Mecha’thun Warrior Deck List Guide – Rise of Shadows – May 2019

Check out alternative versions of this deck on our Mecha’thun Warrior archetype page!

Mecha’thun Warrior Mulligan Strategy & Guide

VS Fast Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Town Crier – Early minion that tutors a Rush minion.
• Eternium Rover – Early minion to contest the board and gain armor.
• Acolyte of Pain – Early minion that draws cards.
• Militia Commander – Powerful removal minion for the early game.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Warpath – Keep against token decks: Druid, Hunter, and Warlock.
• Brawl – Keep against token decks: Druid, Hunter, and Warlock.
• Dyn-o-matic – Good minion to clear small tokens. Keep against Druid.
• Dr. Boom, Mad Genius – Many useful Hero Powers against small tokens, keep against Druid.
• Harrison Jones – Keep against Rogue.

VS Slow Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Dr. Boom, Mad Genius – Big value engine, allows you to maintain constant pressure and force the opponent to respond to your plays turn after turn.
• Town Crier – Early minion that tutors a Rush minion.
• Acolyte of Pain – Early minion that draws cards.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Shield Slam – Keep against Mage to deal with an early Mountain Giant. Also keep Shield Block for the same purpose.

Mecha’thun Warrior Play Strategy

The core of Mecha’thun Warrior is of course the one-turn-kill combo. Not every game ends with the combo, as you can sometimes simply outlast aggressive decks, but the combo is always there.

There have actually been three different one-turn-kill Mecha'thun combos for Warrior that have seen play in Rise of Shadows. The most common one is built around The Boomship and Malygos.

In The Boomship combo, your final hand consists of The Boomship, Malygos, Mecha'thun, 2 x Inner Rage, and Whirlwind. You can optionally have a third minion that has up to six health and no minion-summoning Deathrattle or Divine Shield. Your deck has to be empty. You play The Boomship, which pulls the minions from your hand and proceed to cast Inner Rage on Malygos and Mecha'thun. Then you play Whirlwind, killing your entire board and winning the game.

Even if you lose some of your combo pieces – to an Unseen Saboteur, for example – the game is not completely over. The Boomship gives your minions Rush, so if the opponent has any minions on the board, you can simply Rush into them to deal some damage to your minions. For example, if Unseen Saboteur pulls one of your Inner Rages and is left on the board, you can simply Rush your Mecha'thun into the Unseen Saboteur to deal the damage you are missing from Inner Rage.

Sometimes you may also need to use your combo pieces to defend, such as Malygos + Whirlwind for a board clear, but you may still be able to win. Assuming the opponent has no silence, you can simply play Mecha'thun as your last card, but there are also other ways. For example, if your opponent has an eight-attack minion, such as a Mountain Giant, you can The Boomship your Mecha'thun on the board, Inner Rage the Mountain Giant, and Rush your Mecha'thun into it. With two copies of Inner Rage, a six-attack minion will do. Alternatively, if you have enough armor, you can The Boomship your Mecha'thun on the board and Shield Slam it.

Generally, if your opponent knows what they are doing, you will have a hard time winning if you lose any combo pieces. However, small mistakes, or simply not finding the cards to remove their own minions, can open you a path to a one-turn-kill even with a partial combo.

The other one-turn-kill combos are not as popular as The Boomship one, but they are worth mentioning.

One way is to use Da Undatakah to gain Mecha'thun Deathrattle, which enables you to have the Deathrattle on a five-health minion that costs only eight mana. It can then be killed in multiple ways, such as with Inner Rage and Devastate. This can sometimes be combined with Jepetto Joybuzz that may give you the Deathrattle on a one-cost 1/1 minion that is even easier to kill.

Another way is to discount Mecha'thun itself with Galvanizers in combination with Youthful Brewmaster or Barista Lynchen so that it can be killed with Voodoo Doll and Inner Rage.

So far, these alternative methods have not been able to surpass The Boomship combo. Their main strength is that they create some redundancy, so that if you lose combo pieces to Unseen Saboteur or even Hecklebot, you have more opportunities to recover.

The Boomship version, on the other hand, has an advantage over the other versions against decks that run Chef Nomi. Typically, such decks are able to generate three boards of 6/6 tokens, either with Shadowstep or with Seance. Malygos + Whirlwind conveniently deal six damage to the entire board, making it the perfect answer to Chef Nomi – you typically do not need your combo in such matchups anyway. The other two boards can be answered with Brawl and either a second copy of Brawl or with Spellzerker + Warpath, which deals six damage to the entire board for ten mana.

You are a combo deck, and an important part of that is card draw. While Mecha’thun Warrior lacks the really rapid card draw that many other combo decks are capable of, it has its moments. Harrison Jones is a sweet card that combines weapon removal and card draw, and with Weapons Project, you can always ensure that the opponent has a weapon to remove, whether they like it or not. Acolyte of Pain likes incremental damage, and you have both Warpath and Dyn-o-matic to draw cards with it. Especially Acolyte of Pain + Dyn-o-matic on an empty board is a great way to draw three cards.

There is a lot of discussion about Brawl in Mecha’thun Warrior. One copy has been the standard for a long time, but in the minion-heavy Rise of Shadows meta, people are also using two copies. The problem with Brawl is that it can only be played when there are at least two minions on the board. If your opponent does not play minions on the board, it can be difficult to get rid of Brawl. There is a solution, however, thanks to Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. One of the Hero Powers creates three 1/1 tokens, and when you manage to get that Hero Power, you can play your Brawl. Waiting to get that Hero Power twice can be a problem if you decide to run two copies of Brawl, but in a minion-heavy meta, the risk may be worth it.

VS Aggro Decks

Your main strategy against aggro decks is to play your deck like a control deck and run them out of resources. Try to use the appropriate removal piece for each threat and you generally have enough of them so that the opponent will have no way to deal the necessary damage. Playing a control deck requires good knowledge of your opponents, as you need to choose your responses according to what your opponent is capable of. As the meta is constantly changing, any guide can only give you some general guidelines for matchups – you need experience to know which cards you need to answer specific threats in your current meta.

However, you need to know what your opponent is capable of when choosing your strategy. Hunter decks that use Zul'jin and Dire Frenzy, for example, can happily take you to fatigue, so you may need to finish them off with your combo. Rogues, on the other hand, will generally run out of cards before you do, so the control strategy works against them.

Rogue is the public enemy #1 in Rise of Shadows, but Warrior is a good counter to it, so you have a good chance in the matchup. There are several things you need to consider when playing against Rogue:

• Weapon removal plays a key role. You have Weapons Project and Harrison Jones, so you can remove quite a few weapons. Rogue comes at you with Waggle Picks, Deadly Poisons, and Captain Greenskin. When you remove Waggle Pick, Rogue still benefits from the Shadowstep effect, if they have any minions on the board. Furthermore, they have those weapon buffs, so if you remove Waggle Pick with Weapons Project, Rogue can simply buff up the shiny 2/3 weapon you just gave them. Try to bait weapon buffs or have a second weapon removal piece in hand when you take away Waggle Pick. It’s an elaborate dance of who controls where the Shadowstep effect lands and how big of a weapon the Rogue can make.
• Rush minions are good against Rogue. Rogue can usually remove your few minions with ease, but Militia Commander can take out most of their minions, including an extremely favorable value trade on EVIL Miscreant.
• Edwin VanCleef can be scary. Your main way to deal with it is Shield Slam, especially in combination with Shield Block or Weapons Project for extra armor.
• It ain’t over ’til it’s over. Rogues can tech in Heistbaron Togwaggle or Chef Nomi, and the boards created by them can challenge you even when Rogue hits fatigue. Your answers to Chef Nomi are Malygos + Whirlwind, Brawl, and Spellzerker + Warpath.

Another common foe that is interesting to play against is Token Druid. Token Druid can create a lot of boards between Wispering Woods, Soul of the Forest, and The Forest's Aid, so you need to budget your removal accordingly. In general, you want to use Warpath to deal with Soul of the Forest and Brawl to deal with buffed boards without Deathrattles. Dyn-o-matic is excellent against an early Wispering Woods, and you want to turn into Dr. Boom, Mad Genius as soon as possible, because it gives you Hero Powers that are good at dealing with tokens. Malygos + Whirlwind can also come in handy against buffed-up token boards.

Dyn-o-matic is one of your premium removal tools. Count how much non-Mech health there is on the board before committing it, and see if you can get that number to five or below. Remember that Dyn-o-matic does not hit Mech minions! Dyn-o-matic is especially good if you have had time to switch over to Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, because then it will have Rush and it can hit something after the Battlecry effect.

Mech-based Hunter decks are difficult opponents, because they completely neutralize Dyn-o-matic‘s Battlecry effect and force you to rely on your Rush minions and general removal tools.

You are generally looking for opportunities to switch over to Dr. Boom, Mad Genius even against aggro decks, especially board-based ones. The enhanced Hero Power provides several ways to respond to minion threats, and is only weaker than your regular Hero Power against decks that run a lot of burn spells. Dr. Boom, Mad Genius also provides you with a spike of seven armor, which can be important in enabling Shield Slam. Shield Block provides a similar sudden boost of armor, and you often need to consider whether to use it early for card draw or save it for later to enable Shield Slam.

VS Control Decks

Against control decks, you play as a combo deck. There are anti-combo tech cards in the game, so your goal is to draw through your deck as fast as you can, so that the probability that a control deck can find its anti-combo tools remains as low as possible. Acolyte of Pain + Dyn-o-matic/Warpath and Weapons Project + Harrison Jones are some of your key tools in drawing faster than the opponent.

Your combo is explained above in the general play strategy. It is important to not despair, even if you lose some combo pieces. The combo is flexible and you can find a way to complete it, even if you miss some of the pieces. Sometimes you are forced to use some combo pieces to survive. That’s OK too, it’s better to have a chance to pull off a partial combo than just lose on the way there.

Against other combo decks, it is often a race to draw cards, and you are not in a great position in that race. However, you still have a lot of control tools to defeat combos that are not inevitable. You may be able to out-armor Holy Wrath + Shirvallah, the Tiger. You can wipe three Chef Nomi boards. You generally need to draw quickly to find all of your answers, but it can be done.

Mecha’thun Warrior Card Substitutions

Mecha’thun Warrior is a combo deck, and many of the cards are mandatory for the combo.

• Brawl and Dr. Boom, Mad Genius are core Warrior cards that cannot be replaced.
• Mecha'thun, The Boomship, and Malygos are parts of the combo and cannot be replaced. There are some alternative combos that do not use The Boomship and Malygos, but they require more changes to the deck.
• Zilliax is a great Mech minion that synergizes well with everything Warrior wants to do. There are no direct replacements, but it is not strictly mandatory. You can use the slot for another Rush minion or a tech card. Zilliax is the most used card in the game, however, so it should be the first Legendary you craft regardless of what decks you play.
• Town Criers are tutors for Rush minions in the deck. They are not absolutely mandatory, and can be replaced with another card draw tool, such as Slam or Loot Hoarder.
• Shield Slams are key removal cards and cannot be replaced. You do not want to use Executes in Mecha’thun Warrior, because Execute can only target enemy minions and can be difficult to get rid of, so you may not be able to use your combo if you include them in the deck.
• Harrison Jones is not only a weapon removal tech card, but also a key part of your card draw combo with Weapons Project. It can nonetheless be replaced, either with an Acidic Swamp Ooze if you really need weapon removal, or with another card draw tool, such as Loot Hoarder.
• Archmage Vargoth is another tool most often used to generate more armor and draw more cards. It can be replaced with another card draw tool, such as Loot Hoarder.