by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Before I jump into talking about the deck of the week this week, I want to take a couple of sentences to introduce myself.

My name is Michael “Shoctologist” Martin, and I’m a lifelong Magic: the Gathering competitive player and columnist; recently, I’ve also gotten into competitive Hearthstone as well, and the folks here at Blizzpro have let me come on to do articles here as well.  Last season, despite spending the majority of my time grinding arenas for missing legendaries (since I can’t afford to buy a ton of packs with four kids), I still managed to hit level four before the reset.  This season, I’ve already made it to level five in the limited amount of time I get to play (full time job, full time school, four kids) and I’ll hit legendary before the season is up.

Now that you know a little about me, let’s jump into the deck I’ve been using to get to where I’m at and where I want to be.

Let’s Talk About Druid Midrange

Druid Midrange is the closest thing to the “middle of the road” between Aggro decks and pure Control decks; it’s a classic midrange deck in that it can fulfill whatever role it needs to in any given matchup.  The cards in the deck have multiple roles and uses, and Druids can flip the switch and go from playing the control role to being aggressive in an instant with cards like Druid of the Claw.  It’s hard to know what route you should be taking against druids, as you don’t know if they’re holding Force of Nature + Savage Roar or any other assortment of cards (like Druid of the Claw and Swipe, which is eight quick damage by itself).

All of this combines to make Druid one of the toughest classes to play against; however, the incredible adaptability that Druids possess also makes the class hard to properly pilot.  While you’re going to get a lot of wins based on the power of the cards at lower levels, once you get into the single digits, your decision making is going to be paramount to victory.

So that’s what I want to discuss today; first, I want to go over my build of Druid and why I like it then I want to talk quickly about specific cards.

Let’s take a look at my list, which is built the way it is due to a heavy Druid metagame (though, the metagame has shifted a bit now, so this list might need to be shifted somewhat as well):

Shoctologist’s Midrange Druid by ZenStyle

Class: Druid

Cards sorted by Low Cost

Neutral (14)

• Bloodmage Thalnos
• Big Game Hunter
• Earthen Ring Farseer x2
• Harvest Golem x2
• Chillwind Yeti
• Azure Drake x2
• Faceless Manipulator
• Cairne Bloodhoof
• Sunwalker
• The Black Knight
• Ragnaros the Firelord

Druid (16)

• Innervate x2
• Claw x2
• Wrath x2
• Keeper of the Grove x2
• Swipe x2
• Druid of the Claw x2
• Starfall x2
• Ancient of Lore x2

Different flavors of Druid decks these days: the Sunfury Protector/Ancient Watcher versions and the ones who eschew the Ancient Watcher combos and play the best value cards that Druids have to offer.  The non-Ancient Watcher versions can also run the Force of Nature combo I alluded to earlier as well for an added punch (those two cards, with absolutely nothing else, provide 14 damage if there are no taunt minions on the board; if you have any other minions, it only adds up more).

I’ve stayed away from the Ancient Watcher versions, as the high end metagame has much more midrange and control than pure aggro; I’m not saying aggro doesn’t exist at the top end just that I’ve seen more midrange and control.  As such, I’ve skewed the deck towards that end.

While most of you have seen the core of this deck time and time again, I’m going to go over the general gameplay of the deck then talk about some of my specific choices.

Early Game

Between Wrath, Claw, Innervate, and the Druid ability Shapeshift, Druids have good, but not great, early game control.  There are times when some opponents can get ahead of you (Murlocs, for example), though this only tends to happen against those classes who see equal amount of play as both aggro and control decks, leading you to select the wrong opening hand (I’m looking at you, Warriors and Warlocks).  For the most part, your early game spells allow you to make it to the midgame with decent board control and a healthy life total; if you can do this against aggro decks, you’ve probably already won, as your midgame is much more powerful than theirs.

Innervate deserves its own little spiel; Innervate is one of those cards that makes Druids so frustrating to play against.  I can play a turn one Chillwind Yeti with the coin or Harvest Golem without the coin; once I’ve done that, my ability to control the board is magnified, as anything with <4 toughness is easy prey before we hit four mana.  Innervate also allows for turn six Ragnaros or for more plays after an Ancient of Lore.  Innervate… is ridiculous, really.

Midgame

The midgame is where this deck makes its money; it’s where you start pulling ahead.  Chillwind Yeti may seem like a dumb, textless beater, but for its cost, it lords over the board for a couple of turns actually.  Azure Drake and Druid of the Claw should both give you more than one card worth of value, which only helps to grind our opponent out of resources even more.  Swipe and Starfall both allow us to not only catch back up if we’re slightly behind but also just pull ahead of some opponents.  Having the ability to Starfall with a Bloodmage Thalnos in play against Shamans is actually very backbreaking, as most of their cards have limited toughness (totems, Feral Spirit).

Keeper of the Grove is a great card both against aggro and against control, so much so that I’m going to save this for discussion later in this article.

Late Game

When we hit the top end, we get to the card that, in my opinion, makes Druids work.  If not for Ancient of Lore, I don’t think Druid would be a top tier deck; basically, it undoes everything our opponent has worked towards regardless of what we’re playing against.  Playing an aggro deck?  I’ll take a 5/5 with five life attached for seven, Alex!  Playing a midrange or control deck that wants to out-resource you?  Can I have a 5/5 that draws me two cards for 7, Alex?  Without Ancient of Lore as a curve topper, I wouldn’t play druid, it’s that plain and simple.

Sunwalker may turn some heads and raise some eyebrows, but it’s an extended experiment that actually isn’t working out too badly.  I had the second Chillwind Yeti in that slot but started to run into a little more aggro than I had been; since Senjin Shieldmasta is incredibly bad against the decks I was seeing for the most part, I didn’t want to run that over Yeti.  However, I did want something that carried its weight against aggro and eventually settled on Sunwalker; I’ve been pleased so far with it but am willing to change if need be.

Specific Card Choices and My Reasoning

Some of the specific card choices that aren’t universal are Big Game Hunter, Chillwind Yeti, Sunwalker, The Black Knight, and Earthen Ring Farseers.  I’ve already covered  Sunwalker, but I wanted to take a bit of space to cover the other choices.  Basically, if you’re not running aggro, there should be no excuse not to have at least one Big Game Hunter in your deck.  Yes, it’s not the greatest against aggro decks, but you’ll thank your lucky stars when you have a straightforward answer to Ragnaros or the random giants; since we’re running Ragnaros ourselves, it really helps to have an answer, since Faceless Manipulator is a real card as well.  Since everyone seems to be playing the Ancient Watcher deck or the Giants control deck, The Black Knight is probably at its peak in terms of playability right now.  These two cards are easy inclusions for me.

Chillwind Yeti is good right now simply because of how widely played Druids are.  With our chief removal spell being Swipe and Druid of the Claw being one of our chief ways of getting ahead in the midgame, anything with more than four toughness is going to be tough to get rid of.  That’s why you see the Warlock aggro decks running Chillwind Yeti now too.  I cut back to one due to a recent upswing in aggressive strategies I’ve been seeing, but I am fully prepared to bump it back up to two when the matchups dictate it.  Yeti isn’t flashy; it’s just a blue collar, hardworking type of minion that gets the job done.

The Earthen Ring Farseers are my concession to aggro decks that doesn’t require me to play Healing Touch; from my time playing MTG, I’m predisposed to hate anything that just says “gain x life”, as the card doesn’t do anything to get you ahead on board.  While Hearthstone is a bit different (in that life total matters much more when there’s no such thing as blocking), the fact still remains that when your card simply states “gain x life”, that’s all you’re getting out of it.  You didn’t gain any card advantage and you haven’t pulled ahead on board.  You’ve simply staved off dying for a bit, which might be good enough some of the time, but having a card that is basically card disadvantage is going to hurt when you keep running into midrange and control decks.

Think about it this way: Warlocks have the most broken class ability in the game in Lifetap.  It’s extremely good… extremely.  I couldn’t believe they gave this to a class when I first started playing.  It trades life for more resources, allowing Warlocks to always have fuel to press their advantage.  This is why a card like Healing Touch is so bad in my opinion: it’s the polar opposite of the most broken ability in the game.  You lose card advantage for a gain in life.

How to Play Keeper of the Grove

Now, about that Keeper of the Grove; I think this might be the most skill-intensive, skill-challenging card in the entire deck.  I’ve seen so many people misuse this card against me when I’m playing Druid and it ultimately causes a loss on their end.  Basically, a good rule of thumb is, if you’re using the “deal two damage” ability against anything other than aggro, there’s a 90% chance you’re doing it wrong.  It might be higher than that actually.  Unless you’re finishing off a Ragnaros with that two damage or dealing the final two points of damage to your opponent, Keeper of the Grove is so much better than just two damage.

It’s your only silence in the deck and, against other midrange/control decks, you can use that to basically “kill” a Baine Bloodhoof by silencing Cairne; we basically traded the ability to do two damage with the ability to kill a 4/5.  Even if we’re playing aggressively, silencing a Druid of the Claw is much more productive than dealing two random damage (unless, of course, you’re using that two damage to finish off the druid, but even that seems suboptimal without even knowing the circumstances).  I always view my Keepers as my “ace up my sleeve”, ready to undo all the hard work my opponent has put into making their Twilight Drake big and ridiculous or making their Molten Giant a 9/9 Taunt.

I’ve seen people play Keeper when they have mana they wouldn’t otherwise have a use for, dealing two damage to me.  I can’t emphasize enough how wrong this is!  Shapeshift, attack for one, and show some patience.  The midrange/control matchups are a marathon, not a sprint, and having more resources is the measurement by which the race is won.  Don’t think you have to maximize your mana usage every turn; if it results in suboptimal plays, just let the mana go.  Save your keepers, and they’ll save you.  I promise.

(Of course, if you’re playing against aggro, use them early and often to kill off minions.)

Beating Druid Midrange

If you want to beat the druid deck, I’d say to go as far to the control end of the spectrum as possible.  Druids can sometimes beat the Warlock Giant deck and the Warrior Control deck, but they have a really hard time doing so repeatedly.  Also, of all the Legendaries, Ysera is absolutely the best card against Druids, provided you’re still in the game when you play it (meaning they’re not going to just win the next turn); this is a big reason why I’ve had trouble against the Warrior control decks.

If you’re running Druid Midrange but have a different list, post it in the comments.  Let me know why you picked what you picked and what type of metagame you’re expecting to fight.  Different metagames exist at different levels, so if you’re facing a ton of aggro and are playing Healing Touch, post it and let me know.  I like being able to keep up with the metagames of different ranks.

Shoc

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