Deathrattle Druid [Rough Draft]

*Serious deck btw*

The object of the deck is to ramp, control and stave off salient threats until your big threats can be played (devilsaur, lich, whelp). This deck draws extra fuel beyond its initial wave of big creatures from witching hour (the only beast it can summon being devilsaur), cube, floop and UI to create massive value-oriented boards that can either control or lethal opponents.

Overall, I consider this deck to be a rough draft of a more viable druid archetype post ramp nerfs. It’s more proactive and hinges more on large drops than stalling against decks that have teched to deal with spreading plague and hadronox. Further, now that Nourish now COMPETES with the same mana-slot as spreading plague, I find the former to be much worse so I’ve decided to look for other, more proactive archetypes.

This deck is built around a few core combos that can be used to find lethal or simply grapple for tempo in the late game, those combos mostly revolving around some permutation of cube, umbra, floop, naturalize/spellstone and a high-value target summon (lich, devil, whelp, etc.).

This deck seems to, at the moment, go about even with most hunter archetypes, the worst matchup being deathrattle hunter due to its objectively superior tempo and value recursion. This matchup is, to some extent, improved by early ramp and removal, but kathrena remains a general deathknell to most midrange and control decks that can’t conveniently fit multiple cheap hard-removal spells and silences without compromising their own win-condition(s).

Vs. control, this deck tends to thrive. It’s abundance of high-priority threats and ability to exhaust the opponent of removal creates a game of inevitability so long as you’re able to keep spawning devilsaurs and keep the opponent cycling for answers.

Vs. Aggro, this deck feels about 70/30 so long as both players draw moderately well. Given the decent amount of health regeneration and removal, this list can often return from the ledge in the mid- to late-game against aggressive hunters, rogues, paladins and shamans. That said, making it to turn 10 is the most difficult part. As a side note, I’ve had fluctuating success against aggro with the removal of Mechanical Whelp and the addition of Tainted Zealot for additional spell power (3-toughness creatures are very common in aggro decks at the moment, so starfall is much more effective in clearing larger boards)

OTK decks seem to be the weakest point for this list due to their ability to stall and generate value via interactions that druid isn’t quite built to handle (multiple cards that must be polymorphed/silenced away). That said, OTK decks aren’t incredibly popular right now due to the prevalence of hunters and other aggro archetypes in the meta.

SIDEBOARD***

Before we get into the sideboard, here are the cards that I consider a luxury rather than a necessity. These cards can be either cut or kept depending on the meta and personal discretion.

LUXURY CARDS-

1. Mechanical Whelp
2. 1x Ultimate Infestation (I find one to be essential in the current meta)
3. 1x Starfall (See above)
4. 2x Tar Creeper (overall very lackluster against control decks)
5. Zilliax (decent proactive card, great against aggro)

VS AGGRO–

1. Wild Pyromancer (acts like an extra swipe; can be tempo’d against control)
2. Tainted Zealot (good vs. hunter, shaman and rogue)
3. Doomsayer (good vs. rogues)
4. Witchwood Grizzly (can be cubed, really only great against paladins)

VS CONTROL-

1. Da Undatakah, Cairne Bloodhoof, Astral Tiger (all three is optimal due to recursion and value, and the proactive capacity of the last two)
2. Twig of the World Tree (for larger, more impactful turns and OTKs)
3. Spellbreaker (fuck paladin)
4. Big Game Hunter (general)

VS OTK-

1. Nerubian Unraveler (v. Priest, mage)
2. Tinkmaster Overspark (I like this card a lot v. Priest, but it’s otherwise unplayable)
3. Twig of the World Tree
4. Leeroy, Savage Roar

Regarding this sideboard list, it should be obvious that you should use it with discretion. None of these cards are auto-includes in neutral metas, but one or two of them teched in can greatly improve the consistency of the deck overall.