Introduction
It’s time for the fourth Journey to Un’Goro deck recommendations. It’s clear that the meta is already stabilizing, but it would be far from truth. Just last week, I’ve seen 3 or 4 new, viable deck lists in Legend. And there are a lot of good decks that aren’t in the spotlight yet. Un’Goro proves time and time again, that a good expansion doesn’t get boring for much longer than just a week. New builds, new tech cards, even completely new lists are popping out every now and then. And in this article, I’ll show you some of them.
I have so many interesting decks I’d like to show you, so I’m pretty sad that I have to cut it down to 4-5. However, don’t worry, as I’ll be posting those articles pretty often!
All the decklists have been playtested by me – most likely either in Legend (mid-late season) or close to the Legend (early in the season). They were all working at the time I was writing this and in the meta I was playing, but I can’t assure that you’ll get similar results. Let’s start!
Ponta’s Discard Handlock
First deck in today’s compilation is also the most experimental one. Journey to Un’Goro wasn’t too kind for Warlock. On the first days it seemed that Handlock and Zoo were doing fine, but after the meta has settled a bit, it turned out that they aren’t. Warlock is by far the worst class in the game right now (at least in Standard, because RenoLock is doing very well in the Wild). And because it’s also my favorite class, I’m eager to test any new deck to see whether it might be even a bit viable. And yes, this one is a bit viable. From my limited testing, it’s still far from optimal, but it’s at least playable.
The deck is an interesting combination between Discard theme and Handlock theme. You still have the basic Handlock drops (Twilight Drake and Mountain Giant), you still have a way to copy them (Faceless Shambler), but you also have the basic discard package. As you can clearly see, the deck isn’t all-in on the Discard mechanic. It runs the most powerful Discard cards which were used even outside of the Discard lists – Soulfire and Doomguard. Plus the Lakkari Felhound, which doesn’t fit into the classic Zoo, but is a great defensive option in the aggressive matchups. To nullify those negative effects, the deck also runs Malchezaar’s Imp, which basically negates the Discard downside.
And how does it work together? Well, the Handlock core of Twilight Drake and Mountain Giant is slow and it just doesn’t work vs fast decks. While 4 mana 8/8 isn’t slow by itself, the fact that you have to Life Tap on turn 2 and 3 to really utilize those cards means that you’re completely abandoning the early game. And that’s not something you can do against Aggro decks without being afraid of dying. Right, so against Aggro you don’t want to tap. You want to play your early drops – Mistress of Mixtures, Doomsayer, Tar Creeper. But that leaves Mountain Giant unplayable and Twilight Drake very mediocre. So what do you do? You play your Discard cards instead and if you drop one of the “slow” cards you don’t mind – you probably wouldn’t play them anyway.
With the addition of Tar Creeper and Tar Lurker, it seems to target the fast decks, while it somewhat ignores the slow matchups. That’s my experience with the deck. I won much more games vs Aggro than I did with a classic Handlock, but I’ve lost more against slow decks, because if I didn’t hit the perfect start, my deck was too defensive and it didn’t really have a solid win condition. For example, a simple addition of Lord Jaraxxus might increase your win rate in slow matchups… if you don’t discard it. Yeah, that’s a bit problematic – of course you can decide to not play your Discard cards until you transform into Eredar Lord of the Burning Legion, but that creates another problem – a lot of dead cards in your hand.
Is this deck a breakthrough when it comes to the Warlock? I honestly don’t think so. It performed only okay, much worse than most of the high tier meta decks. But if you like to play Warlock, it might be the best option right now – especially since the surprise factor is a thing. Warlock is already unpopular option and trust me, no one expects the Discard Handlock.
Titan’s Elemental Priest
I had a full guide as the source, but apparently it was deleted from the /r/competitiveHS, so I can’t link it 🙁
I’ve heard about Elemental Priest, but I’ve never actually seen it at the higher ranks. Yes, Priest got one of the best Elementals this expansion – Radiant Elemental, but the class didn’t get any other Elemental synergies. However, as it seems, Neutral synergies are enough. And heck, not even plural – neutral synergy. Servant of Kalimos is the only one this deck runs. It’s a great value generator for the slow matchups, while the Elementals themselves – mostly Fire Fly and Tar Creeper, fill the Priest’s anti-Aggro curve quite nicely.
One very interesting thing about the Un’Goro Priest builds is that every successful one I’ve seen so far runs the Divine Spirit + Inner Fire combo. Pre-Un’Goro it was simply too inconsistent, but with the release of Shadow Visions, it has became way easier to play. Shadow Visions can fill as one of the combo pieces quite consistently, a combo piece that might get stuck near the bottom of your deck otherwise. Thanks to that, Priest builds can cut a lot of the late game and rely on the combo win condition in the slow matchups instead. At the same time, Divine Spirit is far from useless in Aggro matchups too – buffing a Tar Creeper to 10 health (or even more with Power Word: Shield) can put a huge wall that Aggro decks will have hard time passing through (as they usually don’t run hard removals).
The deck still runs Elise the Trailblazer as the late game in the slow matchups. I love this card in slow Priest builds, once again because of the Shadow Visions. Since you Discover a spell that’s left in your deck and Un’Goro Pack is a spell… if you Shadow Visions after Elise, you have a pretty high chance to get another pack. I had a game with 4 Elise packs – 1 normal, 2 from Shadow Visions and 1 from extra Elise I’ve opened in the pack. I didn’t even get to draw & play the last one, because my opponent conceded after the third one. That’s an extreme scenario, obviously, but having 2 packs in the slow game is quite common. While it might still not be enough to outvalue your opponent, it certainly buys enough time to get the full combo. Not to mention the possible OTK with Potion of Madness into a lot of buffs into Inner Fire. It’s always an interesting lethal option in the long game. Even though a lot of players are aware of that, they still might decide to not play around it. After all, it would basically mean that they can never play a 0-2 Attack minion or they’re vulnerable to that combo.
Oh, and the obvious Lyra the Sunshard shenanigans. The card is also an Elemental, but that’s pretty irrelevant – you don’t play her for the synergy, you play her for a crazy Miracle turn to get tons of spells and possibly cycle them too. One of the most underrated cards, it’s now staple in every Priest build.
This deck turned out to be a solid ladder choice. Elementals work quite nicely against the Aggro – the fact that you can curve out instead of passing early turns means that you don’t fall behind on the board (at least not that much), while the combo works as a nice win condition in slower matchups. Might not be the best Priest build in the current meta (I honestly think that Silence Priest is best right now), but it’s definitely viable and makes the class even more diverse.
Sytrax’s Secret Mage
I have to start by saying that I love this deck aescethics-wise. The deck list looks so clean, it’s one of the best looking ones I’ve ever seen (I have slight OCD when it comes to that) – it runs 2 copies of each card and there are no Neutrals to ruin it. How a deck list looking this juicy can be bad?
Okay, irrelevant stuff aside, Secret Mage was a thing people were trying to make for a while. Karazhan introduced Medivh’s Valet, but it wasn’t enough. Gadgetzan introduced some more Secret synergies, but it still wasn’t enough. And finally, Arcanologist made the deck much more consistent and finally made it viable. Why is the card so good? Because of the insane curve. Kirin Tor Mage is one of the best 3-drops in the game if you can hit the Secret. So to guarantee a turn 3 Secret, you can either run a lot of them or… add Arcanologists. And so, 1-drop into Arcanologist into 3 Kirin Tor + Secret into turn 4 Kabal Crystal Runner became a quite common and quite solid curve. Secret Mage seems to be the new “Tempo Mage” deck. Even though it looks nothing like the old Tempo lists, I think that it deserves that name even more.
The deck is basically built around cheating the mana, doing more than you should in a single turn. Kabal Lackey and Kirin Tor Mage are +3 mana if you hit a Secret with them. Kabal Crystal Runner has around 4.5 mana worth of stats and depending on how many Secrets you’ve played, you can play him for 4, 2 or even 0 mana – all of which are tempo gains. Sorcerer’s Apprentice is 1 mana worth of tempo for every spell you play, not to mention that it double-dips on the Primordial Glyph. Medivh’s Valet is an insane tempo card as long as you have a Secret in play – it’s around 4 mana worth of stuff for 2 mana. Not to mention the Firelands Portal, where even an average roll is a tempo gain (not to mention the high rolls, which are more common than the low rolls). As you can see, you’re trying to squeeze as much tempo as possible everywhere. The deck can destroy pretty much everything if it has the right start. But its main downside is inconsistency. If you happen to not hit your Secrets, your Lackeys are vanilla 2/1, Valets are vanilla 2/3 and Kirin Tors are vanilla 4/3, not to mention Crystal Runners being 6 mana 5/5’s. Which is, obviously, unplayable in Constructed. From my experience, it mostly results in a very one-sided games – either you hit the right cards and you win the game very quickly or you don’t and you struggle hard.
One of the upsides of playing Mage, pretty much any Mage lists, is that your removals double-up as the burn damage. Frostbolt (and Medivh’s Valet as long as you have a Secret up), Fireball and Firelands Portal are all very flexible, because they can be easily used to remove a minion (often with a tempo gain too), but if necessary, you can use them to burn the enemy. It basically means that any point of damage you take against Mage is very scary. I won some games simply because I’ve put some early game pressure and got enemy down to 15. 15 might still seem safe after stabilizing, but it’s not if I have a chance to draw burn every turn.
Still, I like this deck. I enjoy it much more than the more classic Tempo Mage with Flamewaker, because it’s significantly less RNG. Without Flamewaker and Arcane Missiles, draw RNG is the biggest concern. Old Tempo Mage was one of the most casino decks in the whole game and that’s something I really hate. So, if you like a) Mage, b) Tempo decks or c) seeing how your opponent spends his turn trying to play around a Secret and he ends up playing around the wrong one, then it’s a deck for you.
Fibonacci’s Dragon Control Warrior
Fibonacci is one of the most notorious Hearthstone players. Not because he streams, not because he participates in tons of tournaments, no. It’s because he plays Control Warrior every single expansion and even when majority of the players say that the deck is dead, he still makes it work somehow. Similarly, no one plays Control Warrior in Un’Goro. It’s all Taunt Warrior with the Fire Plume’s Heart. But no, Fibonacci will still play a Classic Control Warrior. And you know what? He will still easily score top 100 finishes with it.
This deck is another experiment of his. Dragon Control Warrior used to be a thing a while ago. Right now it’s more of an experiment, but it seems to work alright. It’s a slow, Control deck that plays the expensive Dragon package + two Dragon synergy cards. While Warrior doesn’t have an access to Drakonid Operative (well, maybe that’s better), the Netherspite Historian and Book Wyrm are still enough to justify running the Dragon pack. First one is a great value card, especially after the rotation. With most of the small Dragons out of the meta, it’s incredibly easy to hit one of the late game drops. Second one is an insane tempo tool – for 6 mana you can often remove a 4-drop, sometimes even a 5-drop, and play a 3/6 body of your own.
Unlike the Taunt Warrior, this game isn’t about getting a new Hero Power and overwhelming your opponent with it. It’s mostly about the value. I mean, of course, Aggro matchups are won simply by surviving, it’s been always the case with Control Warrior. And similarly, it wins slow matchups the way old Control Warrior did – by playing the long, grindy game, possibly even to the fatigue. That win condition is a bit worse with both Elise Starseeker and Justicar Trueheart (especially the latter) gone, but the Armor advantage is still relevant during the fatigue games. This play style, however, seems to be heavily discouraged recently by stuff like Jade Druid or the Taunt Warrior I’ve mentioned, with the first one being an especially poor matchup (luckily it’s not too popular in the current meta). It might be a coincidence, or maybe Blizzard just doesn’t want such slow decks to be part of the meta.
I’ve played my fair share of Control Warrior through the years and this deck feels pretty nostalgic. With nearly every slow Warrior list being Taunt Warrior, it gets boring after a while. The deck is obviously strong, but there is a lot of unnecessary RNG involved – Hero Power shots can win or lose you the game. So I really hope that at least one Control Warrior list becomes and stays viable, because I like to play it from time to time and this version is certainly the one I’ve enjoyed most so far in 2017 Standard.
Closing
Do you know any fun/interesting decks that can also get you to high ranks? Some decks with non-meta choices, techs that you haven’t seen before etc.? If yes, let me know and I can include them next time! I hope that you’ve liked this batch of decks, I have played a few of those myself and I found them really cool. I’ll try my best to provide you with more fresh lists every now and then.
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!
