope you have a decent understanding of what this deck tries to do and how you can win yourself some games with the lots of underrated cards that make up this deck ;)

This is the first guide I have ever made and I would love to get some feedback and if you find a totally OP or fun card synergy I missed please let me know.