Introduction
Every expansion brings new cards. The way most people look at those new cards is: “can I play it in my powerful meta deck?”. If yes, then it’s good. If no, then it sucks. But there is also a different kind of people. Those who don’t look to win as many games as possible. Those who don’t care about their rank. Instead, they want to pull off the craziest possible combos, something that might take 10 or 20 games to work, but when it finally works, it feels really great.
Sometimes I wish I had so much fun with losing 20 games just to perform the combo once. But sadly, I’m not one of those people. Instead, I simply love watching them and in this article, I’ll show you some of the craziest combos that were made available (or significantly easier to pull off) thanks to the Journey to Un’Goro.
Combos
A Wild Zombie Chow Appears!
What do you know, even though most of the people try the new cards in Standard format, every cool card added has way more potential in the second, less popular format – Wild. And I just love it, that’s what this format is about. 10 years from now, if someone doesn’t eat the potato HS server until then, people will fling the turn 2 OTKs vs some infinite life gain combos everywhere. But for now, let’s calm down and look at this one.
Priest was always a “combo” class. Besides the classic Control deck lists, a lot of Priest spells just scream “OTK” or at least “tons of burst”. Well, what do you know, if you mix some of the old cards with the new ones, you might get another way to crush your opponent. This combo was partially used before, but it didn’t have as much potential as it has now. The old combo was Baron Rivendare + Auchenai Soulpriest + 2x Zombie Chow + Circle of Healing. Since Baron Rivendare forces Deathrattles to proc twice, and since Zombie Chows deal damage instead of healing with Auchenai on the board, the combo did 20 damage to the opponent. But 20 damage still ain’t OTK. However, new Un’Goro addition – Spiritsinger Umbra – comes for the rescue.
If you add Umbra to the whole combo, now each Deathrattle will also proc when the minion is played. So each Zombie Chow will deal damage 4 times instead of 2 times. Which is 8 times in total, 8 * 5 = 40 damage. I think that can be classified as OTK.
Is the combo viable? Well, not exactly. After all, it’s a 6 cards combo, with 2 of the cards being Legendary (so you can only put a single copy of them into your deck) that costs 14 mana in total, so it requires Emperor Thaurissan proc on 4 cards. But, to be completely fair, I’ve seen combos that are way harder to pull and way worse at the same time.
P.S. If you want to try it out, Auchenai can be replaced with Embrace the Shadows. It’s cheaper, so it makes the whole combo much easier to pull. With 2 mana less, you need discounts on only 2 cards (besides Circle, because it’s already 0 mana).
Infinite Cruelty
Cruel Dinomancer was supposed to be played in the slower Discard Warlock decks. But those don’t work. Actually, no Warlock deck really works right now. So if you want to play the class, you can as well go for the memes instead of win rate. The card has interesting interaction that I didn’t catch at first… interaction with itself. If Cruel Dinomancer is the only minion discarded that game, and I repeat it, THE ONLY MINION, then it has 100% chance to resummon itself on the Deathrattle. Which basically means that unless it’s Silenced or transformed, it will replace itself on the board infinitely. Something like a Dreadsteed, but a 5/5, which is obviously a bit stronger than a 1/1.
That’s already a cool interaction, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to put it on this list. However, what if you add the card from the last combo? Yes, Spiritsinger Umbra. Since it forces a card to proc the Deathrattle on the summon, instead of replacing itself on the death it summons a copy when it enters the board. And that copy also instantly procs its Deathrattle and summons another copy. So you summon 5/5’s until you fill the board. In the best case scenario you end up with 6x 5/5 on the board, 6x 5/5 that are pretty much unkillable. At this point the only way to deal with them would be something like a Mass Dispel or Devolve. When they die, they just come back to life. While the combo doesn’t immediately kill the opponent, it’s pretty much game over unless he kills you right away.
The combo is very hard to pull off, because you first need to discard the Cruel Dinomancer and make sure that you don’t discard any other minion. And then you need to draw the second one AND Spiritsinger Umbra. While it doesn’t require many pieces, it’s pretty hard to make it work in the real game scenario.
Boar Control
Sudden Genesis is a pretty interesting card. It has some potential, but it’s really hard to utilize it in the game. It’s just clunky and really requires a specific set-up to work. But what if instead using it in a “normal way”, to just copy some minions and gain value/tempo, what if you use it to just kill your opponent instead? Well, yeah, that might work. I’ve seen people trying to pull of a combo with Grommash Hellscream and it’s also pretty interesting. The idea is that you play Grommash, you trade him into something or just enrage him. Now you have let’s say 10/5 with Charge on the board. If somehow it survives, you play 2x Sudden Genesis next turn and you end up with 4x 10/5 Charge minion, which is most likely enough to just kill the opponent.
Of course, that combo is pretty poor, because it has a huge condition – Grommash needs to survive a turn intact. This won’t happen most of the time, and so the combo will be useless. But what if instead of Grommash you use some cheaper Charge minions? Well, that might work!
Chakki has decided to try out this combo in the Wild with… Stonetusk Boar. But wait a moment, it’s only a 1/1, so you can’t even damage it to copy it. How about you use the handbuffs first? Yes, you can use cards like Grimestreet Smuggler, Grimy Gadgeteer or the big boss Don Han’Cho to buff the boars first. Then, you play them, you use Inner Rage, you play the Sudden Genesis and copy the charging pork. Now you’ve got a board full of Chargers that are ready for the OTK.
It’s more of a meme combo than something actually working, to be honest. Warrior was always known for the combo decks, like the old, old Warsong Commander + Molten Giant OTK, then the Patron Warrior, then the Worgen Warrior and Arcane Giants Warrior… Well, this is another Warrior combo deck, but I don’t think it will catch up.
The Gardener
This one isn’t too complicated or crazy or hard to pull of, I just found it pretty funny and decided to put it on the list. Sherazin, Corpse Flower is one of the coolest cards of the expansion. The new mechanic was point on – not only it fits the Rogue so well, but it’s also very balanced.
If 1 flower is great, what about 6? Well, doing that is pretty simple. N’Zoth, the Corruptor. Each time Sherazin dies, it counts as a Deathrattle minion dying. So for each time you revived your Sherazin and it died again, you will get another copy summoned by N’Zoth. However, that would mean that your Sherazin needed to die 5 times – that’s not always easy to achieve.
But don’t worry, Faceless Manipulator comes for the rescue. If you copy your Sherazin even once, now your opponent will need to kill two every time you ress them. So with two on the board, each one needs to die only twice for you to get a full board, which is much easier to achieve.
And well, with 6x Sherazin on the board, each time you play 4 spells you get 6x 5/3 back. The only problem is that with only a single board space left you can only play one minion at the time. Well, maybe you should just play the second Faceless to go full meme mode and have 7x Sherazin on the board at the same time?
Wanna Buy Some Shadows?
Both Shadow Visions and Radiant Elemental made Priest class so much cooler when it comes to the combos. With mana Discounts and ability to tutor a spell from your deck, a lot of the decks were made viable or at least semi-viable. While this combo presented isn’t played in any of those viable decks, it’s still something that’s interesting to see.
I honestly think that this combo could be pretty strong if not for one thing – any combo that needs one of your minions to survive a turn is bad. Your opponent just won’t let you do it. But hey, if you get lucky and he has no removal or you play against someone who is oblivious and doesn’t know what’s coming, you’re lucky. Remember kids, if your opponent plays Mana Addict, it means that magic will happen next turn.
This combo isn’t really hard to pull off, it doesn’t require tons of cards or some crazy discounts. Pretty much the only requirement is your Mana Addict surviving. Oh, and you also need to have Shadow Visions left as one of the 3 spells in your deck. Basically, you play 2x Radiant Elemental (or play 1 and copy it) and then you play your Shadow Visions to get another Shadow Visions. And you play that Shadow Visions to get another Shadow Visions… and every time you do that, your Mana Addict gets +2 Attack. After you repeat it 15 or so times, you get enough damage to one-shot your opponent.
You can do the same combo with Questing Adventurer, but you need to have a bit higher APM to pull that off (you need to repeat the SV -> SV like 25 times).
Just Priest Things
This actually isn’t an Un’Goro combo. You could pull exactly the same thing before the expansion. But I put it on the list because such Priest decks are actually viable in this meta, mostly thanks to the few cards like Shadow Visions, Radiant Elemental and Lyra the Sunshard. Especially Shadow Visions, which increases consistency of such combos.
The Divine Spirit + Inner Fire combos are in the game since vanilla. I think that every novice deck builder have came up with that combo at some point. I mean, it’s so powerful, you can pump that minion’s health to 20+ and then Inner Fire it! When I was like a month into the game (back in the Closed Beta), I did it with the Lightwell and it felt sooo good. But then I’ve realized that the deck is too inconsistent and good players will just clear your high health minions once they realize what you’re trying to do.
Yes, sticking a minion to the board is the main problem when it comes to such decks. Your opponent won’t let you do that. But what if you don’t have to? Yes… Potion of Madness means that you don’t have to do that and you can simply steal a minion and kill your opponent with it. While Potion of Madness can only steal small minion, it’s also not a problem.
A pretty basic combo is Potion of Madness on a 3 health minion (let’s say a 1/3) + Power Word: Shield + Kabal Talonpriest + 2x Divine Spirit + Inner Fire. Congratulations, you’ve just turned that 1/3 into a 32/32 with Charge. And thanks to the Shadow Visions, it’s not even that hard to pull off, because you don’t need to draw your whole deck to find that second Divine Spirit that’s somewhere on the bottom.
However, what we see in this video is even better. Dealing 30 damage casually might seem great, but how about that. You play the Combo Priest and you face a Druid that’s on 40 health and with 6/7 and 6/10 Taunts on the board. You just lose, right? No, nothing like that. You casually play 2x Pint-Size Potion, 2x Potion of Madness, Circle of Healing, 2x Divine Spirit, Inner Fire and kill your opponent. That’s one of the craziest plays I’ve seen pulled so far and it reminds me of the old Patron days, that was the only deck that could pull off things like that like it was nothing. Okay, the Priest got extremely lucky to have all the necessary – EIGHT – combo pieces in his hand. Any one of those was missing and he wouldn’t be able to do it. But I get salty after just watching this clip from the Druid’s perspective…
Mechxodia Mage
Everyone knows the Exodia Mage. It was all over the ladder on the first few days, and while it’s not really a very viable deck right now, some people still play it. But if you don’t know what it is, let me explain that quickly. You play the Quest Mage deck with Enter the Waygate. Late in the game you drop 2x Sorcerer’s Apprentice, get 2 more with Molten Reflection and play the finished Quest (Time Warp). Now you play Archmage Antonidas, any spell and start flinging 0 mana Fireballs. So yeah, that’s the obvious way to do the Quest Mage.
But how about a less obvious one? An interesting card was printed in GvG – Mimiron’s Head. The card sucked (it still sucks, but shhhh…) so no one really played it. It was really hard to pull of. But well, it’s “a bit” easier to pull off when you don’t actually give your opponent any time to answer. Instead of playing 4x Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in this version of the deck you play Mimiron’s Head and 2x Target Dummy, then you play your Quest. At the start of your extra turn, Mimiron’s Head turns into a 4/12 minion with Mega-Windfury. Mega-Windfury means that it can attack 4 times per turn. But hey, that’s still only 16 damage. So now you can either play Alexstrasza to bring your opponent down to 15, or just play Molten Reflection on the Voltron for some extra style points.
If someone hasn’t realized yet, this deck is completely pointless, because 16 damage is the same as the 2x Arcane Giant version, which is clearly better, because it requires one less card to pull off, not to mention that it’s also Standard-friendly. But hey, most of those combos aren’t exactly done because they’re strongest ones around. It’s just fun to see a fun card like that actually working.
Molten Giant Was Actually Buffed
Remember that “nerf” Molten Giant received with Standard? The one that increased its cost from 20 to 25? That nerf was actually a buff in disguise and most of the players haven’t even realized that. This is another example of a combo that was already possible before Un’Goro, but it was much less consistent and harder to pull off. I’m talking about the Holy Wrath + Molten Giant combo. Holy Wrath is an interesting card. You draw a card and deal as much damage as the card costs. And as it happens, Molten Giant is the most expensive card in the game. If you draw it, it deals 25 damage.
But hey, isn’t it very inconsistent? And I mean it, like VERY INCONSISTENT? If you have 20 cards left in your deck and you play Holy Wrath, you have only 2 out 20 chance to get the Molten Giant (1 out of 20 if you drew one already). Yes, that’s true, and that’s how it worked.. until Un’Goro.
A very interesting Legendary was printed in Un’Goro and made the combo much more consistent. I’m talking about Hemet, Jungle Hunter. The idea is to make a deck full of 1-3 mana cards, 2x Holy Wrath and 2x Molten Giant. After you play the Hemet, only Holy Wraths and Molten Giants are left in your deck. The best case scenario is having one Holy Wrath already in your hand and second one on the top of your deck. At the start of your next turn you draw second one and now you have 2x 5 mana “deal 25 damage” spells in your hand. Pretty cool, huh?
Of course, it’s still not that consistent. You might draw your Molten Giants before Hemet. You might not draw your Holy Wraths – if both are below the Molten Giants, the combo is busted. And finally, you might just die before being able to pull of that combo, because after all the rest of your deck are some weak 1-3 mana cards. But hey, when it works, it works really well.
Closing
That’s all folks. There are probably some more interesting combos. I definitely have forgot about some, maybe I haven’t seen the others or even some of them weren’t discovered by the players yet. Anyway, Un’Goro is probably the best expansion so far, both for the competitive players (diverse meta, good balance, interesting gameplay) and for the less competitive players (fun themes, cool combos). I’m really enjoying it and I can’t wait to see more crazy stuff.
If you have seen some interesting combos that I haven’t put in this article, let me know in the comments, I’d love to see them! 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!
