I greet you.

Welcome back to another week of Meta Breaker, everybody! Descent of Dragons dropped last week, and we've already got a substantial set of nerfs to one of the most meta-dominant decks to date, Galakrond Shaman. Thanks to those, we've got basically a brand-new meta taking shape over the next couple of days. For those new to Meta Breaker, here's a summary of the talking points I usually cover each week:

  • Analyzing the current meta and choosing what deck(s) we'd like to target.
  • Assessing the strong and weak points of our target(s).
  • Identifying cards and strategies that may prove effective against our target(s).
  • Building an initial version of our deck and trying it out against the field.
  • Continually refining the decklist using observations and statistics taken from test games.

A Whole New World

So as I said above, it almost feels like an entirely new meta with the nerfs to Galakrond Shaman. Although I didn't get as much time as I wanted to play the set during release week, I still could not miss the unmistakable, meta-warping dominance of the deck. Now that the deck's been significantly weakened (and it has - the nerfs were quite substantial), lots of people are trying new decks in the next couple days, and we've got a pretty wide-open meta to attack.

That said, there was a quite strong deck that played second fiddle during Shaman's week of absolute dominance - Deathrattle Rogue. Now that Shaman's been taken down a peg; I expect Deathrattle Rogue to come back in full force. The good news is that this deck's got much more linear gameplay that's easier to exploit - let's figure out how!

Standard- Necrium Warbringer Rogue
A Deathrattle Rogue Deck created by . Last updated 4 years, 11 months ago
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As always, we'll ask some big questions to get a deeper understanding.

How does this deck win?

Deathrattle Rogue is essentially a combo deck- using the newly-released Necrium Apothecary, they get the Deathrattle from Anubisath Warbringer for 5 mana cheaper than usual. As you might imagine, that's pretty strong, especially when they can copy that massive handbuff with Necrium Blade and Necrium Vial. From there, winning is pretty trivial- they play their enormous minions, regain control of the board, and smash your face in. Of course, this game plan only works when they draw Necrium Apothecary- the bad news, though, is that they run lots of cheap card draw to cycle through their deck and find it quickly. And as soon as they find the Apothecary, the clock starts ticking. You've got two, maybe three turns before their minions are Godzilla-sized and stomping all over the board.

How does this deck lose?

As mentioned above, the deck's main plan is entirely focused on Necrium Apothecary. If they don't draw the card in time, the deck really doesn't do much- it's just a bunch of random cheap dudes. Against an aggressive deck that presents a quick clock, there's not much they can really do besides draw cards and hope to get lucky and draw it quickly. Another thing to note is that Warbringer's Deathrattle is only effective if they've got a bunch of minions in their hand. Against an aggressive matchup, they may have to use too many cheap minions to contest the board, lessening the impact of the Apothecary even if they do draw it.

So essentially the takeaway from this analysis- Rogue's nut draws are so powerful, it's not really worth trying to beat them in their best draw scenario. Instead, we should build our deck to focus them down as quickly and punish all of their suboptimal draws. In the long run, that should lead to much more success on the ladder.

The Core

I'd like to start our deck out with a solid package for an aggressive strategy from the Descent of Dragons expansion. I'm talking, of course, about Galakrond Warrior! Let's start with our obvious core:

  • Galakrond, the Unbreakable - Gamebreaking card when you manage to fully Invoke it. Drawing 4 cards and adding +16/+16 worth of stats is a massive play when you're ahead, and you can also immediately swing in for 8 if you have mana for a Hero Power. We want to play as many Invoke cards as possible to enable this.
  • 2 Ritual Chopper - 4 damage up front is great for just 2 mana, and the extra ping is nice for early board control.
  • 2 Awaken! - Although we're mostly playing this for the Invoke, it's nice to have a bit of AoE in an otherwise mostly minion-based deck. This card really helps us out against the more swarmy strategies like Shaman, Paladin, and even Rogue.
  • 2 Devoted Maniac - This card synergizes with a couple more cards that we're going to be including, but doing 2 + 3 damage to different targets is totally fine for 4 mana.
  • 2 Shield of Galakrond - This one's the weakest Invoke for our strategy, but we still want to include it to help max out that Galakrond.
  • 2 Scion of Ruin - This card's quite insane- I think it's been flying under the radar a bit because of the ridiculousness of Shaman, but I fully expect to see some complaints on Reddit about this card in the next couple weeks. In fact, our deck's going to be focused on enabling this card as much as possible!
  • 1 Kronx Dragonhoof - We all know how busted this card is.

Building Galakrond decks is a little easier than usual because there are a ton of cards that are basically auto-includes- but I find Galakrond Warrior particularly interesting because there are many different interlocking synergies and directions you could take the strategy. Our goal for this one, though- bring out some low-curve damage, board control, and burst. In particular, I'm gonna focus on enabling this card as much as possible:

Scion of Ruin Card Image

Me and the Boys After I Clone Myself Twice

  • 2 Tasty Flyfish - Although this card might cause some head-scratches at first, it's by far the most consistent way Warrior has to buff up Scion of Ruin. All you gotta do is run this guy out on turn 2, trade him off, and you've got 3 5/4 Rushers set up for only 3 mana on a future turn. We're going to make a conscious choice not to run any other Dragons, partially because they don't fit super well in this strategy and partially to make sure the buff hits a Scion of Ruin.
  • 2 Town Crier - Tutors for Scion. Can also get your Devoted Maniac. Also fits really well on our curve, as we're currently lacking stuff to drop turns 1-2.
  • 1 Barista Lynchen - This card is how we win the value game against control decks in cases when we aren't able to just SMOrc them down. Since Scion of Ruin creates 2 copies of itself that are also Battlecry minions, Scion into Barista gives you three more Scions in your hand- each of which will spawn two more Scions when you play it- that's an insane number of value and board control for an 8-mana 2-card combo. I loved doing this with Barista + Crystal Stag back in January, and now we've got a version of that combo that's much easier to execute! Barista also copies many more minions in the deck- stay tuned!

Oh Look, Another History Buff Deck

  • 2 History Buff - Yep, my love for the History Buff has not ceased- we happen to have another deck that plays a lot of minions and wants to buff up minions in your hand! It's a perfect fit. We're not going to be able to abuse him to the extent that, say, my Handbuff Zoo deck did, but for this deck we only need a couple buffs to make Scion of Ruin insane- a little goes a long way.
  • 2 Livewire Lance - You can buff this weapon up with Invoke to attack for 5, which is quite nice. It's also a great card in a vacuum- dealing 4 damage and making 2 Lackeys is great for 3 mana. Lackeys are great in this deck- they fill out our curve, they get copied by Barista, and they give us either tempo or card advantage.
  • 2 EVIL Quartermaster - Why not more Lackeys? This guy's really great to Coin out versus other aggro decks- he gives you a little buffer and trades with their early plays, and he comes out early enough to pressure versus control as well.

Odds/Ends

  • 2 Eternium Rover - I do suspect the meta will be filled with a bunch of other aggro decks trying to run over Shaman and Rogue- Eternium Rover on turn 1 is basically a free win versus any aggro deck, especially Hunter. It's also pretty nice to handbuff as well.
  • 2 Kor'kron Elite - This card helps us close out the game after landing a big Galakrond. Handbuffing him lets us go face for 9 damage potentially, and he also does some nice SMOrcing if you run him out on turn 4.
  • 2 Faceless Corruptor - Yes, he was just nerfed, but even the 4/4 version in this deck is quite good. First of all, if we're handbuffing him, who cares that he's got 1 less Attack? Second of all, we've got lots of Lackeys running around that would love to be transformed into 4/4s (Dark Pharaoh Tekahn says what's up). He's also got Rush for Town Crier and plays well with Barista.
  • 1 Batterhead - The final slot I put in here is another Rush minion to get fetched by Town Crier. He also takes handbuffs quite well, and can clear entire aggro boards by himself and live to tell the tale. This could certainly be another card, but I find that he's usually a pretty solid turn 8 play as many other decks in this meta like to flood the board.

So let's check out how the deck looks all together!

Meta Breaker #9 - Galakrond Handbuff Warrior
A Galakrond Warrior Deck created by . Last updated 4 years, 11 months ago
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And here's how we fared on the ladder:

Meta Breaker Week 9 Stats

Takeaways

Well, first of all, it's noteworthy that we didn't play against a single Deathrattle Rogue! I played these games out the same day of the nerfs, so it's possible we'll see more people playing that type of deck in the coming days. Overall, though, we did quite well against the large variety of decks we faced. I was particularly impressed with Barista- the combo with Scion of Ruin gives you SO much value for very cheap. Our weaknesses seem to be large Taunts (Dragon's Pack / Anubisath Defender) and AoE removal (Hagatha's Scheme). Other than those, though, I'm fairly confident in this deck's viability going forward. And the good news is, there's a ton of different directions we could go depending on the meta (probably replacing the Lackey package):

  • We could go more heavily into Dragon synergies. Emberscale Drake and Deathwing, Mad Aspect could replace the Lackey package and give us a better top of the curve. Warmaster Voone in particular seems great- copying more Scions in our hand even retains the buffs!
  • Warrior still has great Mech-based tools- Zilliax fits perfectly into this deck, and we can replace the Lackey package with some additional Mechs like Hot Air Balloon and Vicious Scraphound if we'd like to go with a lower curve.
  • If we want to go all-in on handbuffs, we still have the Taunt buffers from Saviors of Uldum. Tomb Warden, Into the Fray, and [Hearthstone Card (Armegadillo) Not Found] are still pretty great cards, and make a solid core for a controlling Galakrond Warrior. We could even combine this with the Mech package- Zilliax and Bronze Gatekeeper are Magnetic Taunts that receive handbuffs quite well.

That's all for this week of Meta Breaker, folks. What did you think of today's deck, and how would you improve it? What decks have you been using to help define the fresh new meta? Let us know in the comments.