Hearthpwn

Hey hearthpwn, at the moment I generally play heavy control shaman or heavy control druid but after laddering for some time last season I tend to see much of the ladder playing face hunter or mech mage (about 50% of the games I play are against either of these decks). I still see some oil rogues, control wariors, combo druids and the occasional freeze mage or priest. This kind of repetition on ladder as made me ask the question, of these decks I've never bothered to play because I find them boring, how do they match up vs eachother.

I imagine mech mage is the defender in the match up while the face hunter puts the pressure on the mech mage. Annoy tron and mech warper are likely vital but idk how the mage is supposed to win this match up even with blast mages. Unless they tech heal bots, mech mage prefers to trade as it has better late game while face hunter just zergs the mage.

I'm also curious with how control warrior vs control priest goes

Mech mage isn't necessarily on the defensive vs. face hunter, because mech mage has the potential to start much faster than hunter thanks to Mechwarper. Assuming both players know what they're doing, though, I'd say hunter is heavily favored. Hunter can turn the game around really dramatically with Explosive Trap and Unleash the Hounds. Mech mage has basically no ability to reverse a bad position. Also, I'm sure I will shock and horrify somebody by saying this, but the skill ceiling for face hunter is a lot higher than for mech mage.

Priest vs Warrior depends very much on the specific decklists. If the Priest has Mind Control and 2 Thoughtsteals, he wants to go long and the Warrior shouldn't playa big minion without a way to remove it if it gets controlled. It comes down to fatigue if both players play correctly and if the Priest has to MC something suboptimal Warrior wins. 50/50

If the Warrior or Priest (but more likely Warrior) are running more midrange cards like Piloted Shredder, Shadowboxer/Frothing Berserker, or Bomb Lobber, that deck will get ahead on tempo early and has to be the aggressor. The control deck is a little better equipped to handle midrange aggression, though, and is slightly ahead 55/45.

The exception is if the lower-curve Warrior deck is playing against the super control Priest, in which case the Warrior has enough middling threats that they can deploy them one at a time and force bad clears and Mind Controls, and the Warrior is favored 60/40. In all cases, be patient! You have to play around big swing cards like Sylvanas, Auchenai Circle, Cabal Shadow Priest, Brawl, etc or you will lose regardless.

The only thing you need to worry about as a Priest is Grommash, everything else is manageable, having Mind Control helps a lot, and Vol'jin can do some work. Thoughtsteal can pretty much win you the game, or give you quite a large advantage in the long run.

The warrior has more removal for your creatures, but also runs Acolyte, Cruel Taskmaster and Armorsmith which aren't actually that useful in the match except for Cruel Task +Grommash combo. Even War Axe isn't particularly strong here, since it only kills a Northshire or Pyromancer.