Tavern Takeover: A Look at StrifeCro’s Decks

by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Our series about Tavern Takeover #2 ends today. In the last week we’ve covered the top 4 players and their decks with Alchemixt at #4, KitKatz at #3, and Gnimsh at #2. Today we finish it out with the winner of it all, StrifeCro. StrifeCro took home $1,500 and also a guaranteed spot in the BlizzCon World Championship qualifier. This wasn’t StrifeCro’s first major win as he took home $8,000 back in March in the SeatStory Cup.

StrifeCro has been a player who is consistently near or at the top of the ladder rankings every season since early beta. In this tournament he brought in the Shaman Midrange deck that KitKatz also played, a Druid Ramp deck which he is known for, and of course it wouldn’t complete the top 3 without ANOTHER Miracle Rogue deck.

Let’s take a look at these decks with a small description in how they are played.

Midrange Shaman

This is the same deck that KitKatz played and we also covered it this week in our Budget Deck of the Week. If you want to read more about how this deck plays, then I would recommend checking it out. I think this deck just shows that Hearthstone isn’t as “Pay to Win” as several people seem to think.

StrifeCro Midrange Shaman
Class: Shaman

Cards sorted by Low Cost

Shaman (18)

• Earth Shock x2
• Lightning Bolt x2
• Rockbiter Weapon x2
• Flametongue Totem x2
• Feral Spirit x2
• Hex x2
• Lightning Storm
• Unbound Elemental x2
• Doomhammer
• Fire Elemental x2

Neutral (12)

• Argent Squire x2
• Harvest Golem x2
• Chillwind Yeti x2
• Defender of Argus x2
• Azure Drake x2
• Argent Commander x2

Druid Ramp

StrifeCro loves the Druid so him playing some form of a Druid deck comes as no surprise. He was the only top 4 player to play druid and the variant he chose was the Ramp Druid. The purpose of this deck is to get ahead in the mana crystal race and put out bigger creatures early on that your opponent has a hard time dealing with. It has great card draw with Ancient of Lore and Wrath and has potential for card draw late game if you don’t get your Wild Growth’s early on. One of the better plays you can do with this deck is get an early Druid of the Claw with innervate or even an early Ancient of Lore. The idea is to pump out big dudes early on, get card draw advantage, and then finish them off with the Force of Nature/Savage Roar combo.

This is a pretty potent version of the Druid Ramp deck and you could see some good results with it currently in ladder.

StrifeCro Druid Ramp
Class: Druid

Cards sorted by Low Cost

Druid (19)

• Innervate x2
• Wild Growth x2
• Wrath x2
• Savage Roar x2
• Swipe x2
• Keeper of the Grove x2
• Druid of the Claw x2
• Force of Nature x2
• Ancient of Lore x2
• Cenarius

Neutral (11)

• Big Game Hunter
• Harvest Golem x2
• Chillwind Yeti x2
• Azure Drake x2
• Argent Commander x2
• Cairne Bloodhoof
• The Black Knight

Miracle Rogue

StriceCro played the most different Miracle Rogue as anyone else. He chose to drop 1 Cold Blood which many people feel are essential to the deck. Also unlike the other top 3 he played just one Fan of Knives instead of 2. He instead decided to keep the usually normal 2 Azure Drakes, but the most interesting move with this deck is the lone Gnomish Inventor. Is the 4 casting cast 2/4 that draws you a card really more powerful than a 2nd Cold Blood? StrifeCro seems to think so and it’s hard to argue with the results.

StrifeCro Miracle Rogue
Class: Rogue

Cards sorted by Low Cost

Rogue (21)

• Backstab x2
• Preparation x2
• Shadowstep x2
• Cold Blood
• Conceal
• Deadly Poison x2
• Blade Flurry
• Eviscerate x2
• Sap x2
• Shiv x2
• Fan of Knives
• Edwin VanCleef
• SI:7 Agent x2

Neutral (9)

• Bloodmage Thalnos
• Earthen Ring Farseer x2
• Gnomish Inventor
• Leeroy Jenkins
• Azure Drake x2
• Gadgetzan Auctioneer x2