You clicked! Welcome to the first edition of Meme of the Week! Each week, we build a deck around a card that is perceived as... limited in its ability to be useful! The goal is finding a niche (or just a game mode) where it can work. Sometimes we might succeed, sometimes we might fail, but the important part is to at least find something fun to do!
To start us off, we're going to try and make something good with...
Attempt #1: Standard Dragon Warlock
Initially, I made a Standard deck. My first [wrong] assumption was I needed to have a lot of high-cost cards so that having them cost (0) would make the Quest worth running. I decided to go for a weird combo: Dragon Warlock.
As you can see, there were a lot of inadequate cards that existed only for their high-cost "shock value". Swamp Dragon Egg was there just to provide a clutch dragon in case I needed a dragon synergy and did not have one, as well as give access to some of the fancier, class-restricted dragons like Kalecgos.
The crux of the deck consists of: Plot Twist x2, Archmage Vargoth and Augmented Elekk. The dream combo is to play all three of these on the same turn, but playing merely a combination of the two is already enough to do most of the work achieving that 20/20 Quest requirement.
This deck was bad. Dragons were too few and too high-cost to carry the early game, so playing against Mech Hunter or any other aggro deck proved disastrous. I had some success against a few fringe Priest decks, and managed to survive for quite a while against Mech Warrior before I lost, but that silver lining was too thin for me to accept. Thus, it was time to go Wild!
Attempt #2: Wild Dragon Warlock
Now, I don't actively play Wild, however I have quite a decent collection of cool cards, so I copied the deck to Wild and added even more dragon synergy, hoping I would find more success with cards from the dragons' glory days.
Immediately, you can see a lot has changed. The cool dragons arrived (Wrathion, Book Wyrm, Azure Drake, and I even added Rend Blackhand because of my newfound confidence!), as well as a few much-needed switcheroos such as Antique Healbot instead of Deranged Doctor.
Firetree Witchdoctor is a card I never truly acknowledged until I played it in this deck; it was a worthy replacement of Swamp Dragon Egg. Another card I wanted to check out was Vulpera Scoundrel, in hopes that it could sometimes supply a third Plot Twist if I happened to find myself in a game with my gimmick cards stuck at the bottom of the deck (and one of its mystery choices was actually Plot Twist!)
This deck was more effective. "Survivability" went up, and the card cost was slightly better distributed. As usual, Wrathion kept bumping into non-dragon cards, ending his Battlecry on draw 1, but he was still a decent tank. Body Wrapper turned out to be an "Antique Healbot Shuffler Bot", so Aggro decks were a bit easier to fight against.
The trouble was, this still didn't feel like enough. The dragons, even after their upgrades, were too slow and situational to get enough value out of them in a Warlock deck. I had to try something else. I had to improvise. I had to succeed!
Attempt #3: Wild Control-ish Warlock
This is the deck's final form. I fired all the dragons, and went for an even more balanced mana curve. This deck has actually won me some decent match-ups! It's still a bit rough, and there are probably a few more modifications it could undertake (looking at you, Acolyte of Pain), but overall, it ticks the two criteria I am looking for:
- It's fun
- It's somewhat useful!
I really wanted Anubisath Warbringer to work, since he can provide a huge boost in the late game, however he ended up being just too slow. His mana cost would force me to choose between the beautiful upgraded hero power, or a minion with a great Deathrattle, that would most times be silenced or thrown back into my hand. I will miss Rend Blackhand the most, however. When he came out, his reception was not extraordinary. After throwing him into a few decks like vintage Dragon Warrior, it turned out he was actually pretty great! I was hoping to bring him back to his old glory, but - as with the rest of the dragons - he does not fit into a Warlock deck, and legendary cards these days are not the high-stat behemoths they once were; there are better ways to remove them from the board than an 7-cost 8/4 with a requirement on his Battlecry.
Allow me to go over the synergies:
- Bread & Butter of the deck: Supreme Archaeology, Plot Twist x2, Archmage Vargoth, Augmented Elekk
- Cards that round out the Bread & Butter cards: Baleful Banker, Body Wrapper, Portal Keeper, Impbalming, Elise Starseeker
- Cards that help with Draw: Bloodmage Thalnos, Acolyte of Pain, Azure Drake. Harrison Jones
- Cards that benefit from Draw: Diseased Vulture, Fel Lord Betrug
The deck will not properly function without the Bread & Butter cards, and will be much less effective without the ones that round them out.
Replacements
Elise Starseeker: Swap with Arch-Villain Rafaam if you have it, Conjured Mirage to bounce off Augmented Elekk, or Portal Overfiend to speed up the Quest completion. Elise exists in this deck as an alternative win condition. I did not want to put Arch-Villain Rafaam in, for a couple reasons: First being his high cost, while Elise can be played on turn 4 and has decent stats to slow down the opponent for a moment. The second reason relates to their effect. Eventually, they both give the same effect, but the journey they take there is very much different. The deck's main win condition is getting the Quest completed, then ramping up your board with all the free cards and overwhelming the opponent. One of its alternate win conditions is using the Golden Monkey, but given how many gimmicky Legendary cards you can get in Wild, this strategy should be the last you try.
The beauty of Elise is that she shuffles a card into your deck. That can bounce off Augmented Elekk and turn into two cards. Those two cards shuffle another two cards into your deck. Overall, it gives you more cards that draw more cards that draw even more cards. There is a small downside to this, though you should not run into it too often: I had a game with a funky Priest, and he summoned The Lich King. I destroyed him, but then he resurrected two Lich Kings! Those two gave our enemy 2x Death Grip. One of them managed to steal the [Hearthstone Card (Golden Money) Not Found], and eventually, I was beaten with my own deck. So watch out for things like this when you spam your deck with powerful shuffle effects!
Bloodmage Thalnos: This one is hard to replace. We are looking for card draw, however the Spell Damage +1 has been quite useful in some situations. In the end, this deck relies on card draw, so I would suggest the following replacements: Kobold Librarian or Loot Hoarder.
Harrison Jones: Harrison Jones is also tough to replace. His card draw is great, however he is especially useful in Wild, as there are still decks running the Legendary weapons from Kobolds & Catacombs. The best replacement would be Gluttonous Ooze, as any Warlock could use a bit of extra health, but Acidic Swamp Ooze can also be used if your choice is based on budget.
Fel Lord Betrug: Does not have a clear replacement. His main use is infinite removal through his unique effect. Thus, to preserve his use, the following replacements should do the trick: Plague of Flames, only if you have space to add another Impbalming, so you can sacrifice more Worthless Imp, or an upgraded Rafaam's Scheme. Defile can be run but only if there is some manner of beefy Spell Damage minion on the board. Shadowflame can also work, assuming you have a beefy minion willing to take the hit.
Emperor Thaurissan: His purpose in this deck is to twofold, depending on the situation. If you have the wombo combo of Plot Twist, Augmented Elekk and Archmage Vargoth in your hand, he will enable you to play it all on turn 7 for maximum value. His more common use, however, is after the Quest has been completed. The cards you hold in your hand right after you complete the quest will still cost their regular amount. The Emperor can help with playing some of them a lot faster, and reducing the amount of high-cost cards you are left with from the start of turn draw and Discover effects. Maiden of the Lake could be a half-decent replacement, giving you an extra mana to spend each turn after your Hero Power, but Naga Sea Witch could also come in handy. The cards you draw with your upgraded Hero Power will inherently cost (0), so if you have a high-cost card in your hand that you want to play, Naga Sea Witch can facilitate that, after which it may be traded into another minion, opening up whatever cards you collected with your Hero Power. None of these replacements are ideal, so I am curious to see if anyone has some other suggestion in the comments!
Conclusion
Overall, making this deck has been a very interesting experience. Most of my games that I've won was with the regular win-condition of using the Hero Power to keep ramping up the board, so Fel Lord Betrug and Elise Starseeker aren't fully necessary in order to win, though they do prove useful. There were moments when I played Fel Lord Betrug and the opponent did not have a removal ready the next turn, which provided an insane boost to board control and face damage; and while Elise Starseeker seldom found its final purpose fulfilled, her shuffling helped complete the Quest and provided more cards to stave off Fatigue.
I think I might replace Acolyte of Pain with another Augmented Elekk, but I am not sure if it would be valuable enough to make up for it. Let me know if you find it would be more efficient!
That would be all for this week. If you have any suggestion as to which "meme" card should be covered next week (please no Millhouse Manastorm), drop a comment down below and let us know!
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Comments
Supreme Archaeology was (unfortunately) my free legendary so I love this article
I'm a simple man, I see memes, I click.
In wild, if you play Renounce the Darkness right before completing the quest, the hero power will overwrite the hero power given by the card (which is its biggest drawback as you can't live tap anymore). The quest annihilates the drawback and allows to draw a 0 zero mana card every turn for big tempo swings or value bursts if the RNG god is with you (nowhere near competitive ofc but it's another way to play renounce)
I wish I had this deck, I can already make a shuffle/Fel Lord Betrug/Plot Twist warlock with a slighty above average winrate in casual, so I would really like to have the quest for it.
also some of these lists look fun!
Embrace the RNG!
This quest slotted straight into my existing warlock deck which already was designed to draw and shuffle lots of cards. The portal demons are incredible for this deck type.
The only downside is you sometimes end up drawing the portal demon token instead of a regular card, so the next card drawn is not reduced to zero, but overall it's definitely worth it. Saved me quite a few times!
Yea I agree that can happen but it's worth it overall
Guys, don't forget to give him a card to make a deck for next week! :)
I wonder if more cards with a mechanic similar to Aranasi Broodmother could make the Quest a futurable version of Handlock: cards that are high costed, and benefit from the Tome of Origination, but can also do something upon being drawn, that is while you still have to complete the Quest.
Cards that are basically useful in both phases of the game, making the deck stronger against a wider spectrum of matchups.
I think there's definitely potential for something like this; cards that do something upon drawing have been rather scarce (Flame Leviathan, Sea Reaver), but with this Quest, they might have more of a long-term purpose in the game (1.5 years until it rotates out), so adding more cards that do something upon being drawn is probably something they're looking at for next expansion (or, since if I recall, the next expansion's cards are almost locked in already, for next-next-expansion!)
I hope they planned for them already.
As it is, the Quest is basically fun/hardmode for usual Controllock, but i'd craft it immediately if more serious support was provided.
Well, I don’t think you can call every less popular or lower winrate deck a meme deck.
I don’t really see anything „memelike” in this decks.
I recieved this quest as the free quest. And I don't really play warlock but wanted to give it a try. I made a Mecha'thun quest warlock with it. But it lacks some serious survivability
I'm sure the Quest is going to get more support in the future, with more cards that benefit from drawing and shuffling.
eg. Design like Aranasi Broodmother is great, even if the card itself isn't: they give you free benefit on draw, while being high-costed cards that require the Quest to be completed, in order to be efficiently played.
With more support, Questlock could become the future of Handlock.
Riftcleaver is a decent replacement for Rend Blackhand. Even more so in decks where you can fit in Lesser Amethyst Spellstone or lots of healing. You could use Sense Demons as a tutor and also run Aranasi Broodmother, then you are very likely to draw useful cards with it (like Betrug; I have doubts about Portal Keeper though).
Dollmaster Dorian is nice for extra Plot Twist value, plus you can combine it with Voidlord drawn by Plot Twist or Sense Demons or just by luck on a single draw.
I agree with other posters that adding Reno, Kazakus and Zephrys would help a lot. Kazakus and Zephrys are great at finding board clears, while Reno buys you time against aggro. Since you want to be life tapping a lot to find your Plot Twists, Reno is extra useful for this deck.
Is Curse of Rafaam there specifically to defeat Ice Block? Because in general I'd rather run removal like Darkbomb or Spirit Bomb or Demonwrath than hoping to stall an opponent with the curse. And there are anti-secret techs that would be more useful against other classes.
Curse of Rafaam I added for a bit of extra annoyance against Shaman decks heavy on Overload cards, but its more interesting use is how it can be recycled several times if there's an Augmented Elekk + Plot Twist combo while Curse of Rafaam is in hand, or how it can double-proc off Archmage Vargoth and send the opponent into a small panic.
There's not that many cards in the deck that have a lot of value combined with Archmage Vargoth. His main purpose is to give you a second Plot Twist on turn 6, but it felt like he lacked much use outside of that purpose, so Curse of Rafaam was an interesting fit to try. I like decks built around Secrets or other effects that force your opponent to play sub-optimally, and Curse of Rafaam felt like a neat thing to add!
What about Glinda Crowskin? If you can complete your quest and draw a big card with your upgraded hero power, she would allow you to fill your board with copies of it unless I'm mistaken.
As I know form other cards with the echo effect, the discounted cost only applies on the first card played. The other cards afterwards all cost the original mana value.
I don't have Supreme Archaeology myself, but I can confirm that the discount from Emperor or Wilfred Fizzlebang doesn't apply to the echo. Especially Wilfred is almost the same as the quest reward, so it's very likely the discount won't apply to echoes.
Only discounts that aren't tied to a particular instance of a card, like Molten Giant, apply to the echo.