MayhemGaming recently shared his Druid decklist and guide on recently shared his Druid decklist and guide on Reddit on how he reached the Legend Rank. Read on below!
INTRODUCTION
Hello. I made a basic priest deck a while ago. I just recently reached legendary and wanted to talk a little bit about my deck, high-tier decks, and some basic Hearthstone notes in general. I chose druid because it is extremely versatile and doesn’t instantly lose against any one class. It actually has a good matchup vs most classes and at least a decent chance vs its bad matchups.
Proof that I’m legendary: http://i.imgur.com/ZXwFfWf.jpg
My decklist is not in my preferred state, but I tweaked it to the meta that day. That day I was encountering aggro mages and aggro lock. Due to that I threw in a lot of heal and shield cards.
DECKLIST
Link: http://imgur.com/OUYoywF
x2 Innervate – Amazing tempo card that gives you an early advantage. This is a card you need to make full use of so choose wisely when to use it. Against aggro I use it to rush a Harvest Golem on the field. Against control I use it to bring an Ancient onto the battlefield early.
x2 Claw – Early game removal. Combo it with hero power to turn it into a 3 mana deal 3 damage spell. Can kill Faerie Dragon. Can help you end game bring some surprise damage to your opponent’s face.
x2 Wrath – One of my favorite removal spells. Against aggro decks I ensure this removes one of my opponent’s creatures. Against control decks with weak early game I normally choose to draw without even killing my opponent’s creatures.
x1 Bloodmage Thalnos – No matter what nets you a draw card. Amazing synergy with swipe and starfall. It has gotten me out of a few sticky situations.
x1 Nat Pagle – This guy is a fishing machine. He was rooting for me the entire time and some games he drew me 5 cards in a row. Turn 1 coin Nat Pagle is immensively tough for people to deal with. And against aggro he can in essence heal you for 4 health.
x2 Novice Engineer – Card draw and can help kill off aggro deck’s creatures.
x2 Healing Touch – Once you start to get to midgame against aggro decks ( mage and lock ), their board state will slow down, you will gain board state and advantage but you will be low hp and a lot of cards in hand. This card helps you not die to Leeroy Jenkins, Soulfire, or Pyroblast finishers.
x1 Earthen Ring Farseer – 3 mana 3/3 body is good and the heal is very strong.
x1 Harvest Golem – 3 mana 2/3 body and deathrattle 2/1 body is great at fighting off aggro.
x1 Tinkmaster Overspark – This card saves my bacon. When my opponent plays Ancient of War, Sylvanas Windrunner, Ysera, Ragnaros, Tirion, I rely upon this card to save me out of that situation. Druid has really poor removal for big and large creatures so this card is a must.
x1 Bite – This card is mediocre. I only threw it in because the night I was trying to get legendary was full of aggro mages and I wanted some more heals and shields. Would instantly replace this with another swipe.
x1 Swipe – Another one of my favorite removal spells. Kills one of their creatures and will also kill off other weak creatures. Against Rogues, it kills of loot hoarders and defias bandits. Against Warlocks, it kills off blood imps and some other 1 drops. Combo it with Bloodmage Thalnos to wreak havoc. And this amazing removal spell can hit their face to do a lot of damage in one turn.
x2 Keeper of the Grove – This has to be one of my favorite class-specific creatures in the game. I innervate into this against aggro a lot because it will kill one of their creatures and then they are left fighting a 2/4 body. Slowing down aggro is what prevents them from being so strong. Additionally this can silence. Good class-specific silence cards are rare and should be chosen when they exist. This card is a must!
x1 Starfall – Really good board wiper as well as swipe. I like swipe more though. I do like the versatility and mana cost of this card more than starfire which is why I chose this over it. Swipe is an all around better removal though.
x2 Druid of the Claw – Very versatile card. Sometimes I need to instantly remove a Knife Juggler or Young Priestess and I charge. Sometimes I need to kill my opponent who is almost dead and I charge. Most often thought I play in defensive Bear Stance with Taunt.
x1 Sylvanas Windrunner – This card is too strong right now and I wish Blizzard would nerf. As soon as your opponent plays it you have to try to deal with it or flood the board and pray to RNGesus that it takes a weak minion. It’s too strong and should be an instant pick in nearly ever deck!
x1 The Black Knight – Druid decks run Ancient of War, Paladin control decks run Tirion, aggro, tempo, and midrange decks run Defender of Argus. This card is a 6 mana kill spell with a 4/5 body. It’s an amazing card that is so good in the current meta.
x2 Ancient of Lore – 5/5 that I always want to draw 2 cards with. Against aggro and mages of course I choose the health gain. Very versatile and strong.
x2 Ancient of War – Always play this card in taunt mode, no exception. 5/10 taunt is needed against aggro decks and will seal their fate that none of their creatures are getting through.
x1 Ragnaros the Firelord – Helps you end the game quickly. Instantly dies to Big Game Hunter. When Big Game Hunter is played in most decks, make sure to switch out this card.
x1 Ysera – Helps you end games too. And a 4/12 body is tough for most decks to deal with, not even including the dream cards it gets you. Very good card.
POPULAR TOP TIER DECKS
Decklists:
Aggro Lock – This deck does not run murlocs and tries to rush you down. Spams hero power often around the 4+ mana mark so now you are fighting against twice the cards. Finishes you off with Leeroy Jenkins, Soulfires, Power Overwhelmings, Argent Commanders, Doomguards. Right now a huge problem is Blood Imp which does not remove the hp boost it grants allies when it dies. Blizzard needs to make this change and right now it is flawed. I think Druid Control has a favorable matchup vs this deck.
Druid Control – This is what my deck is. Druid control is really interesting because it cannot be so end game focused to beat the mirror match or other control matchups because of the heavy aggro and tempo and decks out there. So you will see control vs control games go for a long time because they both run a lot of weaker and stall cards.
Rogue Tempo – This deck tries to gain board state while removing your board state at the same time. It also tries to play creatures that draw cards when they remove so they always have an overwhelming board state and overwheming number of cards in hand. Be careful of Leeroy Jenkins. They like to combo him with Cold Bloods or Shadowstep for a lot of surprise damage. I think Druid Control has a really good matchup against Rogue Tempo that does NOT run Tinkmaster, Sylvanas, and the Black Knight. If they do run these cards I feel it is in their favor to win. I love running 2 Healing Touch against this deck.
POPULAR DECKS
Pally Control – I think this is a very strong deck but struggles fighting off aggro and doesn’t have the card draw to handle other control decks ( lay on hands comes too late and doesn’t give you board state ). Druid control should beat this deck because Druids can draw better with cards like Ancient of Lore.
Lock Control – Runs molten giants and mountain gaints. Runs the taunt givers–defender of argus and sunfury protector. Runs Lord Jaraxxus. Runs board wipers and Ancient watchers. Tries to stall until big creatures end game. Then they heal up and slowly win. I think this matchup is heavily against your favor as druid.
Aggro Mage – Early game rush. End game kill spells. Runs lots of card draw too such as Arcane Intellect and Coldlight Oracle. Also runs stall like Ice Block to buy a couple extra turns. Very scary deck. If you run all of the heal cards I run then you will not be scared of this deck and will accept the free win.
Warlock Murloc – This is probably my most feared deck to play against. They run Murlocs, Demons, Demonfire, Young Priestesses and they all buff each other. This is not a top tier deck though because it requires lucky draws including murloc warleader. Without the warleader, the deck is incredibly slow and weak. The lack of consistency of this deck is what makes it not top tier.
Warrior OTK – Warrior One Turn Kill deck. This deck is a very scary deck to fight against and every warrior OTK deck is different. Some run Alex, some run Molten Giants, some run Raging Worgen. You can’t flood the board or they brawl. You can’t play just a couple threats or they eliminate them with a couple weak creatures and their weapons. It is a stupid deck. I know blizzard will nerf the Warsong Commander to remove the haste it gives to each friendly creature ( as they did with Unleash the Hounds ). But there are more problems to this deck than just that. Molten Giant and even Mountain Giant both need to be looked at. They reward you for not doing anything. And cards like brawl and Equality are too good of board wipers for their mana costs. I understand board wipers that deal 1-2 damage to all creatures. But when these board wipers kill all of your creatures regardless of their maximum healths that can be problematic.
MY OPINION OF THE GAME
I like Hearthstone but it suffers from lots of problems and will never be as competitive, dynamic, or skillful as Magic the Gathering. I think the biggest problems with hearthstone are the following:
There is a lack of counterplay because you don’t get to play cards on your opponent’s turn. Could you imagine your opponent has in hand Leeroy Jenkins and x2 Cold Bloods and no cards on board and you have 14 life, but you have a backstab in hand that you could play the instant he declare the 14/2 Leeroy as an attacker? Cards at instant speed are about counterplay and Hearthstone lacks proper counterplay because of the way it’s setup.
It’s setup in a casual and fast-paced way where they believe it would be too complicated and/or take too long to allow you to respond to someone’s every moves on their turn. Despite that I think they should give the opponent 10-15 seconds to choose to respond to any action made by the active player. Some spells ( maybe even most ) should be instants. Maybe even some creatures could have flash ( play them at instant speed ). Would add great counterplay and competitiveness to the game!
You get mana too fast. In Magic the Gathering, ( Standard play ) getting 6 mana for any deck ( even control ) is a big deal and is tough work since you have a CHANCE to lay a mana card down every turn.
In Magic the Gathering most decks run a solid curve of: lots of 1 and 2 drops, a fair amount of 3, 4, and 5 drops and sometimes a little higher. In this game there is too high of a spread of mana and mana comes too quickly. If they slowed it down and lowered the mana cap I think this would greatly enhance competitive play.
Giants. Giants reward not playing cards and losing ( in terms of life totals ). They reward it too greatly.
Board wipers. In Magic: the Gathering, mana comes a lot slower and board wipers normally affect both players. There are too many board wipers at the moment and most of them only affect your opponent. Additionally Equality and Brawl are too powerful and board wipe too well for their mana costs.
Attackers get to declare defenders. This gives the advantage to always be on the board and be the one attacking. This means offense is key in this game, hence why aggro decks ( hello warlocks! ) dominate this game.
Having as many attack phases as you want. This allows charge creatures to attack twice thanks to panda ( warrior OTK decks ). I do not know if Blizzard intended for this.
Want to know more? Check out the Reddit thread here where he answers some of the questions!
