So as I go around various forums I notice a ton of activity and opinions hidden through various threads.
I was hoping to get some "collective feedback" Here is how I dream of this thread operating:
We pick a deck for about a week or so. (First up Warlock Zoo)
Identify what makes the deck so strong.
Identify the weaknesses of the deck.
Start brainstorming counters for that deck which I will save in the OP each week to archive it. At the end of all our comments I will attempt to summarize the "findings"
Do you guys have some feedback on this idea? I want to organize this thread to be valuable to all of us whenever a "NEW OP DECK" hits the ladder. My idea is brainstorming will help us to better deal with these decks.
For a day or so I will collect feedback on how this thread should go. Afterwards I will post 2-3 variations of Warlock Zoo and hopefully we can start countering this deck better :). Know the Meta, counter the Meta!
Im also open to a creative name for the thread :).
The point of the thread would be to develop decks together to counter these decks. Maybe insert a few cards that are not commonly used but should be, like doomsayer.
When you say AOE and Taunts, would you say Priest is a viable counter to zoolock? The AOE is weak for example and they might have to rely on a different type of deck than just AOE and Taunts. Not to mention Zoolock refills the board very quickly.
Mage typically also relies on flamestrike. Maybe they should consider using nova/blizzard again?
Also, Shaman might have a decent matchup but is dependent a bit on Storm/Wolves. Maybe we should consider putting in a wild pyromancer and take something else out? Im really looking to set up a core list of how the classes we are using are going to counter Deck A (Zoo this week) when we face them on ladder/tournament. What are those few "Go To Decks" that will almost always beat Zoo?
I've been trying Rogues (tempo ones) and it's really good. Fan of Knives + Bloodmage Thalnos or geomancer kills almost everything that Zoo have on board by the turn 4/5 and if you miss one damage just play Pyromancer instead. Backstab into SI:7 Agent kills 2 minions using 3 mana. Yeti + Taunt, Cairne + Taunt and Golen + Taunt it's amazing as well. And yet Blade Flurry + spell power (using hero power dagger) it's a nice removal.
The point using Rogues is that almost any action you use to control the board will end with you having at least one minion on board, a weapon or a card draw. Normal AOE's like Flamestrike/Blizzard cost too much and normally don't let you do anything the rest of your turn. But Rogues are too difficult to play. You always need know the deck you're playing against and need to know really well your deck to get the best mulligan and value out of your cards.
Okay, I'm probably a bit out of my rank 13 depth here, but in my experience an ultra-aggro deck like faceroll hunter or murlocks can nuke down zoo fast enough that they can't keep the lifetap flowing. On top of that, in the hunter's case Explosive Trap and of course Unleash the Hounds are both excellent against all the cheap zoo minions.
Zoo has almost no minions with more than 2 health, so priests can get mileage out of smite and nova.
The trick here is that you almost never know you're going to be facing zoo, until like turn 2 or 3, because even if you know the opponent's class ahead of time, like in a tournament setting, murlocks and giants are still prevalent too. So in actual practice it's probably better to just pick a deck that's decent against zoo and also good against other stuff. According to reynad, hunter is the zoo lock's only big weakness, so if you're seeing a lot of zoo on ladder I would probably just switch to my favorite hunter deck (which in my case is a terrible faceroll deck because I don't even have the damn trap cards, much less highmanes.)
I also think control hunter < Aggro Hunter against each other. Which only complicates the issue of wanting to play control hunter on ladder. Control hunter does have alot of potential though.
I also think control hunter < Aggro Hunter against each other. Which only complicates the issue of wanting to play control hunter on ladder. Control hunter does have alot of potential though.
Control Hunter depends alot in synergy. If you have silence, hard removal and knows how to play against UtH you're done. And you might need Ooze too.
Im also open to a creative name for the thread :).
Um... What's official about this thread? I saw the thread title and came here expecting to see statistics from Blizzard about specific matchups.
on topic: My Druid Big Ramp deck has a 68% win rate against Warlock Zoo. That's based on 25 matches (17 wins, 8 losses) between Rank 10 and Legendary this season on the American server. Zoo accounted for 19.1% of the metagame. (25 out of 131 matches) I'm combining all the different Warlock Aggro decks in that figure, including Murlocs, because their play style is the same and the things that work well against Zoo also work well against Murlocs. Starfall is really good against Zoo. I see a lot of Druid decks playing less than 2 Starfalls, which seems a bit silly with the amount of Zoo in the metagame... Same goes for Ancient of War.
I think Luanmt has the right of it. If you want to go the AoE route against the zoo it needs to be fast, cheap AoE - and you'll want lots of AoE options so that you have ways to address each successive wave.
To me that says Wild Pyromancer and Abomination in addition to your deck's "primary" AoE type (although someone who runs 2 AoEs already, like a Druid with Starfall and Swipe) can probably get by as-is.
An inexpensive ping would probably also be valuable to take care of minions with Divine Shield or who have been pushed just out of AoE range by a Priestess. Druids have Wrath. Hunters have Arcane Shot. Warriors have Inner Rage. Warlocks have Mortal Coil. Rogues have Backstab. Other classes might actually want to consider the Stonetusk Boar or Elven Archer. I say consider, because without further synergy these two are still horrid cards. I would probably pick boar for shaman and archer for mage.
As for Taunt - the answer is obvious. I'm willing to bet we all know it. It's just that nobody wants to run the 1-attack taunters because they're all but useless against non-rush decks. I think the real question to answer is how can 1-taunt defenders be made useful vs. other decks. Right now I can only think of answers for Warrior (Inner Rage & Cruel Taskmaster), Priest (Inner Fire), and Shaman (Flametongue Totem). I suppose you could run Dire Wolf Alpha - but I don't know if that's enough of a bonus to make the piddly hitters worth running.
I think from the feedback I have received that numbers are the name of the game.
What if each week we selected a deck (like the ramp druid above) based on what deck we are seeing frequently on the ladder. We each keep track of how we do with this deck (using hearthtracker or hearthstats) and draw conclusions on the deck. At the end of the week I will combine all the stats and we will see how the deck did against the focused deck while hopefully keeping respectable results on ladder.
I obviously know some of us are better than others, but it can still be quite useful.
So since zoo is the hot topic: here's all my matches below rank 10 that I ran this season (yes I'm a huge nerd playing 300+ games).
What's funny is that everyone cries about zoo a whole lot, but almost no one runs the decks that really kill them (Control pala, token druid, ramp druid with 2x starfall and 1-2 sunwalkers). Seemingly, they'd rather just jump some bandwagon like Beast Hunter or something they saw on a stream somewhere.
I dunno if the majority of hunters I faced just suck because I more or less always had 3+ minions in the table when they did UtH, yet I was still able to win. I personally don't really think the Beast Hunter deck counters zoo specifically, but it would if they ran explosive traps (some of them did). Beast hunter is mainly a deck with a really strong draw engine that will let it counter basically anything a great amount of the time. However, when hunters don't draw buzzard+UtH or 2x Tracking, you instantly see them having issues with making good plays.
I think if this is to be a "what counters what" kinda thread, stats are important. A firm overview of the meta will let us know what is actually useful to counter in order to win more games instead of just trying to counter decks that people don't like to face.
I've recently started playing tempo rogue and man does it make it easy against Zoo...
Between backstabs, Defenders of argus, blade fury ( a Well timed weapon poison + blade furry can screw over a zoo so hard) and Fan of knives, you always seem to have a way to kill 2-3 of a zoolock's minion when you need to.
The only thing i can say negative about this type of deck (at least the one i'm using) is that it always seem to fall short on damage on the late game is makes it hard to win against other decks that are taunt heavy ( Handlocks, i see you )
Also the new mage aggro deck seems to be pretty good against zoo if you get get something like mana wyrm + coin + mirror image T1
I've been playing around with control warrior a lot, trying different variations to counter Zoo. Since I oftenly found myself in tight situations because Baron wouldn't show up in my hand, or it was generally too late to still comeback into the game at turn 7, I replaced him with Abomination. He doesn't works as well, because his effect only activates once, of course, but he's still a good reset of the board and has allowed me to come back into the game around turn 5/6 many times, because by then I can actually have a better board presence(because I have more mana, of course).
Right now I'm only running one Abomb, but it might be worth trying out to run even two.
Control Warriors never run any taunts or so it feels, making the matchup easier. As zoo, you often just have to clear Cruel Taskmaster, Armorsmith, Acolyte and maybe a Baron Geddon before the game is over.
Hey Guys,
So as I go around various forums I notice a ton of activity and opinions hidden through various threads.
I was hoping to get some "collective feedback" Here is how I dream of this thread operating:
Do you guys have some feedback on this idea? I want to organize this thread to be valuable to all of us whenever a "NEW OP DECK" hits the ladder. My idea is brainstorming will help us to better deal with these decks.
For a day or so I will collect feedback on how this thread should go. Afterwards I will post 2-3 variations of Warlock Zoo and hopefully we can start countering this deck better :). Know the Meta, counter the Meta!
Im also open to a creative name for the thread :).
Hunter counters zoo pretty hard, doesn't it? Beyond that, AOE and taunts...
Maybe I should be a bit more specific.
The point of the thread would be to develop decks together to counter these decks. Maybe insert a few cards that are not commonly used but should be, like doomsayer.
When you say AOE and Taunts, would you say Priest is a viable counter to zoolock? The AOE is weak for example and they might have to rely on a different type of deck than just AOE and Taunts. Not to mention Zoolock refills the board very quickly.
Mage typically also relies on flamestrike. Maybe they should consider using nova/blizzard again?
Also, Shaman might have a decent matchup but is dependent a bit on Storm/Wolves. Maybe we should consider putting in a wild pyromancer and take something else out? Im really looking to set up a core list of how the classes we are using are going to counter Deck A (Zoo this week) when we face them on ladder/tournament. What are those few "Go To Decks" that will almost always beat Zoo?
I've been trying Rogues (tempo ones) and it's really good. Fan of Knives + Bloodmage Thalnos or geomancer kills almost everything that Zoo have on board by the turn 4/5 and if you miss one damage just play Pyromancer instead. Backstab into SI:7 Agent kills 2 minions using 3 mana. Yeti + Taunt, Cairne + Taunt and Golen + Taunt it's amazing as well. And yet Blade Flurry + spell power (using hero power dagger) it's a nice removal.
The point using Rogues is that almost any action you use to control the board will end with you having at least one minion on board, a weapon or a card draw. Normal AOE's like Flamestrike/Blizzard cost too much and normally don't let you do anything the rest of your turn. But Rogues are too difficult to play. You always need know the deck you're playing against and need to know really well your deck to get the best mulligan and value out of your cards.
Okay, I'm probably a bit out of my rank 13 depth here, but in my experience an ultra-aggro deck like faceroll hunter or murlocks can nuke down zoo fast enough that they can't keep the lifetap flowing. On top of that, in the hunter's case Explosive Trap and of course Unleash the Hounds are both excellent against all the cheap zoo minions.
Zoo has almost no minions with more than 2 health, so priests can get mileage out of smite and nova.
The trick here is that you almost never know you're going to be facing zoo, until like turn 2 or 3, because even if you know the opponent's class ahead of time, like in a tournament setting, murlocks and giants are still prevalent too. So in actual practice it's probably better to just pick a deck that's decent against zoo and also good against other stuff. According to reynad, hunter is the zoo lock's only big weakness, so if you're seeing a lot of zoo on ladder I would probably just switch to my favorite hunter deck (which in my case is a terrible faceroll deck because I don't even have the damn trap cards, much less highmanes.)
I also think control hunter < Aggro Hunter against each other. Which only complicates the issue of wanting to play control hunter on ladder. Control hunter does have alot of potential though.
Control Hunter depends alot in synergy. If you have silence, hard removal and knows how to play against UtH you're done. And you might need Ooze too.
But it's the best counter too Zoo (now).
I think it would also be nice to see some win/loss ratios if able against the subject deck type. Do some testing.
For example with the Zoo; Aggro Hunter build beat the Zoo build 14/6 (made up numbers), for a 70% win percentage.
I've seen some similar statistics in other threads, and would give readers a general idea the types of decks effective aganst the subject.
How about a weekly post with the name: "Flavor of the Week, and how to Counter It (Deck Name Here)" ?
Um... What's official about this thread? I saw the thread title and came here expecting to see statistics from Blizzard about specific matchups.
on topic: My Druid Big Ramp deck has a 68% win rate against Warlock Zoo. That's based on 25 matches (17 wins, 8 losses) between Rank 10 and Legendary this season on the American server. Zoo accounted for 19.1% of the metagame. (25 out of 131 matches) I'm combining all the different Warlock Aggro decks in that figure, including Murlocs, because their play style is the same and the things that work well against Zoo also work well against Murlocs. Starfall is really good against Zoo. I see a lot of Druid decks playing less than 2 Starfalls, which seems a bit silly with the amount of Zoo in the metagame... Same goes for Ancient of War.
Yes. Here's the link again... Big Ramp
I think Luanmt has the right of it. If you want to go the AoE route against the zoo it needs to be fast, cheap AoE - and you'll want lots of AoE options so that you have ways to address each successive wave.
To me that says Wild Pyromancer and Abomination in addition to your deck's "primary" AoE type (although someone who runs 2 AoEs already, like a Druid with Starfall and Swipe) can probably get by as-is.
An inexpensive ping would probably also be valuable to take care of minions with Divine Shield or who have been pushed just out of AoE range by a Priestess. Druids have Wrath. Hunters have Arcane Shot. Warriors have Inner Rage. Warlocks have Mortal Coil. Rogues have Backstab. Other classes might actually want to consider the Stonetusk Boar or Elven Archer. I say consider, because without further synergy these two are still horrid cards. I would probably pick boar for shaman and archer for mage.
As for Taunt - the answer is obvious. I'm willing to bet we all know it. It's just that nobody wants to run the 1-attack taunters because they're all but useless against non-rush decks. I think the real question to answer is how can 1-taunt defenders be made useful vs. other decks. Right now I can only think of answers for Warrior (Inner Rage & Cruel Taskmaster), Priest (Inner Fire), and Shaman (Flametongue Totem). I suppose you could run Dire Wolf Alpha - but I don't know if that's enough of a bonus to make the piddly hitters worth running.
I see what your saying. The first deck though leans towards countering zoo but is able to beat other decks at a good rate as well?
I think from the feedback I have received that numbers are the name of the game.
What if each week we selected a deck (like the ramp druid above) based on what deck we are seeing frequently on the ladder. We each keep track of how we do with this deck (using hearthtracker or hearthstats) and draw conclusions on the deck. At the end of the week I will combine all the stats and we will see how the deck did against the focused deck while hopefully keeping respectable results on ladder.
I obviously know some of us are better than others, but it can still be quite useful.
So since zoo is the hot topic: here's all my matches below rank 10 that I ran this season (yes I'm a huge nerd playing 300+ games).
What's funny is that everyone cries about zoo a whole lot, but almost no one runs the decks that really kill them (Control pala, token druid, ramp druid with 2x starfall and 1-2 sunwalkers). Seemingly, they'd rather just jump some bandwagon like Beast Hunter or something they saw on a stream somewhere.
I dunno if the majority of hunters I faced just suck because I more or less always had 3+ minions in the table when they did UtH, yet I was still able to win. I personally don't really think the Beast Hunter deck counters zoo specifically, but it would if they ran explosive traps (some of them did). Beast hunter is mainly a deck with a really strong draw engine that will let it counter basically anything a great amount of the time. However, when hunters don't draw buzzard+UtH or 2x Tracking, you instantly see them having issues with making good plays.
I think if this is to be a "what counters what" kinda thread, stats are important. A firm overview of the meta will let us know what is actually useful to counter in order to win more games instead of just trying to counter decks that people don't like to face.
I've recently started playing tempo rogue and man does it make it easy against Zoo...
Between backstabs, Defenders of argus, blade fury ( a Well timed weapon poison + blade furry can screw over a zoo so hard) and Fan of knives, you always seem to have a way to kill 2-3 of a zoolock's minion when you need to.
The only thing i can say negative about this type of deck (at least the one i'm using) is that it always seem to fall short on damage on the late game is makes it hard to win against other decks that are taunt heavy ( Handlocks, i see you )
Also the new mage aggro deck seems to be pretty good against zoo if you get get something like mana wyrm + coin + mirror image T1
In my zoo games, I could more or less concede if I saw a backstab, a Seasick Agent and a Coin...
Two is good - it means one can get silenced.
Control Warriors never run any taunts or so it feels, making the matchup easier. As zoo, you often just have to clear Cruel Taskmaster, Armorsmith, Acolyte and maybe a Baron Geddon before the game is over.
I added two harvest golems to my handlock deck and am about 2:1 vs. zoo in the last week or so.
I still get facerolled by hunters though.
Physika #1165