Farewell Patron Warrior – One More In-depth Guide! Last Chance to Learn!

Introduction

Hi guys, anothersy here. I am Hearthstone Player who has been playing Hearthstone even since Beta. After a few months of grinding the arena, I started to play ranked and playing competitively.

There was once a time, a time when killing your opponent from 50 health was so common, yes, 50 health and that deck is Patron Warrior.

As you all know, this deck is soon to be doomed as Blizzard has just made their official statement to nerf warsong-commander.

Check about that here: Official Warsong Nerf

So, whether you are a new player or old player I’d like to take you a few nostalgia moments about deck I have beloved the most.

This will be a thorough and detailed guide to honor the deck before it will just a ‘One of the Best decks Hearthstone ever had’. For those who haven’t try out the deck yet, I urge you to try it out before the nerf so you can play it when the decks is at its best refined version so far.

So, let’s get started!!

Since Black Rock Mountain Expansion, Blizzard has introduced us to Grim Patron. A card that has become the key card of spawning the Patron Warrior deck, one of the decks that many considered the most powerful combo decks in Hearthstone history.

After the Grand Tournament expansion, this deck is still the most dominant deck in the competitive scene and the ladder. I have over 500 games of playing this deck, I’ve decided to share you some of my experience and strategies around the deck.

Deck Synopsis

Patron Warrior is a heavy combo oriented deck, focuses on cycling your deck to draw your key cards, setups with emperor-thaurissan before unleashing the finishing blow. The deck has Grim Patron to fight for board control and several Whirlwind effects to fight against most aggressive decks, topped with a fearsome One-Turn-Kill combo making the deck’s win condition flexible according to the matchups.

Pros and Cons

Pros

1. A powerful but low-budget deck to make
2. One of the best decks in the current meta, both on ladder and the competitive scene.
3. Has good matchups on both aggressive and control decks.
4. High card draw mechanics, which leads to consistent in drawing our key cards.

Cons

1. Soon to be nerf, probably making the deck not as powerful as it was.
2. Requires high understanding and experience to pilot perfectly and efficiently.
3. A combo deck that relies on certain key cards, therefore misplaying or wasting some of the cards may result in unable to win in a game.

Card’s Synergies

We’ll go card by card on how the each card’s interaction/synergies with each other.

inner-rage (Common, Classic Pack)

A card that is quite bad for being in constructed, however for Patron Warrior this card aids us to easily do combos around our grim-patron and acolyte-of-pain.

1. Synergizes with whirlwind effects to generate Grim Patrons.
2. Commonly used with acolyte-of-pain to cycle.
3. Used as removal for 1 hp minions.

execute (Basic Card)

• One of the best removals in the game. Guess what, we got 2, use with caution.

whirlwind* (Basic Card)

• A combo enabler, used with grim-patron to generate Grim Patrons, or used with frothing-berserker to gain massive amounts of attack according to the size of the board.
• an Area-of-effect to destroy 1 health minions

battle-rage (Common, Classic Pack)

• Possibly one the most broken card draw cards in game for 2 mana you could potentially draw 7 cards.
• Best used when after we have generate grim-patron.
• Drawing 2 cards from this card is average, drawing more than 2 cards is a bonus.

fiery-war-axe (Basic Card) 

• Best early game weapon, helps deal with aggressive decks easily.
• Many lists include only 1 copy of the card, this is due to the urgency of the deck to use deaths-bite as soon as possible, making the second copy of the card obsolete.
• In the meta that a lot of mech mages and zoo decks are dominant, running a second copy of the card is recommended.

slam (Common, Classic Pack)

• A great cycle card. When combined with the weapon allows more damage reach. (With fiery-war-axe we could destroy a 5 hp or 4 hp minion)
• Versus aggressive decks sometimes can be used as a 2 damage removal.

armorsmith (Rare, Classic Pack)

• Adds more survival for us.
• Key card in the freeze mage matchup as she can generate more armor to survive the burst damage.
• A nice body to draw from battle-rage.

unstable-ghoul (Naxxramas Adventure Wing 2)

• A very annoying minion for aggressive decks.
• Another whirlwind effect for the deck

shield-block (Basic Card)

• Adds more survival whilst cycling our deck.
• Helps us to get out range of lethal combos (Example: Druid: force-of-nature + savage-roar , Warrior: grommash-hellscream + cruel-taskmaster)

acolyte-of-pain(Common, Classic Pack)

• With several whirlwind effects this card can be triggered easily.
• Try to draw at least 2 cards from him.

frothing-berserker(Rare, Classic Pack)

• Main Finisher of the deck, when combined with warsong-commander and whirlwind effects can deal massive of damage.
• When playing against aggressive decks you will most likely forced to play him as a tempo play or just a 2/4 body for your opponent to slaughter.

warsong-commander (Basic Card)

• Charge enabler. The main initiator of most of our combos.

deaths-bite (Naxxramas Wing 4, Warrior Class Challenge)

• Grants a free whirlwind effect on it’s 2^nd Charge.
• Try preserving it’s 2^nd charge to gain benefits from its whirlwind.

Gnomish Inventor (Basic Card)

• The card that has the least synergies in the deck other than being pretty tough with 4 hp to proc draws from battle-rage.

grim patron* (Black Rock Mountain Adventure Wing 1)

• The Main engine of the deck. Most of the time, you main win condition maybe just generating as much Grim Patron for your opponent to deal with, if he can’t deal with it he just loses.
• Combos very well withbattle-rage to draw absurd amounts of cards.

Emperor Thaurissan (Black Rock Mountain Adventure Wing 1)

• The King of combo decks. Emperor Thaurissan allows Patron Warrior to perform our combos faster and more powerful and even One-Turn-Kill your opponents by reducing the cost of our key combo cards.
• Versus Control deck matchups we would prefer to use him to reduce as many key cards as possible depending on our win condition against that control deck.
• Versus Aggro matchups we would usually play him as a tempo play as we do not have much time to draw most of our key cards to setup for a huge emperor turn.

Tech / Alternative / Don’t Play Cards

These are the commonly tech/alternative cards we see in Patron Warrior. I’ll try to include as much as I can, and my experience substituting with them

harrison-jones (Legendary, Classic Pack) 

• One the most commonly tech cards for patron warrior before The Grand Tournament expansion due to the prominence of Patron Warrior and weapon classes. However, the meta currently now is secret paladin making this card too slow to deal with the aggression so it is less common now.

Pros

• Decent card in the mirror match, removing death-s-bite is a huge deal, the card draw is a bonus

Cons

• high cost card
• is useless on a non-weapon meta (class)

My Opinion: Still good against a weapon heavy meta but other than that, I’ll stick to my 2 Gnomish Inventors just for guaranteed draws.

grommash-hellscream (Legendary, Classic Pack)

• Was included in most Patron lists before the OTK version was now a standard version. Included in some lists as a surprise card since everybody isn’t running him anymore.

Pros

• Huge body
• Can act as a surprise finisher

Cons

• Dead card most of the time

My Opinion: If you like to surprise you opponent this card is always welcome, but most of time he’ll be sitting in your hand not doing much. I’ve played him for a handful amount of games that what he’ll be doing is just buying time for my Patron Combo to land so I decided to replace him

loot-hoarder (Common, Classic Pack)

• Another card to include in your deck if you think you need more card draw.

Pros

• More Card draw
• board present in the early game

Cons

• Easily eliminated
• We do not get to draw in our turn

My Opinion: This card just dies too easily and we get to draw cards out of our turn so he got subbed to 2 slams. But use him if you think need more card draw

wild-pyromancer (Rare, Classic Pack) 

This card actually says “all of your spells gain a whirlwind effect”

A very versatile card to our spell heavy deck, allows us to sneak in sexy combo turns

• Not as consistent as Unstable Ghoul (Unstable Ghoul generates a whirlwind effect while Pyromancer requires a spell)

Pros

• Spells become whirlwinds
• Nice early game present

Cons

• Somewhat inconsistent when we are low on cards
• Difficult to combo with other cards if not discounted from Emperor Thaurissan

My Opinion: I have found success using this card as its addition adds more flavor to the deck, however I find it difficult to use him before he gets the Emperor discount. So I’ll finalize it as ‘Great but not consistent’.

shield-slam (Epic, Classic Pack)

• One the best warrior removal cards, many patron decks include 1 copy of this card as 2 copies are too much since we already have 2 executes.

Pros

• More removal

Cons

• Might be too much removal needed as this card takes space for other cycling cards

My Opinion: Could run 1 copy of the card if you need more removal.

brawl (Epic, Classic Pack)

• The only board clear spell for warriors, if you’re struggling with your opponent flooding the board with minions this card is a suitable solution.

Pros

• Surprise factor, as most patrons do not include a brawl, your opponent will not be expecting it.
• The Ultimate solution in the mirror match if you opponent floods the board with his patrons before you.

Cons

• Most likely a dead card if you’re ahead.
• Requires you to be behind, most games you do not want to behind and rely on brawl.

My Opinion: A nice surprise card to include in patron warrior and helps you recover from a board that you’re going to lose. However, relying on it too much might punish you.

cruel-taskmaster (Common, Classic Pack)

• A versatile minion early game

Pros

• Helps you deal with the early game more effectively with its various usage

Cons

• Sometimes a dead card when you want to cycle

My Opinion: a very versatile card, try to include him if you think you already have sufficient card draws and need help in the early game.

dread-corsair (Common, Classic Pack) 

• The most popular taunt minion for Patron Warrior.
• Has interesting tempo plays with our weapons.
• A suitable taunt that could be considered if you like taunt minions.

Pros

• Annoying taunt early of the game
• Synergizes very well with our weapons

Cons

• Somewhat a small taunt (3/3)
• Sometimes this taunt does nothing but blocking a small amount of damage.
• A high cost card when we do not have a weapon

My Opinion: I could say this is the best tempo based taunt minion for Patron Warrior. Consider this as one of your top picks for including a taunt into your deck.

commanding-shout (Rare, Classic Pack)

• One of the big names when Grim Patrons were first introduced
• Sets a crazy combo at 10 mana with Warsong Commande + Grim Patron + Commanding Shout. This combo allows you to destroy your opponents board and build yourself an army of Grim Patrons.

Pros

• Creates a crazy combo with Grim Patron
• Cycles

Cons

• Most likely used to cycle most of the time
• Somewhat unplayable combo as the combo is very difficult to pull off.
• You must let your opponent develop a huge board to gain value from the combo

My Opinion: Never play this card unless you’re a big fan of using it.

Don’t Play

These cards are cards that have intriguing concepts for Patron Warrior, however they aren’t that powerful and should be used for fun decks.

axe-flinger (Black Rock Mountain Adventure Wing)

• Easily Out valued but Frothing Berserker. Never play this card in Grim Patron unless you want to spice things up or you know what you are doing

Basic Combos

This section will introduce you to simple combos of the deck.

Fast Grim Patron

Turn 4 Setup with deaths-bite either kill something or go face, doesn’t matter

Turn 5 grim-patron + inner-rage > Swing 2nd deaths-bite

Results: Gives you 4 Grim Patrons, difficult for most opponents to deal with at 5 mana.

• The Bread and butter combo of the deck, you can potentially snowball from these patrons and just win the game.
• The combo is strong due to the removal power of Death’s Bite and establishing a board of you own with Grim Patrons.

Patron Army

Turn 8 warsong-commander + grim-patron + inner-rage (2nd Death’s Bite Charge)

• This is a simple combo that allows you to generate Grim Patrons as long as your opponent has a 2 attack minion on board.
• Deals a fair amount of damage, if you need to grind some damage in before your one-turn-kill combo

Better Fast Grim Patron

6 mana  grim-patron +inner-rage + whirlwind (2nd deaths-bite Charge)

Results: Give you 6 grim-patron.

• The Upgraded version of Fast Grim Patron
• Gives you 6 grim-patron. But beware as this combo is only strong against certain classes that do not possess an Area-of-effect clear (Druid, Hunter)

Grim Patron Draw

7 mana > grim-patron + inner-rage + deaths-bite 2^nd  Charge + battle-rage

• Cycling combo. Used when you are expecting a board clear.
• A time buying combo, Most of the time your opponent will clear your patrons. Played when you to buy a turn and draw your Frothing Combo.

Finishing Combos

When you have learned the essential basic and drawing combos it’s time to end the game. This section will introduce frothing-berserker into the equation.

10 mana >warsong-commander + 2* frothing-berserker + grim-patron +inner-rage + 2* whirlwind + deaths-bite 2^nd charge

Requirements: warsong-commander,frothing-berserker, grim-patron and whirlwind must all be reduced costs by emperor-thaurissan

• Basically 51 damage on an empty board.

10 mana > warsong-commander + 2* frothing-berserker + whirlwind + deaths-bite 2^nd  Charge

Requirements: Opponent to flood the board with minions/ Board full of minions

• A surprise finish to punish opponents swarming the board.

8 mana > warsong-commander + 1 frothing-berserker + grim-patron + inner-rage + 1 whirlwind(Death’s Bite 2^nd Charge)

Requirements: emperor-thaurissan must land on warsong-commander, frothing-berserker, grim-patron and whirlwind

• I’ll call this a half combo since it has 1 grim-patron and 1 frothing-berserker.
• 34 damage on an empty board.

Please note that these are just examples. (You can always be creative)

Check out the Exercise Section for visual references.

An easy way to calculate the damage of Frothing Berserker is x[2+ (yz)] where:

X= number of frothing-berserker

Y= Number of whirlwind effects

Z= Number of minions on board

Matchups

This section will introduce you to in-depth guidelines against each certain deck.

The Most important thing of piloting Patron Warrior is to understand your win condition against your opponent , whether it is to One Turn Kill your opponent with your Frothing Berserker Combo or Beat them down with Grim Patrons. Understanding the Matchups will allow you to play more efficient with the deck and know when to just tempo play some of your key cards.

Warriors

General Mulligan

When we queue up against a warrior I would prefer to mulligan for a fast Grim Patron Combo as soon as possible. If we’re against a Control Warrior he must have several removal cards to deal with it, or if I’m against another Patron Warrior I will have the advantage from fast Patrons

Mulligan  with coin: death-s-bite, grim-patron, inner-rage, whirlwind

Mulligan without coin: death’s-bite,grim-patron,inner-rage

Consider keeping cycle cards such as acolytes and gnomish inventor if you have a bad starting hand or you expect a control warrior matchup

Control Warrior

One of the tough matchups for Patron Warrior, due to the high amount of health the Control Warrior can generate. This makes our One-Turn-Kill Combo to require more resources. Our general strategy will be drawing cards to get our huge combo as fast as possible.

Genreal Strategy

Win Condition 1. Beat down with Grim Patrons 2. One-Turn-Kill Combo from warsong-commander + frothing-berserker  

• -Creating a couple of patrons on board is always a gamble, it’s either your opponent has brawl or not. New lists of warriors now include 2 bash, this card makes the control warrior has more options to deal with our turn 4-5 fast Patrons and less rely on brawl to clear.
• -If you expect a brawl/clear from your opponent always play grim-patron followed with a battle-rage to get some cycles.

Beware of:

• grommash-hellscream + cruel-taskmaster Combo for 12 Damage
• You will only have one chance to land your Frothing Combo, calculate carefully.
• justicar-trueheart, this card is so annoying that it makes the control warrior more difficult to kill, if he has more than 60 health we are unlikely to kill him, around 40 or 50 health he is killable with double Frothing Berserkers and triple whirlwind effects.

Patron Warrior

• Patron Warrior Mirror Match is somewhat a coin-flip matchup, and can easily turn to be a one-side punching bag on either side that depends on who plays Grim Patron First.
• However, if both sides do not play grim-patron on in the early stages of the game (Turn 4-8) Playing Grim Patron and generating a couple of Grim Patrons may make the player who plays Grim Patron vulnerable to a frothing-berserker Combo. So it is merely skill and experience if the games go in to that stage.

Mulligan with Coin: deaths-bite, grim-patron,inner-rage, whirlwind

Mulligan without Coin: deaths-bite, grim-patron,inner-rage, whirlwind

Mulligans for the mirror match is to get a fast Grim Patron as soon as possible, as mulligans for the long term game or getting decent hands makes you vulnerable for a fast Grim Patron by your opponent, thus shutting you out of the game.

General Tips

Win Conditions: 1. Beat down from grim-patron 2. One-Turn-Kill Combo with frothing-berserker

• Amount of card drawn are very crucial, more cards drawn equals more chance to get your key combo cards.

Be Caution with:

• Damage Calculation when you’re going to perform a frothing-berserker Combo is crucial, as if you do not finish your opponent, he has high chance to finish you the following turn.
• When you can establish a couple of grim-patron on board, be cautious and end the game as quickly as possible. The longer the game goes you are prone to frothing-berserker Combo by your opponent.
• When we have an army of Grim Patrons and you are expecting a frothing-berserker Combo from your opponent the following turn, putting down an armorsmith can negate his combo. (The armorsmith will generate as much as armor as the Frothing Berserker’s attack.)
• unstable-ghoul is a highly risky card and can easily decide the game if you’re not caution enough with it, for example playing it on turn 5 or turn 8. Never play unstable-ghoul if you cannot benefit from its whirlwind effect immediately.

Freeze Mage

A matchup that I was once mistaken that Freeze Mage has advantage because they have board clear AOEs and ice-block secret that negates our One-Turn-Kill Frothing Berserker combo. However, I realized that the angle to play this matchup is to play it into fatigue, and we generating enough armor to survive thus we have to slow down our play style completely. (This matchup takes a very long time to finish 15-30 minutes) 

I believe it is pointless to generate fast Grim Patrons on the early stages of the game, unless you favor the aggressive approach.

Mulligan with coin: deaths-bite, fiery-war-axe, acolyte-of-pain, gnomish-inventor, execute

Mulligan without coin: fiery-war-axe, acolyte-of-pain, deaths-bite

We mulligan for weapons and draws, this mulligan is perfect for any type of mage deck.

General Tips.

Win conditions: 1. Winning from Fatigue 2. Winning from early beat down

• Always count the Burst damage cards from the mage (2 ice-lance, 2 icebolt, 2 fireball and pyroblast)
• Gaining armor from armorsmith is very crucial for winning the mage. Keep her in your hand until you can generate a huge amount of armor from her.
• The aggressive approach is just simply going all-in every turn with your cards and expecting no answer from your opponent. (I will not elaborate this approach much as I do not favor this approach)

Be cautious with:

• Your weapons and execute, your execute targets must bearchmage-antonidas, alexstrasza, malygos or emperor-thaurissan only (If possible eliminating Emperor Thaurissan without execute is recommended)
• Overdrawing, always count your cards in hand and be cautious with your cycle cards.
• We could win by setting your opponent’s health to 1 and let fatigue finish him, this method negates his ice-block completely but requires precise calculation of damage distribution from our minions.
• Taking the game into fatigue is a very challenging and skillful game, and is the more winning play than the aggressive angle.

Vs. Freeze Mage: Next turn Jaina takes 4 damage from fatigue

Mech Shaman

One of the tough matchups for Patron Warrior. They have high early aggression and absurd burst potential from spells and their doomhammer + rockbiter-weapon combo. 

Mulligan with coin: fiery-war-axe, deaths-bite, slam.unstable-ghoul

Mulligan without coin: fiery-war-axe,slam, unstable-ghoul, deaths-bite

• We need to mulligan to survive early aggression, so fiery-war-axe is the best card we need. We follow that up with slam and unstable-ghoul to protect us more, deaths-bite is always a keep against every matchup, the card is just that good. (Weapons are better in the early game than minions because the shaman minions can easily deal with our minions)

General Tips

Win Conditon 1. Beat Down With Grim Patron 2. Survive

• Surviving the onslaught is our main win condition, so throw everything to stop him rather than keeping cards for One-Turn-Kill combo.
• We can easily win from a well-established grim-patron as most mech shamans do not run lightning-storm.

Be Caution with:

• Surprise Burst from their spells (lava-burst, crackle) or doomhammer + rockbiter-weapon combo (10 for 1 rockbiter-weapon 16 for 2 rockbiter-weapon)
• Be Prepared for an occasional fel-reaver 2^nd  

Midrange Hunter

Hunter is a class that I find to be favored for Patron Warrior. We have several tools to fend off their early aggression, and they do not have a great answer for several Grim Patrons. 

Mulligan with coin : unstable-ghoul, armorsmith, fiery-war-axe, deaths-bite(Consider keeping acolyte-of-pain if you have unstable-ghoul)

(Keep grim-patron if you have deaths-bite, inner-rage and a 2-mana minion)

Mulligan without coin : fiery-war-axe, unstable-ghoul, armorsmith/acolyte-of-pain, deaths-bite

(Keep grim-patron if you have deaths-bite, inner-rage and a 2-mana minion)

Mulliganing for a Fast Grim Patron is quite risky because that mulligan would be prone to early aggression from the Hunter.

General Tips

Win Condition: Beat Down from Grim Patron

• Our win condition is straightforward, as we are always fighting for the board against the hunter and will not have much time to keep those OTK key pieces. Therefore we simply need to setup a nice Patron Turn then we just win, or just laugh as our opponent just concedes because he cannot deal with it.
• Tempo is very important for Hunter, Throwing down a naked frothing-berserker or warsong-commander just to force your opponent to use a spell or play out of curve to clear is smart. As when they spend mana clearing our stuff they won’t build their board much.
• Best Targets for execute are:savannah-highmane and dr-boom
• On some occasions, we are forced to use slam on threats without the draw effect. (knife-juggler, huffer, arcane-golem)

Be Caution:

• After we have established a swarm of Patrons, always calculate the maximum damage the Hunter can deal. (unleash-the-hounds + kill-command)
• Never activate traps if your opponent has an eaglehorn-bow unless you’re really ahead.

Face Hunter

An easier matchup than Midrange Hunter. Our whirlwind effects can easily destroy the hunter weak minions. When we are ahead on the board, Hunters will tend to just go face us. So we just try to gain armor from armorsmith/ shield-block and we just win

Mulligan with Coin: unstable-ghoul, armorsmith, fiery-war-axe, deaths-bite

Mulligan without Coin: fiery-war-axe, unstable-ghoul, deaths-bite

General Tips

• Similar to Midrange Hunter, but prioritize survival

Mech Mage

Another Difficult matchup similar to Mech Shaman due to the early aggression and the annoying snowchugger.

Mulligan for early defensive cards such as Fiery War Axe, Unstable Ghoul, Death’s Bite

Mulligans with coin: fiery-war-axe,unstable-ghoul, deaths-bite (Slam)

Mulligans without coin: fiery-war-axe, frothing-berserker, deaths-bite

General Tips

Win condition: Beat down with Grim Patron

• Another Matchup that you should value tempo. Our win condition is from Grim Patron, so throwing Frothing Berserker / Warsong Commander to force a removal should be considered.
• Always clear mechs to prevent a potential goblin-blast-mage.

Be Caution with:

• Maximum damage from spells, Double Fireball for 12 damage at 8 mana.
• Most Mech Mages do not possess flamestrike, so swarm the board with Grim Patrons for the win

Paladin

Paladin is an overall favored class for Patron Warrior. As Paladin is a board control class with no burst damage in any builds for the class. This guide will include 3 versions of the Paladin.

Mulligans:

Mulligans with coin: Fiery War Axe, Whirlwind/ Unstable Ghoul, Acolyte of Pain, Death’s Bite

Mulligans without coin: Fiery War Axe, Whirlwind/ Unstable Ghoul, Death’s Bite

General Tips

Versus Midrange Paladin

• Not a very difficult matchup, because the paladin cannot compete in the drawing power of our deck and cannot swarm the board because the potential of our One-Turn-Kill Frothing Berserker Combo. We just stall the game and defeat poor Uther with our Warsong Commader + Frothing Berserker Combo
• If we decide to play Grim Patrons, be sure that Equality + Concecrate Combo does put us in a bad spot.
• Save executes for Dr. Boom and Tirion

Vs. Aggro Paladin (Possibly extinct due to secret Paladin)

• The easiest matchup for Patron Warrior. We can easily destroy their minions with our abundant whirlwind effects and they cannot compete with our Grim Patron swarming ability.
• Do not be afraid if your opponent can draw several cards off divine favor, as he needs a strong board to defeat us.

Vs. Secret Paladin

A favored matchup but sometimes the secret paladin can getaway with an unbeatable draws into Mysterious Challenger.

• Always fight for the board prior the mysterious-challenger to reduce it’s effectiveness.
• Grim Patrons are most likely our win condition as Secret Paladin does not possess a the equality + consecration combo
• Experiences with Dealing with the traps are required to deal with the Mysterious Challenger efficiently.
• Paladin’s secrets will act in this order when mysterious-challenger is played: noble-sacrifice , avenge, redemption. competitive-spirit procs when you end turn and repentance procs when you play a minion
• repentance deserves a special mention here, as it can sabotage our grim-patron if we aren’t careful

Zoo Warlock

Possible the class that has the highest win rate against Patron Warrior (Both Zoo Warlock and Handlock) However, dealing with both variations have a completely mulligan strategy.

Zoo Warlock vs Patron Warrior, a possible 50/50 chance on both sides, depends on how the warlock curves out and pressures us, as we can easily win with a huge Patron Warrior turn

Mulligans

Mulligan for fast Patrons : deaths-bite, grim-patron,inner-rage, fiery-war-axe.

Mulligan with coin: fiery-war-axe,acolyte-of-pain, deaths-bite, grim-patron

Mulligan without Coin: fiery-war-axe, unstable-ghoul, slam, deaths-bite

General Tips

Win Condition: Beat Down With Grim Patron

• Fiery War Axe is most important card to deal with the early threats from Zoo warlock. (knife-juggler, flame-imp,haunted-creeper)
• We value making patrons as our win condition, so throw those frothing-berserker if you must

Be Caution with:

• Potential burst damage from doomguard and power-overwhelming
• Plan your opponent’s trade before you play grim-patron if he can trade all of your Patrons do not play unless you’re desperate.

Handlock

One of the toughest matchups for Patron Warrior, as this variation of warlock both high powered minions and board clear spells to deal with us.

Mulligans

Mulligans with coin: emperor-thaurissan, execute Card Draws (acolyte-of-pain, gnomish-inventor, slam)

Mulligans without coin: emperor-thaurissan, execute, Card Draws (acolyte-of-pain, gnomish-inventor, slam)

• We need to keep emperor-thaurissan to enable us to play our Frothing Berserker Combo as fast as possible, as the warlock’s threats will always make count downs to our turns.
• Execute to deal with early giants.

General Tips

Win Condition : One-Turn-Kill Frothing Berserker Combo

• This matchup is quite about draws, we have to draw as much as possible, as we cannot deal with every threat that the handlock will play. (We can deal with some but not every thing)
• Execute is the most important card for us in this matchup but use with caution. Worthy targets are: mountain-giant, dr-boom, ragnaros-the-fire-lord, emperor-thaurissan (not recommend) Avoid using with twilight-drake is possible (Unless it is taunted)
• Damage calculation is crucial, we only have one chance to land the combo.
• Not often be beware of lowering your opponent’s health into molten-giant range you do not want extra threats to deal with.
• A tough matchup, practice a lot to get around the matchup.

Priest

Priest is pretty tough matchup, depending on how he curves out. However, Dragon Priest does not possess burst damage but has tough minions similar too Druid.

Mulligans

Mulligan with coin: deaths-bite, fiery-war-axe, gnomish-inventor, slam

Mulligans without coin: fiery-war-axe,deaths-bite, gnomish-inventor, acolyte-of-pain

General Tips

Win Condition: 1. Beat Down with Grim Patron 2. One-Turn-Kill from Frothing Berserker Combo

• Priest is a class that will have a really hard time to finish off its opponent due to lack of burst damage, this provides us enough time to draw our key combo cards to finish him off.
• Priest has 4 ways to deal with our Patrons. First isauchenai-soul-priest + circle-of-healing. Second is velens-chosen + holy-nova Third is lightbomb and last is yseras-awaken from ysera. We should be cautious with azure-drake + holy-nova and velens-chosen + holy-nova the most.
• The lastest decklist also includes cabal-shadow-priest, so we have to be more cautious with our 2 attack minions.
• They will swarm us like crazy but we can always win with our deadly combo.

Druid

Druid is tough matchup, merely because most druid’s minions have high health and are difficult to deal with. Most of the time their minion can easily 3-1 trade with our minions. However, Druid’s tend to have a difficulties when dealing with several minions on board, making our prime priority when dealing with Druids is to swarm Grim Patrons as soon as possible.

Mulligans

Mulligans with coin: grim-patron, deaths-bite, fiery-war-axe, acolyte-of-pain

Mulligans without coin: grim-patron, fiery-war-axe, deaths-bite, acolyte-of-pain

• *Consider keeping 1 execute to deal with an inervated minion if your opponent kept several cards during his mulligan stage
• Most of time get a hand that can get you Grim Patrons as soon as possible Ex. deaths-bite, grim-patron, inner-rage.
• darnassus-aspirant is a very annoying card and makes fiery-war-axe mulligan more strong.

General Tips

Win Condition: Beat down with Grim Patron

• Druid matchup, our main strategy is get grim-patron out as soon as possible. Therefore, throwing tempo Frothing Berserker is a must.

Be Caution of:

• harrison-jones oracidic-swamp-ooze that will sabotage our precious deaths-bite
• Take caution of possible combo turns (force-of-nature + savage-roar) and armor up/ shield-block to stay out of range.
• azure-drake + swipe is the most powerful tool to recover from a Grim Patroned Board
• A tough matchup if you fail to generate Grim Patrons you will have difficulties in fighting with the Druid’s strong minions and will lead to you lost.

Lethal Exercises

This section will include snapshots from my past games just for you to think for lethal plays.

Is this Lethal?

30 hp One-Turn-Kill (Not Lethal, we were 1 mana-short to play our Unstable Ghoul)

29 Health Priest One-Turn-Kill

45 Health Warrior Died

Final Thoughts

Blizzard has decided to sabotage this deck by nerfing warsong-commander. Sadly, I would say this was one of my most successful decks on ladder.

I will be looking forward in creating a new Patron Warrior deck after the nerf and would gladly to be sharing my experiences with it when the time comes.

Thanks for reading, I know it has been a very lengthy guide, as this is my first guide tell me what you like/don’t like about it in the comments below!

Best luck laddering/arenaing

Isaac

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