RDU’s Control Warrior: Classic Control with Naxxramas

Introduction

Hello guys, Giordy here! Welcome to my second Weekly Deck Review!

I’m a Season 3 Legend player and a huge Hearthstone fanatic. I’ve had a lot of success running a variant of Ek0p’s Savage Roar Druid and I designed its Season 5 updated version (you can find it here).

Today I want to talk to you about a very interesting deck run by RDU, a famous Hearthstone player from Romania playing for MYM (you can find more information about him here).

Control Warrior didn’t see much play last Season, but with Naxxramas the class saw a resurgence, especially thanks to the addition of unstable-ghoul.  

ThisjNL got to #1 on the EU Legend Season 4 ladder with Control Warrior, and as Naxxramas kept trucking on, it has given Control Warrior another addition which can really punish a Miracle Rogue, or a Midrange Hunter: spectral-knight. The Knight is very tough to remove (especially for Rogue), and can really help push damage and help clear the board for you. Unfortunately, as is before with Control Warrior the dust cost of the deck is extreme with Rdu’s version hitting a whopping: 13,600 Arcane Dust!

Pros and Cons

When playtesting this deck, I found many pros as well as many cons.

On the plus side:

• The deck is consistent
• It has plenty of removals and/or counters (e.g. execute, the-black-knight, harrison-jones);
• It is pretty defensive, thus countering aggressive decks such as Hunter, Aggro Rogue or Zoo.
• It has an incredibly beefy board presence, thanks to spectral-knight and Cairne-bloodhoof.

On the minus side:

• It lacks some card draw, because azure-drake is not included in this deck list, unlike classic Control Warrior.
• It lacks taunts, since it relies mainly on the warrior’s hero power and shield block to protect one’s life points. While shield-block and Armor Up are just fine to boost your health during the match, an unfortunate leeroy-jenkins combo is still going to ruin your day.
• It lacks charge minions like korkron-elite, making it more difficult to close the game successfully.

Cards, Mulligan and Matchups

Control Warrior is a very famous archetype, well-known by anyone who has had the luxury of having enough dust to craft it. There are plenty of guides out there which explain the cards of the deck, its mulligan choices and the various matchups. For this reason, I am not going to post a detailed list of all that stuff, but I invite you to check out great guides from fellow hearthstoneplayers.com writers:

• For card explanation and odds against other decks, check out Lux’s Absolute Control Warrior guide.
• For detailed matchups and video guides, check out Alchemixt’s Extensive Legend Control Warrior guide.

While the above deck lists aren’t updated to include Naxxramas cards, the core concept of Control Warrior remains unchanged.

Video Guide

Like last time, I recorded two matches that I played with this deck, showing how the deck works:

– Match n°1.

– Match n°2.

I hope you guys enjoy them!

There are several variants of Control Warrior right now, you can find them all over the Internet. For one, you can check out this week’s DarkArbiter’s Deck of the Week Review.

Possible Replacements

You will see a lot of Control Warriors on the ladder nowadays, especially at ranks 5-1. Their resurgence is mainly due to the Hunter-heavy meta we have all been experiencing. As far as the RDU’s deck is concerned, I have to say I have enjoyed quite much, but it’s not perfect for the current meta.

Here are some of the possible substitions I would advise:

• I would take out a Black Knight which, for lack of Druid decks, is not vital, and replace it with either a second Whirlwind, a Big-game-hunter (since there are a lot of priests with Ragnaros around), or a much-needed Azure-drake.
• I would remove the Spectral Knights and replace them with Sludge Belchers. Although spectral-knight is a great, beefy minion, it is powerless against combo decks. I have died many a time because of Leeroy + Kill Command or Leeroy + Shadowste, or Force of Nature + Savage Roar.
• I would probably replace Gorehowl with something cheaper, like Deaths-bite.
• I would reintroduce the beloved Korkron-Elite, since it really helps in closing the game, or  in removing threaths on the board.

Conclusion

While Control Warrior is still perfectly viable on ladder, even at high ranks, I think it still needs some tweaks to reach its perfect form for the current meta. If you guys have any suggestions, tips, or questions, feel free to write in the comments section below.

Also, if you would like me to review a deck that is particularly dear to you at the moment, link it to me and I will check it out.

You can also contact me any time in-game : my battletag is Giordy#2566.

Peace out!