Hearthpwn

EDIT: On the first night of playing, this deck went 19-4 for an 83% winrate from rank 3 to legend. The 4 losses consisted of 3 aggro shamans and one renolock.

Hi, I’m changmas#1212, a 7-time legend player, often with a good, old-fashioned zoo. Many people think that zoo will be much weaker as cards like Implosion, Enhance-O-Mechano, Piloted Shredder, and Dr. Boom rotate out of standard, and staples of the deck such as Knife Juggler received nerfs. But I think Zoo (specifically a token/tempo based version) will be stronger than ever, mainly on the back of one card: Sea Giant.

With the nerfs to BGH, the biggest natural enemy of the Sea Giant has been neutered. With Sea Giant routinely available at a cost of 2 or 3 mana, sometimes even lower, it forces your opponent to spend roughly 5 mana to remove an 8/8 minion which you spent even less to play. Meanwhile, the tempo-based tokens of the deck will slowly beat down your opponent.

As far as general strategy goes….try to trade as efficiently on board using cards like abusive sergeant, dire wolf alpha, defender of argus, gormok, or brann with any of those cards. During this time, you should be looking to get Sea Giant out as soon as possible, and pumping up Darkshire Councilman’s attack as much as possible. Once you’ve either gotten a massive Darkshire Councilman or a Sea Giant, you should be pushing as much damage to face as possible + looking for your Leeroy or Power Overwhelmings to end the game as quickly as possible.

As far as the deckbuilding itself goes, I’ve started with the shell of a Brann Bronzebeard zoo deck, and built in some of the new cards. To elaborate on some of my newer choices…

Forbidden Ritual: Curve-filler. Great Synergy with Dire Wolf Alpha, Knife Juggler, Gormok, and absolutely insane synergy with Sea Giant. Since Forbidden Ritual summons 1 minion per each mana it spends (the exact same mana cost reduction that Sea Giant gets), every time you can play Sea Giant, you could also play Forbidden Ritual -> Sea Giant for the same mana cost (assuming you have board space) and get however many 1/1s out of it.

Possessed Villager: Stickiest 1 mana minion out there. Better synergy with Power Overwhelming and Dire Wolf Alpha than Argent Squire

Darkshire Councilman: With the potential to summon tons of 1/1 tokens off of Imp Gang Boss or Forbidden Ritual, this could easily be a 4/5 on the following turn. If you have a Posessed Villager or Imp Gang Boss on the board before you play this and are able to trade afterwards, it can instantly be a 2/5.

The Black Knight: With nerfs to silence, and the stickiest taunt in the game (Sludge Belcher) out of Standard, the Black Knight is ready to rumble. It’s potentially the best tempo card in the entire game depending on what it kills. Can kill…Senjin, Cyclopian Horror, Fen Creeper, Sunwalker, Druid of the Claw, Twin Emperors, Ancient of War, or Soggoth. I’d expect to see at least one major taunt in every midrange/control deck and this will ruin anyone’s day.

As for cards I didn’t pick, but you might want to experiment with:

Reliquary Seeker: It’s the perfect addition to a token deck that can routinely hit 6 minions on board and has great synergy with Brann. However, it’s very underwhelming to play a vanilla 1/1 and will do nothing if you fall behind whatsoever. Look for it off of a Peddler if you have board control or are approaching 6 minions on board.

Void Terror: Great synergy with Power Overwhelming, but doesn’t look so great without it after the rotation of Nerubian Egg to wild mode.

Doomguard: Great stats, bad battlecry. Given that this is a lower curved zoo deck without Dr. Boom, we’re looking to finish the game or massively swing tempo with a higher costed card, while Doomguard is better at trading. I prefer Leeroy + however many Power Overwhelmings that can’t be discarded. If you heavily prefer Doomguard for more of a board-centric deck, consider removing a Dire Wolf Alpha and Leeroy for your 2 Doomguards.