Top 20 Legend DK Tempo Warrior Guide
- Last updated Aug 31, 2017 (Frozen Throne)
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Wild
- 17 Minions
- 8 Spells
- 4 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Tempo Warrior
- Crafting Cost: 7560
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 8/16/2017 (Frozen Throne)
- Theo
- Pro Player
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Country:
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Tournament Decks:
8
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Ladder Decks:
30
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Submitted By:
Hey all, I’m Theo and you might know me from my previous guides or from HGG where I got top 8 with The Netherlands. I’ve finished top 100 every season of Un’goro and so far I’ve also had success in the KFT meta reaching top 50 with this deck. Besides Pirate Warrior there is barely any Warrior deck on the ladder, so I thought it would be great to have a bit more diversity in Warrior decks on the ladder.
If you want to see me play this deck, you can watch me daily on twitch at twitch.tv/theohs_ where I’ll stream this and other decks at high legend! Also I often post successful decks on my Twitter.
UPDATE: Had a great stream and improved my rank to #16 on EU! Here is the vod of me playing in top 50 the whole time and reaching top 20! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/167478774
Tempo Warrior was originally made over a year ago after WotOG was released, but has since not really had a place in the meta. However, with KFT there are a few new cards that helped it get viable against such as Blood Razor, Bonemare and Scourgelord Garrosh.
This is definitely one of the more fun decks to play right now. There are a lot of different combo’s and requires a lot of thought to play optimally as you are often faced with several viable plays. Also it is able to beat every deck as it doesn’t really have any lopsided matchups that a lot of other decks do have.
Mulligan
Without coin, don't keep more than one 3-drop as you want to curve into a 4-drop. Also if you already have some of the cards in your mulligan you need, for example Fiery War Axe and Frothing Berserker against midrange, you can keep Bloodhoof Brave because it fits your curve.
Vs Aggro: Armorsmith, Fiery War Axe, Ravaging Ghoul, Blood To Ichor (with coin) Blood Razor (With Coin)
Vs Midrange: Armorsmith, Fiery War Axe, Frothing Berserker, Blood To Ichor (with coin)
Vs Control: Fiery War Axe, Frothing Berserker, Acolyte of Pain, Battle Rage (only if you know 100% it’s control) .
Cards
Blood To Ichor: Great when going second to counter your opponent’s 1-drop. Can also easily fill your curve in the midgame or enable one of your spells.
Armorsmith: Can contest the board early on, helps you enable your Battle Rage and gives you survivability.
Battle Rage: Cheap draw card that often draws two or more, great to keep you going so you don't run out of steam.
Execute: Not as strong of a tempo play as it was at 1 mana but still decent, especially in a slow meta as there currently is with a lot of good targets to hit.
Fiery War Axe: Fiery Win Axe, great at everything.
Slam: Helps clearing off minions while cycling, nothing special but just solid overall.
Acolyte of Pain: Combines very well with all the whirlwind effect and like Battle Rage lets you keep pumping out threats. Also great if you can use Bonemare on it.
Frothing Berserker: Broken card can win games by itself, especially strong against slower decks that don't have a board early as they need to have an answer or they just lose.
Ravaging Ghoul: Solid body with a great effect that synergizes with the deck and is great vs token decks.
Blood Razor: There are never enough whirlwind effects in this deck. Does everything what you want from a card in this deck.
Bloodhoof Brave: Solid 4-drop that is hard to remove and synergizes well with whirlwind effects.
[card]Kor'kron Elite[/card]: Charge is good. Can push damage or trade favorably.
Elise the Trailblazer: Pretty slow for a tempo deck, but another card that lets you keep playing threats continuously in the late game.
The Black Knight: Great tech card in the meta with a lot of Lich King’s, Bonemare’s, Druid’s and other big taunts around.
Bonemare: Tempo card in a Tempo deck, what’s not to like. Great with high health minions.
Grommash Hellscream: Your finisher. Can be played as early as turn 8 without coin with Blood Razer up and even if it doesn’t win the game instantly it still is often hard to deal with for your opponent.
Scourgelord Garrosh: Underrated card. Weapon gets your board control and basically prevents your opponent from ever playing more than 1 minion. Also more whirlwind effects is never bad.
Replacements
I feel like this list is close to optimal so I wouldn't change too much unless the meta changes. Don’t have all the cards for the deck? Here are some that you can replace them with. Make sure they make sense so you don’t suddenly have too many lategame cards as this is still a tempo deck. Note: haven’t tried these cards myself, so if they don’t work make sure to try other cards out!
Pirate Package: 2x [card]N'Zoth's First Mate[/card] + Patches the Pirate. Great for the early game as you aren’t doing that much in the first 2 turns. Weaker later on due to anti-synergy with whirlwind and the possibility of having too many weapons.
Forge of Souls: Only want this card once but having 2 weapons early on can help a ton to gain board.
Stranglethorn Tiger: Deck has only 1 5-drop and this is probably the most solid 5-drop you can play in this deck.
Cairne Bloodhoof: hard to kill and lets you keep control of the board.
Malkorok: The original 7-drop in Tempo Warrior. An extra weapon is great but can be overkill. Probably don’t want to run it with Scourgelord Garrosh.
Hogger, Doom of Elwynn: Synergizes quite well with whirlwind effects and the taunt minions can help you protect your board.
Rotface: More synergy with whirlwind effects. Must get at least 2 whirlwind effects off on this to get enough value. Can make turns for your opponent awkward as they can’t really play small minions.
The Lich King: Play this if you want to have a bit more lategame and another threat that has to be dealt with immediately.
General Strategy
Vs Aggro: Your main goal here is to stabilize. Lategame you should have enough taunts/clears but early game you can get overrun if you don’t manage to draw your weapons. Make sure you spend your mana efficiently as you often don’t have enough time to play all your cards. For example don’t be too afraid to use your execute on small minions if that is needed to regain board.
Vs Midrange: Versus midrange you generally have to fight for board as much as possible. You usally want to make the best tempo plays to get a head and from there you can snowball with your lategame cards while you keep playing threats due to all the draw this deck has. Try to recognize how much lategame your opponents deck has and if you can either outvalue them or that you have to win before they outvalue you.
Vs Control: Versus control you often want to keep playing threat after threat in the mid and lategame. Play around their boardclears but don’t be too scared and play around everything as you generally have a weaker lategame. Drawing is very important and you have often drawn 10 more cards in the lategame. Even though you might have less value, if they don’t have time to draw it they will run out of threats and removals in the end.
Conclusion
Tempo Warrior is viable again after a long hiatus. Like I said before, it’s very fun to play and I suggest everyone to at least try it out. It might not be the easiest deck as you often have to decide between tempo and draw but it is definitely very rewarding once you master the deck. Thanks for reading and hope to see you at my stream at twitch.tv/theohs_!
If you are interested in more of my guides, I just made a new guide for Big Priest!
Videos
Getting top 20 on my stream:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/167478774
KiiwiNbacon Deck Showcase:
TheSynch:
69apm puts it well and i've also commented earlier on how to beat Jade Druid (it's tough though).
Here my take on Skulking Geist:
Easiest legend of my life . Deck is awesome . You are like a savior dude . Healing the ladder by smashing faces . So satisfying beating the quest mages before they even finish the quest
Opponent's name on a screenshot means "Son of Shit". LUL.
Rank 20 changes
Sounds like you need to polish up on your skills.
Is DK and Grommash worth the craft for this deck ?
Grommash Hellscream is worth the craft as it's classic and has seen play in most meta's. Scourgelord Garrosh is different as it's only used in a few decks so craft that at your own risk although I really think it's core to this deck.
Skulking Geist will not do anything against Jade Druid because their win condition isn't infinite Jade Idols, but it's getting board and surviving the warrior's aggression. I'd rather use another midgame minion instead.
Honestly, i don't get how this deck is successful for some. Played about 10 decks so far this XP, and this is the only one where I have a losing record. Find that druid and priest are almost guaranteed losses (two of the most popular classes right now unfortunately).
Biggest problem I think I'm having is early game plays. On turn 2, you almost always have nothing but removal. If your opponent hasn't set you up for something, you are almost always forced to waste the turn and armor up. For a tempo deck, I feel that the weak early game has me behind almost 100% of the time.
Anyone have any suggestions for how to deal with those two classes, or how to deal with the early game when the opponent doesn't play into removal?
There isn't much you can do early on if you don't draw Armorsmith or Fiery War Axe. The real strength of this decks comes after turn 2, so don't be too worried cause this deck isn't an aggro deck that needs board starting turn 1. On how to deal with druids, you can scroll back a bit where I give some tips on how to beat druid. Priest is pretty similar to the slower druids as they just have a much better lategame usually.
due to being poor I couldn't run Cairne or TBK or Elise. Lich King feels a bit too slow and over saturates the 8-mana slot unfortunately.
Instead I use Colbalt Scalebane (may switch out in favor of Tiger) and Ornery Direhorn. Been considering running Curator just because one dragon and one beast.
Currently at a 46% win rate. I faced a LOT of druids and I'm currently 4-7 against Druids. Jade, EZ Big, Token, doesn't really matter. Would it be possible to get a bit more information or a specific timestamp in the guide for a good example of how to play against the various druids in this deck?
4-0 against paladin, this deck seems good against Murloc Paladin.
3-1 against mostly quest mage.
0-2 against pirate warrior, but prior iterations of this deck have seen almost consistent favorability (assume you don't open with Gromm, DK, Bonemare, Bonemare after a hard mulligan for the aggro matchup).
It can be a hot deck, or a frigid cold deck. I've gone on long winning streaks just to go back to rank 5 a couple hours later. This deck is hard to pilot and I appreciate the guide.
I've been up against 50% druids and my score against them is 17-17. They are pretty tough to beat, especially because you don't know whether to mulligan for aggro or jade or something else. Against aggro druid you just have to survive and try to have an answer for Living Mana or Bittertide Hydra (also very often that's tough as you need to use whirlwinds/Execute early to survive).
Against jade or big druid you want to pressure them as their weak point is still removing a strong board, although be careful of Spreading Plague. They have almost no armor cards anymore so any damage sticks and sometimes you just have to hope they don't have the taunt/armor that block Grom lethal.
I think i've said this to someone here before too, but Big Game Hunter doesn't fit in this deck as it's too situational and you already have Execute for the big minions.
tbh, crap deck, lost all priest matches, mage raped me easely... nah sorry dont believe the 20 legend on this deck alone... don't want to think what druid will do this deck... and those 3 are 75% of the meta
I think that this deck requires a bit of thinking.I am unfamiliar too with it and i tend to make wrong moves.
Not every deck plays itself like pirates and jades,i think some decks just require thinking from the mulligan to the late-game.
Just dont discourage and practice more!Casual mode is there for a reason :)
Apparently this deck does well against Jade Druid if you can cycle through your cards quickly.
I suggest you watch the vod if don't believe this deck alone got me to top 20 :)
Good morning!
Thanks for sharing a tempo deck,finally someone made it for this meta.I dont see a tempo warrior from a while and i loved playing it in the past.
I have just a question to do if you might be so gentle to answer
I did 2 matches and i found 2 aggro decks.
In a match at a point i found myself with low health and 3 weapons in my hand,i still managed to survive and win after because the black knight cleared his taunt and kept pulling up armor. So the question is:
Why running 4 weapons?i mean, for controlling board and draw or going face in case?Or just decide in the actual situation?
Thanks for sharing this deck and for your attention,Keep it up!
Weapons are in this deck mainly to keep or get board control. Fiery War Axe is just OP and Blood Razor gives your 2 whirlwind effects which really help with clearing tokens or damaging your own minions.
ic so beside the axe being very good, decisions are very situational as i though!thank you for the answer!