Zarrkal’s Legend Big Dragon Druid feat. Dragonhatcher and Hadronox

Ah, big stuff. If you’re reading this and are yourself an amateur big stuff enthusiast, you’re in the right place. This deck tries to cram in as many high-end value minions as safely possible without dying to every paladin on the ladder.

Due credit goes to Zarrkal, who played a similar version of this deck pre-expansion featuring Hadronox. His insight into the power of this card can now be seen in many of the currently popular Carnivorous Cube decks which feature the same win condition.

Basics

This deck has quite a few components to juggle.

The combo

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The value engine that allows this deck to go to the late game. Hadronox can be resummoned twice by Witching Hour, then killed off with Naturalize which resurrects a board full of taunts.

You’ll likely win most of your games before fully comboing with Hadronox several times. It’s partly for this reason that Carnivorous Cube isn’t included in this deck — resummoning your board five times is overkill. Cube isn’t especially useful against aggro decks either.

Remember you can trigger Hadronox‘s deathrattle with Deathwing when you’re in a pinch.

the oakheart turn

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You pay 9 mana, you get a board worth up to 40 mana (including the extra dragon recruited at the end of the turn). There are other cards like DK Gul’Dan which can achieve similar value, but they can’t ramp to it, and require preparation (dead demons) before playing it. Master Tokeheart, on the other hand, can be played on turn 5 or 6 (with a good ramp hand) and requires no minions to die first. There are usually two huge threats (the Dragonhatcher and the big dragon he recruits) behind big taunts which your opponent will have trouble dealing with.

As the game goes on and you draw recruitable minions from your deck, Oakheart’s value declines. He’s worth keeping in your opening hand against warlocks, druids, or priests.

Surviving against all them odd decks

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Make no mistake, keep your Swipe in hand against every rogue, paladin, and hunter you face.

• If you can’t clear the board against a paladin before they level their recruits up, you’ll be very unlikely to win the game.
• Similarly, odd rogues will attack with their weapon and drop their Hench-Clan Thug on turn 3, and if you can’t answer the minion with Swipe it will run away with the game.
• Odd hunters play a lot of 1-health minions and will play Animal Companion on turn 3, both of which are swipe-able.

Of course, Lesser Jasper Spellstone should also be kept against any fast decks. Play it when it’s convenient, not for its full value. Many decks this card is useful against don’t care whether the card does 2, 4, or 6 damage.

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Your accompanying taunt package. This is more useful against even paladins, who play a bit more slowly and have fewer one-health minions. Two copies of Tar Creeper are included to improve consistency with Tokeheart pulls.

The ramp

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This advice has existed since the beginning of time, but remember that the purpose of including mana ramp in a deck is to smooth out your curve, not boost you to 10 mana while you ignore the board. Think ahead and plan out your turns instead of blindly playing all your ramp.

Why not Greedy Sprite?

• Smart opponents won’t pop it to get you to 5, where you can cast Nourish.
• You’d rather get Ironwood Golem or Hadronox from Oakheart.
• You want Oaken Summons to pull a guaranteed taunt. Grabbing a sprite can lose the board for you forever against faster decks.

Extra value

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Must-kill threats for your opponent that can also soak up silences and still affect the board and your hand. If these minions stick to the board against a warlock or priest you’re likely to win the game. These two cards establish independent win conditions for you aside from Hadronox.

Card Choices

This deck has gone through a half dozen iterations since the beginning of the season. Some choices that have been tested:

• Greedy Sprite — discussed above. Removed for recruit mechanic consistency.
• Rotten Applebaum — not high enough value to justify playing. The heal might save you for an extra turn, but this deck needs to start taking board control, not heal.
• Savage Roar — surprisingly good. You’ll frequently have wide boards and this card can surprise your opponent if included as a one-off. Cut because it doesn’t interact with aggro decks.
• Ultimate Infestation — two copies aren’t justified here. It’s hard to reduce your hand size to five because of the number of high-cost minions you’ll eventually draw.
• Witchwood Grizzly — this card interferes with the Witching Hour + Hadronox combo by adding another beast to the pool. Since you’re only likely to use this combo against control decks, you need to guarantee you resurrect the spider.
• Malfurion the Pestilent — the spiders or scarabs interfere with the combo. Still worth considering as a late game armor up option.
• Spreading Plague — this card is a real life saver! Unfortunately the scarabs are beasts. Still, this card could potentially be included as a way to stall aggro decks.