I wanted to share a quick update after my Hearthstone post from earlier this week: I made it to Legend! To some players, getting to Legend is something that happens every month. For me, this is only my fourth time reaching the highest rung of the ranked ladder, so it’s certainly something I’m proud of. In this post I’ll break down the deck that got me there and why adapting to the meta became a crucial step in setting myself up for a run of favorable matchups.
Aggro Demon Hunter: 11-3 (79% Winrate)
One of the two decks I described in Tuesday’s post was Ramp Druid, which quickly became the deck that I had to play against as well. Six of the last 12 games I played as Ramp Druid were against another Ramp Druid, many with Smothering Starfish teched in to handle duplicated Ivus threats. These mirror matches became a tossup for me and I found my climb had slowed down to the point of losing ranks. I had seen chatter on Twitter and Discord about Aggro Demon Hunter decks churning through enough damage to defeat Ramp Druids before they could run away with beefy taunts and excessive armor gain, so I figured it was worth a shot.
This clearly panned out for me on Thursday afternoon, as 11 wins and 3 losses were enough for me to climb from Diamond 3 to Legend in two short play sessions. Six of those games were against Ramp Druid, and I only lost to one of those Druid players. Treasure Guard is an excellent addition to the deck to slow down Druids playing Scale of Onyxia for a board clear, since it takes three of their dragon whelps to take down your 1/5 taunt.
The gameplan for this Aggro Demon Hunter deck is straightforward: flood the board with cheap minions and then send them all straight at the enemy hero. Cards like Battleworn Vanguard will generate extra tokens and threat when your hero attacks, so be sure to can attack at least once on the same turn to ensure you are getting great value out of the card. If you can combine the Vanguard or Pufferfish with Multi-Strike, you not only get to clear out some of your opponent’s board, you’ll also get a second set of Felwings or damage from the second attack.
This deck’s average game time was six minutes, and typically ended on turn 6 or 7. It can even out-pace Quest Warrior decks, who are typically spending their fifth or sixth turn playing their quest reward: Rokara. This gives you an extra turn to finish them off. If possible, Drek’Thar is an amazing play on turn 4 to either refill your board with threats, or overwhelm the opponent. Finally, Kurtrus, Demon-Render can help you close out games with rushing demons and an improved hero power.
A few other things to look out for: Bone Glaive on turn 5 is perfect to digging for a finisher through its Dredge ability, while also providing a chunky 5 damage. Additionally, I’ve won more than one game by dropping the opponent’s hero low enough that a Predation or Fel Barrage could go over the top of a taunt they thought would save them. I’ll often hold onto the 0-cost Predation as a bit of insurance for when it’s truly needed.
What to look for in the mulligan:
- Dreadprison Glaive – a great turn 1 drop because so many of your cards (Battlefiend, Battleworn Vanguard, Pufferfist, Kurtrus Demon-Render) rely on your hero attacking. This sets you up to efficiently do so for three turns without any further mana spent on your hero power.
- Cheap minions – Battlefiend, Vicious Slitherspear, and Battleworn Vanguard. Metamorfin helps in the mirror and if you already have a cheap Fel spell like Multi-strike.
- Multi-Strike – An incredibly cheap card at 1 mana, be sure to use this spell on turns where you can maximize its impact.
- Drek’Thar – This provides a huge momentum swing, so getting it out on turn 4 works wonders.
Try it if:
- You like bringing out cheap minions and then swinging face.
- You are okay with focusing on face damage and only trading when absolutely necessary, this archetype doesn’t work for everyone.
- There seem to be a lot of Ramp Druids where you are on the ladder. To be honest, there likely will be a lot of them over the weekend as players use it until Tuesday’s balance patch. The aggressive nature of this deck can take down Druid’s before they can fully come online.
Where I found it:
This deck list comes from the latest Vicious Syndicate report, which can be found here. They are an excellent resource if you are looking to understand the meta and climb the ranks.
Deck code:
AAECAZWrBAK7igSHiwQOwvEDifcD9fgDhI0Etp8EyZ8E0p8EtKAEirAEjrAEiLIEtbMEh7cEmLoEAA==
With plenty of Ramp Druids to go around, this weekend may be a great one for Aggro Demon Hunter. Then again, you may be playing against quite a few Demon Hunters who have the same idea, so get ready to outvalue them on trading minions. I’m interested to see how the meta adapts to a crowd of very quick aggro decks in the near future!