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Ashes of Outland Highlander Deck Theorycrafts – Singleton Decks For New Expansion

By: yellorambo - - Updated:

Though the Highlander deck archetypes didn’t receive any specific support in the first expansion of the new Hearthstone year, the dastardly duo of Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza gives you more than enough incentive to trawl through the card list to try to scavenge 30 strong individual cards, especially with the classes that feature members of the League of Explorers. We’ve listed five of the most interesting options below…

Highlander Zoo Warlock – Surprise Lethals Are Fun

yellorambo's Highlander Zoo Warlock – Ashes of Outland Theorycraft

Deck Import

Though this may seem like a pure meme deck, I actually reached double-digit Legend with it in the early days of the SoU meta purely off of the surprise factor, and it’s quite possible that you, dear reader, could pull off a similar feat at the start of Ashes of Outland. The idea is to cap off the general Zoo gameplan of early board control and favorable trades with a surprise finisher in the form of Savage Roar or Bloodlust generated by everyone’s favorite djinn, or to conjure a hard removal option out of thin air that you would usually lack in this kind of an archetype. We’ve also included Twisted Knowledge for flexibility but Faceless Corruptor is definitely a safe alternative.

Guardian Augmerchant and Rocket Augmerchant will serve as fantastic tools for the board combat portion of the exercise, and though the loss of Sandbinder as a tutor is pretty huge for this kind of a deck, there’s enough juice in this kind of a gameplan to give it a spin in the early days of the meta. Sacrificial Pact is there as a tool against what I expect to be a massive influx of Demon Hunters early on, but realistically speaking, Maiev Shadowsong is likely a stronger choice if you have the dust to spare. Yes, you can greed out to your heart’s content with Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, but why would you do that with Zoo? Shadow Council, unlike Arch-Thief Rafaam, is cheap to play and confers a massive stat boost with potential synergies (compare and contrast with Embiggen), making it worth a try for sure.

Highlander Demon Hunter – Big Things and Nasty Swings

yellorambo's Highlander Demon Hunter – Ashes of Outland Theorycraft

Deck Import

The first batch of Demon Hunter cards seem to promote two kinds of a playstyle: a very aggressive build and one based around a plethora of mid-sized AoE effects and humongous Demons. The latter will greatly suffer from the lack of a dedicated hard removal option in the late-game, making it a prime candidate for a slower Highlander deck aimed by the flexibility of Zephrys the Great and the value bomb of Dragonqueen Alexstrasza.

Though it lacks a dedicated finisher, this build aims to recreate the Galakrond Warlock deck of the previous expansion, but with a full commitment to the Highlander approach and a higher individual card quality to offer. The small-to-mid-sized AoE effects and the multiple Lifesteal options should get you through the early game against aggressive opponents so you can just close out the game, while the Highlander tools and the big Demon Hunter cards will serve you well against greedier opposition. Though Pit Commander may seem like an odd omission, we preferred Magtheridon instead.

Highlander Midrange Druid – A Burst of Nostalgia

yellorambo's Highlander Midrange Druid – Ashes of Outland Theorycraft

Deck Import

We’ve never seen a dedicated Highlander Druid deck in the past (let’s face it, stuffing Zephrys and Elise into Quest Druid didn’t really count) because the class’ viable archetypes across the years have always relied on consistency of draw – either via ramping into big things or generating enough tokens to capitalize on one of the many redundant buff spells to win the game. Elise the Enlightened also primarily works well for a control deck’s value generation (as combo decks also prefer consistency over extra copies at this cost of a deckbuilding restriction), providing a further challenge.

The featured build opts to capitalize on the many different token and Treant synergies added to the class by establishing a similar sort of midrange-y approach seen back in the day of the pre-nerf Force of Nature decks, albeit with a less smooth curve: a faster start and a few big resource-generating fatties serve as the spine of this Highlander Druid deck. Just like with the Highlander Zoo deck, Zephrys the Great can either provide a surprise finisher or an otherwise sorely lacking hard removal, but with Dragonqueen Alexstrasza waiting in the wings whenever your standard gameplan doesn’t work out.

Highlander Mage – Old Control, New Flavor

yellorambo's Highlander Mage – Ashes of Outland Theorycraft

Deck Import

Though Highlander Mage was already a viable meta deck, the rotation forces quite a few deckbuilding changes for the archetype. Gone is Mountain Giant and Book of Specters, the Mech synergy of SN1P-SN4P and Zilliax, so is Stargazer Luna and Luna's Pocket Galaxy. The loss of Firetree Witchdoctor also weakens the Dragon synergy a bit. So, what can you use to replace them in the new expansion? Spell tools, mostly (Incanter's Flow, Starscryer) plus some added value (Evocation, Imprisoned Observer, Maiev Shadowsong). We’ve also added Deep Freeze for flexibility, but Ethereal Augmerchant is worth highlighting as a potential replacement: you very rarely get to add +1 Spell Damage for just a single mana – though admittedly you do need to have a minion on the board – still serves as a nice tool in a slower deck, and definitely worthy of experimentation.

Highlander Hunter – New Tricks for an Old Hound

yellorambo's Highlander Hunter – Ashes of Outland Theorycraft

Deck Import

So by the same token, what can you do with Highlander Hunter after the rotation? With the dedicated Dragon archetype not losing any cards except Leeroy Jenkins, it’s tough to see how a singleton build could beat it at its own game. Instead, we opted to explore the possibilities of a highly buffed Zixor Prime with a build which leans into the one-off concept to such an extent that it only runs Zixor, Apex Predator as its only Beast, with a plan to buff it into high heavens as a potential finisher.

Again, just like Mage, the loss of Zilliax hurts against aggressive opponents, which is why we made the ultimate anti-SMOrc decision and added a Khartut Defender to the featured build. The hope is that the sacrifice of other Beast-related initiative options will be counteracted by the reintroduction of Marked Shot and Freezing Trap plus Scrap Shot and Maiev Shadowsong from the new set alongside, of course, the first form of Zixor as well. For anything slower, there’s it’s second form with a lot of buffs.

Yellorambo

Luci Kelemen is an avid strategy gamer and writer who has been following Hearthstone ever since its inception. His content has previously appeared on HearthstonePlayers and Tempo/Storm's site.

Check out Yellorambo on Twitter!

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4 Comments

  1. H0lysatan
    March 31, 2020 at 6:41 PM

    no Highlander Warrior deck? 🙁

  2. Yrkomm16
    March 31, 2020 at 11:38 AM

    Highlander Paladin anyone?

  3. Meisender
    March 31, 2020 at 11:32 AM

    good read, thanks! but part of your druid list – landscapinh and mulch muncher – rotates 😉