by OtakuMZ - 8 years ago     show comments

Sponsors – GamersGearEU | Twitter – @Fade2Karma | Facebook – Fade2Karma | Twitch – Fade2Karma | http://www.fade2karma.com/

Written by @F2K_Wirer

Introduction

After the launch of WotOG my friend Crumblecaker gave me a very interesting deck list, that looked like a lot of fun. It was a Miracle Druid with Yogg-Saron and Malygos as finishers. After toying a bit around with the deck I quickly realized it has a lot of potential. So I started to work on refining the list. The initial build, that Crumblecaker gave me, had only single Nourish but double Gadgetzan Auctioneer. I felt like on the one hand the Auctioneers were too slow, and on the other you don’t want to cycle your damage spells. You would rather save them to be empowered by Malygos. Therefore, I added a second Nourish for card draw, which made a lot of sense. Atop, the synergy with Fandral is crazy. Mire Keeper as a 4th 4-drop ws amended to improve the curve of the deck.
After I made those changes, I had a lot of success on ladder with the deck, which prompted me to bring the deck to the EU spring prelims. More recently I finished rank 21 legend on NA ladder. Let’s take a more in-depth look at the deck.

Card Discussions

2x Innervate: Staple
2x Moonfire: Against aggro: enables early game tempo; against control: finishing burst in conjunction with Malygos.
2x Living Roots: Against aggro: it contests the board early game or serves as cheap removal; against control: finisher burst with Malygos
2x Raven Idol: Adds value and flexibility to your deck. Turn 1 you can dig for an Innervate or a Wild Growth. In later stages of the game it’s like a tracking: discover a solution to your current problem. Against control decks you can find another Moonfire or Living Roots for more Malygos burst.
2x Wild Growth: Staple
2x Wrath: Staple
2x Feral Rage: Healing spell, that isn’t a dead card in control matchups. A lot of 4 HP 3-drops in the meta make this a reasonable early game removal option.
1x Mulch: One hard removal is necessary in the current meta. Mulch is the best option for druid right now.
1x Fandral Steghelm: This might just be the strongest card of the deck. If it stays unanswered for 1 turn you usually win the game.
1x Mire Keeper: A 4th 4-drop is necessary, so that you can consistently curve into a 4-drop after you played Wild Growth on turn 2. Often times you play this with the token option to contest the board or build pressure.
2x Swipe: Staple
2x Violet Teacher: A big Violet Teacher turn often times wins you the game against a lot of decks that rely on board control. The tokens help you keep the board clear together with your spells.
2x Azure Drake: Cycle and +1 Spell Damage are great for this deck. Reasonable midgame threat, since your opponent needs to be afraid of Spell Damage
2x Druid of the Claw: Adds some survivability to the deck. The Charge mode allows you to trade or pressure your opponent.
2x Nourish: Helps us not to run out of steam or find our combo pieces. In rare situations you use this to ramp up.
1x Emperor Thaurissan: Against aggro and midrange: gain tempo; against control: try to discount either Malygos or Living roots, to burst your opponent in 1 turn.

1x Malygos: Prime win condition against control decks.
Malygos + Moonfire = 6 damage
Malygos + 2x Moonfire = 12 damage
Malygos + 2x Moonfire + Living Roots = 19 damage
Malygos + 2x Moonfire + 2x Living Roots = 26 damage
Some decks don’t have a way to efficiently remove Malygos, so you can just ramp him out and go off on the following turn.

1x Yogg-Saron Hope’s End: This card is not a win condition (most of the times) in itself. Usually, you play him when you are behind on board. With a dozen of spells played beforehand, he mostl of the times clears the board and generates some value. He makes up for playing low value cards such as Moonfire in more tempo oriented matchups by ‘cycling’ them. Crazy stuff happens when Malygos sticks a turn on the board and you slam Yogg on the table. Against control decks, you usually don’t want to play him with too many spells, because fatigue or overdrawing might be an issue.

Mulligan

Always mulligan for Wild Growth and Innervate. Fandral is a keep as well, just because combined with an Innervate he can single handedly win you a game. In General, you keep a 4-drop with an Innervate and a Wild Growth. Raven Idol is an ok turn 1 play, but I wouldn’t advise to keep it in your mulligan.
Against aggro decks, keep Living Roots and Wrath for early game removal.
In extremely slow control matchups, you can consider keeping a Nourish.

Matchup Notes

• Ramp Druid/Token Druid (even matchup): Mostly, this matchup comes down to which Druid ramps up faster. Try to get on the board as early as possible. Your main win condition in this matchup is board control, so feel free to use your spells for removal.
• Aggro/Beast Druid (even matchup): Try to keep board control, without it they can’t beat you, since they only have limited burst from hand.
• C’Thun Druid (bad matchup): Their early game pressure and late game big drops + burst make this matchup an uphill battle. Try to win with an early innervate turn. You need to push enough minion damage to bring them into burst range.
• Freeze Mage (favourable matchup): +16hp with double Feral Rage combined with the constant pressure that you can apply on the Mage, make this a very easy matchup for you. They can’t answer tempo Malygos.
• Tempo Mage (even matchup): If you can answer their early game pressure you are in a good spot. Keep removal for Mana Wyrm (Wrath), Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Living Roots) and Flamewaker (Feral Rage or Swipe).
• N’zoth Paladin (favourable matchup): They are slow enough to give you all the time you need to gather your Malygos burst combo and OTK them.
• Aggro Warrior (favourable matchup): As soon as you have board control, they can’t beat you anymore. Your hero power and Feral Rage help you get out of burst range.
• Patron Warrior (favourable matchup): Even though the deck doesn’t have an efficient answer to a patron board (except Yogg most of the times). You usually can clear a first wave with your spells. After that, they usually are out of steam and you win from there.
• Tempo/Dragon Warrior (slightly favourable matchup): This matchup you need to win with your minions. Often times they need to waste their executes on midrange creatures, so you can play tempo Malygos as soon as they used both.
• Control/C’Thun Warrior (favourable matchup): The key strategy in this matchup is to overwhelm them with your minions. Therefore it is advisable to always Raven Idol for a threat in this matchup.
• Priest (favourable matchup): Your win condition is Malygos lethal, that you can easily set up with your 4 attack creatures. Just don’t overextend into board clears.
• Miracle Rogue (even matchup): Pressure them as early as possible. They only have limited to no heal in their deck, so you can bring them in Malygos burst range. Keep in mind that a turn 6 concealed Gadgetzan is very hard to beat.
• Zoo (even matchup): There are 2 key strategies in this matchup: either go for an early Violet Teacher play to seize board control or try to ramp up as fast as possible into Yogg-Saron.
• Renolock (favourable matchup): Your main win condition in this matchup is Malygos OTK, which is very easy to do because they sit around 20ish HP most of the time.
• Midrange Hunter (slightly favourable matchup): Try to be on the board as fast as possible. Hunter is extremly bad at playing from behind.
• Aggro Shaman (slightly favourable matchup): Once again board control is the name of the game. They shouldn’t have enough damage without minions on the board, because you can heal out of Doomhammer Rockbiter range with Feral Rage.
• Midrange Shaman (favourable matchup): This matchup plays out the same as versus Aggro Shaman, except that they don’t have the burst from hand, to finish you off, if they managed to do some early game damage. Spell damage Swipe is very potent in this matchup.

Tech Choices

The deck doesn’t have a lot of room for teching. If you want to improve your aggro matchups, you can cut an Azure Drake for a Blood Mage Thalnos. If you want to improve your control matchups you can cut a Feral Rage for an extra Mire Keeper or an additional late game threat such as Ragnaros or Chromaggus. I haven’t been the biggest fan of teching a Harrison Jones in this deck, but if you encounter a lot of aggro Warriors/Shamans you can consider adding him.

Final Thoughts

If you want to play a fun and effective deck, this might be the deck for you. The amount of room for decision making this deck provides makes it sometimes hard to Pilot. This, in my opinion, is a good thing in Hearthstone. One of the best feelings in the game is, if a choice you made turns out to be correct. Playing this deck, you will encounter plenty of those situations and because of that, winning feels very rewarding.
If you have any questions regarding the deck, feel free to send me a message on twitter (@F2K_wiRer).
And remember, every time you are about to play Yogg, you have to pray to him.