Ramp Druid is one of the oldest decks of Hearthstone and the deck revolves around ramping up the amount of mana available to you and cheating out big minions earlier than usual. Over time Hearthstone’s metagame evolved into a much faster and tempo oriented playstyle and the Ramp Druid deck had to evolve and it started including the old Force of Nature and Savage Roar combo to accommodate a faster playstyle and it lost its identity as Ramp Druid and started being called Combo Druid as it ditched the high mana cost minions and went for a more aggressive build.
Combo Druid became Druid’s primary archetype and it was so powerful that other archetypes, even if they were good enough to be playable in the meta, didn’t perform as well as the combo version and even variants of Ramp Druid ran at least one instance of the combo. After the Combo was nerfed, other Druid archetypes started becoming popular and we saw a lot more Ramp Druid, Beast Druid, Token Druid and even Malygos Druid being tinkered with. Today we will take a look at a Ramp Druid created by Ostkaka and used by Xixo to reach high Legend ranks this season (top 64). It has some fun additions from Journey to Un’goro
Card Choices
Innervate: One of the strongest Basic set cards to exist in the whole game, it allows you to set up unfair turns that you would otherwise not be able to play. Being able to get 2 extra mana by paying 0 mana (and one card), you get to proactively cheat out big minions early or play removals and ramp spells early on for value. While the card is extremely powerful, as each turn passes it loses value and it is possibly the worst topdeck in the game at full mana available which balances the powerful swing turns it can create if drawn early.
earthen-scales: A highly powerful card that allows you to buff a friendly minion by +1/+1 and also gain the amount of attack the minion gets after the buff. It works particularly well with your big minions allowing you to get a lot of armor back up in the mid or late game.
Wild Growth: A 2 mana play that allows you to speed up your curve by 1 for the rest of the game and if you draw it when you already have 10 mana you can use it to cycle it for card draw. You ideally want to play it early on so you can ramp up and play big minions as quickly as possible.
Wrath: A very flexible removal spell that allows you to take out small minions and it can also be used to cycle by sacrificing 2 damage which is also quite powerful. It is one of the few efficient anti-aggro tools Druid has access to.
Mire Keeper: It is best followed up by Wild Growth on curve allowing you to play 6 mana minions on turn 4 essentially. It can also be used to spawn a 2/2 which is also quite good for dealing with aggressive board stats and mitigate some enemy board presence.
Swipe: Druid’s go-to AoE spell that is efficient at cleaning up small boards but it doesn’t do much against high HP minions, which happens to be one of Druid’s biggest weaknesses. But against hyper aggressive decks the spell is just efficient and great at cleaning up tokens or moderate HP early game minions.
Nourish: A low tempo play when it comes to adding value to the board but being able to sacrifice a turn to heavily ramp up your mana pool or to draw 3 cards and get value in subsequent turns makes is a value addition to the deck.
Dark Arakkoa: Even though we do not run C’thun, Dark Arakkoa is a solid card to run in the deck because of the stats and the Taunt effect that can easily handle multiple small minions efficiently if played early with some ramp.
Moonglade Portal: One of the strongest portals from One Night in Karazhan and with so many high value 6 drops in the game, Moonglade Portal has plenty of great outcomes and it also heals you up by a decent amount allowing you to play out the long game with your big minions.
Ancient of War: A classic taunt minion that is very sticky and can be very hard to deal with if your opponent does not have hard removal. If played against aggro decks with heavy amounts of Ramp it almost always allows you to swing the game in your favor.
Giant Anaconda: With plenty of minions in the deck that have 5 or more attack, being able to pull out a threat without paying its mana cost can be quite swingy. While you do lose potential Battlecries or Choose One effects, you get to pull out a big wall of stats at the very least.
Kun The Forgotten King: Kun the Forgotten King allows you to get a free 7/7 if you refresh your crystals or gain 10 Armor to recuperate when low on health. It is a solid inclusion in the deck but definitely not a must pick and if you do not have him, you can replace him with any other big threat in the deck.
Ironbeak Owl: We run a copy of Ironbeak Owl in the deck to have a tech card against buff spells and self buffing minions that are common in the current meta. While the card might not be the most efficient after its nerf from 2 mana in the past. You can also consider running Spellbreaker in the deck or cutting out the card completely depending on your popular matchups at your respective rank. Ironbeak Owl does have synergy with The Curator and is picked over Spellbreaker because of it.
Tar Creeper: A solid anti-aggro taunt early on and it can help you deal with aggro decks quite handily. It is particularly good against Pirate Warrior and Token Shaman and can prevent a lot of chip damage.
Barnes: Barnes is a great drop in the deck as it can pull out things like Ysera, Giant Anaconda, Y’shaarj Rage Unbound and Deathwing, Dragonlord. While the other drops you can get from the card do not have aura effects or deathrattles, Barnes still counts as a 4 mana 4/5 broken in two bodies at the very least.
The Curator: The Curator allows you to draw a Beast and a Dragon from your deck and is a 4/6 taunt on its own which makes it a very high value card. Since you invest a lot of cards into ramping up, you also need enough card draw to draw your big threats and play your threats.
Dragon Package: You have access to Ysera, Deathwing, deathwing-dragonlord and Primordial Drake. Being able to land a Deathwing, Dragonlord early on in the game through ramping up or through Barnes and being able to pull out more dragons from your hand can be extremely satisfying. Primordial Drake is just a great lategame AoE tool and with Druids lacking good AoE spells, the card fits in quite well.
This package of dragons aside from Primordial Drake is quite greedy and fits the Ramp Druid theme quite well. You can cut out some of them for other big threats if you want as well and the endgame legendaries that you want to run can be tinkered with based on your collection.
yshaarj-rage-unbounc: Y’shaarj is a solid card and it can pull out your big threats from your deck. Cheesing it out with Barnes early in the game into your big minions or possibly another Y’shaarj can outright win you the game at times if your opponent cannot deal with it.
Mulligan
You ideally want the following:
- Wild Growth
- Innervate
- Barnes (with Wild Growth or Innervate)
- Mire Keeper (with Wild Growth or Innervate)
- Wrath (against aggressive decks).
How to Play
The goal of the deck is to hard mulligan for ramp cards very early and then follow up with Barnes, Mire Keeper or Nourish into your big threats. You want to keep using your removals efficiently and push out big threats once you are ramped up. It is a very easy deck to play as long as you are mulliganing correctly and despite the amount of greedy inclusions, the deck does fine against most meta decks as long as you do not have terrible luck when it comes to getting your Innervates and Wild Growths in time.
Conclusion
A very simple and fun deck to play if you have all of the high end legendaries required to build the deck. The deck by itself is consistent enough to work in the current meta as it has a lot of anti-aggro tech cards and a nice balance of removals and spells to allow such a slow playstyle. Full credit to Ostkaka and Xixo for the deck and it has been a blast playing the deck on ladder for me. Do try the deck out and let me know how it works out for you guys!
Published: Jun 28, 2017 12:42 pm