It’s me again! Fireflyer! And today I’ve got a short but sweet matchup analysis of a fun deck called… BEAST DRUID! That’s right, this deck uses big beasts to overwhelm your opponent and eventually finish them off with either savage roar or the dirty combination of Stranglethorn tiger and Menagerie Warden. So without further ado, let’s jump into it!
Win Rate: Eat Up Mages!
First let’s go over the win rate of the deck. For this matchup analysis I did a quick 20+ games and marked down all the wins/losses of each deck type I faced. I easily went from Rank 17 to Rank 12 in a matter of hours with a nice ~70% win rate. I went 15-6 and ran into a LOT of mages. Thankfully, this deck thrives against mages. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
The decklist is on the right and is pretty straightforward. Drop your best creatures, use Innervate to accelerate into your big guys. Make your beasts bigger with Power of the Wild and Mark of Y’shaarj. Copy your biggest beasts with Menagerie Warden and stomp your opponent to death. When in doubt, refill your hand with The Curator.
Mage: Easy Peasy (5-1)
I ended up going 5-1 against Mage. It was the most popular on the ladder and while I thought it would give me trouble, it totally didn’t. Your best friends against mages are Druid of the saber and Stranglethorn Tiger. The stealth allows you to come back lategame for some big damage. Stranglethorn tiger also can’t be killed by Flamestrike when he’s stealthed but what you want to watch out for is Spell Damage. If they have an Azure Drake in play you might want to kill that first before you play your Stranglethorn Tigers.
Reno Mage
This was the one mage that beat me. I didn’t realize until it was too late that it was a Reno Jackson deck and he healed from around 6 hp back up to 30. After that he was able to come back and control my field. If you don’t see doubles of cards like two Frostbolts or two Mana Wyrms then keep an eye out for a possible Reno deck.
Freeze Mage
There was one freeze mage but he was easily out-aggro’d. He ended up using his early control like Doomsayer and Frost Nova on me around Turn 3-4 because he just couldn’t handle the early aggro this deck provides. Go hard and around Turn 6 watch out for the Blizzard.
Tempo Mage
The most common of the mage decks and the one I haven’t lost to. This deck just tempos out so much faster with the help of Innervate and because of the high health minions you aren’t easily killed by Flamewaker.
Druid: Mirror Match (3-0)
Rarely will you actually get a mirror match of beasts vs beasts, usually you’ll be going up against Token or Malygos druid which uses stuff like Fandral Staghelm and his Choose Two cards along with other spells.
Token/Malygos
I fought three druids and it was always one of these two. Sadly for them I was able to Innervate early and get a decent board presence that they couldn’t kill. The third game I can just drop big beasts that Wrath and Swipe can’t really handle in big quantities. There isn’t much removal in the deck so you will have to trade with big taunt minions a lot.
Priest: Please Be Dragon (1-2)
The aim against priest is to use Mark of Y’shaarj on either Druid of the Flame or even Enchanted Raven to get a 4 attack minion. This way the priest can’t kill it with Shadow Word: Pain or Shadow Word: Death. Also use Power of the Wild to get them in that perfect range also.
Control
It’s hard to win against control. They will have lots of heals to stall and set up to handle your big creatures. Once they get momentum they will start resurrecting minions and there isn’t much you can do about it. I lost my one game vs control and I felt helpless. I might have been able to tempo a little better.
Dragon
I’m 1-1 against Dragon but that’s only because the second game had a great comeback. Dragon isn’t too hard to beat the only problem are the Twilight Guardians. That taunt will hurt you and it’s hard to get past them without losing a lot of your minions. Aim for the magical 4 attack to avoid removal spells.
Warrior: Don’t Have Brawl (3-0)
Normally I love playing Turn 1 Living Roots and dropping two tokens but against Warrior you want to avoid that. Even if you’re able to Living Roots into Power of the Wild, they just have too many Whirlwind effects that will stop your many small minions. Focus on big minions. Don’t put Mark of Y’shaarj on your biggest minion because it will get Executed. Spread the attack out and have about 2-4 decently sized minions to share damage.
Dragon/Patron
Our minions are bigger and Warrior’s removal isn’t meant to handle us. Even Fiery War Axe isn’t that great because we have so many good taunts late game. Curve out, let them attack your 3/2 with their Fiery War Axe and take damage. Once you get to your Stranglethorn Tigers you’ll make a huge dent in their hp. They don’t armor up as much as control so don’t worry about it, go to the face.
Control
I won against control but I think it’s because they didn’t draw a Brawl. I think in most matchups it’s going to be a hard game but as I’ve shown, it’s not impossible. Curve out and hope for the best.
Paladin: Aggro? Wha? (1-1)
Paladin is scary because it’s so easy for them to cast Equality and ruin your whole day. Even Aldor Peacekeeper on something with Mark of y’shaarj on it really hurts your tempo. It’s going to be a rough match but you can always hope that….
Aggro
It’s a weird Paladin aggro deck, haha. Someone was using the 1 toughness minion deck with Steward of Darkshire and my big minions stomped them.
Control
Control however, will win. They have easily board wipes and are meant to handle big health/big attack creatures. All you can do is curve out, maybe hold some of your big guys back if your board is already winning, but don’t get too aggressive because you will get caught by Equality.
Shaman: Out Aggro’d (1-0)
Aggro
Thanks to the new changes, Shaman isn’t that scary anymore. I didn’t have to worry about Tuskarr Totemic dropping anything crazy so I was able to handle Shaman just fine. Curve into your big minions and their removal can’t handle it. Lightning Storm even with a Spell Damage totem doesn’t do much against these big beasts.
Hunter: Call of the Standard (0-1)
Midrange
This match was going just fine at first. Tempo’d out, had him down really low early but while I was controlling the field he was slowly getting damage in using his hero power and Eaglehorn Bow. Before I knew it, he was casting Call of the Wild and had exactly lethal. The key is to just tempo better with your big minions and eat theirs. Make sure you’re eating their beasts before they can use Houndmaster on them, but other than that go straight for the face and win the race.
Rogue: Damn Backstabs (0-1)
Malygos
This was Gadgetzan Auctioneer rogue with lots of spells. Backstab kills most of your 3/2s and Sap will get rid of any huge beasts you’ve made with Mark of Y’shaarj. Aggro early, get in the early damage and hope that your Stealth minions can finish them off at the end.
Warlock: Not As Zoo As Me (1-0)
Zoo
I was surprised to not see many warlocks. They tried to Zoo out on me but my beasts were bigger and ate their board up before they could do anything.
Conclusion: Fun Deck! And effective.
I had a fun time with this deck! It was an easy climb to Rank 12 and I’ll probably keep using it to rank even higher. The Stranglethorn Tiger + Menagerie Warden combination is so nasty and is quite fun to pull off.
I hope you enjoyed my quick analysis of Beast Druid and maybe it’s a fun alternative deck to climb the ranks with!
As always you can follow me on Twitter @HS_Fireflyer or catch me streaming (when I stop being lazy) on Twitch at Twitch.tv/itsFireflyer. I’m testing out a fun Priest Barnes Combo deck right now so hopefully I’ll write a deck guide for that soon. I also have my Welcome Bundle Challenge Part 2 coming out on the 18th of this month (October) so read Part 1 and keep an eye out for that.
Leave me some comments below and show me some love and I will reciprocate that love by working hard to try and find fun interesting decks for you all to enjoy. I hope to see you soon!
