The new expansion has been going great for Druid players with multiple instances of people hitting legend with all sorts of Druid decks. Jade Druid and Aggro Druid are quite solid in the current meta but the one deck that has caught the attention of people is Mid Range Druid.
Mid Range Druid used to be arguably the strongest deck in the game when Force of Nature used to give Treants Charge but with the nerf to the combo aspect of the deck, people started running token based Mid Range lists which found success in the Old Gods meta and Yogg-Saron used to play a major role in the deck but was eventually hit with the nerf hammer as well, leading to a decline in usage of the deck. The class moved onto better options like Jade Druid and Aggro Druid, that outclassed Mid Range Druid by a long shot. With the new expansion, we got access to some great cards that fit into the Mid Range Druid archetype and the deck has been largely successful. This particular list is by Kolento, which he used to hit Rank 1 Legend with in Standard Ranked Play.
Card Choices
Innervate: One of the strongest spells in the entire game that can win you games due to the massive swing turns you can create using the card. Getting an early Innervate out can help you snowball on the board quite handily, and this deck relies on playing a lot of stuff on the board – which makes Innervate as good as it can get in the deck.
Mark of the Lotus: A 1 cost spell that can generate value of up to 7/7 in stats if you have a full board. With plenty of board flooding mechanisms, Mark of the Lotus is a great card to run in any deck that seeks to generate tokens or flood the board.
Druid of the Swarm: A highly flexible card that works very well based on your matchups. In Aggro matchups you can play it as a taunt and use buffs to trade off minions while preventing face damage. While in control matchups you can hide your Druid of the Swarm as a Poisonous taunt behind other Taunt minions and get trade off bigger minions or bait out enemy removal.
Power of the Wild: Just like Mark of the Lotus, Power of the Wild is best used as a mass board buff and you want to ideally hit it on at least 3 targets unless of course you can pull off some immediate high value trades by buffing your board. If you do not have plays that can flood the board and are under a lot of pressure against aggro decks, the card is fine as a 3/2.
Wild Growth: An early game ramp tool that allows you to make big plays by sacrificing early game tempo to allow crazier subsequent turns ahead of the original mana curve. It also allows you to draw a card when you are at 10 crystals, which negates the possibility of it being a dead draw in the lategame.
Wrath: Solid early game removal spell that helps you deal with your opponent’s early game and it can also be used to cycle through your deck at reduced damage.
Crypt Lord: Crypt Lord is a very strong minion despite the weak stats. With enough board flooding available to you, you can snowball the HP of the minion quite easily, making it quite hard to kill off your Crypt Lord. With so many Pirate Warrior and Token Shaman decks floating around, high HP taunts are extremely viable in the current meta.
Tar Creeper: A very powerful Turn 3 Taunt that can help you get some breathing space against aggro decks. It also has synergy with Strongshell Scavenger on curve.
Violet Teacher: While it is a powerful card to play with your spells and can help you establish a solid board presence, people have been debating the use of the card in decks simply because cards like Spreading Plague or Living Mana are more efficient as they need only one card slot to get the most use of and flood the board while Violet Teacher needs other cards to generate tokens and establish a board.
Fandral Staghelm: Fandral is a must have for any Druid deck that runs a reasonable amount of Choose One cards. We have more than 10 Choose One cards in this list and Fandral can sometimes win you games on his own if you pull off some crazy combos with him and Innervate.
Mire Keeper: Mire Keeper is a very good tool to ramp up early in the game and when you do no not need more crystals it also can spread out into two bodies as a 5/5 for 4 mana which supports the token style gameplay the deck is built around.
Strongshell Scavenger: Strongshell Scavenger is exceptionally powerful as it can land you as much as 14/15 worth of stats if you have 6 taunts on the board. The most ideal combo is of course with Spreading Plague for 9 mana against a flooded enemy board which allows you to setup a wall of 3/7 taunts that are extremely hard to deal with and very few cards and efficiently clear your board past the combo.
Living Mana: Living Mana is a one card comeback mechanism used in the past in Token/Aggro Druid decks that can be used once people deal with your small minions. While in our Mid Range Deck that does not have that many minions that have aggressive mana costs, it is a good idea to play the card before your Spreading Plague and Strongshell Scavenger combo to bait out enemy removal.
Nourish: Nourish allows you to gain 2 mana crystals or draw 3 cards. With Ultimate Infestation in the deck, you can lean towards gaining crystals more often to get to your combos or be able to play Ultimate Infestation faster.
Spreading Plague: Spreading Plague while on paper might not be too impressive as 1/5 stats on taunts is considered to be weak, you have access to board buffs through spells and Stoneshell Scavenger that can help you make a very powerful board of taunts against any deck that seeks to flood the board.
Bonemare: Bonemare is an extremely powerful Common card from the new expansion and it is being widely used in a wide variety of decks and it is also quite popular in Arena as well due to the sheer amount of stats it offers for its mana cost and the added Taunt effect.
Malfurion The Pestilent: One of the underrated Death Knight heroes during initial reviews, the card is quite strong as it allows you to deal 3 damage to targets that might not be targetable by spells or even go beyond 30 HP with the armor gain. The fact that the Choose one effect of both the hero card itself and the new hero power both work with Fandral Staghelm makes it an even more compelling card.
Ultimate Infestation: Ultimate Infestation is extremely powerful as it allows the deck to ramp aggressively and follow up with enough resources in hand to make big plays. Being able to generate board presence, increase health pool, draw cards and deal damage all at the same time with just one card makes this a crazy inclusion in any Druid deck that runs a lot of ramp tools and it’s a must have card in the deck.
Mulligans and Gameplay
Against Aggro
- Wild Growth
- Wrath
- Tar Creeper
- Mire Keeper
- Any strong play with Innervate
Against Control
- Nourish
- Fandral Staghelm
- Wrath
- Wild Growth
- Mire Keeper
- Any strong play with Innervate
The goal of the deck is to ramp up early and setup a board full of minions and line them up for mass buffs to finish off your opponent over time. It isn’t an aggressive deck but it can be very dominating on board and with things like Spreading Plague and Stoneshell Scavenger lined up together, things can snowball very quickly. It is quite solid against aggro decks due to the sheer amount of taunts it has and it has been a blast playing the deck against things like Pirate Warrior and Tokem Shaman.
Conclusion
Hope you guys have fun with the deck and if you want to follow all of the latest changes to the deck, be sure to follow www.twitter.com/Kolento for changes he makes to his decklists or tune into his stream to check out gameplay with the deck.
Published: Aug 18, 2017 12:23 pm