Tavern Takeover: A Look at Gnimsh’s Decks
by JR Cook - 10 years ago show comments
Our series about Tavern Takeover #2 continues this week. We’re taking a look at the top 4 players from the tournament that PVP-Live put on this week and at the deck lists they chose to play. We talked about Team Curse’s Alchemixt and his 4th place finish with aggro heavy decks. Yesterday we talked about Team Curse’s KitKatz and his widely popular Warrior Control deck that helped him take 3rd place.
Today we’re going to go over long time reader of BlizzPro, Gnimsh, and his 2nd place finish. Gnimsh hails from Team Dogehouse and this isn’t his first time in the finals and certainly won’t be his last. He pulled in 2nd place in the TakeTV Hearthstone Invitational and then again during Seatstory Cup. His big finish was when he won it all at the IEM Season VIII World Championship. This time $1,500 was on the line against StrifeCro and an automatic bid into the Battle.net qualifiers. However, he came up short and took 2nd place in this tournament as well.
Gnimsh really didn’t innovate much with the decks he played like we have seen with a couple other players. Most players seemed to have 2 decks that you normally see in ranked ladder in the meta and then a 3rd deck that is a little more experimental. Gnimsh went the route of just aiming straight for the meta with his decks. Let’s see what he played.
Handlock
Good old Handlock. If you’ve played any amount of ranked ladder in the last couple months you will have seen this deck. The worst thing about Handlock is when it’s played, you don’t know if it’s going to be Aggro (Zoo) or Handlock so it becomes a little difficult to mulligan to the situation. Since this is a tournament setting if you win with this deck once it might be a little more tougher the 2nd go around because your opponent will be better ready for it.
With that said, this deck is all about drawing cards early game and getting a Twilight Drake and/or Mountain Giant out early on. Once you do that in late game you can top it with a couple Molten Giants. With other cards that give taunt such as Sunfury Protector and Argus Defender this deck is very tough to beat once it gets going. There is a good reason it’s been in the meta for as long as it has and a good reason why Gnimsh played it in the tournament.
Gnimsh Handlock
Class: Warlock
Cards sorted by Low Cost
Neutral (22)
- Ancient Watcher x2
- Ironbeak Owl x2
- Sunfury Protector x2
- Big Game Hunter
- Earthen Ring Farseer x2
- Defender of Argus x2
- Leeroy Jenkins
- Twilight Drake x2
- Faceless Manipulator
- Sunwalker x2
- Sylvanas Windrunner
- Mountain Giant x2
- Molten Giant x2
Warlock (8)
Midrange Hunter
Here’s a deck you don’t see in the meta much anymore since the nerf of Unleash the Hounds. Don’t let that fool you though as this deck is still pretty potent. It’s not your typical aggro style deck and instead the first several turns is basically you just getting small board presence or putting your opponent’s health down with your hero power. Where the true gem of this deck lies is with creatures like Tundra Rhino or Houndmaster to buff up your beasts or give them charge. The MVP of the deck is Savannah Highmane to lay the beat down to your opponents and make it tough to kill, and if they do, you get two free 2/2 creatures. The Starving Buzzard/Scavenging Hyena/Unleash the Hounds combo is nothing to scoff at either.
I think the most interesting part of this deck is the fact that it has no traps what so ever. It doesn’t need it.
Gnimsh Midrange Hunter
Class: Hunter
Cards sorted by Low Cost
Hunter (23)
- Hunter’s Mark x2
- Flare
- Tracking x2
- Timber Wolf x2
- Scavenging Hyena x2
- Starving Buzzard x2
- Animal Companion x2
- Deadly Shot
- Kill Command x2
- Unleash the Hounds x2
- Houndmaster x2
- Tundra Rhino
- Savannah Highmane x2
Neutral (7)
Miracle Rogue
The top 3 players were all playing Miracle Rogue in some form or another. This is just another small variation of it. Once again we see the 2 Fan of Knives variant instead of 1 which removes the Azure Drake. The other variant is adding the Coldlight Oracle in place of an Earthen Ring Farseer. I’ve been told having the Coldlight Oracle in this deck really helps and evidently Gnimsh seems to think the same way.
Other than that, this is your standard Miracle Rogue. Like we said yesterday in the KitKatz article, if you enjoy playing Solitaire, then this deck is for you.
Gnimsh Miracles Happen
Class: Rogue
Cards sorted by Low Cost
Rogue (23)
- Backstab x2
- Preparation x2
- Shadowstep x2
- Cold Blood x2
- Conceal
- Deadly Poison x2
- Blade Flurry
- Eviscerate x2
- Sap x2
- Shiv x2
- Fan of Knives x2
- Edwin VanCleef
- SI:7 Agent x2
Neutral (7)
- Bloodmage Thalnos
- Coldlight Oracle
- Earthen Ring Farseer
- Leeroy Jenkins
- Azure Drake
- Gadgetzan Auctioneer x2
