Congratulations! Matchup vs Pirate Warrior is pretty stupid, because it mostly depends on how well they draw (if they draw perfectly, you have pretty much no chance to win). If they get a nice early game aggression and then something like an Arcanite Reaper + Upgrade! to finish the game, that’s game over. But if they keep drawing “slow” minions and no finishers, you might have a solid chance to win.

Still, the matchup is like 30/70 in Pirate Warrior’s favor, so it means that if you get lucky enough you might win 10 games in a row, but on average you should be losing more than winning.

I’d say that Patches is a better craft, as it fits into more decks right now. However, on the other hand, Leeroy is a safer craft, because the Pirates might see a nerf relatively soon (probably the Small-Time Buccaneer not Patches, but it’s an indirect nerf to Patches too).

I don’t think that completely giving up board control and trying to stall is good. Given how many high health minions Priest has (including PW:S and Talonpriest buffs), you won’t AoE them down too easily. Flamestrike often does nothing against Priest’s board.

Of course, I didn’t mean that you want to waste resources. For example, throwing Ooze into Wyrmrest Agent would be a bad idea, because it gets killed for free. My point was to try to answer the minions right away, Frostbolt this, Torch that, FIreball/Polymorph something else. If you let Priest develop the board, you won’t win it unless you get really lucky with something like Blizzard + Doomsayer that goes off.

Stall tactic is good after you clear some minions, if you don’t, there will be too much pressure on the board. Even a simple 1 -> 4 curve (Whelp, Wyrmrest Agent, Talonpriest, Twilight Guardian) is 10 damage already. For example, Reno is a great stall tool, but if you’re facing 15 damage on turn 6, it won’t really do that much.

Anyway, I think that we can agree that this matchup is horrible and pretty much no tactic works well.

It’s hard to say, you most likely want to play another big threat like Ragnaros or the Medivh you mentioned. While we’re at it, if you don’t have Antonidas, I’d also replace Emperor Thaurissan with Sylvanas (if you have it) – Thaurissan is used mostly to make Antonidas/spells cheaper so you can combo those better. Without Anton, I’d say that Sylvanas should be better.

Well, Mistress of Mixtures is one of the flex spots and Bully fits nicely into this deck. I love the Coin combo with Antonidas. However, it mostly depends on how many Pirate Warriors and Aggro Shamans you face – Mistress is just so much better against those, because if you drop her on t1 there is a nice chance that she will answer the Small-Time Buccaneer.

Hard question honestly, because there is no direct replacement.

If you prefer to keep the deck stronger in slow matchups, you might remove 2 more cards and go for the Leeroy combo instead.

And if you want to tech against Shaman, which is very popular right now, I’d go for Soulfire. Jaraxxus is rarely necessary against Aggro and you should win games against Midrange without Jaraxxus too, however the current Midrange Jade versions are really heavy on Jade synergies (late game value) and Jaraxxus is also powerful.

Sorry, I don’t add readers 🙁 I did share my battletag at some point and my friend list was constantly full because of that. I had to remove people every now and then and I don’t like doing that, so I’ve decided to not invite at all.

Wait, how? You should be easily favorite against Control Warrior. The matchup is like 65/35 in Mage’s favor. You play the value game and you should win most of the time. Keep big removal for their Ysera/Ragnaros/whatever they play, keep Ooze for Gorehowl, outvalue them with Brann + Kazakus combo. You don’t play the burn game, you should outvalue him. The only way for Warrior to win is Elise Starseeker (Golden Monkey), but you should set up Thaurissan on the Antonidas before and when he drops Monkey, you drop Antonidas and get a few Fireballs. It’s not likely that he gets a Legendary that can deal with him (there are only few like Icehowl or 50/50 Rag roll) – with Anton on the board you just kill whatever Legendary he plays. Another way to win vs Golden Monkey is a good 10 mana Kazakus potion. E.g. resurrect 3 minions + summon 8/8 or give them +6 health. Warrior has no Brawl after Monkey so you can easily flood the board. Save some minions for after the Monkey and outtempo the Warrior.

That’s the basic game plan, but you need to tell me what you’re struggling with for me to help.

Yes, Doomsayer can hurt when it comes to Kazakus ress potion. But I still think it’s wrong to not play him. He’s a lifesaver against Aggro, often wins you the games you would lose otherwise, because you force them to give up the t1/t2 pressure and buy enough time to get to your mid game clears, Taunts and heals.

First of all – the deck already plays 8 Dragons 🙂 Whelp, Operative, Twilight Drake, Twilight Guardian, Azure Drake, Book Wyrm, Chillmaw and Ysera. +1 extra from Netherspite Historian

And that’s enough. It’s still very high for a Reno Dragon Priest, because I want to activate the synergies consistently. You can’t put more in a Reno deck simply because there aren’t any other good Dragons you want to play in such a deck. A lot of the lists have been cutting it down to 6, but I think it’s not enough.

You don’t want to play another big Dragon, because the deck has 2 of them already – it would be too greedy to put more. The only extra Dragon you can consider is Faerie Dragon, but it’s not really good in Priest (3/2 stats, you can’t heal it). But there is just not enough space for it. You’d have to play it instead of Ooze or Dirty Rat, and those are much better cards in the current meta.

Yes, it would work. Some people have tested it with pretty solid results in slow matchups. I didn’t include it in my updated list, because it was hard to find a slot for it. However, if you want to run it, you most likely want to cut something like a Forbidden Flame, Mistress of Mixtures or Mind Control Tech. I’d personally go for MCT, but that’s because I don’t really like heavy RNG cards.

You can play Jade Spirit – it will be worse on turn 4, but it has better late game scaling 🙂

There is a new Midrange Jade Shaman build running a lot more Jade synergies. The list does play Jade Spirit and Jade Chieftain, so yes, the card is pretty good.

That’s true – Truesilver is great against Rogue. One of the best answers in the game to t4 Tomb Pillager, which can deal a lot of damage if left unanswered.

I’d go for the Hammer of Wrath. I’ve been trying it recently and it works quite nicely. It’s better against Aggro, because immediate removal is usually stronger. And it can be better against Control if Barnes gives you something weak (like Ivory Knight or even Doomsayer). Barnes is really great if you fetch one of your better minions, but it’s not very consistent, because it can screw your board with Doomsayer.

It was answered in the comments before, but to make the long story short: you want pressure. The best way to win this matchup is to curve out into a big drop after big drop. Druids have hard time answering big minions, if they don’t have Mulch they can’t efficiently kill your Drake or Giant.

If you play a curve like Giant -> Drake -> Emperor Thaurissan -> Ragnaros, you probably win the game.

If you don’t get such a curve, you try to keep the board clear, stay a little bit ahead and stall until Jaraxxus. That’s the second win condition. Jade Druid has almost no burst damage and 6/6 every turn is better than their Jade stuff before the late game (that’s why you want to play it fast, before they can snowball into something like 10/10).

It’s greedy how, exactly? The only strong early game tempo card this build doesn’t run is Soulfire. I have 66% win rate against the Warrior with this build. And like 90% of the Warriors on the ladder are Pirate.

And every Reno deck can lose vs Pirate Warrior before turn 6 if they draw nuts and you draw poor early game.

Baron Geddon itself is most likely not a safe disenchant. However, since it’s a Golden version, if you don’t care about the shiny cards it’s basically a Legendary of your choice and there are definitely better Legends than Geddon (which was only common in CW).

If you’re missing some key Legends and – like I’ve mentioned – you don’t care about golden cards, I’d probably go for it and dust him.

Well, it’s hard, because there is no other card with such an effect. And no other card that works quite well in both Aggro and Control matchups. You can sub one with some anti-Aggro cards like Blood to Ichor and second one with a big threat like Ragnaros or a second Gorehowl (for the Control matchups).

That said, it will be so much harder to win against Control if you can’t pull out some cards from their hand.

Like I’ve mentioned in the guide, the deck has very poralized matchups. There are only a few matchups where CW is 50/50. The deck works really well against fast decks, but sucks against the rest. However, what makes the deck viable in Legend is that current Miracle Rogue is more of a fast than a slow deck and Miracle is SO popular in Legend (I think it’s the #1 deck in terms of popularity right now). Aggro Shaman, Miracle and Pirate Warrior alone are like 45% of the Legend ladder.

Overall on the ladder the deck is like low Tier 3, but in Legend it’s a pretty solid Tier 2.

It’s all about the meta – if Jade and Reno decks become more popular, CW’s rating goes down a lot. And vice versa.