Hearthpwn

Hello everyone! Balance changes are live, so it’s time to explore the new metagame now that the total dominance of Hex Shaman Druid is over. This deck is also accidentaly playing just 1 legendary card and even that one can be cut from the deck, so basically anyone can give this one a try!

Your opponent tries to draw a card. But wait, there is nothing left! So he takes one damage instead. And then two, and after that million, so he dies. You don’t even need to beat all his 30 cards in the game, as you did your best to burn as many of them (and you can burn a lot) as you can because of hand size. Furthermore, decks nowadays are often built around one or two cards that are essential for them to even have a chance of winning, so burning them can mean an instant victory.

Pirate Warrior is a horrendous matchup, but after the nerf of Fiery War Axe, this deck might easily surface and become tier1 in no time. Futhermore, Kazakus Priest is an insane matchup, as they don't have pressure plus you can burn their win conditions for instant win, which is another huge plus for this deck.

You will need to do some math with this deck, but the main thing is to know to how big fatigue you will get your opponent in one turn and if it's good enough. For example, if your opponent has zero cards in deck and you will make him draw 4 extra cards + his draw which equals to highest fatique 5, then he will overall take 15 (5+4+3+2+1) damage. Here is just a small cheatsheet so you don't have to keep counting over and over on those hard turns where you need to focus on everything else:

Fatigue 3 - Total 6 damage
Fatigue 5 - Total 15 damage
Fatigue 7 - Total 28 damage

So this means that with Valeera the Hollow active you can play Shadowblade and Coldlight Oracle + copied Oracle + Shadowstepped Oracle for a full OTK 31 damage Kill if you opponent drew his last card in his turn and you are able to attack his face with the weapon. Don't forget that thanks to your weapon you won't take any damage in case you would be about to fatigue as well.

Coldlight Oracle is a total cornerstone of this deck, and the main thing you want. If you are playing against control, this is the only card you want, and I would advise mulliganing literally everything else in case you don't have the Oracle yet.

When you play against aggro, you can keep a much wider range of cards, especially Backstab and Doomsayer are great, but Eviscerate and Tar Creeper are also good at keeping you alive, so I wouldn’t mulligan these in order to search for Oracle. However, Coldlight Oracle is still the best card here.

As mentioned above, your main engine is Coldlight Oracle, which is supported by Shadowstep and Youthful Brewmaster, even with an extra Shadowcaster thrown in the mix if you would like try one. Vanish is also great at bouncing the Oracle, so altogether it is not unusual to play 6-8 Oracles in one game of Hearthstone. If you get to fatigue at the same time as the opposing hero, then Shadowblade + 2 Oracles is a great combo, as you take no damage from your fatigue draws, and 3 damage from the weapon sometimes serves as a final nail in the coffin.

With Coldlight Oracle being this important it is very painfull to get it killed by your opponent, which means you need to protect them as much as you can. Good rule of thumb is that if you can't immediately bounce your Oracle, don't play it yet.

So now that we established that we are ideally drawing a ton of cards each turn, we need some cheap stuff to play, because hand size quickly becomes to be a real problem. Preparation and Counterefeit Coin are excellent at this, as getting your tempo back in exchange for card disadvantage is exactly what you are looking for. Backstab, Eviscerate, Doomsayer are here to efficently keep you alive while you are both drawing cards like crazy.

Sap and Vanish are also great at defending your life total, but they are able to do even more than that in this deck. Your opponent often holds a lot of expensive cards in his hand that are hard for him to get rid of, so the bounce spells either fill his grip up or straight up kill his minions.

As you will quickly see, Vanish is an incredibly strong card, but it is very important to get a full value from it. Don't play at the first opportunity where it looks OKish, but wait a bit longer to make it an insane blowout.

Saronite Chain Gang is a card I originally didn't have in the deck, but once I discovered it I knew it is staying in. This guy (or maybe I should say guys) is just solid overall, and does a suprisingly good job with stabilizing the game when you start losing the board. Add in a fact that it works well with all the bounce in deck and you have a very nice card.

Valeera the Hollow provides a ton of value in this deck, but it's main target is just producing more Coldlight Oracle. I know, what a surprise. However, it has very important synergy with Vanish, which might not be most obvious at the first sight. Usual problem with Valeera is that you develop it and it does nothing that turn other than gaining you some lifes, which allows your opponent to fully expand his board presence, since he does not need to deal with any new threats. This is perfectly solved by the followup Vanish, which can also ideally bounce extra Coldlight Oracle you play before that and that will make sure your opponent's hand size is overflowing.

And if everything else doesn’t work out, try to play 6 Vilespine Slayer and see if your opponent has any gas left afterwards.

Earthen Ring Farseer is one of the movable slots, but I would always play at least one in this deck, because then you can bounce him a lot of times and keep your health higher if necessary.

Skulking Geist could also be considered, since removing any card from your opponent is quite relevant - they get to fatigue sooner, although the fact you remove Jade Idol is still the main reason to run him and I would play him only if you are still running to lot of Jade Idol.

Valeera the Hollow is the only legendary in this deck, but she is very hard to replace, so if you are able to craft her you better do so. However, if I let my imagination run wild and there is no dust left at all, then I guess I could include another support card instead, like second Earthen Ring Farseer.

And that's it for today, good luck milling everyone guys! Make sure to watch the video, we go with in-depth game analysis there, which should answer a lot of questions you might have! I put a lot of effort into these videos, so if you like it just hit the Youtube subscribe button to let me know I should keep making these for you to enjoy.

Cheers 

StanCifka