Hearthpwn

Hi everyone!

LeAdderNoir here - I'm a casual, F2P player from the UK and I wanted to share with you my first ever decklist!

I used this deck to finally get the Karazhan card back, proof:

I had tried a few times prior to the release of Knights of the Frozen Throne and failed SPECTACULARLY! But when I unpacked a copy of Hadronox from a KFT pack, a plan started to form in my brain...

Deck Concept

The basic idea of the deck is simple: use taunts to survive the early game while beefing up your C'Thun. Then, when the time is right (more on that later), drop Hadronox, kill Nazra, then drop your C'Thun to take down Malchezaar before he knows what's hit him.

Deck Benefits

There are a lot of Heroic Malchezaar decks out there, but none of them worked for me with the collection that I have. So here's why I like this one:

1. Relatively cheap. The only essential legendaries in this deck are the C'Thun and the Hadronox. Since C'Thun is technically free, that makes it a cheap deck in my eyes. You can swap out the Twin Emperor Vek'lor and The Lich King for cheap alterntives. See 'Subs' section below. Also there's only two epics, and they can be swapped too.
2. Not too much of a Cheese. You don't need to buff your C'Thun to a 72/72 to win this one; the taunts should be enough to allow you a few swings with it so a reltively modest buff will do. I ended up with surplus damage of 10+ and my C'Thun was "only" a 19/19.

Deck Strategy

MULLIGANS

You need to mulligan hard for Innervate and one of the 3-drop taunts. This way you don't fall too far behind in the early game and get run over by Nazra's constant stream of charge minions. That buys you the time to start buffing the C'Thun. If you don't have the right opener, just restart until you do. Boring but necessary!

If you can get a Beckoner of Evil in your opening hand, great - but don't worry too much if you can only hero power on turn 2.

Basically the ideal opener is:

• Turn 1: Innervate -> Tar Creeper
• Turn 2: Beckoner of Evil
• Turn 3: Twilight Elder

MIDGAME

You want to try and keep the board relatively clear against Nazra (to avoid being slaughtered by a well-timed Warsong Commander), but don't feel the need to trade every time. Twilight Elders should be kept for at least 2 turns before trading, unless absolutely necessary. Don't be tempted to use your Acidic Swamp Ooze to destroy a cheap weapon - you might regret it when she plays Arcanite Reaper into Upgrade!...

Survive as best you can until you've got Nazra down to a nice low health level - at this point she won't be able to use her weapons and becomes drastically less dangerous. But here's the important part: DON'T KILL NAZRA STRAIGHT AWAY! You should be able to control the board fairly well from here, and you need time to buff your C'Thun as well as setting up your combo pieces.

ENDGAME: THE COMBO

Here's how you win:

1. Make sure lots of your taunt minions have died.  Psych-o-Tron and  Sunwalker are especially useful because of their divine shields, and any big taunt is good too.

    

2. Make sure  C'Thun is in your hand
3. Drop  Hadronox
4. Kill Nazra!
5. Profit:

Now you should have enough protection for your  C'Thun to be able to drop it, clear the Abyssals and then start going face. 

Deck Substitutions

There are a lot of cards that can be safely subbed here, especially if you're on a budget:

•  Twin Emperor Vek'lor and  The Lich King -> 2x  Ironbark Protector. You can see from the screenshot above that I didn't actually use the card I got from  The Lich King and I didn't even draw  Twin Emperor Vek'lor

• Ultimate Infestation -> a second  Nourish or Swipe. Again you can see from the screenshot that I only played UI right at the end, and it wasn't actually necessary to get lethal. Fun though ;)

•  Doomcaller or Crazed Worshipper -> a second  Dark Arakkoa. 

And that's about it! Let me know if you'd like any more commentary, subs or whatever. And good luck!

A Final Warning...

Part of the reason I made this deck now was because I know the incoming nerfs to Spreading Plague and especially Innervate could make this much tougher... So better get a move on everyone!