Quick Brews: Discard Zoo Warlock (Without Quest)

Introduction

In the Quick Brews series, I’ll make a single pre-release deck for each class and talk a bit about it. However, since it’s impossible to tell how the new meta will look like, those might not be the best lists or they might not even work at all. And so, I don’t recommend crafting the cards Day 1 – you should probably wait and see how the meta turns out!

Second deck is what I think might be the most busted deck in the meta – a new version of Discard Warlock.

Discard Warlock

There is a lot of Aggro hate cards in this expansion. Anti-Pirate, anti-Weapon, Taunts… But at the same time we don’t get a lot of cards that counter Zoo. Well, Shaman might still be quite powerful against Zoo because of all the AoEs, you can’t have everything.

Why no Quest in the list? Because I honestly think that Warlock’s Quest is too slow to run in an aggressive Zoo list. I like the Quest and I will try to make it work, but in a slower, more Midrange version. That deck will be very experimental – but this one? I’m at least 90% certain that it will work.

Rotation hit Zoo a bit. The deck has lost Imp Gang Boss, which was one of the best 3-drops. It also lost Dark Peddler, which might not have been the best 2-drop, but it’s flexibility made it very powerful. However, the biggest loss is Power Overwhelming rotating into Hall of Fame. But after seeing the new Zoo tools I’m not even surprised by that rotation.

So, first of all, the new Legendary – Clutchmother Zavas. It’s obviously incredibly powerful. First, it will make your Discards more consistent. Before you had 2 targets you wanted to Discard – 2x Silverware Golem – now you have a third one. Second, that third discard target is sticky – you can hit it multiple times, potentially increasing your number of valid discard targets even more. Third, once you’re done with your Discarding you just play it as a huge 2-drop. Even after just a single Discard, it’s already 2 mana 4/4, which makes it a solid drop. But if you keep it for a while in your hand, you should be able to drop it as 6/6 or 8/8, for just 2 mana.

Then, the deck has got a new Egg. Nerubian Egg used to be a Zoo staple. While the Devilsaur Egg is a bit weaker, it’s still a very nice addition to such a list. Sadly, Power Overwhelming rotates out, but there are still tons of ways to activate it. Abusive Sergeant, Dire Wolf Alpha, Defender of Argus and most importantly Ravenous Pterrordrax. Not to mention that Egg just sitting there on the board is often a good thing in slower matchups. It makes it less vulnerable to AoE, because even if your opponent wipes the board, you’ll start with a 5/5.

But I feel like the MVP of the deck and a sleeper OP card of the expansion is Ravenous Pterrordrax. Adapting TWICE on a 4-drop is very powerful. While you won’t always hit the most optimal Adaptations, here are few examples of how the card can look like. It can be a 4 mana 7/7 with no Overload. 4 mana 4/7 Taunt or Divine Shield. 4 mana 4/4 with Divine Shield that summons 2x 1/1 on Deathrattle. 4 mana 4/10 (imagine following it up by Argus next turn – DIY Ancient of War in Zoo on turn 4 if you Coined it out). Or maybe even a 4 mana 7/4 that can’t be targeted by spells? (that can be insane in some slower matchups) With a lot of the Adapt options being viable, the card will be good most of the time. You have to get really unlucky to not hit anything good. And some sequences will be simply game-winning. Play turn 3 Devilsaur Egg, eat it and get a 4/10. End up with 4/10 and 5/5 on the board on turn 4 as a Zoo. Yeah.

The only concern might be not enough good targets to sacrifice. But that shouldn’t be a problem. With Devilsaur Egg, Forbidden Ritual, Abusive Sergeant, Possessed Villager or even a small drop that would die anyway on the board next turn, there should be plenty of targets to eat.

Also, what’s really cool about this deck is that it’s F2P players-friendly. You can play a budget list without Clutchmother Zavas and the only new cards from the latest expansion you have to put in the deck are Devilsaur Egg (Rare) and Ravenous Pterrordrax (Common). Of course Clutchmother can sometimes be a pretty, well, clutch card, but I think that playing the deck without her will be possible.

Also, if you want to play the anti-fun police, it should be a great deck to storm through the ladder on Day 1. Most of the players will start building their greedy Quest decks and this might be a good way to punish them until they optimize their builds.

Closing

Thanks for reading! Remember that those are still prototypes and they will first need to be tested on the ladder and optimized. I will test most of those decks on the first days of the expansion and I will write full guides for the ones that will turn out to be working properly.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!