by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

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[DKMR]Varranis here to share our thoughts on “beating down” the current Meta.  Let’s make something clear: I love control decks. Warrior is one of my favorite classes, and it has nothing to do with Arcanite Reaper. I enjoy few things in Hearthstone more than drawing two cards with Ancient of Lore. There are usually a few giants involved when I play Warlock. That said, I must admit it can be cathartic to embrace the beatdown every now and then. With Miracle Rogue and Handlock at the top of the meta and Thrall jockeying for his chance to shine, beatdown is in a pretty good place. This week we’re going to walk you through a couple beatdown decks and why they’re good in the current meta.

Hunter Aggro Redux

What’s more beatdown than some good ‘ole Hunter Aggro? Hunter fell off the map when Unleash the Hounds felt the wrath of the nerf-hammer. While Hunter Midrange was already being suppressed by the emergence of Miracle Rogue, Hunter Aggro had excellent match-ups against a lot of the meta standouts. Unleash the Hounds wasn’t even a critical factor in its favorable Miracle Rogue and Handlock match-ups. So why don’t we bring it back?

This is the list I used to achieve Legend rank this season. It eschews some of the burst potential of its predecessor for a slightly more minion centric attack. Argent Squire gives you another turn 1 play. Her Divine Shield also allows you to take advantage of Hunter’s Mark without losing card advantage. Loot Hoarder provides additional consistency while doubling as a threat. Even if the greedy gnome only gets in one hit, he’s providing significant value to a Hunter who merely wants to deal damage and draw more ways to do so. With less emphasis on Unleash the Hounds, it’s often correct to use Starving Buzzard as another Loot Hoarder next to Animal Companion or merely to enable Kill Command.

Faerie Dragon was the key piece that brought the deck together. Miracle Rogue only has three effective ways to remove Faerie Dragon: SI:7 Agent, Deadly Poison, and sticking a minion. If the Rogue player does not have Coin for their SI:7 Agent, the Agent often comes down after Faerie Dragon has done considerable damage. Deadly Poison is the Rogue’s most consistent answer, but then the dragon is still guaranteed three damage. Miracle Rogue is relatively light on minions. If they play an Earthen Ring Farseer against your Faerie Dragon, it is often right to use Eaglehorn Bow or Kill Command to remove the farseer and ensure your dragon a few more turns of fabulous carnage.

Unleash the Hounds is one of your weaker cards, but we feal it is necessary for the Zoo and Shaman match-ups that are popular on the ladder. In fact, Unleash the Hounds and Explosive Trap keep your Zoo match-up favorable. Even at 5 mana, Starving Buzzard into Unleash the Hounds is still as strong as it ever was against Zoo and Shaman.

Unleash the Hounds really isn’t why you want to play this deck. Hunter has one of the more favorable match-ups against Miracle Rogue and Handlock. Steady Shot and Eaglehorn Bow allow you to apply constant pressure and give you significant reach. The minions in this deck trade very well against Rogue’s removal, either being untargetable, fast, resilient, or providing some benefit on death. Having early minions against Handlock is also very strong since Handlock usually spends the first few turns using Life Tap. An early minion is often difficult for them to answer and can allow you to set up a Kill Command finish after they put up a wall of Molten Giants.

A couple cards to consider if you want to fiddle with this deck are Timber Wolf and Freezing Trap. Even a single Timber Wolf vastly increases the deck’s burst potential with Unleash the Hounds and Leeroy Jenkins. Timber Wolf is also another beast to enable five damage Kill Commands. Unfortunately, the mana increase on Unleash the Hounds directly affects Timber Wolf’s efficacy. The burst combos are now significantly more difficult to pull off on critical turns. We use Timber Wolf over Argent Squire for several games after making Legend. Argent Squire was always a strong card, whereas Timber Wolf varied from being unplayable to amazing. We found that we prefer the consistency of Argent Squire.

With the emphasis on minions in this deck, Freezing Trap is potentially a powerful inclusion. You can play it over Misdirection or cut an Unleash the Hounds or Starving Buzzard for a fourth trap. Freezing Trap makes your Faerie Dragons that much more difficult to remove. With many of the popular decks running few minions, Freezing Trap is also more likely to bounce an especially powerful or crucial minion such as a giant or Auctioneer (or even an Auctioneer with Cold Blood).

DKMR Paladin Aggro

Well met! Our particular brew of hyper aggressive Paladin Aggro has finally seen new light in the current meta. This blast from the past plays the fastest and hardest hitting neutral minions alongside damage dealing power houses like Blessing of Might and Truesilver Champion. The deck quickly burns tauntless foes low before reloading with Divine Favor. Divine Favor is easily the most powerful card in the deck, and it’s rare that you’ll lose to a control opponent if you draw Divine Favor. In fact, Divine Favor has never been better. Handlock constantly holds a grip of eight or more cards and Miracle Rogue thrives off one of the best card draw engines in the game. The time is ripe for Paladin to unleash Divine Favor upon unsuspecting heroes.

Unfortunately the deck’s reliance on Divine Favor is one of its greatest weaknesses. It can quickly run out of gas without drawing Divine Favor or against aggressive strategies which also tend to empty their hands. Fortunately, hyper aggressive strategies are already powerful against the meta’s biggest players. Divine Favor puts this deck over the top against Miracle Rogue, Handlock, and to a lesser extent, Shaman.

The marked difference between DKMR Paladin Aggro and other variations of the deck is the use of Ironbeak Owl over more traditional cards such as Equality and Consecration. While the class cards are powerful, they do not progress your board and do not deal with taunts immediately the way Ironbeak Owl does. Ironbeak Owl allows for a seamless progression of your aggressive strategy.

The key reason to play this deck over other aggressive strategies is that it’s consistently faster. No other class has cards that hit as hard as Blessing of Might and Truesilver Champion. Casting Blessing of Might on a minion and then protecting it with a Divine Shield or Noble Sacrifice is one of the deck’s strongest openings and one that’s difficult for most decks to beat. While most of the deck’s minions are frail, Argent Protector and Noble Sacrifice give your mighty charge minions a chance for a second hit. King Mukla is not only one of your most powerful and resilient minions, but also synergizes with Divine Favor by turning the bananas into two cards for yourself! Once again, Faerie Dragon finds his place in the deck due to his strength against Miracle Rogue.

This glass canon is excellent for tearing through the higher ranks and serves as a perfect counter to Handlock and Miracle Rogue in tournament play. A single copy of Blessing of Kings is worth considering if you want to add a little extra oomph to the deck. Acidic Swamp Ooze is also worth considering to melt Fiery War Axes and Assassin Blades.

Conclusion

There’s no better time to try out a good Aggro deck than now. And there’s a ton of great decks out there to try! Zoo, Hunter, Paladin, even DKMR Angry Shaman. It’s time to get aggressive on the ladder. Rogue and Warlock better watch out.

[DKMR]Varranis streams every Sunday from 10 AM – 4 PM EST at http://www.twitch.tv/varranis. You can find all of DKMR’s streamers on their website with times and the days they stream!

Written by [DKMR]Varranis
Discussions about this topic brought to you by Team [DKMR]

Decks to Watch out for

Several players have been running a trap heavy build of Hunter to counter Miracle Rogue. It even runs Snipe to pick off Auctioneer before he can cause trouble! Druid Tokens has been all over the ladder as of late. It can outrace Miracle Rogue and suffers from few poor match-ups. Strifecro played this interesting build of Shaman in the Deck Wars tournament this past weekend. It packs more minions than your typical Shaman and tries to out tempo its opponents. Tidesoftime won the same event with a particularly spicy brew of Warrior Control in which Leeroy Jenkins and Faceless Manipulator make an appearance for extreme burst potential.