Standout Boomsday Project Decks From Up To Day 3

Before the expansion, everyone thought that we’ll need to bow to our new Druid overlords. But as it seems so far, Warlock is the most dominating class, not Druid. Last time I’ve already featured Zoo Warlock, which was all over the R4-Legend ladder on the first day. Zoo is, of course, still relevant, but this time around I want to focus on the slower Warlock decks.

First one is Control Warlock, which looks really strong right now. Basically, ladder is now full of two types of decks – Aggro and Combo. And the thing is that Control Warlock can counter both kinds. Against Aggro, it has all sorts of AoEs and survival tools. Heck, sometimes a single Voidlord is good enough to completely stop them, as lots of Aggro builds don’t even run Silence. But the deck also runs Stonehill Defender and Giggling Inventor, making it super annoying to get through to the juicy face.

Against combo decks, on the other hand, you run all sort of ways to disrupt them – Demonic Project, Gnomeferatu and Rin, the First Disciple. While Rin is usually too slow and Gnomeferatu is completely random, Demonic Project is actually quite consistent – like the good old Dirty Rat. The card just straight up wins you against Mecha’thun and Togwaggle Druid, for example, because you can be sure when your opponent has only the combo minions in their hand. It’s a bit worse against Malygos Druid or Shudderwock, but you can still often go for a 50/50 or 33% chance to win, and you have two tries with two copies of the spell.

Sacrificial Pact tech might seem weird, especially two of them, but I’ve been playing with one and it’s been really useful. Right now, all kinds of Warlocks are all over R4-Legend. According to both vS and HSReplay, they have roughly 30% representation on those ranks, peaking up to nearly 40% at Rank 1. And the number seems to grow, especially in Legend. Today, over 50% of the decks I’ve been facing in high-ish Legend were Warlocks.

Not sure how long it will last, but right now when you’re going to ladder, you NEED to expect lots and lots of Warlocks.

But the deck I like even more than Control Warlock is… Even Warlock! While it’s nowhere near as defensive (and thus much worse vs Aggro), it packs a real punch. The deck hasn’t changed much since Witchwood, it’s just packed with tech options. To be honest, some of which you should probably cut depending on what decks you face, but still. You have Sacrificial Pact vs other Warlocks, Demonic Project vs Combo decks, Mossy Horror against Giggling Inventor and Spreading Plague (as well as some other stuff, e.g. works really well vs Shaman), Skulking Geist against Druid’s Naturalize, The Black Knight against… probably in general, but it’s definitely amazing in the mirror.

Demonic Project is the only card previously not used in Even Warlock, but I really like it so far. Maybe it’s just the matter of early meta, but Combo decks are very popular, and it’s nice to have a second win condition if you don’t manage to rush them down. Not to mention that giving them Lord Jaraxxus, them thinking that they can win thanks to it, and then you Sac Pacting it… feels amazing.

Even Warlock was my favorite deck in Witchwood and I’m glad that it’s doing quite well in this expansion so far.

Update: I’m currently Top 100 on EU with that deck. I know that it’s not as good as #1 Legend, but given that I don’t have much time to play, it should be enough prove that the deck works really nicely.

I’ve already featured Malgyos Druid last time, but I really need to stress it out – the deck is very good right now. Year of the Raven is really great for Druid, the class swims in powerful cards. Malygos Druid, a deck that was pretty niche (which doesn’t mean bad) in The Witchwood has got a massive improvement in Boomsday Project thanks to a single card – Flobbidinous Floop. In the context of this build, it’s like a better version of Faceless Manipulator. Ideally, you want to drop Malygos, break your Twig of the World Tree, then drop Floop and combo your opponent down (Swipe + 2x Moonfire deals 36 damage, more than enough to kill most of the opponents). However, you could do the same thing with Faceless already. What makes Floop stand out is the fact that you don’t need to perform the combo in the same turn. Even without Twig (if it’s destroyed, on the bottom of your deck etc.) you can still just drop Malygos one turn, then Floop will be its 4 mana copy next turn. While it’s not AS good as the full combo, Floop + Swipe + 2x Moonfire is still 21 damage. Given that you also run Alexstrasza, it’s often enough to win the game.

Another new card from Boomsday Project is actually Giggling Inventor. The card is so annoying to get through and acts as two extra walls on top of Plague. Assuming only minion trades, your opponent needs 4 hits to get through it, which makes it especially strong against big minions. I remember stalling Tyrantus for 2 turns just because Druid had no way to remove the Taunts. Unlike Spreading Plague, Giggling Inventor can also be used proactively – even after you clear the board or your opponent doesn’t have any minions yet, it’s still a good play.

All in all, multiple pros are getting Malygos Druid to high Legend, and it’s one of the reasons why Warlocks are running Demonic Project (because well, Malygos Druid without Malygos isn’t going to win that many games).

Druid being strong was predictable. Warlock? Yeah, Even & Zoo were already great in Witchwood. But Deathrattle Rogue? That’s something nobody really expected, but it does work so far. I’ve seen dozens of Top 100 Legend climbs with similar builds. I know that I’ve already featured one last time, but this list is a bit different, as it goes for Prince Keleseth instead of Saps, Eviscerates and such (my initial theorycraft included Keleseth too). There are some clear advantages and disadvantages of this kind of approach. Advantages include much higher tempo if you hit Keleseth, and buffing your Egg to 1/4, which means that it’s immediately activated. Disadvantages – it’s obviously worse if you don’t draw Keleseth, and you have to sacrifice some burn (Eviscerate), as well as Cavern Shinyfinder, which lets you draw your weapons more consistently.

The general play style of the deck remains the same – you want to drop your Deathrattles, trigger them multiple times, possibly Carnivorous Cube them and trigger even more. Cube in particular works REALLY well with your Deathrattle triggers, pretty much no matter what you decide to eat. Even eating your 3/3, which might not seem great, means that Necrium Vial becomes a Greater Emerald Spellstone – cool, right? And that’s like the worst case scenario. Cubing Devilsaur, Mechanical Dragon and then triggering it means a massive board flood with lots of big minions. You usually set up lethal unless your opponent plays a big board clear. And of course, the late game Leeroy Jenkins + Carnivorous Cube + second hit of Necrium Blade combo dealing 21 damage, which given how aggressive the deck is, is often enough to kill your opponent.

I’m really curious where the deck goes from now. I feel like the current lists with 2x Vial and 2x Whelp might be too greedy – I would see them cutting some of that late game to play more early options. But that’s how deck building usually goes – people start with a more end-heavy lists and then they become less and less greedy with optimization. I think that the same will happen to Deathrattle Rogue – if it stays as a viable option, of course.

Odd Paladin is yet another Witchwood deck, which got some new tools in Boomsday. In case of Odd Paladin, those tools are Mechs. Players are still trying to find the most optimal version. Some choices, such as Glow-Tron, Mecharoo or Wargear are clear – if you want to run the Mech package, you include those three. But past that? Do you run Nightmare Amalgam? Bronze Gatekeeper? Zilliax?

But I’d say that two Mech-related choices seem most interesting and impactful. First of them is Mechano-Egg. A card that was rated rather poorly before the expansion seems to be performing quite well. Maybe it’s because Silence is still rather uncommon (but probably will be as people start teching after optimizing their lists), but it tends to stick to the board. Then it’s a massive buff magnet – your opponent doesn’t want to kill it, so you just stack Magnetize minions onto it. And if he does decide to kill it, you get an 8/8, so it’s a good deal either way.

Another interesting card is Kangor's Endless Army. On the one hand, if you hit a great revive (especially if you run the Egg deck), then it can be a great finisher. On the other hand, it tends to be a little clunky in less Mech-heavy lists.

There’s still a lot of testing to be done, but from my experience, the decks with a small Mech package, without Egg or Kangor’s work best. Both Egg and Kangor’s are pretty good cards, but maybe more so in some sort of Midrange Mech Paladin rather than the Odd version.

Finally, a first Hunter deck I’ve actually seen in Top 10 Legend this expansion! (probably there were some, I just didn’t see them) BoarControl climbed up there with a Secret Hunter, a rather interesting build going basically all-in on the Secret strategy and utilizing the new Neutral Legendary – Subject 9.

In theory, given the right deck, Subject 9 can be one of the strongest cards in the entire game. 5 mana 4/4 that draws you FIVE cards is insanely powerful. And actually, in this deck it’s a possible scenario. You usually end up drawing 3-4 cards, but 5 happens too. But, drawing Secrets is not enough – some more synergies would be nice.

And of course, there are more synergies. Besides your usual Lesser Emerald Spellstone (which is, by the way, an amazing card and can carry some games), this build also runs… Professor Putricide. The card was pretty overrated back in Knights of the Frozen Throne, but maybe it has finally found a home in Standard deck (I know that some Wild builds were running it already), sadly after Cloaked Huntress has already rotated out. Doubling every Secret is great, because it increases their value immensely. On If you stick it to the board in the late game and then follow up with 2 Secrets, you end up with 2 random ones. And the best thing is that your opponent has absolutely no clue what to play against.

A very interesting aspect of this deck is running only a few minions – 4 different in total. It means that your Stitched Tracker has a very high chance (75%) to discover a specific minion. Since 3 of those minions are one-of, drawing one of them means that you now have 100% chance to discover whatever you want. But the most funny situation happens when you end up with only Stitched Tracker in your deck – you can discover Tracker, which discovers Tracker etc. Infinite value! Sadly, pretty low tempo, because you only end up with 3x 2/2 per turn, but it might be better than nothing while you’re waiting for Deathstalker Rexxar. Which, honestly, shouldn’t be that long between Tracking and thinning your deck with Subject 9 (or two).

Pretty cool deck, drawing 5 cards with your 5-drops feels amazing.

Look guys, I seriously don’t know. Can we still call it Miracle Rogue, or is it just Tempo Rogue? Miracle was becoming more and more tempo oriented in the last expansions, and now it has even cut Gadgetzan Auctioneer to run Sprints. I don’t know, I will call it Miracle for now.

Either way, no matter how you call it, this specific build is rather interesting. The card that stands out most is definitely Augmented Elekk. It’s pretty clear that Fal'dorei Strider is a key card in current Miracle builds. While the initial 4/4 body isn’t something to write poems about, it stacks so much tempo potential into your deck. Three 0 mana 4/4’s that don’t even cost you a card is massive (unless they’re stuck at the bottom of your deck, that is). If you could, you would easily run a few more copies of that card. But it’s not possible. Or is it? Augmented Elekk acts as a sort of extra copies of Fal’dorei Strider. If you play it on T3, and follow up with T4 Strider, you end up shuffling 3 extra Spiders into your deck – that’s huge! And actually, 3/4 for 3 are even better stats than 4/4 for 4. Sadly, in order for it to work, it either needs to survive a turn, or you need to play them together, and the second option requires 7 mana. Still, it’s a nice way to shuffle even more free tempo into your deck. I’m not sure if two copies are not too much, but if you run this Miracle Rogue more like a Tempo Rogue, then a 3 mana 3/4 is not the worst play ever regardless of whether you shuffle something or not, especially since your opponent will often do everything to deal with it, making his turn awkward.

In case of this specific list, Giggling Inventor is the second new card. It sort of looks like the new Sludge Belcher – great defensive Neutral 5-drop, which can fit into so many different decks. But unlike Belcher, Giggling Inventor also fits into Aggro decks more, since it has 3 bodies and is super annoying for Control decks to clear. In a faster meta, Rogue sort of needs that kind of extra defense, as the deck is really prone to getting rushed down – between lack of defensive mechanics and using Hero Power to hit minions a lot, Miracle Rogues just die. So forcing your opponent to (quite often) waste 3-4 hits to get through your Giggling can be important.

Just like always, this kind of deck probably won’t become mainstream, but a handful of people will hit high Legend ranks with it over and over again.

And at least, most likely the weirdest creation on this list. I’ll be honest with you – I’ve tried playing it and it just didn’t work for me (I think that my score was 2-7, although I had some really close games), but it seems that those guys are nailing it. They hit #1 Legend twice and that enough is a reason to put the deck on this list.

This is basically a Shudderwock deck, but kind of in a way that I imagined it will work initially. Instead of going for the Lifedrinker combo, you play a Midrange deck with strong Battlecries, then Shudderwock acts as a finisher. You don’t bounce it back or play multiple times, but a single Shudderwock is already massive. It clones itself (Saronite Chain Gang), buffs minions in your deck (Prince Keleseth), destroys your opponent’s weapon (Gluttonous Ooze), steals something (Mind Control Tech), summons 2x Annoy-o-Tron (Giggling Inventor), buffs adjacent minions (Fungalmancer)… It can also deal AoE damage (Hagatha the Witch, it can be good against Aggro, but it’s not always positive), can Evolve your board twice (Thrall, Deathseer) or might as well perform a random Kalimos, Primal Lord effect. All in all, once you get to Turn 9 and drop him, it usually does A LOT of stuff and if your opponent can’t answer a huge tempo turn like that, he loses. That’s the basic idea.

But, you can also win through a solid curve and Evolves. The thing is, when they see your initial turns, they usually expect a Shudderwock Shaman and might put their guard down, waste some cards they would keep otherwise etc. But then you drop Corridor Creeper and Evolve it, and they might no longer have a way to deal with it.

I’d like to hear your experience with the deck. Did it work for you? Maybe I was doing something wrong, or faced bad matchups. But I’m all in for a non-combo Shudderwock deck, so I hope that it will work.