Hearthpwn

Congratulations. Mind sharing what you subbed in for them? I didn't buy any packs in Un'goro, so I can't really update this deck to account for them.

I thought this was how the AI worked too, but then on many of my tests it would just kill the animated armor and go face and kill me. I never figured it out exactly. From what I could tell, it felt like it had some sort of random "aggression" profile that would alter its playstyle from attempt to attempt, but who knows. Glad you won anyway :)

Glad you enjoyed the deck and had success with it, congratulations :)

Be glad you didn't do it over 100 times for science :)

I definitely like the Molten Reflection choice. If I was to do this again I'd definitely use them instead of the Faceless Manipulators. Congratulations on taking down Maloriak!

Thanks for the kind words. I was frustrated with many decks on this site that claimed to be "great first try" but they clearly just got stupidly lucky with a god draw. 100 games was a painful grind, but I feel like the deck is better for it, and this boss is annoying enough without a sub-par deck working against you. Glad you were able to topple this one!

I found Kezan Mystic really important for consistency, but it's not essential in all games. If he gets an important Counterspell on you, or a duplicate on something like a Sludge Belcher it can be game over pretty quickly. Duplicate is again, mostly for consistency. The deck can struggle to stabilize, and dies if Animated Armor is attacked. The duplicate provides some insurance by allowing you to potentially get more Animated Armor, or more Annoy-o-trons. Anyway, glad you found success regardless, enjoy the card back!

I tried to make the deck as Standard and cheap as possible, but I also wanted it to be consistent. Glad you had success subbing out the GVG/Naxx cards. There are a lot of cards that could go in this deck, and the win rate isn't great to begin with, so no specific card is really THAT essential. Congratulations!

Congratulations! Duplicate on Animated Armor is really good. Especially in games where he really likes to kill them. Glad you had some success!

Yeah, denying him Duplicate specifically can be so important, you only stabilize once he runs out of threats. Counterspell is less important, but those board clears can be really essential to not just dying to face damage, either way the secret removal is key to stabilizing faster and hence being more likely to win. Glad you had success with the deck!

On the topic of AI, I do believe that the AI has a level of "BM", where it killing your animated armor and then going face isn't intended to be lethal, but is due to it clearing the board before performing lethal if it can. When the animated armor is actually preventing the lethal, this leads to an actual lethal though. So keeping the board state such that you can't be killed and have the animated armor killed is probably a good idea.

I still have no idea why sometimes he just really hates on the Animated Armors well before lethal though.

Congratulations! I'm glad all my masochism was able to help someone topple this guy, it's certainly rough :)

[Update] I tweaked this deck some more and posted a separate Deck along with strategy guide 

Glad to hear you got him, was certainly the boss I had to grind the hardest of any in all of Hearthstone. 

You're right that Arcane Missiles are useless without Flamewaker in the deck, that's why I turned them into Voodoo Doctors. Arcane Explosion is such a weak card unless comboed with Blizzard, that I think I'd prefer spell damage like Bloodmage Thalnos. Same damage, also cycles a card so it's not a totally dead draw without Blizzard.

I plan to revisit this boss one day once I'm feeling a bit more masochistic. I've also thought that maybe having Kezan Mystic in that slot might be good for more secret removal. You really want to monopolize on those turns where he wastes them playing secrets, so if the RNG gods smile, you want to be able to punish it.

I like your idea of two Annoy-o-Tron. Especially in my deck which had 1 Faceless Manipulator and 1 Kel'Thuzad. Annoy-o-Tron and Kel'Thuzad as a 10 mana play is so strong. Maloriak is just too high tempo to ever play a card that doesn't immediately effect the board state, so Snowchugger is kind of a dead card like Water Elemental. At 4 mana Water Elemental, it does nothing the turn it is played, and with 6 health it generally dies to anything by the time you play it (you're always playing Animated Armor turn 4, so it comes down Turn 5 at the earliest).

I also think two Flamestrike would work well, your early game mulligan is already so RNG focused on getting Animated Armor, that having the second late game board wipe would be super helpful.

Cult Apothecary and Antique Healbot would both be pretty amazing. Cult Apothecary will almost always yield 8+ health by the time you play it, and is basically two turns of health if you have Animated Armor up and he has a full board. It's also a 4/4 body. Antique Healbot not quite as good, but may be worth it for the consistency.

Brann Bronzebeard + Mind Control Tech might be a decent later-game combo. Also works with Eater of Secrets and Cult Apothecary.

Ice Lance is actually fairly weak outside of your opening hand, clearing or stalling one minion later in the game just isn't worth it if you have Animated Armor up.

My recommended list would probably be:

• 2x Annoy-o-Tron
• 1x Bloodmage Thalnos
• 2x Frostbolt
• 2x Arcane Intellect
• 1x Brann Bronzebeard
• 2x Frost Nova
• 2x Ice Barrier
• 1x Ironbeak Owl
• 2x Mind Control Tech
• 2x Animated Armor
• 2x Eater of Secrets
• 2x Kezan Mystic
• 2x Cult Apothecary
• 2x Faceless Manipulator
• 2x Blizzard
• 1x Sylvanas Windrunner
• 2x Flamestrike

Anyway, quite a lot of different tech to try out on the hunt for finding the most consistent play. You do almost need to just give up on board control at some point and push face though, and that's what this deck struggles with most. The "Reset Until Animated Armor" kind of bothers me too, so I've contemplated some alternate early-game tech, the issue being they always make the late game less consistent, and generally if the RNG has favored you to get to the late game, you want to crush it consistently from there on.

For example, Doomsayer in the deck for a Turn 2 play, if anything it eats 7+ damage, maybe kills some minions. If the AI always targets it though, it could soak an attack or two even after Animated Armor is down, though if it prevents two attacks, that's basically +2 HP, so it's a 2 Mana Voodoo Doctor that maybe clears the board early, would have to try it out.

Nerubian Egg isn't a bad card, a 2 mana 4/4 can kill a 3/3 token, or a 4/4 Mad Scientist. I just don't see what I'd remove to put it in the deck though, and it's a totally dead card if you're top-decking late game, I'd rather a Novice Engineer for the cycle in that case.

UPDATE:

Just played the decklist in this post against Maloriak 85 times and won 10 times, a 11.7% win rate. Though this goes to 25.6% (10/39) if you don't count the 46 games where he spams Aberrations before Turn 4 and I died before Turn 4. This may seem low, but it's mostly due to the fact that even if you get perfect early game, if you don't draw Animated Armor you are screwed.

The win-rate when I get Animated Armor [/card] before Turn 7 (25 of 39 games), I won 10 times (40%). Losses are usually due to the AI deciding to kill [card]Animated Armor. Even with 85 attempts, I can't fathom what makes the AI decide to attack it. It definitely knows that Animated Armor is stopping it from winning, because it will snipe the Armor before going face for exact lethal. Why it ignores it sometimes, I have no idea.

My longest losing streak was 13 "real attempts" in a row, that is they got passed turn 4. Over half those failures were due to just not getting Animated Armor. The rest were due to him sniping it for various reasons.

Unlike the previous decklist, I had no troubles winning once I got control of the board, this deck can finish just fine,

Cards that have been under-performing are:

• Eater of Secrets: You generally want to steal them with Kezan Mystic, so you always play those first if you have them in hand.
• Cult Apothecary: I'm definitely glad I didn't also put Antique Healbot, that would be too much healing. I think these are good to have in the deck, they just haven't been clutch for me as of yet.

I'm thinking of putting at least 1 or 2 Polymorph into the deck to deal with Sludge Belchers. It's only 1 mana more than Ironbeak Owl, but can also deal with Draknoid Crushers.

The deck also struggles a bit in the early game. If you don't have Frostbolt or Annoy-o-Tron, you take a lot of damage before even getting Animated Armor.

I'm thinking maybe Flamecannon. Manic Soulcaster could also be interesting given you often steal enemy minions, or to get another backup Animated Armor. 

I don't like the idea of Duplicate, although it seems good in theory to protect Animated Armor, it almost seems like the AI has certain aggressive modes, because once it kills one Animated Armor, I've had it kill 4+ in a single game as soon as they hit the board.

Other thoughts are Cone of Cold and Echo of Medivh. If I had Nat Pagle, he'd almost certainly make it into the deck. Assuming, the AI doesn't target him, he'd be free draw for the whole match. Cult Sorcerer for cheap spell damage, Blizzard at 3 is do much more use than at 2 and is so essential if you want to improve runs without drawing Animated Armor. Maybe Evolved Kobold, it depends on how the AI treats Spell Damage. It always seems to target Bloodmage Thalnos, if that's the case, then the cheaper options are strictly better ever for less spell damage.

I've created a little diary of my early attempts, I got lazier on details as time went on.

Attempt 1: Win
- First turn he played Voidwalker
- Had Animated Armor, got Polymorphed but had second in hand.
- Got Brann Bronzebeard + Mind Control Tech off, it was better than could be imagined. Didn't need any of the heals.

Attempt 2: Loss
- First turn, Mad Scientist
- Lost Animated Armor when he traded Mad Scientist into it when they were only things on the board.

Attempt 3: Loss
- First turn Mana Wyrm
- Survived well, drew Animated Armor turn 7, but he killed it and went face.

Attempt 4: Loss
- First turn Voidwalker
- Survived well, but didn't draw Animated Armor by turn 9, died.

Attempt 5: Loss
- First turn pass, turn two Mad Scientist
- He Faceless Manipulator on my Animated Armor (drew Turn 5) and then killed
mine. What a jerk.

Attempt 6: Win
- First turn Voidwalker
- He traded into my Animated Armor (turn 4) with his Mana Wyrm. No idea why he
didn't go face. Jerk.
- Never drew my second Animated Armor (I had 2 cards left in deck)

Attempt 7: Win
- First turn pass, Mad Scientist
- Lost Turn 4 Animated Armor when he traded Mad Scientist into it when they were only
things on the board.
- Beginning to think the AI does this for the Secret tempo.
- Controlled the board and won anyway. Stole a Duplicate, so luckily when he
Implosioned my second Animated Armor, I got two more to play.

Took maybe 10-11 tries to get the opening hand, but it was smooth sailing after that. Didn't hurt that it pulled Aviana on my third Alarm-o-Bot though :)

After what has to be something like 20+ real attempts, and 40+ attempts where I just reset if he went Turn 1 three 3/3s or a Voidwalker with a Mana Wyrm, I got this boss down with a variant of this deck. 

I personally never found Flamewaker worth it, he and the spells added in the deck to give it value seemed to just never be worth it in terms of damage output when he was flooding the board with huge minions that just soaked up the random damage of Arcane Missiles and Flamewaker.

I found that I was most often just losing the damage race, even with Animated Armor up at 30 health, I'd die before I could develop a board.

I was also struggling to close out the game, Molten Giant just cost too much mana until it was too late.

I replaced:

• Arcane Missiles -> Voodoo Doctor (Healing)
• Flamewaker -> Earthen Ring Farseer (Healing)
• Molten Giant -> Faceless Manipulator (Steal one of his huge Flesheating Ghouls or a Draknoid Crusher)

If I had to do this again, I'd probably replace the Voodoo Doctors with Molten Giants to have both them and the Faceless Manipulators as closers. This deck is already do dependent on draw order, I would have been equally screwed if I drew a Voodoo Doctor most turns, and the 2HP rarely decides the game (though mine came down to some extremely clutch trades and 1HP that he didn't manage to top deck). Having more end-game burst probably would help to close out the 2-3 games where I got really close to stabilizing but then lost.

I also tried Kel'Thuzad in this list, hoping to get some value trades with the board in order to hold off the onslaught a bit while I could hit his face. Ultimately, at 8 mana, I never found a time I could play him without just dying that turn.

Mulligan:

• Animated Armor
• Frost Nova
• Mind Control Tech

If you're below 20 life before Turn 4, reset. If you don't have Animated Armor on turn 4, reset. If it ever dies and you're below 15 life, reset. If you don't get an early Mind Control Tech to deal with the swarm, reset.

The strategy to this boss was learning where the reset button was, and to not waste your time once your odds of success were really low. There is basically no comeback potential in this deck, once you get behind, you're done. There was no strategy, this boss has so many powerful openings, you just die and die and die. The Turn 1 three 3/3s (with charge) is basically an impossible to beat play from what I can tell. At best you Frostbolt on Turn 2, and Frost Nova on Turn 3 one, so you've taken 15 damage by turn 4. That assumes the boss plays no other minions, and then you have a plan to somehow win despite being on 15 health. If you don't have two Molten Giants in hand, it's over. Hence, just reset when he does it.

AI seems to mostly ignore Animated Armor except sometimes it will trade with Mad Scientist, this seemed to happen more if the Mad Scientist was damaged. It will also sometimes trade an Acidic Swamp Ooze into it, I never worked out why this happened. It seemed to do so when it was behind a taunt, and the ooze wouldn't die from the trade.

I tried this so many times, all the games have blurred together so I don't really remember what exactly happened in my actual win.

Really, the secret is to just keep resetting if he has a ridiculous opener and you don't draw the exact counter to that opener. If you've lost more than 15 health by the time Animated Armor comes down, just give up.

I tried a bunch of Control Priest decks before this, and was probably at this boss for 3-4 hours total. Just stick with it and eventually the RNG gods will favor you. Good luck.

Wasn't as consistent as other comments made out, but got it after 6-7 tries.

I found you should probably mulligan pretty hard to get Power Word: Glory on an early Orc so that it actually heals you when it goes face.

If you play a Lightwell on 2, I found it always just died. Needed a Divine Spirit and then they would just ignore it. The AI seems to basically ignore non-taunts with more than around 4-5 health (with the exception being Lightwell, probably due to 0 attack), so you want to keep your core buffing engine components at this level of healing or you'll lose them.

Had a few games get past 6 turns, and they usually went pretty good, but never quite got a C'Thun buffing engine going. I eventually had two Tournament Medic and two Hooded Acolyte on the field at once for some pretty crazy healing and buffing.

It was rough, and I was on the edge of my seat, but ended with a 57/57 C'Thun discounted along side Brann Bronzebeard letting me OTK Malchezzar after the transition :)