Introduction
And Karazhan starts to give real fruits, as decks are getting more and more tweaked and we start seeing very powerful versions of playtested decks that got tweaked to a point of powerfulness.
This week, I am bringing you guys the decks that performed the best in the playtests as well as decks that reached high Legendary ranks (usually between #1 and #10 Legend decks), so you guys can have the smoothest Ladder experience!
Are you guys ready for our newest Decks to Play? 😀
Asmodai Tempo Mage
And we start with Asmodai’s tweaked version of Tempo Mage that was used to reach #1 Legend this weekend.
The list has quite a lot of different tools when compared to standard Tempo Mage lists, but kind of makes an overall sense taking into consideration the kind of decks Asmodai was facing during the grind.
I played a couple of games with the list, nothing much absurd in terms of games but enough (about 1 hour) to get to know the feeling of the deck and how it differs from normal Tempo Mage.
Firstly I have to say that I didn’t miss water-elemental at all during my playtesting, paying four mana to “do nothing” a turn isn’t really what this deck aims in doing, and while Water Elemental is indeed a good play on turn 4, it rarely is something we want to draw into.
Another point is that emperor-thaurissan’s presence in this deck makes cabalists-tome more wanted, because we can simply reduce the cost of the many spells we get, the dual Tome also makes it so we get to draw cards that we don’t want to have in our deck but sometimes we’re forcing into playing, such as flamestrike.
And lastly, arcane-explosion is added to the deck to fight the insurgency of Zoo, which kind of is being playtested a lot this week. Arcane Explosion is also very helpful against Shaman, and since we are running so many Spell Power cards, the inclusion of Arcane Explosion makes tons of sense, even if just as a 1-of.
And the last card I wanted to talk about was archmage-antonidas. Despite common say, this card actually helped me a lot during the few matchups it won the game, even when only pulling one Fireball off. It not only forces the opponent to deal with it, even if your opponent is ahead, but also allows you to cycle your cards. It is important to note that the only reason we are able to play Archmage Antonidas in this deck is the dual Cabalist’s Tome combined with Emperor Thaurissan.
Faith/Xixo Malygos Druid
And this week’s strongest deck title goes to Malygos Druid. The deck felt so strong that it outshadowed any other deck I played during the playtest, regardless of matchup.
The deck performed so good that it actually feels much better and stronger than Token Druid, with literally no downside at all.
Common say would tell that Token Druid has more board presence than Malygos Druid, but in general the deck is going to be dropping arcane-giants a lot quicker as well as having a much better and reliable game plan, not even needing cards such as mulch to deal with big threads because of the high amount of Tempo generated by the deck itself.
Malygos Druid, however, isn’t just an oppressive deck that anyone can just pick and thrush the ladder with, the deck will require constant awareness and the skill level similar of Miracle Rogue for various reasons.
Obviously, the deck has yogg-saron-hopes-end so it still has those “WTF” moments and the eventual feeling of it being a broken deck, which I have to admit it indeed is, but if you are losing to a deck such as this one you’re probably getting outplayed given you’re playing one of the many RNG-based decks that exists in the game right now.
So, as of right now this deck feels much better than all the decks being played on the Ladder, but it also feels super fun because of the number of interactions, plays, and skill required in order to be played perfectly.
So are you looking for a deck that will both make you a better player as well as grind you through the ranks more consistently than any other deck in the game right now? This is the deck you should be playing.
Nuba Midrange Shaman
And my version of Midrange Shaman is on the table.
Midrange Shaman is one of those decks that has responses for literally anything that is played, being one of the few decks that can be played at the same level as Malygos Druid.
So, I changed my version quite a lot from last week to this one, mainly because of the number of actual good decks that I was facing and how they forced me into adapting.
Adapting is good, and we usually have to focus our lists to become better fit to fighting powerful decks. The usual Aggro Shaman is terrible nowadays, because of how better other decks got while it got nothing to show, meanwhile Midrange Shaman got a couple of new tools that while it made Midrange Shaman better, it didn’t quite got to the level of Aggro Shaman – That made Shaman Deck builders unease at what they should be doing with the class post-Karazhan.
I adapted my list to make it faster, while not losing any of the powerful Midrange tools that Karazhan gave us, the 4 mana 7/7 came back as the metagame became once again a Tempo-fest.
azure-drakes and bloodmage-thalnos kind of took the need to run sir-finley-mrrgglton because we would be doing stuff with our mana more often, but in the end I just felt like argent-squire was just not that wanted because of the high number of 1-drops we had, so I ended up cutting one for ancestral-knowledge to pump up our draws against oppressive Midrange decks.
The list is similar to the Pre-Karazhan, but evolved to a point it can respond to literally anything thrown at it, just like nowadays Midrange Shaman can. The list also draws so many cards that it rarely (if ever) runs out of steam at any point in the game, being able to both fight for board control as well as push for face damage.
I played a couple of games with this list against Malygos Druid, and the list didn’t failed me, so if you want a Shaman alternative deck to play this week, this is the deck for you!
Closing
And this pretty much covers all the 3 decks I wanted to suggest you playing this week. Dragon Warrior would’ve been the fourth deck but I don’t think there is much else to add regarding Dragon Warrior or anything changed in the deck that hasn’t been explained before, so i’ll just stick to these lists posted here.
In case you still want to take a look at the Dragon Warrior list I am running, here it is: http://imgur.com/a/zr1HV
Hope you guys enjoyed this article, and have a tremendously fun week playing these decks!
Love you guys, see you around next article!
Nuba
