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The Control Warrior deck has been an ever evolving deck for nearly the full life of Hearthstone. The deck at its core is very similar to the original decks, but Control Warrior also adds all of the great Legendaries and strong late game cards to its repertoire as they are released. More recently due to Blackrock Mountain there has been a lean towards a more Dragon based Control Warrior which takes advantage of Blackwing Corruptor.
One of the main constants has been Grommash Hellscream. The card is a great finisher, and when combined with Death's Bite and Alexstrasza can be a potent way to end the game.
Control Warrior Deck List Update – April 2016 (Season 25)
The updated list is based off of Vlps’ recent list that got him a top 20 finish on the NA Legendary Ladder. A lot of cards have been cut from the deck, such as Armorsmith, Baron Geddon, and Alexstrasza. The deck now employs more defensive tools like Deathlord, Revenge, and a second Brawl. Elise Starseeker has also been added to the deck to help in fatigue situations, and add some more end game threats.
Control Warrior Mulligan Guide and Strategy
Fiery War Axe and Death's Bite are your best friends against most decks. Deathlord is good against early aggro, and Acolyte of Pain is good for draw and dealing with the potential of early minions. Slam and Bash are also good against early minions like Flame Imp, Knife Juggler, and Darnassus Aspirant. If you know you’re playing against Control, you can look to keep Execute or Sludge Belcher.
Control Warrior Tech Cards
Harrison Jones is in and out of the deck depending on if you’re playing a lot of Weapon classes. Ysera will swap in and out with a card like Ragnaros the Firelord depending on how many Big Game Hunters have entered the meta. This is especially the case when Druid is strong (like right now). Gorehowl is a consideration, and is extremely good against other Control decks.
Control Warrior Card Substitutions (Replacements)
Keep in mind that replacements for cards are rarely ever going to be perfect. It’s usually easiest to try and come close to what the card accomplishes, or double up an already existing card in the deck.
You might find cards here that aren’t in the deck, this means they were in the deck previously and have been left in case they come back in the deck. They also works as substitutions for cards that are currently in the deck!
- Harrison Jones: I find that Harrison is the card that’s most often asked for replacement. Loatheb is a reasonable replacement, and Acidic Swamp Ooze can also take a spot if you are just getting destroyed by Weapon classes.
- Baron Geddon: I’ve often recommended a second Brawl, but some players don’t like this recommendation. Whirlwind or Revenge is a possibility, or you could simply add a second Shieldmaiden.
- Grommash Hellscream: Tough card to replace as it leads so often to situations where you can finish your opponent. Ragnaros the Firelord can be a decent replacement.
- Alexstrasza: Another difficult card to replace because of the pressure it can place on the opponent. I again think Ragnaros, but you could try just adding a second Shieldmaiden. The deck has enough strong minions that you could deal without Alex.
Control Warrior Combos and Synergies
Death's Bite and Grommash Hellscream are a match made in heaven. You can smash your opponent’s face for 4, and follow up the next turn with Grommash and the whirlwind effect from Death’s Bite for an additional 14 damage. This combo can also be setup with Alexstrasza to get your opponent down to a manageable health.
Speaking of Grommash, you can use Slam, Bash, or Shield Slam (just don’t do it for 9) to activate his enrage. You can also use these cards to trigger your Sylvanas Windrunner, just don’t try to use Execute as Artosis learned a while back.
Shield Block and Shieldmaiden pair very nicely with Shield Slam, and can help you take down a pesky 5-health minion.
Acolyte of Pain is generally a card you want to get at least two draws from. So pairing it with Death's Bite, Baron Geddon, or even using Slam can guarantee multiple cards.
The link from ‘top meta decks’ leads to here, do you guys think you can update it?
Fixed, thanks.
How do you manage to deal damage and finish the opponent without strong minions except Grommash?
When I saw this deck I instantly fell in love with it. Is there any viable control warrior decklist in standard atm ?
I haven’t seen a revised list for Standard yet. There’s a C’Thun version that is somewhat similar: http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/justsaiyans-wotg-standard-cthun-control-warrior/
I don´t like the C´Thun version that much, I just like playing big stuff and justicar into fatigue, which I don´t really see as possibility with that deck. I mean it´s not even running core control war cards like brawl.
i tried control warrior in current meta with the cards i have at hand today. Here is some info for you:
Missing cards: Justicar and Elisa. (missing elisa is not the worst, but missing justicar is really harsh)
Made 37 matches: Win: 21 , Loss: 16 (56%)
overall i think it is nicely suited vs current decks
yerrah loads
it’s worth craft this deck yet?
I’d wait a bit before crafting any decks. The meta is going to shift around and we’ll see what ends up being the strongest.
Worst Deck ever…
No damage, all games run thru the end until you have no cards left… 30HP, 60 Armor… and no cards in deck left…
This deck sucks, sorry, but you loose every game against any other good deck
It ain’t a deck’s problem, but the player’s tho
What do you think i can use instead of Harrison and BGH
also what should i craft 1 shield slam or BGH
I’d craft BGH because if it gets nerfed you’ll get your full dust back anyway.
Sylvanas or Dr. Boom for Harrison. I’d go second Slam for BGH.
Any replacement for 2 Brawl and 2 Shield Slam
I really don’t think you can play this deck without at least one Brawl. Cleave, Whirlwind, Bouncing Blade, and Crush are some options for replacements.
HI GUYS, SOMEONE CAN TELL ME A GOOD REPLACE FOR REVENGE. I DON’T HAVE THE FOURTH WING YET
Second Slam for one Revenge. Baron Geddon, Sylvanas, Loatheb, or Alexstrasza as the second option. For a really cheap option you could try Armorsmith.
Thanks!!!
I like this style of list a lot but I’m finding the Deathlords to just be useless. They just seem like they die so easily and can often win your opponent the game with the tempo advantage of having a free minion, regardless of whether it loses its battlecry or not. The card is great in aggressive metas but with Druid being so common on ladder so other decks are running lots of ways to kill high health minions. IMO you can replace one with Dr. Boom and the other with something else…maybe a second Slam or Doomsayer.
Nice deck but with all those control decks around Dr Boom and Sylvanas help a lot.
Very solid deck, climbing the ladder very quickly this season
Don’t like Elise : so random…
You can play a control warrior list without the card. It’s only really in here so you can actually win vs. other control decks in super slow matchups, like the mirror, Control Priest and Reno/Control Mage variants. Kolento, for example, had pretty good success with a list that has no Deathlords and Elise and instead runs Dr. Boom, Ysera, and double Slam.
Great list by Kolento indeed 🙂
Bro, I need your help badly. My deck is TOO hit and miss. 🙁
2x Execute, 2x Shield Slam, 2x Whirlwind, 2x Fiery Axe, 2x Slam, 2x Armor Smith, 2x Bash, 2x Shield Block, 2x Acolyte of Pain, 1x Big Game Hunter, 1x Defender of Argus, 2x Kor’kron Elite, 1x Spellbreaker, 1x Brawl, 1x Faceless Manipulator, 1x Leeroy Jenkins, 1x Cairne Bloodhoof, 1x Gorehowl, 1x Corehound, 1x Grommash Hellscream
(I’m coming back from like a 9 month break or even more lol)
I don’t have the other legendaries you mentioned, but I can get Death’s Bite by playing Naxrammus.
I don’t mind going control or patron route, whatever wins more, but it was originally drafted as a control deck lol.
Thanks for your help!
Well, you’d for sure want to get rid of Core Hound and Leeroy Jenkins. Which format do you plan on playing? If you only want to play Standard then I probably wouldn’t bother getting Death’s Bite at this point. If you plan on playing Wild, you should get Naxxramas because you’ll only be able to craft the cards from Naxx once the formats go live. This would give you Death’s Bite and Sludge Belcher which are very good. You can kind of replace Death’s Bite with Arcanite Reaper, which isn’t as good but you’d probably need it for pesky 5-health minions. I’d probably try finding a cheaper deck to play just because the format change is getting close, and decks could be changing pretty radically after the new expansion comes out.
Could you tell me a little about standard? I’ve never been into Tavern mode. I have more cards from the midrange patron deck I believe, but still missing Sludge belcher, grim patron and dr boom. Don’t you get Death’s bite from the free part of Naxx? I don’t know about Grim though.
I definitely don’t want to buy Naxx.. I don’t have much gold at the moment to get it that way either.
Should I keep gorehowl in my deck?
Format change? Sorry I’m so out of the loop with HS I only started playing again yesterday lol. I’m guessing you mean with the new expansion.
When I say I’ve never been in Tavern, I mean I’ve literally never opened the mode up. I know very little about the new dynamics of HS. I left a few weeks after Naxx launched.
The format change is coming late April/early May along with the new expansion. There will be two play modes: Standard and Wild. Standard will only include the last two years of sets (plus the Basic and Classic cards), so this includes everything but Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs. Gnomes. Standard will always include the last two years of sets, so every year sets will be removed from Standard. Wild will include all of the sets including the new ones. Standard is going to be what Blizzard uses in the competitive eSports aspects of the game, and is looking like it will be the premiere format for Hearthstone. It doesn’t make Wild bad or unplayable, but it remains to be seen how popular Wild will be.
Did you get the free wing of Naxx when it was available? If you didn’t then I don’t think you still get a free wing. Death’s Bite is in the 4th wing of the adventure so that would take a quite a bit of gold to obtain. Grim Patron is in the first wing of BRM, but if you don’t have Death’s Bite I don’t think it’s worth getting (unless you want Emperor Thuarissan which is really good). Gorehowl has seen a bit of play recently, and since you’re missing other cards I would keep it in the deck.
I still recommend trying another deck if possible (Warlock Zoo is cheap and effective right now), it’s going to be pretty hard to play this deck without Death’s Bite and Sludge Belcher.
Thanks for the update, that all sounds interesting! It will make standard more stable but then you’d have to keep switching out (banned) cards too, which might be annoying if you’re a free player. Then again its every 2 years so thats more than enough time. Hmm.
Hmmm. Well at the moment I have very little gold or crafting as I used a lot of it getting the cards in my current deck. My original plan when I started H.S. was to play Warrior only except in Arena.
Okay, so my “control” deck is not up to scratch. What about a patron deck? Could I get a top tier deck moving for that? Unfortunately I’d still have to substitute for sludge belcher, grim and dr.boom. If not I’ll have too check out warlock zoo.
Patron would still be difficult to make without Death’s Bite, so I would try Zoo for now and wait and see how everything plays out with the new expansion.
Oh and yes, I do have the free wing of Naxx.
This deck is outdated. Most warrior decks are just runing removal, no armor smiths, 1 taskmaster, 2 brawls and the only core legendary is justicar.
Hi,
I really want to put elise in thise deck, which card should i remove ?
Maybe Sludge Belcher.
Thanks!
I miss geddon and harrison, for what i can replace?
Second Brawl, Shielmaiden, or a Revenge.
Hey, I only have 2100 dust and I Dont have 2nd shield slam or Any Brawl. Also I dont have ysera baron geddon and justicar. What Should I craft and what are good replacements with the other ?
I wouldn’t craft anything just yet, I’d wait for the new expansion and Standard to see where Control Warrior stands.