Hearthpwn

Hey guys,
my IGN is Blackpony, playing Hearthstone for quite some time now and creating my first guide right here and now. :)

Many people are just playing strong and fast decks to crush the ladder (Hunter/Zoolock).
Playing control decks, enjoying the game itself and making some plays,results in  building a huge amount of Decks and figuring out some combinations, synergies and fresh ideas to create some fun and strong (mostly control style) decks.
Quite a lot of these creations found their way into the meta at some stage of the game,
so I decided to give it a try and create a small guide towards one of my favorite deck variants.
This first guide is going to present a variant of the good old Highlander Warlock featuring Dragons.
This deck is not going to include some breaking new mechanics out of Kharazan library, but it’s showing one of my favorite deck archetypes with a touch of fire and claws. :)

Overview:
This deck contains the classic highlander combo to keep up HP, while playing the  Handlock synergies with  powerful cards from Warlock class and the Dragon minions from Blackrock to control the Board vs aggressive decks and winning control Matchups.

Experienced Handlock/Renolock players can decide to ignore the first part about playing the Renolock archetype or keep reading to refresh the mechanic memory.

Handlock and Renolock:

There are a lot of guides to Renolock and Handlock out there, so this guide is featuring only the raw basics (if u want to read more detailed guides, just watch around Hearthpawn or ask me in the comments below):

Handlock:
Handlock is using the awesome “Lifetap” Heroe Power to get a strong hand around 8-9 cards and playing some synergy minions in midgame to lategame, dominating the lategame using the Taunt-up-minions to create a defensive wall out of big minions.
It’s pretty common to play Handlock lategame hovering around 10 HP, leaving the enemy only topdecking and two 8/8 taunts on ur board.

The Winning condition: Outvalue the enemy with big minions, keep up the powerplay with “Lifetap”.

The classic Handlock minions:

Sunfury Protector / Defender of Argus: Taunting up big minions and countering charge finisher.

Earthen Ring Farseer / Refreshment Vendor: Keeping urself alive in the midgame and getting some Bodies on the board to trade/ taunt up in an emergency

Twilight Drake / Mountain Giant: Minions with synergy towards the massive amount of cards in hand and the bodies  ready to taunt up through the game.

Emperor Thaurissan: Everybody loves green mana costs and some nice combo potential for Lord Jaraxxus into “Inferno” heroe power

Demonwrath /Twisting Nether / Shadowflame / Siphon Soul: Boardclears at all stages of the game and hardremoval for big threads like C'Thun / N'Zoth the Corruptor turns

Faceless Shambler: Usually follow up to a big minion to create another big taunt wall, but personally considered  very unreliable (still a nice combo if used in one turn with a cheap Mountain Giant or lategame Infernal ).

Renolock:

Renolock features the strong health reset from Reno Jackson.
Obviously the Warlock “Lifetap” drains a lot of HP, but keeps fueling the Warlock gameplay.
Zoolocks abuse the heroic to keep up the board swarm and finish the game fast enough to ignore the low HP, Handlock is refueling synergy minions and the options, a massive amounts of handcards can offer, to stop the enemy from dealing face-damage.
Renolock is just going to get a lots of cards, drawing answers to enemy threads or digging towards winning conditions, abusing Reno Jackson to stay alive, “tanking” enemy damage and win the lategame.

Winning conditions:

Classic highlander:Leeroy Jenkins into Overwhelming Power and Faceless Manipulator for 20 charge damage into face (triggering Emperor Thaurissan at least for one combo piece).

N'Zoth the Corruptor: Strong deathrattle minions (Cairne Bloodhoof/ Sylvanas Windrunner) throughout the game and getting a deadly Board after all the clears are gone.

C'Thun: Strong minions throughout the game and lategame battlecry clear/face damage into huge minion.

Since Reno Jackson leaves u with only one copy of each card, the deck need to play very carefully and take the time to think about the best play.
Seriously take urself all the time The Rope offers, sometimes using heroe power from 3 HP down to 1 HP can get u reno vs a Facehunter or Siphon Soul vs giant C'Thun.

Renolock and Handlock archetypes featuring decks with huge potential for plays, fun and crazy wins in all matchups, but require experience in playing, knowledge of enemy decks and own deck.
New players to this deck archetype might read some full guides, since this guide just features the basics of the archetypes and cards used.

Bonus: Lord Jaraxxus: Crazy card. Second 15 HP-Pool, awesome heroic and a fancy demonic weapon Blood Fury , used as lategame savior for surviving Fatique matchups or value tool to pressure enemies with giant minions and weapon clears. Awesome combo potential with Emperor to get instant 6/6 Infernal .  Deserves a full chapter in every developed Control-Warlock guide.

Finally the Dragon part:
Every deck needs a winning condition. Winning condition nowadays are mostly granted by Old Gods featuring a 10 Mana lategame turn, fast gameplay to overwhelm the enemy in early to midgame or playing some One-Turn-Kills ( Raging Worgen/Leeroy Jenkins ).
After playing quite a lot of games and keeping track of the decisive moments, some conclusions are getting obvious:

Old god turns are pretty obvious after u played a lot of deathrattles/ C'Thun minions.
Most of the Meta decks including a way to counter this plays, for example assume Warrior decks:
Brawl into N'Zoth the Corruptor
Slam and Execute into C'Thun
“Armor up” vs Charge or OTK

A decent player will keep at least one possibility to remove winning conditions.

After playing all the archetypes listed above and getting outcountered by control decks or rushed down to zero HP by fast decks, digging for my Old God or Leeroy combo, some change was needed.
 
The conditions are pretty clear:
-Some midgame power to stay alive or even ahead of midrange decks and getting down pressure in control matchups.
-Getting a strong lategame to just outvalue the opponent (Handlock style) and winning vs control matchups
-Creating some synergy to get ahead of the enemy and crush him in the end

Here comes the Dragon Part ( now for sure):
Given the basic body of Renolock and creating lategame win featuring  Lord Jaraxxus and Handlock cards, the dragons are powering up the midgame and getting some unique mechanics into play:

Blackwing Technician: Strong 3 mana drop, getting boosted by dragons towards 4 mana Stats.

Imp Gang Boss: One of the strongest Warlock minions and another 3 mana drop towards midgame.

Spellbreaker: Silence Sylvanas Windrunner ,Cairne Bloodhof,Tirion Fordring and all the annoying Deathrattles and dangers like Frothing Berserker.

Twilight Drake: Powerful Handlock card with dragon synergies.

Twilight Guardian: Strong taunt to keep aggressive decks at bay and creating another charge block.

Azure Drake: Strong drop, circle card and get some spell damage to boost Shadow Bold, Demon Wrath and Mortal Coil. Can be exchanged for Drakonid Crusher.

Blackwing Corruptor: Good synergies, comes in handy to clear out 3 HP drops or get them in range to clear/trade.

Volcanic Drake: Twisting Nether into free minion, enough said.

Ragnaros the Firelord: Pressure drop for lategame and some crazy clear/lethal potential including RNG fun. Can be exchanged for everyones most favorite pressure card ;)

Alexstrasza: Lifebinder is lifesaver in some situations and can be used to get ur enemy down to 15 HP. Strong card in Fatique game too. Can be paired with Drakonid Crusher to get massive pressure on slower enemies.

Chromaggus: Did everyone forgot about this guy(s)? Decent body including a unique effect, usually difficult to exploit since the body have to survive to get a free (and potentially awesome) card or the deck needs to play Thaurissan on some Carddraw sometimes earlier in the game.
Where the heck do we get a 2 mana card draw without using some otherwise dead minions ?
Coincidence we play a dragon-themed warlock deck based on abusing “Life tap” to get a massive amount of hand cards. 

Chromaggus just give u the edge to win a game at 10 mana granting at least a second copy of a strong card.
Since we can only run one copy of everything, this synergy is just winning games. Imagine the possibilities to draw at least one double card and get double Twisting Nether to just crush the finishing N'Zoth the Corruptor turn the enemy relies on to win the game.
Even the simple cards are really strong using a second copy, abusing the dragon synergy can get big bodies on the board, getting closer to the winning condition of overwhelming the enemy in late game.
Changing Chromaggus for Ysera provides a free card too ;)

Conclusion:
Always remember: Be patient !
Mostly the deck just wins by getting heavy pressure towards the enemy or countering his winning moves.
Even control decks are going to struggle clearing out the powerful minions.
Sometimes the deck just win dropping Ragnaros the Firelord and watching the enemy struggle to remove it due to dragons baiting the removals in the midgame.
Given the case, all removals and safety measures are really needed at the early stages of the game and all answers towards the big turn are gone, playing “early” Lord Jaraxxus is going to pressure down any opponent in a few turns. Turns out even more devastating playing Alexstrasza the following turn into some 6/6 Infernals hunting for face. :)

Please leave some comments and feel free to suggest changes towards the deck or the guide. But keep in mind to choose the minions/dragons u feel safe playing or just like for some personal reason (going to miss Big Game Hunter).

Mulligan section can be added, but is not gonna be much differerent from usual Renolock Mulligan ( might keep ur strong drops around 3 mana to 4 mana, handlock cards vs control and always keep the low mana clears versus aggressive decks)

PS: I am from Germany so pls ignore all my language related mistakes. ;)

EDIT: After some ladder games Big Game Hunter replaced the double safety Alexstrasza
Big Game Hunter seems way to strong versus Flamewreathed Faceless & co. Alexstrasza looses impact since Lord Jaraxxus represents the lategame saviour and u rarely meet ultrasustained decks in the current meta around the mostly aggressive Kharazan cards.
Another replacement currently tested: Youthful Brewmaster replaced Azure Drake.
Epic "Shadowstep" plays, abusing Reno Jackson and taunt-up minions.

Update: First 30 games on Ladder including sick winning streak saturday and bad luck sunday ( never play tired ! ). Starting Rank 16 towards  Rank 11 and back to Rank 12.
Total: 18 W - 12 L (60 %)

Most played matchups so far: