So I'm thinking I may actually try to invest the time to go for (first-time) legend this season playing Rush Warrior. I really enjoy the deck, and am currently using a slight deviation of NoHandsGamer's list. I thought I'd ask for some insight from the community before the D5 - Legend grind. For anyone who is also (or has been) playing this deck:
1. Have you found any strategy that works well against Warlock? I think my WR vs them is about 10% currently. I have to draw the nuts, and they have to not draw their board clears. Curious to know if anyone is having good luck (read: skill) in this area.
2. Thoughts on Kargath Bladefist in this deck? He seems worthwhile to me and has won me a number of games vs Hunter. I am currently using him in place of the second Stage Dive. (Curious to know if anyone has tried the deck extensively both ways.)
3. Has anyone tried the deck much without Ringmaster Whatley? I rarely feel as if this card is worthwhile. Against Hunter, for example, I don't ever feel as if I can play a 5-mana "do nothing." Against Warlock, the draw is nice, but doesn't seem to tip the scales.
Always enjoying hearing this community's thoughts!
I switched out a Battle ax (or whatever that card is called) for Kargath and it works really well. I feel like I'm facing aggro hunter most of the time so I can seldom afford to take the extra damage from hitting a minion instead of face.
I reached Legend using Rush Warrior in 2 days from D5, with around 4-6 matchups are Warlock. I agree that this matchup is a bit 50-50. The way to win against this matchup is to utilize Warmaul Challenger + Shield of Honor and hoping that it won't be cleared by Cascading Disaster. Knowing that it has a high HP in early game, means that Warlock will only have Cascading Disaster to answer the board. Other spells won't be enough to remove this minion. If the Warlock couldn't answer after this threat, make sure that you widen your board enough to avoid Cascading Disaster, but short enough to avoid Hysteria. You also need to avoid greedy play against Warlock, meaning that you should maintain enough board pressure with minimal minions in play, so that it will force them to use any removal they currently have. This is achievable by buffing up your hand using Conditioning or Runthak. Then usually you could finish them using Troublemaker or Alex.
Kargath is inefficient as the meta is currently at aggro to midrange, and by the time its Prime has been utilized, you're losing your opportunity to keep hitting your opponent's face. Making sure that you keep reducing your opponent's face in every turn is crucial for this deck to work.
Whatley is pretty important in this deck, since it tutors your important cards - Sword Eater for Taunt & Weapon, Bumper Car for enabler on Parade Leader / Playmaker / Conditioning, Tent Thrasher for Big Threat, Alex for finisher or big minion removal.
P.S. This is my list for Rush Warrior. I also benchmarked it from NoHandsGamer's list and modified it since I don't have Rokara and Samuro.
Athletic Studies x 2 Imprisoned Gan'arg x 2 Shield of Honor x 2 Stage Dive x 2 Bumper Car x 2 Conditioning (Rank 1) x 2 Crabrider x 2 E.T.C., God of Metal Parade Leader x 2 Darkmoon Dirigible Playmaker x 2 Warmaul Challenger x 2 Sword Eater x 2 Overlord Runthak Ringmaster Whatley Tent Trasher Troublemaker x 2 Alexstrasza the Life-Binder
I just made legend this month using the Nohands variation of the deck. Not face to much Warlock, but I think that the key is the warmaul challengers. If they hit the 1/3 in early game you can build an awkward board. Follow that with shields of honor and you can push a decent amount of damage. The Warlock midgame tends to be Ogremancer, and playing a base minion deck you have no problem with that (and even then you have Samuro for an army of 2/2). Just play your curve and pray that the little damage you can deal close the gap with the potential direct damage of your costs 8 and Alex.
I just made the climb about a week ago. It was surprisingly easy. It’s only my second time pushing for legend but I was just feeling the rush. Bad pun. I’ve seen no hand gamers list but I can’t honestly recall it off hand. I know that I didn’t use warmaul and shield at all. I also don’t have Whatley, so that was cut too. I think second stage dive is essential tho. And I had two anchorman + sourfang in my list (mostly because I wanted so badly for sourfang to be decent). Tbh, a 5/4, two 4/4s and 2 cards is not bad for 7 mana. Often sourfang got conditioned to be even more jacked. Oh and I did craft kargath just recently for control warrior so you bet your ass I put him in here.
Against warlock it’s all tempo. Keep the pressure on early and often. Get a crab rider or ETC down on 2, or a playmaker on 3 by itself. If it sticks you can go wild, If it dies that’s one less removal tool. I didn’t find myself running out of steam too often, but that’s where the extra draw from stage dive and the anchorman are needed.
I've also played this deck quite a bit this month. At first I was struggling a lot vs Warlock but last 4 games I went 3-1 vs them. Some tips: keep early tempo and pressure throughout. Let them spend their removal tools to clear your board but don't let them develop tempo of their own. This will often allow you to play a Troublemaker into an empty board in the mid-late game (on my early builds I was only running 1x Troublemaker which was very stupid). Also don't run Tent Thrashers. You want Ringmaster Whatley do always draw your Alex as a finisher. Finally, consider saving ETC for a late-game combo with Playmaker and rush tokens (like the Riders) which can often provide the last bit of damage you need for lethal
1. The key to defeating Warlock is constant board pressure. It’s the main way I have been able to win against them.
2. Kargoth Bladefist is crucial in this deck. Getting 10 Armor is key to survival against Mage decks or other Aggro or Otk’s. It’s a great combo with Playmaker.
3. I cut Ringmaster in favor of Brawl, which is an immediate help vs Aggro and Paladin decks. I think adding in extra removal is very important. I would also Consider adding in a claw machine if you were thinking about keeping ringmaster as it’s more buffs in tempo
I'm not very experienced with the deck but my understanding is that the key is to always play around Hysteria as much as you can, since that's more or less the only removal you can counter.
It also helps if you can keep track of how many cards above 4 mana they have played so that you know what Cascading Disaster you can expect.
I'm not very experienced with the deck but my understanding is that the key is to always play around Hysteria as much as you can, since that's more or less the only removal you can counter.
It also helps if you can keep track of how many cards above 4 mana they have played so that you know what Cascading Disaster you can expect.
I think you're right. The last game I lost, I didn't play around Hysteria effectively and got wrecked.
Update: Thank you all for the comments. They were very helpful. @LegendaryShando - I took your advice, took Kargath out (for the second Stage Dive), and focused more on hitting face. It appears to have been good advice. I just played 20 games this evening and went from D5 -> D2. Overall ratio was 14:6 (70% WR). Of the six losses, three were to control priest - it doesn't feel like there's a lot you can do against infinite spell generation unless they just don't draw their minions. The other three losses were: 1 to control warlock, 1 to face hunter and 1 in the mirror where the other guy drew the nuts and I got killed in the mulligan.
Overall, just trying to get over ladder anxiety. That's what has always kept me from pushing for legend - whenever I get to D5, I just assume everyone on ladder is suddenly a much-more-skilled-than-me pro and I don't belong there. Turns out, it's the same games (mostly) as at other ranks!
Heya, I’m glad that my advice worked out for you. Hope you’ll reach legend before end of month.
Facing priest should be easier than warlock. You could chip their face by tempo’ing crabrider on turn 2 or just play parade leader turn 2 followed by crabrider on turn 3. Priest is a bit struggling to answer this threat on turn 4 or turn 3 (if they’re going second) since they don’t have a good single removal for this (Hysteria + Holy Smite is the only answer). I often saw many priest players just used hysteria for this situation, leaving a 3/2 crabrider on the board, which is very risky. On your turn, you could apply shield of honor on the crabrider and get that 12 damage on their face quite easily. Then they’d get panicked and start to rush find the right removal. You could also bait them to use Soul Mirror, usually when you have playmaker and bumper car in play. This is green light for your troublemaker follow-up next turn. Then the game should be over rather quickly.
I still think the hardest matchups are Pure Spell Mage, Paladins, and Warlocks
I didn't pay attention to my matchups but I played shaman from bronze 10 to d5 to get my shaman to 1k wins, I teetered back and forth between 5 and 4 then i switched to rush warrior and climbed to legend w only 2 or 3 losses, it's really good.
Just in case you want to try something slightly different, I will post a homebrew decklist that I use. I can't yet tell if it really is a good deck or I just got lucky, but I cut through the platinum ranks like a knife with that deck. Currently on a 9x win streak. Haven't yet tried it on Diamond though. Mostly I feasted on several Face Hunters that didn't stand a chance against that deck. I think I'm 6-0 against those.
It is a kind of budget list due to the fact that I got Rokara from the reward track but was missing a lot of the cards that the usual Rush Warrior lists use. Instead I included a small Frenzy package. There are most likely several improvements that could be made (Overlord Saurfang would probably be a good top end of the curve, for instance), but even at this stage I already had tons of fun with this deck. I thought it might be interesting for you, since you asked about Ringmaster Whatley. With this list you have plenty of draw and don't need him.
### Tempo # Class: Warrior # Format: Standard # Year of the Gryphon # # 2x (1) Athletic Studies # 1x (1) Shield of Honor # 2x (1) Stage Dive # 2x (1) Warsong Envoy # 2x (2) Bumper Car # 2x (2) Conditioning (Rank 1) # 1x (2) Corsair Cache # 2x (2) Crabrider # 2x (2) Cruel Taskmaster # 2x (2) Parade Leader # 1x (3) Playmaker # 1x (3) Rokara # 2x (3) Sunwell Initiate # 1x (4) Blademaster Samuro # 2x (4) Outrider's Axe # 2x (5) Cutting Class # 1x (5) Overlord Runthak # 2x (5) Stonemaul Anchorman # AAECAQcGwLkD3c0DkdAD++gDle0DqooEDOLMA/fUA7PeA7reA8HeA5HkA/LpA43tA47tA5jtA9XxA4ygBAA= # # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
My strategy vs Warlock is to go face face face with both. weapons and minions.
i completely ignore his smaller minions as long as possible cause i’m playing as aggressive as possible to bring him under 16 HP for the combo.
Try to play around Hysteria, only one single big buffed minion every turn on the board is enough to make pressure. Im playing with 2 Troublemakers + Alex and i think i haven’t lost a single game vs warlock so far
My strategy vs Warlock is to go face face face with both. weapons and minions.
i completely ignore his smaller minions as long as possible cause i’m playing as aggressive as possible to bring him under 16 HP for the combo.
Try to play around Hysteria, only one single big buffed minion every turn on the board is enough to make pressure. Im playing with 2 Troublemakers + Alex and i think i haven’t lost a single game vs warlock so far
I Only trade if it’s absolutely necessary.
Thanks - I'll try to focus on this strategy and see how it plays out!
Heya, I’m glad that my advice worked out for you. Hope you’ll reach legend before end of month.
Facing priest should be easier than warlock. You could chip their face by tempo’ing crabrider on turn 2 or just play parade leader turn 2 followed by crabrider on turn 3. Priest is a bit struggling to answer this threat on turn 4 or turn 3 (if they’re going second) since they don’t have a good single removal for this (Hysteria + Holy Smite is the only answer). I often saw many priest players just used hysteria for this situation, leaving a 3/2 crabrider on the board, which is very risky. On your turn, you could apply shield of honor on the crabrider and get that 12 damage on their face quite easily. Then they’d get panicked and start to rush find the right removal. You could also bait them to use Soul Mirror, usually when you have playmaker and bumper car in play. This is green light for your troublemaker follow-up next turn. Then the game should be over rather quickly.
I still think the hardest matchups are Pure Spell Mage, Paladins, and Warlocks
Maybe I just got unlucky then. I mulliganed hard for the two-drops, but had pretty rough starting hands (no tempo early game). In the first game, I idiotically forgot that soul mirror is a card....turns out it is PREEEETTY good against Troublemaker...
Just in case you want to try something slightly different, I will post a homebrew decklist that I use. I can't yet tell if it really is a good deck or I just got lucky, but I cut through the platinum ranks like a knife with that deck. Currently on a 9x win streak. Haven't yet tried it on Diamond though. Mostly I feasted on several Face Hunters that didn't stand a chance against that deck. I think I'm 6-0 against those.
It is a kind of budget list due to the fact that I got Rokara from the reward track but was missing a lot of the cards that the usual Rush Warrior lists use. Instead I included a small Frenzy package. There are most likely several improvements that could be made (Overlord Saurfang would probably be a good top end of the curve, for instance), but even at this stage I already had tons of fun with this deck. I thought it might be interesting for you, since you asked about Ringmaster Whatley. With this list you have plenty of draw and don't need him.
### Tempo # Class: Warrior # Format: Standard # Year of the Gryphon # # 2x (1) Athletic Studies # 1x (1) Shield of Honor # 2x (1) Stage Dive # 2x (1) Warsong Envoy # 2x (2) Bumper Car # 2x (2) Conditioning (Rank 1) # 1x (2) Corsair Cache # 2x (2) Crabrider # 2x (2) Cruel Taskmaster # 2x (2) Parade Leader # 1x (3) Playmaker # 1x (3) Rokara # 2x (3) Sunwell Initiate # 1x (4) Blademaster Samuro # 2x (4) Outrider's Axe # 2x (5) Cutting Class # 1x (5) Overlord Runthak # 2x (5) Stonemaul Anchorman # AAECAQcGwLkD3c0DkdAD++gDle0DqooEDOLMA/fUA7PeA7reA8HeA5HkA/LpA43tA47tA5jtA9XxA4ygBAA= # # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Thanks - I actually started out with a list very similar to this, but found that Outrider's Axe is too much value with too little tempo for most matches. During the Hunter matches in particular, I felt like I never wanted to trade with the axe because I couldn't spare any health. Nohandsgamer basically said the same thing in his video about Rush Warrior.
Update on Priest/Warlock strategies outlined above: So far, no bueno at all. Priest just has infinite resources to remove minions and this is a minion-based deck, so I really wouldn't expect the WR to be good. Warlock is similar, but perhaps with even more heal. I got one Warlock down to maybe 12 health, then by the next turn they were back around 28.
I'm almost undefeated though vs Mage and Paladin (whether it's Secret or Libram is no issue at all). Hunter is a toss-up right now but is always very close.
Played another 10 games today and overall dropped one star. Overall 18-11 since yesterday.
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So I'm thinking I may actually try to invest the time to go for (first-time) legend this season playing Rush Warrior. I really enjoy the deck, and am currently using a slight deviation of NoHandsGamer's list. I thought I'd ask for some insight from the community before the D5 - Legend grind. For anyone who is also (or has been) playing this deck:
1. Have you found any strategy that works well against Warlock? I think my WR vs them is about 10% currently. I have to draw the nuts, and they have to not draw their board clears. Curious to know if anyone is having good luck (read: skill) in this area.
2. Thoughts on Kargath Bladefist in this deck? He seems worthwhile to me and has won me a number of games vs Hunter. I am currently using him in place of the second Stage Dive. (Curious to know if anyone has tried the deck extensively both ways.)
3. Has anyone tried the deck much without Ringmaster Whatley? I rarely feel as if this card is worthwhile. Against Hunter, for example, I don't ever feel as if I can play a 5-mana "do nothing." Against Warlock, the draw is nice, but doesn't seem to tip the scales.
Always enjoying hearing this community's thoughts!
Cheers
I switched out a Battle ax (or whatever that card is called) for Kargath and it works really well. I feel like I'm facing aggro hunter most of the time so I can seldom afford to take the extra damage from hitting a minion instead of face.
Hey SCWT. I'd suggest you to read my Deck Guide for Rush Warrior https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1385810-d3-legend-rush-warrior-new-meta
The comment section include several debates of substitutes of the cards you mentioned and so on, I thought you might find it useful.
Shaqiel
I reached Legend using Rush Warrior in 2 days from D5, with around 4-6 matchups are Warlock. I agree that this matchup is a bit 50-50. The way to win against this matchup is to utilize Warmaul Challenger + Shield of Honor and hoping that it won't be cleared by Cascading Disaster. Knowing that it has a high HP in early game, means that Warlock will only have Cascading Disaster to answer the board. Other spells won't be enough to remove this minion. If the Warlock couldn't answer after this threat, make sure that you widen your board enough to avoid Cascading Disaster, but short enough to avoid Hysteria. You also need to avoid greedy play against Warlock, meaning that you should maintain enough board pressure with minimal minions in play, so that it will force them to use any removal they currently have. This is achievable by buffing up your hand using Conditioning or Runthak. Then usually you could finish them using Troublemaker or Alex.
Kargath is inefficient as the meta is currently at aggro to midrange, and by the time its Prime has been utilized, you're losing your opportunity to keep hitting your opponent's face. Making sure that you keep reducing your opponent's face in every turn is crucial for this deck to work.
Whatley is pretty important in this deck, since it tutors your important cards - Sword Eater for Taunt & Weapon, Bumper Car for enabler on Parade Leader / Playmaker / Conditioning, Tent Thrasher for Big Threat, Alex for finisher or big minion removal.
P.S. This is my list for Rush Warrior. I also benchmarked it from NoHandsGamer's list and modified it since I don't have Rokara and Samuro.
Athletic Studies x 2
Imprisoned Gan'arg x 2
Shield of Honor x 2
Stage Dive x 2
Bumper Car x 2
Conditioning (Rank 1) x 2
Crabrider x 2
E.T.C., God of Metal
Parade Leader x 2
Darkmoon Dirigible
Playmaker x 2
Warmaul Challenger x 2
Sword Eater x 2
Overlord Runthak
Ringmaster Whatley
Tent Trasher
Troublemaker x 2
Alexstrasza the Life-Binder
OP it might help if you showed us the list you are using so we can recommend card switches.
I just made legend this month using the Nohands variation of the deck. Not face to much Warlock, but I think that the key is the warmaul challengers. If they hit the 1/3 in early game you can build an awkward board. Follow that with shields of honor and you can push a decent amount of damage. The Warlock midgame tends to be Ogremancer, and playing a base minion deck you have no problem with that (and even then you have Samuro for an army of 2/2). Just play your curve and pray that the little damage you can deal close the gap with the potential direct damage of your costs 8 and Alex.
I just made the climb about a week ago. It was surprisingly easy. It’s only my second time pushing for legend but I was just feeling the rush. Bad pun. I’ve seen no hand gamers list but I can’t honestly recall it off hand. I know that I didn’t use warmaul and shield at all. I also don’t have Whatley, so that was cut too. I think second stage dive is essential tho. And I had two anchorman + sourfang in my list (mostly because I wanted so badly for sourfang to be decent). Tbh, a 5/4, two 4/4s and 2 cards is not bad for 7 mana. Often sourfang got conditioned to be even more jacked. Oh and I did craft kargath just recently for control warrior so you bet your ass I put him in here.
Against warlock it’s all tempo. Keep the pressure on early and often. Get a crab rider or ETC down on 2, or a playmaker on 3 by itself. If it sticks you can go wild, If it dies that’s one less removal tool. I didn’t find myself running out of steam too often, but that’s where the extra draw from stage dive and the anchorman are needed.
I've also played this deck quite a bit this month. At first I was struggling a lot vs Warlock but last 4 games I went 3-1 vs them. Some tips: keep early tempo and pressure throughout. Let them spend their removal tools to clear your board but don't let them develop tempo of their own. This will often allow you to play a Troublemaker into an empty board in the mid-late game (on my early builds I was only running 1x Troublemaker which was very stupid). Also don't run Tent Thrashers. You want Ringmaster Whatley do always draw your Alex as a finisher. Finally, consider saving ETC for a late-game combo with Playmaker and rush tokens (like the Riders) which can often provide the last bit of damage you need for lethal
1. The key to defeating Warlock is constant board pressure. It’s the main way I have been able to win against them.
2. Kargoth Bladefist is crucial in this deck. Getting 10 Armor is key to survival against Mage decks or other Aggro or Otk’s. It’s a great combo with Playmaker.
3. I cut Ringmaster in favor of Brawl, which is an immediate help vs Aggro and Paladin decks. I think adding in extra removal is very important. I would also Consider adding in a claw machine if you were thinking about keeping ringmaster as it’s more buffs in tempo
I'm not very experienced with the deck but my understanding is that the key is to always play around Hysteria as much as you can, since that's more or less the only removal you can counter.
It also helps if you can keep track of how many cards above 4 mana they have played so that you know what Cascading Disaster you can expect.
I think you're right. The last game I lost, I didn't play around Hysteria effectively and got wrecked.
Update: Thank you all for the comments. They were very helpful. @LegendaryShando - I took your advice, took Kargath out (for the second Stage Dive), and focused more on hitting face. It appears to have been good advice. I just played 20 games this evening and went from D5 -> D2. Overall ratio was 14:6 (70% WR). Of the six losses, three were to control priest - it doesn't feel like there's a lot you can do against infinite spell generation unless they just don't draw their minions. The other three losses were: 1 to control warlock, 1 to face hunter and 1 in the mirror where the other guy drew the nuts and I got killed in the mulligan.
Overall, just trying to get over ladder anxiety. That's what has always kept me from pushing for legend - whenever I get to D5, I just assume everyone on ladder is suddenly a much-more-skilled-than-me pro and I don't belong there. Turns out, it's the same games (mostly) as at other ranks!
Heya, I’m glad that my advice worked out for you. Hope you’ll reach legend before end of month.
Facing priest should be easier than warlock. You could chip their face by tempo’ing crabrider on turn 2 or just play parade leader turn 2 followed by crabrider on turn 3. Priest is a bit struggling to answer this threat on turn 4 or turn 3 (if they’re going second) since they don’t have a good single removal for this (Hysteria + Holy Smite is the only answer). I often saw many priest players just used hysteria for this situation, leaving a 3/2 crabrider on the board, which is very risky. On your turn, you could apply shield of honor on the crabrider and get that 12 damage on their face quite easily. Then they’d get panicked and start to rush find the right removal. You could also bait them to use Soul Mirror, usually when you have playmaker and bumper car in play. This is green light for your troublemaker follow-up next turn. Then the game should be over rather quickly.
I still think the hardest matchups are Pure Spell Mage, Paladins, and Warlocks
I didn't pay attention to my matchups but I played shaman from bronze 10 to d5 to get my shaman to 1k wins, I teetered back and forth between 5 and 4 then i switched to rush warrior and climbed to legend w only 2 or 3 losses, it's really good.
Just in case you want to try something slightly different, I will post a homebrew decklist that I use. I can't yet tell if it really is a good deck or I just got lucky, but I cut through the platinum ranks like a knife with that deck. Currently on a 9x win streak. Haven't yet tried it on Diamond though. Mostly I feasted on several Face Hunters that didn't stand a chance against that deck. I think I'm 6-0 against those.
It is a kind of budget list due to the fact that I got Rokara from the reward track but was missing a lot of the cards that the usual Rush Warrior lists use. Instead I included a small Frenzy package. There are most likely several improvements that could be made (Overlord Saurfang would probably be a good top end of the curve, for instance), but even at this stage I already had tons of fun with this deck. I thought it might be interesting for you, since you asked about Ringmaster Whatley. With this list you have plenty of draw and don't need him.
### Tempo
# Class: Warrior
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Gryphon
#
# 2x (1) Athletic Studies
# 1x (1) Shield of Honor
# 2x (1) Stage Dive
# 2x (1) Warsong Envoy
# 2x (2) Bumper Car
# 2x (2) Conditioning (Rank 1)
# 1x (2) Corsair Cache
# 2x (2) Crabrider
# 2x (2) Cruel Taskmaster
# 2x (2) Parade Leader
# 1x (3) Playmaker
# 1x (3) Rokara
# 2x (3) Sunwell Initiate
# 1x (4) Blademaster Samuro
# 2x (4) Outrider's Axe
# 2x (5) Cutting Class
# 1x (5) Overlord Runthak
# 2x (5) Stonemaul Anchorman
#
AAECAQcGwLkD3c0DkdAD++gDle0DqooEDOLMA/fUA7PeA7reA8HeA5HkA/LpA43tA47tA5jtA9XxA4ygBAA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Ceterum censeo classum magi esse delendam.
My strategy vs Warlock is to go face face face with both. weapons and minions.
i completely ignore his smaller minions as long as possible cause i’m playing as aggressive as possible to bring him under 16 HP for the combo.
Try to play around Hysteria, only one single big buffed minion every turn on the board is enough to make pressure. Im playing with 2 Troublemakers + Alex and i think i haven’t lost a single game vs warlock so far
I Only trade if it’s absolutely necessary.
Thanks - I'll try to focus on this strategy and see how it plays out!
Maybe I just got unlucky then. I mulliganed hard for the two-drops, but had pretty rough starting hands (no tempo early game). In the first game, I idiotically forgot that soul mirror is a card....turns out it is PREEEETTY good against Troublemaker...
Thanks - I actually started out with a list very similar to this, but found that Outrider's Axe is too much value with too little tempo for most matches. During the Hunter matches in particular, I felt like I never wanted to trade with the axe because I couldn't spare any health. Nohandsgamer basically said the same thing in his video about Rush Warrior.
Update on Priest/Warlock strategies outlined above: So far, no bueno at all. Priest just has infinite resources to remove minions and this is a minion-based deck, so I really wouldn't expect the WR to be good. Warlock is similar, but perhaps with even more heal. I got one Warlock down to maybe 12 health, then by the next turn they were back around 28.
I'm almost undefeated though vs Mage and Paladin (whether it's Secret or Libram is no issue at all). Hunter is a toss-up right now but is always very close.
Played another 10 games today and overall dropped one star. Overall 18-11 since yesterday.