by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Every Friday a legendary member from team DKMR breaks down Don’t Kick My Robot’s “Deck of the Week” . These decks are seeing a lot of play either in constructed ladder or tournaments. Team DKMR explains the deck lists and how to play them. Make sure you check out Don’t Kick My Robot if you want to become a better player or check out their premium services if you would like them to do a 1 on 1 coaching session with you to help you better your game. View past Deck Lists of the Week.

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[DKMR]Kisstafer here bringing you the deck of the week! Warrior Control has been falling out of the meta recently due to it’s weakness to Miracle Rogue and Midrange combo Druid. Part of the reason Warrior is weak to these decks is because traditional warrior control decks get off to a slow start and are sitting ducks for the high burst damage lategame combos. Warrior can absorb damage with its hero power and cards like Shield Block to a point, but a lot of the time these decks simply put out too much consistent damage for reactive warrior decks to keep their life totals high enough to survive the end game burst combos. This new warrior deck we’ve made has more active elements like Harvest Golem, Argent Commander and Dark Iron Dwarf that can put a lot of pressure on the board. By having minions on the board soaking up damage spells, it allows the Warrior to sustain high life totals easier. As a result of protecting it’s HP better, this Warrior deck is often able to play its late-game threats safely without fear of dying. The best defense is a powerful offense! Warrior has a lot of good matchups, this deck has an easier time vs Rogue/Druid matchups and the deck can be used on ladder to take advantage of all of the burn decks meant to counter Miracle Rogue.

The Deck

2x Execute: Part of the core removal suite, best saved for the opponents primary targets like legendary minions or giants.

2x Shield Slam: Part of the core removal suite, this card is best used in combination with Shield Block to take out mid – large sized creatures.

2x Whirlwind: Best used in combination with Acolyte of Pain or Armorsmith, this card has utility dealing 1 damage to all creatures as well as activating execute. This card shines against Aggro where 1 damage to all is extremely significant.

2x Fiery War Axe: This is one of warriors best cards, almost always a 2-for-1, the axe is what allows warrior to seize board control from almost every class in the game.

2x Armorsmith: This card is one of the best 2-drops in the game due to it’s large amount of HP. It works great in tandem with Cruel Taskmaster or Dark Iron Dwarf to become a 3-3 or a 3-4. This card doubles as one of your best tools in defeating Aggro decks due to the insane amount of lifegain possible when it hits the board.

2x Cruel Taskmaster: The one damage on this guy often comes in handy, he can take out entire minions against Aggro decks, and against Control decks he can activate Execute and Grommash Hellscream while also providing a 2-2. When you are the aggressor, buffing an armorsmith or an acolyte of pain is often a very strong move.

2x Shield Block: This card activates Shield Slam (essentially 4 mana for 5 damage), provides incredible lifegain to survive some of the higher burst combos/Aggro decks, and cycles your deck all in one package.

2x Acolyte of Pain: One of the more annoying minions for opponents to deal with as warriors have so many ways to deal damage to it and start drawing incredible amounts of cards. If they silence it, there are other threats like Cairne Bloodhoof that can get through unscathed. Using Acolyte in combination with Cruel Taskmaster early on is a very strong play that draws a lot of cards as well as providing a lot of board presence.

2x Harvest Golem: This card provides a sticky body that can be used to continue fighting for board control going into the mid game. Harvest golem works particularly well with Dark Iron Dwarf buffs, and is one of the more problematic creatures for miracle rogue to remove early on. On top of that, due to his extra life he often goes 2 or 3 for 1 against Aggro decks.

2x Dark Iron Dwarf: This is the main addition to the deck. Dark Iron Dwarf provides a solid board presence that has to be dealt with via some kind of significant damage spell (swipe/eviscerate) which usually requires a significant mana investment by your opponent for the early stage of the game, while simultaneously removing some of their late-game reach. The 1-4 armorsmith and 1-3 acolyte of pain and 2-2 Taskmaster can sometimes be small impact due to the low attack, but having dark iron dwarf in the deck helps these minions collect even more value. For example a buffed armorsmith can kill a 3-3 SI:7 agent and stay alive as a 1-1.

2x Korkron Elite: This minion is excellent for going 2-for-1 against minions with 2 attack or less, is an option to remove creatures, and adds to the deck’s ability to pressure the opponents life.

1x Arcanite Reaper: The biggest difference about this deck and other Control warrior deck’s is this one’s ability to pressure the opponents life total. With sticky minions like Harvest Golem and heavy hitters like Dark Iron Dwarf added to the deck, pushing for damage on their life becomes much more likely than in slower warrior decks. Arcanite Reaper acts as a solid removal option as well as a finisher depending on what the situation demands. One of the best ways to use Arcanite is to equip it the turn before dropping Grom or Rag so that you can guarantee being able to remove whatever they play while also spending all 8 of your mana on a large creature.

2x Azure Drake: Azure Drake is such a threatening body that he offers a lot of versatility to any deck. He is versatile because depending on who has board control Drake is either a life-gain (when you are behind on board control they have to spend mana/damage to remove him) or he is added pressure (when you are ahead on board). Azure Drake is amazing in both roles because even if they kill him you aren’t running out of cards (he replaces himself with the card draw).

2x Argent Commander: Argent Commander is positioned well in the metagame due to the popularity of 4-4’s like Azure Drake and Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Games are such a battle of HP totals in this metagame that having another damage-on-command who gives the deck even more pressure and reach is very valuable.

1x Cairne Bloodhoof: Think of Cairne as a slow burning value collector over a long period of time. He is one of the only cards in the deck that doesn’t do anything right when he’s played which means he is weak to sap, but he gives warrior inevitability in a lot of matchups which means he’s worth running. Most matchups are won through gaining board control and keeping tempo, but some matches turn into a grind-fest and those are the games where Cairne really shines.

1x Grommash Hellscream: Grommash is the deck’s primary finisher, he is very versatile because depending on the situation he can either come down as burst damage or as a 9 health removal on a stick that removes minions off the board.

1x Ragnaros The Firelord: This is the decks card that puts the opponent on a clock. He requires a large investment as you can’t guarantee him to hit what you want him to hit, but he will collect guaranteed value over a long period of time. It’s best to play Ragnaros from a high life total so that even if he completely whiffs, you’re not under threat of dying.

The Down and Dirty

The first thing you will notice is the lack of Slam, and the lack of Brawl. We found Slam to be a filler card that didn’t do particularly much other than turning on execute or combining with war axe to kill mid-size creatures. It has some utility, but we feel the metagame is far too fast for Warriors to be wasting 2 mana not developing the board in a significant way. Overall we felt like the card just wasn’t accomplishing what we wanted warrior to be able to do, we wanted high-impact cards that hit the ground running. On the other hand, the removal of Brawl came kind of organically. With the introduction of additional creatures, especially creatures like Dark Iron Dwarf that excel at making profitable trades, board control is more often in the hands of the warrior and the need for Brawl is less prevalent.

Mulligans

You want to be looking for your early drops and Fiery War Axe in most matchups to attain early board control, things like Armorsmith, Acolyte of Pain, Harvest Golem, Taskmaster, & Korkron Elite. Against Hand-Lock you would also want to keep Execute/Shield slam. One of the best plays early on is to have a Armorsmith and use a Dark Iron buff on it to take out your opponents 3 drop, or using Taskmaster on an acolyte of pain to do something similar. Arcanite reaper is clutch to keep in matchups where you can either pressure their life (Miracle Rogue) or matchups where it comes down and kills two minions (Druid). This deck doesn’t run Brawl so it’s important to mulligan for cards that will gain board control.

Game Plan

The plan for this deck is to get the sturdy creatures down early on, and wrestle board control out of the enemies hands using cards like Fiery War Axe and Dark Iron Dwarf/Cruel Taskmaster Buffs to gain tempo. After that, the way this deck wins is by using the abundance of direct damage to put a lot of pressure on the opponents life total while also removing their creatures using cards like Shield Slam and Execute. The amount of damage-from-hand this deck can put out is very high so it is often the correct play to ignore the enemies minions and just hit them in the face and keep pouring out the damage turn after turn until they die. Don’t be too aggressive though, it’s important to evaluate if you can kill them or not. Since a lot of the burst damage in Warrior takes a lot of mana, it is important to keep your eye out for two-turn-kills. For example, say they have 15 life and you have arcanite reaper and argent commander + taskmaster in your hand. You can play arcanite reaper and ignore their minions, hit them in the face, and then follow up the next turn with the argent commander/taskmaster + attacking again with the arcanite. This may seem obvious, but it’s important to not get locked into the clearing their minions every turn mind-set if you can use the damage on their face instead and give yourself a lethal.

Final Thoughts

We hope you enjoyed this deck and get a chance to play it! Keep track of this deck and how well it is doing at http://www.hearthstats.net and let us know if you like it! This is a really fun deck and should be used on the ladder and can be used in tournaments too!

Written by: [DKMR]Kisstafer

[DKMR]Kisstafer streams and can be found at http://www.twitch.tv/kisstafer.

You can find all of DKMR’s streamers on their website with times and the days they stream!

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