Zilea’s Control Warrior

Introduction

Hello guys, Giordy here! Welcome to another one of my reviews!

I am a season 3 and 6 legend player and a huge Hearthstone fanatic.

I have been playing different decks in the current meta and I have to say that I have faced a good percentage of hunter for a long time, like two weeks or so. After facing so many hunters on the ladder, though, I came to stumble upon hordes of counter-decks such as control warriors or priests. I myself used to run a badass healadin which could survive Rexxar’s brutal power. Among the many warrior decks I saw, one in particular caught my attention, and I decided to give it a spin. After trying it, I have to say that it is one of the most consistent warrior builds I have ever seen. It has nothing particularly innovative, it is just a bunch of solid cards which rock no matter what.

I fell in love with this deck when I was watching one of my favorite Hearthstone players, Fabian “Zilea” Siffredi. Famous for his fondness for Uther, Zilea has been tampering with warrior builds lately, and he has come up with one that I really like.

You can find more information on this player on his Twitch, Facebook  and Twitter page. Now let’s talk warrior!

As I said, control warrior has been played in order to counter Rexxar and his brutal, aggressive power. Thanks to his hero ability Armor Up, Garrosh can soak more damage before collpasing, thus rendering Rexxar’s hero power Steady Shot a lot less effective. In addition to that, cards such as shield-block and armorsmith really help Garrosh hold his ground for a long time. Control warriors are all about the late game, and the more a warrior stays alive the worse it is for his opponent. On top of that, Garrosh has cards that can seriously slow down aggressive decks: I am talking about fiery-war-axe and cruel-taskmaster (this guy gets rid of leper gnomes, loot hoarders and webspinners with ease). On top of that, cards such as cleave or brawl can turn the battlefield into a graveyard. Zilea does not include cleave in his build, but anyone who is facing a lot of hunters or zoolocks is welcome to make use of the card.

Discussing the build

I already stated that this build does not differ much from the most common warrior builds we have been seeing: cards such as deaths-bite or sludge-belcher are evergreens. alexstrasza is also one of the most used legendaries in warrior decks. The core cards of any control warrior deck remain unaltered: what changes is the tech cards – the cards that help you tear through the current meta. One of those cards is the-black-knight : this big guy always has his use, given that basically everyone is running two copies of Sludge Belcher in their decks.  Even the decks that do not run them always have some kind of taunts, being them Defenders of Argus, Houndmasters or Voidwalkers. Since The Black Knight is a guaranteed 2-for-1, there is absolutely no reason not to use such a great minion. An alternate choice would be cairne-bloodhoof, but this sticky guy is probably a bit slow for the cuurrent meta. Another nice tech choice is sylvanas-windrunner. She is also a many-for-one, since it often forces your opponent to make unfavorable trades; she is also a beefy 5/5, which is not bad at all.

A minion that some people have been exluding from their builds is Baron-geddon, but I have to say that this guy is awesome against hunters and zoolocks: he alone can really turn the tide of the battle. On top of that, I have to say that since there are so many aggressive decks around, most people don’t bother to run big-game-hunter : this means that Geddon becomes even harder to remove.  Ragnaros is a must in any control deck: it is just too good to be passed by. Same goes with Loatheb, who can seriously mess up your opponent turns with his disrupting ability.

A card that jumps on and off the lists is harrison-jones : this adventurous boulders surfer has a situational use, but when he does get used he can leave your opponent with no weapon, while giving you a rich amount of cards. Have you ever used him on a doomhammer? Oh my, if it’s a good feeling when you get to draw 7 cards and you leave your Shaman opponent screwed. Have you ever thrown him into the battlefield when Guldan’s maleficent sneer has introduced you Jaraxxus’ overpowered weapon? Even when Jones does not draw you so many cards, it still disrupts your opponent’s play, especially if it’s a hunter waiting for his trap to trigger in order to buff up his eaglehorn-bow.

Other tech cards to be discussed are ironbeak-owl and unstable-ghoul. The purpose of the owl is pretty straightforward and really effective: this bird is a plain, effective silence source that can turn an angry undertaker into a lousy 1/2 in case you didn’t draw your war axe during your mulligan. It is always good to have a silence, and having a cheap one is more reliable than an expensive spellbreaker. Unstable Ghoul has 2 purposes: the first one is that of slowing down aggressive decks, and the second one is that of comboing the guy with acolyte-of-pain, so that you can draw more cards out of the suffering dude. While this may sound easy, I have to say that most of the time the ghoul or the acolyte get silenced and you don’t get to draw more than one card anyway: this is why I chose not to include this card in my personal decklist.  What I use, instead, is a good old gorehowl : I have seen Sjow swing that axe with great success and gave it a try. While it may seem at first as an additional weapon which is not really needed given that you already run 4 weapons in the deck, Gorehowl can be used both as a battlefield cleaner or as a finisher. The truth is, you are never sad when you see one in your hand.

As for another tech choice, the big-game-hunter, I have to say that I really like the guy. This is a card that is dead until your enemy drops a minion with 8 attack, but you are certainly glad you have one when you get to use it, saving yourself from Ragnaros’ giant lava ball, or from an early mountain-giant.  Although most decks nowadays don’t have a lot of high-mana-cost minions, this big-nosed dwarf makes you more comfortable around people.

General Mulligan Guide

Control Warrior is a very famous archetype, well-known by anyone who has had the luxury of having enough dust to craft it. There are plenty of guides out there which explain the deck cards, its mulligan choices and the various matchups. For this reason, I am not going to post a detailed list of all that stuff, but I invite you to check out great guides from fellow hearthstoneplayers.com writers:

• For cards explanation and odds against other decks, check out Lux’s Absolute Control Warrior guide.
• For detailed matchups and video guides, check out Alchemixt’s Extensive Legend Control Warrior guide.

While the above deck lists aren’t updated to include Naxxramas cards, the core concept of Control Warrior remains unchanged.

Conclusion

I have been really enjoying the control warrior archetype and I believe that this list really brings Garrosh to his best shape. I invite you to dry the deck out and see if it works for you as well as it works for me. Control warrior is not an easy-to-use archetype, and its cards require a lot of dust to be crafted, but the victories you pull with this deck are certainly rewarding.

If you liked Zilea’s latest build, I invite you to check out his Twitch page: his streaming is really hilarious!

As always, if you have any suggestions, tips, or questions, feel free to write in the comments section below.

Also, if you would like me to review a deck that is particularly dear to you at the moment, link it to me and I will check it out.

You can also contact me any time in-game (I mostly play on EU but also occasionally on NA): my battletag is Giordy#2566.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Peace out!