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Mulligans
General Mulligans
Always aim for your early game! One drops are crucial in this deck as well as a follow up on turn 2. These are your core cards. Demonfire is a real strong turn 2 play if you play 1 or two 1 cost minions with coin. Always think about what your opponent possibly has. Soulfire isn't a bad keep if you are against priest. Mortal coil can come in handy to make an efficient trade with your 1 attack minions or to prevent early aggression from aggro. The whole point is the snow ball after turn 1 into your next turns and mid game. Sometimes silverware golem is a right keep if you're feeling lucky!Warlock is essentially like a unicorn on the ladder past rank 5. You just don’t see them.
It was my goal to try and make a list work that will both be fun and be able to climb the ladder. I’ve tried some experiments with a regular zoo-type architect and had some initial success getting to rank 5 pretty easily. However, advancing to legend was a bit of a challenge. So, I changed my thought process and switched my attention to discard zoo with a demon flare. Prior to the hall of fame switch, I manged to reach a top 250 legend with a buff-style zoo with discards so I wanted to see if it was viable with the new Un’Goro cards.
I reached legend rank and have been having success with the deck I’ve created. The deck has some real great synergies and can pull off some insane combinations, including the “endless cruel dinomancer trick” where the only card you discard prior to playing a dinomancer is the dinomancer itself! The real strength of this deck is the minions that have high stats. It is very boardcentric and the demonfires and bloodfury potions and crystal weavers allow minions to increase their stats to either trade up and survive initial attack, survive an incoming AOE, or an additional burst to the face. You also have clutchmother zavas. This card has been performing quite well in this deck as you have a high volume of cards that discard and you almost always discard her on average 2 times. Even if it is just once, you have a 4/4 for 2 mana!
I’m still experimenting and wondering if councilman is still good enough in this deck. I like the mortal coils as it allows for more cycle and early game control and clean up some garbage. Darkshire librarian is also a flex spot where maybe a crazed alchemist or ooze could work. However, the deck is strong and can compete with most decks on the ladder. It has some favorable and unfavorable match ups like any deck. It is really, really strong vs Jade Druid, Taunt Warrior, Priest (all types), quest rogue. It holds its own against mages minus freeze variety (not unbeatable) and also token druid (if you manage to do efficient trades and lay a big lakkari felhound). Paladin you can have a hard time and pirate warrior if you don’t get your early game and also Elemental Shaman with their constant board clears, devolve, hex’s, etc.
Overall, I feel like this version of the deck gets you strong board presence and it is the best pure discard deck I have found. I still would like some feedback on possible card substitutions but this is still a work in progress but can be quite strong as I am at legend with it and winning with it. The losses I find come either at a pure RNG factor with a rogue drawing sacrificial pact, a mage using glyph with timely AOE clear, etc. There are a lot of games where I dominate and that happens. Also, there is the randomness of the discard, but that’s far less than my opponents good luck RNG. Anyways, good luck and I hope this deck inspires others and maybe they can build upon this!
I have some ideas for a regular zoo without discard mechanics that might work. Stay tuned! Keep Grinding!
Tweeg#1785
Found this deck after you ran up against Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1AFvHg_59I
I was running a buff list but without the discard. Looks cool!
I forgot to mention that out of all those games however, i have yet to invoke that cruel dinomancer jutsu you spoke of, im sure it has something to do with our play styles, but with so much discarding i cant see it happening too often for me. I was thinking of removing him for the second bane of doom i teched in, or perhaps some rogue legendaries? Elise seems to fit in wild card spots like that But idk., i was thinking of testing a shadowflame, only cause thats like the one thing this deck lacks, a good solid board clear teachnique. Fellfire potion is horrible, twisting nether and DOOM! Cost too much, on a good game this deck doesnt even see turn 10 honestly. Im also interested in your ideas for a non discard style zoolock build, i tried some as i mentioned before, trying to capitalize off of well timed knife jugglers and councilmans with feeding time and forbidden ritual, i even ran 2 bloodblooms to speed up the process and over aggro my opp. Unfortuneately the synergy didnt fall together consistently enough to be confident on the ladder, it was fun but 60 percent of the time your just summoning baby minions for easy slaughter. Just didnt work out well, but maybe you have some code breaking perspective like you did with this build. Lol
This build is exquisite, i love warlock and have been trying very hard to build one that can run the ladder up against the meta, ive tried many zoolock variants with pterrordax/knife juggler/councilman trying to combo with feeding time/forbidden ritual etc. Ive tried my damndest with the new quest, its solid but comes up short. Ive even tried a murloc build with seadevil stinger to try and flood the field quickly, it was fun but also falls to tier 1s and some 2s. Now this.. i never wouldve thought that the power of the dark lord rested with the demons and its buffs. How cliche lmao. But yes, ive averaged just about a 70 percent win rate on the ladder so far and havent went from 14 to 10 in a few hours. Very impressive. The ONLY changes ive made so far is removed the councilmans and the rogue librarian for 2 gluttunous ooze and 1 bane of doom. You mentioned trading councilman for something more viable so i treated it as a tech slot for murloc/pirate/weapon hate. Ooze helps against the tough paladin/shaman match up, and lets me completely trash the ever popular pirate warriors. Bane has proven much more useful to me than the librarian, i never expect a great creature from it but it IS a demon nonetheless and when you do get a 6/6 abyssal enforcer its just wonderful, might be adding the second but i dont want to lose the tempo of this build.
So far the only deck i have trouble with.. or cards rather, is shamans devolve and cheap hex’s, a board full of beefed demons turn into wisps and whimps is just devestating. But other than that i can finally rest easy knowing i can prove that the dark one is STILL viable amongst the best. Thanks tweegs.