Been working on this for a while now, and am a little stuck on how to improve it. The crux of this deck is using the Curator to pull Finja, The Flying Star and Gentle Megasaur, then after Finja pulls more Murlocs drop Megasaur for massive value.
Constructive feedback is appreciated. the card I'm most uncertain about is Moonglade Portal.
Made a major update to the deck. The original version was too slow so I re-focused the deck to steal wins with burst damage after getting a bunch of Murlocs on board and buffing them with Savage Roar and/or Power of the Wild. Backup win condition is using Living Mana to flood the board in case I've already gone through all the Murlocs. Deathwing has also managed to swing some games for me as well. Threw in an Enchanted Raven to help early game as well, and so far it has helped.
I see a couple of different themes and deck design points to mention so I've tried to split up the text a bit as I ended up writing a lot. Hope you find these useful, the deck looks interesting with its Menagerie Beast/Dragon/Murloc theme.
Gentle Megasaur wants a Murloc heavy board, to guarantee value for its Adapt Murloc Battlecry. The Curator, Finja, Primal Lookout, and Warleader all help fetch/summon/generate/protect your Murlocs as you build your board and they have good stats for Murlocs, but is 7 to 9 enough Murlocs? If not, Sated Threshadon (a Beast) might have a place in your deck as a sticky minion that can help trade and fill your board for Megasaur and/or Savage Roar.
The Water Package of Finja, the Flying Star, Bluegill Warrior, and Murloc Warleader wants a specific combination of Murlocs, to guarantee a strong board swing. Adding Primalfin Lookout will lower the consistency of the board swing potential of the pure Water Package, but you are prioritizing the Megasaur play, which may well make up for this and Curator might pull Lookouts for you if it misses Finja. Lookout also has Discover a Murloc as its Battlecry, which could give you copies of Murlocs you already have two-of in the deck, which would be strong.
The Curator wants Beasts, Dragons, and Murlocs in your deck, to guarantee you draw three cards. I think you have enough of each to count on the Beasts and Dragons as tech cards you can reliably find with Curator, though the odds of drawing Finja, the Flying Star are only 1-in-7 if you haven't drawn any Murlocs at that point. However, drawing any Murloc is still card advantage, particularly if it was a Lookout with it's Discover effect, so that might not matter. Druid of the Claw gains the beast tag after you play it, so you have no taunt that you can fetch with Curator, but if you have Curator, you're playing a Taunt anyway, so that also doesn't matter.
Primordial Drake wants a strong board (if you have one when you play it), to guarantee your minions survive and you do more damage to your opponent's board. While Finja and Warleader could survive an AOE of 2, Primalfin Lookout and Bluegill Warrior would die without the Warleader buffs. I think Corrupted Seer wants to be in this deck because of the number of Murlocs and the fact it's AOE of 2 won't damage Murlocs, but its stats are much weaker, it wouldn't be as easy to fetch with Curator, and the AOE would be wasted if Finja pulled it.
I think those are the main things I could come up with. I see your point about the Moonglade Portal. While it will summon a random 6-cost minion for board presence and could help Hydra and Drake 2-for-1 by healing them for 6, there aren't that many minions in your deck that would get a benefit from the heal as the Murlocs don't have that much health, even with the +3 health Adapt. Some cards to consider for Moonglade's slot:
Menagerie Magician (for Board Buff): If you find that around turns 5+ you have a mixed board of Beasts and Murlocs, this card could be great. Also useful for those situations when you want to hold onto Megasaur but Finja needs some buffs to get your Murloc board going, as the Magician's +2/+2 buff would allow him to survive killing a 4 health minion that had up to 5 damage in order to summon more Murlocs. The +2/+2 buff sits on a middle ground between the Flaming Claws +3 attack, Rocky Carapace +3 health, and Volcanic Might +1/+1 adaptations. If Hydra is still out on the board from the previous turn, you can go face for 10 damage. Or beef up your Druid of the Claw Bear Taunt into a 6/8 minion while you stall. While buffing three minions is better than two or one, getting to buff a Dragon is tough because you only have two and they are likely to clear a lot of your board and/or discard your hand.
Menagerie Warden (for Minion Copying): You probably aren't running enough beasts, but if you played Gentle Megasaur, Druid of the Claw, or Bittertide Hydra on curve and they survived to your turn six, you could get an extra copy of them. Copying Hydra could be dangerous (6 damage to your Hero for each AOE they cast) but if they couldn't deal with it last turn on curve, getting another high threat minion out could work in your favor as you'd be adding 13 attack for 6 mana (8 attack Hydra copy, 5/5 Warden). However, Warden might be too expensive at 6-mana, as you can't play it and another beast in your deck on the same turn aside from Megasaur, which has fair stats but is more valuable for the battlecry. Other options here in that case which are cheaper and more flexible about the minion type than Warden might be Faceless Manipulator, which could give you a second Finja, or Faceless Shambler, which could copy Hydra's excellent stats for Taunt without the damage downside. That being said, the Faceless'es wouldn't have the board presence benefit of the extra 5/5 body of the Warden.
Crazed Alchemist (Niche Utility): This might seem strange but you can use Alchemist for a couple of things. The most obvious is that you can fine tune your trades against some minions. For instance, you can use him to make things easier to kill if they have unequal attack and health stats or even stat manipulate Finja so he can kill something bigger. Finja is normally a 2/4 without Warleader, but swap his stats and he is a 4/2. If Warleader is out he would normally be a 4/5, but if you swapped his stats Finja is a 6/3. A related use case scenario for your deck is that if you get health Adapts on a minion from Megasaur when you need damage, you can use Alchemist to flip them around and vice versa. A less obvious use at first if you've never used Alchemist before is to kill 0 attack minions like Doomsayer for FREE by setting their health to zero with the swap. While I have done this myself, I saw it first from a Hearthstone Player by the name of Asmodeus on Youtube who ran Crazed Alchemist as a one-of tech card in a Midrange Warlock he was running. Crazed Alchemist is a classic 2 mana 2/2, but there is also Kooky Chemist, a 4 mana 4/4 from Gadgetzan that you can use if you didn't get Crazed from a classic pack.
Added another tech card for you to consider. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on what I had to say and whether you feel I understood what you were aiming for with your deck. :)
Added another tech card for you to consider. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on what I had to say and whether you feel I understood what you were aiming for with your deck. :)
Certainly, I'll start from the top.
The aim of the deck was initially to explore the inter-racial play between Gentle Megasaur and murlocs using the Curator to facilitate that.
Since this deck is meant to act as a sort of midrange/control deck I wasn't too interested in swarming the board with murlocs and instead wanted to focus on the stronger ones that'll actually provide real board presence and value. A good way to look at Megasaur is if you only hit one murloc with it, then it's effectively the same as a Crackling Razormaw which is a good card in midrange Hunter, and any other hits beyond that can be seen as a bonus.
Sated Threshadon's pretty interesting as it's another example of the cross-race synergy that inspired the deck in the first place. I've been worried about how to guarantee Primalfin Lookout's battlecry both in the early and late game and Threhadon may be the extra push I need. Thanks for that suggestion, probably gonna use that as my replacement for moonglade portal.
You're pretty spot on in assessing my use of the water package. Though lookout "waters down" the package it's still a solid Murloc body that benefits Megasaur.
Not much to add on the Curator segment. I will say though that I intentionally limited the number of Beast I put in the deck to better guarantee pulling a Megasaur when I wanted it.
I did think of Corrupted Seer when building the deck but have never liked the card for it's abysmal stats to mana ratio, plus it waters down the murloc pool even more. For now I still prefer Primordial drake for it's better stats and dragon tag and I could always discover seer with lookout for a win/win.
Menagerie Magician is an interesting choice. I'll have to do some testing to see how often I have a mixed board after turn 5 before making a decision on it. The dream scenario of course is turn 9 with Finja already on board pulling two more murlocs followed by Megasaur into Magician.
I don't think I have enough beasts in the deck to be able to consistently make use of Menagerie Warden. Though the faceless cards could be good depending on how the meta turns out.
Crazed Alchemist is a strong tech/utility choice whose value is heavily dictated by the state of the meta. A good example would be when ZooLock made a comeback after Whispers of the old Gods released people began teching Doomsayers against them so they in turn teched in Alchemist.
You brought up a lot of good points, some of which I hadn't even thought of and you don't have to worry about whether you missed the point of the deck because you didn't. This is probably the deck I'm most excited about building and testing once Un'goro releases, since it's kind of a non-obvious archetype and I've pored so much thought into it.
I'm really interested in seeing where the Midrange Menagerie concept can go now that there are some good Beast choices to support it. I agree that Sated Threshadon looks really interesting for your concept because both the main body AND the tokens have tribal tags you're interested in, which is amazing cross-race synergy when you consider that this card is Wobbling Runts 2.0. While the tokens aren't 2/2's, they have the Murloc tag, which is great for Megasaur, and the main body stats of 7/5 are in line with Bittertide Hydra and more aggressive than Wobbling's 2/6.
If the dream is Finja on the board by turn 8, kill something on turn 9 before playing Megasaur and Magician, it might be useful is to plot out the dream sequence and see if you have enough cards you'd be happy to play on curve and how many you find yourself wanting to save for later turns. I want Menagerie Magician to be good, but we'll have to see if the mixed board stat occurs often enough in practice like you said.
Its a shame Hungry Dragon is rotating to Wild, as you might have liked that card for the aggressive stats and Dragon tag and because the random minion it gives your opponent could be seen as a Finja enabler vs a Control deck. Here is a replay from my really bad and unrefined MenagerieLock deck that I started testing in casual where I got a mixed board state of Hungry Dragon and Murloc Warleader and drew into both Magicians before he killed off the Hungry Dragon.
I feel like renaming the deck to Hungry Hungry Dragons after this game because it got up to 10 attack before he got rid of it: The deck also uses Zoobot, which works with the early game tribe cards, and Mukla's Champion (also going to Wild), a Beast which buffs everything by +1/+1 regardless of tribe if you can fit in your hero power.
I've been exploring a sort of Midrange MenagerieLock lately though. It has The Curator and Menagerie Magician, the Water Package murlocs, and as many good dragons and beasts as I could find. Getting a mixed board state of beasts, dragons, and/or murlocs is challenging against someone focused on controlling your board but I've had a few fun games where Magician payed off. My current list is a bit heavy/greedy, but I'll probably post about it once I've made the necessary adjustments to survive the early game against non-quest decks.
Any success with this ? Im looking for a strong deck with water package, megasaur and curator, something that isnt a shaman 😁
Kind of, the original version is a little too slow and greedy for the current meta so I've been experimenting with a slimmer version that I'll put up after I get more testing in. All the testing has been at rank 9/10 BTW.
I've been exploring a sort of Midrange MenagerieLock lately though. It has The Curator and Menagerie Magician, the Water Package murlocs, and as many good dragons and beasts as I could find. Getting a mixed board state of beasts, dragons, and/or murlocs is challenging against someone focused on controlling your board but I've had a few fun games where Magician payed off. My current list is a bit heavy/greedy, but I'll probably post about it once I've made the necessary adjustments to survive the early game against non-quest decks.
Sounds good, I had to craft everything though I still don't have the Hydra so I threw in a Stubborn Gastropod. What rank have you been testing at? I'm around 9/10 and the current version was really struggling with midrange and aggro decks so I've been doing some revisions after going 0-3. putting in another gastropod, doomsayer, and a Starfall for removal, and am currently 3-0.
Funnily enough I considered removing Savage Roar but then it ended up winning most of my games for me. XD
(...) My current list is a bit heavy/greedy, but I'll probably post about it once I've made the necessary adjustments to survive the early game against non-quest decks.
Sounds good, I had to craft everything though I still don't have the Hydra so I threw in a Stubborn Gastropod. What rank have you been testing at? I'm around 9/10 and the current version was really struggling with midrange and aggro decks so I've been doing some revisions after going 0-3. putting in another gastropod, doomsayer, and a Starfall for removal, and am currently 3-0.
Funnily enough I considered removing Savage Roar but then it ended up winning most of my games for me. XD
Stubborn Gastropod is a very unique card - saw a clip in a recent Trolden video of Day9 playing Deathwing only to get hard countered by the Stubborn Gastropod his opponent had kept in his hand. I would be very hesitant to play Deathwing now against a deck known to be running beasts.
I'm around rank 20, mostly because I prefer deck building and playing casual, so I tend to only climb high enough to get the session card back each month and I've only recently came back to Hearthstone. Ladder does interest me though, especially now that there are more 'checkpoints' built into it. I have about 20 or so casual games with my MenagerieLock at a 60-66% win rate against what were mostly Quest decks at my level. I posted the deck list and did a write up of it if you're interested:
Updated the deck a bit. It's now more aggressive and can handle aggro much better than before. I'll go into some of the most common match-ups I've faced so far.
Taunt Warrior: Difficult but not impossible, Prepare to play around copious amounts of AoE. Quest Rogue: They don't do anything important during the first few turns so mulligan aggressive for early tempo and swipes, and you'll be fine. Time Warp Mage: Be wary of AoE and pray that they don't have Ice Block. Midrange Hunter: Control the board and use Finja to swarm the board and push for damage when you can.
Everything else is to small a sample size to make any concrete conclusions right now.
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Been working on this for a while now, and am a little stuck on how to improve it.
The crux of this deck is using the Curator to pull Finja, The Flying Star and Gentle Megasaur, then after Finja pulls more Murlocs drop Megasaur for massive value.
Constructive feedback is appreciated. the card I'm most uncertain about is Moonglade Portal.
Made a major update to the deck. The original version was too slow so I re-focused the deck to steal wins with burst damage after getting a bunch of Murlocs on board and buffing them with Savage Roar and/or Power of the Wild. Backup win condition is using Living Mana to flood the board in case I've already gone through all the Murlocs. Deathwing has also managed to swing some games for me as well.
Threw in an Enchanted Raven to help early game as well, and so far it has helped.
Here's a break down of the changed cards:
Removed: Added:
Sated Threshadon Enchanted Raven
Bittertide Hydra Power of the Wild
Druid of the Claw x2 Savage Roar
Living Mana
I see a couple of different themes and deck design points to mention so I've tried to split up the text a bit as I ended up writing a lot. Hope you find these useful, the deck looks interesting with its Menagerie Beast/Dragon/Murloc theme.
I think those are the main things I could come up with. I see your point about the Moonglade Portal. While it will summon a random 6-cost minion for board presence and could help Hydra and Drake 2-for-1 by healing them for 6, there aren't that many minions in your deck that would get a benefit from the heal as the Murlocs don't have that much health, even with the +3 health Adapt. Some cards to consider for Moonglade's slot:
Added another tech card for you to consider. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on what I had to say and whether you feel I understood what you were aiming for with your deck. :)
I'm really interested in seeing where the Midrange Menagerie concept can go now that there are some good Beast choices to support it. I agree that Sated Threshadon looks really interesting for your concept because both the main body AND the tokens have tribal tags you're interested in, which is amazing cross-race synergy when you consider that this card is Wobbling Runts 2.0. While the tokens aren't 2/2's, they have the Murloc tag, which is great for Megasaur, and the main body stats of 7/5 are in line with Bittertide Hydra and more aggressive than Wobbling's 2/6.
If the dream is Finja on the board by turn 8, kill something on turn 9 before playing Megasaur and Magician, it might be useful is to plot out the dream sequence and see if you have enough cards you'd be happy to play on curve and how many you find yourself wanting to save for later turns. I want Menagerie Magician to be good, but we'll have to see if the mixed board stat occurs often enough in practice like you said.
Its a shame Hungry Dragon is rotating to Wild, as you might have liked that card for the aggressive stats and Dragon tag and because the random minion it gives your opponent could be seen as a Finja enabler vs a Control deck. Here is a replay from my really bad and unrefined MenagerieLock deck that I started testing in casual where I got a mixed board state of Hungry Dragon and Murloc Warleader and drew into both Magicians before he killed off the Hungry Dragon.
https://hsreplay.net/replay/cEvQtQkoqgefhtRrBMNmVC#turn=8a
I feel like renaming the deck to Hungry Hungry Dragons after this game because it got up to 10 attack before he got rid of it: The deck also uses Zoobot, which works with the early game tribe cards, and Mukla's Champion (also going to Wild), a Beast which buffs everything by +1/+1 regardless of tribe if you can fit in your hero power.
Any success with this ? Im looking for a strong deck with water package, megasaur and curator, something that isnt a shaman 😁
I recently opened Finja, but I lack Deathwing, Bittertide Hydra, and a second copy of Gentle Megasaur, so I haven't tried this list out yet.
I've been exploring a sort of Midrange MenagerieLock lately though. It has The Curator and Menagerie Magician, the Water Package murlocs, and as many good dragons and beasts as I could find. Getting a mixed board state of beasts, dragons, and/or murlocs is challenging against someone focused on controlling your board but I've had a few fun games where Magician payed off. My current list is a bit heavy/greedy, but I'll probably post about it once I've made the necessary adjustments to survive the early game against non-quest decks.
Updated the deck a bit. It's now more aggressive and can handle aggro much better than before. I'll go into some of the most common match-ups I've faced so far.
Taunt Warrior: Difficult but not impossible, Prepare to play around copious amounts of AoE.
Quest Rogue: They don't do anything important during the first few turns so mulligan aggressive for early tempo and swipes, and you'll be fine.
Time Warp Mage: Be wary of AoE and pray that they don't have Ice Block.
Midrange Hunter: Control the board and use Finja to swarm the board and push for damage when you can.
Everything else is to small a sample size to make any concrete conclusions right now.