Introduction
I know! I published nothing this monday, not my fault though, I had a lot of tests to do so I didn’t have much time.
Well now I am here and there are a lot for us to discuss! So much happened during this weekend, new lists, new strategies, a whole different metagame from what I was expecting….
And all that was because of Dreamhack Austin! So this time in Decks to Play we’ll have a special section so we can discuss it and talk about the impact of Dreamhack on the ladder, that obviously in addition to all the Decklists you guys are used to seeing around here ^_^ – NUBA Deck lists! 😀
Dreamhack Analysis
Well, Dreamhack happened. Besides the obvious: Control won, there were quite a lot of things to notice about the Dreamhack, let us try to name a few:
- Very few people innovated, I hated this fact – people tried to win with already existing lists instead of out-meta-ing the game. Guess 6 months of same-shit going on caused this – People got lazy.
- Aggro Shaman was more (a lot more!) played than Midrange Shaman. This surprised me, as the deck underperformed the whole tournament (what a surprise!).
- Miracle Rogue was played by a lot of people, despite the deck being a lot easier to disrupt than it used to.
- Control ended up dominating the metagame, and the players that innovated the most ended up in the top 4 (with exception of TerrenceM, that used only already known lists).
- Shaman ended up not being as good as people thought(!!!).
So, in the end people are indeed getting lazy, and Chakki won with a Control lineup (Whaaaaaaaaat?), both playing perfectly as well as having awesome designed decks.
I liked Chakki’s deck lists, and different from other players the guy actually took his time playtesting, tinkering and building up the best decks to play the tournament, I believe that in the end he noticed that Control was indeed a lot stronger than Aggro, and decided to aim for the higher-up matchups, by sacrificing some of his Anti-Aggro/Midrange tools for some Greedy choices. And despite me agreeing with that, I believe that the Control lists he had were not ideal for laddering (with the exception of the Warrior one, that list is good enough for Ladder) and made my own versions.
Chakki Control Warrior
Are you one of these sadistic people that enjoy watching as people struggle to get up on their feet as you continuously kick them in between their legs for 20 minutes straight? Well, then I guess this is the deck for you!
For these people (me included) that thought Control Warrior was dead and gone, Chakki showed us there is still a lot of Control Warrior for us to see, and damn it is powerful!
Jokes aside, this is one of the many Control archetypes that are flooding the ladder now, and if you’re trying to understand where it came from, well, Chakki made it (or remade it?)!
This deck’s playstyle is basically exactly like Pre-WOG Control Warrior, and given the metagame probably as strong as that old Control Warrior, since despite losing Death’s Bite, the deck gained an almost Deathrattle-free metagame, and since we are talking about not getting rushed down by Persistent-minion filled deck, Control Warrior is now a power to be reckon with.
With all this said, I played some games with this deck and it always felt very powerful, it also happens to consistently hard-counter every single deck whose name starts with “aggro”, “face” or “zoo”. So, are you pissed at all these aggro you constantly fight against in the Ladder? Try Control Warrior!
Wait! Let’s discuss Infested Tauren again
Alright, before I move to my own personal edited version of the other Control decks that won Dreamhack, I would like to spend a few moments to discuss infested-tauren:
The card suck, is horrible, terrible, borderline unplayable, and also the only Neutral Deathrattle Taunt minion in the game.
“Oh Nuba, we also have chillmaw!” – Yeah, well, 7 mana? no thanks.
The simple fact that this card is indeed a Rattle minion with Taunt means we might want to consider running this trash in our decks.
The reason we were to look for Rattle taunts is nzoth-the-corruptor, as the games we end up playing on the ladder aren’t always flowers and sweets, and sometimes we don’t curve well, we don’t get that tirion-fordring played, or our opponent is still hitting our face despite our best efforts at stopping him/her.
Infested Tauren kind of fixes that problem, sure it is a weak minion for its cost, but it still has Taunt, meaning we can play N’Zoth while defending ourselves with Taunt minions – A board full of Cairnes and Sylvanas and 6/6 minions is nothing if our opponent still has Lethal, with Taurens we’ll have extra defenses and that is why I want you to look closer at the card.
Nuba’s N’Zoth Paladin
Well, there isn’t much to say about this deck that hasn’t been said before, except that I actually ended up taking my own advice given last week and tried out Infested Tauren in the deck.
Boy, the card actually worked! In a lot of games (a lot of them!) I ended up winning because I had that one (or two) extra taunt on board so I could survive while playing N’Zoth.
I talked a lot about the list, the the biggest issue was how the deck was weak when trying to stabilize against opponents with Charges (minions) and Weapons, There are still some things I am not certain about in the deck, such as the twilight-summoner, but it does feels nice to have a decent play against brawl.
All in all I am feeling better now that I have the extra taunt, maybe that was the reason why I thought the deck to be so bad before and know I actually kinda like it!
So, are you willing to give N’Zoth Paladin another go in the Ladder? Consider playing my adaptation of Kolento’s list.
Nuba’s N’Zoth Priest
And the last deck I am posting today is an adaptation of Chakki’s Control Priest.
Once again, I felt the desperate need of Taunts. Some of you might have noticed how I always want to have Taunts in my Priest deck, for many reasons, probably every one of them being the same reason as the ones I gave in the above deck, and once again infested-tauren fills that need.
When I saw Chakki’s Priest list I said to myself “That can’t be true!” not because it was an actual playable Priest list, but because I insist on the fact Priests need Taunts to survive in such a harsh metagame as the Ladder one, but as said before Chakki probably prepared his decks to face other Control decks as Control appears to be the dominant archetype in today’s metagame.
Sure, the ladder will always have more Aggro decks than Control, despite Control being (for the first time in generations!) better than Aggro. So you’ll have to gear up to fight Aggro decks a lot more than Control decks, and that is why I believe you should be running these Taunts in your deck too.
Closing
Well, Control Decks! I really really wanted to post some actual good Control decks for a while in our Decks to Play, and finally I have been able to do so!
I hope you guys enjoyed today’s Decks to Play, and we’ll see each other again very soon in our next article!
Love you guys!
Nuba
