General thread for theorycraft and comment since I haven't really seen many. Here are some of mine. Some aren't anything special, so I added notes to for new card additions. Some are pretty new and fun, containing a lot of new cards.
Here are some of the decks I plan to take to ladder on day 1.
Bomb Warrior
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Minion (16)
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Ability (11)
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Weapon (3)
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Very standard stuff here. Troublemaker is probably a less clunky endgame than Galakrond. But there's less armor gain, so perhaps Coerce becomes a more attractive option over Shield Slam. If you want more new cards, you can add Hoard Pillager and Cutting Class over the Grom/Sword and Board package.
Big Warrior
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Minion (7) |
Ability (20)
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Weapon (3) |
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Here's one that's a little more fun. It was not a good deck, but it was legend capable in AoO. Now, it received increased redundancy in basically all of the areas that matter - Coerce, Commencement, and Reaper's Scythe. It even added an extra-sticky, big-dumb-idiot in Rattlegore. The curve here is not for the faint of heart. But the whole damn deck is spot removal, AOE, and ways to cheat your dummies. Might not be good, but certainly could be fun.
Soul Fragment Demon Hunter
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Minion (15) |
Ability (11)
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Weapon (4)
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This is one of the decks I'm most excited to try out. It feels to me like this is the way they wanted Demon Hunter to play, but without being as insanely broken as it was at release. Life gain and hitting face. I know Skull of Gul'dan has some anti-synergy with Soul Fragments, but you still need card draw, and I don't think you are actually shuffling in enough Soul Fragments to matter. But since Skull is technically worse here, and Shardshatter is so powerful, I cut Altruis. Ideally, with additional burn from Lapidary, it should be fine.
Ramp Beast Druid
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Minion (10) |
Ability (20)
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Guardian Animals and Twilight Runner are some of the most interesting cards in the set. Druid received an absolutely insane amount of Ramp this set, so the deck looks to exploit it in a way that is more interesting than the boring Fungal Fortune decks. I do not like Survival of the Fittest, but I felt like I needed one more reasonable Kael'thas payoff. Plus it's better than Gift of the Wild. Ideally, you are receiving enough draws off of Runner to not need the second Overflow, which I always felt was slightly clunky in the Spell Druid list anyway.
Soul Fragment Handlock
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Minion (20)
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Ability (9)
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Playable Hero (1) |
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Good, ol' Handlock is back...maybe...It is largely a deck that builds itself, so I'm not sure how much there is to explain. I did, however, struggle to decide how to approach the endgame. The Galakrond package is too big. Soul Fragments mess with the Quest/Malygos finisher (which was already relying on RNG). So I settled on Demonic Studies + Jaraxxus. With Demonic Studies, you can play Jaraxxus and hero power in the same turn (Also works with Tour Guide). And since the nerf to SacPact, Zeph is no longer an auto-loss.
Midrange Deathrattle Hunter
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Minion (18)
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Ability (10)
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This is a deck I'm very interested in, although I am sure it will be worse than Highlander Hunter. That said, it should absolutely crush Warrior. Scholomance finally provided Deathrattle Hunter with a deathrattle beast that was worth playing in Bloated Python. It's a low-to-the-ground deck that looks to get ahead with sticky minions and stay ahead. The beast package is limited as to maximize Ingenuity. Houndmaster and Nine Lives are probably a good flex spots if you need to add something like Deadly Shot or Hunter's Mark to deal with big walls.
Buff Priest
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Minion (18) |
Ability (11)
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Weapon (1) |
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This is obviously a direction Blizzard wants us to take, although I'm not sure if we will get there. There was some tension between running the original Injured package over the dormant one. However, without the Cleric payoff, I decided to go with the Dormant package which proved to be successful against Demon Hunter last format. The curve is low but impactful and the health is high, so you should be able to fight for board for a time. I'm just not sure if it'll get to an endgame Inner Fire with only Reader and Sphere as your draw options. Hopefully, the card generation of Sethekk and Renew can help carry that load.
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Yeah, Celestial Alignment seems really fun, let's see what that deck will look like.
The deckbuilder on hearthstonetopdecks is already updated, I made a deck there and then put the same cards in to make it on hearthpwn. But I agree, it is a bit of a chore
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What legendaries do you want to pull? Have you already theorycrafted any decks? Any fun archetypes you are looking forward to?
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Very interesting post, love to see what others have planned.
I have a slightly different take on Ramp Beast Druid, fortunately the only card I'm missing after the pre-opening is one Survival of the Fittest, I really feel like this deck (or new archetype in general) has the potential to be really powerful and I love the combos with Kael'thas Sunstrider and Ysiel Windsinger
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Played the deck to legend, my recommendation is to not go for a highlander version. Running more secrets helps you consistently use Blackjack Stunner (especially useful against 9+ mana drops, eg. Dragonqueen Alexstrasza or Scrapyard Colossus) and Shadowjeweler Hanar. My secret tip: Togwaggle's Scheme. Singlehandedly wins you every game that goes to fatigue, especially useful versus Priest, Mage and Warlock, use it on Kronx Dragonhoof for unlimited AOE removal/healing + enemy hero damage/strong taunts/buffing up tokens. Shuffling multiple Kronxs just before using Galakrond, the Nightmare or Wondrous Staff can be game winning (0 mana 3x/4x 5 dmg to face). You also have the advantage of consistently having a fully upgraded Galakrond, the Nightmare if you don't just run 4 invoke cards.
Edit: my decklist: