Astral Communion Druid Kharazhan

Change History 1: -1 Tomb Spider -1 Ancient of War +2 Master Jouster

Change #2 9/19/16 -1 Ironbark Protector +1 Wrath  

Thoughts on changes:

Ironbark Protector: is too slow to play without getting an early Astral and two felt suboptimal. 

Wrath: Added in response to the recent prevalence of tempo mage on ladder. Early removal is useful versus snowballing cards like Tunnel Trogg and Mana Wyrm. Having access to a cantrip after Astral Communion is also nice.

Tomb Spider: too low value for this deck and I frequently didn’t want to play it over another threat. The turn after playing The Curator I would just play the dragon I drew over the spider every time. 

Ancient of War: One of is good as it is one of the best taunts for 7 mana but is a horrendous Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound pull. 

Description:

Top-heavy ramp druid looking to use Astral Communion to accelerate out huge threats. This version runs The Curator as a means of consistently drawing Alexstrasza and Deathwing, two of our highest impact cards. This version of the deck runs Mire Keeper and extra six drops to help “bridge” into druid’s late game if Astral Communion doesn’t come early enough. 

Gameplan:

Against all decks our gameplan is to get on board as quickly as possible by ramping. Getting enough mana to reach our late game cards usually involves playing Astral Communion by turn 4 at the latest or ramping with some combination of Wild Growth, Mire Keeper, and Nourish. Raven Idol also gives us extra opportunities to dig for ramp in the early turns. 

Our win condition against midrange and aggro decks is stabilizing, by playing large taunts or flipping the board with Sylvanas Windrunner, Ragnaros the Firelord, Deathwing. Frequently the only way to get enough mana in time is Astral Communion in faster matchups. Once we have board control it is usually easy to outvalue midrange and aggro decks. 

Against control our win condition is beatdown, often times we will go face with our minions once we have board. This deck runs far too many threats for control to deal with in the long game. In slower matchups I shy away from playing Astral Communion past turn 4 if I have adequate ramp to play my minions otherwise. Against control you can keep slower cards like Nourish  and six drops with a Mire Keeper already in the mulligan. This deck is extremely favored versus control and the only games I’ve lost are to burst from Grommash Hellscream and getting the board flipped by my opponents Sylvanas Windrunner. The most important thing in these matchups is to play around Sylvanas Windrunner, Mire Keeper‘s summon a 2/2 slime ability is invaluable for neutralizing the Banshee Queen.  

Overall this deck is incredibly based on getting board control as we run no reach barring Druid of the Claw. This deck is weak to strategies that involve getting on board early and have efficient spot removal like Midrange/Aggro shaman and Tempo/Aggro mage.

This deck is very feast or famine when it comes to meta and I only reccomend playing it seriously in a control meta. However an early Astral Communion can win any matchup.

Deckbuilding considerations:

 Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound benefits from having more taunts in your deck, therefore cards like Bog Creeper and Ironbark Protector would be better choices than Ancient of War because they keep taunt when pulled by Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound. 

Cutting Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound allows you to incorporate more weak minions that fit the Astral strategy, for example cards like Novice Engineer and Gnomish Inventor improve our chances of pulling an early bomb after Astral Communion. 

Fandral, Icehowl, Ysera, and C'Thun are also good options for this deck. Only run C'Thun with double Dark Arakkoa.

Generally I only run 3-4 instant game winning bombs in Astral Druid: some combination of Alexstrasza, Arch-Thief Rafaam, Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound, Ysera. The rest of the deck is split between ramp cards and taunts to make up for the early turns lost ramping.

Core: 

The cards I consider core to Astral Communion Druid are Raven Idol, Wild Growth, Astral Communion, Nourish, Sylvanas Windrunner, Ancient of War, Ragnaros the Firelord, Soggoth the Slitherer, and Deathwing.

Closing Thoughts: 

Astral Druid is one of my all time favorite decks in Hearthstone and I believe I am getting close to the optimal build. I do feel that this deck as a strategy is flawed and it will never be a truly top tier deck but it is very fun and cheeses games like no other. Feedback is very welcome and I hope you all can enjoy this deck as much as I have.