Drek'thar's Call to Arms - A Full Guide to Tax Paladin on the Wildest of Wednesdays

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.

*Editor note: yes we know it's not Wednesday, the reveal season has been a busy one.

Drek'Thar has been released and is ready to see play in many wild decks. This week, he is becoming a Tax Collector. One of the best decks to make full use of Drek'thar is Tax Paladin. Tax Paladin is an archetype using multiple cards which increase the cost of your opponent's cards, and a Secret package to interfere with your opponent's plans even more. Drek'thar is extremely powerful here to summon 2 minions from your deck. The deck already uses minions costing 3 or less, and there are no understatted Battlecries, so his condition is easy to meet and his effect is always great. One of the key cards of the deck has always been Call to Arms, and Drek'thar acts as a third, often better, copy of it that thins your deck and provides tempo early in the game. If you like this sort of playstyle, help Drek'Thar collect taxes before the new expansion comes out and play this deck!

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 is an aggressive deck with a disruptive strategy.

Aggression - You have multiple ways to build boards including Drek'Thar, Call to Arms, and Rally!. You can also buff your minions and use Secrets to protect your board. You want to have buffed minions and snowbally minions like Crossroads Gossiper protected by taunts so they can push face damage.

Disruption - Use the disruption strategy to slow down other decks while your aggression wins the game. You can make opponent's cards and especially Battlecries cost more, disable their hero power, and mess up their spells to slow down any board development, card draw, and clears.

This deck does really well against most other aggressive decks, and can usually slow down combo enough to win. Control decks with multiple board clears are its worst matchup but Oh My Yogg! and Never Surrender! can get you the win even then.

Mulligans

Keep Call to Arms (both copies if you have them) and Drek'Thar. If you don't have a single one of these, you need to mulligan your entire hand to try and get one of them.

If you have one of those, keep 1 and 2 cost minions and Sword of the Fallen. The exception is don't keep Nerub'ar Weblord if you have Drek'Thar.

If you have a Righteous Protector and are going first, keep Hand of A'dal.

If you are against a hunter it's probably Odd Hunter so keep Mindbreaker, and Rally! if you have him. In this specific matchup this is even more important than finding a Call to Arms or Drek’thar.

Gameplay

The general gameplan is to generate boards and then start pushing face damage with your bigger minions while your small and sticky Taunt Divine Shield minions, Secrets, and disruption slow down your opponent's plans.

Below are gameplay tips regarding many of the synergies in this deck and how to use them effectively.

Secret Synergies

You have 3 secrets in this deck, one copy of Never Surrender! and two copies of Oh My Yogg! and Redemption. Use Never Surrender! and Oh My Yogg! to protect your board from a removal spell, and use Redemption to get another Taunt, Divine Shield minion, or Crossroads Gossiper.

Something to note is that when Crossroads Gossiper is resurrected by this secret, she will immediately gain +2/+2.

Don't play Oh My Yogg! if your opponent still has the coin, unless you really want tempo and countering their coin feels worth it. You can play another secret first and make them test for Oh My Yogg! with the coin or other small spells, which will make your Oh My Yogg! more likely to counter a big spell when you do play it.

Use Sword of the Fallen to get Secrets played from your deck. In addition to getting the Secrets in play, this is a great deck thinning effect to improve your future draws. If you have a Secret in hand, play it before using the weapon if you want the weapon to have a higher chance of getting a different secret - otherwise the weapon may get the same type of Secret you have in hand and you will be unable to play it.

Board Synergy

If you have the choice, always play Drek'Thar before playing Call to Arms.

You can often control what 3 drop you will get back from Rally!. If you need tempo, try to cast it before playing Mindbreakers to get a Crossroads Gossiper, while if you need hero power disruption do the opposite.

Blessing of Authority is one of the most powerful cards to be able to finish games. It gives great tempo and the ability to trade well the turn you use it, especially if you use it on a Divine Shield minion like Shielded Minibot. You can then keep going face with the minion while using your Taunts and disruption to keep it protected and win the game in a few turns. 

The other main finisher of the deck is a growing Crossroads Gossiper that can also keep going face while you protect it and slow down your opponent’s gameplan with your disruption and Secrets.

Disruption Synergies

Far Watch Posts can be protected by Taunts and increase the cost of cards your opponents draw. This is especially powerful against decks that draw a lot, like combo decks.

Nerub'ar Weblord will slow down your opponent's Battlecry minions. Your deck is mostly unaffected, however the exception is Drek'Thar is a Battlecry minion. Therefore, if you have him in hand it's usually better to play him before you play any Nerub'ar Weblords and before you play Call to Arms which can summon a Weblord.

Although there is a bit of anti-synergy here, in practice it is not an issue if you just play Drek'Thar before getting your Weblords going. If you draw Drek'Thar later and your Weblords are on the board, either they will be removed or if your opponent is unable to remove them you should generally win the game anyway.

Mindbreaker will shut down decks that rely on hero powers such as Odd Hunter, Reno Priest, Odd and Even decks, and Warlocks. 

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.

Secret Package

Secrets and cards that synergize with them.

Taunt and Divine Shield Minions

Taunts are great to protect your key finisher minions and Divine Shield minions work great with buffs.

Disruption

Disruption cards slow down your opponent's gameplan by increasing the cost of their cards or disabling their hero power.

Board Generation

These cards generate boards. Getting boards of 3 minions for only for 4 mana and in the case of the first two also thinning your deck is very powerful. This is the main engine that makes the deck work, and Drek'Thar is an amazing addition to it. Compared to Call to Arms resulting in 3 one or two cost minions on the board, Drek'Thar results in a 4/4 and 2 one, two, or three cost minions (he can summon Crossroads Gossipers and Mindbreakers in addition to the minions Call to Arms can summon). 

Buffs

These buffs are especially good with Divine Shield minions and help you trade well, maintain board control, and create big finisher minions.

While we are waiting for the next expansion to come out, if you chose Drek'Thar as your free legendary, consider playing him in this deck. It's a unique playstyle with both tempo and disruption. This deck is actually quite strong and unlike most decks on this series, can even do well in diamond ranked. 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!