Hearthpwn

Hello everyone! I am back with yet another Deck Guide. You guys have chosen on my Twitter that it should be Demonlock, which is what I was hoping for to be honest, so here we go!

 

As it usually goes with all my favorite decks, your main goal is to protect your life total and take over the lategame with your superior card quality. When you play Warlock your life total represents card advantage, as tapping for extra cards is by far the strongest hero ability in the game if you can afford to do so without dying.

Warlock has also gained a very strong Death Knight which is much stronger than it seems at first glance. It partially changes your card selection when building the deck, but makes sure that lategame is extremely hard to lose.

The Deck is very hard to pilot properly, so expect some mistakes in the first 50 games or so before you fully grasp all the possibilities and interactions within it.

 

There is no Bloodbloom combo in this deck, which makes the mulligan pretty straightforward. Keep the cheap cards, and get rid of everything that’s expensive. As a good rule of thumb, if it costs 5 or more mana, then it is mulligan for sure. That being said, there are of course some exceptions.

You should keep all the one drop creatures, Mistress of Mixtures and Voidwalker are good in almost every matchup. You want Mortal Coil only if you are playing second, going first I would mulligan it.

Defile, Doomsayer and Shadow Bolt are also a good keep and you won’t make a big mistake if you never mulligan them. I would also always keep Golakka Crawler if you opponent can have a pirate.

Tar Creeper is really on the edge here, and your decision with him depends on the rest of what you already have. If you got some cheaper stuff ready then he is OK most of the time, but it is really hard to generalize with this card.

Bloodreaver Gul'dan is the ace card in Warlock mirror and against Priest, these are the matchups where you are interested in keeping it. It's pretty good when facing some particular versions of Mage as well, so you can consider holding on to it if the rest of your hand is decent.

Overall, mulliganing is extremely complex with this deck, but you'll get a pretty good feel for it after a couple games.

 

Setting up a Defile sometimes requires a ton of imagination, but is very crucial to increase your board clearing potential, which directly translates into your win percentage. You are more prone to play Mortal Coil without drawing to setup the Defile chain if there are no 1 health minions chilling around, so don’t be afraid to do that.

Doomsayer has no Frost Nova combo in this deck so you mainly try to use him in the early game when you think that your opponent will have a lot of trouble clearing him. You also don’t have to be afraid to play him on an empty board, because while this leads to card disadvantage, it gains you a ton of tempo as it acts as a pseudo Time Warp – you can protect your life total easily if your opponent cannot develop any minions on his turn (someone please insert „smart guy“ meme here).

Golakka Crawler is partially a metagame call, but this is not a “hit or miss” card, but more like OK-ish minion with huge upside potential. If your opponent is playing any pirates, which is likely with Patches the Pirate being fired from his cannon everywhere, this card is really broken, and if not you get a two mana 2/3 minion, which is not perfect but definitely not the end of the world.

I get a lot of questions about Ironbeak Owl as it really hasn’t seen much play since it got more expensive, but the thing is that silence effect is just too important to have access to, and it sure doesn't hurt to have a 1 health minion to fuel your Defile.

I am running Prince Valanar in this deck, which is very strong against aggro and gives this deck much needed life gain. Because of him I am not playing any more 4drops. Yes, that's how I roll. However, if you don’t have him or you are not playing against aggro at all then he is very easy to substitute in this deck as mentioned below.

Elise the Trailblazer and The Lich King are here to provide a ton of value, which counts as your win condition. These cards are just too good to pass up, especially The Lich King where you really appreciate that taunt as your life total might start running low around turn 8.

Bloodreaver Gul'dan is a new addition to this deck, and changes a little bit on how you approach the game. There are 6 demons in the deck to go with him, and because you are planning on playing him quite late in the game (it’s not like you have the option to just slam him on turn 5), it is not that unusual that he will bring 5 or even all 6 demons along. Thanks to him your hero power becomes a real powerhouse, but you expect an immediate impact from your 10 mana cards. Luckily, he also delivers in this department, as he will immediately gain from 8 to even 15 health thanks to Voidwalker and clears the board from small minions thanks to Despicable Dreadlord trigger (or even two of them). That should be good enough for you to survive until the next turn, at which point you basically start cheating with that “kill your guy gain 3 life” ability if these 6/6 bodies from Abyssal Enforcer aren’t good enough to straight up finish the game.

 

Skulking Geist is a very real contender for this deck, and while I have posted here a full decklist that we used at HGG, I would fully recommend taking this guy to your ladder climbing as it single-handedly improves your matchup against Druid from totally horrendous to a close one. Not running it originally was caused by the HGG format, where I was able to decide not to take Warlock in case I could play against the Druid, which is not a luxury you can afford while climbing the ladder.

Twilight Drake used to be a staple in every Handlock there was, but nowadays he is fighting for his spot with Prince Valanar. You can easily switch those cards to improve your game against controls, but your winrate versus aggro decks will take a significant hit.

Tainted Zealot + Bloodmage Thalnos are also cards that I like a lot, as they really help you with that Defile setup, although keep in mind that if they die somewhere in the middle of the loop then it just starts dealing only 1 damage again. You can play them in place of  Golakka Crawler or Abyssal Enforcer as a metagame call.

Elise the Trailblazer is very good in mirror and against Priest, but she is not as mandatory in the deck as she used to be, so feel free to cut her for Ironbeak Owl or any other support card if you feel like it.

That’s it for today, thanks a lot for reading! Also don’t forget to check out my Youtube deck guide, which should explain a lot of questions you might still have. We made a brand new format of the video, even doing a very deep game analysis of my HGG match which I stabilized while only having 1 life!

Cheers

Stancifka