The Boomsday Project added a new Neutral minion to Hearthstone’s portfolio of one-turn-kill (OTK) combos: Mecha'thun. This ten-mana behemoth requires a fair bit of thought to use effectively. Its game-winning effect is a Deathrattle, so you need to figure out how to get it killed without giving your opponent a chance to Silence, Hex, or Polymorph it, and it also requires that you have no cards in your deck, hand, or battlefield when it dies in order to trigger the game-winning effect.

While this may seem like a hard puzzle, all classes have ways to pull off the combo and multiple classes have viable decks built around defeating your opponent with this combo. In this article, we’re taking a look at how Mecha’thun works, how to use the effect and how to play against Mecha’thun in general, and what good Mecha’thun decks there are for various classes and how to play them and how to play against them.

Mecha’thun in Detail

Mecha'thun‘s Deathrattle is only triggered when you have no cards in your deck, hand, or battlefield. Deck and hand are fairly clear conditions – you’re going to need to play a deck that is able to draw a lot and is able to dump the hand rapidly to leave no leftovers that would disrupt Mecha’thun.

Battlefield is a concept less often seen in Hearthstone – it represents the minions on the board. Therefore, you can have active Secrets and you can also wield a weapon when you kill your Mecha’thun, the Deathrattle will still work. Likewise, you can have a dormant The Darkness on the board and Mecha’thun will still work. What you can’t have is other minions left alive after Mecha’thun dies.

There are some Neutral cards that offer support for Mecha’thun combos:

• Hemet, Jungle Hunter destroys all cards that cost three or less from your deck. This can be used to remove most unessential cards from the deck to get to the combo faster.
• Galvanizer reduces the cost of Mechs in your hand by one, and as Mecha'thun is a Mech, two Galvanizers can be used to bring the cost of Mecha’thun down to eight mana, enabling more ways to trigger its Deathrattle. You could also go for more discounts with Zola the Gorgon or Youthful Brewmasters, but in practice such complicated combos are too difficult to pull off reliably.

Playing Against Mecha’thun

When you’re facing a Mecha’thun deck, you generally know that the opponent will draw through their entire deck and then combo you down at the very end. One of the best ways to prevent this from happening is to kill your opponent before they get anywhere near their combo. Alas, you may not always want to play an aggro deck, so you may want to take other precautions.

In Wild format, there is always Dirty Rat, the best Neutral anti-combo card ever created in Hearthstone. However, it is not available in Standard, so slow decks have way fewer options there.

One Neutral tool that can disrupt some Mecha’thun combos is Skulking Geist, which removes all one-mana spells from the opponent. Unfortunately, Geist can only disrupt some Mecha’thun combos, and even if you prevent the opponent from instantly killing their Mecha’thun, you still need a Silence or transformation effect, such as Hex or Polymorph to finally deal with the threat.

The best Neutral tool in the game against Mecha’thun is Lorewalker Cho. If you give your opponent a spell that cannot be used to kill the Lorewalker, then you can keep bouncing that spell back and forth and never let your opponent have an empty hand. Unfortunately, Lorewalker is a weak card in any other matchup.

Another disruptive tool is Mana Wraith: if Mecha’thun costs too much to play, it is going to stay in hand. Like Lorewalker Cho, Mana Wraith is generally a weak card that should only be teched into the deck in case of a severe Mecha’thun infestation.

In some cases, Nerubian Unraveler can also help: for combos that rely on Mecha’thun together with spells, making the spells more expensive can prevent the combo. Unraveler is also a semi-viable card by itself as a general spell disruption card with decent stats, so it is a worthwhile tech consideration. However, some Mecha’thun combos are based on minions only, so Unraveler does not help in all situations.

The strongest non-aggro counter to Mecha’thun available in Standard is Warlock: with Gnomeferatu and especially Demonic Project, Warlock has the premium anti-combo toolkit in the game. Demonic Project just before the combo turn is almost guaranteed to hit a combo piece and win the game, the only Mecha’thun deck that can survive it is Warlock.

Mecha’thun Decks in Detail

With the generics of Mecha’thun clarified, it is time to take a look at how Mecha’thun is used in specific classes and with specific combos. They all follow the general principles presented above, but each of them takes things a little differently.

Mecha’thun Priest

There are multiple takes on Mecha’thun Priest available. Some of them focus on long-term survival (with Awaken the Makers), but it seems likely that the fast cycle variants will prevail in the long term: combo decks typically want to complete their combo as fast as possible, and the faster they are, the better they generally are – and Mecha’thun Priest is about as fast as it gets.

Most variants rely on the same final combo. When they enter their final turn, they typically have five cards in hand, although zero-mana spells and any Radiant Elementals on the board may allow additional unrelated cards in some niche situations.

The mainstream Mecha’thun Priest combo is as follows:

• Play Reckless Experimenter for 5 mana. All other Deathrattle cards now cost three less mana and die at the end of the turn.
• Play Coffin Crasher for 3 mana. This has to be played second to trigger the Deathrattles in the correct order.
• Play two copies of Ticking Abomination for one mana each. Total mana spent is 10 mana.
• Have Mecha'thun as the only card remaining in hand.

When the Priest ends the turn, Coffin Crasher dies and summons Mecha'thun on the board. Then both Ticking Abominations die and deal a total of 10 damage to all of the Priest’s minions, killing them all simultaneously and activating Mecha'thun‘s Deathrattle.

The Priest combo is difficult to counter, because it uses only minions, no spells, and it can also kill any leftover minions Priest has on the board. Demonic Project Warlock is the hard counter, as hitting any of the five combo minions ruins the combo. Surprisingly, Tempo Mage can also counter the deck unless it fatigues itself with Aluneth: a properly timed Explosive Runes prevents the Priest from playing the minion-based combo as it kills the Reckless Experimenter and makes the other cards too expensive.

Here is Strifecro’s take on the archetype:

This is a fast cycle variant of the deck that is capable of getting rid of the entire deck as early as turn 10. Hemet, Jungle Hunter is a key card that destroys everything else from the deck except for Psychic Screams (that can be used to buy more time, anyway) and the combo pieces.

There is also another alternative combo available for Priest. This combo relies on Gilded Gargoyles to give you some coins so that you can Shadow Word: Death your Mecha'thun. The deck can also potentially play a tempo Mecha'thun, have it killed, and summon a 1/1 copy with Twilight's Call to be killed off with Spirit Lash or the Hero Power from Shadowreaper Anduin.

Here is Dizdemon’s take on this variant:

Mecha’thun Warlock

Mecha’thun Warlock has a lot going for it: tons of removal, tons of card draw, and a combo that does not require you to empty your hand in advance.

The Mecha’thun Warlock combo does require some setup as you need to play two Galvanizers while holding Mecha'thun in your hand to reduce its cost down to eight mana. From there, the combo is Mecha'thun + Bloodbloom (spells now cost Health instead of mana) + Cataclysm – you kill everything on the board and discard your entire hand while conveniently triggering a game-winning Deathrattle effect, as long as you have drawn your entire deck. GG!

The Warlock combo is notoriously difficult to counter. Skulking Geist does nothing. Lorewalker Cho does nothing. Even Demonic Project may or may not help, because the Warlock does not have to empty their hand before the combo and can therefore keep redundant minions there. Mana Wraith delays the combo, but with all the removal available to Warlock, getting rid of it is no problem – especially because Warlock can have removal cards in hand going into their preferred combo turn.

Here is Senfglas’ take on the archetype:

Senfglas has kept experimenting with the list, including versions with one copy of Giggling Inventor and two copies of Glacial Shard instead of Rotten Applebaums and Tainted Zealot. Whichever version turns out to be the best, it is important to keep the mana curve low so that cards are easily played from hand and do not clog your hand and prevent further card draw.

Mecha’thun Warrior

Mecha’thun is used in some Warrior decks simply because it is a very big and scary Mech that goes well with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and The Boomship. However, there are some who want to go further. There are some who want to OTK as Warrior. For them, there is a combo deck available.

The Warrior Mecha’thun combo is based on The Boomship. Play The Boomship to summon Mecha'thun and Malygos, proceed to Inner Rage both of them (they go down to four and six Health, respectively), and finally play a Whirlwind to deal six damage to them both and completing your combo, as long as it also empties your hand and your deck is empty.

In theory, you can also The Boomship a lone Mecha'thun and Shield Slam it to death if you have enough armor, or you could build a deck with some Galvanizers to reduce the cost of Mecha'thun to bring it down to have mana to cast Shield Slam. Having enough armor when your deck is already empty and you’re in fatigue can prove to be problematic though. The Malygos combo does not rely on any such factors, making it more consistent.

The Warrior combos can be countered by Skulking Geist, Demonic Project, Lorewalker Cho, and Nerubian Unraveler, making them rather weak to anti-combo techs.

Here is Firebat’s take on Mecha’thun Warrior:

Mecha’thun Druid

Mecha’thun Druid is probably one of the weaker Mecha’thun decks available. If you’re already playing Druid, which is a super powerful class with tons of options, why go for one of the least reliable win conditions available to the class?

That said, it is possible to kill people with Mecha’thun Druid. You can ramp and you can draw a lot of cards. As a downside, you cannot use Hemet, Jungle Hunter very easily, as you need multiple cheap cards for your final combo, and you do not have a good way to clear your own board on your Mecha’thun turn.

The basic Druid Mecha’thun combo is Mecha'thun + Innervate + Naturalize. Boom, one dead Mecha’thun for a total of 11 mana, one of which is provided by Innervate. Alas, this combo is prevented by Skulking Geist, and therefore some lists run a backup combo for control matchups.

The backup combo is to play Mecha’thun on its own to get a four-mana Mecha’thun in your Flobbidinous Floop. Assuming you have been Geisted, you can proceed to kill this Floop Mecha’thun with Moonfire and Wrath. Notably, you cannot do it with Swipe, which can only target enemies, not your own minions.

The backup combo is countered by Demonic Project Warlock and by Lorewalker Cho, but cards that merely make minions or spells more expensive cannot prevent it.

Here is Disguised Toast’s take on the archetype that runs both the main combo and the backup combo:

Mecha’thun Rogue

Of all the Mecha’thun combos that seem to have potential, Rogue is the least explored. While Rogue has the ability to draw cards rapidly, they can struggle with both survival and clearing their own board for the Mecha’thun combo.

The basic Rogue Mecha’thun combo is Mecha'thun + Backstab + Preparation + Eviscerate + Preparation + Eviscerate for exactly 10 damage to Mecha'thun for exactly 10 mana. Some Galvanizers can reduce the needed mana or help cut a Preparation from the needed cards, or perhaps allow Preparation to be used to cast a non-essential spell to clear the hand.

Thanks to Myra's Unstable Element, Rogue has a good way to draw their entire deck, but the rest of the pieces to make a successful deck have not been found yet.

Mecha’thun in Other Classes

The remaining four classes do not seem to have any chance to build viable Mecha’thun decks in the current Standard format.

Hunter, surprisingly enough, has two combos that can kill Mecha'thun: both start with double Galvanizers for reduced cost on Mecha'thun followed by the combo turn of Mecha'thun + Hunter's Mark + Arcane Shot or Mecha'thun + Goblin Prank. That said, Hunter lacks good card draw, so it does not look like that combo can be used in any actual deck.

Mage has Luna's Pocket Galaxy to discount Mecha'thun to a level where direct damage spells could kill it. The spell only discounts cards in deck though, so it cannot be used reliably. If you go for Raven Familiar to tutor for the Pocket Galaxy, you cannot have other spells in the deck, and that leaves you with Voodoo Doll to kill Mecha'thun.

Paladin has some of the most difficult combos to kill off Mecha'thun. Galvanizers for Skaterbot and Mecha'thun into an Equality turn where Mecha'thun Rushes into a minion is one way to do it. Overall, Paladin cannot effectively use the card.

Shaman can kill off a discounted Mecha'thun. Galvanizers are once again the reliable way to go, although a lucky Far Sight can also get the job done. Mecha'thun + Crushing Hand + Zap! pops the Deathrattle. However, Shaman lacks card draw and has a hard time getting anywhere near the combo with an empty hand, empty deck, and no overloaded mana crystals, so it does not look like a viable Mecha’thun combo deck can be built for the class.

The Future of Mecha’thun

Overall, the future of Mecha’thun seems bright. There are several classes where card draw, spending cards from hand, and an easily assemble combo combine for a potent and fast combo deck. There are ways to counter these decks, but for anything else than Warlock it requires specific attention and tech choices that are weak in many matchups.

It will be interesting to see how Mecha’thun decks will be refined over the coming weeks and how fast they can become.

What about you? Have you already played with Mecha’thun? Is there a particular Mecha’thun deck that you enjoy? Let me know in the comments!