The Invasion of the Raging Worgen (OTK, Combo Warrior)

Introduction

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

So, even since Hearthstone was born, winning strategy for most decks have been simple, Control the board > Then Push face damage. However, there are some archetype of decks that can simply negate the board state and comeback strong with a combination of specific cards, then finish your opponent at full health or almost full health with a single One Turn Kill combo.

Raging Worgen has been once the most oldest OTK (One-turn-kill) decks in the history of Hearthstone, since all the key cards are in the Classic set making this deck always possible to play no matter how the meta shapes. This deck is occasionally played by some streamers as a fun deck, but when somebody hits rank 1 legend with it, people go crazy with it.

Neviilz was the guy who brought chaos to the ladder, throning himself at rank 1 EU and twitting it, then several other streamers/players started playing it and realizing its potential, Kolento also had an impressive run, going 22-1 with the deck. peaking at rank 2 EU before he start losing.

Many variations of the deck has been play testing by streamers but I’ll simply include Neviilz’s original deck

Deck Synopsis

The deck is pretty simple, you draw a lot of cards with tons of your cycles (acolyte-of-pain, slam and battle-rage) ,when you accumulate enough key cards  such as raging-worgen, charge ,faceless-manipulator  or your damage is sufficient enough for you to win then you play emperor-thaurissan to reduce their costs and kill your opponent next turn. Your board clear is wild-pyromancer + commanding-shout and any other spells.

Pros/Cons

Pros/Strengths

• Very cheap to craft
• Very fun to play
• Comboing people down and smashing 40+ damage in one turn is very satisfying
• Insane amount of draws/cycles, making the deck consistent (High draw = high consistent of pulling of the combo)
• Most of the deck are low cost cards, you rarely get a dead hand

Cons/Weaknesses

• Difficult to pilot well and win consistently
• Weak to decks that have several taunts
• Relies heavily on the combo to win most of the time
• Not recommended for newbies, 1 mistake in your turn can mean the whole game lost.

Why the deck is so good?

• Well, mostly people aren’t expecting it at first, but by now most people have knowledge of the deck and will try to avoid the combo now. The deck has huge impact of depleting the population of zoo warlocks in the ladder and increasing the number of Control Warrior decks (especially C’Thun Warrior)
• commanding-shout works the wonders with wild-pyromancer it is very exciting to see a card that most people see as unplayable shine its full potential in this deck.
• Similiar to the good old days One-Turn-Kill Patron Warrior, this deck bullies both Aggressive and Control Decks making it rise to popularity very fast.

Decklist

I’ll separate the roles of the cards 4 categories so you can easily understand how each card has a role in the deck.

The Cycle Team

• These are your card draws/cycles, always spend your mana drawing if you don’t know what to do.

Battle Rage

• One of the best draw cards in the game, however, you won’t be drawing from this card as much as you did in Patron Warrior. Drawing 2 cards is efficient enough for this card, drawing more than 2 cards is great.

loot-hoarder

• Some more cycle and a little board presence, 2 attack is good enough to deal with some 2 health minions

acolyte-of-pain

• More hits he take more draws you get, try to draw at least 2 cards from him and you’ll be fine.

shield-block

• Cycle and heal.

The Combo Team

• These cards are the combo cards, they are mostly useless on their own, but are crazy when used together. Consider getting at least 2 or more cards when playing emperor-thaurissan to decrease their costs

emperor-thaurissan

• When you get at least 2 cards from the combo team, it’s time to use him, he makes you possible to do a 60 damage combo in one turn to your opponent. Sometimes you just throw him as meat fodder to your opponent to buy time, but you must consider the maximum damage you will need to win. (When playing against a Control Warrior you might need the full combo while other classes you don’t)

Raging Worgen

• One of the most useless cards in the deck until you get your other combo cards. Never play him alone on board.

charge

• Another useless card that is only good when played with raging-worgen

rampage

• Well, aside from Charge and Raging Worgen. This is a card that is sometimes used on your damaged minions rather than using on raging-worgen only. But depends on how much damage you need to finish your opponent.

faceless-manipulator

• Why have only 1  Charged Rampaged Inner Raged raging-worgen when you can have 2 with Faceless Manipulator. Other than that, he is sometimes used to copy your opponent’s big threat (ragnaros-the-firelord or whatever) but also depends on the matchup on how much damage you need.

The Bodyguards

• Cards in this category are defensive cards or cards that will help us survive.

blood-to-ichor

• The best 1-drop card for warrior in this expansion, can be used easily with wild-pyromancer or  acolyte-of-pain

execute

• One of the best removal cards in the game, however be cautious when using your second execute, you might need to keep it to remove a big taunt.

fiery-war-axe

• One of the best cards in the Warrior class, having this card in your opening hand makes your life much much easier. A easy 1 for 2 card.

Wild Pyromancer

• Your only comeback mechanic in board, does crazy combos with commanding-shout but requires later turns (5 mana and above) for you cast several spells to clear your opponent’s board.
• Never play him alone unless you’re playing a matchup that you won’t be needing his abilities.
• One of the common combo is adding blood-to-ichor and battle-rage to clear your opponent and get some draws too.
• Be careful with him, you can easily lose some games if you forget to use commanding-shout.

ravaging-ghoul

• Staple card for warriors nowadays, helps you beating Zoo Warlock even more, aside from that is an activator for execute and battle-rage

The Fix Team

• These cards are situational cards, they depend on your current situation, sometimes you use them as cycle or clearing the board or use them for your One Turn Kill combo

inner-rage

• Mostly used to make your Worgen enraged, it’s 0 mana cost makes it a very efficient combo piece too.
• Can be used with wild-pyromancer for additional Wild Pyromancer procs

cruel-taskmaster

• Similiar to inner-rage a combo piece in a minion form.
• Can proc draws from acolyte-of-pain

slam

• Mostly used to draw and cycle, can be used with wild-pyromancer and execute
• Sometimes used to eliminate a threat without getting the draws, especially in the early game where you don’t want things to go too out of hand

Alternative Cards/Tech Choices

Second rampage

• Could replace cruel-taskmaster and add more maximum damage, and the first rampage you draw could be used to buff minions without reducing your maximum damage much.

gnomish-inventor

• More draws for a Control orient meta. also a viable body for battle-rage

Maximum Damage?

• Maximum damage in one turn is 60 damage that is: raging-worgen + inner-rage +charge + rampage +faceless-manipulator but requires 3 combo team cards to be reduced by emperor-thaurissan

Matchups

Easy: Zoo Warlock Midrange Shaman Nzoth Paladin

• Zoo is a deck that can’t help to be preyed by this deck, the deck has both wild pyromancer and ravaging ghoul to easily disrupt a low health minion swarmed board making it very favourable to win.
• Midrange Shaman is a strong curve and requires a strong board presence to be threatening, also Midrange shaman doesn’t possess many card draw mechanics so it may fall to Combo warrior if it cannot threaten the Warrior consistently.
• N’zoth Paladin is a very slow deck and has no burst damage, even with heals and taunts it also falls as a prey to combo warrior due to the insane amount of damage of OTK warrior can do in a single turn even without a board presence

Moderate Aggro Shaman, Dragon Warrior, Yogg-Druid/Token Druid ,C’thun Druid,

• Aggro Shaman has many variable nowadays, but they can really pressure us early before our wacky wild-pyromancer turns can come into play, we need a good hand to deal with them early.
• Dragon Warrior, similiar to Aggro Shaman they can curve out crazily and with their stronger minions requiring us to have good answer for them every turn. drakonid-crusher and their legendaries can pressure us very hard, making this matchup a hand dependant game.
• Yogg-Druid/Token Druid, big boards, tough minions and even big taunts! a very annoying matchup to play against, try to keep at least 1 execute for that ancient-of-war
• C’Thun Druid: So many taunts that we’ll be having a difficult life to get through all of them

Difficult: C’thun War,  Control Warrior, Freeze Mage

• C’Thun Warrior and Control Warrior, high health and require us to have a big big Worgen to finish them which sometimes our key cards are stuck in the bottom of our deck, making it impossible to win.
• Freeze Mage, very difficult matchup. They can stall you all day and they can deny our combo with iceblock. Above all, They can draw enough damage to finish us before we can even proc their Iceblock, even we manage to proc their Iceblock before we lose, they have several defensive mechanics that do not allow us to win easily.

Final Thoughts

I’m a big fan/player of Patron Warrior back in the old days, this deck reminds me of that deck, drawing a lot then drop Emperor, then you win. Hope you all enjoy this guide and feel free to leave your thoughts/comments below. See you again in the next adventure review!

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