After completing the comprehensive The Lost City of Un’Goro preview, it’s time for theory crafting! We encourage you to read the card preview as it is likely to shed light on many of our decisions regarding deck building.
Our first Data Reaper Report for The Lost City of Un’Goro is scheduled for Thursday, July 17th!
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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.
Let’s explore the Lost City’s secrets.
(There are 46 decks here. The title is a lie. Don’t tell anyone!)
Scrapbooking Quest Death Knight
With Reanimate the Terror, there are two problems we need to solve. Quest progression and win condition utilization.
Quest progression relies not just on corpse spenders, but the more important bottleneck is our corpse generation. For a slower deck, which Quest DK must be due to its rune restriction and the nature of its win condition, it is not easy to generate 18 corpses. This build contains an early game curve that prioritizes high corpse generators, such as Blob of Tar and Reluctant Wrangler.
A single Tyrax does not win the game, so it needs to be amplified. The issue is whatever cards we use to copy Tyrax, need to be useful with other pieces, or we risk having too many dead cards before we get to Tyrax. Orbital Moon and Brittlebone Buccaneer are therefore the best options. Scrapbooking Student is the only ‘greedy’ post-Tyrax card in the build.
Our goal is to copy Tyrax to the point where the opponent is overwhelmed by the infinite damage and threats it represents.
The best Starship Death Knight variant in the last few weeks of Emerald Dream utilized a high curve with Shaladrassil, Fyrakk and Zilliax at its top end. Some lists even started cutting Corpse Explosion, leaving Maladaar as its primary corpse spender. This fits in well with the possibility of meeting Elise’s condition and running Reanimated Pterrordax.
The only thing we need to do is add back The Ceaseless Expanse and we got Elise covered. Should Corpse Explosion prove to be too important for the archetype in the upcoming format, it can be readded in place of Pterrordax.
Herenn Blood-Ctrl Death Knight
Blood-Ctrl Death Knight has some new options to explore. The addition of Herenn may give Wakener of Souls another chance to reach competitive play. Herenn’s synergy with Travel Security is excellent and it can be cheated out with Maladaar.
The tricky part in a Wakener deck has always been its early game curve, as it cannot run deathrattle minions. Ancient Raptor can replace Dreadhound Handler in its corpse generation, helping with our turn 5 Corpse Explosion. The deck is more likely to fall behind in the early game, so the Pyro/Poison Breath combo could be necessary. Elise is an easy fit, considering Wakener’s mana cost and its synergy with Herenn and Umbra.
Stitched Blood-Ctrl Death Knight
The addition of Reanimated Pterrordax may prove to be deck defining for Death Knight decks of all kinds. The most explosive synergy it has is with Stitched Giants. It is possible that Blood-Ctrl Death Knight will aim to leverage this discount interaction to set up consistent 0-mana Giants on turn 6, along with Airlock Breach, a spell that has fallen out of favor in recent months but could now serve a greater purpose.
Our primary focus is to generate 10 corpses by turn 6. Handler, Wrangler and Blob carry the weight here. A turn 6 Airlock Breach/Stitched Giant sounds back breaking in every matchup against a deck that does not possess mass removal.
Stitched Giant also makes it easy for us to fit in Elise. The 8 Hands From Beyond and Kil’jaeden offer a secondary win condition against decks that can deal with Giants, as we do not have the threat density of a Starship DK.
Frost Stitched Menagerie Death Knight
Stitched Giants are entirely possible in Menagerie Death Knight, which may sound even more terrifying for the opponent. After all, Reanimated Pterrodax is a double tribal minion we can play on the Menagerie Jug turn without counterplay. We just need another consistent corpse spender. Corpsicle sounds like the best option, as it can be tutored by Harbinger of Winter and replaces itself.
Another card that should be strong in Menagerie Death Knight is Dread Raptor. In this build, we did not curate the deathrattle package to maximize value, as we do not think it is worth cutting Dreadhound Handler in a Pterrordax deck. Remember that we can hold the minion we draw with Raptor and play it alongside Menagerie Jug.
Unleash the Colossus requires all encompassing support through 2 damage effects, as they are essential in both quest completion and in leveraging the win condition. This build maximizes these effects, with a big focus on board clears. AOE’s that deal 2 damage are the best quest progressors, as they are worth significantly more ticks for their mana cost if we are facing a deck that develops board proactively. They can also lead to massive blowouts post-quest.
In addition to Hot Coals, Wyvern’s Slumber and Gnomelia, note the inclusion of Mixologist, which can find us a 2 damage AOE spell. Our mulligan priorities are likely Nightshade Tea and Insect Claw, which are the strongest standalone quest progressors.
For the late game, Incindius is probably the strongest post-quest payoff we can have, as it is worth 20 damage.
Quest Demon Hunter may have an issue when it comes to late game longevity, as it is not blessed with an abundance of card draw and needs to spend a lot of its damage to complete the quest. Therefore, it may not have enough gas in the tank to beat defensive turtles with an abundance of life gain.
This build is slower and attempts to maximize post-quest damage. We slow down the deck with Ravenous Felhunter, offering more sustained pressure and stabilization with Blob of Tar, but the more important inclusion that comes online with Felhunter is Return Policy.
Return Policy can be useful with Felhunter, but when our goal in a matchup is to maximize damage, the card we want to discover with it is Gnomelia! It becomes a 4-damage board wipe that goes face, while giving us another Gnomelia in hand. Add Umbra to the equation, with the potential of repeating multiple Gnomelia deathrattles, and our damage potential is significantly higher.
Fumigate Starship Demon Hunter
Starship Demon Hunter should look like the same deck we have come to know during the Emerald Dream, but the archetype does get some early game survival upgrades that we believe should be experimented with.
Hive Map offers cheap responsive tools at a great consistency, in a way that may outclass Illidari Studies, a persistent underperformer in the archetype. Fumigate may become extremely valuable if Quest Paladin becomes a dominant presence on ladder.
Building a Demon Hunter with Toru is a challenging affair. We believe its best home is in a similar build to a Cliff Dive Demon Hunter, without the Cliff Dive. It works with similar minions to the ones that work best with Cliff Dive, such as Illidari Inquisitor and Briarspawn Drake, but does not have good synergy with Cliff Dive itself.
Removing Cliff Dive gives us the liberty to run other smaller minions, such as Elise. Elise is basically begging to be included, considering the deck’s top end curve. It is not difficult to find useful 6-7 mana cards in this deck. Without Cliff Dive helping us swing the game, we think Blob of Tar will become an essential staller in combination with Felhunter and even Umbra.
The finishing combo is to play Toru with Inquisitors and Briarspawn Drakes in hand, then play all the jars with an AOE (Immolation Aura or Wyvern’s Slumber) to pop them in one turn.
Restore the Wild requires extreme deck building requirements, with board flooding tools becoming the greatest priority at the expense of everything else. They are not only necessary for quest progression, but they are also the best cards to take advantage of The Everbloom, the quest reward.
This is why some cards that normally would not see constructed play become genuine options for Quest Druid. Flipper Friends nearly fills the board by itself. Mother Duck is worth four minions in one card and scales with buffs. Cosmic Phenomenon can either load the board or buff it. The sleeper card in the deck could be Bucket of Soldiers, which works even better than Skyscreamer Eggs thanks to Life Cycle. Either of those on turn 3 can set up a Life Cycle/Hatchery Helper on turn 4, which ends the game against aggressive decks.
A single copy of Hybridization offers reload to a deck that does not have card draw beyond Amirdrassil.
Druid has so many powerful early game plays for a theoretical Token Druid that we may not need the quest to win Hearthstone games. We have Hatchery Helper and Overheat as board payoffs. They are more than enough to leverage the wide boards we can produce at a frantic pace.
A strong case for dropping the quest is early game consistency, especially with Hatchery Helper benefitting from us not skipping turn 1. A turn 2 Ravenous Flock, or a turn 3 Bucket or Egg into turn 4 Life Cycle, are more likely to occur when we have an extra card in the opening hand. Those are back breaking plays that only decks with AOE can answer.
This deck can fit more early game minions into its curve, which makes two copies of Hybridization more feasible. We are not likely to play both copies in a Hearthstone game but drawing the first one can be important. The other copy can get discarded by Overheat.
Not much will change with Imbue Druid, but the one card it can add to its build is so important. Hybridization is permanently active in this archetype, while always finding us Charred Chameleon, Bitterbloom Knight, Flutterwing Guardian and an important 3-drop.
There is a case to run two copies of Hybridization, but our minion package is light, so the second copy of Hybridization is likely to represent a weaker effect. The purpose of Hybridization is to find the Imbue cards that were left in our deck more consistently and scale our Plant Golems faster in the late game. Remember that we can discover Hybridization with Horn of Plenty.
This is one of the scariest prospects of the new expansion. A new Ramp Druid deck is brewing that is capable of blowout turns at an early stage of the game, without meaningful counterplay from the opponent.
The featured build is centered on the discount ability of Loh, the Living Legend. Once we play Loh, The Ceaseless Expanse and Playhouse Giants cost 0 mana. Add the potential ramp through New Heights/Trail Mix and Loh can come down on turns 4-5 at an alarming percentage of games. Reforestation, Story of Barnabus and Un’Goro Brochure can find us our minions, including Loh, more consistently.
If the Ceaseless/Giant blow out turn is not available, or is somehow dealt with, a discounted Carrier or Forest Lord Cenarius can finish the job. The small Protoss package tutors Carrier and can discount it to 3 mana. Of course, seeing that we run multiple cards with unique mana costs, Elise is a natural fit. We do not mind finding her with Story of Barnabus early in the game, because that means we have Elise on turn 4.
The Food Chain requires a balanced curve of Beasts with specific attack values. The most difficult attack values to meet are 1-attack, due to minion quality, and 7-attack, due to minion scarcity (Ravager is the only good one).
A Beast dense deck highly encourages us to run Dinomancy, which helps take care of 7-attack scarcity as it turns our 5-attack pool into potential 7-attack activators. The featured build utilizes Fetch as a card draw engine and a hard tutor for Dinomancy. We run no other spells. Esho serves as a third copy of Dinomancy.
The 1-attack pool disappears after the first Dinomancy, so we need to make sure we find one early. Platysaur is not a good early game minion, so Keychain and Macaw are the best options. Ancient Stegodon and Grazing Stegodon (on coin) can help here.
Running Fetch and Dinomancy as the only spells in our deck leads to scarcity of card draw, so we prioritize running card draw built into Beasts. Platysaur is helpful later in the game, while Carry-On Grub has 5-attack. Despite its even attack value, Torga is great, as it activates the Kindred Beasts it draws on its own.
This Quest Hunter build reduces focus on Dinomancy to increase its resource options through spells. Fetch keeps our deck’s minions ‘Beast exclusive’, but we now run Master’s Call, Birdwatching and Odd Map, the latter two can help with quest progression.
Dinomancy has great potential in a questless Token Beast Hunter deck. R.C Rampage into Dinomancy is a devastating 1-2 punch that ends games on the spot. Extraterrestrial Egg and Terrorscale Stalker are a proven combo for aggressive Hunter decks of this playstyle. Ball of Spiders, Workhorse and Shepherd’s Crook are turn 3 plays that set up R.C Rampage to perform better on turn 4.
While this deck mainly focuses on early game snowballing and utilizing Dinomancy as a game ending board buff, we have the option to scale into the late game with Dinomancy too. We can cast Patchwork Pals before Dinomancy and buff our Animal Companions, including Huffer, in hand. The spells we can draw from Fetch are of high quality, so we are not likely to run out of steam quickly.
Discover Hunter could transform this expansion, turning into a more explosive deck with an angle of victory that does not require its Starship game plan. This is thanks to Niri of the Crater, which can perform a similar role to Sonya in Rogue, amplifying our burst damage capabilities.
Our Niri plan is to accumulate 1-mana spells that Niri can repeat, with priority on spells that go face. Rockskipper, Mixologist and Griftah can find us a non-trivial amount of damage. Copying the Amulet of Warding from Griftah with the help of Rangari Scout makes our life significantly easier if we want to OTK the opponent, as Niri with 2xWarding is worth 24 damage alone. Tidepool Pupil can also help us copy an Amulet of Warding.
Against defensive minded decks that stack a lot of armor, we still possess the burst that can come down from a Biopod Starship, but we do not have to rely on this game plan in most matchups. An option exists to cut the Starship package entirely too, which we have highlighted and could be superior if aggressive decks are common and Niri is enough to OTK late game strategies.
Amongst quest decks, leveraging the Forbidden Sequence might be the most complicated endeavor in the theorycrafting phase. This is because Quest Mage could take drastically different directions, as its quest progression is done by a relatively broad keyword that includes a wide variety of cards. Those same cards are also used as post-quest payoffs, which does not narrow down a specific direction.
Our theory is that to best utilize the Origin Stone, we want to discover minions. Discovering minions is better than discovering spells post-quest. Random spells hitting random targets possess a high variance of outcomes. In contrast, the result of discovering minions with the Origin Stone is always putting stats in play. Putting free stats in play cannot be bad for us, regardless of the matchup. This build is about maximizing the discovery of minions post-quest completion.
What is Stonehill Defender doing in this deck? Big taunts, medium taunts and small taunts are evenly split in the discovery pool by around a third each. This means that if we play the Origin Stone and Stonehill Defender, which can happen as early as turn 6, we summon three taunts and one of them is likely to be a big one. That is a huge swing to stabilize the game, especially in faster matchups.
Relentless Wrathguard can discover from a pool of 12 demons. Three of them are Eredar Brute, Mo’arg Forgefiend and Scorching Observer. These are insane minions to summon for free, especially when we want to turn the corner and stabilize after quest completion.
Treacherous Tormenter is worth a ton of free stats. So is Malorne. These are our post-quest payoffs for slower matchups, along with Relic of Kings. Scrappy Scavenger can become a post-quest payoff when we want it to be, but it is amazing early too, which is why it is such a good card.
The rest of our deck is dedicated to quest completion through cheap cards. A turn 5 completion is surprisingly realistic, should we find either Tide Pools or Pocket Dimension by turns 4-5. Unearthed Artifacts is omitted because spending mana on it means we delay quest completion. Remember that if the quest is done on turns 5-6, we blow out the opponent immediately after. This is what this build aims to do as often as possible.
Spell Mage can incorporate the quest into its build, but that means it cannot discover minions, which substantially weakens the Origin Stone in our view. It might be able to provide the archetype with more late game pressure, so if you enjoy the archetype, you can give this one a shot.
Colossus costs 12 mana and Protoss Mage already runs Ysera, which means we can shove Elise into another deck without a significant deck building cost. We are aware that Blizzard is an annoying card to face when it works, but its package with Watercolor Artist is not actually strong. We run Artanis at 8 mana. To fill the 7-mana slot, we got a bit creative and threw in a 7-mana Zilliax. That is still an awesome card for a deck looking to survive.
If Quest Mage does not work out, we suspect this is the Mage deck that people will play.
Elemental Mage did get a few nice cards. Conjured Bookkeeper’s Kindred is trivial to activate in this deck, which means the archetype’s spell tutoring capabilities are incredibly consistent when we add Living Flame. We think Incindius becomes a serious finisher for the deck now.
Blob of Tar, one of the best cards in Standard already, is an Elemental. Esho should be better than Saruun, though we can always run both if we want to be greedier. Windswept Pageturner is highly suspect, but we will try to play it on curve and see how many opponents can kill it. If they cannot reliably deal with it, it might be okay.
Dive the Golakka Depths seems straightforward on the surface. We run a Murloc deck with the most powerful Murloc cards and the rest takes care of itself. However, we think card choices in the deck may not be as intuitive as they initially seem. Our priority is to run Murlocs that are strong at quest progression and/or scale with the payoff, rather than ones that snowball early.
When it comes to quest progression, we want cards that can generate extra resources or summon multiple Murloc bodies. Gnawing Greenfin, for example, would not see play in a normal Murloc deck, but works well in Quest Paladin.
When it comes to scaling with buffs, we want to summon multiple bodies or have keywords that become stronger with buffs. Redgill Razorjaw would never be considered in a normal Murloc deck but makes sense here. Murloc Tidehunter both progresses the quest efficiently and summons two bodies that can get buffed by the reward.
Meanwhile, a traditionally powerful Murloc such as Murloc Warleader is worth a single quest tick for 3 mana and may not be necessary due to the multiple board wide buffs available to us. Passing turn 1 means we are less likely to land a powerful Warleader early. Passing turn 1 also means Murloc Tidecaller is a weaker option.
Grunty and Finja should be powerful late game swing cards because their scaling with buffs is cracked. Esho is a natural fit to the deck.
We think Violet Treasuregill is the standout card in the Paladin set. Ironically, it should be stronger in non-Murloc decks, as they can afford to run an early game spell package that suits Treasuregill, and have no interest in running Submerged Map, which makes playing Treasuregill on turn 2 a bit awkward.
Imbue Paladin might not add a single new card to the deck, but it can use some cards in the new set to become more proactive. Adding Violet Treasuregill means we are cutting Equality and Consecration. Hand of A’dal, Aegis of light and Dragonscale Armaments are all powerful Treasuregill targets.
The other card we could be interested in is Ready the Fleet. Imbue Paladin is essentially a tribal Dragon deck. The availability of Ready the Fleet means that opponents cannot afford to ignore even the smallest dragon boards we summon during the mid-game, as they risk being snowballed on and lose the game on the spot.
Treasuregill could lift Libram Paladin up to a more prominent role in the format. Much like Drunk Paladin, Libram Paladin can run an early game spell package that fits in with Flickering Lightbot. Treasuregill can even help us cheat out a discounted Libram from the deck, though we must be aware of the possibility of pulling Libram of Divinity and not getting it back to our hand if we discounted it to 1 or 2 mana.
The other minion in the set that works extremely well with discounted Librams is Creature of the Sacred Cave. This is the best minion we can buff with a fully discounted Libram of Divinity, but Creature can work reasonably well with any spell in our deck. Watch out for Libram Paladin. It has recently shown competitive viability on ladder.
Drunk Paladin requires a couple of tweaks to fit in Treasuregill. Flash of Light and ‘Oh, Manager!’ are not good spells to pull with the 2-drop, so we have replaced them with Hammer of Wrath. We may not mind adding Treasuregill to a build with Libram of Clarity, as Treasuregill is a good mulligan target.
A board flooding Aggro Paladin deck is probably the best candidate to utilize Tortollan Storyteller. A Treasuregill package makes a lot of sense here, with the small dragons summoned by our Imbue hero power representing genuinely strong Menagerie Jug targets, especially Ship’s Chirurgeon.
Reach Equilibrium is the most difficult quest to leverage in the late game, as the reward produces a single threat. It is a powerful and game ending threat in faster matchups but cannot reliably close out games in slower matchups.
Quest progression might be easier than it seems. Nightshade Tea is an incredible Shadow spell for that purpose, worth three ticks of the quest by itself. Thrive in the Shadows is a strong enabler of Gladesong Siren, as it can find us a cheap Holy spell and discount Siren as early as turn 4. Our focus is on running cheap spells that are not removal, as they do not rely on the opponent’s board state to be useful.
The Imbue package makes a lot of sense in Quest Priest for three main reasons. It provides card advantage to make up for our missing card in the mulligan. It can help us progress the quest through discovered spells to fill the gaps. It provides us with late game value that the quest reward does not.
To leverage Sol’etos, we run Cloud Serpent to copy it. In faster matchups, we drop Sol’etos to the board as soon as we can without worry. In slower matchups, we use multiple copies of Sol’etos to pressure the opponent. If the enemy board is empty and Sol’etos has died, we can play Umbra for a burst of 20-25 damage to the face.
Resuscitate is Priest’s best card of the set, one that we can see being utilized in most Priest decks going forward, both fast and slow. In Protoss Priest, it can specifically resurrect Sentry and Void Ray if we drop the Imbue package. The consistency of this play is helped by Chrono Boost finding us our Protoss minions more often.
In the late game, Umbra can become a powerful amplifier of Mothership deathrattles. Blob of Tar helps us bridge into the Chrono Boost turn and gives Umbra more ammunition.
Resuscitate is scariest in Menagerie Priest, as it produces an extremely sticky board that demands removal from the opponent and makes it incredibly difficult to deny the Priest from landing Menagerie Jug. We do not worry about cutting the entire Imbue package here, as Resuscitate is more than good enough without being overly optimized.
We made several changes to improve Resuscitate. We replaced Overzealous Healer with Ship’s Chirurgeon, as Healer is a bad resurrect target. Observer of Mysteries is cut for Workhorse, as Workhorse is insane with Reborn. Kaldorei Priest is cut for Blob of Tar. You can never go wrong with Blob of Tar in a Menagerie deck.
The other incredible addition to the deck is Archaios, which replaces Zephrys and makes our early game minions unkillable if they are not dealt with in the first couple of turns of the game. It can be resurrected with Resuscitate, which sounds disgustingly oppressive.
The prospect of an OTK Priest should be highly attractive to players, which can be accomplished through Wilted Shadow and Bandages from Careless Crafter. We just need a Wilted Shadow to die, then cast two copies of Rest in Peace and chain heal our opponent’s face with Bandages. Three Bandages kill our opponent from 30. We can easily accumulate more Bandages and kill opponents with a high armor count too.
Resuscitate here plays an incredible stabilizing role, one that is very different from its role in Menagerie Priest. The resurrection targets are Glade Ecologist, Wild Pyromancer and Careless Crafter. Ecologist and Pyromancer work extremely well together and turn Resuscitate into a board clear. The first Ecologist dies after we cast Resuscitate due to the Pyromancer trigger. We can then buff Pyro with the Ecologist spell, killing the second Ecologist, then kill the first Careless Crafter to get Bandages and cast them on our Pyromancer.
This is a self-sufficient board clear that costs 7 mana and can deal up to 7 damage to all minions in play. Of course, we can keep Bandages for the Wilted Shadow OTK if we do not need to clear the board that much.
The deck has a lot of card draw, so we should be able to find Wilted Shadow by turn 7 consistently. With the Bandage generation we possess, we can use Wilted Shadow as a massive board clear that heals us. The card is not just a combo piece, but can act as a survivability tool as well, which is another reason why we run two copies. Note that our OTK is impossible to disrupt with Rats. If Dirty Rat pulls Wilted Shadow, then our opponent will have done us a favor!
Lie in Wait is another quest that is relatively complicated to build around, as shuffle effects have various levels of usefulness pre- and post-quest completion. Our theory is that Quest Rogue needs to maximize shuffle effects and put quest completion at the highest priority, as the deck simply does not function before Master Dusk comes down. It also does not function well before Underbrush Tracker is discounted and Knockback starts killing large minions. We worry about the consequences of running all the shuffle cards later.
Putting quest completion at the highest priority means the inclusion of both Merchant of Legend and Adaptive Amalgam. They both cost 1 mana, making them the cheapest quest progressors. We accept Amalgam is a completely useless card post-quest completion. It will sit in our hand, dead. We accept that Merchant of Legend fills our deck with a bit of junk that we do not want to draw.
Moonstone Mauler, Interrogation and Illusory Greenwing are good shuffle cards, as they shuffle cards that are cast when drawn and synergize with Master Dusk’s hero power, Way of the Shell.
Agency Espionage is a shuffle effect we do not want to play before we are guaranteed to complete the quest with the cards in our hand or have completed the quest already. Post-quest completion is when it shines, as it can help us overwhelm the opponent with greatly discounted cards that we draw with Way of the Shell.
The rest of the deck is filled with card draw, so we do not run out of steam in the early game and are more likely to hit shuffle effects. Dig for Treasure and Cultist Map are strong cards when our deck is filled with ‘cast when drawn effects’. They are also strong with Agency Espionage.
Cycle Rogue gains two major additions that could help it return to competitive play. Platysaur and Cultist Map are strong sources of card draw when our deck is cheap, as we are likely to play the drawn card immediately and take full advantage of their effects.
Backstab and ‘Oh, Manager!’ were the weakest cards in the archetype before the deck disappeared, so they are the ones that make way.
Fyrakk runs a naturally high curve, on top of powerful 0 mana cards. This archetype is another strong candidate to incorporate Elise in its build. Opu slots in at 6 mana and offers the deck a serious stabilizer and card draw engine that works extremely well with Space Collector and Metal Detector. At 7 mana, we bite the bullet with Marin, which is not too bad of a card. Our curve is in danger of becoming too greedy, so we dropped Ashamane. Marin and Elise is more than enough value on top of Fyrakk/Shaladrassil,
In the early game, Rockskipper could become a serviceable and stable 2-drop that helps us activate combos and fend off early aggression.
The possibility of bouncing Elise in slow matchups could turn Fyrakk Rogue into a late game powerhouse. Opponents will need to pressure the Rogue or get slammed with massive locations that they cannot interact with.
Protoss Rogue may not have a high cost Protoss minion, but it can comfortably run Elise. Fyrakk has been experimented with in the archetype before and looked serviceable. Artanis is a better 8 mana card than Shaladrassil. At 7 mana, we can slot in a cheaper Zilliax, as we do not need 9 mana Zilliax to corrupt Shaladrassil.
With Sonya and Scoundrel, we can even copy Elise, as it is a 4 mana minion that gets discounted to 1 by Scoundrel. This gives us an alternative win condition to the Archon game plan.
Spirit of the Mountain requires us to diversify our minion pool. A Menagerie deck will also require support for Menagerie Jug, as it is the best payoff for a board-based Menagerie deck. This build, like many other quest decks, prioritizes fast quest completion so that Ashalon will be a relevant factor in a high percentage of an aggressive deck’s window.
Fast quest completion means cheap minions, which translates into spending less mana on quest progression. It also makes Flight of the Firehawk stronger when landing on small minions like Wisp or Murloc Growfin. There are six tribes in this build: Undead, Murloc, Elemental, Pirate, Mech, Demon. We then have two Adaptive Amalgams and two Mountain Maps.
Notice that we do not have Beasts or Dragons in the deck. That is to set up The Curator to always draw both of our Adaptive Amalgams, alongside a Murloc. Adaptive Amalgam is our best quest progressor, as it is guaranteed to represent a single tick of the quest for 1 mana, every time it is played. Drawing an Adaptive Amalgam multiple times means we get to ‘cheat’ on our quest progression.
Ultimately, our goal with Ashalon is to make our minions stickier and harder to remove, so it becomes easier for us to connect Menagerie Jug. Prioritize adapt abilities that make minions more resilient to removal.
There is a good argument that the real quest reward for Menagerie Shaman is Menagerie Jug, while Ashalon is too slow to determine an outcome of a game when we are playing an initiative focused deck that needs to win early game board control.
Dropping the quest means we can increase the minion quality of the deck, as there is no need to run Mountain Map or Adaptive Amalgam. We build a different Curator package with Scarab Keychain as a Beast. One neat sequence we can leverage is a turn 3 Emberscarred Whelp setting up a turn 4 Kindred active Slagclaw, which can be followed up by a turn 5 Menagerie Jug.
Asteroid Shaman is likely the best home for a new burn package centered on Volcanic Thrashers. We believe the best Fire spells that Thrasher can tutor in this deck are Baking Soda Volcano and Lava Flow. Baking Soda Volcano is a strong stabilizer we can play on turn 4 immediately to stabilize the game, while Lava Flow becomes a 12-damage nuke that can help us finish off opponents in combination with Asteroids and Eruptions.
The more subtle Thrasher synergy is with Incindius’s Eruptions. Notice that the featured build runs Living Flame on top of Volcanic Thrasher, while we only have four Fire spells in the deck. We are counting on drawing all our Fire spells relatively early, while saving a Fire spell tutor or two for after we play Incindius. A Volcanic Thrasher drawing an Eruption turns it into a massive board clear. Our most explosive sequence in the late game involves playing Shudderblock into Incindius, then mini-Block on Volcanic Thrasher. That should lead to some fireworks.
The high Elemental count that naturally occurs in Asteroid Shaman supports the inclusion of Slagclaw, which is another potential target for Shudderblock and makes a Curator package with Cinderfin and Volcanic Thrasher feasible.
Murmur Shaman should not change much with this expansion, but it does get a very important new card in Flight of the Firehawk. Most of our minions have tribal tags, so they can be drawn by this spell. With Birdwatching, Flight and Fairy Tale Forest, our minion tutoring capabilities reach another level. This makes our Murmur turns more consistent and powerful, as it is not just about finding Murmur, it is about finding as many of our battlecry minions as possible to chain on the Murmur turn.
Escape the Underfel is a supportive quest that does not produce a clear, late game win condition, but can produce a lot of stabilizing power and pressure once it completes. This means the quest is open ended and can theoretically be incorporated into different shells. It does require a package of 10-11 cards to support it, but everything else is up to our choice.
The featured build takes the approach of completing the quest as soon as possible, by maximizing card draw and maintaining an extremely low curve that turns The Solarium into an incredible quest progressor.
This low curve and high cycling power makes it possible for us to fit in Playhouse Giants, Moonstone Mauler and Incindius, just like we do in Cycle Rogue. Our goal is to get to the bottom of our deck as quickly as possible, when we can permanently feed the Underfel Rift with an infinite supply of Mass Production.
This build utilizes the quest as a supportive shell meant to enhance Control Warlock’s survivability. There is less of an urgency to complete the quest as soon as possible, as our primary win condition remains Wheel of Death/Kil’jaeden and we retain the Ancient of Yore package. Having the Underfel Rift when we cast Wheel does make it significantly easier for us to survive.
The card that should become an all-star performer in Warlock is Elise. The availability of Table Flip, The Ceaseless Expanse and Cursed Catacombs, makes the Elise condition easy to meet. Consume can help us trigger the AOE deathrattle effect faster while, in addition, Summoner Darkmarrow can double it.
One thing to keep in mind in Control Warlock decks going forward is the Spelunker/Cursed Catacombs combo. A turn 2 Spelunker into turn 3 Cursed Catacombs can help us land an Ancient of Yore on that turn. The cheating potential is significant and available in all Warlock decks in this article.
Control Warlock can forget about the quest and run a build that leverages locations harder. With two Ultralisk Caverns and Elise, it is less likely that a Scrapbooking Student will stay homeless in our hand. This opens a secondary win condition for Control Warlock that is less restrictive than Wheel of Death/Kil’jaeden but does require a bit of luck. This means we still need Wheel/Kil’jaeden available.
The win condition involves discovering a 10-mana location with Elise and finding the 10 damage AOE effect. We can accelerate the deathrattle with Consume and copy this location with Scrapbooking Students. Three locations with Summoner Darkmarrow hit our opponent for 60 damage. Two locations still represent 40 damage, more than enough to OTK all but the notorious life stackers that we can beat with Wheel of Death, such as Blood-Ctrl Death Knight or Control Warrior.
What if the addition of Bloodpetal Biome, a 1-mana location, makes Seaside Giants a competitive option again for Warlock? We can run 8 locations and Elise, a total of 9 locations that can discount the heavily nerfed Giants.
This build forgoes the Control Warlock shell and goes hard on winning with giant minion pressure or an Elise location combo with Scrapbooking Students. Seaside Giants conveniently cost 9 mana now, so Kerrigan at 8 mana is enough to meet the Elise condition.
Yes, we are obsessed with Elise this expansion. Glad you noticed.
Enter the Lost City is the easiest quest to build around, as it does not impose any deckbuilding restriction, nor does it demand a condition for us to meet beyond survival. It does not tell us how to survive, while offering us a powerful win condition that can absolutely kill opponents. It is admittedly slow, but it represents a real clock on opponents, who cannot afford to let the Warrior reach turn 10 uncontested.
This build does focus on two things that help Enter the Lost City become a stronger card. The first is maximizing survival. We are running every playable removal card we can, including the multiple strong additions that Control Warrior has received from this set. We have removal for small minions, such as the backbreaking Latvorian Armorer and Axe of the Forefathers. We have removal for large minions, such as Fortify. We have a plethora of AOE effects, boosted by the addition of Shellnado. We can deal with every kind of board state thrown at us on paper. If the opponent plays it, we kill it.
The second focus is on card draw. Our quest reward shuffles most of the Journey to Un’Goro quest rewards into our deck. We most likely need more than the two added to our hand to win the game, so we need card draw to supplement. This is why we run Sleep Under the Stars alongside Ancient of Yore.
Notice how good Xavius is in this deck. It can very reliably find us either Ancient of Yore or Hostile Invader on turn 4. Post-quest, Xavius can dig us up a quest reward.
Current Control Warrior runs a high curve with Hydration Station at 10 mana. You know what this means, right? Elise is an easy card to add to the deck. Marin at 7 and a copy of Sleep at 8 takes care of business.
Note that every Control Warrior deck going forward can add the quest as a tech card for slower matchups if it wants to. In this kind of deck, which has other solidified win conditions, we can throw away the quest in the mulligan if we meet an aggressive deck. Enter the Lost City can replace Griftah here, for example.
Enrage mechanics have received a power boost this expansion, leaving many players to wonder whether an Enrage Warrior deck can emerge. We think the early game snowballing capabilities of Enrage Warrior are limited to Stonecarver, so it likely wants to lean to the late game with a high value dragon package. The featured build maximizes Egg usage.
We have three main targets for Clutch of Corruption and Succumb to Madness. Afflicted Devastator is great in faster matchups. Illusory Greenwing is aggressively built around Quality Assurance and Tormented Dreadwing. Ysondre represents the highest value, late game option.
At the top end, Grommash Hellscream becomes a real option thanks to Axe of the Forefathers and Sanguine Depths. These enablers are important for Nablya too. Endbringer Umbra works on dragon eggs (!) and represents an insane late game payoff for this deck.
This Warrior deck looks to cheat out Briarspawn Drakes with Chemical Spill and copy them inside dragon eggs. If we play our cards right, we can summon multiple Briarspawn Drakes with Endbringer Umbra in the late game, demolishing the opponent’s board and likely killing them in the process.
Special thanks to WorldEight for helping throughout the theorycrafting process. Also special thanks to TexMuhami for helping to proofread our content. Finally, thanks to our Patreon and Gold supporters who have provided feedback on these decklists.
The Data Reaper Podcast will return to discuss the early impressions of The Lost City of Un’Goro meta! It will be out a few days before the first Data Reaper Report of the expansion.
We’ll see you then.
The Vicious Syndicate Team
Why add elise to mage?
Expansion day is here.
Sorry, I misread Malorne. It may not be active, but summoning 2 Wild Gods for free could still be worth it post-Quest completion of course.
Thanks for the decks! Malorne is not active in Quest Mage though, could be replaced with Raptor Harold.
46
46 decks
46 cool decks though