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Theorycrafting KnC

by - 6 years ago

‘Twas the night before Kobolds, and all through my office, I was not doing work, but thinking of decklists. I’m a brewer at heart (hence, the screen name), so I love this time in the expansion cycle when we get to let our minds run wild before we’re brought down by the realities of… reality.

As with any meta rotation, the top decks immediately after launch tend to be established decks that have just gotten a couple new toys to add to their proven arsenal. Accordingly, I predict the top decks upon launch to include Priest (Razakus, Dragon, and BIG), Tempo Rogue, Zoolock, and all sorts of Druid. However, those decks are not particularly exciting to theorycraft, because not very much new stuff has been added to them. So, if you want to win some games quickly and prey on people trying out suboptimal decks, you might try one of those. But if you want to brew with me, you might try something like what I’m talking about below.

[wcp_deck id=”23660″]

“BIG” Hunter/Spells Hunter

The big thing pushed in Hunter this set is–wait for it–Control Hunter. Luckily, this time it looks like it might have some teeth. Instead of just printing sub-optimal removal options, they have printed cards that benefit from one running fewer minions/more spells in one’s deck. I see this pushing two similar, but distinct, archetypes: “BIG Hunter” (above) and “Spell Hunter.” Big Hunter would work similarly to Big Priest in that it pairs down the minions to only the biggest impact ones and then plays means to cheat them out. Spell Hunter would take it one step further and pair the deck down to 2 (Barnes +Y’Shaarj), 1 (Yogg), or 0 minions, to take advantage of cards like To My Side! (the meme of the set that might turn out better than initial impressions) and/or to maximize the minions you do use. This type of deck has not seen significant play for a long time, so it’ll be interesting to see if KnC can help it break back into the meta.


[wcp_deck id=”23658″]

Togwaggle Fatigue aka “You No Take Deck Back”

This deck is inspired by Well Met!’s own RayC, who discussed the possibility of this soft-lock during the show’s review of the card. The deck works as so: you use the strong Battle Rage + Commanding Shout engine to quickly cycle through your deck until you find your Togwaggle, Geist, and one of the Explore Un’Goros. You have lots of good stall cards to help you get there as well. At 10 mana, you then cast Togwaggle and immediately cast Explore Ungoro. That leaves your opponent with two choices: 1) play with the deck you gave them, which will have significantly fewer cards in it than the one they gave you AND will have no win condition left in it; or 2) pay the ransom and get back a deck filled with the one-mana “Choose Your Path” created by Explore Un’Goro. If they choose the first option, you can sit back and watch them die slowly while you armor up and Explore Un’Goro to try to speed up the process. If they choose the second option, you play Geist, destroy their entire deck, and watch them die faster! I’m pretty sure this is the most evil deck that’s ever existed in Hearthstone, so I kind of hope it’s bad, but with the generally slower metagame, it seems like it might have a legitimate chance.


[wcp_deck id=”23659″]

Malygos/Miracle Rogue

Rogue might be the most exciting class in KnC. It was already in a good spot and it got some really good tools to add to that. I think Sonya and Minstrel will both be high-impact cards in the right decks. Some are even theorizing that Sonya and Zola, the Gorgon are enough to bring Quest Rogue back. As if that weren’t enough, Rogue got a whole new type of card for the class, secrets! As it turns out, those secrets seem really good for the types of Rogue decks that want to stall the game out and win all in one big burst. Cheat Death makes it a lot easier to keep Gadgetzan turns going and Evasion usually buys you a couple turns throughout the game so you can set up your burst kills. The version I’ve theorycrafted here uses Malygos, but I could also see “miracle” style decks (using Questing Adventurers and Arcane Giants) doing very well with these new tools as well. The question is whether these decks can survive on the ladder, which has traditionally been very aggro-heavy, especially in light of the big buffs Tempo Rogue and Zoolock appear to be getting.


Quest Mage

One deck I’m not sure about is Quest Mage. You can now go OTK without completing the quest, like so:

To explain: Throughout the game, use Simulacrum to copy Apprentice twice, then play Leyline Manipulator to make them cost 0. On your combo turn, play Antonidas (7 mana), then two free Apprentices (playing Uncle Tony first plays around Snipe or Explosive Runes), then Molten Reflection (reduced to 2), then the second Molten Reflection (reduced to 1), and then you have infinite Fireballs on one turn, for 10 mana.

Correction: You only need one Molten Reflection because you (presumably) still have the original Sorcerer’s Apprentice in your hand. So on your finisher turn you go: Antonidas (7 mana), original Apprentice (2 mana), two free Apprentices (0 mana), Molten Reflection (reduced to 1 mana). That means the Quest and non-Quest versions have the same amount of “required” pieces, and makes the versions more easily combine-able.

The combo still takes two turns, and actually requires one more dedicated combo piece, but it lets you cut the “add a random spell to your hand” cards including, of course, the quest. That means more room for dedicated draw and control cards. Wild actually already has a Quest-less Quest Mage deck, using Emperor Thaurissen as the setup card, and the deck works pretty well. But Primordial Glyph is still good and probably makes the cut in Standard regardless, so I’m not sure how much space you actually save. Maybe this gets added to the deck as just a backup, but then you actually lose  deck space because you need cards to make both plans work. Maybe the deck gets completely reworked from a stall-combo deck into a midrange-combo deck with a more dedicated elemental package, but that seems worse than either dedicated Quest or dedicate Elemental decks.

If you’re interested in Quest Mage, and want to look to an authority for guidance, I’d suggest you take a look at what Disguised Toast ends up playing because he has developed into the premier Quest Mage player.


[wcp_deck id=”23677″]

[Wild!] Oil Rogue 

In Kingsbane we finally have the card that we were promised when Blade Flurry was nerfed: a card that makes Rogue’s buffs really good. For those who don’t remember, Oil Rogue was essentially a midrangey Miracle-style Rogue deck that abused Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil and sometimes Blade Flurry with it to deal huge bursts of damage out of nowhere. Now that Blade Flurry has been nerfed to no longer deal damage to face (and cost more), I don’t think it has a space in the deck anymore, but the deck still has huge burst potential. Also, as long as you get your buffs on Kingsbane, you have huge amounts of damage over the course of the game. Shinyfinder helps you tutor out your Kinsbane and the rest of the deck is just solid tempo cards. I could see this deck making a big comeback once the set drops.


Nicholas Weiss

Is a lawyer by day and a cardslinger by night. He's decent at both. He's been playing Hearthstone since open beta and writing about it for a few years now.


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