Our first Data Reaper Report for Cataclysm is scheduled for Thursday, March 26th!
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Remember that while we have extensively worked to produce the featured decks, they are still untested, and nothing can replace the post-launch refinement that is backed up by real-time game experience and data.
If you have a limited collection, we highly recommend that you DO NOT make big crafting investments on any theory-crafted deck. Wait at least a few days to see what strategies end up being strong and fun before making a significant commitment.
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Vyranoth Blood-Ctrl Death Knight
A Herald Death Knight looks compelling since its win condition is both a stat bomb and a survivability tool. Furthermore, Arisen Onyxia is an Undead, which means we can resurrect it with Memoriam Manifest and gain the full benefits of its abilities. When fully upgraded, this three-card late-game package is worth 48 health and an enormous amount of stats in play for a total cost of 17 mana. Add Deathwing, which effectively replaces Foamrender as a finisher, and Blood-Ctrl DK looks extremely well-positioned to perform against other late-game strategies.
When building this deck, we realized that it is naturally close to meeting Vyranoth’s unique deckbuilding requirement. We did not need to force things to get to 100 mana’s worth of minions, ending up just adding Taelan to the deck. With the importance of finding Onyxia, running Taelan might not be a bad idea, as Onyxia swings the board hard immediately after we find it.
The upside of Vyranoth is that it greatly enhances this deck’s ability to overwhelm the opponent in the late game and works well in tandem with Onyxia. Worth testing.
Imbue Death Knight finally makes sense, with the addition of multiple Undead minions that scale hard with bonuses to their attack value. Even though Handbuff Death Knight is relatively board-centric, it now has multiple tools to burst the opponent down from hand. Between Blackwing Experiment, Gruesome Nightmare, Dissolving Ooze and Gnome Muncher, it can deal over 20 damage with some simple combinations of cards at the later stages of the game.
Early game survivability might be this archetype’s biggest issue, as it does not come online until it can swing back with its upgraded hero power. It needs to use every resource possible in faster matchups to survive, trusting that it will have the ability to close the game out if it gains enough time.
The return of an aggressive Unholy Death Knight to competitive play could be upon us, as this archetype has gained a few important tools in the last couple of sets, while expecting a decline in the quality of AOE post-rotation.
Timeways’ Shadows of Yesterday was a hint of things to come, as this card has already proven itself to be worthwhile even in a slower Blood-Unholy hybrid. In an Aggro-Unholy deck, this card should be even more threatening. Remnant of Rage is an excellent source of card draw in a board-flooding deck.
Chow Down is a brutal follow-up, giving Unholy Death Knight a final big swing card that can completely overwhelm an opponent and is trivial to gain corpses for in the archetype. We now have 4 copies of cards that create massive boards out of nothing.
Talanji’s Last Stand is a bigger Soul of the Forest, helping us create sticky boards that are resistant to AOE, making it easier for us to finish off opponents with Grave Strength. There is a lot to like in this archetype going forward.
The Dragon tribe should turn into a foundational package for several potential strategies that look to pressure the opponent proactively. In Death Knight, we can leverage it to activate Victor Nefarius too.
Darkscale Broodmother is expected to be one of the strongest neutrals from this set. We made sure it has plenty of 2-drops to pair with thanks to its mana-refreshing ability. A Broodmother/Slitherdrake curve looks strong. Slap a Marrow Manipulator finisher on it and Frost Death Knight could try to imitate Dragon Warrior’s success.
Herald Demon Hunter’s win condition is built around direct damage. A fully upgraded Azshara is worth 16 damage. Add the Deathwing hero power and you are looking at 26 damage from hand with no counterplay on turn 10. This might not be a full OTK, but when you add the rest of the damage we deal throughout the game thanks to Herald soldiers, as well as Broxigar, even defensively-robust opponents may struggle to outlast us.
Keep in mind that this damage can turn into healing when the need arises thanks to Fel Infusion’s lifesteal effect, which should be important in faster matchups. We can find additional copies of Fel Infusion with Hive Map at a decent likelihood.
A card to keep an eye out for is Broxigar’s Last Stand, which has incredible potential as a card-draw engine. It has encouraged us to test Bloodmage Thalnos in the deck. Broxigar’s Last Stand also works well with Broxigar portals.
This alternative Herald build tries to take advantage of the class’ Fel support from the Cataclysm set. We increase the Fel spell count and leverage it with Scorchreaver to get many discounted Fel spells in our hand. We can then cast them to quickly discount Ravenous Felfisher, as well as fuel Nespirah.
This Fel package could also create a new deck without the Herald package, but we are concerned it does not have enough threat density and damage to win late-game matchups by itself. Nespirah is the package’s primary win condition, and we do not have a reliable way of finding it. Adding the Herald package alongside it means we have more juice to fight strategies that are strong defensively.
Spell Demon Hunter does not lose much in rotation and gains a couple of strong cards. Sigil of the Seas should be fantastic in every Demon Hunter deck. Broxigar’s Last Stand provides crucial card draw, as we do not have access to Remnant of Rage.
Should an Aggro Demon Hunter emerge this expansion, we expect it to utilize the Dragon tribe. This establishes the archetype’s turn 4 to be consistently dangerous, with either Slitherdrake or Serpent dropping on the board. Demon Hunter loses Red Card, so we think it might need to run Wyvern’s Slumber for Serpent.
Once again, whenever we run Darkscale Broodmother, we want a healthy number of 2-drops that we can play alongside it on turn 3.
Token Druid has received a lot of support in this set. As we said earlier, as the quality of AOE is expected to drop, board flooding might become significantly stronger.
Crystalspine Cub should become one of the stronger 1-drops in the format, representing a brutal setup for a turn 2 Mark of the Wild. Mossbinding is a serviceable early-game spell that scales well later. Wildwood Circle might be the strongest Shatter spell in the set, as it is relatively cheap and consists of two effects that are not too bad at their separate costs. The low curve of the deck should help us merge the shattered pieces more easily too.
At the top end, Wickerfang is a monstrous threat. Note that Holy Eggbearer tutors Wickerfang alongside Longneck Egg, making the legendary a consistent turn 6 play. Wickerfang represents a question that must be answered immediately or risk snowballing the game out of the opponent’s control.
Ulfar’s inclusion is for testing purposes. We are not high on the card, but it is a free Core set card that we might as well try out and see how it performs.
Dragon Druid is eyeing a return to Standard, as the class is encouraged to play proactively to ramp effectively. Darkscale Broodmother is a strong enabler of Felwood Treant, while also synergizing well with Broodwatcher. Acceleration Aura demands proactive follow-ups on turn 4 and 5, which is why we think Tormented Dreadwing is a fine inclusion alongside Prescient Slitherdrake.
Druid’s issue is long established to be its comeback mechanics, which will be no different in this format. This is why we are intrigued by the possibility of Disciple of Demise. Its effect should be equivalent to Soulstealer in a deck that is dense with dragon minions, and we can play it earlier than turn 8 to swing the game in faster matchups. We are counting on Disciple to be our defensive win condition, allowing us to build the deck in a greedier direction.
This natural gravitation to high-cost minions makes Vyranoth a strong possibility. Add Merithra and this deck has a deceptively powerful late game that can effectively pressure strategies with strong defensive tools.
Imbue Druid may become competitively viable by virtue of the format weakening, rather than adding an assortment of new cards. It loses Sing-Along Buddy, but it now has ramp thanks to Felwood Treant.
Meritha is a fun card to build around. Its weakness is that we need to draw it and have it sit in our hand as we spend mana to activate it. We also need our hand to be relatively empty as we play it, so that we can get maximum value from the battlecry.
This has led us to a direction in which we play a deck full of cheap spells, with the goal of tutoring Merithra early with either Reforestation or Story of Barnabus. The only other minion we run in the deck is Soldier of the Bronze, which becomes a 5/16 taunt when drawn by Story of Barnabus, while gaining us 5 armor.
Our goal is to find Merithra as soon as possible, spend mana with our cheap spells while emptying our hand and then drop Merithra, filling our hand with 1-cost dragons with which we hopefully close out the game. In case our threat density is not adequate in late-game matchups, we can test Azshara’s Triumph as a late-game insurance policy. Just avoid casting this spell at the early stages of the game, before we took advantage of our minion tutors to find Merithra.
This deck is a spiritual successor to Aviana Druid, though not nearly as scammy in the early game.
Ebyssian is an intriguing build-around card, as it turns every dragon in our deck into a rush minion for the rest of the game. This effect is extremely powerful as it makes it difficult for the opponent to ever establish initiative against the Hunter. It reminds us of Dr. Boom, Mad Genius.
Naturally, we want to run a deck that is dense with dragons to make the best use of Ebyssian and to activate Stonetalon Striker and Ebonscale Scout with optimal consistency. Scout is a huge finisher for the deck.
Whelp of the Infinite becomes insane post-Ebyssian, as it can immediately remove two big enemy minions. Magmaw is a good card for every deck that looks to pressure the opponent, regardless of synergy, as it is difficult to remove but equally dangerous to ignore.
Once again, we are encountering a minion-dense deck with a naturally high curve, bringing Vyranoth into the picture without much effort. A late game with Ebyssian and dragons buffed by Vyranoth sounds intimidating.
The other big build-around card in the Hunter set is Confront the Tol’vir. This spell encourages us to run a cheap deck with as many 1-cost cards as possible, as well as ways to generate more of them. This can lead to Confront the Tol’vir turning into a massive blowout card for the cheap price of 3 mana, building a board and launching damage strictly at the opponent.
Interestingly, if we play Confront the Tol’vir with Niri in play, every 1-cost card that gets replayed by Confront, will also be doubled by Niri, which makes for an intimidating combo.
So, the game plan is simple. Pressure the opponent hard and early without worrying about resources, only worry about mana efficiency. If the first wave does not work, build up Confront the Tol’vir for another wave of force, preferably with Niri. This deck does not relent and does not run out of steam easily.
Quest Hunter loses some good beasts for its quest progression, as well as Rangari Scout. The featured build attempts to revive the archetype with its Agamaggan plan. Discovering Agamaggan with Shokk is guaranteed in the upcoming format, so we run a couple of expensive threats that can corrupt Shaladrassil. We are not hung up on which they are, they just need to cost 9 mana or more.
Unfortunately, without Rangari Scout, we cannot find two Agamaggans. If our damage potential is too low, we might consider running Briarspawn Drake to provide more immediate burst. If we can trust our beasts to pressure the opponent, Goldrinn does not sound like a bad idea. If we need a defensive swing card, Krog is an option.
One dragon synergy card that does not fit particularly well in a robust Dragon Hunter is Earthen Roar, as we may not be able to clean up the targets efficiently with value trades. Where this spell becomes more interesting is in a Dragon Imbue Hunter.
We can run a similar dragon shell with Ebyssian but add the Imbue package, Magma Hound and Tending Dragonking, which is conveniently a dragon. Thanks to Earthen Roar, counterplay to Magma Hound becomes far more difficult, as whatever board the opponent develops to soak the damage can be cleaned up by Roar, which helps direct most of Magma Hound’s damage to the face. Whelp of the Infinite, when given rush, can also perform a similar role.
Add Ebonscale Scout and this deck’s damage potential is very high, though it is obviously slower to get off the ground.
Most of the Mage set supports a burn-based strategy that is complemented by spell-damage synergies. The bonus of this emerging archetype is Spellweaver’s Brilliance, which encourages us to utilize AOE to discount Brilliance more easily to 0 mana at an early stage of the game. This is the deck’s win condition in faster matchups, as it allows us to clear an opponent’s board while developing a free, big body.
We have a long list of spell-damage cards: Time-Twisted Seer, Bloodmage Thalnos, Battlefield Blaster, Unstable Spellcaster and Archmage Kalec. This makes even innocent-looking spells like Sleet Storm scale surprisingly well. First Flame is a strong enabler for Seer and Spellcaster. It is possible that we can stack a significant amount of spell damage at the later stages of the game to burst the opponent down. The primary weakness of this deck is the absence of card draw beyond Smoldering Grove.
An alternative take cuts some of the direct damage aspects to add an elemental package, with added card draw from Living Flame and Conjured Bookkeeper. Cutting damage means Spellweaver’s Brilliance is weaker and may not be worthwhile, though Windswept Pageturner becomes a different type of swing card to consider.
The quality of discover effects might be lower post-rotation, but Quest Mage may still have a chance to compete thanks to the overall decline in power across the board. This build follows the established principle of building Quest Mage, stacking as many discover effects as possible while keeping a decent number of minion discoveries that can be used as board development post-quest completion.
One addition to the Core set to keep an eye out for is Khadgar, which can amplify the bodies we summon with the quest reward to either stabilize or pressure the opponent. A Khadgar/Stonehill Defender combo summons 4 taunts, which is game-winning against faster decks. Play Khadgar alongside Treacherous Tormentor or Beast Speaker Taka and a huge board will likely follow.
Imbue Mage is likely the best option for the class if we are trying to take the game late, as it has the strongest scaling win condition following the loss of Colossus. Deios is not too bad by itself as a hero power amplifier but becomes particularly powerful with Aessina (with the help of Ysera). Bitter End helps us deal with huge boards, such as Colossals, so that we can direct more of our damage face.
We think the Paladin “End of Turn” package most likely supports a Handbuff deck due to the availability of Bronze Redeemer. When this minion is buffed and has its effect doubled by Inspiring Maul or Sandfury Aura, it can produce a lot of stats. Furthermore, End of Turn minions are more likely to survive and repeat their effects in subsequent turns if they are buffed to become harder to remove.
Chamber of Aspects is a targeted buff location that can hit Redeemer multiple times, while Hourglass Attendant is a handbuff card with an End of Turn effect that directly follows up both a turn 3 Sandfury Aura and a turn 2 Inspiring Maul.
The dragon package with Prescient Slitherdrake easily leads to Vyranoth, which has strong synergy in Handbuff decks. Although the deck is mostly stat driven, it can incorporate some direct damage through Earthen Drake that can lead to a surprising amount of burst when leveraged with Sandfury Aura and Inspiring Maul.
Remember that every deck that runs Violet Treasuregill and Acceleration Aura wants to aggressively mulligan for them.
We can try to incorporate a small End of Turn package in Aura Paladin. In this build, Nozdormu is our pressure payoff while Scalebreaker Bulwark is our defensive payoff for Sandfury Aura and Inspiring Maul.
The nerf to Ursine Maul means that Paladin cannot tutor the top end of its curve, but for the class to have a chance in the late game, it still needs to run those win conditions. Ursine Maul is kept due to offering another 4-mana play in an Acceleration Aura deck. Since Carnivorous Cubicle is gone, we pair Tankgineer with Spikeridged Steed.
Imbue decks might become viable due to a powered-down format. Imbue Paladin maintains a coherent late-game strategy with high threat density and drawing power. It also has the luxury of being able to run Equality/Consecration, which might be very powerful post-rotation if Standard leans into big piles of stats in play. No new cards required.
The loss of Crusader Aura should be brutal for board-flooding Paladin decks. We tried to build one with alternative methods of buffing our board. Inspiring Maul could be an interesting addition to the deck when paired with Tortollan Storyteller and Nozdormu. Flight Maneuvers, as all shatter cards, is more likely to merge in a deck with a low curve that can get cards out of its hand more easily. It pairs well with Nozdormu.
Priest got a fun-looking set, but whether it can create a competitive strategy is hard to tell. What is clear is that we want to use healing spells and Cleansing Cleric, which become removal or direct damage tools with Ruby Sanctum. The featured build is an attempt at a late-game-oriented Control Priest deck that looks to stabilize early before burning down the opponent late.
The full win condition is admittedly slow and hard to execute, but it is likely not needed in its entirety in most matchups. Parts of it can be enough to close out games.
Aviana is the primary setup play needed to make everything work in a single turn. The full combo that follows once all our cards cost 1 mana is: Deios, Alexstrasza, Atiesh, Tyrande, Moonwell. This full combo deals 46 damage. 30 from a doubled Alexstrasza after we heal ourselves to full, as well as 16 damage from Moonwell that is doubled by both Tyrande and Atiesh. Remember that this deck can chip away at the opponent with Ruby Sanctum too, so it can dish out a lot of damage.
Although this deck does seem greedy, it has some great survivability tools. All our healing effects scale up with Cleansing Cleric, which can be oppressive against opponents that try to burn us down. Devouring Plague and Eternal Firebolt, for example, become ridiculous post-Cleric. We run Reach Equilibrium without any intention to complete the quest, but to permanently discount Medivh’s Triumph to 1 mana. Controlling a quest counts as controlling a legendary card! 1-mana 4-damage AOE goes a long way to fend off aggressive decks.
What if we tried to complete the quest? The tricky part here is the Shadow spell pool, but we believe it is adequately playable. This list can be leaner, since our late-game win condition requires less pieces to work. Ysera ramping into Deios/Umbra can close out games against defensive decks, if the quest reward itself was not enough.
Another approach is to forget about burst damage and try to grind out the opponent the old-fashioned way. For that, we need the Imbue package to generate us value. The small downside of that is that our hero power stops healing and no longer works with Cleansing Cleric, but we have enough healing effects to take advantage of. Eternal Firebolt alone is potentially infinite healing.
Furthermore, we can build the deck more defensively, as we do not need an elaborate win condition. This deck’s curve is super cheap, and you will always have something to do against aggressive decks. Late-game grinding can work if lethal win conditions do not pan out and the game becomes strictly a battle for value and board.
Note that we did not include Shadow Word: Ruin in any Priest decklist, but if massive boards become a normal occurrence due to colossal minions, it might become a good tech card, especially in this list.
Handbuff Priest flopped in Timeways, but can it redeem itself in Cataclysm? New dragon minions, as well as the possibility of Vyranoth, has encouraged us to give it another shot. Vyranoth is a very nice win condition for this deck in late-game matchups due to its struggles at closing games out. Minions might get too big for opponents to be able to deal with them.
For Rogue to compete in the upcoming format, it might need to rely on Twilight Mistress and Naralex. Mistress resets the board and gives the class the breathing time it needs to explore different late-game win conditions. We can also “ramp” to Mistress with the help of Agent of the Old Ones (turning some randomly-generated junk into a coin), Gemstone Hoarder and Fast Forward.
For Herald Rogue, the build seems clear cut when taking Mistress into account. Fast Forward might be a very important card for this deck, as its curve is relatively high in general. Foxy Fraud is needed to make Rite of Twilight more tolerable.
We do find it a bit strange that within two months, Rogue has received two archetypes centered around random generation, when these packages do not work well with each other due to the clash between the Imbue hero power and Deathwing. It will be interesting to see which option proves to be superior.
Imbue Rogue is a leaner deck with a more reliable source of generation, but without the finishing ability of Deathwing. We decided to run Defias Ringleader to work with Foxy Fraud, because we refused to give up on Flashback. The deck can bolster its early game, knowing that its late game is taken care of by the infinite value of its imbued hero power.
The third win condition we can add to a Mistress shell is Ashamane. In this case, ramping is even more important, as the deck also needs to be able to dump its hand, so we added Tranquil Treant and Ysera, while keeping the curve low.
It is possible that Ashamane can be thrown into Herald Rogue, but this seems excessively greedy and unnecessary when Deathwing is available. That 5-damage hero power does serious work.
Several classes will be toying with spell-damage synergies and Rogue will be one of them. The addition of Battlefield Blaster means we can buff Chrono Daggers reliably from hand. With the help of Shades, Thalnos and Morchie, we can build up a potentially massive Chrono Daggers that can OTK an opponent. Note that we can copy Chrono Daggers with Shadow of Demise too.
The rest of the deck is aggressively built, looking to chip at the opponent’s health before setting up a Chrono Daggers finisher. The availability of spell damage makes Fan of Knives a compelling answer to other aggressive decks. Waggle Pick increases our reach and can also bounce a cheeky Blaster or Rockskipper back to our hand.
Herald Shaman’s late game looks great thanks to Muradin. The Deathwing hero power is a brutal amplifier of Shaman’s windfury weapon, making it impossible to outlast Shaman’s damage without counterpressure. The Herald package itself supports Shaman’s ability to fight for board, culminating in the swing turn enabled by Al’Akir.
With Shaman’s win condition secured, there is an argument that the class only needs to focus on survival with the rest of its card choices. This build maximizes the defensive capabilities of the class. For All Time takes care of early board pressure. Hex deals with single target threats. Healing Rain allows us to stabilize. Our tribal minion package, supported by Flight of the Firehawk, also contains stallers (Whelp of the Infinite, Glacial Shard). Note that Flight can find us Al’Akir and Ultraxion too.
An alternative build takes a more proactive direction, with an Overload package that looks to pressure the opponent. Turn 4 and turn 6 are the critical overload turns that can quickly discount Haywire Hornswog. A turn 6 Multiverse/Hornswog is a realistic prospect. This makes the Shaman far more threatening to a passive opponent, at the cost of its defensive resilience.
The Overload package can support a purely aggressive deck too, providing it with a mid-game boost. Stormbinder looks like an intimidating threat that can break the back of an opponent being put under pressure from turn 1. An early-game elemental shell with the explosive Wailing Vapor and Flux Revenant makes a lot of sense here, potentially giving a chance for Fire Breath to shine, as we do think this spell is very good on the surface.
While we threw in Muradin’s Last Stand in every Shaman deck, and it remains to be seen how it performs in more defensive archetypes, an aggressive deck that attacks early and often will be where we can discount it fastest.
Shaman can utilize Lava Flow in a similar way to how we suggested Rogue utilize Chrono Daggers, by building a spell-damage burn shell that maximizes its damage output.
Volcanic Thrasher tutors and buffs Lava Flow to deal 12 damage. Zapper, Blaster, Thalnos and Shade can amplify it further. We can easily turn Lava Flow into a 20+ damage nuke, which should be enough to finish off games considering we also have an early-game curve alongside Muradin.
We love Sheltered Survivor as a card, as we can use it to shuffle back a card we want to keep in our deck. It always feels bad to draw those “Patches” cards. In this case, we want Lava Flow to be drawn by Thrasher to get its spell-damage buff, so we can send it back if we naturally draw it. Alternatively, we can shuffle out a Fire Fly or some other dead draw to improve the quality of our hand.
Herald Warlock might be the least-reliant Herald deck on its colossal, though that is partly due to Cho’gall’s underwhelming effect. What is interesting about its soldiers is that they can be used to pop eggs. Warlock has already made a name for itself as The Egg of Khelos class, so it makes sense to utilize the legendary egg as an additional win condition alongside Deathwing, giving those soldiers a clear role. The other important role for soldiers is to eat Cursed Chains targets, turning the spell into a strong removal tool.
Archdruid of Thorns remains in Standard, so our path to copy multiple eggs remains viable, alongside Umbra. One other interaction worth noting is Battlefield Blaster turning Eldritch Tentacles into a massive board clear that deals 10 split damage, which can deal with the stickiest boards and pop multiple eggs phases in one swoop.
Though Cho’gall does not seem that great as a cornerstone win condition, it might be an interesting Divergence target. Of course, the primary Divergence target is Agamaggan, which now has the prospect of cheating out Deathwing. Splitting Ultraxion can also lead to a heavily-discounted Deathwing. Redundancy is always nice in this kind of deck.
The deck runs a couple of early-game minions, but they are easy to get out of hand before we play Divergence. Dryad finds us our Divergence targets, while Disciple is obviously needed for Deathwing.
We can forget about a Herald deck and just focus on The Egg of Khelos, only running Shrine of Twilight. This gives us more room to run other efficient egg poppers such as Abusive Sergeant, Crazed Alchemist and Dissolving Ooze. Note that Ooze can be paired with Cursed Chains, giving us the extra redundancy we are missing without more Herald cards.
A slightly different build path takes advantage of Shrine of Twilight’s ability to sack Possessed Animancer on the turn it is played, summoning an immediate Ultragigasaur. A turn 4 Shrine into turn 5 Animancer might be a brutal blowout play. This may slightly contaminate the deathrattle pool for Umbra, but it will not matter if we can kill opponents on turn 6, which is possible thanks to Crazed Alchemist.
Another neat addition to the Animancer package is Sheltered Survivor, which can shuffle back a Gigasaur that got stuck in our hand. This ensures that both Animancers will get full value if they are played and popped.
Shred Warlock can now build a very dragon-dense list with lots of large minions for their cost. We will have to see whether the reduction in the quality of removal in the format will help this archetype finally become a competitive and established strategy.
Herald Warrior has a fantastic package of cards that build up to a lethal win condition in Ragnaros. Cataclysmic War Axe and Scorching Ravager both help us respond to the opponent’s threats. This is further backed up by a survivability package centered around Torch.
Torch offers amazing and persistent single-target removal that only needs enabling in the form of pings. We can even buff its damage with Time-Twister Seer, making it last longer. It cheaply enables Erupting Volcano, giving its single-target effect some AOE utility. We can also tutor it with Living Flame.
Unlike Quest Control Warrior, Herald Warrior plays on the front foot more. Rather than stalling, it proactively develops and can pressure if allowed to. It also boasts tons of card draw, making it consistent at finding and upgrading its win conditions.
One card that is missing from the list is Decimation, as we want to tutor Torch more consistently. If board-flooding decks such as Unholy Death Knight or Token Druid prove to be powerful and popular, then Decimation is easy to fit into the deck.
The quest win condition remains available to the class. Quest Warrior wants to stall as much as it can, with its win condition not requiring many card slots. This means the rest of the deck can focus on survivability and card draw. This build runs lots of removal, including both Shellnado and Decimation, enabled by Unleash the Crocolisks.
To make up for the loss of New Heights and to enable Murozond/Time Warp, we simply run Ysera.
This kind of decklist should obliterate aggressive decks. The question will be its performance against other late-game strategies.
Destructive Blaze is the new Grim Patron, so we naturally want to try out a shell that can repeatedly ping Blaze and whirlwind the board. Remember that two pings and a whirlwind effect can summon six copies of Destructive Blaze. A full board of them is extremely difficult to handle for faster decks, while slower decks risk taking all the deathrattle damage to their faces if they clear the board.
This deck should perform well against aggressive decks. The question mark is in its late game and whether the Blaze win condition is good enough. Add Grom and there is a pathway for Blaze Warrior to beat more defensive strategies on paper.
Dragon Warrior is getting some nice dragons to make up for the loss of Giftwrapped Whelp. We expect this archetype to remain relevant in the upcoming format, considering it does not lose much. Compared to other strategies, it might be getting stronger.
Furthermore, it gains access to Vyranoth, which is easy to activate in the archetype and provides Dragon Warrior with late-game insurance in its difficult matchups, such as Blood-Ctrl DK. Watch out for Vyranoth’s synergy with Grom in particular.
Special thanks to WorldEight for helping throughout the theorycrafting process. Also special thanks to IWUS for helping to proofread our content. Finally, thanks to our Patreon and Gold supporters who have provided feedback on these decklists.
See you later,
The Vicious Syndicate Team
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