Not really, sorry. The card is really crucial right now – not only the deck plays Small-Time Buccaneer, but Spirit Claws also fight well against the early Pirates from other decks.

I mean, since you NEED another weapon if you want to play Small-Time Buccaneer, you can try Stormforged Axe, but it won’t be even close to Spirit claws. Or you can drop the Pirates and play another 1-drop, like Argent Squire, instead.

I will write an article about Legendaries that are safe to disenchant (including adventure Legends!) next week, so stay tuned 🙂

Wrathion isn’t a great card, and it’s definitely not that good in this list. With only 7 Dragons, the chance that he will draw one is low – most of the time it will just draw 1. Instead, I think that you should add something like Nefarian, Alexstrasza or maybe even Ragnaros. You can also try Forbidden Shaping to add a little flexibility.

Why no Justicar – it’s explained in the article. Most of the Dragon Reno Priest lists (those that hit high Legend ranks) don’t run Justicar, they run Cabal Shadow Priest instead – it’s just better in the current meta. Justicar is too slow against Aggro decks, while Cabal Shadow Priest has an immediate impact. If you feel that Aggro is not a problem and you face more Control, you can play Justicar instead.

Yes, you would want to replace Patches with a second Swashburglar.

And Malygos version would look like that: http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/shtanudachis-pirate-malygos-rogue-december-2016-season-33-mean-streets-gadgetzan/

However, the Maly version is worse in heavy Aggro environment and that’s what we have right now, so I’d stick with the normal version – at least until the meta slows down (probably not this expansion).

No no, those aren’t win rates of Secret Hunter and N’Zoth Rogue. Those are win rates of Dragon Warrior AGAINST those decks. Read the text above the charts.

Blood to Ichor is one of the highest tempo cards in the game when used correctly and in this meta tempo is VERY important + you get a lot of opportunities to use it. 1 mana 2/2 minion that deals 1 damage would be insane and played in every faster deck.

Sure, making your deck more end game heavy is a good option against slow decks, but it will make you much more vulnerable to Aggro, while Blood to Ichor is amazing in those fast matchups.

Well, it’s a matter of matchups you face, honestly. Against faster decks you prefer a 3/5 body spawning 1/1’s 90% of time over Conceal which is usually a dead card. Might prevent a value trade from Aggro sometimes, but you know how rarely they trade against Rogue (the deck with no defensive mechanics whatsoever). This is the deck MrYagut used to hit #1 Legend with, and he’s one of the best Rogue players in the world, so it definitely has its merits.

But you can always sub Violet Teacher for Conceal, like some lists do, both are quite cheap so it shouldn’t be a problem 🙂

I’d say that Kazakus is more important than Jaraxxus right now, unless you face a lot of Priests/Control Warriors. Kazakus is great in every matchup – it’s usually removal/Armor in fast ones and TONS of value in slow ones.

In fast matchup they’re pretty much the same – not only the games are usually over before turn 9, but you play those for healing anyway. If you survive vs Aggro AND heal to 15, you most likely win.

And then in slow matchups, it depends on how much burst they run. Jaraxxus gets better the more people play Priest and Control Warrior (which gets back into the meta, actually!). Alexstrasza is better against stuff like Reno Mage or mirror.

I’m a conservative Warlock player so I’d say Jaraxxus in general. However, one big advantage of Alexstrasza is that it’s hundred times better in the mirror. Jaraxxus is a dead card if you don’t pull out a combo piece with Dirty Rat. Alex is amazing, because it can set up your opponent right into combo range after he Renos.

The trap distribution I would optimally go for in this meta is 2x Explosive, 2x Cat Trick, 1x Bear, 1x Snakes. However, Cat Trick is from Karazhan and Snakes are Epic, so I didn’t include them.

I don’t think that Freezing or Snipe are that strong right now, especially with all the small minions. Patches running into your Freezing or people playing some Pirate 1-drop into the Snipe is a really bad thing 🙁

Oh yeah, you’re right! Huge Toad is from LoE, my mistake, for some reason I thought it was from TGT.

So if you don’t have LoE, play Flame Juggler instead.

Thank you! 🙂

Yes, core cards are necessary, while complementary cards can be somewhat subbed.

I think that giving a couple of suggestions for each of those complementary cards would be really hard to do. Because there are rarely “direct” substitutions – e.g. you sub one charge minion with another charge minion. Usually, subs are much more complicated and depend on the other cards you’re missing too.

Just to give you an example – Reno Mage. Both Inkmaster Solia and Greater Arcane Missiles are in complementary cards. And let’s say that you’re missing Greater Arcane Missiles – now, which card you will pick might depend on whether you have Solia or not. If you do – you can pick another big spell. If you don’t – you might go for some small spell or maybe even something completely different.

The only thing I can do here if you aren’t a great deck builder is to help on the individual basis. If you would tell me which list you want to play and what cards exactly are you missing, then I might be able to help you with the subs.

Those aren’t exactly the meta decks right now. Hunter and Paladin are sitting at extremely low win rates and are pretty much out of the meta. According to Vicious Syndicate, best Hunter deck right now is Secret Hunter, sitting at ~44% win rate across the board. But that’s a lot compared to best Paladin deck – Aggro Paladin, sitting at ~40%. Class representation isn’t much better, between ranks 5-1, Paladin and Hunter sit at about 1.5% representation.. combined.

Sadly, if those are your favorite classes, you will be having a hard time for a while. In both cases, Blizzard has gone all in on the hand buff mechanics and it failed – probably because of the meta being too fast.

However, given how Blizzard seems to give love to the weakest classes after a while, I suspect that just like Priest got some new tools this expansion, those might get better in 2017.

Coldlight isn’t used in many meta decks, it’s mostly used in off-meta/fun decks. For example, it’s a basic card in mill/fatigue decks and it’s sometimes a tech in Aggro decks/Freeze Mage.

Right now I don’t think it’s worth crafting, it’s a much better tech card in slower metas. Right now it’s not used in Freeze Mage, because you basically give Aggro decks more fuel with it. But if you want to play Freeze Mage on budget, Aggro Freeze Mage is the only option and the card is necessary there.

I think that the target audience of such a post would be quite small :p However, I’d say that Reno decks are the most expensive ones right now. A lot of them cost ~10k dust, not to mention all the adventure cards. Oh, and any slow, N’Zoth deck like N’Zoth Warrior or N’Zoth Shaman.

Soggoth is a pretty interesting tech, it’s actually a great Dirty Rat counter. I don’t know if it’s not too slow against Aggro, though. Dropping it is often an auto-win, but turn 9 is really late.

What do you mean by OTK Priest? I haven’t seen any in a few months at least. You’re talking about the Kripp’s list with Spawn of Shadows?

I don’t think that Reno + Dragons is too messy. I won’t argue that the deck is better than non-Dragons Reno, but the power level is very similar. There are enough strong Dragons available to make a working Reno Dragon deck right now.

Like Evident has said, you can find me on reddit. You can also mail me: stonekeephs@gmail.com or send a direct message on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StonekeepHS