Whizbang’s Heroes is a time-limited Twist format where you play with pre-constructed decks. The format is available for two months, June and July. In June, you can choose from a pool of 19 Heroes, each unlocked by owning specific old Legendary cards. Four of the Heroes (Illidan Stormrage, Al’Akir the Windlord, Arch-Villain Rafaam, and Leeroy Jenkins) are unlocked by the Core set and available for everyone regardless of your collection. Two more (C’Thun and Kael’Thas Sunstrider) are old login rewards and are unlocked by owning a pack from their original expansions (Whispers of the Old Gods for C’Thun and Ashes of Outland for Kael’Thas). For the July season, the Hero pool will grow with nine new Heroes.

Because the entire format is based on pre-constructed decks, the relative strength of the Heroes can be determined with a reasonable amount of data. To keep the format fresh, Blizzard promised weekly balance changes, the first of which took place already on June 4th. The weekly balance changes mostly affect the starting Health of the Heroes, while more extensive changes come in regular balance patches. These balance changes have had a major effect on the format: whereas some Heroes were completely unplayable on June 1, all Heroes have something to offer now. They may not all reach a 50% win rate, but none are completely hopeless either.

In this article, we will maintain a tier list of the current Whizbang’s Heroes Twist decks. Here you can find the best Heroes to play and a quick introduction to how they win games!

(Note: Health present on Hero portraits listed below is not accurate and shows the initial values, Blizzard hasn’t updated them after changing HP values.)

Changelog

Tier 1: The Best Heroes

These are the main meta Heroes in the format. You can expect to be able to climb the ladder with these, even though there are differences in strength between them as well. The very best Heroes are listed at the top, and climbing should be the easiest with them.

Illidan Stormrage

Starting Health: 40

Illidan is a spell-based Fel Demon Hunter. Whenever a friendly character attacks, a Fel spell in your hand is discounted. In addition to your Hero, attacks from cards such as Coordinated Strike or Impfestation can rack up a bunch of discounts for you. Your Hero Power is also an upgraded version of the regular Demon Hunter Hero Power in that it provides Lifesteal for your Hero. In combination with attack buffs and Multi-Strike, you can hit multiple targets and heal up while doing so, not to mention picking up even more discounts for your Fel spells!

You also have some nice tricks to play even more spells thanks to Archmage Vargoth, Jotun, the Eternal, and the main finisher in the deck, Jace Darkweaver.

The Lich King

Starting Health: 25

The Lich King’s playstyle resembles a regular Unholy Death Knight, but he has some sweet tricks up his sleeve. His Hero Power summons a Ghoul with Charge and Reborn, so you generate two corpses from it and can attack two targets. He also summons Risen Skeletons whenever you spend corpses with stats equal to corpses spent. It is all about generating and spending corpses, and summoning board after board of minions while doing so. Note that the Risen Skeletons themselves do not generate additional corpses.

The usual Unholy Death Knight tricks with card draw from Acolyte of Death and Poisonous from Sickly Grimewalker work even better with The Lich King. Not to mention summoning two huge minions at once with Corpse Farm!

Sir Finley Mrrgglton

Starting Health: 40

Finley brings an archetypal Murloc deck. With a mix of Paladin and Shaman Murloc themes, this is the ultimate Murloc experience, from Murloc Knight to Unite the Murlocs. You live by the board and you die by the board with this deck. Finley’s special effect gives all of your Murlocs Rush, which can help you maintain board control.

Combine Rush with Toxfin or with Embalming Ritual on a big Murloc, and you have some comeback potential. The key word being some. You can keep building new boards to an extent, but your resources are not endless, so remember to be aggressive.

Xyrella

Starting Health: 32

Xyrella is the ultimate Priest dream: you win the game if you heal enough! You need to reach 60 Health to win the game, and you also heal when you damage the enemy Hero. That may be a more foreign concept for Priest players, but the overall result is still a fantasy land for Priest mains.

Zul’jin

Starting Health: 30

Zul’jin has a highlander Secret Hunter deck. You can Discover more Secrets with your Hero Power and you summon a 2/2 minion whenever you play a Secret. Building a Christmas tree of Secrets has not been this easy since the days of Mysterious Challenger (not included in the deck). You are playing a tempo deck: your Secrets can disrupt the opponent’s game and open up just enough space for you to get the necessary damage in.

Zul’jin has clear weaknesses, but its strengths against Demon Hunter, Death Knight, and Mage make it a good meta contender.

Tier 2: Still Good Heroes

These Heroes are a little behind the very best Heroes, but you can still expect to be able to climb most of the ladder with them.

Kael’Thas Sunstrider

Starting Health: 30

Kael’Thas is the master resource generator. You get a temporary random spell at the start of each turn and any cards that did not start in your deck cost one less – including the random spell that you get every turn! Flint Firearm and Instructor Fireheart are incredible late-game powerhouses because every card you generate from them costs one less. Even the lowly Training Session finally feels fine to play when all the minions are one mana cheaper.

Do not get too attached to generating random cards though, remember that the goal of the game is to destroy the enemy Hero. Arcane Bolts from Arcane Wyrm and Arcsplitter can play a key role in this because they are free and can provide some of the burst damage you need to reach your goal.

Brann Bronzebeard

Starting Health: 38

Brann does exactly what you would expect: he has a Hero Power that makes your next Battlecry effect proc twice. As an added bonus, Brann transforms all the Battlecry minions you play into Beasts of the same cost. Because Battlecry minions are usually weak, this transformation can potentially make them a lot stronger. On average, it does, although sometimes they become even weaker than they were.

Play your Battlecry minions and try to gain tempo from Brann’s special effect. Weave in the Hero Power, especially in the mid-game. There are some good power plays with Night Elf Huntress and Abyssal Summoner, but overall the effects are a little lacking.

Forest Warden Omu

Starting Health: 30

Forest Warden Omu is a fun Treant Spell Druid. Your deck has no minions in it, and it has synergy cards that benefit from having no minions from multiple classes, such as Malfunction, Deal with a Devil, To My Side!, and Rhok'delar. Your Druidic side is focused on Treants and Treant synergies: your Hero Power gives you a 1-cost 2/2 Treant into your hand, and your special effect randomly Adapts any Treants that you summon. As a result, you are constantly building boards even though you have no minions in the deck. In the grand Treant Druid tradition, you can also buff your board with Arbor Up, Drum Circle, and Cultivation.

Nozdormu

Starting Health: 32

If you enjoy playing with Dragons, Nozdormu is your hero of choice. Nozdormu comes with a 45-card highlander deck that has Dragons from many classes. All the fun dragons are right here! Nozdormu also starts the game with an additional mana crystal and can draw and discount his dragons, so that you will also get to play with all of your fun cards and do not have to just stare at them in your hand.

As a downside – or potentially yet another upside – Nozdormu’s turn timer is only 30 seconds long. So, if you like dragons and fast turns, it is an even better fit!

Like most Dragon decks, you can overwhelm the opponent with your mid-sized minions. You also have a number of board clears in the deck, so in some games you play control and go for big boards later on. As a 45-card highlander deck, the games will inevitably be a little different depending on which tools you happen to draw.

Al’Akir the Windlord

Starting Health: 25

Al’Akir is Elemental Shaman with a bit of Rogue and Mage mixed in. You follow the general Elemental Shaman gameplan and try to play an Elemental on every turn if possible because the Elemental synergies are based on playing Elementals on previous turns – mostly just the turn before, like for Kalimos, Primal Lord, but sometimes also in a row, like for Skarr, the Catastrophe.

Whenever you play a Legendary Elemental, you proc the Battlecry of the old Shaman Hero card, Bru'kan of the Elements, and get to choose one of four effects: Summon two 2/3 Elementals with Taunt, deal 6 damage to the enemy hero, deal 2 damage to all enemy minions, or restore 6 Health to all friendly characters. Because you have a lot of Legendary Elementals in your deck, this can add a lot of reach as you deal damage to the enemy hero turn after turn.

Arfus

Starting Health: 18

Arfus was the dominant force in the first days of Whizbang’s Heroes Twist format. It has been hit by Health nerfs three times, and at 18 Health, it is vulnerable enough that it is difficult for Arfus to retain the top rank.

Arfus Excavates when you play cards with the right Death Knight runes on them. The cycle begins with Frost, moves to Unholy, and then to Blood before starting anew. Your goal is to play cards that allow you to Excavate to rapidly get to the Legendary Excavate rewards that can win you the game. You also have a Hero Power that discounts cards in your hand at the cost of Corpses. If you can build a reliable supply of Corpses – Pile of Bones being an excellent generator – you can make your cards cheap, which will enable you to Excavate multiple times in a single turn or play cards like Patchwerk or The Primus early. Hero Powering also fuels Climactic Necrotic Explosion, which is a big late-game win condition for the deck.

Tier 3: Climbing Can Be a Challenge

If you choose to play one of these Heroes, you should not expect to be able to climb the ladder. But there are other reasons to play than just winning, right?

Leeroy Jenkins

Starting Health: 40

Leeroy is reckless and can be a ton of fun to play. When you are Leeroy, all cards from both players cost one less. You also have a Hero Power that allows you to spend Health instead of mana to play your next minion. Luckily, you have plenty of Health to start with, so you can really up the tempo early on. Leeroy is the quick format of Hearthstone: everything happens faster and turns just fly by. Fortune favors the brave, and you need to make good use of your Hero Power to build a strong board early in the game to succeed.

Guff Runetotem

Starting Health: 50

Guff is a curious twist of Hero Power Druid. You do not have the usual Hero Power Druid staples, but you can use your Hero Power twice per turn and you have synergy cards from other classes, such as Dragonbane and Confessor Paletress, which you can proc twice each turn. These swing turns are generally weaker than the top decks’ though, so you need to work hard for any wins.

Patches the Pirate

Starting Health: 35

Patches has an Aggro Pirate deck. Every time you summon a Pirate, it deals one damage to a random enemy, and you can also draw Pirates from your deck with your Hero Power. The deck is actually a Highlander deck, although in this case there are no Highlander synergy cards in the deck: there have just been a lot of Pirates in Hearthstone over the years, and this deck has a wide selection of them.

Because there are no duplicates, the games are somewhat different from each other, but many Pirates perform a similar role, so your overall strategy remains the same: summon lots of Pirates and hit face.

Dr. Boom

Starting Health: 60

With Dr. Boom, Blizzard is trying to make Mech Warrior playable by giving it a Bomb Warrior special effect. Whenever a Mech of yours dies, you shuffle a Bomb to the enemy’s deck. This deck can put more Bombs into enemy decks than the actual Bomb Warrior! As a downside, there are no decks in Twist that would draw the majority of their cards, so you often end up waiting for the opponent to maybe draw a Bomb at some point. With no meta deck to counter, Dr. Boom is not doing well.

N’Zoth, the Corruptor

Starting Health: 45

N’Zoth has a Deathrattle deck. Every time you play a Deathrattle minion, you immediately proc its Deathrattle effect. You can also summon a 1/1 copy of the last Deathrattle minion you played with your Hero Power. While this potentially gives the deck quite powerful turns, it can face difficulties both in surviving the early game and in finding enough power in the late game.

Summoning new 1/1 copies of Obsidian Statue, Darkmoon Tonk, or Enhanced Dreadlord is attractive, but those copies do not immediately proc their Deathrattle effects, and you are blocked from playing other Deathrattle minions if you want to keep them in your Hero Power. While there is some nice value on offer, it is hard to keep up with both value and tempo. At best, you can get three copies of a big minion out there: the one you play, a 1/1 copy on the same turn, and another 1/1 copy at the start of the next turn. Beyond that, you often need to play some other cards and cannot keep the value train going.

Arch-Villain Rafaam

Starting Health: 45

Have you ever wanted to play with an all-Legendary deck? They are no longer only in the realm of YouTube because Rafaam brings an all-Legendary deck to Whizbang’s Heroes! Furthermore, your Legendary cards cost one less mana, so you can actually play them, at least sometimes. When you manage to Discover good spell to survive the early game with your Hero Power and maybe hit Emperor Thaurissan to land some discounts on your big Legendary cards, you can win games with this. Alas, too many things need to go right for you to succeed, so the deck lacks consistency.

King Krush

Starting Health: 50

King Krush has big Beasts and small spells. Whenever you cast a spell, one of your Beasts gets a discount equal to the cost of the spell. Sometimes, the discounts land on the same minion and you can get good tempo early in the game, but if you draw too many Beasts and your discounts are all over the place, it can be difficult to survive to make good use of them. To make matters worse, your Hero Power is almost unplayable: 6 mana to gain +8 attack for a single turn. That is vanilla power level, and struggles to find a use in Twist.

C’Thun

Starting Health: 80

C’Thun has been the worst Hero since the beginning of Whizbang’s Heroes. The Hero got a whopping Health buff to 80 Health, but that was still not enough to make it a thing. The deck has one big minion, C'Thun, as its win condition. While this minion is guaranteed to start in your hand, that may not be an upside in a format where one of the top decks runs Patchwerk. You can see where this is going. If Arfus finds Patchwerk in time and hits your win condition, it is game over. Not to mention that you can get overwhelmed even if they don’t.

With the big Health pool, the deck can win games as long as you do not lose your C’Thun. You can discover Blade of C'Thun for hard removal, and you have Plague of Flames and Swarm of Lightbugs, which can be used as a board clear during the game, or with the 1-cost version of the spell, as a combo finisher with C’Thun itself. The huge Health buff may not have made the deck a meta contender, but it is nowhere near as bad as it was in the beginning.

Changelog

Show Changelog

June 14, 2024

Updated for the June 7 and June 11 Health updates
- Arfus: 25 -> 20 -> 18
- Al’Akir the Windlord: 30 -> 27 -> 25
- The Lich King: 30 -> 27 -> 25
- Kael’Thas Sunstrider: 35 -> 30
- Xyrella: 30 -> 33 -> 32
- Dr. Boom: 50 -> 60
- Guff Runetotem: 40 -> 50
- King Krush: 40 -> 45 -> 50
- N’Zoth, the Corruptor: 40 -> 45
- Nozdormu: 35 -> 32
- C’Thun: 45 -> 80
- Arch-Villain Rafaam: 40 -> 45
- Brann Bronzebeard: 35 -> 38

June 7, 2024

The first version of the tier list.

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