Introduction
It’s time for the third Journey to Un’Goro deck recommendations. It’s clear that the meta is already stabilizing, but it would be far from truth. Just last week, I’ve seen 3 or 4 new, viable deck lists in Legend. And there are a lot of good decks that aren’t in the spotlight yet. Un’Goro proves time and time again, that a good expansion doesn’t get boring for much longer than just a week. New builds, new tech cards, even completely new lists are popping out every now and then. And in this article, I’ll show you some of them.
I have so many interesting decks I’d like to show you, so I’m pretty sad that I have to cut it down to 4-5. However, don’t worry, as I’ll be posting those articles every now and then!
All the decklists have been playtested by me – most likely either in Legend (mid-late season) or close to the Legend (early in the season). They were all working at the time I was writing this and in the meta I was playing, but I can’t assure that you’ll get similar results. Let’s start!
Control/Burn Mage
I don’t know who created this exact list, but different variants of basically the same deck were very popular in Legend in the last few days (can’t speak about the rest of the ladder, but I’d imagine someone plays them there too). It’s a pretty powerful deck and probably one of the most annoying decks you can play against. It just seems like they have answers for everything. With 2x Babbling Book, 2x Primordial Glyph and 2x Kabal Courier, you don’t even know what to play around. Did they pick extra burn? Freeze? Another Ice Block? If you don’t rush them down, which – mind you – is not the easiest task – they have ultimate board control in the late game.
Early game game plan is basically to survive. Aggro matchups are the biggest counter, because all the board control/tempo tools like Meteor or Firelands Portal are expensive. When you play this deck, you have to use all your early resources to clear the board. Slower matchups, however, are more straightforward. With Mana Wyrm and Sorcerer’s Apprentice, you can actually put some serious early pressure if they have no answer. Primordial Glyph combos so well with both of those minions. With Mana Wyrm, getting a second Primordial Glyph is basically +1 attack for free (and it happens sometimes, I’ve seen 2-3 Glyph chains) and picking any cheap spell, an extra attack. Sorcerer’s Apprentice is “double dipping” on its effect if you pick anything that costs 3 or more (initially) – you get one card discounted 2 times. So let’s say Primordial Glyph into 3 mana spell costs only 1 mana in total.
But the late game is much more interesting. The deck has so many removals that anything your opponent plays will most likely go down. At the same time, you can get even more of them from the random effects. Controlling the board is obviously important, but that’s now how you win the game. You do that by the late game tempo swings and burn damage. The most basic one is, obviously, turn 9 Alexstrasza into turn 10 kill with the burn. But that’s not the only way this deck wins the games. Medivh, the Guardian is an unexpected MVP of this deck. With 2x Meteor and 2x Firelands Portal, the card’s effect will be insane. Those are the late game tempo swings I was talking about. I’ve just said that you can’t win the games just by controlling the board and I need to revise that statement. You can easily do that after playing Medivh. Imagine your normal Meteor turn at 9 mana. You play Meteor and… probably pass. Maybe you play some small minion or a Secret too, but that’s it. You don’t really get ahead by a lot, you just clear the board. But imagine the same turn with Atiesh equipped. On top of what you’re doing, you’re also summoning a random 6-drop. Outside of the worst case scenarios, it should be at least 5/5 minion. Now, your opponent develops the board again in order to answer that minion… then you play some big spell again to clear it and get yet another big drop. If you think about it that way, sometimes even Pyroblasting a minion is worth it, because you also get a random 10 mana minion (Old Gods are the smallest ones with 5/7, 7/5 and 6/6 stats, but those are still passable).
There are a few late game outcomes. You can, of course, die – but that doesn’t happen too often, you have 2 Ice Blocks and you can always Alex yourself. Another outcome is that you run your opponent out of resources completely (because your removals are very efficient) and you win the game. Another is that you outtempo your opponent heavily thanks to the Medivh and kill him with the random minions you’re getting. And yet another is just having enough burn (possibly after Alexstrasza, but it’s not always necessary) to just kill your opponent over 2-3 turns.
The deck has quite unique play style and it might be hard to get used to it at first, but after you play a few games, you should start seeing the potential.
Fr0zen’s Aggro/Token Druid
I find it really weird that this deck isn’t more popular on the ladder. According to the Vicious Syndicate, it was always one of the strongest decks win-rate wise, but it’s surprisingly underplayed (with only 3-5% representation on the ladder). I’ve used it a few days ago to climb out of the “dumpster” Legend (~10k) into higher ranks, which turned out to be relatively easy (~65% win rate). Fr0zen has hit It’s probably the strongest Aggro Druid build right now – it’s pretty consistent and powerful.
The deck is mostly about abusing the Druid’s AoE buff mechanics by swarming the board early. If we go by the Paladin’s example, 1 mana buff should give you around 3 stat points (Blessing of Might, Divine Strength). 4 stat buffs would probably be played in A LOT of the decks (like +2/+2 for 1 mana). And what do you know, Mark of the Lotus can easily be 4 stats in this deck and it’s a pretty bad outcomes. When you Mark of the Lotus in the early game, you usually get +3/+3 or +4/+4 in total. That’s A LOT for 1 mana. It’s a great tempo swing and gets all your minions out of the range of small AoEs that could be potentially deadly for such a deck. Power of the Wild is a little bit worse, but it gets more flexibility – it can also summon a 3/2. And for the sake of those buffs, biggest part of the deck are either sticky minions or minions with more than a single body.
Then, the deck also runs the Murloc package with 2x Bluegill Warrior, 2x Murloc Warleader and Finja, the Flying Star. While the first two Murlocs aren’t worth to run by themselves, Finja is what makes the package viable. It’s the card that can win you the game on the spot unless your opponent counters it with a big AoE (or well, something like Kodo before it attacks). It’s even better if you can add one extra Murloc on the turn you attack with it and add an AoE buff or two… The results can be pretty crazy. One turn you have only Finja on the board, next turn you have board full of Murlocs and possibly another small minion or two.
The card that surprised me most is Living Mana. I’ve expected Shaman to be more popular, thus the card getting completely destroyed by Devolve. But as it turns out, with pretty much no way to punish it in the meta, it’s pretty strong. Let’s say that you play it on turn 5. By that time you’re pretty much in the topdeck mode anyway, so you don’t care that you can’t play a small minion you get from the top. Sure, there are some scenarios where not having the mana hurts – like topdecking Savage Roar and not being able to play it. But filling the board with 2/2’s instead of playing, I don’t know, 2x 1/2 minion is a huge difference. It’s even better if you have Mark of the Lotus to play right away – you have a lot of bodies to buff and often exactly 1 mana to work with.
One of the main win conditions of this deck is Savage Roar. It’s a source of insane burst damage if you have big enough board. It’s amazing after the swarm and can be really deadly. Let’s say that you have 5 minions on the board – Savage Roar becomes 12 damage for 3 mana. Add the damage of the minions on the board, maybe Hero Power or another AoE buff and you can easily deal 20+ burst damage with big enough board. Alternatively, Bluegill Warriors and/or Patches the Pirate + Savage Roar can be “some” burst damage from the hand, although not that much. It’s still often enough to deal the last points of damage after your board was cleared.
In my opinion, it’s one of the most fun Aggro decks. I’ve never enjoyed decks like Pirate Warrior or Aggro Shaman, but I’m playing a lot of the Aggro Druid and I like it so far.
Bbgungun’s Control Paladin
Funny thing is that this deck runs so little duplicates that you could turn it into a Reno Jackson deck really easily… if Reno was still in Standard, that is (and if it was worth it to make Reno Paladin in the first place). But, about the deck. Paladin is one of the strongest classes right now, Midrange/Murloc Paladin, both slower and faster versions, are very popular and powerful ladder deck choices. However, people seem to forget about a more Control approach, which was the go-to Paladin’s play style from time to time. It of course depends on the matchup, but this deck is much stronger in many of them than the Midrange version. Bbgungun has got into top 10 Legend with this deck 2 or 3 times already this season, so it definitely works quite well.
Playing this deck against Aggro is basically hoping to survive. With so many ways to heal or Taunt up, it’s quite easy to beat any Aggro that doesn’t rush you down. Besides Taunts and heals, you also have AoE clears, weapon removal, Doomsayer for the early game clears and Aldor to neutralize big threats. But surprise surprise, it’s often still not enough against something like Pirate Warrior, because you might get rushed in the early game. Aggro matchups are still bane of this deck, especially Quest Rogue. You have zero ways to put pressure in the early/mid game. You just let the Rogue finish Quest and then beat you with a swarm of 5/5’s. It’s probably the worst matchup and honestly, if not for the Quest Rogues on the ladder, it might be a Tier 1 deck (because other matchups, while hard, are still beatable).
But oh boy, the late game value this deck has is insane. It might not seem like it’s the case on the first glance, but if you think about it for a bit. You have Tirion Fordring and Ragnaros, Lightlord. Stonehill Defender can give you (and probably will give you) more big Taunts. Hydrologist can give you Getaway Kodo to jump a big minion back. Ivory Knight can discover a powerful, high value spell. Elise the Trailblazer gives you Un’Goro pack, which is even more value. And finally, you have N’Zoth the Corruptor. It might seem really weird to run it in a deck with only 2 Deathrattles, it’s much better than you might expect. First of all, even reviving Tirion alone is already great. For 10 mana you get 5/7 minion and Tirion. Who wouldn’t want that? But not only that, Stonehill Defender can discover you more Deathrattles, if you revive/bounce one to the hand (with Hydrologist Secrets), you get +1 on N’Zoth, then you can get something from Elise’s pack… I had a game where I’ve revived 2x Tirion Fordring, Infested Tauren and Direhorn Hatchling I’ve got from the Elise pack. If the game is long enough, you can get a lot of value. Having 3 or 4 Tirions throughout the game is not that uncommon and depending on the matchup and the situation, that’s either A LOT of face damage (2 Tirions might be enough to just kill your opponent in some matchups) or tons of value. Normally it would be very hard to utilize so many weapons, but you have enough healing that smacking things doesn’t hurt much.
But what I really like about this deck is that it completely wrecks Mages. Freeze Mage, Burn Mage, Control Mage, whatever Mage they play, their deck’s ultimate goal is to burn you down with spells. Which is nearly impossible given the amount of heal you have in your deck. They Alexstrasza you? Ragnaros, Lightlord. They continue with burn after killing your Lightlord? Forbidden Healing. They have even more burn? Lay on Hands/Ivory Knight/Truesilver Champion/Wickerflame Burnbristle. I haven’t lost a single game against Mage with this deck so far.
Probably the worst thing about this deck is its cost. It’s REALLY expensive, with 6 Legendaries and multiple Epics, it’s hard to build for the average player. The truth is that some of the cards can be replaced, but you can never build a “budget” Control Paladin.
uPZuka’s Silence Priest
And finally, the so-called “Unicorn Priest”. Even if it might not be the strongest Priest deck right now, it’s certainly the most fun to play if you’re into the huge numbers on the minions and wins that shouldn’t happen. Like, if you enjoy having a 32/32 minion on the board on turn 5, then it’s the right deck for you. Admittedly, those things don’t happen often, but after playtesting the deck I was really surprised how easy it is to get a huge minion in the early game. If you play against a deck that can’t answer it with something like Execute, one minion like that can carry you quite easily.
The idea behind the deck is simple. You play the minions that can’t attack – Ancient Watcher and Humongous Razorleaf. Then you play “activators” – Silence cards and Faceless Shambler. And finally, you play the Divine Spirit + Inner Fire combo, which happens to combo really well with the high health of the Humongous Razorleaf (and Watcher too, to a lesser extent). Razorleaf and Shadow Visions were the two cards this deck has needed to be viable. Razorleaf is a 3 mana 4/8 which you can activate really easily, while Shadow Visions makes it more consistent. Like, imagine – you have your Razorleaf on the board, it’s turn 4 and you have no way to Silence it. Shadow Visions is pretty much guaranteed to give you either Purify or Silence, making it more consistent. Even more with the combo – a missing combo piece was often a big problem, but now with Shadow Visions you can get it way, way easier.
However, what might be the most fun part of this deck are the late game combos with Potion of Madness. In order for the Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combos to work, you need a minion on the board, and your opponent will clear everything you play to prevent that. But with that card, you might not need to play anything. All you need is a 0-2 attack minion you can steal and buff from your hand. Doomsayer is probably the best one, but even a 1/3 or something like that can be good enough. So, imagine that: you steal a 1/3 (1 mana), you play Power Word: Shield (1/5, 2 mana), Kabal Talonpriest (1/8, 5 mana), 2x Divine Spirit (1/32, 9 mana) and then Inner Fire (32/32, 10 mana). You don’t need any discounts (but Radiant Elemental can make it cheaper if you play more than 2 spells, which you do) or Coin to do that and even a 1/3 minion can turn into a 32/32 minion. Oh, and it obviously has charge, so you just won the game after pulling that off. It might seem like a combo that’s incredibly hard to get, but thanks to the Shadow Visions it’s actually not that hard.
Sometimes you can also pull a Miracle turn with Lyra the Sunshard and Radiant Elemental(s). This package is another way to win the games that you shouldn’t have won. If you get lucky enough, you might get a huuuge chain of draws with Lyra. With 2x Radiant Elemental on the board, each 0-2 mana spell costs 0 mana. So if you start with the ones from your deck like Silence, Power Word: Shield, Divine Spirit etc. there is a huge chance to get more and more of cheap stuff to play. Also, what’s very important is that all your combo pieces are 0-2 mana, so with Lyra & C.o. on the board you can do wonders. I mean, let’s say that you have most of the combo but you’re missing a vital piece like Inner Fire. You can start performing it and by the time you play your every cheap spell, you have a high chance to get your Inner Fire randomly. Even if not, you also have a chance to get PW:S for more card draw or Shadow Visions to just pull it from your deck (or pull another cheap spell and continue the chain). Remember to start this as soon as your turn starts, because it will take really long to cycle through everything. While I haven’t counted, I had some turns where I’ve casted 15+ spells quite easily with Lyra on the board. That’s really crazy.
All in all, the deck is really fun. The author, uPZuka, has hit #2 Legend with it, so it’s also viable if you’re wondering. And, most importantly, it’s really cheap too. You technically don’t need Lyra to play it (but it helps a lot!) so you can play it without a single Legendary, only with a few Epics and one adventure card (Purify is from Karazhan).
Closing
Do you know any fun/interesting decks that can also get you to high ranks? Some decks with non-meta choices, techs that you haven’t seen before etc.? If yes, let me know and I can include them next time! I hope that you’ve liked this batch of decks, I have played a few of those myself and I found them really cool. I’ll try my best to provide you with more fresh lists every now and then.
If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. And if you want to be up to date with my articles, you can follow me on Twitter.
Good luck on the ladder and until next time!
Published: Apr 29, 2017 08:05 am