Bonus Deck: Malygos Warlock
by JR Cook - 9 years ago show comments
Editors Note: I wrote a variation of this deck a month ago which can be found here.
With Blackrock Mountain and Emperor Thaurissan, Combo based decks got a huge boost. Grim Patron decks have dominated ladder for the past month, but a new contender is rising to dethrone our favorite multiplying Dark Iron Dwarves. Dragon Warlock has proven to be a very powerful deck, it boasts strong match-ups against Warrior, Druid, Handlock, and Freeze Mage, making it a strong choice in both ladder and tournaments. If you watched Dreamhack Summer, you probably saw quite a few matches featuring it.
Deck List
Class: Warlock
Warlock (11)
- Mortal Coil x2
- Soulfire
- Darkbomb x2
- Imp Gang Boss x2
- Hellfire x2
- Imp-losion x2
Neutral (19)
- Abusive Sergeant
- Zombie Chow
- Ironbeak Owl x2
- Big Game Hunter x2
- Defender of Argus
- Twilight Drake x2
- Antique Healbot x2
- Azure Drake x2
- Blackwing Corruptor x2
- Sludge Belcher x2
- Emperor Thaurissan
- Malygos
Tips and Strategy
You have double Big Game Hunter, which means that you’ll have plenty of opportunities to use Abusive Sergeant to buff an enemy minion into BGH range. Sometimes playing BGH’s for tempo will be the right play, and you need to identify such situations according to the match-up.
This deck has a lot of tools that allow it to keep a strong handle on the board during the mid game, keep control and if possible start building towards your combo. Malygos + Darkbomb x 2 + Soulfire, will surprise your opponent with 25 direct points of damage, which will often seal the game. The combo is 14 mana, but a single Emperor Thaurissan turn will bring it down to a manageable 10 mana volley. Playing Emperor without having combo pieces in hand can easily lose you the game, so be mindful of it.
If you are certain that your opponent won’t have an answer for Malygos, dropping him into the board might set up lethal for the next turn. Having Malygos sitting on the battlefield allows you to add Hellfire to your combo for some extra reach; just be careful about it, you don’t want to kill yourself with those 8 points of self-damage. Malygos + Mortal Coil can also be an effective tool to take over the board, as is Azure Drake + Implosion. Do not underestimate the power of spell damage.
While Generally you don’t want to break up your combo, sometimes you’ll need to spare a Dark Bomb to clear an important threat. Knowing when to do away with your combo pieces is key to find great success with this deck, so you better start practicing.
As for the Mulligan, Zombie Chow and Imp Gang Boss are important early cards in every match-up. The rest of your draw will depend on what your opponent is playing, but keep a Mortal Coil against Hunters and Twilight Drake against slower decks.
Deck Variations
There’s a lot of different versions of Malygos Warlock going around, you could try one of these.
- -1 Abusive Sergeant, -1 Big Game Hunter, +1 Zombie Chow, +1 Soulfire
- -1 Belcher, +1 Siphon Soul
- -1 Belcher, +1 Loatheb
- -1 Belcher, +1 Bane of Doom
- -1 Hellfire, +1 Shadowflame
- -1 Hellfire, +1 Earthen Ring Farseer
Here’s a VOD of Dog using a variant of this deck against Chakki in Dreamhack Summer 2015.
Strifecro also has a series of videos featuring this deck: