Hearthpwn

Hi everyone,

First off, thanks for having a look at this deck. I welcome any constructive feedback, so let me know what you think.

In my opinion, the deck is very difficult to play. You have tons of decisions to make both during the game as well as in the deck building stage. The difficulty of the deck, however is immensely rewarding because the deck is rather flashy as it contains different comeback mechanics and big end game combos. When you play the deck perfectly, you have a chance of winning almost every matchup, however, a single mistake will almost always lose you the game.

Mulligan

Always keep: Fiery War Axe, Beckoner of Evil and Disciple of C'Thun.

Against aggro matchups, you usually want to keep Ravaging Ghoul, definitely if you go first. It's your way out against all the 1 health pirates that are running rampant.

Usually you also want to keep Bloodmage Thalnos, but I would throw it away if you didn't draw any of the above.

As I first started out with the deck, I always tried to keep the combo pieces for removal (Wild Pyromancer, Commanding Shout, Blood To Ichor). This however is not the way to go in my experience. You want to look for the cards described above. The reason for this is that the combo requires a significant amount of mana, plus, ideally you want to use the combo removal for drawing cards as well (which requires cards like Battle Rage, Slam or Acolyte of Pain).

Combos

As this deck is all about combos, both its strengths and its weaknesses revolve around how efficiently you can combine cards to keep yourself alive while speeding up the process to draw into your end game combo.

The removal combo

Generally speaking: Wild Pyromancer + other spells

Your go-to combo is Wild Pyromancer + Commanding Shout + Battle Rage, preferably with some other minion on the board and some missing health on your hero. Obviously, the benefit of this combination is that you can deal a lot of aoe damage, while keeping your own minions alive (albeit vunerable to aoe removal from your opponent's side) and draw a lot of cards in the process. If you can get a big combo like this on a significant board of your opponent, you're in a good spot. This won't often be the case though, you should always be on the lookout for playing partial, tempo gaining combos.

The strength of the deck is not the power of the combos, but the flexibility of those combos. For example: A face warrior with a turn 2 board consisting of N'Zoth's First Mate, Patches the Pirate and Small-Time Buccaneer can be removed very efficiently with Wild Pyromancer + Blood To Ichor. There are tons of ways to combine small damaging aoe's (Wild Pyromancer / Ravaging Ghoul) with other spells (Blood To Ichor, Slam, Execute) to clear an otherwise difficult to clear-board.

Preperatory for end game combos

I guess I shouldn't point this out, but I'll do it just to be exhaustive. You obviously want to play Beckoner of Evil and Disciple of C'Thun before playing Twin Emperor Vek'lor or C'Thun.

Usually, you want to play Emperor Thaurissan on a hand containing Brann Bronzebeard + Doomcaller. If you still have the coin by turn 10, you can also consider playing Emperor Thaurissan when you have Brann Bronzebeard and C'Thun in hand (see end game combos below).

The highest value can come from playing Emperor Thaurissan when you have Brann Bronzebeard + Doomcaller + Grimestreet Informant in hand (that is, if C'thun has died! See below)

End game combos and win conditions

If C'thun has died

You want to play Brann Bronzebeard + Doomcaller to shuffle two new C'Thun's in your deck. Often you want to do this very late in the game as it allows you to play two C'Thun's close to one another, putting immense pressure on your opponent. If you do this when you have no cards left in the deck, you can play two big C'Thun's back to back, which is devestating.

If C'thun has not died

Your opponent will try to make sure C'thun does not die as Hexing, Polymorphing, shuffling it in your opponents deck, etc. will render Doomcaller useless. There are a few ways to go about playing this line.

In case C'thun your opponent is keeping hex, polymorph or Entomb in hand

There are a few ways to play this situation.

The first one is simple, try to pressure the board without C'thun, forcing him to play his removal on something else. You can often do this by foregoing the Brann Bronzebeard + Doomcaller combo and play Brann Bronzebeard + Twin Emperor Vek'lor instead. It's definitely worth it to sacrifice one less C'thun being reshuffled into your deck if this kills of your own C'thun instead of it being polymorphed, hexed or entombed.

Second, if you have the coin, you can play Brann Bronzebeard + C'Thun for 11 mana. When all the C'thun buffing cards have been played (including Doomcaller). This combo is a OTK on an empty board (or with a 2 health minion on it; unless it is Misstress of Mixtures). It's worth noting that C'thun's second battlecry will go of before any deathrattles activate. This is particularly interesting when your opponent has Sylvanas Windrunner on the board. C'thun cannot be stolen before both battlecry's have finished.

Third, you can maximize other cards' value by combining Brann Bronzebeard with C'thun buffing minions and Grimestreet Informant.

Fourth, you can consider a build including Shield Slam to kill off your own C'thun (described below).

Card discussions

Bloodmage Thalnos: As this deck was created with Kolento's Tempo C'thun deck in mind, Thalnos came in as a replacement for Loot Hoarder. I prefer Thalnos because it adds to the strength of the deck, combo flexibility. Remember though, that you often want to use it simply to draw another card. You should not hold on to Thalnos unless you have a clear idea why you want to keep it.

Grimestreet Informant:

I added in this card because it fits with the general idea of the deck; flexibility. Grimestreet Informant can simply be used as a two-drop in aggro matchups when you have little else to play. This puts something on the board (which is significant considering you have a lot of little damage spells/minions) and allows you to draw into something more helpful. Another very important aspect of this card is that it definitely makes the deck more fun! In aggro matchups, your most significant replacement is for this card is Ancient Shieldbearer.

Against control matchups this card could potentially be your second win-condition (see above; 'end game combos and win conditions'). Grimestreet can be replaced by any battlecry card that creates a new win condition. The downpart of not using Grimestreet as a win condition, but another battlecry, is the increased mana cost of all the other significant battlecry minions (Reduced mana on Grimestreet Informant, Brann Bronzebeard and Doomcaller creates high value and = 10 mana; see above: 'End game combos and win conditions'). Possible replacements are 9 mana battlecry cards because they can combo strongly with reduced mana cost on Brann Bronzebeard are Nefarian and Arch-Thief Rafaam. Both cards (can) create new win conditions.

Other considerations are Crazed Worshipper and to leave out Doomcaller. However, I have too little data on this to give an informed opinion.

Gnomish Inventor: Because the Loot Hoarders most often get killed without getting an attack in, I looked for another replacement (another reason for adopting Thalnos by the way). I consider putting in Gnomish Inventor my most significant contribution to this deck archetype. It still helps you draw through your deck faster and it's a rather sticky minion, both due to its limited threat (low attack) and its strong trading potential against a lot of aggro decks. When left on the board, it can often aid you in drawing more cards through Battle Rage, which isn't possible with Loot Hoarder since it cannot be damaged.

Matchups (needs to be completed)

Jade druids are a horrible matchup for this deck. The deck is about speeding up the game while clearing your opponents board, but druids hardly play anything the first few turns and are simply glad to remove your disciples and beckoners with their hero power or wrath. Your removal combos are also very vunerable to swipe. Your best chance seems to be some early pressure coming from beckoner of evil and to try and speed up the game without battle rage (so you want to be looking for Thalnos, gnomish inventor and your blood to ichor + acolyte combo).

A hidden strength

This deck has a very high chance of being misread as a control C'thun warrior. I have litteraly faced zero Tempo C'thun warriors in the past year.

Other tips and tricks

Use Acolyte of Pain with Blood To Ichor to draw faster.

Be careful of overdrawing! You will more than once find yourself in a position where you can potentially overdraw. If you can fill up your own hand and only burn one card on your next turn, it is usually worth the risk. However, because Acolyte of Pain in combination with your go-to removal combo (see above) can draw you a crazy amount of cards, plus given that your Acolyte won't die due to Commanding Shout, you're in for a world of pain when your opponent makes your C'thun get discarded by overdrawing.

When you play against this deck consider that you can create another polymorph of ofKazakus!

Alternative deck builds

If you want to include shield slam into the deck to kill of your own C'thun, then the deck changes quite significantly. In my opinion, you want to at least include one Ancient Shieldbearer (probably instead of Grimestreet Informant). I would also advice to include both Shield Block's (instead of Bloodmage Thalnos and Gnomish Inventor). You can find the alternative deck build as I envision it here. Notice that this alternative deck build can be considered dimensionally. You can play around with including one Shield Block and one Shield Slam. It's up to you to find out what you're most comfortable with!

Update - stats

Thanks for reading!

Lunarion