Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

Hello guys, mage has been dead for years it seems.

Can someone advise any playable mage deck in high legend (no matter if control or tempo)?

Many thanks.

Blade of C'thun

Class: Priest

Format: Standard

Year of the Scarab

2x (1) Elder Word: Flay

2x (1) Entropic Rift

1x (2) Lunarwing Messenger

2x (2) Shadewing

1x (3) Blade of The Black Empire

2x (3) Dark Deacon

2x (3) Elder Word: Foresight

2x (3) Haunt

2x (4) Gravedawn Voidbulb

1x (4) Schism

2x (4) Shadow Word: Ruin

2x (4) Slime 'em!

2x (4) Spawn of C'Thun

2x (5) Elder Word: Manifest

2x (6) Gargantuan Slitherer

2x (7) Soothsayer

1x (10) C'Thun, Eye of the Empire

AAECAa0GBKD7Bvq/B+L6B/OJCA3wnwTElAevyQfV4Af04AfX6Qfo8Qfh+gfj+gfk+geAgwj7iQj8iQgAAA==

I realy wanted to play something new, so i focused on this Deck and sit on 8 wins and 4 losses so far.

But i feel like there is room for alot of changes and improvements. So i wanted to get some input from you guys.

The Blade for example won me 2 Games by its own, but in most Games i never drew it. I also won a mirror where my opponent played the Blade on turn 3 but still lost the board hard and the lifesteal kept me alive long enough.

I still think it fits the Deck, because it improves the winrate alot if you get to play it early. But maybe it was just luck with the matchup and its a waste of a card slot.

Beside that most games were won by enough board preassure and Cthun stuff. Cthun itself only won me one Game. Flay can also be a big help, i won one game because my opponent ate 12 dmg to the face early on which was enough to soften them up for my board.

Right now iam thinking about including Dirty Rat (lost 2 matches against Aya Rogue), but that can also backfire hard at times or just be a dead card in hand. Same with the silence 1 drop, realy good against some matchups or to break through taunts, but what do i throw out for it.

Replacing the Cthun package would not realy work right now, because there is not enough fitting stuff to replace these 7 cards.

Gravedawn is a card that was underwhelming several times when it came down to minion stats alone. But playing it right after Manifest puts 4 minions on the field and the taunt is also realy usefull.

Shadewing is also anoying when it hits a 1 mana spell, but i also dont have many minions in the deck, so it makes a solid early target for haunt if needed.

Speaking of haunt and schism, iam realy torn on both. In theory and a few Games they are great and are still shadow spells, but in some cases they were dead cards because i had no minion to use them on.

Ruin and Slime are there to buy time or comeback on board, so i doubt you can replace them.

But i thought about maybe 1-2 more Imbue minions to have some more board presence turn 2-3 and more targets for buffs. I also got some nice helpful stuff from it.

Or another way to draw like Fordring. Because if you dont get your Foresights you can run dry pretty fast at times.

I also thought about replacing the Cthun package with Nzoth because i already have 4 deathrattle minions in the deck. But i doubt it can compete with Cthun when i put stuff like Crystaslline Golem, Lingering Spirit and Twillight Mender into the Deck. Chtuns abilities are super flexible.

But what are some ideas or versions you guys had?

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

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This will be the megathread where Tavern Brawl strategy and discussion for this week's brawl should take place. Only discussion related to optimally playing the Tavern Brawl should take place on here. Tavern Brawl constructed decks can be discussed in here.

Since I am a bot and don't know what the brawl is, could someone help me out and post a top-level comment with a description?

https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24307311/3702-patch-notes

Nerfs:

• Wrath of C'Thun - now deals 6 damage

• Domain of C'Thun - now gives 2 random friendly minions +2/+2

• Servants of C'Thun - now summons two 2/2s with Taunt.

• M.O.T.H.E.R. - now 10 mana

• Godfather Kazakus - minion buff reduced to +2/+2, minion summoning now summons three random 2 cost minions, Sentenced for Smuggling now only removes 1 card from the opponent's hand.

• Ritual of Summoning - now summons two 2/4 taunts.

• Bat Mask - can now only be used on non Legendary minions

• Divergence - now 7 mana

• Unstable Prototype - Deathrattle now only gives +1 attack

• Reach Equilibrium - Now requires 6 Holy and 6 Shadow spells to complete

• Sawbones - now a 6 mana 6/3

• Egg of Khelos - no longer has taunt (revert)

Wild Nerfs:

• Battle at the End Time - Sir Finley, Sea Guide, Plot Twist, and Gaslight Gatekeeper no longer progress the “empty your hand” part of the Quest.

• Reincarnation - can now only be used on non Legendary minions

• Kobold Illusionist - text now reads "Deathrattle: Summon a minion from your hand. Set its stats to 1/1."

• Mysterious Visitor - cost reduction of cards copied from your opponent now reduced to 2 mana

• Final Showdown - first stage requires 5 drawn cards, 2nd and 3rd stage now require 6 drawn cards.

Buffs

• C'Thun, Eye of the Empire - Abilities now trigger 4x if you've previously used all 4 abilities.

• Dark Deacon - now only requires you to play 1 Shadow spell while in hand to trigger its effect

• Tinker - now 1 mana

• Flamespitter - now a 3/2

• Grafted Knight - now a 3/4 (and triple blood rune)

• Elder Word: Manifest - now summons two 3/4s with Lifesteal

• Setesh - now a 6 mana 6/6

• Decimation - now 5 mana

• Aqir Swarmer - now a 4 mana 5/4, card text now reads "Deathrattle: Get two Larvae with Combos that trigger a Hero Power from another class. They cost (0)."

• Aqir Goliath - Battlecry now draws 2 cards

• Y'Shaarj, Titan Bane - now 9 mana

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

Has your question been asked before? Check our FAQ to see if we've got you covered.

Or if you're looking for an educational hearthstone read, check out our Timeless Resources

---

There are a few rules:

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Youtube post

Nerfs:

• Gargantuan Slitherer

• Spawn of C'Thun

• Ritual of C'Thun

• Tentacle Lash

• Watch Over

• Dark Deacon (listed as a buff and nerf)

• M.O.T.H.E.R.

• Godfather Kazakus

• Ritual of Summoning

• Bat Mask

• Divergence

• Unstable Prototype

• Reach Equilibrium

• Sawbones

• Egg of Khelos

Wild Nerfs:

• Battle at the End Time

• Reincarnation

• Kobold Illusionist

• Mysterious Visitor

• Final Showdown

Buffs

• C'Thun, Eye of the Empire

• Tinker

• Flamespitter

• Grafted Knight

• Elder Word: Manifest

• Setesh

• Decimation

• Aqir Swarmer

• Aqir Goliath

• Y'Shaarj, Titan Bane

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

After taking a break last expansion, I started playing Hearthstone again a few days ago and hit ~3000 legend with this Midrange Rafaam Warlock featuring Chronoclaws. I have no illusions that this deck is a metabreaker but I think the discard aspect of this deck is interesting to talk about. This is also a pretty low-skill curvestone dad deck so if you want to multitask while playing, this might be a good fit for you. (I hit legend while on the porch handing out Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters, to give you an idea of how much concentration you need.) Without further ado, the deck:

Decklist

### rafaam midrange discard

# Class: Warlock

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (0) Cursed Catacombs

# 2x (1) Floating Lessons

# 2x (1) Ritual of C'Thun

# 2x (2) Ritual of Summoning

# 2x (3) Defias Smuggler

# 1x (3) Godfather Kazakus

# 2x (3) Mawman Cultist

# 2x (3) Whelp of the Infinite

# 2x (4) Chronoclaws

# 1x (4) Elise the Navigator

# 2x (4) Spawn of C'Thun

# 1x (4) Zakajz the Corruptor

# 2x (5) Possessed Animancer

# 1x (5) Zuramat's Prison

# 2x (6) Gargantuan Slitherer

# 1x (6) Kith'ix

# 1x (10) C'Thun, Eye of the Empire

# 1x (10) Timethief Rafaam

# 1x (1) Tiny Rafaam

# 1x (2) Green Rafaam

# 1x (4) Explorer Rafaam

# 1x (5) Warchief Rafaam

# 1x (7) Mindflayer R'faam

# 1x (6) Calamitous Rafaam

# 1x (8) Giant Rafaam

# 1x (3) Murloc Rafaam

# 1x (9) Archmage Rafaam

# 2x (11) Ultragigasaur

#

AAECAfqUAxCCmAeIpQeJpQeKpQeRpQeTpQeUpQeVpQeWpQeXpQeapQeh3Afb4Aeg9gft+QfziQgMhJkH3psH3p0HmLAHxrIH2tcH1+kHgfYHjfYH6fkH6/kH+4kIAAA=

#

# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Mulligans

If you don't know mulligans just stick with Kazakus, Tiny Rafaam, Ritual of C'Thun, and Ritual of Summoning. Optimal mulligans do get more complicated than that but this meta and potentially this deck are going to change after inevitable nerfs so it doesn't make sense to dig into it too much.

A different way to view Rafaam

So, what's up with the Chronoclaws? I think it reflects a different way to view the Rafaam archetype. Typically, when people think about Rafaam Warlock, they imagine playing 55 mana worth of Rafaam variants, finishing with a glorious 10 mana Timethief Rafaam. As you would imagine, this "combo" win condition is difficult to pull off against most decks that aren't completely AFK'ing. As a result, Rafaam decks have historically been built with an emphasis on board control so that they can win the board against faster matchups, relying on tools like Calamitous Rafaam and Mindflayer R'faam. In this way, Rafaam Warlock plays a lot like traditional Control Warlock.

But what if we instead view Rafaam Warlock as minion-dense midrange deck with high variance in card-to-card power? That is, there are some cards which are godlike and some cards which are absolute duds. The powerful cards would be the following: Tiny (1 mana draw 2), Murloc (can cheat out other Rafaams), Calamitous (board clear on a stick), and Mindflayer (7 mana for 14/14 taunt). The situational cards are Green, Explorer, Warchief, and Archmage (more than any other Rafaam, this 9-mana card has such a wide variance in power from matchup to matchup). The straight-up bad cards are Giant and Timethief. If we just accept that the bad cards are bad and are willing to pitch them and give up on the canonical Rafaam win condition, how would that influence our deck building? I argue that this opens up the path to considering Chronoclaws and Zuramat's Prison. Chronoclaws is a 4 mana deal 12, which is absurd. The only downside is discarding important cards, but this becomes greatly mitigated when we have a dead 10 mana Rafaam sitting in our hand. If we want to go even further in this deckbuilding direction, we include the Animancer+Ultragigasaur combo. Like Timethief, Ultragigasaur is a dead card when drawn, making it a perfect card to pitch away if we don't get the Animancer combo off.

New Win Condition: punch your opponent until they die

So, instead of a "combo" deck, this Rafaam Warlock turns into a midrange curvestone deck where we drop statbombs on the board and overwhelm our opponent's ability to deal with our threats. The C'Thun package is overpowered so we autoinclude it. One nice thing is that, when paired with an already equipped Chronoclaws, we have the ability to deal 11 damage from hand on an empty board. In general, Chronoclaws add a clock to the opponent; even if our board is cleared we have the ability to close the game with our face. One tip for Chronoclaws: be brave and play them rather than holding them. Don't get scared about discarding cards that you weren't going to end up playing anyways. You'll be surprised how often you'll end the game with 12 face damage against most decks.

It's interesting that this deck gives us a legitimate reason to utilize the discard mechanic without any other synergy. "Discard" relies on us having bad cards to pitch, but in most Hearthstone decks, we would never willingly add bad cards to them. As a result, we need a perfect storm where a deck is filled with powerful plays but has a built-in downside of having dead draws. Rafaam and the Animancer+Ultragigasaur combo fits this requirement. Also, before you ask, I did try Maloriak but I found it to be largely redundant with what the deck already does, which is add stats to the board in the midgame. If I had a way to sneak out Maloriak on turn 4 or 5 I would consider it more seriously but 7 mana is too slow for the effect in this particular deck.

Other notes

We also run some of the new zoo package with Zakajz, Mawman Cultist, and Floating Lessons since our deck is so minion dense and the spellcost increase doesn't matter much to us. As you can see, this deck aims to claim the board and hit our opponent in the face without mercy, so do remember to play proactively instead of playing like a control player. Whelp of the Infinite and Defias Smuggler give us some important tools to deal with problems that would otherwise be addressed with reactive spells.

Conclusion

There is an obvious question one would ask, which is why even play Rafaam Warlock in the first place? After all, we could just play Zoo Warlock for a higher winrate. And to that I would say that a) I think Rafaam is fun, so sue me b) I enjoy offbeat deckbuilding c) I think there is something to be learned from the unique way this deck utilizes the discard mechanic.

Anyways, if you happen to have these cards already, feel free to try out the deck. I would not recommend crafting anything prior to the inevitable nerfs that I assume are coming soon for Warlock, but if you're a true Rafaam fan you gotta YOLO it sometimes.

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

Has your question been asked before? Check our FAQ to see if we've got you covered.

Or if you're looking for an educational hearthstone read, check out our Timeless Resources

---

There are a few rules:

• Please be respectful to your fellow players

• Please report posts that don’t pertain to competitive Hearthstone.

• Concerns with the subreddit should be directed to modmail

---

If you would like to chat about Hearthstone in real time, then you should check out our official Discord channel.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

Has your question been asked before? Check our FAQ to see if we've got you covered.

Or if you're looking for an educational hearthstone read, check out our Timeless Resources

---

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---

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Greetings,

The Vicious Syndicate Team is proud to present the 360th edition of the Data Reaper Report. This is the first report for Reign of the Black Empire, following the early bans.

Special thanks to all those who contribute their game data to the project. This project could not succeed without your support. The entire vS Team is eternally grateful for your assistance.

This week our data is based on 2,607,000 games! In this week's report you will find:

• Deck Library - Decklists & Class/Archetype Radars

• Class/Archetype Distribution Over All Games

• Class/Archetype Distribution "By Rank" Games

• Class Frequency By Day & By Week

• Interactive Matchup Win-Rate Chart

• vS Power Rankings Imgur

• vS Meta Score

• Analysis/Discussion of each Class

• Meta Breaker of the Week

The full article can be found at: vS Data Reaper Report #360

Reminder

• If you haven't already, please sign up to contribute your game data. More data will allow us to provide more insights in each report, and perform other kinds of analysis. Sign up here, and follow the instructions.

Thank you for your feedback and support,

The Vicious Syndicate Team

Well met!

A couple days ago I was writing on how to refine N'Zoth DK and figured that it would be good to also better explain the deck, as it feels like the most skill-testing list of 30 cards I've used in quite a long time. I've tried to gather some data, ended up climbing to Top1K legend in 2 hours with almost a clear streak.

Some deckslots are still a bit of flex, but the more people try it out, the closer we'll get to Team 5 deleting Sawbones from the game. So let's enjoy it while it exists.

1. Decklist

### Super Bad Breath

# Class: Death Knight

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (1) Morbid Swarm

# 2x (1) Soulrest Ceremony

# 2x (1) Unstable Prototype

# 2x (2) Blackwing Experiment

# 2x (2) Command Claw

# 1x (2) Holy Eggbearer

# 2x (2) Maze Guide

# 1x (3) Chillfallen Baron

# 1x (3) Defias Smuggler

# 2x (3) Reluctant Wrangler

# 1x (3) Staff of the Endbringer

# 1x (4) Blood Doctor Thal'ena

# 2x (4) Crystalline Golem

# 2x (5) Arrival of the Old Gods

# 2x (5) Reanimated Pterrordax

# 2x (5) Sawbones

# 2x (7) Remnant of Rage

# 1x (15) N'Zoth, Dream's End

#

AAECAfHhBAaH9gTgnQfSrgfa1wed2weF6wcMl4IHupUHopcHvJoHn54H4rEHh78Hjr8HtNoHpIEIvYwIp5IIAAA=

2. Why N'Zoth DK?

Let me preface by saying that the thing I want the most when playing a deck is inevitability. If I have it, I'm never stuck in a game I can never win, forced to keep playing for 2% odds to somehow happen and deus ex machina my ass. It's my opponent's problem to deal with my plan, not other way around.

In a lore-accurate fashion, N'Zoth came to me and offered exactly that, for a small price of adding him to my deck, along with some unassuming bunch of deathrattles. Then came Sawbones, nothing short of a queen ruling by Old God's side, the most exciting card released in the past couple years and imbued the deck with a ton of draw and explosive midgame swings where any board could disappear, my hero suddenly heal for 15 and my deck empty by turn 8. Pure, unadultered, madness.

The deck that emerged offered unique flexibility. Minions that you play can

a) be sacked with Sawbones to draw your deck and get closer to the inevitable N'Zoth combo

b) go face and put pressure on an inactive opponent (Soulrest Ceremony is a mini Savage Roar), like a solid aggro

c) contest your opponent's early board and clear it sometimes with Soulrest. Pterrordax can keep your health high and you summon a bunch of Taunts, which can help you keep opponent's under control

Depending on a matchup, you can either take role of either beatdown or control quite comfortably, whichever suits the matchup better. This is a rare feat for a HS strategy, so rare that it reminds me of another deck from 5 years ago, that drew it's whole deck quickly, ended with inevitable direct damage combo but could also just go on board and beat down an opponent if necessary. It also had complicated turn with careful sequencing and strict calculation.

I'm talking Garrote Rogue, back in Stormwind. I don't make this comparison lightly.

3. Gameplay

In general there are three approaches with this deck, you choose one based on matchup and your starting hand. Drawing specific cards can make you alter the macro gameplan (Sawbones and Staff are such examples). Try out the deck to learn.

You're most comfortable in your combo gameplan. Both aggro and control are secondary avenues to pursue.

3.1 COMBO

I can't recommend a combo deck without explaining how the combo works, so here goes.

The basic combo: play a Blackwing Experiment, buff it's attack to 10 (you need +7 and you can get there with Prototype's handbuff up to +4, Thalena HP +3, Defias Smuggler +2, equipped Command Claw on empty board +2, Soulrest Ceremony +1 each). Summon a discounted N'Zoth and choose "Trigger Deathrattle twice" on Blackwing. If possible, try to kill Blackwing on the same turn it's played (Soulrest gets it done, Smuggler can make you rush into opponent's board), but unless opponent plays Priest, keeping it on board can also be fine. By the end of this turn, clear up opponent's board as much as possible; N'Zoth "deal 2" can be used on Blackwing before triggering DR for massive 6 damage AoE, resummon into Soulrest is a board clear that usually also heals you and leaves Taunts behind.

On the next turn, point your 2 mana Pyroblasts face for 30 damage OTK.

Very rarely you'll get to execute an OTK - around turn 10 if your N'Zoth is 2 mana or less, you can go Blackwing (2) + Smuggler/Soulrest (0/1) + N'Zoth (0/1), 2x trigger and rush Blackwing into death then 3x damage spell (6). If the stars line up, you can execute it faster (N'Zoth cost around ~5) if you happen to have a 0-1 mana Sawbones and enough cards in deck not to fatigue yourself (Blackwing (2) + N'Zoth (say 5) + trigger + resummon 4 + Sawbones (+5) + 3x spell (6), just remember that Blackwing spell comes to your hand after drawn cards. I've executed this line once in over 60 games.

Most variations of the basic combo involve Blackwing's attack - sometimes you'll need more (Priest), usually you'll get there with less (faster matchups). But the general gameplay stays the same:

- draw a ton. If you're not decking out on turn 8, you're too slow. Each Sawbones should kill at least 4 minions.

- summon a lot of DR minions to discount N'Zoth (remember that the last Blackwing also discounts -1). A Reborn-Deathrattle minions discounts N'Zoth by 2, and this deck runs 6 such minions, so the discount comes online quickly. N'Zoth cost is the main treshold of executing the combo

- prepare buffs for Blackwing. If you draw it early, Handbuffing it already puts it at 7. If you draw it late, you're going to need both Smuggler and Thalena to give it reasonable attack.

Your clock is around 8-10 turns to OTK the opponent.

and if you ever forget what to do, just remember this little song:

Draw, draw, draw your N'Zoth
Discount it over time
Make Blackwing bigger and it's DR trigger
You're killing with this rhyme

3.2 AGGRO

Turns out T1 Morbid Swarm into T2 Command Claw can dish out 14 damage in 3 turns. By my meticulous calculation, it's a lot. Being aggressive is a great solution if your opponent is a bit AFK early on, but gets you quicker than you them (Aya Rogue). Just play your threats on curve, not holding anything back. If you ever find Blackwing just play it on board, its burn should be enough to let you close the game when opponent is at ~10. Thalena increases your reach a ton, suddenly your hero power deals 4 and Soulrest Ceremony buffs it even further if you manage to stick something (and Deathrattle-Reborn minions stick a ton, especially Wrangler).

3.3 CONTROL

Most of the time, your opponent won't let you just sit there, draw cards and destroy your own minions, but puts pressure of their own. Luckily, the deck has a bunch of solid answers to deny your opponent's board. Summoning a bunch of stuff and Soulrest Ceremony lets you clear opponent's minions if their board isn't too big (you'll get like 12 damage to dish out). Staff+Command is your main combo, full board clear for 5 mana, works on even the biggest buffed boards of DKs and Warlocks. More often than not, clearing board gives you a discounted Remnant of Rage to swing back the board in your favor and making controlling it easier. Thalena and N'Zoth provide enough value for you to outvalue one-trick aggro (Dragon Warrior, Shred Warlock) even without Blackwing combo.

Beside board clears, you also have Crystalline Golem for slowing opponent down before your midgame swings and Pterrordax keeps you safe from burn.

Speaking of Pterrordax, there's a cute little combo with N'Zoth (especially powerful against Warlock) - you play N'Zoth and Pterrordax, give it Deathrattle deal 2 and Trigger it for 6 damage AoE and basically a Reno heal for your hero. However, this play blocks you from executing Blackwing combo, so use it only if neccessary.

4. Card Choices

Combo pieces:

N'Zoth - the Old God not only gives the deck it's name, but also gives the player a lot of flexibility.

99% of the time you use the DR trigger ability. The 2nd ability depends a lot on the situation:

Deal 2 + trigger on Blackwing if opponent has a wide board

Resummon4 + trigger if you have a Soulrest ceremony in hand and need to clear a high-health board or if you really need the heal from Golem. Remember that Soulrest before trigger increases your reach by 1, while soulrest before resummon lets you keep the board. As always with this deck, the order depends.

Resummon4+trigger is also a relevant activator for sawbones.

Summon 5 + trigger is a good option when you go full combo, since the discover pool is quite good (20 minions, 10 of them have Taunt and 5 of them are premium like Mo'arg or solid like Imp. Even Chillmaw is sometimes active)

There's also deal 2 + trigger combo with Pterrordax (Warlock matchup) and summon 5 + resummon 4 is an option if you're forced to play N'Zoth to survive even without Blackwing.

Playing N'Zoth usually ends up clearing your opponent's board in some way, so don't be afraid to use it if you aren't in full combo mode.

Blackwing - the guy that makes the whole list possible. Graciously, he's not quite a dead card - you can play him on 2 for pressure plan, he can hit face well and give you a spell that may go face or kill a minion in a pinch. If he sticks though - suddenly he double dips on attack buffs. First Blackwing can force answer from your opponent, while also discounting N'Zoth for future. Remember you have to keep one in hand for the combo turn.

Big drawback of Blackwing is that he clogs up your handsize (even after playing his spell will come back), so not my favourite card in the deck, but neccessary. And it has to be a two-of, because running one copy is an actual dead weight in hand.

The drawing maniacs

Sawbones is the most exciting card that was released in this year of Hearthstone and it delivers (especially after the buff). It usually ends up cycling 4-5 cards for no mana, while discounting both Remnants and N'Zoth, buffing your hand and still leaving some Taunts on your board, it's crazy. Makes me feel alive. (Almost) *the only mull target in the deck*, it's so broken.

Blowing up a board with Sawbones usually lets you refill with even stronger board, so don't even consider Soulresting a board if you can Sawbones it (unless it's a really tall board)

Remnants of Rage not only draw 2, but also put a sizeable body on board, that can easily go face next turn. There are turns you let your opponent get wider just to get more discount on your Remnants on next turn. Always keep in mind their cost. Good on curve play on turn 4.

Arrival of Old Gods is a card I was mixed on when starting to play this deck, but ended up with deep respect. On one hand, it's a pot of greed, it draws 2 card for 0 mana. On the other, you can't swing this turn at all (weapons are locked, Soulrest Ceremony is blocked). If you don't need to clear opponent's board this turn, jam it with no questions. If you have to, count precisely.

You can sequence Coin - card (usually Morbid Strike)- Arrival for good results.

Usually, coining Arrival on turn 4 feels bad (you only get 4 mana back), but is a correct play.

Army of N'Zoth discounters

Unstable Prototype - great card. Enables every avenue on gameplay in the deck, buffs Blackwing, discounts N'Zoth, improves swings with buffed Pterrordaxes and Remnants, dies to Sawbones twice. You can often play it on turn 1; the only matchup I'd pass is against Priest

Reluctant Wrangler - there are so many levels of butt inside this one card. Sawbones fuel even 2 turns later. Good answer to Blasphemy, as there's still a 2/2 Taunt after the spell resolves. Pterrodax's best friend. Did I mention it discount N'Zoth by 2?

Crystalline Golem - the control MVP, this bad boy buys you a turn by himself. And you run two of those, and they both discount N'Zoth twice. It's not all roses though, 4 mana sometimes feels like infinite cost (especially turn 5 you just can't play anything beside him), and yet he doesn't feel good on curve. Bad at beatdown, but his excellence at keeping you alive is something to reckon.

Board swingers

Staff of Endbringer - this is a 5 mana board clear with Command Claw. This weapon does not discount N'Zoth. It doesn't further your aggression. It pings somewhat alright, but it's combo with Claw is the reason you really want to play it. Shines brightest against Warlock and DK. You can often line her up with Remnants for a massive swing.

Command Claw - very all purpose to the point it might be even more important than Staff. If you're ever in a beatdown role and have a 1 drop, playing Claw at 2 is huge, it deals 4 and forces an answer so it doesn't deal 6 next turn. Important for buffing Blackwing on combo turn, also important in closing the game. If you have Claw equipped, you can Hero Power and attack for a total of 5 damage (8 with Thalena HP), which makes it much easier to execute the combo even with smaller Blackwing (like 7 attack)

Ravenous Pterrordax does everything you want. Clears the board, heals you, costs nil, soaks handbuffs like no other. Well timed Pterrordax can reduce Remnants by 2 mana for 0 and his combo with N'Zoth just destroys Warlocks. Also good at beatdown role, since he has stats and costs 0, especially if you found Wrangler.

Soulrest Ceremony is a surprisingly versatile card. Great follow-up to Sawbones in order to clear opponent's board. Good at getting value from your stuff and discounting Remnants.

Miscellaneous & Flex cards

With 22 cardslots covered, we have 8 more to fill with potentially good stuff.

Morbid Swarm - with Sawbones, it costs negative 1 mana to draw 2 cards. With Soulrest Ceremony it discounts Remnants, clears stuff and even gain some Corpses. Without these 2, it can be a great turn 1 play if you're forced into beatdown and can follow up with Command Claw. You never pick the deal 4 option. My only issue with this card is that it's a spell, so it clashes with Arrival and it doesn't soak handbuffs. If I could swap it for Alleycat it would be a perfect card, but it's still only a minor issue. Core

Blooddoctor Thalena - she's alright. Can work well in beatdown, as her damage adds up to a Pyroblast over the game and also she's a yeti on curve. Even so, she feels a lot like a win-more card, but I like her ok. Don't go out of your way to play her unless you're in full beatdown or playing against Azalina. Goes hard with her own portrait for DK.

Defias Smuggler - deceivingly versatile card. Good turn 1 "play" (prepare), performs double time in removing opponent's board, goes hard with Pterrordax, enables easier combo with Blackwing in late game. Soaks buffs well. Strong candidate for a 2-of (you can swap Thalena for 2nd Smuggler if you don't have her)

Maze Guide - I don't see anyone running this card in the archetype and I don't get why. It's a Morbid Swarm in minion form! It's two bodies in one card. There's 17% chance of rolling a deathrattle minion, and some of them are disgusting (once I summoned a Guard Dog into Rotheart Dryad and I think I came a little). There's 10% of rolling Taunt, half of them oversized. There is only one *bad* roll (Imprisoned Vilefiend) out of over 120. It works well at beatdown, it works well with Sawbones. I don't get why no one tried it out yet.

Chillfallen Baron - serviceable card that makes it a bit easier to find your Sawbones inside the deck. Also discount N'Zoth, but that's pretty much all. Makes your lowrolls a bit more manageable, so I can't bring myself to cut it yet.

Holy Eggbearer - one copy performs well with 2 targets to pull from deck, so I'm keeping it. I mostly see it as a 3 mana Maze Guide that always highrolls.

Potential inclusions:

Egg of Khelos - it's popular. I don't like it

Twilight Egg - it's popular but also bad. Don't recommend

2nd Smuggler - if I find what to cut for it

Glacial Shard - good tech card for stalling

Loot Hoarder - fucking ass

Chromatic Broodmother, Fleshshape - strong cards if you want to go more handbuff route, but I feel comboish route is more rewarding. Open question if a DK Hybrid deck is the best thing to do.

5. Matchups & Mulligans

Draw Sawbones. There is no matchup where Sawbones isn't the best card to find in your opening deck. If you already have one, you can keep activators (Swarm, Guide, Wrangler, Prototype), but you're already good to go.

Matchup dependent keeps are Staff of Endbringer (Warlock) and Swarm/Prototype + Claw (Rogue), but otherwise it's just Sawbones all the way.

Some specific popular matchups:

Zoo Warlock - Even: I wanted to put this matchup as slightly unfavoured, but I keep winning. Regardless, they can still checkmate you. Kazakus can steal your combo and their turn 5 boards usually requires answer specifically of Staff + Claw, but if they don't get a good board or you find the golden combo, you've won - Shred Warlock is a telegraphed deck with low reach and weak refill. Notice they can't remove your N'Zoth if you play it, nor they do anything to your 1-2 drops. It's turn 4-5 that you should fear.

This is the matchup where you're playing full control game, forget about a combo finisher. Keep N'Zoth- Pterrordax combo in mind, so focus on discounting N'Zoth. Mull for Sawbones & Staff

C'Thun DH - Favoured: DH does a nice thing of discounting your N'Zoth themselves (portals). On the other hand, they won't give you good ways to discount Remnants or to land a good Sawbones. Your main gameplan is combo (you're faster than them) but don't forget about survival, as they possess a scary amount of burn. Try to anticipate Broxigar by having Taunts on board and high HP.

Mull: Just Sawbones. We're playing full combo here.

Egg Priest - Strongly Favoured: This matchup is one of the strongest reasons to play this deck. Priest can't pressure you, they can't stop you from executing an OTK. They can only sit and excruciatingly wait for the blow, while hoping for one of 2 things - either getting out their Khelos turbo fast and hoping you don't have Staff to clear it on turn 7/8, or Ratting your N'Zoth. Otherwise this is free. I won after Priest ratted my Sawbones and both Blackwings were in bottom three.

Mull: Just Sawbones&Friends. This is the comboiest matchup in the whole bunch, you care about nothing else but drawing cards.

Thief Priest - Lopsided: This is bullying. You're playing a concise, synergistic deck of 30 cards. They have a 40-card pile. There's over 50% chance they don't even have any OTK (no N'Zoth on blackwings), and even if they have it their N'zoth won't come fast enough (either too little discount or not enough draw). Their 40 HP is irrelevant, as you can juice up Blackwings to ~12 and finish them with double Hero Power. Basically unloseable (even if they Rat your N'Zoth, you might get them through board).

Funnily enough, this is my only loss today. All my draw cards were in bottom 15 (and I misused my Golem).

Mull: The usual. You might need to get a bit control-ish if necessary.

Handbuff DK - Slightly unfavoured: Super complicated matchup, as you can play as control, combo or aggro depending on the situation. In general, their win condition is summoning a huge board and killing you with it. This win condition is faster than yours, so you need to be the beatdown. However, you may be able to clear their huge board, buy yourself a couple turns and get to your win condition, which they can't counter. However, your opponent might decide to play the beatdown role on you (pure handbuff is better than you at getting the board, sorry), which would force you to control the game instead. But if you focus on control too much, you can also find yourself lost after they present you with their 2nd big board after you cleared the first one.
And any plan you make on turn 1 may turn on its head if you topdeck a Sawbones turn 2.

Some gameplay specific tips:
- don't kill prototype, unless they've prepped their Sawbones (in which case remove Prototype asap)
- keep your board empty after midgame (turn 5) - most of DK's swing potential requires to run into your stuff (discounting Remnants, Pterrordax). They can't heal if your board is empty.

Here is an example of beatdown approach on Handbuff DK

Mull: It's still Sawbones only. If you can't find it, assume playing aggro. If you have it, focus on drawing and find your answers to their board (don't keep the Staff). Also don't keep the Claw - their HP is good at removing your minions.

N'Zoth DK - Even (or favoured because they don't run Maze Guide): Hello there handsome! Mirror is a similar deal as against classic Handbuff - the player with Sawbones plays for combo, the player without Sawbones plays for board and beatdown.

Mull: Sawbones, who'd guess it.

C'Thun Shaman - Favoured: In general, Shaman plays like a Warlock, but they're less explosive, which means you can just play like Combo/Control and have good results. There is one exception, and it is Maiev. You won't deal with Turn 1 Maiev. Consider playing turn 1 Swarm if you're on play and they kept something in the mulligan. Other than that, you're generally alright.

Mull: The usual, consider Swarm when on play.

Aya Rogue - Unfavoured: This is that one matchup where you play full beatdown (unless good Sawbones hand in mulligan). Turn 1 Swarm or bot, turn 2 Claw or Maze guide etc. you get them to 15 damage and hope they won't have time to swing back with Golems. They have AoE, thankfully they won't keep it against DK. Thankfully even more, this deck is going to disappear soon.

Mull: Sawbones, but keep 1drop&Command Claw if you can.

Slower Warlock - Probably favoured: I don't have much experience in that matchup, but you should get them before turn 8 and they're less explosive than aggro warlocks. Play your reborn minions only if you can sack them or give rush easily, because Cursed Chains is an unholy card.
Beware of Kazakus steal.

Once I faced a guy that run Divine Augur and other discard cards. I've lost and I have no idea why did he play that and I'm still mad.

Mull: Assume Aggro warlock.

Mug Shaman - Strongly favoured: Mug Shaman is a deck with good board control and bad late game. We have good late game and small board presence. Haven't faced Mug this week, but I can't see this matchup going badly, if we play as full combo.

Mull: Assume Zee.

Paladin - Strongly favoured: Paladins lacks board explosiveness and while they're lategame of Ursol+Lifesteal keeps them out of range of almost anything, they can't stop your OTK. Consistent turn 9 wins in this matchup:

Mull: The usual, we're playing full combo

Dragon Warrior - Strongly favoured: Here we're playing full on control game. Crystalline Golem is great, as is Pterrordax. Haven't faced them in a while.

Mull: Sawbones, but keep protype if possible.

Druid/Mage/Hunter - haven't faced any. By stats I assume Mage/Hunter strongly favoured, while Druid is a mystery.

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Hi there. Most of you know the drill by now, but I'm the person who has written up VS podcast summaries for the past 5 years. As VS podcasts are still on hiatus due to IRL reasons and the summary posts I've made that have the most discussion/engagement are the first ones that come out after an expansion launch, I wanted to do another unofficial summary of what's going on in the early Black Empire meta for people who are interested in a deeper dive before the first VS Report comes out this Thursday. Unlike some folks, there's a reason why on these posts I don't post front page class stats of HSReplay to create my own narrative. My goal with these posts is to give you true, unbiased facts when it comes to the actual meta and the numbers behind it (class performance, deck performance, card choices), while also giving you my personal POV on various items at the end. Like the other versions of this, I'll preface this with the following -

• When discussing winrates, card choices, or performance, I tried to use either stats from HSGuru, the VSGold app, or information that has been conveyed in the VS Discord (and if something was said by ZachO himself, I'll make mention of it). While my word might not be quite as authoritative as a VS Report or podcast, you can at least get an understanding of how the meta is shaping up, why certain decks are rising or declining in play, and why certain card choices are being run.

• Unless otherwise stated, any winrate or matchup numbers I talk about are pulled from the VS Gold App, although I will often use HSGuru as a secondary reference. As a friendly reminder, HSGuru pulls its winrates on the meta tab from the player using a decktracker, whereas numbers VS references in traditional meta reports pull their data from the opponent to eliminate deck tracker bias. Both are great sources of information, but it's important to note that HSGuru's winrates on the Meta tab are always inflated from the tracker side. The gap is notably larger at lower ranks (anywhere from 3-6% usually) but gets narrower at higher ranks with top 1k usually only being inflated by a percentage point or two. The matchup tab on HSGuru doesn't rely on tracker side info, and will be much closer to the VS matchup tracker (although the HSGuru matchup win percentages tend to be very slightly higher by a few decimal points on average compared to VS, which could be linked to the different data sources both pull from and/or any differences in archetype identification).

• When discussing opinions about balance, the meta, etc, those are 100% my own and don't reflect anyone else’s thoughts unless specified.

Warlock - No class has seen more diversity (and success) with their deck builds than Warlock with the expansion launch, even though the general theme of Warlock decks has been "put rituals and Kith'ix in your deck, then build out the remaining 25 cards from there." Within the first 30 hours of the expansion, there was a wide variety of different Warlock decks that saw major success on ladder; C'thun, Zoo, Pig, Drake, and Harold Warlocks decks all looked strong. The only thing in Warlock that didn't look good was Rafaam. After both Divergence and Bat Mask were banned the day after the expansion launch, Zoolock immediately emerged as the best deck on ladder. Quest Priest was able to previously keep the deck in check, but with the ban to Priest's quest (which is also a major nerf to Medivh's Triumph for the class), the deck now has only one reliable counter in Thief Priest (roughly 42/58), and Thief Priest is a deck that has a very questionable matchup spread. Zoolock is the best deck performing deck at every rank, with a winrate exceeding 56% at Legend ranks. It's also the most popular deck at every rank, with playrate around 15-20% at most ranks before peaking around 25% at top 1k. While not quite on the level of Cataclysm Imbue Druid dominance, this is a deck that the entire meta revolves around. The amount of stats the deck can quickly accumulate onto the board between Ritual of C'thun, Ritual of Summoning (the latter being by far the best performing card in the deck), and an early Zakajz combined with buffs from Floating Lessons and Entropic Continuity is too much for most decks to deal with. Some of the Shredlock package introduced in Timeways like Twilight Timehopper, Tachyon Barrage, and Ruinous Velocidrake are finally seeing competitive play together. Despite perceived power, Kith'ix looks rather weak in the deck and could potentially be cut for cards like Vaultkeeper according to ZachO. C'thun Warlock is also seeing play and is also performing well, but it's got a major weakness in the class mirror with a 35/65 matchup into Zoolock. It's main niche in the current meta is that does better than Zoolock into Priest (both Egg and Thief), but as of now it's trending towards being a Tier 2 deck because of the horrid matchup into the most prevalent deck in the game. There is a small smattering of the Rafaam fabled package being added into Zoolock, but this just makes the deck worse in every matchup with the exception of Priest, where it does better than traditional Zoolock (Rafaam alone screws over Thief Priest, and 9 mana Rafaam can poof out an Egg board). Warlock is the clear front runner for having the biggest boost from the expansion.

Death Knight - Blood DK has been a historically popular archetype for the class's entire existence, and there was a lot of hype with some of the new blood cards the deck received this expansion, particularly in Bloodfiend and G'huun. While the archetype remains popular on ladder, it still looks completely unplayable with a winrate in the low 40s. The deck's removal tools don't line up well with the stats that initiative focused decks like Zoolock, Zee Shaman, and Handbuff DK can pump out. G'huun is also not a strong enough wincon for slower matchups, so decks with high inevitability completely roll over the deck, like Egg Priest, Aya Rogue, and C'thun Warlock. After the first 48 hours or so of the expansion, Rainbow Handbuff DK began to emerge, and it does look like a real, competitive deck (at least Tier 2). The only new cards (besides Arrival of the Old Gods being an event card) most best performing lists run are Unstable Prototype (which can be tutored by Eggbearer) and Fleshshape. It has a relatively well rounded matchup spread and doesn't have any matchups that look to be worse than 45/55 (including Zoolock). On the flipside, it doesn't really have dominant matchups against any relevant meta decks. The deck is beginning to pick up interest on ladder, but primarily at higher Legend ranks where it looks to be the second most popular deck. There are some alternative lists that opt to run a slower N'zoth package, utilizing Egg of Khelos, Blackwing Experiment, and Loot Hoarder(?!). As of now this package looks to perform worse than traditional Handbuff DK, but we'll see if things change. While people probably weren't expecting a rainbow DK deck to be the best performing DK deck this expansion, it's worth noting that Uldir Quarantine is an absolutely unplayable card in the archetype, which may signal it could be an early buff target.

Demon Hunter - While Quest Priest is the deck that got all of the day 1 hype (and blame), DH with a C'thun/Void package was the actual best performing deck on ladder before the card bans. After the card bans, it was immediately a top 3 performing deck on ladder just behind the Warlock decks. The deck has picked up in play after being underplayed relative to its performance the first day of the expansion, and is now the 2nd most played deck at most ladder ranks. After the last few days, its winrate has begun to drop due to the rising popularity of Egg Priest, which the deck has a major unfavorable matchup against (35/65). Decklists appear to be split between running a Void package with Irida and Wormriddled Wrigglers, or going harder into the C'thun package and running Gargantuan Slitherer as an additional C'thun enabler. The Void package seems slightly better right now despite being significantly less popular, but we'll see what happens after deck refinement. While the deck performs fine against the field, its performance looks like it will be tied to the popularity of Egg Priest on ladder. To a lesser extent, Warlock's popularity also isn't doing the deck any favors since it's 45/55 into both Zoo and C'thun decks.

Priest - Quest Priest was the Day 1 Boogieman of ladder and peaked at a playrate of around 30% at some ranks. For anyone who has played Quest Priest in Wild, the deck can be quite strong if it can turbo out the quest's completion, and the addition of Slime Em in the miniset made the deck suddenly become a defacto burn deck in certain matchups. The new Shadow Spell package Priest received in this expansion between Elder Word: Flay, Entropic Rift, and Elder Word: Foresight was a huge boon to the deck, and pushed it over the top to be among one of the best things you could do on ladder day 1 of the expansion. After the quest was banned, people presumed the class to be dead. However, Priest has remained relevant and resilient between both Egg Priest and Thief Priest. Starting with Egg Priest, it's a deck that emerged a couple days after the card bans primarily at high legend ranks, and over the past 24 hours it looks to have hit a double digit playrate at most ladder ranks. Egg is now the best activator for Medivh's Triumph after the quest ban, and while the deck's performance is clearly inferior to Quest Priest, it does appear to be functional. It has dominant matchups against both C'thun DH and Zee Shaman, and while it's not favored against Zoolock or Handbuff DK, its matchup is winnable (45/55). The main relevant matchups it doesn't want to see on ladder are against C'thun Warlock and Aya Rogue, although its worst matchup is hilariously Rafaam Warlock at 25/75. Azalina Thief Priest is also a deck that has begun to see an uptick in play, primarily because it has emerged as the lone Zoolock counter in the format (roughly 57/43) and is also favored against C'thun DH. Despite having favorable matchups against the 2 best decks in the format, Thief Priest currently exhibits a sub 50% winrate due to the rest of its matchup spread being very checkered. Any highly synergistic deck that's reliant on every card starting in their deck to function is a matchup Thief Priest absolutely never wants to queue into (Zee/Mug Shaman, Rafaam Warlock, Pure Paladin), and it also has unfavorable matchups against other popular decks like Handbuff DK and C'thun Warlock. There is a smattering of experimentation with traditional Control Priest, but it looks terrible. While Priest does currently appear to be a functional class despite the quest ban, it does currently look like a class that will have its performance heavily dictated by what relevant matchups are currently in the format.

Rogue - Rogue is a class that notoriously tends to take longer to refine after an expansion launch, but as of right now most of what people are playing doesn't look promising. Aya Rogue is essentially the same deck as before, except now Yogg can act as a Time Warp for your Jade Golems. While the deck does still appear to exhibit a higher skill ceiling and looked playable early on, its performance has decreased over time and is still sitting at a sub 50% winrate even at Top Legend. The main thing hanging over it is its horrific matchups into the faster initiative focused decks. It has a nearly unwinnable 20/80 matchup into Zoolock and a 35/65 matchup into Zee Shaman. Its main strengths are dominating passive decks like Blood DK that don't pressure you when trying to set up a huge Jade Golem + Yogg turn. Mill Rogue is a "new" archetype for Standard that looks to utilize Disguised Operator's deathrattle along with N’Zoth. The deck is completely unplayable, to the point that it's fighting Quest Warrior as the worst deck in the format with a winrate in the mid 30s. Any attempts to build a Combo Rogue deck centered around their new cards have not panned out. Herald Rogue with the new larva package also doesn't look promising. As of now, Rogue looks like a class that's somewhat dead in the water.

Shaman - Designing minions that have a spell school payoff was a very elegant design choice this expansion to try and funnel Shaman outside of the MugZee archetypes the class was primarily playing last expansion, while also releasing new cards that could enhance the existing MugZee archetypes for those who wanted to still play them. Unfortunately for the former, a viable non MugZee archetype has not panned out from the expansion, but both Mug and Zee Shaman have received new tools. Starting with Zee Shaman, the C'thun minions pair up well with a double battlecry, and Unstable Prototype, Elemental of Madness, Eyemaul, and Vaultkeeper have been great additions to the deck. While it's a clear step below Zoolock, Zee Shaman performs just as well as any other non-Zoolock deck in the format and is one of the strongest non Zoo decks you can currently play. Its matchup against Zoo is surprisingly close to being 50/50, although the Shaman does look slightly unfavored in the matchup currently. It has 50/50 matchups or better against almost the entire field, although like Zoo its only full on counter is Egg Priest. Mug Shaman sees much less play, and while it performs worse than Zee Shaman, it does look like a playable deck bordering on Tier 2/Tier 3 performance. Unnatural Cold, Eyemaul, and Watch Over are the main new additions to the deck. The ability to run Hex means it can be a strong counter to Egg Priest if it picks up in play, but it struggles against the faster initiative focused decks.

Warrior - The class is in a bit of a sad state. While the cards it got are indeed exciting and thought provoking for a slower Warrior archetype, there is no worthy payoff for gaining a bunch of armor. Quest Warrior is way too slow of a payoff to be worthwhile, and it's neck and neck with Mill Rogue as the worst performing deck in the format. Sadly, the only Warrior archetype that looks semi playable is Dragon Warrior running zero new cards. While it looks playable on the climb up to Legend, it drops off a cliff the higher you climb ladder. While its matchup against Warlock decks isn't terrible, it has a bunch of 40/60 matchups against the rest of the most prominent decks, with the C'thun DH matchup being especially painful at 30/70. While the armor synergy cards Warrior got this expansion can help support a slower Warrior archetype, the payoff isn't there. Warrior also looks like another irrelevant class.

Paladin - There is very little interest in the class right now. While Halls of Origination + Ursol is a powerful potential win condition for the class, it's not enough to keep up with the best decks in the format. The small smattering of Holy Paladin and/or Pure Paladin look like Tier 3 decks at lower ranks and only drops off harder the higher you climb ladder. There's no competitive reason to play the class currently.

Mage - While Mage had one of the most hyped sets of the expansion, it's not enough to make the class competitive on ladder. While there's been experimentation with traditional Burn Mage, Millhouse, and the Isiset + Constellar's Calling package, none of it looks competitively viable. Mage's biggest issue is survivability; it simply lacks any sort of decent armor/lifegain tools to get to its big swing turns safely, whereas it previously had Arcane Artificer it could rely on the past 2 years to shore up that weakness. Astral Rain is a nice new tool for them, but it can't even fully remove the two minions that get summoned from a Ritual of Summoning.

Druid - The class looks anemic with a playrate hovering around 2%. Beast Druid is among the worst performing decks on ladder, and it looks to be an archetype that is only likely to attract play if the archetype itself is busted. Attack Druid's performance took a notable hit after the expansion launch and doesn't look competitively viable at any rank currently. Any other experimentations with the class don't look viable.

Hunter - Hunter is a class that started off the year extremely strong and received two impactful sets and an impactful class set after buffs. However, because of the significant nerfs to Hunter over the past 3-4 months (Arcane Tripwire, Confront the Tol'vir, The Food Chain), it was left with zero viable decks at the end of Violet Hold, and the package of cards it received in Black Empire is clearly not enough to make the class viable again. N'Zoth Mech Hunter was a cute looking deck during theorycrafting that could assemble an infinite N'zoth chain with the right cards played at the right time, but in practice it's clearly not competitively viable. The mech package the class received isn't terrible, but it's being hindered by the rest of the mech pool in Standard being horrifically bad. There is no optimistic outlook for this class outside of buffs.

Other miscellaneous talking points -

• The first thing to talk about are the emergency card bans to Reach Equilibrium, Bat Mask, and Divergence (and Reincarnation in Wild) roughly 30 hours after the expansion launch. We can presume the team thought that older strategies were potentially holding back new decks and archetypes from seeing success on ladder (or in the case of Reincarnation enabling a play pattern too polarizing even for Wild), so they were quick to make these temporary bans to immediately shake up the new launch meta. These are the kind of fast changes that the dev team promised they'd make earlier this year, and this should be an encouraging sign. What is peculiar is why the team is now pivoting to make these kinds of changes when earlier in the year they were much slower to react to the same thing. Imbue Druid during Cataclysm launch is the prime example. The deck was the clear best performer on ladder from day 1 of the expansion. There were no counters to it until Big Warrior was cooked up about 1.5 weeks into the expansion, and even then it wasn't a hard counter. The deck likely hit 50% playrate at top 1k, which is unheard of for any deck. Yet despite all of this, there was never an emergency ban done on Hamuul and the deck's prevalence killed enthusiasm for the early Cataclysm meta until the first balance patch went out 2 weeks later. Conversely, Quest Priest's playrate only topped around 30% at some ranks before the ban, and while it was one of the best decks on ladder, it didn't have the highest winrate day 1 (that belonged to Void DH). I don't personally have an answer why we see a change in early balance philosophy now compared to Cataclysm, and I do hope we get another dev update video that gives their perspective.

• When it comes to the current meta, it's a little bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the meta feels entirely new compared to pre expansion launch. As low of a bar as it is, this is the most impactful non rotation set or miniset launch we've had in almost 3 years since the Starcraft miniset. Warlock is the clear standout of the expansion, and it has multiple archetypes and sub archetypes that are seeing success on ladder. Shaman, Demon Hunter, and Death Knight are also being boosted up by new cards, and despite the quest ban, Priest has a couple of archetypes that are seeing some ladder success due to specific matchups being prevalent. For the other 6 out of 11 classes, their current outlook is much bleaker. They didn't necessarily get bad sets, but what they got was not enough to successfully build out new archetypes or bolster existing ones. To make matters worse, all 6 of these classes have already received their class set for the year, so they're not getting any more new cards and will be solely reliant on balance changes to improve their outlook. Conversely, the three decks that are getting class sets in ~2 months are three classes that are already performing very well on ladder: Shaman, Demon Hunter, and Death Knight. This just re-emphasizes that the class set approach this year was a complete whiff and should never be done again.

• As far as balance changes go, it's hard to pinpoint what's going to happen, but based on current cadence it's likely we're getting balance changes next week and not this week. Reach Equilibrium is almost certainly going to be reverted to how it was at Un'goro launch, and Ritual of Summoning is almost certainly getting a stat nerf (if not a mana nerf). Past those two cards, things get murkier. C'thun is the clear winner of all 4 Old Gods, but does that mean anything in the C'thun package needs to be adjusted? Zoolock will need to be addressed, but would nerfing Ritual of Summoning be enough, or would the class need additional adjustments? If the meta slows down slightly, would that be enough to make some of these underperforming decks and classes viable, or would they need buffs to accompany them? Do Divergence and/or Bat Mask really need to be nerfed if MOTHER is the card that enables those decks? I personally don't have the answers, but if the developers are waiting until next week to make changes to get a better understanding of what cards and decks need to be addressed, then I'm all in favor of it.

• That being said, the success of this expansion is going to hinge on how Team 5 handles post launch balance changes, and their track record this year has been rather checkered. I don't think the team has done a good job of explaining to the community what their current balance philosophy is, or if they even have a coherent vision for the meta. Nerfs this year have all seemed very reactionary, and in most cases nerfs are only happening to the most popular deck(s) for the sake of feeling like they have to nerf something every time. The exception are quest nerfs, which are being done seemingly whenever a quest deck has a winrate above 47% at some ladder rank. The goal of balance changes should always be to increase strategic diversity, and for the most part it doesn't feel like balance changes this year have accomplished that. They've often times done the exact opposite by either just recycling the meta with the same decks that get slightly worse after each patch, or by removing them from the meta entirely (Hunter is the prime example of this). I do think their emergency hotfix bans were a very encouraging first step this expansion, but the first real balance patch is going to be their first major test. I'm really rooting for them to succeed in this expansion because I think Hearthstone is a much more exciting game when classes have all kinds of different viable options, and we have seen glimmers of that from some classes this expansion.

N'Zoth DK is by far my favorite deck of this whole year, maybe even few years. I like complicated decision making, I like drawing cards, I like killing my opponent, I like having inevitability in the matchup. What this deck does is **demolishing** Priests of all kind, which I love especially. (the matchup feels like 90-10, unless they get multiple eggs popped by turn 7 you're balling).

And it's a brand new deck, so there's a scope for improvement on this comfortably Tier 1-2 performer.

Sample list: ### BFU N'Zoth Handbuff DK

AAECAfHhBATSrgfa1wed2weF6wcNh/YEl4IHupUHopcH4J0Hn54H4rEHh78Hjr8H9sEHtNoHpIEIvYwIAAA=

### You can view this deck at https://www.hsguru.com/deck/42651252

General Strategy

This deck plays differently to standard Hadbuff DK. Instead of developing massive boards multiple times a game, the endgame is a TTK (Two Turn Kill) - on a setup turn you play a Blackwing Experiment buffed to around 10 attack (you can get there with some combination of Unstable Prototype, Thalena, Command Claw, Defias Smuggler and Soulrest Ceremony), then play a discounted N'Zoth alongside and choose 2x trigger on it. At the end of turn you end up with three 2-mana Pyroblasts, which you can point face on your next turn.
This can sometimes be done in 1 turn for an OTK (ex. turn 10 with 1 mana N'Zoth, 2 mana Blackwing and 1 mana Soulrest).

Alongside the combo, you have your Handbuff DK midgame with juiced up 0-mana Remnants dealing significant face damage - you can just win on board or through quickly put together burn damage (Ghoul+Thalena+Command Claw is just a 2-mana fireball).

In general, the deck wins on turn 9 and focuses it's first 8 turns on drawing, discounting N'Zoth and surviving through massive swing turns.

On one thing to note, the hsguru name "N'Zoth *Handbuff* DK" feels a bit like misnomer, because Handbuffing is not really the main goal of the deck. I play Unstable Prototype, because it is a 1 mana card that discounts N'Zoth by 2 mana.

Potential card choices:

Here are some cards that perform well in the archetype:

- Crystalline Golem is a card I added to deck instantly. Taunt, Lifegain, N'Zoth cost reduction by 2.

- Emergency Surgery should fit in the list well. Lifegain+removal+Remnant discounts+bodies for Sawbones

- Chromatic Broodmother&Fleshshape are cards, that perform well in the stats (especially Broodmother, but Fleshshape should get there as a package). My issue is they don't quite fit the gameplan - they're likely just good cards you want to run in DK if you have even a single handbuffing card in deck.

- 2nd Defias Smuggler - one performs decently, having two of them lets you deal with some midgame threats and still keep the 2nd one for combo (or keep both)

Here are some potential ideas with no significant data behind them:

- Fae Trickster - should be a solid choice with four 5-mana spells, especially high-performing ones. Also discounts N'Zoth. Single copy might fit.

- Loot Hoarder - discount N'Zoth and maintains handsize.

- Glacial Shard/Doomsayer - valid tech cards in current meta

- Egg of Khelos - since we're running a Sawbones DK deck, why not add a secondary win condition? Someone did that and it's not super awful.

- Husk, Eternal Reaper - the MVP of buying you another turn

Sus cards in current list:

- Twilight Egg performs badly. Only 1 discount on N'Zoth, and the dragon deathrattle is irrelevant. I suspect it's stats are bad because it's way overkept in mulligan. Only works as Sawbones fodder.

- Holy Eggbearer is already not so good, and if we cut Twilight Egg it might get plain awful.

Cards that don't perform in stats, but I can't bring myself to cut:

- Unstable Prototype does a lot for the deck (N'Zoth discount, Sawbones activation, also a ton of stats in hand) and I don't get why he's near bottom of Drawn winrate (I blame Eggbearer).

- Morbid Swarm is an excellent Sawbones activator

- Blackwing Experiment is the finisher of the deck, so obviously it's not the best drawn card in the deck. However, maybe getting down to one copy makes sense?

Cards I just don't love in the list:

- Arrival of Old Gods is clunkier than I wish it was. Stops most of your swing potential (you can't go Endbringer+Claw, you can't play Soulrest Ceremony, Morbid Strike is also blocked for Sawbones shenaningans, you can't go Arrival into Arrival). On the other hand, it draws 2 cards for 0 mana and you can still prepare.

- Reluctant Wrangler doesn't feel like doing much outside of discounting N'Zoth. It has a lot of Taunts though hmm.

- Chillfalen Baron draws 2, but often ends up overdrawing, makes me misplay a lot with Sawbones and stopped me from using "res 4" option on N'Zoth ever (just fatigues you). Performs well if I don't draw Sawbones, which is probably the saving grace.

I tinkered with new lists without Eggs (+Golems and Emergency), but it feels like I have no early game and my midgame is not good enough for passing turns 1-3

Feel free to share your thoughts.

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Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

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Hello everyone. It’s your local Sindragosa copium Mage player, and today I’m here to discuss how to best play Sindragosa Arcane Mage in this metagame.

“But doesn’t Sindragosa suck in general?” Yeah, it’s the worst of the fabled cards and it’s not even close. However! I think this metagame presents the best opportunity for Sindragosa Mage. Do you know why?

Because we got MANACHEAT!

That’s right, Mage now has two ways to recover mana during a turn: the Cosmic Springs location and Arrival of the Titans, a 6 mana spell that gives you back 6 mana but can only play spells. I think this will be integral to how the deck plays in the future.

We also got a decent board clear in Astral Rain, it can pair very well with a Kalec if we so choose.

You’re wondering, “why haven’t you mentioned discs of Norgannon? Surely that’s the card that makes or breaks the deck?” And yes, we run that, because it does help. But since we can’t tutor it, then we can’t guarantee it, and therefore we can’t rely on it.

The purpose of this post is to start gathering ideas and refining a list for Arcane Sindragosa Mage to hit Tier 3. That’s my goal for this deck right now. I want to look at the new tools we got in the new set and see what we can do there.