Countess Ashmore Egg Paladin (Top 200 Legend)

I’ve been playing this deck almost exclusively this month and i believe it to be a great choice in this meta.

Before the nerfs it got me to legend EU at 64% winrate, and since
then i have managed to climb to top 300 as well as getting from rank 3
to legend on NA as well at a 73% winrate in total from both servers (EU
70%, NA 76%).

As you can see the deck absolutely farms hunters. Only losses were
from beast hunters with a godlike opening and me with a terrible hand
with no board clears. Otk decks can be tricky, even shaman is a bad
matchup because they have hex and early corpsetakers are resistant to
the pyro-equality clear so the get to much damage too fast. Versus the
rest of the decks on ladder i feel confident playing against.

CARD CHOICES:
So, here i will go through some of the card choices for the deck, why they are in and why some cards are not.

Control package: Wild Pyro, equality, consecration, shrink ray, spikeridged stead

These are you most important tool vs aggro matchups, vs hunter i
always keep at least 1 of those 4, preferebly pyromancer and it is also
great vs rogue to clear up the board turn before fungalmancer. Pyro +
equality and shrink ray are also a way of activating your eggs on the
same turn as clearing your opponents board.

I saw some lists running 1x shrink ray but i feel 2x is better
because it improves the consistency of having it drawn, even though
sometimes 1 can get stuck in your hand. Steed is just amazing at
stalling and it comes the turn after egg. Both shrink ray and steed
activate your shrivallah faster as well.

Deathrattle package: Mechano Egg, Cube, Umbra, Meat wagon

This is how you win games, getting those 8/8’s fast on board most
deck have trouble clearing. The first egg you play at any point you can,
in any matchup, hopefully followed by cube.

In control matchups, where you have to be greedy (control mage with
poly, control warlock etc.) you save umbra to use it the same turn with
cube, even if you don’t manage to stick an egg on board, you can use the
combo with 0 mana shrivallah later in the game to get umbra, cube with
2xShrivallahs inside and 2x shrivallah on board.

In matchups where you don’t have to be greedy, you can be less
conservative with the use of umbra. Some classes can’t deal with it on
turn 4, and turn 5 egg or meat wagon is a big board swing. Turn 8 umbra +
meat wagon is also really good. Turn 4 meat wagon into turn 5 umbra
with trading in meat wagon also gets you an extra 8/8 (with coin even
faster)

Heal package: Crystalsmith Kangor, flash of light, Uther, Ziliax, Shrivallah

Crystalsmith is just a great survival tool and works well with a lot
of other cards in the deck. Flash of light cycles a card and works with
pyro, uther is 15dmg and a massive heal potential. Ziliax works great on
its own and is even better when put on an egg or an 8/8. Shrivallah
offers late game burst heal and removal as well some neat combos with
cube.

Stonehill defender, truesilver, sunkeeper Tarim are
just great cards on it’s own. Stonehill helps stall the early game until
you have your board clears ready, as well as getting you more value.
Truesilver is a just a great weapon, very important in hunter and rogue
matchup. Especially important in rogue matchups, always keep it in your
mulligan.

High priest Thekal: This is a tech card and is
optional. I like it because i hate losing to mind blast and cloning
gallery priest, and this card single-handedly helps win those. Getting
over 40hp is very important to avoid their burst. Since they rarely have
early pressure, in those matchups you can end the game with full health
and 20+ armor. Vs priest hard mulligan for it. It can also sometimes
help with other matchups but not that often. The 3/4 body is decent
enough so it’s a good 3 drop in general. If you face a lot of cubelocks
you can swap it for ooze, which i was running before the nerfs to help
vs kingsbane.

Kangor’s Endless Army: One card, get a bunch
of mechs no board? Yes, please. So much power in one card, i love it. It
is also very flexible, and don’t be scared to use it even if only 2
mechs died if you are behind on board. Sometimes it resses meat wagon,
but it’s generally not a problem.

Countess Ashmore: This is probably my favorite card
from the deck, partialy because from the couple of similar lists i saw,
none of them are running it and i feel it is really good. It get’s you a
6/6 on board and get’s you 3 cards in hand. It is best vs midrange and
control matchups where you have time to play it without pressure. It
draws you 2 out of 3 from Crystalsmith, Zilliax and Shrivallah and 1 of
Mechano Egg, Cube or Meat wagon. Those are some really good cards to
draw most of the time (Meat wagon can be a dead card that late in the
game if you drew both eggs, but not always). It also has it’s uses vs
aggro when you are on a 2-3 turn clock you really need those heals. 

Cards not in the deck:

Crystology: This is a really good card and one copy
would fit in nicely, but since i run Countess Ashmore i feel it is not
as needed. It draws you 2 cards from: 2xStonehill, Crystalsmith and meat
wagon. It would definitely help vs aggro, but it’s hard to find place
for it. Maybe instead of the 2nd shrink ray, but i prefer having 2
copies of it. If you wan’t you can definitely try it.

Corpsetaker: I saw this mentioned a couple of times
and as someone who really likes the card, i don’t think it would improve
the deck. You would have to cut 2 other cards and you would have a
corpsetaker without windfury, so it would be quite defensive. It would
be nice vs aggro, but i don’t think it is needed most of the time and it
might make other matchups worse.

Annoy-o-Module: Same as corpsetaker. It has a bonus
that it can be magnetized on to eggs, but i don’t think it is good
enough and there is enough ways to activate the eggs. It is a really
great card to get from stonehill though.

Da Undatakah: Powerful late game card, but not needed, the deck has enough late game to win vs control decks. 

MATCHUPS:

Hunter 23-6

Hunter has 3 popular archetypes at the moment: Deathrattle, secret and beast.

The easiest matchup is vs secret hunter. All you need to do is
mulligan for a board clear so you have it ready for spellstone. Don’t
proc the secrets until you are going for the board clear. Get on board
with eggs and just slowly grind them out, there is no rush. Even with
early rexxar they can’t clear all your threats.

DR hunter is a bit tricker because they can do nasty cube shenanigans
but generally you have more then enough board clears (2x shrink ray is
really good in this matchup).

Beast hunter is the most annoying one, simply because of that damn
hyena they can get so much damage early and then finish it off with kill
commands. Mulligan is same as vs other hunters, preferebly
pyro+equality, truesliver is also good in all hunter matchups.

Mage 3-3

Not a lot of games vs Mages. All 3 wins were vs control odd version.
Without polymorph they just can’t deal with eggs and cubes. 2 losses
were against aggro mage (not baku) which were just too fast and one loss
was vs OTK mage which is a terrible matchup, only way to win that one
was to get 8/8’s on board as fast as possible and hope they don’t freeze
it.

If you think it’s odd, you mulligan for cube and egg, if it is aggro then for stonehil, truesilver, pyro-equality, crystalsmith.

Druid 1-0

One game vs Mechatun. Early egg and tarim on a wide board and he
couldn’t clear it. Not sure how the matchup is in general since i played
only one game.

Paladin 9-4

1 loss was vs odd paladin where i couldn’t draw any of my pyros and
conscecrations, but the matchup is usually very dependant on drawing
your clears.

3 losses were vs OTK paladin. Also 3 wins were vs OTK, so it is
possible to win if you manage to be aggresive enough. Same as other
control matchups, early eggs are key here.

Even Paladin is a very favorable matchup, only an early corpsetaker
in blessing of kings is tricky, other than that, your board clears
should be more then enough to take over board, and after that it should
be easy.

Priest 7-3

2 losses vs cloning gallery and 1 loss vs dragon priest where i
couldn’t draw any of my heals. Only one match vs topsy priest luckily
which is not a good matchup, but i got lucky and had early umbra into
egg. Vs priest you look for thekal, most of the time i mulligan
everything to try and get it. At least 3 of those 7 wins are because i
had thekal and healed out of range of their mind blasts.

Rogue 7-3

2 losses vs odd rogue (Fuck Myra’s unstable element) and one vs quest
rogue which is a terrible matchup and probably not winable unless
extremely lucky. Other than that, rogue is not a bad matchup. Mulligan
for board clears and truesilver taunt up your eggs, watch your hp not to
be in range of leeroy + coldbloods and you should be fine.

Shaman 1-4

vs Even shaman 1-3 and vs some weird shudderwock that basicaly hed 4
hexes that game 0-1. Even shaman is one of the worst matchups.
Flametongues and corpsetakers get them early damage and they usualy have
enough damage to finish it off. The worst part vs them are hexes which
kill your eggs and steaded minions so you can’t defend properly. I try
to mulligan for early board clears, stonehill is also decent at stalling
and removing divine shield from corpsetaker.

Warlock 5-2

Evenlock, control warlock (had 2 games vs it) and zoo are favorable
matchups. I only had 2 games vs cubelock and it is 1-1. I think it might
not be the best matchup for the deck, they have a lot of damage
potential through doomguards. If i were facing too many of them, i would
add in ooze instead of thekal, which should be enough to make the
matchup much better. Vs evenlock and zoo the strategy is the same, clear
their board and keep your hp high.

Warrior 5-0

Most warriors are odd variants, either with quest or without. Unless
they run 2 owls they just don’t have enough clears and over time you
will manage to get a sticky board with 8/8’s behind a cube or egg. Try
to play around supercolider and brawl as much as possible.

Here are a couple of game replays:

vs odd warrior: https://hsreplay.net/replay/vd9fKNCehrGyaHqZYNkg7o

vs deathrattle hunter: https://hsreplay.net/replay/bD8qFqNMpP8suK8LtBPTAF

vs spell hunter: https://hsreplay.net/replay/YFwBR6HU9HL95h4JmWikuS

vs miracle rogue: https://hsreplay.net/replay/vdrcCAiKY6fMmVWxibGmFK

vs odd rogue: https://hsreplay.net/replay/vxuAXHEfvGW7EnYWPaU58F

vs cloning gallery priest: https://hsreplay.net/replay/bC4ZpUf5a3VQUW5pPZaxpR

vs OTK paladin: https://hsreplay.net/replay/WZzy8xVv8AYpFhunZc5cyf

 vs cubelock: https://hsreplay.net/replay/ZiHbSBEHZRzwF67Pyohp2R