One of the archetypes Blizzard is clearly pushing with Rise of Shadows is Bomb Warrior. Warrior is getting new cards that shuffle bombs – cards that deal 5 damage to the hero when drawn – into the opponent’s deck as well as a big payoff card in Blastmaster Boom that gets better the more bombs there are in the opponent’s deck.
At first I though that this would be yet another easy forced archetype and that the deck would practically build itself. However, the deeper into the rabbit hole I ventured, the more I started to question what the essence of Bomb Warrior really is. Sure, you want there to be bombs in your opponent’s deck and you are happy when they draw them and take some damage. But is Blastmaster Boom the real payoff? Are bombs just a distraction? Are bombs something you win with after a long control game? Are bombs a bit of extra reach for an aggro deck? Sometimes, not all is as it seems.
To truly understand Bomb Warrior, we need to start with the bombs themselves. There are several bomb synergy cards in the game:
- Clockwork Goblin – a bomb shuffler.
- Seaforium Bomber – a bomb shuffler.
- Wrenchcalibur – a bomb shuffler. Can be buffed with Upgrade! and Captain Greenskin.
- Augmented Elekk – can double your bomb generation.
- Youthful Brewmaster, Baleful Banker, Ancient Brewmaster – can bounce bomb shufflers for even more bombs.
- Dr. Boom, Mad Genius – can Discover more copies of Clockwork Goblin
So, if we put all of these in a deck, we can create a lot of bombs – more than 20 bombs, in fact!
Of course, we cannot use them all in practice, because we also need to survive and need other threats and removal pieces to stay in the game and let the bombs do work. Nonetheless, bombs can do a whole lot of damage over the course of a game.
Who can we kill with the bombs? Slow decks, control decks, is an easy answer, but it is likely an incorrect answer. I would expect any control decks to include either Arch-Villain Rafaam (Warlock) or Archivist Elysiana (other classes). In other words, we first play all the way to the gates of fatigue only for our opponent to remove all bombs from their deck. Then what?
Well, you can try to pilot a Control Bomb Warrior in such a way that you have some more bomb generators remaining and just shuffle a few more bombs into the deck after the initial batch has been removed. That gives you some kind of a chance, but clearly the deck is not a control killer.
Bombs are likely going to do a much better job against combo decks, which may want to draw through their entire deck and do not have tools to replace it. However, combo decks are losing a lot in the rotation and it looks like the golden age of combo in Hearthstone is over. Therefore, while Bomb Warrior might be good in those matchups, such opponents may be few and far between.
Against aggressive decks, you are unlikely to get many bombs off. Either you survive or you don’t, bombs will rarely play a major part.
All of this does not mean that Bomb Warrior is doomed, merely that the way to build it is less obvious than it would seem at first. There are at least three competing approaches to Bomb Warrior: aggro, midrange, and control.
- Aggro Bomb Warrior attempts to use the bombs as final pieces of reach as well as to buff up Blastmaster Boom that sits at the top of their curve.
- Midrange Bomb Warrior, probably some form of Rush Warrior, uses the bombs in a similar way to Aggro Bomb Warrior, but has a slightly slower gameplan overall with some more power in their minions. This also provides the bombs a little more time to be drawn.
- Control Bomb Warrior is a much more passive deck with tons of removal that can shuffle vast quantities of bombs into the opponent’s deck. It defends itself while slowly building up a lethal threat within the opponent’s deck.
It is possible that all three paths are viable, but most likely one of them will be better than the others and becomes the main Bomb Warrior style.
For this theorycrafting piece, I built sample lists of Control Bomb Warrior and Rush Bomb Warrior.
12,000
This control variant packs a ton of removal and a wide variety of bomb generators. Furthermore, it includes Archivist Elysiana in order to take the game to fatigue, if needed. Youthful Brewmaster can be used either to generate more bombs, bounce a Battlecry minion, or go for an even longer game with Archivist Elysiana.
This rush variant, on the other hand, seeks to end the game with its constant stream of threats that culminates in Blastmaster Boom and the threat of bomb draws. Wrenchcalibur can become a formidable weapon with the help of Upgrade! and Captain Greenskin and shuffle several bombs during a game.
There is also another potential finisher in Grommash Hellscream. Sweeping Strikes can provide some surprise attacks with the Rush minions, especially Darius Crowley. I also considered including Akali, the Rhino in the deck, but ultimately left it out as too slow, even though combining Akali with Sweeping Strikes could be devastating.
As can be seen from the above examples, Bomb Warrior may be an archetype Blizzard has planned for us, but there are multiple ways to build it nonetheless.
Old Guardian
Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
Did you perhaps grab the wrong boom in the control version – assumed you intended the hero card 🙂
Just too many booms these days hehe
Boom here, Boom there. Fixed it.
In regards your rush warrior build, it’s eerily similar to my build that I made about a week back, with the only main differences being that I included a spellbreaker instead of greenskin and the 3/3 rush worgen instead of the goblins. I’m not sold on how many bombs this deck will actually need to run efficiently. I have a theory that the weapons will generate enough bombs in the long run by themselves, but on release I expect to see a ton of oozes to counter warrior and rogue.
The sweeping strike inclusion is really interesting, particularly against a meta where I expect murloc shaman and token druid to thrive in. My only comment is that, as I’ve found out before when I ran a similar build in the current meta, this deck can sometimes run out of steam. Might be useful to include a copy of battle rage.
Lastly, I’m curious if you put any thought into including the new 1 mana spell (blanking on the name) that deals 1 dmg to generate a lackey as an activator as opposed to taskmaster? As a utility card it would be nice in the early game as the effect from the lackey is going to be more useful than the taskmaster. Plus, you can activate Grom 1 turn earlier.
Taskmaster has some clear advantages too. For example, turning your Eternium Rover into a 3/2 can allow it to trade more effectively in the early game, and you can use Taskmaster to finish off minions and still get the body. I’m not sure which one is better, but I wanted the guaranteed early game tempo over a random effect.
I like the Rush version and agree with your reasons for why the Control version probably isn’t going to be the thing for the meta this season (deck replacement, the fact that it would mostly work against Combo, which is leaving, etc.)… I’d add that with many of the cards in this set it looks like fatigue concepts are going to make a comeback, and a lot of health restoration along with them. I may be wrong, but I’m guessing that this will mean that being able to deal lethal in a burst is going to be important, rather than building up damage over the long term.
For the same reason, what about including Leeroy in the Rush version? My intuition is that deck is going to win a lot of games by waiting for a bomb or two to hit and bring the opponent within range to finish with some combination of Charge, weapon attacks, etc. so Leeroy would seem to fit.
Sorry if I’m being presumptuous, obviously you know much more about the game than I do, but do these guesses make sense to you?
Leeroy is always an option. For this particular build, I wanted a steadier and slightly slower approach, so it tops out with Grom. Leeroy is a pure finisher, so it will end up sitting in hand for some time, which is why I was reluctant to use it here. Leeroy instead of Grom would be an option though.
There have also been some faster builds around where Blastmaster Boom is the lone 7-drop and the second-most expensive card is Leeroy at 5 mana. Those are just trying to go in so fast that there is very little time for the opponent to draw any bombs, so in practice they are relying more on the Boombots.
I can’t be the only one who read this in Old Guardian’s voice.
Makes sense. My thinking was that Leeroy can be played earlier (alone, or with a weapon, or Kokorn Elite, whatever) if we see an opportunity to finish, whereas Grom+Taskmaster has to wait for turn 10, but I guess in this deck, finishing early is a bit of a “win more” thing as we need our opponent to be unlucky to hit one or more bombs before then. If they’re getting unlucky we should be winning anyway, so we pick our clincher to come out at a point in the game we expect to win when we’re running closer to average…
With only Clockwork Goblin and Wrenchcalibur to add bombs, average is probably 3 bombs added and one drawn by the opponent by turn 10, so I see how that’s the point in the game we’re looking to top out.
Maybe 4 is closer to average as we’ll usually have one Upgrade or Cap. Greenskin to go with our Wrenchcalibur. Still works out about the same, that we can probably count on one bomb to go off by turn 10, but are relying too much on luck if we’re looking to win before then.
Agree you will often need a finisher. Kripp put gorehowl in for that very reason so that could be an option
Problem with Gorehowl is that unless you have the Coin and have saved it the whole way, you can’t play it alongside Kor’kron Elite like you can Leeroy.
Leeroy can be 6 on turn 5+ or 10 on turn 9+ with Kor’kron, while Grom is 12 on turn 10+ with Taskmaster. Gorehowl without any 2 or 3 cost option to go to the face is only ever going to be 7 damage. It’s more flexible than Leeroy for sure, but so is Grom, who can be used for removal on turn 8+ while threatening lethal the following turn, sort of like Gorehowl.
If you’re only going to have one finisher, I think in this specific build Grom is it. But if you take him out, maybe you don’t need Taskmaster, and if you don’t have Taskmaster you’re not going to run Amani Berserker, so that’s four slots in the 2-3 range you could work with to find something to pair with Gorehowl for the finish. Heroic Strike?