Standout Post-Nerf Witchwood Hearthstone Decks for Balance Patch 11.2 – A Week Later

One of the biggest surprises of the current meta is probably this deck. Or rather, the fact that it stays popular while maintaining a solid win rate. There are few different builds, but the differences between them are relatively small – one runs Wrath instead of Arcane Tyrant, one uses Injured Blademaster for the Oaken Summons high roll potential and such. Some builds used Living Mana early, but it’s rather uncommon right now.

The deck’s very interesting, because it doesn’t run almost any minions. This specific build runs 5 in total, 4 of which are played for their spell synergies. The basic idea behind the build is to flood the board with a bunch of small tokens (Wispering Woods is the easiest way to do that, but Violet Teacher and Spreading Plague also work depending on the situation and matchup), make them stick with Soul of the Forest, and then combo your opponent down next turn with a mix of Power of the Wild, Savage Roar and Branching Paths, each adding lots of damage to a full board of tokens.

This strategy has some clear counters – like two small AoEs in a row (some decks have it easier, like Warlock or Warrior – especially a build running Warpath), Spreading Plague, Vanish, Psychic Scream. But between the fact that you usually have at least 2 or 3 tries before your combo gets completely countered, and that your opponent might simply not play or draw the AoEs that counter it… well… the deck is surprisingly consistent.

I’ve been playing the deck a lot for the last few days just to feel some oldschool Druid nostalgia, so I really recommend it.

Another Druid build on the list is something that was heavily featured early in The Witchwood – the deck got very popular over the first few days, but it disappeared just as quickly – it wasn’t that bad, but it just didn’t perform as well on the ladder. However, the deck got another chance after the nerf patch, and this time it looks like it will stick.

While Hadronox was experimented with already before The Witchwood, the reason why this deck got popular right now is Witching Hour. If Hadronox is the only Beast in your list, you can re-summon it for just 3 mana after it first dies, which also means that you can easily combo it with Carnivorous Cube on the same turn. When Cube dies, 2 more copies of your favorite spider pop out. And even if the Cube gets silenced – you can do the same thing again, since you run two copies of both.

The deck has a very slow start, and needs to cycle through most of the deck to find all the necessary pieces, but once it starts the Hadronox chains, it’s impossible for most of the meta decks to beat it. If your deck can’t clear a big board few times in a row, then you either won’t be able to get through a huge wall of Taunts (even the first Hadronox is usually a death sentence for an Aggro deck), or you will simply get cleared by AoE buffs, such as Branching Paths or even Anti-Magic Shell from The Lich King. Which means that, in a way, this is just another Combo deck from Druid – but instead of killing your opponent, you just put him in an unwinnable situation.

Current strongest builds run the Master Oakheart + Dragonhatcher combo, and that’s probably the only new thing about this list. In the best case scenario, Oakheart pulls out a Tar Creeper, Dragonhatcher and Hadronox, then Dragonhatcher pulls out a Primordial Drake, and you end up with a massive board. Of course, it doesn’t always work that well, and you very often end up recruiting a single minion, but the best case scenario often seals the game already.

Even Shaman was a very likely candidate to become the clear #1 deck after the nerfs. And while pro players’ predictions have missed the mark a bit, it’s still a very powerful meta deck. The whole Odd & Even thing really surprised me, to be honest. I did expect some of the Odd/Even builds to work well, but not that many and not those.

Anyway, this build got updated a bit since the last compilation. The previous one was a bit slower, and honestly a bit more clunky. It went more in a Midrange-Control direction, and this one is simply faster, with three specific cards added in. Knife Juggler is solid if your Hero Power costs only 1 mana, Primalfin Totem is a great way to snowball the board in the early/mid game (it can really get out of control if left unchecked) and finally, Sea Giants are just good in this deck and add another mid game win condition. The deck can still take it to the late game with Hagatha the Witch, but it’s now easier to win a game simply through putting the pressure. This build is both the most popular one, and the highest win rate one.

The deck’s counters are still pretty much the same kind of builds – slow decks with lots, LOTS of board clears – Even Warlock, Control Priest or Big Spells Mage. Since you rely on your board to do anything, if your board gets removed all the time, you’re out of the game. And once you run out of steam, they just perform their game plan and win the game. An early Hagatha the Witch is sometimes enough to win those matchups. but they’re still hard. However, besides those, the deck doesn’t really have any other bad matchups, and a bunch of good ones.

Even Shaman looks like the best Shaman build since the last year’s Token/Evolve Shaman, which actually got popular about a year ago. And since the Odd/Even decks should get stronger as the time goes by, since there will be more redundancy with each new expansion, it might be a force to reckon with during Year of the Raven… unless Blizzard decides to print only Odd cards for Shaman.

Odd Paladin was the king of early Witchwood meta, but it was quickly pushed out by the Even version. Thanks to the Call to Arms nerf, Even Paladin is no longer viable (or at least no longer a Tier 1 material – I’ve seen some builds that were still somewhat viable), and Odd Paladin is back in business once again.

Interestingly enough, Odd Paladin hasn’t really changed much after the nerfs. More recently, the best builds run two copies of Divine Favor instead of one. The card is obviously insane when it works, but the meta was too fast previously. Right now, since it has slowed down a bit, it’s easier to get Divine Favor value, which is a massive refill in slower matchups.

Other than that, the deck still keeps it basic premise. Flood the board over and over again until your opponent runs out of ways to answer it, or try to seal the game with a big swing turn, such as Level Up! on a bunch of Recruits. Despite Druid decks running Spreading Plague, Warlocks running Defile etc. the deck does really well in the meta, because even after performing a few board clears in a row, it’s still hard to keep up with 3-4 new minions on the board every single turn.

Before the expansion, I was hoping to see some slower Warrior builds… but I was thinking that Odd Warrior will be the best way to play the class, thanks to the massive advantage +4 Armor Hero Power gives you. But it turned out that the best Warrior build is a good, old Quest/Taunt Warrior. After all, the Odd build has to make so many sacrifices – no anti-Aggro cards such as Drywhisker Armorer, Warpath or Blood Razor, as well as no Execute made the Odd build nearly strictly worse.

One more thing that playing a regular build allows is running an amazing anti-Taunt Druid tech card – Cornered Sentry. Just playing a single one makes Witching Hour only a 1/4 chance to revive Hadronox, playing two lowers that chance even further, to 1/7. The card also combos quite well with Drywhisker Armorer (6 extra Armor) and all kinds of Whirlwind effects, making it a quite surprising MVP of some matchups.

But the main reason to play the deck is still – obviously – Fire Plume's Heart, or rather its reward – Ragnaros the Firelord-esque Hero Power. While it’s not necessary vs Aggro (you just win those matchups by surviving, often even throwing away your Quest in mulligan), it makes a big difference in slower matchups. Most of the time you want to use your spells/weapons to clear the board and aim straight for the face – 8 damage per turn puts your opponent on a very fast clock. If you add 8 damage from the weapon itself, 3-4 hits are usually enough even if you consider some defensive measures, such as life gain. Of course, your opponent will do anything to prevent the Hero Power from hitting face, which creates an interesting dynamic – he tries to flood the board without overextending into AoE, to kill you quickly, and you try to clear the board and hit as many Hero Powers as you can.

This specific build runs Scourgelord Garrosh, which might seem a bit counter-intuitive. After all, your Quest reward already changes your Hero Power. However, it’s there mostly for the faster matchups – in those, 1 AoE damage Hero Power is actually better than 8 random damage (which is usually an overkill if it hits a minion). And in slower matchups, you can either play it before finishing the Quest (the 4/3 weapon is still amazing), or just accept it as a dead card after. I’ve found the card quite handy, but if you don’t own it or don’t feel like it does enough, you can easily take it out and play something else.

Odd Rogue is one of the most popular builds in the meta, and a go-to Aggro deck. If we look at the deck’s win rate, it might be even slightly overplayed, but players just seem to like it’s rather simple, Aggro/Tempo gameplay.

Nerfs didn’t affect the deck at all, but the meta also didn’t evolve to the point where Odd Rogue is an amazing deck, so in the end it’s pretty much in the same spot it was before the expansion – solid Aggro choice, but not Tier 1. The games can still be sealed on Turn 3 with an unanswered Hench-Clan Thug or Vicious Fledgling. The deck still has a lot of reach thanks to the Hero Power (+Deadly Poison), Charge minions and Cold Blood. And it still runs out of steam relatively quickly, making it one of the most explosive, but also manageable in the long run Aggro decks to play against.

There’s not really anything new I can tell about the deck, so I’ll leave it there.

Spell Hunter isn’t as powerful as it was during the Barnes + Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound era, but To My Side! replacement is actually doing good work. The deck performs quite well in the current meta.

It works okay against Aggro thanks to all of the AoEs and removal spells + a Spellstone swing they can rarely answer. On the other hand, it’s also solid vs slower decks thanks to the swing turns such as Spellstone or To My Side! and obviously thanks to the infinite value you can get from Deathstalker Rexxar. Early Rexxar is often enough to outvalue even the slowest Control decks in the long run. They can still sometimes beat you in the tempo war (because let’s be honest, Rexxar’s Hero Power is amazing, but really slow), but you have a chance to take the game all the way to fatigue and win it.

It’s by far the most popular Hunter archetype right now, and it’s actually cool – deck was always going for either Face or Midrange strategy, and it’s fun to see something completely different in this class.

Even Warlock has mostly pushed the Cube & Control builds out of the meta. It’s a very interesting archetype. On the surface, it looks like another slow deck that wants to play the longer game, but if you think about it like that, you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s actually one of the more aggressive archetypes of the current meta. Sometimes you even want to play beatdown role against Aggro builds, believe it or not.

There are a few advantages of having a 1 mana Hero Power, but it mostly boils down to one thing – more tempo. If you play a Handlock-like deck, you just NEED to Life Tap a lot, that’s the point of the deck. And with this build, every time you do it, you save one mana compared to the regular version. There are lots of situations in which you would have to pick between dropping something or tapping in the regular Warlock build, and you can do both in this one.

The fact that you can e.g. drop a 2 mana card and still tap on Turn 3, or Tap and play Mountain Giant on the same turn even if you have the exact mana to drop it might not seem huge, but they really do add up throughout the game. Being able to drop Mountain Giant on Turn 3 when on the Coin is just an icing on the cake – most of the decks already have a very hard time dealing with T4 Giant, speeding it up by one more turn (and then probably following it with another big bomb on Turn 4) means that you just win some of the matchups around Turn 5-6, thanks to all the early damage you can deal with your big minions.

Oh, and tapping so much means that you can activate Hooked Reaver relatively easily even if your opponent doesn’t really hit you much. It’s big, because having a 4 mana 7/7 Taunt adds another big and high tempo threat to your roster.

Overall, a very fun deck, especially if you like hitting your opponent mercilessly with big minions in the early/mid game.

Miracle Rogue is in a very interesting spot right now. Right now, we have the slowest meta we’ve seen in a while. While there are some Aggro decks, all kinds of Control and Combo decks are also very popular. And as we all know, Miracle Rogue performs exceptionally well against that kind of decks, while getting – to put it bluntly – butchered by all kinds of board flood & face decks. So while the deck still loses vs Odd Rogue, Odd Paladin or even Token Druid, it has good matchups vs Taunt Druid, Control/Quest Priest, Even Warlock or Shudderwock Shaman, all of which are relatively popular right now.

The deck wins mostly thanks to the massive tempo swings that your opponent just can’t answer. It might be a big Edwin VanCleef, an unanswered Hench-Clan Thug, a lucky Fal'dorei Strider summoning the 4/4’s quickly, a well-timed Vilespine Slayer, or maybe a massive Gadgetzan Auctioneer turn – the deck has just so many ways to get ahead and stay there. On top of that, the Leeroy Jenkins + Cold Blood / Eviscerate combos give it a nice finisher in case on-board damage is not enough.

Of course, even in the right meta, Miracle Rogue is still not an easy deck to play. You will face multiple difficult decisions, which you might not even realize. Even though I’m a very experienced player, when I look back at my games with the deck, I can see that I’m misplaying a lot. However, if you want to commit enough time and effort to master it, it can be a really good time to play the deck.

I didn’t think that I will say that, after bashing the deck so much in the early Witchwood meta, but right now it seems like Shudderwock Shaman… works. It’s mostly because, like I’ve mentioned before, the current meta is pretty slow. And combo decks work best in slow meta – the more time you have to gather your combo, the better it is for you.

Current Shudderwock builds are a sort of mix between the old, all-in combo and the later, non-Lifedrinker builds that went for a more value/tempo approach with Shudderwock and not for the outright damage combo. This build runs the Lifedrinker combo, but no Murmuring Elemental or Fire Plume Harbinger, making the combo not 100% consistent. In the current form, after playing Shudderwock, you might hit Grumble, Worldshaker first, before copying Shudderwock with Saronite Chain Gang. You can still get out of this situation thanks to Zola the Gorgon, which copies Shudderwock and lets you replay him again for 9 mana next turn. However, even if you don’t perform the full combo, just repeating all of the Battlecries might be enough to seal the game, given that you usually end up with a quite strong board afterwards.

So while the OTK combo is not exactly 100% consistent, it’s still working a fair amount of time, making this a great build in some of the slow matchup. The deck still has bad matchups against some Aggro builds, such as Odd Paladin, and it doesn’t out-combo some of the other combo decks (e.g. Malygos Druid can generally find the combo faster), but it’s actually a pretty viable deck choice in the current meta. Who would have thought?

After the nerf patch, Quest Priest got pretty popular. Which was really surprising, as no one was really talking about this deck in their predictions. But a slower meta means that all kinds of interesting builds can pop out of nowhere. And Quest Priest is really cool. It reminds me of the Savjz’s Weasel Priest a bit, but instead of going for the memes, it has actually built a quite interesting Control shell.

The deck’s basic win condition is obviously Quest itself. After finishing it, which isn’t really all that difficult (especially if you get one or two copies of Twilight's Call), you get a 5 mana 8/8 Taunt, which heals you up to 40. This is an absolute game-changer in lots of matchups. For example, it’s basically an auto-win against decks that want to burn you down. Control Priest is a great matchup – even if they get an early Shadowreaper Anduin, you should still stay out of range quite easily. And, of course, it’s a great way to stabilize vs Aggro decks. Not only the healing part, but the 8/8 Taunt also helps.

On the other hand, the deck isn’t all that helpless in slow matchups. Sometimes, the sheer pressure of Dragons (including Bone Drakes, which work very well vs Control), combined with Shadowreaper Anduin is enough to win. However, if all else fails, you can always go for the fatigue gameplan. Archbishop Benedictus is actually a solid win condition vs slow decks. Of course, the cards you copy from your opponent’s deck will most likely be worse than your own, but that’s not the point. The point is that you delay your fatigue by at least a few turns, while your opponent will run out of cards. 10 extra cards usually means that he’s dead before you even start taking fatigue damage.

As much as I like those slow, grindy decks, I understand why it doesn’t have more than ~3% representation on the ladder. Some of the games are really, really boring. Playing through a single slow game often takes up to 20 minutes, and I won’t even talk about mirrors (or playing vs Dead Man's Hand Warrior) – those are nightmare. So, I had some fun with the deck, but I told “enough” when I realized that I can play 2-4 games with other decks in the time it takes me to play a single one with this.

To be honest, I didn’t know where to put Tempo Mage. On the one hand, the deck’s popularity certainly places it in this category. It’s still one of the more common lists on the ladder. On the other hand, its win rate… uhh… let’s just say that it’s not as good. It’s a Tier 3 deck at best right now, with the most popular builds barely keeping their win rate above 50% on HSReplay – where the win rate is heavily inflated.

Tempo Mage was never an amazing deck “by itself” in The Witchwood – it was mostly played as a counter deck to some of the most popular builds. Right now, its best matchups are gone (Even Warlock is still a positive matchup, but it’s not as amazing), and Tempo Mage gets demolished by every more aggressive deck. Odd Paladin, Even Shaman and Odd Rogue all destroy it – and I mean it. Those are ~30/70 matchups, with Even Shaman dipping as low as 20/80, in favor of Shaman, obviously. Spell Hunter is also a counter, but it’s nothing new – it was always that way (mostly since minion-based Secrets such as Explosive Runes are nearly useless in that matchup, and Tempo Mage has no way to answer a big Spellstone swing from Hunter).

The deck can still prey on decks, especially combo ones (e.g. it has good matchups vs Shudderwock Shaman) and Miracle Rogue, which is always weak against heavy burn builds. But overall, I really feel like the deck is overplayed right now.

What’s “interesting” about Cube Warlock, you might ask? Well, I put it in this category, since it’s still hard to judge its performance. Why? Because pretty much no one plays it. The limited stats I’ve seen show that the deck is actually performing quite well – on par with Even Warlock – but the sample size is not as big.

The nerfs definitely hit the deck hard, this one is certain. From a Tier 1 deck every other build teched against, it is now maybe a Tier 2 deck even when no one is really doing much to counter it. Delaying the Possessed Lackey by an entire turn and reducing the healing from Dark Pact really hurt.

We’ll probably have to wait another week or to in order to see where CubeLock places in the new meta. I’m pretty sure that it’s not “dead” yet, and it should see some play for the rest of this expansion. But the question is – “how much?”

Another of the nerfed decks… and another deck that weakened the deck without killing it. The story here is similar to Cube Warlock – the deck is still playable, but because it’s underplayed after the nerfs, it’s hard to realistically measure its strength. Delaying the Spiteful Summoner by one turn is pretty significant change, but at the same time, since the meta is slower, that one turn might not be as big as it might have initially seemed like.

So, just like above, we’ll have to give the deck some more time, and only then we’ll see where it places in the new meta.

One of the most popular and strongest decks before the balance changes, Mind Blast Control Priest wasn’t directly affected by any of the nerfs. So if the other decks have got worse, one might assume that Priest would only get better. But like I’ve mentioned in my pre-nerf predictions, it doesn’t always work like that. Priest’s main power was the fact that it had good matchups against some of the most popular meta decks. However, the meta has changed, and the most popular decks also did.

To be fair, Control Priest is not a terrible choice right now. It actually has some quite nice matchups, such as Odd Paladin or Even Shaman. On the other hand, both Druid and Warrior got more popular after the nerfs, and those two classes are huge counters to this build. Since your main win condition is dishing enough damage to kill your opponent, if he can gain LOTS of Armor, then it might be very hard to get enough damage. An early Shadowreaper Anduin is sometimes still enough, but even that might fall short, let’s say against most of Druid decks, which can easily gain 40+ Armor over the course of the game.

The deck has gone back to its Kobolds & Catacombs roots a bit, as some of the builds are now running Twilight Acolyte + Cabal Shadow Priest combo once again as an alternative win condition, but it’s still not enough to win lots of the bad matchups (even though stealing that Carnivorous Cube with double Hadronox vs Taunt Druid does feel good).

Unlike the other Warlock decks, Zoo wasn’t touched at all, but it wasn’t a popular choice to begin with. And… it’s still not popular. However, if you’re a Zoo fan, I have a pretty good news for you – despite the lack of interest, Zoo isn’t performing that badly. It’s definitely possible to climb when using the deck.

Early in The Witchwood, there were some experiments with the new cards, such as Duskbat, but it looks like the best performing Zoo lists are now more… classic, with no Witchwood cards at all, and an oldschool Dark Iron Dwarf instead (remember when this card used to give the Attack permanently?).

I’ve playtested the deck a bit in Legend, and I liked how well it was performing against Odd Paladin. On the other hand, Even Warlock seems to be a pretty bad matchup, but that’s nothing surprising. Overall, I had quite a pleasing experience. It’s not a deck that will dominate the meta, but if you’re a fan, it should work well enough for you.

It’s funny, but we actually haven’t came up with a widely accepted name for this deck. I’ve seen people calling it Recruit Hunter, Big Hunter, Kathrena Hunter, Cube Hunter (for the builds that run Cube, of course), but I feel like a simple “Deathrattle Hunter” is probably best way to describe those decks as a whole.

There are also multiple versions of this build, and it’s difficult to say which one works best. It’s a really interesting idea, and I’m glad that some of the build seem to be viable.

Basically, the deck is built between the synergy Seeping Oozeling has with Silver Vanguard and Kathrena Winterwisp. Since those are the only Deathrattle cards in your deck, you will always copy one of those.

If you copy Silver Vanguard, the Deathrattle will summon one of your 8 mana cards – Kathrena, The Lich King or one of the two Charged Devilsaurs (which can attack the face). On the other hand, Kathrena can summon Witchwood Grizzly (which keeps full stats, since its Battlecry doesn’t proc), Charged Devilsaur or King Krush.

You can also speed up the process by using Play Dead on one of your Deathrattle cards, to get the huge proc immediately + another one when it dies. In other words, once you get to the late game and start your combos, you summon big minion after big minion basically every turn.

Since the deck has limited amount of those big minions and it would run out of them eventually, it needs an alternative win condition in form of Deathstalker Rexxar. One of the advantages of this card in the build is the fact that you can go for the bigger Beasts more reliably without worrying that you will get out-tempo’d by a single removal. If the game got that far, your opponent usually used most of his removals on your big minions already.

It’s a very fun approach to the whole “cheat out Big minions” archetype. It’s not as oppressive as Big Priest or Cube Warlock, since most of the combos are late game (Turn 6-7 at earliest), but it still does the job. And trust me, it feels great to summon those Devilsaurs and King Krush to charge 7-8 damage into face right away, leaving your opponent wondering how the hell can he deal with all of those big minions.

If you like those oldschool Control decks, you should like Big Spell Mage too. After all, the deck’s basic game plan is to remove stuff, then remove even more stuff, then, well, remove stuff and finally go for the big value plays like Frost Lich Jaina or a tempo swing in form of Dragoncaller Alanna. It’s fun if you’re into that sort of stuff.

And given that Tempo Mage isn’t performing very well right now, it looks like Big Spell Mage is the strongest Mage build right now. At least at the higher ranks, because interestingly, at the lower ranks, Tempo Mage seems to outperform it. My guess is that it’s because of the decks’ difficulty – Tempo Mage is clearly easier to play than Big Spell version, and it’s harder for the opponent to punish your misplays (plus, players at lower ranks might have a harder time playing around Secrets).

The deck didn’t really change since the last time I featured it, so there isn’t much to talk about. It has some good matchups (Paladins, Even Shaman, Even Warlock also seems fine) and some bad matchups (Shudderwock Shaman, Tempo Mage), but overall it looks pretty balanced.

Don’t let your memes be dreams. Mill Druid running King Togwaggle is one of the highest win rate Druid decks right now. However, because the sample size is pretty low, I can’t put it into the meta decks… yet.

I’ve already talked about the deck previously, but I will just explain the basic combo again if someone missed it. You basically want to switch decks with your opponent once you get to fatigue (or at least close to) and prevent them from switching back. It means that they’re left with useless deck or no deck at all, and you take theirs. There are two ways to make this happen.

First, and easier one, is simply milling the ransom card. When your opponent is already at 8+ cards, you play Naturalize and drop Togwaggle on the same turn. You can also do the same thing with 2x Naturalize at 6+ cards. Ransom burned, your opponent can’t do anything to prevent that… Well, but that hard part about this is that it works only if your opponent lets you. If he keeps his hand relatively empty (5 or less cards), then it won’t happen, so realistically it can only work on a few decks, such as Even Warlock or Quest Priest, which usually hold lots of cards in their hands.

The other way is through the Twig of the World Tree + Azalina Soulthief combo. First you get your Twig down to one charge. Then you play Togwaggle, attack with Twig, and play Azalina. You get a full copy of your opponent’s hand, including the ransom. Which means that if they decide to play the ransom, you can play your copy and switch the decks again. In this case, however, the combo gets destroyed by the weapon removal. If you get down to 1 Charge, and your opponent removes the weapon on his turn, well, you can no longer perform the combo. Sometimes you might still win the game thanks to the Malfurion the Pestilent 3 damage per turn, but that’s very unlikely.

Still, Mill Druid is a surprisingly viable deck. It’s difficult to play, and viable mostly because weapon destruction is relatively uncommon in the meta, but I never thought that it would actually work.

Another Combo Druid deck… Druid has so many combo decks that are actually viable, or at least semi-viable, and I didn’t even list Cube/Devilsaur Druid here.

This time it’s a new version of a pretty oldschool deck, which is Malygos Druid. Druid is a spell-heavy class, so Malygos with his +5 Spell Damage fits really well. 6 damage Moonfire, 6 damage Wrath cycles (or 8 damage without cycle), 9 single target + 6 AoE damage Swipe, and more. However, the difficult part is actually sticking Malygos. If you just play it, most of the decks can either clear it or Silence it, and your combos are gone. Since Moonfire costs 0, you can immediately combo Malygos with them, but it’s not that easy for other cards. Since Innervate was nerfed and Emperor Thaurissan has rotated out a long time ago, the options are limited. But there are two ways to make it happen.

First one is Druid’s Quest – Jungle Giants. After you finish it, every minion in your deck costs 0 mana. So, if your Malygos was still in your deck, when you draw it, it costs 0, which makes it incredibly easy to combo with spells. Even if it wasn’t, you can still play a 0 mana Ixlid, Fungal Lord or Faceless Manipulator to copy it and shoot 11 (or 16 if you pay two) Moonfires for 0 mana.

The other approach, which is probably more popular, is using Twig of the World Tree. Since it refills your mana on Deathrattle, just like in case of Togwaggle Mill Druid, you want to drop Malygos, then hit with Twig, and now you have 10 mana to work with… but with Malygos already on the board. A simple Faceless Manipulator + Swipe is 14 single target + 11 AoE damage. Throw in a Moonfire or two and you can usually OTK your opponent.

Again, weapon destruction counters the deck quite badly. It’s still possible to win the games without the combo, but it’s difficult. However, like I’ve mentioned before, weapon destruction is relatively uncommon in this meta. Which means that the deck, just like Togwaggle Druid, is relatively viable.