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. Wildest of Wednesdays 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.
We're getting a new expansion reveal this Tuesday, and with that usually comes a new Legendary minion added to the game. Therefore, this Wednesday's deck will be an off meta deck using whatever that Legendary is. Today, here is a deck that is both really fun to play and is strong enough to be able to climb. Reno N'Zoth Paladin is a deck that has been helped immensely by Alterac and the mini-set, mostly with the power of the new hero Lightforged Cariel but also with Lokholar the Ice Lord and Ring of Courage.
Reno N'Zoth Paladin is not your typical Reno deck. Instead of just controlling the board until the late game, it has plenty of powerful minions to continuously apply board pressure and N'Zoth, God of the Deep as a finisher option. It has Nozdormu the Timeless to ramp up to 10 mana early on, where this deck may have an advantage. It uses the Reno tools for survival and board pressure, while having various combo disruption cards to be able to beat combo. Overall, Reno N'Zoth Paladin is a very well rounded deck that can have a chance against anything.
I got to Legend with this deck from rank 5 Diamond in under 5 hours with about a 64% win rate, so if you want to play with an off meta deck that's actually Legend viable you may want to try this one out!
This deck was inspired by the Reno Paladin from nhlnjfan1.
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
You use board pressure and removal to win against aggro decks, board pressure and disruption to win against control decks, and mainly just disruption to beat combo.
Control - You have multiple removal combos that give you full clears to be able to remove boards and beat aggro (for specifics see the gameplay section). As a Reno deck, Zephrys the Great and Reno Jackson are excellent tools to beat aggro as well.
Board Pressure - You have a lot of powerful minions and buffs, and you can use those along with N'Zoth, God of the Deep as a finisher to generate a lot of board pressure.
Combo Disruption - Not much to say here, just use your Dirty Rat, Mutanus the Devourer, and Loatheb combined with Brann Bronzebeard and Zola the Gorgon to try and disrupt combos. You can also use Lightforged Cariel along with High Priest Thekal and Reno Jackson to get to a very high health total that only takes half damage to stall against damage combos.
This deck is very well balanced, and can do well against any deck. It doesn't really have any polarizing matchups, although aggro and control are better matchups for it than combo.
Mulligans
- Keep Crystology, Knight of Anointment, Sir Finley of the Sands, Zephrys the Great, and High Priest Thekal.
- If you have High Priest Thekal, keep Molten Giant and Lokholar the Ice Lord.
- If you are against aggro, keep Reno Jackson and Lord Barov (and City Tax or Animated Broomstick if you have him).
- If you have Nozdormu the Timeless, keep him. If not keep Redscale Dragontamer, and if you are keeping Redscale Dragontamer you should keep Dragonqueen Alexstrasza as well unless you're against aggro and the rest of your hand doesn't have any low cost cards. If you have either Nozdormu or Redscale Dragontamer and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, then you can also keep generally powerful high cost cards like Varian, King of Stormwind.
- Keep Dirty Rat and Mutanus the Devourer if against combo that has rattable pieces. Keep Lightforged Cariel if against damage dealing combo like Quest Hunter and Loatheb if against any spell-based combo.
Gameplay
The key to playing this deck well is using Nozdormu the Timeless for Ramp effectively, as well as being able to adapt your gameplan based on each individual matchup.
Below are gameplay tips regarding many of the synergies in this deck and how to use them effectively.
Survival Combos
Lord Barov + City Tax is a full clear.
Lord Barov + Animated Broomstick is a full clear.
Lord Barov + Blademaster Samuro is a full clear.
Lord Barov + Lightforged Cariel is a full clear.
Blademaster Samuro + Ring of Courage is a clear that also leaves behind a big body depending on the size of the enemy board.
High Priest Thekal lets you play Molten Giant for 0 mana. You can get more copies of it with Zola the Gorgon.
High Priest Thekal also sets the cost of Lokholar the Ice Lord to 5.
High Priest Thekal and Reno Jackson allow you to have 59 health + armor, but removes the discounts. If you then play Lightforged Cariel you will be very hard to destroy by damage.
Use Zola the Gorgon well - it's really flexible. If you need pressure use it on a big minion, if you need removal Lord Barov, Samuro, or Zephrys the Great, and combo disrupting cards if against combo.
Nozdormu
You should usually ramp with Nozdormu the Timeless as soon as possible. Your deck will have an advantage against most aggro and combo decks in this way and be able to either use powerful big minions to take over the board or disrupt combo faster.
If you are winning on the board with an early High Priest Thekal - Molten Giant combo or against a Big deck, then don't ramp.
Redscale Dragontamer draws either Nozdormu or Dragonqueen Alexstrasza.
Tutor Cards
In general, you have a lot of tutor cards and when playing you should try to predict what they will draw.
For example, Knight of Anointment draws either Hand of A'dal or Righteous Defense.
Crystology can get Animated Broomstick, Knight of Anointment, Crystalsmith Kangor, or Blademaster Samuro.
Varian, King of Stormwind gets all 3 bonuses if he draws only Zilliax and no other minions. In general, for Rush he has Animated Broomstick, Blademaster Samuro, Zilliax, and Lokholar the Ice Lord; for Taunt Dirty Rat and Zilliax; and for Divine Shield Crystalsmith Kangor, Murgur Murgurgle, Murgurgle Prime, and Zilliax.
For N'Zoth, God of the Deep you want to have Murgur Murgurgle or Mutanus the Devourer as the murloc, but sometimes you'll get Redscale Dragontamer or a murloc from Murgurgle Prime. For elemental you want to get a Molten Giant or Lokholar the Ice Lord, but have to be prepared to get Zephrys the Great if you played him beforehand. For dragons, you have Nozdormu the Timeless, Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, and any dragons you get from her. For mechs, you have Zilliax.
How to Play This Deck Well
In general, you have to adapt to the specific matchup you are facing to do well with this deck. The deck has a lot of tools for different scenarios and you have to adapt your game plan based on the matchup. For example, against Freeze Shaman, don't flood the board with a lot of small minions and focus on disruption to hit their Shudderwock. Against Mecha'Thun Warlock, don't just play Dirty Rat because they will later have Tamsin's Phylactery to counteract that if you later kill Mecha'thun. You have to rat only if you have Zephrys the Great to be able to give you Hex or use Mutanus the Devourer. Against something like Pirate Warrior, you have to time your removals well, and then take over the board. Sometimes you can bait them into getting a larger board to later take over with Blademaster Samuro + Ring of Courage or a clear into a cheap minion using the power of Thekal. Overall, for each matchup just think about its strengths and weaknesses and mulligan for the predicted matchup and use your resources (especially value generators like Zola the Gorgon and Brann Bronzebeard) wisely to maximize your cards that work well against that specific matchup.
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.
N'Zoth Package
These cards are of different tribes and are your key targets to be resurrected by N'Zoth, God of the Deep. A few other smaller cards may be resurrected sometimes but you can try to manage this.
Thekal Package
After you play High Priest Thekal, you will be able to play Molten Giant for 0 mana and Lokholar the Ice Lord for 5.
Buff Package
These cards buff or handbuff.
Removals
These cards help you remove enemy boards.
Healing
These cards let you heal.
Card Draw
Card draw is great to keep the pressure going, and many of these cards draw conditionally so you can predict what you will draw.
Combo Disruption
These cards let you have a chance against combos. Use them with Zola the Gorgon and Brann Bronzebeard if you can.
Value Generation
These cards are generally good and help you generate more value from your other cards or hero power.
Reno N'Zoth Paladin is a really fun deck if you like Reno decks or midrange decks with control elements in them. In addition, being able to get to 10 mana on turn 3 is pretty cool. Being competitive in this current meta is an added bonus, but you should keep in mind that it's harder to play a Reno deck like this well than a meta tier 1 deck. 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? Share them via our deckbuilder and let us know in the comments below!
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
This deck reflects the beauty of Wild. It's a viable midrange/control deck that utilizes cards from 14 different expansions (hey Swiz, beating/increasing that number could be a nice deckbuilding challenge!) and 1 from Legacy while making use of various small packages and synergies, besides the powerful singleton mechanic. It really showcases how creative deckbuilders can be and end up being competitive, not just meme.
Really excited for March17th and all the announcements. Let's see what the new year brings. People are expecting a lot of Wild nerf reverts!
Love the deck!
Hi, I really love this deck but I miss many cards, so I had to replace them. Still enjoying the deck anyway! I can craft 2 of these legendaries, which one do you think are the most important?
Murgur Murgurgle
Sir Finley of the Sands
Lord Barov
Zola the Gorgon
Nozdormu the Timeless
Mutanus the Devourer
Varian, King of Stormwind
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
Nozdormu the Timeless is pretty important for ramp, then you can play Amber Watcher as another dragon and Redscale Dragontamer.
For the second one either Lord Barov or Varian, King of Stormwind are about equally important.
Dusted a bunch of legendary cards, spent 16k of dust, replaced a couple of cards and added a Mr. Smite for synergy with N'Zoth. I got a lot of emotions from playing this deck. Especially when after turn 4 Nozdormu the opponent moves the cursor over all the cards, not knowing what to do after ramping at 10 mana.
Absolutely worth it. Thank you, Swizard!
Very glad you like it, thanks for sharing your experience with it! Mr. Smite seems like a great idea for more burst and pressure potential, both with N’Zoth and with all the potential buffs and handbuffs.
Anyone who reads this series - please let me know your thoughts on increasing the rate of articles! To for example 2 or 3 a week on average.
Would this be too much and an overload or would that be something you’d like?
My dream is to have 100 Wild off meta decks with full guides that are all updated (both decks and guides) each expansion and miniset, and increasing the output will help that happen faster.
Do you guys have the means to evaluate how popular each section/article is and how much traffic each article gets? That would be the best way to answer your question. I'm sure Wild lovers will always check your articles, but the thing is: how many are we?
I believe that each article in this series contains a very interesting deck. A bit later you almost made me spend a bunch of dust on a Mage deck. And this time I just couldn't get past it.
In my opinion, you can not set a period like "once a week" and post only the most interesting decks when ready.
I have like 50 decks I think are pretty interesting all developed and refined, I was artificially limiting the output to once a week but am thinking of trying to expand it to 2 or 3 and see the outcome.
I don't see any problems with this series being released more than once a week. 'Everyone' is netdecking. I won't lie, I'm no exception. But this series prompted me to take a huge step to spend a lot of dust on a deck. But this deck is really interesting for me. Maybe the more often this series are released, the more people will also "try something new and interesting."
I made a reno pally deck on LoE meta called "shit deck" (because was a meme deck).
I've updated that deck on every expansion, now it's called "shit deck v14.0" and I use yo play It on Wild format.
I'll get tons of ideas from you! :D
Nice, you played Reno Paladin before it was cool! Glad this decklist could help with ideas, I love decks that last for months or years and keep being updated. It's like a journey or evolution of a deck that's interesting to see.
I own everything but Thekal and Molten Giant; might have to check this out :D Edit: Whoops, forgot Kangor. Guess I don't have him either.
Kangor is definitely not core. Thekal and Molten Giant are very powerful for highrolls but you can put in some generally good anti-aggro and early game cards and still do well with it.
Of all the cards in the deck, I am missing Murgur Murgurgle and Nozdormu the Timeless - are they that important or should I skip this list?
You can replace Murgur Murgurgle with Cariel Roame or Goody Two-Shields. You can replace Nozdormu the Timeless with Amber Watcher, although Nozdormu is really powerful and you will lose winrate.
Great job as always Swiz. This could be the final push for me to craft Barov and Nozdormu. They also are core to the Exodia deck right?
Don't you miss Equality here? Maybe in place of Righteous Defense. But the deck looks really nice. I prefer to have an inevitable win condition, though, against combo decks or druids, that's why I love Exodia. Do you think this one is better rounded against the meta than your Nozdormu Exodia?
Yeah that one is for fun and this one has a high winrate to Legend and is way stronger. Righteous Defense is better, it's like a 3 mana removal for a big minion plus many of your minions benefit from handbuff.
Don't think of this as a control deck, it's a Reno deck that wins with board pressure.
I liked the other guy's idea of Mr. Smite for a better N'Zoth turn and potential burst from hand. If you could craft just one of these, which would it be? Barov or Nozdormu? I could then sub the other with Smite...