The Witchwood has been out for nearly a week now and Wild players are taking advantage of the format’s deep card pool to brew up some creative decks. With so many format-exclusive cards available, we figured it would be a good time to highlight some exciting new decks that have come out of the latest Hearthstone expansion.
Like many Standard decks at this point, the lists below are far from refined but are showing some potential in the early Witchwood Wild metagame. Take a look! Some of these decks are so unique they may just inspire you to take a walk on the Wild side!
Azalina Soulthief Deck Thief Druid
Quickly dismissed as nothing more than a meme, both Azalina Soulthief and King Togwaggle were laughed at upon their reveal. Could it be possible that both of these cards are used in a top tier deck?
In Wild, at least, it’s already a reality. Multiple players have ascended the Wild Legend Ladder with this seemingly ridiculous deck, including Sipiwi94 who reached the pinnacle of Wild Ranked Play with his take on the deck.
The deck is reminiscent of the Wild Malygos Druid that made waves when Hearthstone Superstar Kripparian piloted it to Legend. Both decks rely on the now Wild-exclusive combination of Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King to pull off their combo.
Deck Thief Druid, however, requires far fewer combo pieces to pull the trigger allowing it to allocate more deck space to defensive tools.
Also unlike Malygos Druid, the combo doesn’t end in an immediate victory. Instead of blowing up an opponent for 60+ damage, the decks payoff is a little more delayed. Essentially, the Deck Thief Druid looks to draw itself nearly to Fatigue before using the Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King combo. Then, with a full turn and one-mana minions, you can swap decks with your opponent using King Togwaggle. Following that, Azalina Soulthief comes into play, copying the opponent’s hand (King’s Ransom, and all).
Now, your opponent is drawing into Fatigue and left without a win condition. If they decide to spend five mana to get their deck back, you can simply cast the copy of the King’s Ransom card you made, leaving them in the same unwinnable position.
This deck is a beautiful combination of competitive viability and absolute silliness. If nothing else, watching your opponent panic after you steal their deck makes it worth trying this deck. Take a look!
10,600
Archmage Arugal Giants Mage
Wild loyalists have long been frustrated by the newly introduced interaction between Naga Sea Witch and several Giants. Essentially, Sea Witch was hot-fixed to set the base cost of all cards to five. After this change, any cost-reduction effects, such as those on Mountain Giant and Hall of Famer Molten Giant, are subtracted from five.
While a swarm of Giants on turn four or five creates a frustrating experience for those who see it happen often, those that are new to Wild may have a good time dumping several Giants into play in a single turn.
In the past, Giants have proven to be effective in both Warlock and Hunter, but some new cards from The Witchwood have opened the door for Jaina to abuse the interaction between these minions.
What sets Mage apart from other decks is the potent defensive tools (most notably Ice Block) and new, consistent minion drawing. With so few critical Spells in this deck, Book of Specters has very little downside. When paired with Archmage Arugal, you might just end up with more Giants that you know what to do with. Either way, the copying mechanic makes it possible to layer your threats much more effectively than some of the other Giants decks.
Give it a try! (And feel free to pass the some of the blame on to me when you receive countless rage-induced friend requests.)
Baku the Mooneater Odd Paladin
Okay, so this deck isn’t exclusive to the Wild format (and you’ve probably seen it enough already), but Dude Paladin was an archetype born in the Wild format, so this variant seems right at home. Additionally, some of the powerful format-exclusive cards make it a different enough form its Standard counterpart to warrant a spot on this list.
Sure, the deck misses out on some potent even cards, but it has access to cards like Quartermaster which pairs with Level Up! to further buff up your Dudes. As well as, Muster for Battle and Stand Against Darkness to provide board refill far beyond what is possible in Standard.
If you’re afraid that your Silver Hand Recruits are a bit too fragile, Steward of Darkshire can ensure they’re well-equipped with Divine Shield. Not only does this make for a resilient board, but it gives Rallying Blade the potential to buff a board full of Dudes.
Finally, this list comes stocked with card draw. Divine Favor can already do a lot to refill your hand, but with a significant amount of trading happening, Solemn Vigil provides a bit more reliable flow of cards without a mana cost.
Check out the list below!
Book of Specters Exodia Mage
Exodia Mage appears to be all but dead in Standard. Fortunately, the archetype is still alive and well in Wild and has gained a few new cards from The Witchwood expansion. Unlikely in Standard, Wild Exodia Mage typically opts out of the quest. Instead, the deck relies on an Emperor Thaurissan tick on four out of five combo pieces.
In total, the combo requires 14 mana, so four total reductions on any combination of Sorcerer's Apprentice, Molten Reflection, and Archmage Antonidas makes the Exodia combo playable on a single turn.
The Witchwood brings Book of Specters, which is rivaled only by Aluneth in card draw efficiency. At two mana, even hitting just two out of the three draws is still great value.
Ditching combo pieces with Book of Specters may seem risky, but most of your critical combo pieces are minions. Fortunately, the redundancy involved in running both Molten Reflection and Simulacrum helps mitigate some of the damage of tossing away a combo spell. This means discarding a copy of Molten Reflection isn’t necessarily game over.
In fact, discarding certain spells can actually be to your benefit. In slower matchups, board Freezes are far less valuable. As such, discarding them away with Book of Specters actually gets you deeper into your deck and avoids some awkward hands with dead cards.
If you still love the idea of hurling infinite damage at your opponent’s face, this deck is for you!
Shudderwock Jade Shaman
Few cards have elicited as much controversy early in an expansion as Shudderwock. Animation time, power level, and lack of counterplay are all topics that this Shaman Legendary minion stirs up. All that aside, one thing is certain about Shudderwock: this card is fun!
In Wild, however, your options for Shudderwock go beyond the dull, infinite damage (and turn time) with Lifedrinker. In this, Hearthstone’s eternal format, you still have access to Jade Golem generators, such as Jade Claws and Jade Spirit. Luckily for you, all of these Jade mechanics are Battlecries! This means that Shudderwock creates a board full of larger and larger green men.
No room for all of those Jades you’re about to create? No problem! It still increments the counter to a ridiculous level. Better still, the repetition of the Loatheb Battlecry means your opponent will likely be at a loss for answers. On the following turn, you’re free to clock them in the face for massive amounts of damage or continue making larger green men.
The list below can even out-pace those pesky Druids in Jade generation!
do you have any good keleseth rogue deck?
Every single shaman that uses shudder HAS to have atleast 1 chain gang in the deck. The value of that card paired with shudder is insane. I also added the legendary shaman card that puts all minions back in your deck and he’s been amazing just with throwing more jade potential down, not even mentioning how crazy that is with shudder too!
In the Jade variant, you don’t really want multiple Shudderwocks (especially on board because they take up too much space). Ideally, the plan is to hit Shudderwock late, lock your opponent out of board clears with Loatheb and crash in for a bunch of damage with a board full of Golems.
I have been having fun with the jade shaman list. Sadly Jade druid is far superior as a midrange/control hybrid but this is quite a bit more interesting and certainly can swing big priest games if you hard mulligan for hex and devolve.
Pretty easy climb from rank 8 to rank 5.
Grats on the climb! I figure Druid is still going to be the better Jade class simply because of the cards available, but Shaman offers an interesting take on the Jade package (especially with the ridiculousness of Shudderwock).
You’re right though, Hex and Devolve can wreck Big Priests and Cube Warlocks pretty hard. Unfortunately, in my experience, the deck has a hard time against an early board full of Giants.
Agreed on giants anything, feels unwinnable when they naga you at anytime time. I started to see A LOT of this at rank 5, 5*s where fun is officially banned 😛
Do you have an early tier list? Where is Baku Rogue in the meta?
It’s a bit too early to say for sure what the best decks are. Just about all Paladins are still looking good, I’d expect to see Aggro, Secret, Even, and Odd on the top of the next tier list. Cube and Giants Warlock are both still strong as well. Slower Druids and Big Priests both seem pretty strong and then things feel like they drop off a bit from there.
Baku Rogue has been doing quite well for me lately. It does quite well against most non-Paladin decks.