Legend Menagerie Blackrock XL Warrior

Hello everyone and welcome to this guide!

Quick presentation, i am Steakman, a warrior fanatic since 2014 always trying to find a viable build to my beloved class even in it’s darkest hours. Seeing warrior stats on HSreplay alongside the general opinion on warrior being unplayable, i told myself might as well share what i think is the best way to play warrior this patch, giving our dear Garrosh a bit of screen time !

Dont get me wrong it’s not a tier 1 by any means but i still made my run to legend purely with it and still climbing with around 59% winrate over 80+ games.

Aaaand the cherry on top… there is a high chance this deck will benefit from the round of buffs coming to the next patch making it even better !

About the deck :

You might be thinking this list looks all over the place, allow me to explain the choices i made during my quest to test warrior archetypes.

Warrior has two package of cards this patch being very good at opposite things. The BlackRock/Theron package kills people very well but struggles to get there, most of the list i saw tryed to support it with a control shell but the cards just aren’t there, when brawl is your most reliable aoe you’re not in a good spot, and it’s life gain is also mediocre. The menagerie package on the other hand is very effective in the early-mid game, but struggles to kill people because it has no finishers. Mix them together and you get a deck that can play a “do nothing card” on turn 5 while being ahead on board, allowing you to not get punished too hard while you get your pay-off cards. The other bonus is the natural synergy between cards like zilliax/amalgam band and blackrock allowing you to have multiples reno jackson in your deck to stablilise if you missed your curve. They are both tutorables, zilliax by last stand and amalgam band by gorloc ravager so you rarely miss them.

The XL part is questionable but i just couldn’t cut 10 cards, also it allows you to get bigger value on BR and Theron while having a deck that can win without them thanks to the menagerie package so you won’t just desperatly dig for them. Also you rely a lot more on life gain than armor gain so the bonus health is actualy usefull.

a few tips :

– There are very few quillboars so an Amalgam on a Razorfen rockstar is most of the time an Amalgam band.

– Last stand isn’t primarly there for the manathirst but to tutor sword eater on 4, allowing you a tempo boost going into turn 5 where you either want to play BlackRock, Gorloc ravager or roaring applause.

– Against the likes of blood DK remornia is your main win condition, really try to get the boost on her using finley. If it’s just not going your way, outfit tailor is there to save the day by giving an unboosted remornia the +10+10 it needs!

– On turn 3 if you have the choice between Treasure guard and Nerubian vizier, prioritize vizier even if not active for a chance to discover and play Blackrock on curve.

– Maximize tempo over value on your first 4 turns, turn 5 being a key turn where you either want to play BlackRock, gorloc or a T1-T2 + roaring applause turn. Turn 6 you take the board back with a +5/+6 usualy power slider to prepare an other low tempo turn 7 like Theron.

– A well buffed zilliax is a very valuable ressource with it’s magnetic keyword. Attaching it to a windfury/stealth Amalgam band is the obvious combo but a 16Atck zilliax ( which is relatively common) on a innocent mistake can catch people off guard.

– Try to chain your direct damage cards, do not have empty turns between them. Your typical lethal plan is a remornia clearing the board + applying a first hit to the face with trensh or olgra waiting in hand for the next turn or a remornia + mistake turn to attach ziliax on it next turn for two hits on the face next turn.

This list is adapted to my meta so feel free to adapt to yours.

There are a few flex spots in the deck :

– street sweeper, starfish, audio medic and ghost writer are the main ones.

Possible inclusions :

– Disruption like dirty rat altough it will mess up last stand, Brawl, second trensh, more draw like light of the phoenix or more early game presence depending on what you need.

My mark as a player is a hate directed toward polarized MU so i tend to include a lot of tech cards to even the field, feel free to change those. For example starfish and sweepers gives you a fighting chance or even more a favorable MU in hard MU like Pure Pally, Totem shaman and Big warlock but they make your MU against DH and DK worse so it’s up to you. I find both form of the DK MU so favorable that those inclusions make sense to me because they don’t hurt the winrate too much but it’s up to taste.

I do not see too much miracle rogue for now but expect an update on the list if they become prevalent outside of top legend.

That will be it for the guide, hope you had a good time reading and an even better playing the list !

A Little challenge to spice things up : Since you can discover multiples copies of Blackrock and various forms of handbuffs, try to get the biggest possible remornia ! Comment with your most successful attempt (ranked only) !

The winner will win… The challenge ! yay ! Come on guys i’m just a normal player like you !

Good luck and happy climbing to you all !