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!
In the first batch, we have Ramp Druid with the new quest, Jungle Giants.
Ramp Druid
When it comes to the new Druid Quest, there are probably two ways to approach it. One is to play a slow, Ramp Druid and this is the deck. The second one is to play a faster, Midrange deck with lots of 5+ attack minions and try to finish it “on curve”. I like Ramp Druid, so I took that way instead.
The deck is a pretty classic Ramp Druid. You want to mulligan heavily for the Ramp – Wild Growth and Innervate. The idea is to have a smooth Ramp curve and get to 5+ mana as fast as possible, then start dropping bigger threats. Against slower decks, you open with Turn 1 Quest. If you face a more aggressive deck, don’t be afraid to throw out the Quest. In faster matchups you won’t finish it in time anyway. Vs fast deck you rely on the fast ramp + Taunts to protect your health. The thing about this deck is that the Quest isn’t necessary – you don’t plan your game around it and you don’t need it to win. It’s just an extra thing, you get an additional big threat and then your late game becomes much more powerful than it already is.
Finishing the quest won’t be quick (since a lot of 5+ minions are expensive), but it shouldn’t be hard. The deck runs 8 minions that are always 5+ attack + 2x Shellshifter (I think that the minion is really great, in faster matchup where you’re not doing the Quest you’ll play it as a 3/5 Taunt and in the slower ones you will have a 5/3 Stealth which isn’t bad at all and it will count for the quest) + 2x Tortollan Forager (since Azure Drake leaves, the deck needs some extra card draw and this is pretty solid – you will nearly always get something big, besides unlucky scenarios like Magma Rager, so that’s +2 big threats that count for the quest). That’s 12 in total, versus 5 that are necessary for the Quest.
Now onto the card choices/tech cards. I decided to put Big Game Hunter in the list, however it might turn out that Mulch is a better option. However, new expansion is adding a lot of high Attack targets, which means that the meta, especially early meta, might be full of BGH targets. If it turns out that people don’t play that many, Mulch will be a better option.
I decided to put Tyrantus in the deck, as it’s a great finisher vs slow decks. 12/12 that can’t be killed with common removals can win you a lot of games. However, if the meta turns to be more Midrange instead, Deathwing will be a better choice. Druid is known for the lack of strong board clears and Midrange decks are known for flooding the board with mid-sized minions, for which Deathwing would be probably the best answer.
Harrison Jones will be a great tech if the meta will be weapon-heavy. However, I’ve figured out that Pirate decks should no longer be a big problem and no new, crazy weapons were released, the weapons might not be popular enough to justify running it. If there will be Midrange decks running weapons in the meta, e.g. Midrange Paladin, then it’s a good choice (I’d probably run it instead of one of the Tortollan Foragers).
If Pirate decks turn out to be powerful enough after all, then adding a Golakka Crawler might fix it. That’s the reason I don’t think Pirates should dominate the meta. However, if other Aggro decks will be common, the new Druid 1 mana spell – Earthen Scales – might be a good addition. You can buff one of your Taunts while gaining health at the same time + it’s not a dead card in Control matchups, because sometimes it will save your minion from dying and other times you can cycle it with Auctioneer.
Yes, Auctioneer is an important part of the deck. With 2x Azure Drake gone, the deck will need some more cycle and Auctioneer is perfect. The card works insanely well after you finish the Quest. At 0 mana you can just drop him and refill your hand easily. He will be the main refuel after the Quest.
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!
