Wild Hearthstone has thousands of cards, and a wide variety of possible decks. This incredible deck diversity is sometimes lost when only looking at the few decks common in the highest ranks. Wednesday, the Wildest of Days is a series aiming to highlight a different off meta deck each week with an in depth guide into its strategy and gameplay. The decks are selected for having interesting synergies and using rarely seen cards.
The new miniset brings us Edwin, Defias Kingpin. This deck goes all-in on him, trying to get him to 30/30 stats or higher and give him stealth with Conceal to lead to a win the following turn. Incredibly, if you draw well, you can actually have a larger than 30/30 Edwin on turn 1. This is a very highrolly deck, and it only has one win condition, but there is something very enjoyable about seeing a huge 40/40 Edwin on turn 4 or 5, and you can get this sort of result quite often. If you like decks with high impact miracle turns, where you have to draw and play a lot of cards quickly for an awesome effect, this deck's playstyle might be for you.
Now, let's get into a guide on playing the deck. It's going to go through major overarching strategies to keep in mind, how to mulligan, gameplay tips on key synergies, and card choices.
Strategies
This deck has one strategy, called Edwin, Defias Kingpin.
Edwin - The only strategy you are going to go for with this deck is setting off a miracle turn with Edwin where you draw a ton of cards, maybe even your entire deck, to give him 30/30 or more in stats and Stealth (if it's a bit less you can still win using spells and small minions, or by attacking 2 turns in a row if your opponent doesn't have removal). Early game, you're just going to draw and use your opening hand's removal and minions to try to stall for a few turns until you can get your Edwin going to set up lethal.
This deck can win against any deck if it highrolls, and lose to any deck if it lowrolls. It's very mulligan and draw dependent, but it's fun to see it go off and give you a win.
Mulligans
Keep Captain's Parrots.
Keep Edwin, Defias Kingpin unless you have a Captain's Parrot.
Keep a Shadowstep if you have Edwin, Defias Kingpin or a Captain's Parrot.
If you do have a Captain's Parrot or Edwin, Defias Kingpin in hand, keep any 1 cost cards and mulligan away your 0 cost cards to try and get the 1 and 2 cost cards out of your deck and into your hand. This is going to increase the chance that your Edwin miracle turn will be successful. The exception is don't keep both copies of Kindling Elemental since the second one played will cost 0.
Gameplay
Before you play Edwin, Defias Kingpin you want to try to clear the deck of "high" cost cards - meaning everything costing more than 0. You want the overall cost of your deck to be as low as possible so you can draw it all or most of it during your miracle turn. To do this the mulligan is important as is using Secret Passage.
Below are gameplay tips regarding many of the synergies in this deck and how to use them effectively.
Deck Cost Minimization
One thing you can do to minimize the overall deck cost, which is crucial for making your Edwin miracle turns more consistent, is using Secret Passage to play 1 cost cards and Captain's Parrots from your deck. You don't actually want to play 0 cost cards, it's better to keep them in the deck to have a higher chance of getting 0 cost cards during your Edwin turn. The exception is if you need tempo on board to survive.
Helpless Hatchling can be played during a miracle turn, and then if you a draw a Captain's Parrot during it and are forced to play it, you can destroy Helpless Hatchling with something like Backstab and reduce the cost of the Captain's Parrot by 1.
The first Kindling Elemental you play will make the second one be a 0 cost card.
Edwin Miracle Turn
Captain's Parrots are guaranteed to draw Edwin, Defias Kingpin and so are key to the consistency of this deck.
If you have Shadowstep, you can play Edwin, Shadowstep him, then play the card Edwin drew. His battlecry will keep going and you can keep drawing and playing cards, and Edwin will handbuff himself while in your hand. Then next turn, you can play him for just 2 mana and do your actual miracle turn. Doing this setup makes it a lot easier to be able to draw through the entire deck early on and buff him to 30/30 or higher.
To prevent your 0 cost minions from filling up the board and running out of board space, you can use your own removal spells or Shadowstep on them.
Make sure to play any Counterfeit Coins and Preparations in hand first if you are forced to play a Secret Passage during an Edwin turn.
The miracle turn can take time, so start playing as soon as your turn starts and play quickly.
Keep in mind what cards you have left in your deck, usually you don't want to start the miracle turn if you don't see any immediate threats on the board. If you have Shadowstepped Edwin or have coins and Preparations in hand, or have drawn lots of 1 cost cards or Captain's Parrots, then it's going to be more likely for Edwin to be very large if you start your miracle turn even if you are at low mana like 4 or 5. If you still have both Captain's Parrots in the deck, that's an overall 4 mana so don't start your miracle turn in that case unless you feel you have to go for it or risk losing in the next 2 turns.
Card Choices
This section is going to go through the main packages of cards in the deck. Each package has cards that help the deck with a specific goal. When playing the deck, it's useful to know what purposes each card serves and what other cards in the deck have synergy with it or help achieve the same purpose. This section might also be useful if you're interested in the reasoning for why each card was included in the deck.
0 Cost
You want 0 cost cards to keep the overall deck cost as low as possible to be able to draw more of the deck more consistently on your Edwin turns. Some key cards from here are Counterfeit Coin and Preparation to be able to keep the miracle turn going even if you draw some 1 cost cards, and Shadowstep which can be used on Edwin, Defias Kingpin to set up a better Edwin turn after.
1 Cost
There aren't enough 0 cost cards in the game to be able to fill the rest of the deck with them, so we have to play some 1 cost cards. When possible, some of them have cost reduction effects. A card we actually really want to run despite it costing 1 is Conceal, it's important to give your Edwin stealth on your miracle turn so he doesn't just get removed.
2+ Cost
Captain's Parrots draw Edwin, Defias Kingpin, and he is your win condition. These are the only "high" cost cards in the deck, parrots being 2 mana can clog up your Edwin turns but they are just too good at tutoring out your win condition to leave out.
This deck has a pretty unique playstyle, if you have Edwin, Defias Kingpin and like highrolls and miracle turns give it a try! It has the potential for some insane turns and memorable games. If you have a question or comment, or are wondering about a card substitution, post below.
What are your favorite wild decks? Which off meta decks have you been playing? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Tried this deck out, and man it's FUN. I havent had this much fun in quite a while. There is just something oddly satisfying about defeating someone with a huge Edwin, Defias Kingpin after playing a couple Snowflipper Penguins, and other very cute cards. Also this deck works surprisingly well, and i'm having a pretty good winrate with it. (Currently 8-2, out of which the 2 losses were when i was still learning the deck.) One small recommendation for those wanting to play the deck: Play this deck on PC. On PC the animations can already take quite a while, but on mobile its a LOT harder to get a huge Edwin.
I was a bit surprised to find out that shadowstep Edwin still maintains the buffs and that its an intentional design choice, not a bug.
More surprising was how easy it was to get Edwin draw a ton of cards around turn 6, and I was running weapon rogue (not that bs poison shank rogue that has been plaguing standard currently). Of course, it's not as impactful as the old Edwin was in terms of stats on board, because in all my games my Edwin only ever stuck once, but the draw potential should not be underestimated.
I think a lot of people are judging him by the wrong metric, and counting it as a success only when he's absolutely massive. Quite frankly, just being a 4 mana 6/6 that drew 2 cards is pretty damn good already, and even just a 4/4 that drew 1 is fine (unimpressive in modern HS, though do recall that Azure Drake was sent to the HoF for less than that!).
Regarding the battlecry continuing, I guess it makes sense and is consistent with Instructor Fireheart. Their battlecries are like auras for the rest of the turn, and once he's in your hand he's still around to be buffed.
Someone tried something like this in Standard when I was playing Hero Power Mage. Just building as big of an Edwin as they could. But they only had him and two tiny minions on board. A couple trades and a Devolving Missiles with Eddie as the only target drew out the Concede.
How big was he in standard? If you do it in wild you’ll have a close to full board of stealthed minions so Devolving Missiles will be a lot less consistent. Devolve is great to autowin vs this deck though.
I can't remember... maybe 12/12... around that range. But he had a 1/1 and a 1/2 with him, and of course no Conceal so trade, trade, missiles. EZ game.
Right now though, I'm working on Hooktusking an army of Smites in Wild.
I was thinking of doing something along these lines. It seems very much like the sort of deck you get to work once, smile, then kind of hope it it gets locked away somewhere in the pits of hell. Just imagine how much BS this would be if Blizz hadn't wisely stopped giving rogue 0-cost cards after Classic (Counterfeit Coin being the only exception). I guess we can expect that trend to continue for quite some time after this.
It’s not that hard to get it to work, I’ve gotten it off over 10 times already, and even vs aggro decks like hunters and warriors and murloc shaman, I got 3-0, 2-2, and 1-0.
I think that's exactly my problem as I always feel really dirty with high-roll-y decks that don't need much of a high-roll, so tend to 'lock them away' to repent for my sin of playing them :P
If it's not very difficult now, I shudder at the thought of it in the hypothetical universe where you have enough 0-cost cards to avoid faffing around with the awkward 1-drops. Maybe if there were more ways to remove the Edwin then it would be OK, but I can't think of many things that can actually remove a 30/30 stealth minion on turn 4. They exist, but most classes can't do anything about it even if they draw well, hence why it's not the sort of deck I'd want to be easy to make work.