After completing the comprehensive Across the Timeways 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 Across the Timeways is scheduled for Thursday, November 13th!
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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.
It’s time.
(We lied again; we have 46 decks).
Husk, Eternal Reaper, might be the most impactful addition for late-game-oriented Death Knight strategies. It provides a safety net in aggressive matchups, turning our corpse pool into effective life the moment it is played. It is also a late game cushion against OTK strategies, with different levels of effectiveness. If the OTK comes from big pulses of damage, Husk’s deathrattle can significantly decrease its efficiency by forcing the opponent into an awkward overkill breakpoint.
The primary issue of incorporating Husk is the corpse economy. We do not want it to compete with other big corpse spenders, which would reduce their overall effectiveness. Based on the performance metrics of corpse spenders, we believe Foamrender and Corpse Explosion are cuttable cards, while Reanimated Pterrordax and Maladaar are not. Husk should be able to coexist comfortably with the latter two. One copy of Corpse Explosion is feasible, to keep opponents honest.
Dropping Foamrender means we need another way to close out games. Husk’s cushion gives us more room to play Kil’jaeden, which we suspect has already been the superior win condition in Blood-Ctrl DK over the last few weeks (compared to the wildly overrated Headless Horseman). The only support Kil’jaeden needs is a bit more card draw with two copies of Chillfallen Baron.
Another card to keep an eye out for in Death Knight is Whelp of the Infinite, which fills a gap nicely at the 3-mana slot. It helps us stall the opponent’s board development in the early game while providing us with two corpses.
Husk is an easy fit in Starship Death Knight, as the archetype does not run any corpse spenders beyond Corpse Explosion. We do not see other new cards making the cut. Blood Draw could be used as a Guiding Figure activator, but we do not think it is necessary.
The best home for Talanji of the Graves should be Herenn Death Knight, as Herenn can pull Bwonsamdi out of our deck while Wakener of Souls can resurrect it. However, we are not convinced this package should completely displace Travel Security, which is the stronger card at the earlier stages of the game, before we give Bwondamdi boons. There is also the issue that cutting Travel Security will make Herenn pull both Wakeners 33% of the time, a disastrous outcome if a deathrattle minion has not died yet.
Another issue is the inclusion of Memoriam Manifest. This spell makes little sense in this list, as both Travel Security and Stitched Giant interfere with the resurrection of Bwonsamdi. We think Manifest starts to make more sense once Wakener of Souls rotates out in March.
Whelp of the Infinite is a nice addition for Herenn Death Knight. It is not a deathrattle minion yet gives us corpses and some early game board control. Husk makes less sense in this archetype, as it is more about pressuring the opponent rather than trying to outlast them.
We have seen extremely low sample size experimentation with Frost Death Knight this expansion, with a build that looks to leverage board freezes with Slippery Slope and Snow Shredder. Timestop is a perfect addition to this variant. The deck aims to control the board with freeze effects, Deathchiller and Rambunctious Stuffy, before burning the opponent down with Corpsicles.
Perennial Serpent should be the most impactful addition in the Demon Hunter class. Its only requirement is dormant activation. Our goal is to make it a consistent turn 4 play in any archetype we include it in, as it represents an amazing swing card in faster matchups while exerting a lot of pressure in slower matchups.
In a fast deck such as this one, we should aim for 8 sources of dormancy at a 3-mana cost or less. Grim Harvest, Wyvern’s Slumber and Red Card are easy inclusions. Slumbering Sprite is a cheap dormant minion that gives us full control of when we awaken it, so we can keep it asleep until we play Serpent. Another option is Paltry Flutterwing.
A new card to watch out for in this archetype is Devious Coyote. With Dangerous Cliffside and Sigil of Cinder, Demon Hunter can fully discount it without too much difficulty. Time-Lost Glaive is the last new addition, which works well with Sock Puppet Slitherspear and Battlefiend.
For slower decks like Peddler Demon Hunter, we like Ancient of Yore as a Serpent activator, along with the core package (Red Card, Grim Harvest, Wyvern’s Slumber). Peddler DH likes running Elise, which makes both Broxigar and Serpent amazing additions, as it gives the archetype a stronger option at 8 mana when compared to Illidari Inquisitor, as well as a playable 0-mana card in the Portal to Argus.
Chrono-Lord Deios is admittedly slow in this archetype but could enable some strong interactions. We can play it alongside a discounted Window Shopper for insane value and swing potential. We can drop it and bump a Ferocious Felbat into something. We can play it alongside Return Policy at 10 mana.
Serpent makes a lot of sense in Starship Demon Hunter. It offers a powerful turn 4 play to bridge us into Arkonite Defense Crystal. The featured build looks clean. We can incorporate Elise into the archetype with Zilliax/Fyrakk, Bob and Broxigar, but cutting 5 cards from this list to make space seems difficult. It requires us to give up core pieces in other packages.
For Spell Demon Hunter to find success, it needs to maximize Solitude, as we believe it has the highest ceiling out of all Spell DH payoffs. Leveraging Solitude also makes Lasting Legacy significantly stronger.
This pushes us to include minion generation sources: Time-Lost Glaive, Blind Box, Demonic Deal and Emergency Meeting. Blind Box and Demonic Deal possess strong synergy with The Eternal Hold. They offer us a way to find big demons to discount with the legendary location, if it does not get us a juicy enough target by itself.
While Broxigar represents a serviceable card in other archetypes, we can build around it more aggressively by turning it into the core piece of an OTK alongside Youthful Brewmasters, Dissolving Ooze and Kayn. This requires us to run Solitude and activate it by reaching the end of our deck with tons of card draw.
Once we draw all our minions and add Broxigar to our hand, we can discount our minion pieces with Solitude. The full combo works as follows: Kayn (2 mana, do not attack with it yet), Broxigar (0 mana), Youthful Brewmaster (0 mana), Broxigar (2 mana), Youthful Brewmaster (0 mana), Broxigar (2 mana), Dissolving Ooze on Broxigar (1 mana), buff Kayn with Bones (2 mana). For 9 mana, we can deal 51 damage that bypasses taunts thanks to Kayn. A 36-damage combo with Broxigar and two Brewmaster only costs 4 mana.
Zin-Azshari Spell-Damage Druid
Spell-Damage Druid can cut both the Elise package and the Tourist package to fit in an impactful set of cards. Zin-Azshari offers a reliable way to copy Owlonius without being at the mercy of RNG, making Elise potentially obsolete. The cost is running two useless cards (Lady Azshara, The Well of Eternity), but we are also removing several weak cards in the process (Bob, Zilliax, Vistah) and making Story of Barnabus reliably gain armor while finding Owlonius more consistently.
Waveshaping is an amazing spell for every slow Druid deck, while Ebb and Flow is another spell that goes face that we can use in the OTK.
Krona, Keeper of Eons, has massive blowout potential, but is a legendary that is difficult to consistently leverage. This deck attempts to maximize Krona’s consistency while retaining an alternative route to winning through ramping for Loh.
This requires us to build a greedy deck that promises us some percentage of haymakers at the bottom of the deck even if we do not play Waveshaping before Krona. Furthermore, we run Krona as the only taunt minion in our deck so that Tortollan Traveler always draws Krona from our deck and discounts it to 4 mana. There is an option to run Oaken Summons as well to further maximize Traveler consistency, but we opted for Elise’s stabilization potential in the mid-game along with Timeless Causality.
We should have no problem finding Krona, but what about tapping into the bottom of our deck after playing Krona? Contingency is our best card post-Krona and can win us the game on the spot. Timeless Causality is a weaker card that offers us contingency in case we do not draw Contingency.
Our game plan in faster matchups is to hard mulligan for Tortollan Traveler, with Contingency and Waveshaping considered secondary priorities. In slower matchups, we can still win the game through the same plan, but there is more time for us to play a traditional ramping game. Loh makes it extremely difficult for decks to outlast us, as Deios’ combination with Incindius, Fyrakk or Carrier is extremely powerful at 10 mana.
Waveshaping and ‘Ebb and Flow’ are useful cards in almost every late-game-oriented Druid deck. Their Nature spell school makes them automatic inclusions for Imbue Druid, which highly values cheap Nature spells. The armor bonus should also be easier to trigger for this deck, as it runs plenty of cheap minions.
We generally believe that Tracking is one of the best cards in the core set and is balanced by the class it belongs to, which does not often have powerful slow strategies. Every other class would play Tracking if it had access to it. Waveshaping has a similar impact to Tracking. Since we have no control over the discover options, they are as random as the order of our deck. The act of putting cards at the bottom of our deck does not truly matter in the grand scheme of things.
We know that many players love Aviana Druid. Waveshaping helps us dig for a legendary post-Aviana, while ‘Ebb and Flow’ helps us survive in the early game while becoming particularly powerful once we start dropping 1-mana legendary minions. We doubt this is enough to make the archetype considerably stronger, but you can have a go.
The “empty hand” package that Hunter received this set is interesting. While the immediate thought goes into playing an all-in aggressive deck, this may not be necessary to leverage most of these cards well. Arrow Retriever is still a good card when it draws 1. What could be more important is running a relatively cheap deck with a lot of burn and reach to take advantage of Precise Shot. Burn makes other burn cards better.
As we iterated on the deck, we have reached the conclusion that 1-mana spells become a prominent feature of the archetype, which pushes us to leverage them further with Broll Bearmantle, Niri of the Crater, Rockskipper and Mixologist. The featured build can be aggressive in the early game and rush down the opponent but can also assemble burst and finish off opponents differently.
The Windrunner sisters are incredible cards that should be included in every Hunter deck that is not limited by a deckbuilding restriction or requirement. They simply represent too much value to skip.
Beast Hunter is getting a few new cards worth testing. Paltry Flutterwing is a reasonable Beast 1-drop that can help us cast a stronger R.C Rampage later by holding a non-interactive board slot. Arrow Retriever should be amazing in this deck, a massive step up from the deck’s existing resource options. Devious Coyote is a threat to keep an eye out for, as the deck is fast enough to get on the board early to potentially discount it to 2 mana or even less. It has great synergy with Jungle Gym in particular. It also remains relevant post-Dinomancy.
Quest Hunter is receiving a substantial boost to its quest completion capability. It might be that the archetype can now complete the quest a turn earlier on average, which can be the difference between its current standing and a seriously competitive one.
Paltry Flutterwing is the perfect 1-attack minion for the deck along with Scarab Keychain. Arrow Retriever is a cheap 3-attack minion that allows us to lower the curve without fear of running out of resources. It gives us more leeway to run a card like Corridor Sleeper. Sandmaw is the cheapest beast with 7 attack and the biggest reason why Quest Hunter might be able to complete the quest faster than ever before.
A turn 5 quest completion becomes a realistic possibility. If we play Shokk alongside Rangari Scout on turn 6, we should be very happy, and our opponent should be very worried. Survivability until that point becomes the main concern.
The Windrunner sisters are extremely powerful cards, but are they enough to make Discover Hunter viable? This build attempts to answer that. Note that this greedy Elise direction is the variant that looks closest to being considered playable in the current format, which is why we opted for it instead of trying a faster build. The Windrunners benefit from a prolonged game where they can scale, giving us the time to potentially find multiple copies of them through Rangari Scout.
We think building a Dragon/Arcane Mage centered on Sindragosa is straightforward once we understand the deck’s limitation and what is required to make it work. The featured build was played by McBanterFace, and we agreed with the list on every card when trying to build it ourselves.
The requirement for Arcane Mage to succeed is to find Watercolor Artist and Sindragosa with great consistency. Watercolor Artist draws and discounts ‘Buy One, Get One Freeze’. Sindragosa is the dragon we want to copy and crucial for our mid-game swing turn. Portal Vanguard and Xavius are the only other minions in our deck, and their job is obvious: finding Watercolor Artist and Sindragosa every time they are played.
Once we have Sindragosa and BOGOF, we can summon two copies of Sindragosa that activate each other and make every Arcane spell in our deck cost no mana. At this point, we spam Arcane spells and try to swing the game. Arcane Barrage helps us clear the board. Primordial Glyph, Alter Time and Pocket Dimension find us more removal. Arcane Intellect helps us dig for more resources. This single APM turn, in theory, can beat faster decks.
In slower matchups, we win with an OTK. This requires us to use the second copy of BOGOF to either copy Sindragosa twice before the OTK or copy a Sindragosa on the OTK turn.
The result is that we have three copies of Sindragosa in play alongside Malygos thanks to Azure Oathstone. If we cast Stellar Balance, it generates two Moonfires and two Starfires. Starfire is discounted to 0 mana and deals 6×2 damage for each copy. Moonfires deal 2×2 damage each. A single Stellar Balance is worth 32 damage. With spell damage from ‘Go with the Flow’, it deals 40 damage. Two copies of Stellar Balance with one copy of ‘Go with the Flow’ deal 80 damage for 9 mana. This damage is impossible to outlast even for the biggest life/armor stacking decks in the format. The lethality is higher than Protoss Mage.
The tricky part is, of course, survival. On paper, this deck dies to minions on curve and any kind of early game pressure. There is no consistent defensive game plan besides the Sindragosa swing turn. We must discover defensive spells and hope they are enough to fend opponents off until we get there. Even against slower decks, we might not assemble the combo quickly enough before we succumb to board pressure. The definition of a glass cannon deck.
We suspect the most impactful card in the Mage set will be Alter Time, as it is a perfect addition for Mage decks that run The Forbidden Sequence. Alter Time is better in faster matchups compared to Pocket Dimension, but we can fit both spells in with little effort. Quest completion becomes a bit more consistent now. We will see if that is enough.
Minion Quest Mage was almost completely ignored this expansion despite showing signs of being as good as, if not outright better, than Spell Quest Mage. We would try this deck with Alter Time too.
Auradin is the primary archetype that is being promoted for the Paladin class thanks to Gelbin of Tomorrow. This 8-drop can be tutored by Ursine Maul and consistently played every game on turns 6-8, thanks to coins from Metal Detector. This build runs every high value aura possible, to make Gelbin as oppressive as it can be, potentially cheating out 20 mana worth of auras. This exerts a tremendous amount of pressure through stats in play and Crusader Aura threatening to spin the game out of control. Playing Deios following Gelbin may also result in a ridiculous blowout.
Note that Ursol may not have good synergy with Gelbin, but it turns our second Crafter’s Aura into a massive value card, as it keeps recasting multiple Crafter’s Auras every turn, as long as we have space for them on our portrait.
The number of auras in our deck makes Cardboard Golem a serious consideration, as it is not a bad setup card for Chronological Aura and makes the Gelbin play last even longer.
We run Lifesaving Aura to be able to activate Manifested Timeways early for aggressive matchups. If we play Lifesaving Aura on turn 2 or 3, we have an active board clear on curve.
We could run Resistance Aura in the deck, but it is not a great enabler for Manifested Timeways and does not pressure opponents as hard as Crusader Aura. We can only have 5 active Auras at any given time and the deck runs 6.
Tankgineer could reignite interest in Terran Paladin. This archetype attempted to utilize The Egg of Khelos following the mini-set but could not hit a competitive level. With Tankgineer, we now have an ideal 4-drop to play before Carnivorous Cubicle. It is extremely difficult to prevent this curve from connecting, as the opponent needs to clean up the Tankgineer and the Tank summoned by the deathrattle to deny us Cubicle value.
Tankgineer also makes Umbra significantly stronger. We can consider Tankgineer the faster wincon, while The Egg of Khelos makes sure we can beat slower decks with a strong removal toolkit. For those unfamiliar with the reason why Egg is strong in Terran Paladin, it is because we can continuously give it an attack buff and rush with Hellion, potentially popping it completely in one turn. We just need to launch a Starship to upgrade Hellion, and we are good to go.
Gnomeregan is another good egg activator, which we can use to activate multiple eggs. It was hard to fit everything we wanted to run in the deck, so we opted for a leaner build with a decent early game, counting on our threat density to perform well enough in slow matchups. Crusader Aura and Flash Sale may not be necessary considering we can summon 7/7’s now. Sanc’Azel is a worse performer than Tarim and only becomes truly explosive with Dissolving Ooze late in the game, which seems like a luxury.
The Fins of Time is the only new card we expect to see succeed in Quest Paladin. It represents a strong reload tool, as our opening hand should always be useful to us later in the game.
Aggro Paladin should love Gnomeregan, as it runs a lot of 1-drops that it can buff on curve. Living Paradox is another card to keep an eye on, as it offers redundancy with Muster for Battle in threatening a turn 4 Crusader Aura. The Fins of Time gives us a reload turn if our initial board development was cleared.
We strongly suspect that Zarimi Priest will make a return to Standard with the launch of this expansion. What is interesting is that the archetype can take drastically different directions.
Leveraging the handbuff package that Priest has received this set makes a lot of sense and leads to a build that resembles Zarimi Priest’s first iteration during Whizbang. Disciple of the Dove is an incredible minion that every Priest deck will run, unless they are restricted by Resuscitate, while Power Word: Barrier and Hourglass Attendant stack buffs further to the point payoffs such as Divine Augur, Cleansing Lightspawn and Eternus become powerful swing cards. Portal Vanguard is a dragon with a handbuff ability. Soldier of the Bronze scales hard with health buffs and becomes a massive roadblock for faster decks. Whelp of the Infinite becomes incredibly annoying with more health.
While this deck can pressure in the early game, it can also comfortably pivot to the late game. There is plenty of card draw and the possibility of an OTK with Zarimi. We may have been too harsh on Soldier of the Infinite in our Preview. Even though it is a weak card in the early stages of the game, we figured out later that the card might become important in this build. If we keep stacking health buffs on it and play Divine Augur to match its attack value, we can pair it with Zarimi on 10 mana to burst down the opponent with no counterplay. For example, three health buffs on Soldier of the Infinite with Divine Augur will give it 22 attack post-battlecry. Add potential buffs on Zarimi and we can probably deal over 30 damage in that play.
Alternatively, we can build Zarimi Priest more defensively to resemble its Emerald Dream iteration, running Fly Off the Shelves and Repackage. We have a lot of card draw and strong new additions that fit the deck’s game plan in Portal Vanguard and Whelp of the Infinite.
The new OTK utilizes Murozond the Infinite. Playing it with Zarimi constitutes a simple OTK, but one that requires us to have 14 mana, assuming no Tormented Dreadwing discounts or Naralex.
But this combo can likely occur well before turn 14 thanks to Scale Replica and Ysera. If we play Ysera on turn 9 or turn 8 with Naralex, we will get to 14 mana on turn 11. A Tormented Dreadwing discount or Naralex can also accelerate the OTK by a turn, so we believe a Murozond Zarimi Priest should be able to win the game on turns 10-11 with great consistency. Considering the OTK deals infinite damage and there is no way to outlast it (beyond Husk), that is a scary prospect.
Aviana Priest is a favorite deck amongst many players who have been desperate to make it work through The Lost City of Un’Goro. With Across the Timeways, it is getting exciting additions that could finally position it in a more competitively viable spot.
Medivh is an excellent fabled legendary for the archetype, as it is an ideal target for Twilight Medium. If we hit Medivh with the Medium discount, or Karazhan with Medivh in hand, we have a game-breaking swing turn on turn 6.
Disciple of the Dove and Portal Vanguard offer alternative plays on turn 3 to Overplanner that may help our mid-game consistency, but the deck’s biggest boost comes in the late game.
The addition of Chrono-Lord Deios makes our post-Aviana win condition far more reliable and lethal, without being greedier. No longer do we need the scuffed win condition based on Champions of Azeroth. Deios/Incindius shuffles 30 damage into our deck, and we can even play Fyrakk on the same turn.
This build looks to discount locations with Busy Peon and Resuscitate and overwhelm the opponent with location value. Whelp of the Bronze becomes the 3-drop of choice for the deck, as it is an incredible Resuscitate target that can heal us for a huge amount.
By discounting Karazhan, remember that we can drop Medivh on the same turn. Past Conflux and Elise offer additional locations to leverage through Busy Peon discounts and Scrapbooking Student’s copy effect.
If we play Busy Peon in the early game and Resuscitate it on turn 5, we can cheat out a location on turn 6. Past Conflux can get discounted to 1 mana and played alongside Student. We can even discover a 10-mana Elise location on turn 4 and play it on 6. Or we play Karazhan, with or without Medivh.
This is an alternative Wilted Priest build that abandons Resuscitate for the handbuff package. It does not produce a lot of bandages, instead buffing Wilted Shadow to a massive attack value with health buffs and Divine Augur. The advantages gained are the massive swing payoffs we can leverage for survivability in Amber Priestess, Cleansing Lightspawn and Eternus.
Success of this variant depends on how big the Wilted Shadow can get. If we find it early with Portal Vanguard and buff it throughout the game, it is possible to get it to 15-20 attack, in which case, just a couple of Bandages and a hero power will OTK most opponents.
The most important addition for the Rogue class is Chrono-Lord Deios, due to its synergy with Sandbox Scoundrel. Rogue does not need to discount Deios to play it alongside Incindius. Deios/Mini-Scoundrel/Incindius is a 9-mana combo that shuffles 30 damage into our deck.
We think Fyrakk Rogue can reduce the greed in its curve thanks to this new win condition. Elise and her two enablers at 6 and 8 mana, Opu and Shaladrassil, are 3 of the worst cards in the deck. Ashamane was only kept around for the Death Knight matchup and seems unnecessary now.
An important spell for Rogue could be Fast Forward, as it can help us discount our late game haymakers. Deja Vu should become a core card in Rogue decks too, while Whelp of the Infinite greatly interests us in the 3-mana slot in Fyrakk Rogue. It is an early game board control minion that pairs well with our 5-mana Scoundrel.
Keep in mind that the deck can add Sonya to get greedier. We can play Deios, Mini-Scoundrel, Sonya, Shadowstep and replay Mini-Scoundrel, Incindius, Incindius copy. This is a 9-mana combo that shuffles 100 damage (!!!) into our deck.
Deios should be an incredible card in Protoss Rogue too and the deck’s strong 6 and 8-mana slots make Elise an easier fit. Beyond Deios synergy with Incindius, we can also pair it with the Archon combo. There are multiple avenues in which this deck can deal an absurd amount of damage to the opponent, especially when paired with Sonya.
Fast Forward is another powerful addition to the deck, as it can hit our Protoss minions. We believe this is a significant incentive to run Void Rays in the deck alongside Photon Cannons, as we can discount Void Rays to 0 mana and play them instantly off the 4-mana spell.
Can Rogue build a deck that is completely focused on executing the Incindius combo? The class has a lot of card draw and a minion tutor in Dig for Treasure that can help us find our minion pieces faster. Our main concern with the archetype is survivability. When our deck consists of no meaningful minions, it is difficult to fight off opponents in the early game.
This list runs spell-based removal as well as Metal Detector and Bloodmage Thalnos. Fan of Knives and Chrono Daggers assist in clearing boards, just to the point we can stabilize with Sandbox Scoundrel and execute the combo as quickly as we can. In faster matchups, Sonya may not be necessary, with Bloodmage Thalnos offering a path to boost Eruption damage further. In slower matchups, we execute the Sonya combo as described earlier. No deck can realistically survive 100 damage.
This build takes things further in terms of combo consistency, at the cost of survivability, since we give up some removal. Garona’s value in this deck comes from The Kingslayers’ ability to tutor our combo pieces, as three of them are legendary minions. It is not important to ever play Garona herself. Raiding Party finds either Scoundrel or Swordshiner, the latter we use to buff The Kingslayers. Remember that The Kingslayers can also draw the Eruptions, as they are legendary spells.
This list should be able to combo even faster and more consistently than the previous list but might struggle against any kind of minion pressure.
Troubled Double’s best utilization should be in Shaffar Rogue. We wonder if this addition can revive the archetype after the nerf to Shaffar. A Troubled Double with a Shaffar buff and a Lucky Comet trigger does represent 18 damage from stealth, so it is worth thinking about. The rest of the deck is filled out with spells to support minion tutoring. Fast Forward and Deja Vu are fantastic for that purpose, as is Chrono Daggers.
Shaman’s set is focused on a strategy that uses damaging Nature spells on its own minions to fuel their abilities. Stormrook is the deck’s primary win condition and the biggest targets for self-damage effects, as it can summon a big board of random 5-drops to overwhelm the opponents. Flux Revenant is the other notable target, which can help in stabilizing. Static Shock is our best Stormrook enabler, as it costs no mana. Thunderquake generates more Static Shocks.
Considering the deck is geared to damage its own minions, we think other minions that work off self-damage effects can belong in the deck. Acolyte of Pain makes the underwhelming Lightning Rod a bit better and gives us more card draw, which will become increasingly important for the Shaman class going forward.
That is because Muradin is the secondary win condition in the deck, as we need a greater chance of finding High King’s Hammer after we shuffle it back into our deck.
Our primary goal is to set up a big Stormrook turn as soon as we can. Flight of the Firehawk is a soft Stormrook tutor. In slower matchups, against decks capable of clearing our boards, we win with the infinitely scaling High King’s Hammer.
Muradin is generally bonkers and likely the strongest fabled legendary in the set. We believe that Shaman can make it more consistent and deadly with the right build. Pirate Shaman is a scary proposition, as the deck can pull High King’s Hammer out of the deck with Weapons Attendant. There is no counterplay to Weapons Attendant on turn 6 with a Dangerous Cliffside in place. On turn 7, we can activate it with a pirate 1-drop.
The prospect of an aggressive deck with an infinitely scaling weapon is downright intimidating. The deck can even curate its spell pool and run Triangulate to copy Avatar Form, which is an oppressive spell with an equipped High King’s Hammer. It is almost impossible to counterpressure the Shaman at this point. The opponent is getting blasted.
Add Devious Coyote, which works well with Dangerous Cliffside and a pirate shell, and you have one of the most promising new/old aggressive decks in the format.
Muradin is obviously a dangerous card in an aggressive deck, but it can also act as a win condition for a slower deck. Due to its infinite scaling, it can be treated as a late game clock for the opponent, who cannot realistically outlast it. It makes sense to try Muradin in Shaman’s strongest available defensive shell, the Terran package.
Once again, we curate our spell pool for Triangulate to be able to copy Avatar Form and we have all the AOE we will ever need. Big taunts get in our way? Hex and Lock On will take care of it. Terran Shaman’s ability to close out games was the main obstacle to its competitive return. It now has a chance for one last hurrah in Standard.
Nebula Shaman has a bigger spell package, making Triangulate not as consistent with Avatar Form, but how about Farseer Nobundo? The card has already been utilized in this archetype to copy the archetype’s high impact spells and may now have another spell to target with The Galaxy’s Lens.
Note that for the Shaman decks in this article that run Elise, we did not feel the need to add Static Shock. Terran Shaman likes Zilliax, while Nebula Shaman likes Al’Akir. Their builds already activate Elise without effort, but the option is there if the class ever needs to fill a mana slot, especially post-rotation.
The Shreds of Time package provides Warlock with a beatdown shell that can support an aggressive deck. Entropic Continuity encourages us to run an aggressive curve to snowball on opponents in the early game before Fatebreaker and Ruinous Velocidrake drop to the board to magnify the pressure. A decent dragon count means we can run Giftwrapped Whelp alongside Flame Imp.
The deck’s stickiness fits with Horizon’s Edge and Corpsicle, giving the deck some direct damage options alongside its board pressure. Tachyon Barrage/Devious Coyote is a powerful pairing. Be careful not to blindly keep Coyote in the opening hand, as there is no guarantee we can discount it quickly enough in the early turns without Barrage. Horizon’s Edge is another Coyote activator to consider.
This is an alternative, funnier route we can take with Shred Warlock, where we run a higher curve with Chronogor. If we cut Cursed Catacombs, then Chronogor will draw Shreds of Time for the opponent, hitting them for 6 damage (but drawing them 2 cards). The additional upside here is that Chronogor tutors Naralex and Fyrakk, giving us a powerful closer on turn 8.
This deck runs bigger minions as well as a demon package with Razidir. Those bigger minions can heal us when buffed by Imployee of the Month, allowing us to survive longer into the game and mitigate some of the damage we inflict on ourselves with Shreds and other self-damage effects.
Rafaam Warlock looks like so much fun. If only it could be competitively viable, it would be a massive win for the expansion. The Rafaam win condition encourages us to run a deck that focuses purely on survival. The longer the game extends, the further we close in on our victory.
This is why it makes sense to run the same defensive shell that the class has utilized with some of its slowest archetypes. Ancient of Yore, Ultralisk Cavern and Eternal Layover offer us AOE, card draw and armor gain. We are not sure ‘RAFAAM LADDER!!’ is easy to play in this deck. We may have too many cards in hand and risk burning a Rafaam minion.
We think running Fractured Power and Ysera may help the deck play more Rafaam minions every turn in the late game, shortening the deck’s clock on defensive opponents.
Divergence is a spell that can support the revival and transformation of Dorian Warlock into something a bit different. While Agamaggan, Ysera and Fyrakk are obvious targets, Incindius and Elise become serious considerations as well. Two Elise copies can be game winning in faster matchups, while a split Incindius can shuffle 30 damage into our deck. We can also discover a 10-cost location to use with Agamaggan.
Our high-cost minions can be tutored by Rotheart Dryad to make sure we have a Divergence target on turn 5. While we want to build a deck that runs few minions, there is no restriction on us running a 1-drop that we can easily get out of our hand before the Divergence turn.
Last thing to keep in mind is that Fractured Power allows us to play Divergence on turn 4. Turn 5 blowouts become a serious possibility with this deck, so we believe this deck might be slept on by much of the player base. This shell has already proven it can survive against aggressive decks.
We do not anticipate Control Warrior will change much when it comes to its established builds, so we wanted to float a different idea that becomes available thanks to Murozond and Chrono-Lord Deios. New Heights and Ysera are important enablers for this new win condition, as we need to go past 10 mana.
Deios can be used to double the battlecry of Latorvius (Warrior’s quest reward), doubling the odds of finding us Time Warp in hand. We then play Murozond with Time Warp to OTK the opponent.
The rest of our deck is focused on survival, with Chrono-Lord Epoch and Shellnado added to provide us even more board clears. Unleash the Crocolisks is an important enabler for both Shellnado and ‘For Glory!’. Precursory Strike should become a core card in Control Warrior decks going forward and is a great soft tutor for this deck specifically.
Mech Warrior has two potential additions. Precursory Strike is easy to activate in this deck and makes our late game a bit more consistent. Deios can be used to double the deathrattle of Testing Dummy, making Dummy even more dangerous to ignore. We can combo Deios with ‘Wreck’em and Deck’em’ or play it before swinging with Boom Wrench. It is a bit slow but worth testing.
The addition of Gladiatorial Combat makes a Big Warrior deck extremely consistent in its ability to cheat minions. We now have Food Fight, Gladiatorial Combat and Chemical Spill. The cheat play is happening every game on turn 5. Food Fight also becomes better because it sets up Unleash the Crocolisks/Shellnado on turn 5 very nicely. How can Warrior leverage this best?
We think Briarspawn Drake could be the way to go. With Clutch of Corruption and Succumb to Madness, our ability to repeatedly resummon the dragon cannot be underestimated. The Great Dracorex also offers us a way to use these tools for defensive purposes, adding a layer of versatility to the deck in faster matchups.
Notice that both the Great Dracorex and Briarspawn Drake can nullify the Tiger drawback of Gladiatorial Combat. Surround this win condition with survivability and this might become a competitive deck. A “big” deck that can consistently drop a threat on turn 5 usually makes it to constructed play.
Heir of Hereafter offers support for an Enrage Warrior deck running a dragon package. This build runs a moderately sized top end to activate Precursory Strike. The most important activator for Heir of Hereafter is Axe of the Forefathers. Our goal is to swing with the weapon before dropping the 5-drop, which can grow to a massive size thanks to the whirlwind effect. Remember that it counts both friendly and enemy damaged minions!
We opted for the Dark Gift package since Dragon Turtle helps us activate Windpeak Wyrm on turn 5, along with Stadium Announcer. Announcer is a bit awkward with Axe of the Forefathers, but it is worth testing considering its damage potential and dragon tag.
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.
The Data Reaper Podcast will return to discuss the early impressions of the Across the Timeways meta! It will be out a few days before the first Data Reaper Report of the expansion.
We will see you then.
The Vicious Syndicate Team
Ty for posting this.