20 Decks to try out on day 1 of The Boomsday Project!

Dr. Boom and his army of robots will soon arrive to shake up the Hearthstone meta. With all of the cards in the set revealed, the player base has been frantically theorycrafting decks, and so have we. Usually, it’s only when games are played and decks are actually tested against an establishing meta, that strong decks can come into fruition. But in this article, we will present you with some of these brewing ideas and speculate on the future prospects of each class.

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Remember that the decks we present are completely untested, and there is no telling if they will be powerful. If you have a limited collection, we highly recommend that you DO NOT make big crafting investments on any deck. Wait at least a few days, if not a whole week, to see what strategies end up being strong and fun before making a decision.

Druid

Druid is largely tipped to be the most dominant class in The Boomsday Project, and we can see why. Flobbidinous Floop and Floop’s Glorious Gloop might be two of the most powerful cards in the set; while Biology Project is a card that we feel could be incredibly powerful in the right deck. All of the currently popular Druid archetypes from The Witchwood are strong candidates to remain present in The Boomsday Project. Token Druid could make a slight upgrade through either Landscaping or Giggling Inventor. Big and Taunt Druid may come to like Juicy Psychmelon as a tutor to their late game curve.

However, most of the spotlight is on the combo Druid decks. Malygos Druid was one of, if not the best deck in the post-patch Witchwood meta, and the featured list is likely what you’ll be seeing on day 1, with 2-3 flex spots. One idea is using Dreampetal Florist to discount one of your combo pieces to enable massive burst damage. Even without Florist, a Floop/Taldaram/BioProject/Swipe/Moonfirex2 combo can deal 36 damage. Twig is no longer a staple in the deck due to its weakness to weapon destruction.

Floop Malygos Druid

The other combo deck we’re looking at is Togwaggle Druid. Similarly to Malygos Druid, the Azalina/Togwaggle combo can be enabled through a Florist discount on one of the pieces. Unlike Malygos Druid, Togwaggle Druid doesn’t need Floop in order to consistently execute its combo, so it can keep an Oaken Summons package, strengthening it against aggressive decks.

Oaken Togwaggle Druid

Mecha’thun is one of the most hotly debated cards in this expansion. It’s easy to understand the argument why it’s not a very good win condition: drawing your entire deck, spending mana on every single card you have left, with the final card being the one to kill Mecha’thun seems very optimistic. It’s likely just a meme.

However, if there is one class capable of pulling this off, it’s probably Druid. A Miracle Auctioneer list has been brought up by well-known players, such as Dog. The plethora of cheap spells can help Auctioneers draw your entire deck quite quickly. In addition, since the deck is cheap, it’s easy to dump away. The final combo is killing your Mecha’thun with an Innervated Naturalize. Alternatively, we kill a Floop copy without needing Innervate. If Geist becomes popular, we may want to run Starfall in order to be able to kill our Floop without needing Naturalize.

Miracle Mecha’thun Druid

Hunter

Hunter has an interesting set, but not one that immediately strikes us as powerful. The most obvious deck that seems to be getting supported in this expansion is an aggressive mech deck that looks to flood the board with Goblin Bombs and use them as Magentic targets. We think Mossy Horror has great synergy with the deck since it’s a comeback mechanism against other aggressive decks and a bomb activator. Boommaster Flask into Mossy Horror is a cute combo.

Mech Bomb Hunter

Cube Hunter is probably the safest choice in the Hunter class to take into day 1. After its late emergence in The Witchwood, establishing itself as a Tier 1 deck, it might be looking to make just a few minor adjustments. Necromechanic is an obvious consideration, but one that doesn’t give us too much confidence since it’s a bit slow and clunky to use. Mechanical Whelp is a strong consideration for deathrattle decks that is worth trying out.

Cube Kathrena Hunter

Mage

We’re not too impressed with the Mage set. It has two main directions: Spell Damage package to include in Aluneth/Burn decks and a “Hand Size” package to support a heavy minion based deck.  Luna’s Pocket Galaxy is the most interesting card Mage has received, and we try to fit it in both featured decks.

It wouldn’t be a start of a new expansion without theorycrafting an Exodia Mage deck, would it? Luna’s Pocket Galaxy enables a potential Antonidas/Sorcerers OTK without needing the Quest or Leyline Manipulators. The goal of this particular build is to draw a 1 mana Antonidas. If Antonidas is drawn before Galaxy, we wait until Galaxy is drawn and then shuffle him back to the deck with Baleful Banker. This is the easiest, most straight forward build with the least amount of moving parts, which is why it probably has the best chance to succeed.

Galaxy Exodia Mage

A “Hand” Mage deck is getting the most support in this expansion, which is why we’re not too confident about the class’ prospects in the next four months. The featured build is an Elemental Mage deck. The strategy is focused on increasing our hand size in the early turns to enable dropping a turn 4 Mountain Giant. We also play many card generating minions in order to keep our hand large throughout the game. Meteorologist is our payoff card and comeback mechanism against aggressive decks, while Astromancer is our payoff card in slower matchups. A potentially good card in Mage is Arcane Dynamo: it has an extremely high likelihood of giving us an AOE spell needed to swing the board. We also run Grand Archivist to play our draw cards, or Luna’s Pocket Galaxy, for free.

Elemental Hand Mage

Paladin

Paladin looks like the strongest mech class in this expansion, and we expect most of its archetypes to utilize some mech package. Unfortunately. Control Paladin has received little to no support, which means it will likely stay dead for another expansion.

Odd Paladin has a good reason to add mechs. Wargear allows you go tall, something the deck misses without the availability of Blessing of Kings. Giggling Inventor will likely become a strong card in the deck since it’s a fantastic reload tool, synergizing with Fungalmancer and pressuring slower decks to blow their AOE. Notice our heavy focus on the 1/5 mana slots and the small amount of 3-drops. Odd Paladin usually looks to press its hero power in the first 4 turns, so 1-drops are far more important to fill the curve than 3-drops. The turn 5 play is usually the key moment in Paladin’s game plan, so having more meaningful plays on this turn, and the turn 6 follow up, is a good thing.

Mecha Prime Paladin

Non-Baku Mech Paladin is also sure to be experimented with, and our take is quite different from common ideas. In this list, we’re looking to maximize the power of Kangor’s Endless Army by focusing on building big mechs. This strategy looks to play around the strengths of the defensive tools available to Druid and Warlock that punish wide boards. An interesting inclusion is Prismatic Lens, which could be one of the most underrated cards in this set. This spell synergizes incredibly well with Paladin’s big buffs as well as the legendary spell, enabling a potential blow out through mana cheating. This build even runs Mechano-Egg, since the plethora of buffs can make the Egg get very annoying, very fast. It’s also a perfect target to resurrect with Kangor’s Endless Army.

Kangor Mech Paladin

Priest

Our greatest hope for Priest lies in Inner Fire Combo decks, ironically because Inner Fire is receiving redundancy through Topsy Turvy. This allows Combo Priest to dodge Skulking Geist tech and find its finisher more often. In the past, the most successful Combo Priest decks have used the dragon package with Duskbreakers, so it’ll be interesting to see whether other packages become competitive in The Boomsday Project. We’re looking at two potential builds.

The first runs a full mech package. Many of the new mechs have high health (Framebot, Gatekeeper), which synergizes very well with Combo Priest’s game plan. Unpowered Steambot was already used by Combo Priest before, and being able to buff it with Wargear sounds very enticing. Coppertail Imposter is also a great card since it’s difficult to remove, allowing you to dodge aggressive board denial from your opponent.

Mech Combo Priest

The second build runs a Deathrattle package centered around Reckless Experimenter, which is probably the best Priest card in this set. In this build, it has both a card drawing function with Loot Hoarders and Dead Ringers, as well as a mana cheating function with Devilsaur Egg and Meat Wagon. This deck has a weaker early game than the mech version, but gets more explosive on turn 5.

Deathrattle Combo Priest

Another Priest archetype that’s receiving quite a bit of support is Quest Priest. There are several high value Deathrattle minions coming in Boomsday, and we think a few of them could find their way to Quest Priest, giving the deck a higher density of threats and allowing it to be more proactive in the mid-game.

Quest Priest

Rogue

Rogue is easily the craziest class in this expansion. Some of its new cards are the most thought provoking tools in the set, and the theoretical possibilities are endless. The most interesting Rogue card is the legendary spell, Myra’s Unstable Element. It could be used as both a draw card for aggressive decks, and a combo tool to accelerate a deck into its late game, perfectly synergizing with Lab Recruiters and Fal’dorei Striders.

While many ideas are floating around, we are intrigued with jumping bunnies. Pogo-Hopper is a heavily debated card. Some think it’s hot, while many others think it’s hot garbage. In the featured build, we look to maximize our ability to survive and accelerate into the late game. We cut the burst package cards to run Doomsayer and Vanish. Elekk is a decent turn 3 play that curves into a threatening Strider. Zola is added to offer its infinite value combo with Valeera the Hollow. Zilliax offers a healing swing by attaching itself to a Pogo-Hopper. We keep Fire Fly to contest early board, and to activate Elven Minstrel and Vilespine Slayers in the mid-game.

Pogo-Hopper Rogue

We don’t think Odd Rogue will change much from its current incarnation, but a card that could come back to the Rogue class is Prince Keleseth. Necrium Blade is a very strong deathrattle activator that can help the class activate Carnivorous Cube easily, a package we feel could be strongest in a minion heavy deck much like Cube Hunter.

A somewhat forgotten card that could be a terrific fit for a Deathrattle Rogue deck is Kobold Illusionist. It allows Rogue to cheat out minions and sits in the curve just between Necrium Blade and Carnivorous Cube. Strong deathrattle minions, such as Devilsaur Egg and Mechanical Whelp, are included to act as powerful targets for Necrium Blade and Kobold Illusionist. While Necrium Vial seems expensive, it forces your opponent to clear any deathrattles on the board or risk losing the game on the spot. This deck’s ability to blow out the opponent in the mid-game is quite intimidating, with several game winning lines of play available.

Cube Keleseth Rogue

Shaman

Shaman is another class with many interesting options and room to explore. We don’t anticipate Shudderwock Shaman to change much from its core playstyle, save for the guaranteed inclusion of Electra Stormsurge, one of the best cards in the whole set. It may experiment with 2 or 3 cards, such as Coppertail Imposter or Storm Chaser, and Beaked Lightning will offer the deck a good Odd Paladin tech.

Even Shaman might see bigger changes. Menacing Nimbus and Elementary Reaction add fuel to the archetype’s questionable reload potential. We also like Arcane Dynamo since it has an extremely high likelihood of giving us Bloodlust or The Storm Bringer. Even Shaman with better reload and finishing potential? Seems promising.

Even Jelly Fish Shaman

Perhaps the most exciting new Shaman card is Thunderhead. This card seems very powerful and the only question is whether the shell that surrounds it is strong enough to make a competitive deck. Our list attempts to shore up this deck’s most likely weakness, which is fizzling out in the late game against control. By running double Bloodlust and The Storm Bringer, as well as Storm Chasers to draw them, we look to explode into the board in the mid-game and finish games quickly in a consistent fashion. This deck has some strong swing turns, removal as well as cheap value generation, which should allow it to do quite well against aggressive decks.

Overload Token Shaman

Warlock

The rich might be getting richer. After the explosion of Zoo Warlock in the last month of The Witchwood, the archetype looks to get even stronger when Boomdsay arrives. Doubling Imp looks absolutely nuts, and works tremendously well with both Keleseth and Soul Infusion. The Soularium is another amazing card that gives the deck fantastic reload in the mid-late game. Crystallizer is a solid 1 drop that activates your healing synergy package. Giggling Inventor is an annoying card that makes Fungalmancer stronger. We could see an alternative “Suicide Zoo” list that’s slower and looks to play Hooked Reaver and Nethersoul Buster, but these cards require more set up to perform at their best.

Healing Zoo Warlock

Are you looking for an established deck from The Witchwood that doesn’t require a significant dust investment to perform in The Boomsday? We think there is no better answer than Even Warlock. Spirit Bomb is the one obvious and fantastic addition to the deck, allowing it to kill Hench Clan-Thugs and other snowballing early drops. Otherwise, the deck should pretty much stay the same, with a few slots dedicated for tech cards (Spellbreaker, Mossy Horror).

Even Warlock

Warrior

Will the Warrior class be back? We certainly hope so, and one of the most impactful changes coming into the Witchwood may not be a single card, but the mechanic change to Azalina Soulthief, allowing DMH Warrior to outlast Shudderwock Shaman with ease by stealing 0 cost Shudderwocks and gaining infinite armor through Drywhiskerer Armorer. The best Boomsday addition for Control Warriors of all kinds is Weapons Project. This card offers Warrior a weapon on turn 2 against aggressive decks, armor gain against burn decks and weapon destruction. All in one card! The featured list was theorycrafted by Warrior God, Fibonacci, with Lifedrinker and Marin the Fox acting as the Shudderwock techs. Flex them out if necessary.

Azalina DMH Warrior

Which Warrior archetype has received the most support in Boomsday? Big Warrior, no doubt about it. The Boomship seems like a perfect fit for the archetype, making use of minions drawn to our hand before they could be recruited. In addition, with Dr. Boom and Omega Assembly, we have a consistent late game value plan against control decks if our initial recruiting assault is dealt with. They also act as closers against aggressive decks after we’ve stabilized, and provide fuel for The Boomship in case our hand is low on minions to cheat out.

Dr. Boom’s Big Warrior

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