Hearthpwn

Here are the steps to do it:

1. Analyse cards and check their strengths/find obvious synergies, e.g.: If you want a Nethrandamus deck you need cards that can "die" a lot or benefit from minion deaths, so Coordinated Strike, Command the Illidari, Blood Herald, Feast of Souls, Wrathscale Naga, Umberwing, Ur'zul Horror and Coilfang Warlord are mandatory cards because they summon more minions per card and thus can die more often than other cards. Each class has a "token" , a "Big" and often times a "Spell" archetype, just see what fits in there. Fill the rest with neutral cards that contribute to that archetype to form a reasonable mana curve.

Another thing to note: Same goes for discount synergies. Playing an Imprisoned Scrap Imp followed up by a Shadow Council can really be broken. Just double up on those bonuses and watch your opponent concede.

2. When doing that, try to find obvious on-curve synergies and anti-synergies. Putting a Pit Commander or a Fel Summoner into a deck with a Sightless Watcher or a Ur'zul Horror doesn't make a lot of sense since A) you don't want to skip Sightless Watchers Battlecry and B) you don't want to put a tiny Demon out. So these go into different decks. Fel Summoner and Imprisoned Antaen look much better because you put a big Demon for free on the board and with luck trigger the Dormant effect one turn earlier if you opponent triggers Fel Summoners Deathrattle on his Turn.

3. On-Curve synergies like mentioned above: Parade Leader on turn 2 followed up by Coordinated Strike or Magehunter or Felrattler on turn 3 is great. There are tons of other examples, often times in combination with Neutral cards too e.g. Animated Berserker turn 1-> Dozing Marksman turn 2 or Shieldbearer Turn 1 -> Cruel Taskmaster Turn 2 or Spirit of the Shark Turn 4 -> Former Champ Turn 5. (These interactions where designed that way). Trust me, if you make lots of those on curve-synergies work you will have a big advantage. If you put Raging Felscreamer in you deck you definitely want Priestess of Fury as well since there is always a chance to discount the Priestess to 5 to create on-curve synergy. Same applies to Death Speaker Blackthorn: he can summon 5 cost Deathrattle cards so you def. want Burning Blade Acolyte in your deck with him.

4. If you like secret synergies you need at least 6 secret cards in your deck to make good use of it.

5. This way you will be able to craft your own decks and reach legend with homebrews as you use cards very efficiently. There is a reason that you received Kobold Geomancer, Ogre Magi and Gurubashi Berserker as Warlock rewards in vanilla Hearthstone: Kobold Geomancer + Shadow Bolt or Mortal Coil, Ogre Magi turn 4 -> Bane of Doom Turn 5, Gurubashi Berserker Turn 5 -> Dread Infernal Turn 6. (Both Mortal Coil and Bane of Doom need Spell Damage support to have a higher chance of triggering their effect). Sure, Kobold Geomancer might work in Mage too, but Classic/Basic Mage doesn't have a single Spell that benefits from Spell Damage on Turn 3.

6. That's why Murloc decks are often times safe crafts because the synergie is very obvious compared to other archetypes.

7. Weaker cards are being replaced with better versions for that archetype via expansions. Gurubashi Berserker for example was replaced by Floating Watcher in Goblins vs. Gnomes because it is stronger and still synergizes wit Dread Infernal in a Big Demon deck - on curve.

8. Decks with Cards that say "if you have XXX in hand" usually want you to also have cards that can draw more cards early on so you actually have these cards in hand to midgame.

9. Profit

Quote from emkarab >>

Quite long and even well written post sadly about nothing relevant in today's meta.

Well, I'd say it's always relevant as it's the core game loop of Hearthstone and never changes. But I respect your opinion, just wanted to provide some game design background, feel free to do with it whatever you want.

Mana Cheat is a combo mechanic which allows "Big" decks (Spells or Minions) to put pressure on Control. Control simply runs out of resources (board clears and single target removal) to deal with those threats (as often times multiple big minions are on the board). But most cards that provide a discount or draw cards don't do anything else the turn played (Palm Reading, Backfire, Free Admission, Arcane Intellect). You basically prepare your hand for a big mid-to-late game strategy to exhaust your opponents options - if he plays passive/reactive. Important to note: most Combo minions have even stats (e.g. Giants). They are neither aggressive nor passive, but mostly lack Taunt as they need a disadvantage vs. Aggro.

The counter to that is to play minions. Every.Single.Turn. 

Minions are super valuable because, compared to Spells, they can attack multiple times, or trade with enemy minions. The downside is, they need to wait a turn to be valuable. This means they are vulnerable to one-off Spell cards that can react immediately. 

So if a minion-heavy deck has to deal with a spell-heavy deck (spells which do not summon minions but immediately deal with your minions) you as an aggro player cannot build up minion synergy (murlocs) nor can you deal enough damage to face to end the game by turn 4/5. After these turns, if you opponent is not below 15 health, it's usually game over and you run out of cards.

So if you are having trouble beating mana-cheat decks you MUST play murloc decks or any other tribe based/non-tribe based aggro deck. Of course you are vulnerable to control then. And there you have rock-paper-scissors. Important to note: most new cards are combo cards as that's were you have the most freedom in design. And by now we have most combo archetypes in every class.

We have Swarm -> Paladin: Silver Hand Recruits, Divine Shield to counter board clears but you can't afford to wait to combo with cards that provide Divine Shields for your Silver Hands vs. Aggro| Hunter: Token Beasts with Rats and Hyenas to exhaust board clears | Druid: Treants with Deathrattles to counter boardclears | Demon Hunter: Illidari Swarm with Death events as triggers to boost Blood Herald and Nethrandamus and copy them with Zai, the Incredible)

Then we have BIG to counter single target removal -> Warlock: Big demons (Imprisoned Scrap Imp/Shadow Council Combo, mostly lack Taunt) | Mage: Big Spells Quest to go directly face | Hunter&Druid: Big Beasts and so on)

And then of course Deathrattle to counter boardclears -> don't need to summarize, we had it in every class.

The point is, most cards are combo cards as they only work with other cards in synergy. Mostly those are minion/spell combos (Nightshade Matron + Hand of Gul'dan, Feast of Souls + any Illidary Swarm cards etc. Those combos only really work if you draw cards in the early game. If you need to play the Nightshade Matron to answer Aggro (as you didn't have the time to draw into Hand of Gul'dan), you cannot draw cards, and if you play Coordinated Strike or Command the Illidari to answer aggro without Feast of Souls, you're screwed in the mid-game when Aggro finishes you off. So that's the mechanic that makes Combo run out of cards vs. Aggro because they can't combo to draw more in order to prepare for the big finale (in the Demon Hunter example Blood Herald and Nethrandamus). Starving Buzzard + Unleash the Hounds is the exact same example. Play Unleash to answer aggro but then you can't draw anymore with Buzzard nor can you Combo them with Scavenging Hyena.

Funnily enough these archetypes always existed, from the day Hearthstone was released, just not for every class. (the Combo variants - Aggro/Combo/Control was there for every class from the start) And we have lots of stuff inbetween, but generally combo decks always want to survive Board Clears and Single Target Removal (good example is also Rattlegore, he is a nightmare to deal with as Control, as he just won't die without morph spells - but he comes late, has no Taunt and is therefore often times ignored by Aggro)

Most players mix early control spells (some boardclears) and put some highly valuable minions into their deck. This strategy can work, but only if you get your spells first and the minions last. It's usually best to fully commit to one archetype though - because then you can beat other decks of the same archetype and the one you are in favor of anyways.

tl;dr: if you go purely aggro (98% minions) and face a pure control deck (80% boardclears, removals and then a few big minions) you will likely lose, but win any Combo Matchup which need time to prepare and lack Taunts to stop you. Mana Cheat is Combo.

Quote from Pherosizm >>

Quote from IceD34ler >>

Fiendish Circle Turn 3 -> Rustsworn Cultist Turn 4 -> Shady Bartender Turn 5

 

 Honestly, this is very smart. I really appreciate what you're doing here.

I wish that decks with these kind of unique ideas could compete with the stuff people have already discovered.

Imagine a warlock deck that isn't using the new questline?! Unheard of!

I'm interested to see what the final decklist looks like. :)

Thanks! Yes, this stuff is super interesting. 

I'm doing some analysis on the Classic Set as well and it's funny that the archetypes never really changed over the years. There was a Swarmy Combo Spell Damage Deck for Warlock in Classic as well.

If you look at the Reward cards of Warlock, there is Kobold Geomancer and Ogre Magi. And there are two cards in the Classic Set that benefit from Spell Damage, Mortal Coil and Bane of Doom. Both have a condition that is easier met if boosted by Spell Damage (also Ogre Magi Turn4, Bane of Doom Turn5). We also have two Turn3 Spells as a follow-up for Kobold Geomancer (which isn't the case in Mage for example).

In later expansions this deck was buffed by Imp Gang Boss (in combination with Blood Imp), Imp-losion (which also benefits heavily from Spell Damage) and Mal'Ganis. This Swarmy theme is in every class btw. (Druid has Treants for example).

The other is the "BIG" theme, in the Warlock case it's Big Demons with another Reward card that just fits great in a Combo Big Deck, Gurubashi Berserker (followed up by Dread Infernal). This deck has Pint-Sized Summoner and the Combo Summoning Portal  +  Felguard as well, which is the only way to make Felguard work tbh. Also Sense Demons Turn3 + Pit Lord Turn4 is a thing in there.

Both deck types are Combo because they exploit the weaknesses of a Control Deck, board clears and Hard removals. Vs. a "Big" deck a Control deck wil simply run out of hard removals, and a swarmy deck that can fill the board with tokens over and over can overcome any amount of boardclears. After a while Deathrattle decks came into play as well to beat Control.

Funnily enough, if you try to make an aggro deck with Warlock and look at the reward cards, there is also Grimscale Oracle for a level 53 and 54 Warlock Class. Guess what the Aggro deck looks like? :D It's a murloc deck. Suddenly a Felstalker works great with so many 1-drops. Also not all Discard cards are played in the same deck, I'm trying out Soulfire in the Spell Damage/Swarmy deck and it just kills. A 6-damage Soulfire with that amount of Spell Damage (along with Bloodmage Thalnos) isn't that rare.

The real challenge is to find the appropriate Neutral cards to fill in the missing spots to 1. still have a great curve and 2. have enough synergy to be able to compete. With the Swarmy Deck I'm playing around in Standard right now, I have won some games vs. Quest Decks already, still refining though as I'm sure I'm missing the last bit. Rustsworn Initiate though works great with it already (it summons a Spell Damage Imp which helps with board buffing and Grimoire of Sacrifice. Also it's another minion from the "Rustsworns" (like Rustsworn Cultist) so I guess that's no coincidence. 

What's worth mentioning here is that usually Combo minions have even stats (or close to) much like Ogre Magi or Kobold Geomancer as they are neither aggressive nor passive, but rather situational in combination with Spells. You see that with most Combo minions which sacrifice stats for a better ability.

Updating this thread with another find. There is a swarmy token combo Warlock deck that I'm testing right now, and an obvious synergy is this:

Fiendish Circle Turn 3 -> Rustsworn Cultist Turn 4 -> Shady Bartender Turn 5

It also runs all the "Destroy your own minion"- cards like Ritual of Doom and Grimoire of Sacrifice in combination with Headmaster Kel'Thuzad. Wicked Whispers and Boneweb Egg are also in there (for obvious sacrifice/board buff reasons), just need to find the rest of the deck parts.

Will post the deck once I'm done with testing.

Changed some cards in the deck. Added Encumbered Pack Mule (works great with Leatherworking Kit), Snake Trap and Scavenging Hyena for additional Beast-Token synergy. Zixor, Apex Predator is also great with Leatherworking Kit as it draws & buffs the Prime version to make bigger copies.

*UPDATE* Ok, for some weird reason Leatherworking Kit does not work with Encumbered Pack Mule they way I thought it would, the copy does not retain the handbuff. So I replaced it with Wolpertinger (which is better anyways as it summons 2 minions immediately AND works with the buff). There is also some synergy with Devouring Swarm in that Wolpertinger gives you back two cards instead of one due to the way the card copies itself on the board.

Hey

just wanted to share a swarmy combo deck I'm using right now to surprise some of my opponents. It works quite well, uses death/beast synergy and crushes control. Since technically you draw 6 beasts in total with Leatherworking Kit, there might be one Beast missing - still trying to figure out which one makes sense. But Leatherworking Kit definitely needs to be in that swarmy deck as for it to work a total of 18 minions have to die.

Have fun! :)

Same here. In this case player choice would be the best solution, just let us choose which quest-set we want. You can‘t force players to play certain game modes.

Most new mechanics are for combo decks, this one is no exception. An aggro deck doesn't want this as in aggro you should play a minion each turn but a combo deck (which is supposed to kill off control) can take the time and spend that one mana to get the missing combo piece - which is great.

In general, every card gives something up to gain something else. Dr. Morrigan gives up stats to get the ability to create an undying board, which is great vs. hard-removals and board-clears. Discover cards are usually quite neutral when it comes to stats, but they give you value (+1 additional card) and the potential to combine the discovered card with another combo card. So I would play Discover cards mainly to outvalue control decks, which are usually very board-centric and removal focused.

When to play in a game? Totally depends on the matchup. Since it's usually quite slow to play discover cards, you should focus on playing minions vs. aggro. 

Vs.Control though you might have a chance to wait for the right moment and play them later.

You definitely need Pursuit of Justice, Soldier's Caravan, Day at the Faire, Carnival Barker, Imprisoned Celestial (so you can combo-play Stand Against Darkness on turn 5 with it), Warhorse Trainer, Lothraxion the Redeemed, Balloon Merchant (if those are not already in your deck that is). Also you need more card draw, I believe I also added Hand of A'dal to this (works great with Righteous Protector). I'm not exactly sure now what else I added but just fill the gaps with cards that make sense to get a good curve. It is actually a combo deck so it's normal that it loses to aggro but is good vs. control (because you actually drain your opponents board clears, especially because of the divine shields, which make normal board clears useless and you are able to constantly fill the board). Oh I also added Divine Rager because he is great after a Carnival Barker.

Now I like to also add Taelan Fordring because he will always give me Lothraxion the Redeemed guaranteed, in case he is buried to deep in my deck to be useful.

Razormane Battleguard allows you to have a potential turn 3 Gold Road Grunt, would def. add this. Other than that you have too many Legendaries and 2-drops. I would only keep Greybough and Plaguemaw the Rotting.

Hey,

so now after the release of the new expansion Forged in the Barrens it's worth looking a bit closer at card interactions and natural synergies emerging from a simple game mechanic: gaining one mana crystal each turn.

There are cards that are quite versatile and are only archetype bound. Twilight Drake and Doomsayer are good examples.

While Twilight Drake is useless in Aggro since it's usually out of cards at turn 6 and Control as it doesn't provide any Hero protection or immediate board impact on turn 4 it specifically shines in any Combo deck that wants to draw cards early at turn 3 with 3 Mana cards like Arcane Intellect, Sense Demons or Thoughtsteal. Doomsayer is great in any Control deck that wants to stall and reach later turns for more powerful cards.

Twilight Drake and Doomsayer can both be played in almost any class as they are not really class-bound or specific.

However, there are neutral cards that are clearly intended to be played in very specific classes and archetypes. Parade Leader is a good example. While it's only a common minion from the Darkmoon Faire expansion I was really surprised when I played it in a token Demon Hunter deck with a bunch of Rush cards like Coordinated Strike, Renowned Performer, Magehunter, Command the Illidari and Expendable Performers. (along with Nethrandamus, Wrathscale Naga, Feast of Souls, Blood Herald). It performed extremely well.

I wanted to discuss this in a forum thread since I believe we can find hidden, vey efficient combos much easier as a community. Such combos often times come up in the same expansion but also just emerge after multiple expansions. These of course require your first minion not to be destroyed before enabling that mini-combo. Here are some examples of Neutral-to-Class card synergy:

• Warrior: Injured Tol'vir -> Bloodsworn Mercenary (Saviors of Uldum)
• Demon Hunter: Parade Leader -> Coordinated Strike
• Rogue: Spirit of the Shark -> Former Champ
• Warlock: Pint-Sized Summoner -> Summoning Portal
• Warrior: Animated Berserker -> Dozing Marksman
• Warrior: Shieldbearer -> Cruel Taskmaster
• Paladin: Imprisoned Sungill -> Coldlight Seer

But this also sometimes works within a class itself, like Imprisoned Celestial on turn 3 and Stand Against Darkness on turn 5 in Paladin. 

I found that in Deathrattle Demon Hunter the 5 mana Burning Blade Acolyte is the only 5 mana Deathrattle card (apart from Al'ar) that can work with Death Speaker Blackthorn and is prbly designed for this specific deck (as it also summons a demon). Also Barrens Trapper is a great card to play on turn 3, followed up by Burning Blade Acolyte on turn 4. Kindling Elemental seems to be good in Mage with Arcane Luminary (and also Arid Stormer in Shaman). Also the only 5 mana Taunt that could make sense as a follow-up to Razormane Battleguard seems to be Gold Road Grunt (apart from Greybough and Teacher's Pet), also because it shares it's "Armor Gain"-effect with the class card Thickhide Kodo. I'm curious, what are your observations/findings? 

Now that you mentioned it, Baron Rivendare would prbly also be a good fit in there instead of Cairne.

Quote from vaba >>

I want to ask why did you put Cairne here? He's too big for Death Speaker and quite slow on his own.

Mainly for curve reasons (there is no reasonable 6-drop) but also because he is sticky to the board as lots of other cards are in this deck. The purpose of this deck is to destoy control (to make boardclears and removals useless) and Cairne Bloodhoof supports that idea, and he got buffed too. But you can certainly replace him with any other high value Legendary. If I play Cairne on turn 7 and know my opponent could play Twisting Nether next turn, I know I could still deal 5 damage after.

I was thinking about replacing him with Zai, the Incredible to copy beefed up Blood Heralds as they can easily reach 30/30 of stats.