Introduction
So I missed about 5 days without writing a single “Decks to Play” line, and when I come back I see like 8 new deck lists that you guys MUST play and I am suddenly in a hurry to write two different Decks to Play in only two days!
So, we have to test a lot of decks, see how good they are, if needed make some adjustments and then (and only then!) post these decks to you guys!
So, that took quite some time, but I am finally here to give you guys some of the playtesting results and discuss a little about these awesome lists that showed up in the last few days, hope you guys enjoy!
Vlps N’Zoth Dragon Renolock
Woah! Now that is a huge huge name for a deck, and just by reading the deck’s name we already start doubting the Deck’s power: How can so many strategies together be actually good? Well, truth be told, chillmaw has some very good interactions with nzoth-the-corruptor and everything else from that is simply a way to adjust an already good deck.
This deck isn’t new, Vlps posted this deck like two weeks ago, but I didn’t play it so I didn’t want to post the list here before I would be giving you guys the playtesting results and….
Well, I have to say this list surprised me. I liked it a lot more than all other Renolock lists because of how many interactions and win conditions it has. This deck can hold its own against most decks for enough time to win with either a very powerful late game, or N’Zoth himself, or the Leeroy Combo. This deck has just too many outs to win any drawn-out game, and some decent early game defenses (plus Reno Jackson himself) to consistently defeat Aggro decks.
This deck is very good against the current flow of Tempo Warrior we are seeing on the ladder, very good actually, as it can outlive the totality of the Deck’s power and play stronger cards, which could’ve been a problem weren’t this deck so strong in the late game.
This deck however seems to be weak against the new flow of Midrange Hunter that is showing up in the Ladder, as the Deck only has three reliable board clears but Midrange Hunter matchup, when drawn out, requires more than that as call-of-the-wild requires a full board clear on its own and can respond an Empty board Reno Jackson quite well.
So, I liked this deck, but as I played against five Midrange Hunters in a roll I decided to drop it in favor of the good old Reno Mage (Flamestrike is so simple and efficient) to heighten my winrate, still this deck is quite consistent and has much better matchups across the matchup table than other Reno Decks.
Duane’s N’Zoth Druid
And then we have this one Deck. I have to say I didn’t like it much: it has bad matchups all across the ladder.
Meanwhile, this deck has indeed a very good surprise effect, and can win games out of nowhere with double savage-roar after some minor board boost, and is why I would like you to take a closer look at it before moving forward to the next deck.
If you can “ban” Shaman, you’ll have a deck that is unknown to your opponent while having “ok” matchups across the board, which should be fine. Meaning this is indeed a decent tournament pick and in case you want a Druid deck to play on the ladder (and you don’t care about Shaman, Pirate Warrior and Midrange Hunter at all) this should be the one deck for you to look at.
Sure, I said a lot of bad things about this deck, but in the end it has Druid’s consistency to back it up, and since it is a Druid deck, it can innervate you a free-win here and there, making it a decent deck for you to play. I have been working on a playable and strong Druid list to pass to you guys, but I still haven’t finished the playtesting results yet.
Nuba’s Updated N’Zoth Paladin
So after watching the Americas Prelims I decided to change my N’Zoth Paladin build one last time, and this seems to be the actual final version of it.
I made something in between Team Archon’s list and Duane’s list, and I think it should be the one list for you guys to play on the ladder right now, as it appears to be more consistent than any other previously posted N’Zoth Paladin build.
Truth be told, I hate humility and the justifications for people to use the card on their competitive decks. The card indeed has cool interactions with both stampeding-kodo as well as acolyte-of-pain but is it enough to justify having such a bad card on a deck that doesn’t pack as many draws as the previous versions? I don’t think so.
First things first, Stampeding Kodo is very weak against two classes: Paladins and Shamans, even if you Humility a 7/7, you’ll still have to win the RNG of killing it over the endless pack of Totems and Wolfs and everything else the Shaman will have on the board, meanwhile the card seems to be useless without an activator against most Control decks, and even if you manage to actually make Humility + Kodo works, you’re doing at beast a 1-for-1 in yourself while forcing a 3/5 body for the cost of 1 card. I hate that, I just do, and keeper-of-uldaman seems to do the job a lot better, and while you can come with the excuse of “oh but you still wouldn’t have dealt with the minion, it is still a 3/3 on the board” I would like to present you rallying-blade, which is Paladin’s 3-mana fiery-war-axe and can easily deal with any 3/3 to ever hit the board unless it has Divine Shield. Not only that, Rallying Blade is also a very good card when we need to deal with early game pressure, so you’re both adding a good response to early game cards as well as a way to kill stuff with your keeper-of-uldaman 0,5-for-1-ing in the process (you’ll be left with a 3/4 and half a weapon).
With all that said, this version came up in my head and I had to put it in practise, and it has won me more games than any other Paladin N’Zoth deck I have ever made. I decided to keep one copy of stampeding-kodo because it still has some uses, like killing those doomsayers and some early game leftovers.
So, in case you are looking for a good N’Zoth Paladin list to play, this is the one I would recommend you playing!
Closing
And this is it! I have to say I talked a lot more about the decks I posted today than I use to, but these decks actually required more explanation than other decks I have posted before.
I hope you guys enjoyed today’s article, and we’ll be seeing each other again very soon in the next articles to come!
Don’t forget to leave comments about your experiences with the decks, it is nice to see the playtesting results of other players too!!
Love you guys,
Nuba
