Mulligans
Win
Conditions/how to play:
To those
of you unfamiliar with this deck the main goal is to burst your opponent down
with massive amounts of spell damage with the boost of Malygos (and sometimes
Floop). Malygos turns your burn cards (Moonfire, Swipe, and UI) into 6, 9, and
15 damage spells which makes bursting down your opponent easy, especially if
you’ve dropped already dropped Alexstrasa.
But
that’s not the only win condition. Your Win Condition changes with each matchup
and that’s the beauty of the deck; it’s super rewarding to understand each
game’s path to victory. I’ve won many games via Spreading Plague into 3+
scarabs and Branching Paths +2 attack to make them 3/5 taunts (this is a great win condition against aggro decks), Naturalizing a
minion so your opponent overdraws their combo piece (happens WAY more often
than it should), and even just winning in fatigue through ridiculous armor.
For
the most part you want ramp cards in your mulligan. ALWAYS
keep Wild Growth. Against slower decks keep Nourish, Twig, Arcane Tyrant and
probably Branching Paths (you want to ramp up and see your combo before they do.
Against Aggro you want things like Lesser Jasper Spellstone, Swipe, Inventor,
Spreading Plague and with the coin you can keep Nourish. One of the things to
keep in mind in aggro matches is you don’t necessarily need to hang on to your
damage pieces like Moonfire and Swipe because you should naturally grind them
out to a comfortable position where you can win with your big threats like
Alexstrasza, The Lich King, etc.
Malfurion can also be very important to the
aggro match as you get two 1/5s taunts and either 3 attack to control their
board or 3 armor for longevity.
Specific
Mulligans
-Mage
Mage
as a whole is a tough matchup. Especially since there’s a wide variance in Mage
decks. Mulligan for
Aggro Mage since that’s a worse matchup. Keep Spellstone, Wild Growth, Swipe,
Spreading Plague.
-Druid
Unfortunately
we have a bad matchup with all of the other Druid decks so the mulligan comes
down to RAMP RAMP RAMP. You want Wild Growth, Nourish, Twig
-Warrior
This…is…tough.
It’s either Odd Warrior, Fatigue/Control Warrior or in some cases Tempo
Warrior; all have an insane advantage. You really need to ramp and draw to
combo them asap. You want to see Wild Growth, Nourish, Twig, and then start
drawing looking for Alexstrasza and damage cards.
-Priest
Usually
Control, Quest or APM. Just combo them first. Another slow matchup so you want
Wild Growth, Nourish, Twig
-Shaman
Either
Even, Tempo Shudderwock, Combo Shudderwock or Evolve. Mulligan for early game
anti-aggro tools, and if it turns out to be Shudderwock you should still be
able to combo first. Look for Lesser Jasper Spellstone, Swipe, and Spreading
Plague
-Rogue
You
should beat odd fairly easy unless you don’t see removal and they snowball.
Quest is a little more difficult since it’s designed to beat late game
slow/combo decks. A small trick I learned was to wait for their mulligan and
watch to see if they mulligan the leftmost card (which would be the quest). If
they mulligan it go for odd, if not it could be either one.
-Warlock
Zoo
is the most popular list out there so generally mulligan for that Lesser Jasper Spellstone, Swipe, and maybe Spreading
Plague. If you suspect even lock keep naturalize for the turn 3 or 4 Giant.
-Hunter
Deathrattle/Cube
is one of the worst matchups for this deck. You NEED to deal with the egg asap
even though it means dealing with a 5/5. The most popular hunter deck right now
though is Secret/Spell hunter, so you want to look for ramp cards and just
combo them/out grind them. You want Wild Growth, Nourish, Twig. Don’t panic if
they Rexxar on 6. Only panic when they get a Zombeast that’s got lifesteal and
untargettable.
-Paladin
Tends
to be pretty easy unless they get a godly curve. It’s either Mech Paladin, Odd
Paladin, or in some small cases Exodia Paladin. Look for
ramp cards and Swipe.
Replacements
I
strongly recommend using this list, I’m not a fan of Dreampetal Florist. I’ve
seen it work for others but not for me, I would argue not to play it without
Alexstrasza unless you’re ok with a serious drop in win rate. You could swap
the following:
-Flobidinnous
Floop, The Lich King, 2x Ferocious Howl
+ 2x
Oaken Summons and 2x Ironwood Golem
OR
if you are dying to play the Dreampetal Florist
-Flobidinnous
Floop
+
Dreampetal Florist
Side
Notes
You
can also try to experiment with Mind Control Techs and Starfall. I haven’t
gotten around to testing either one since I’m very happy with this list. I feel
very confident that if I had more time to play I would reach legend with it;
but as a father and husband I’ll just have to settle for Rank 6-4. Let me know
if you have any other suggestions
Last
side note. DO NOT PLAY TOGWAGGLE IN THIS DECK. or vice versa. Do not put
Malygos and Togwaggle in the same deck.
Lastly,
thank you to my good friend Matt Watkins for editing this and reminding me how
much he charges for his professional writing services 😛