What We're Playing on Murder at Castle Nathria Day 1

As we find ourselves with some final hours to kill before the curtain rises over Revendreth Castle's murder mystery, we thought to turn our attention to what we're most looking towards. After all, Day 1s of expansions are well known to be one of the few windows of time where everything is fair game and everyone can play whatever they prefer: new stuff, old stuff, meme stuff... or Battlegrounds!

Playing optimized decks is not a necessity for Day 1, as everyone's just testing what they got from their pack openings. For this reason, we on Out of Cards would like to share with you what a handful of us is going to play as soon as Murder at Castle Nathria finally goes live - enjoy and, if you want, take inspiration!

Standard Decks

Wanna play lots of brand new stuff? This is the Constructed format for you. The decks you'll see featured here contain a large amount of new cards, so that you can experience the Castle Nathria expansion to its fullest.

Avalon's Deathrattle Demon Hunter

Probably one of my favorite (if not my favorite) archetypes from the entire Year of the Gryphon. Promoted first in Forged in the Barrens, Deathrattle DH wasn't lucky enough to receive additional remarkable support in the following sets: a real shame, if you ask me, but it is understandable for Team 5 to explore other directions for the class.

Murder at Castle Nathria gave Demon Hunter the Relic package: while we are hesitant on its viability as a standalone build, Relics look much more promising when slotted into another archetype as support tools - this is exactly what I am trying to do with the Deathrattle DH list you see below. This deck features two main novelties.

As already mentioned, the first is the Relic package. These cards provide Demon Hunter with additional tools to dictate the match's pace. Moreover, Taelan Fordring, which can be summoned by Death Speaker Blackthorn, will draw Artificer Xy'mox, whose Infused form won't be difficult to achieve.

Secondly, there's Kryxis the Voracious. This unit is great: excellent stats for the cost, a really good Deathrattle and a lot of pressure on your opponent; the downside is obviously its Battlecry, which can mess you up pretty badly. If only there was a way to avoid it... Oh, wait: there is! Razorfen Beastmaster and Death Speaker Blackthorn are actual cards, and will allow you to summon Kryxis directly from your hand and deck, meaning that you'll be able to enjoy all of this Demon Hunter Legendary's upsides without having to worry about the downsides - a pretty convincing deal if you ask us.

Echo's Aggro Demon Hunter

Demon Hunter got quite a few interesting hyper-aggro cards this expansion, typically overstatted cards with the downside of shuffling a card from your hand into the deck. While a fairly big downside normally, it can be remedied by just not having a hand. As such, the deck is built around the Deathrattle creatures to help empty the hand as fast as possible. In addition to that, Kryxis the Voracious can be cheated into play, becoming a 7/7 that draws 3 more cards when it dies. For other reload, Magnifying Glaive, Crooked Cook, and Need for Greed all help get more action to finish off the opponents.

Besides the cards in the discard and Deathrattle package, there are just some generic strong Demon Hunter cards. This includes some classics such as Battlefiend and Chaos Strike, as well as some some of the more recent staples like Dreadprison Glaive and Kurtrus, Demon-Render.

Echo's Totem Shaman

It seems like every year, Blizzard prints several Totem tribal support cards, and it is that time of the year again where I go to the grindstone and force them in constructed for a week. The main support card this time around is The Stonewright, which turns all the totems into strictly better Silver Hand Recruits. While strong on its own, it becomes sillier when it is able to be repeated through Brilliant Macaw, turning each Totem into a fairly large threat. The rest of the deck is designed around flooding the board with as many Totems as possible. Cards like Carving Chisel, Party Favor Totem, and Wildpaw Cavern all put up consistent pressure, aiming to run opponents out of removal, to which the game can be closed out with Bloodlust.

Another route the deck can go is with Gigantotem, which can come down fairly cheap early on. Due to the small amount of Totems in Standard, there's around a 50% chance of finding one of these massive totems through Amalgam of the Deep, resulting in the card being fairly good at dumping large amounts of power onto the board.

The last part of the deck is based around Multicaster with the goal of turning it into a 4 mana draw 3 through the use of Fire, Nature and Frost spells.

Fliboce's Tempo Warrior

Warrior has received a variety of Enrage synergy all throughout Castle Nathria. Anima Extractor and Crazed Wretch are strong 2-drops that promote a low-curve approach. The best way to take advantage of these minions is the newly added Sanguine Depths, in addition to Iceblood Garrison's Whirlwind effect. Now we can take the self-damaging mechanic to the next level, with Warsong Envoy, Frothing Berserker and Acolyte of Pain already fitting the theme.

Once a board is established, Imbued Axe and Rokara allow you to capitalize on that advantage with wide buffs, while Riot! makes sure you can trade favorably.

For now, the upper end lacks a bit of orientation. Overlord Saurfang tops off the small Pirate package, as it can revive your Stonemaul Anchorman for extra drawpower. Theoretically, this archetype has the potential to switch gears into an OTK. By upping the amount of Handbuffs, 2 prepared Locations, a pair of Crazed Wretch, and a Battleground Battlemaster are a recipe for huge damage output.

Linkblade's Frost Skeleton Mage

How thematic can we get, combining Skeleton Mage with Frost spells for maximum Lich flavor? Freeze, Armor, and clearing power stall the game out while we build up the Battlecry of our good friend Kel'Thuzad, the Inevitable; then it's just a matter of combo-ing him together with Kael'thas Sinstrider and Brann Bronzebeard for a board full of Volatile Skeletons and a barrage of explosions! Frostweave Dungeoneer is our secret weapon, drawing us our Frost spells, putting bodies on the battlefield for Deathborne, and fueling our Famished Fool for even more draw.

PSA: If you don't use a Kel'Thuzad Hero skin for this deck, you're guaranteed to lose. Just sayin'. It's a scientific fact.

Linkblade91's Nature Denathrius Druid

All aboard the Druid train, toot toot! Topior the Shrubbagazzor seems extremely powerful, so let's play a deck based around it before the inevitable nerf!

I've always enjoyed a particular style of Token Druid, one that wants to win through overwhelming numbers in the mid-to-late game, rather than simply winning on turn-4. Board after board arises to keep the opponent on the back-foot, before they crumble through sheer attrition. This is that deck reborn, only now it can keep summoning Rush minions near-infinitely! And of course, with all these minions being summoned and traded away, Sire Denathrius is our ace in the hole, the late-game bomb to finish 'em off. Capture Coldtooth Mine will tutor him out specifically, and could even grab us Topior as well; the sooner they enter our hand, the more likely the victory. "Unfortunately" we risk pulling Scale of Onyxia instead, but is that really a negative outcome?

Sule's Midrange Secret Hunter

Midrange Hunter is secretly (get it?) one of my favorite archetypes to play and I feel pretty good about building a Midrange list that focuses on the power of the Wildseeds. Specifically, I want to test the limits of the synergy between Twinbow Terrorcoil and Wild Spirits, because that seems like fun and hitting Stag Charge instead doesn't seem too bad, either. Ara'lon, personally, seems like a legitimate powerhouse who's gonna be popping up in every kind of Hunter deck because he's just that good. Another not-so-secret thing you need to know about me: I'm all in on the power of Crooked Cook as card draw in aggressive decks; basically every aggro/midrange theorycraft deck I've built over the past week has started with two copies of him and I've found no reason to stop.

Sule's Pure Paladin

I've never really liked that Paladin is the only class with "cares about class cards" synergy. Not for any flavor reason (that, at least, makes some sense, what with ethnic purity a rigid sense of holiness or whatever), but because Paladin already has, like, every synergy in the game. Dragons? Of course. Murlocs? Why not. Mechs? Silver Hand Recruits? Healing? Big? Compared to some of those, I guess Pure Paladin makes a lot more sense thematically. But come on, Blizzard, pick, like, three. Are we going to, at some point, get Paladin cards that synergize with Totems? Probably not, but at this point I wouldn't rule it out.

Anyway, back to Pure Paladin. The Countess is definitely my favorite payoff for Pure Paladin, narrowly edging out the new Zilliax, Elitist Snob for that spot. With Colossals in the game, there's never been a better time to be generating random 0-Cost Legendaries, and Paladin's class cards are actually pretty damn good if you're going full control. You're really only missing out on Wild Pyromancer clears with Holy Maki Roll and a big boy finisher in Mr. Smite. Am I only now regretting not having the gumption to slot in Brann Bronzebeard to double up the Countess's Battlecry? A little, yeah.

Wild Decks

Wild isn't particularly susceptible to change: with every new expansion, only a handful of cards make an actual impact. However, this doesn't discourage some of us, as a higher power level means higher chances to have memorable highrolls!

Avalon's Highlander Renathal Shadow Thief Priest

This deck's name is short, concise and easy to remember, but I assure you that the best is yet to come!

• You get to start your games with a damaging Hero Power (no more turn 2 heal face and emote!), which is going to turn out very useful in aggressive matchups.
• You'll be able to generate many of your opponent's cards, with a chance to steal them thanks to the new The Harvester of Envy.
  • Even if you won't end up stealing them, the psychological warfare is guaranteed to wear out your opponents!
• When you're able to stabilize the game, it is time for you to go Shadowreaper Anduin mode and start blasting down your opponents.
• All these amusing things are supported by the excellent Highlander cards, which provide resilience and value.

I'd like to refer to this deck as "chaotic good", and I am sure some of you will be able to appreciate it to its fullest.

Linkblade91's Hadronox Druid

A deck from yesteryear, updated to the modern age! One of my all-time favorite decks, there's something satisfying about proccing Hadronox and refilling the board with a giant Taunt wall that just drains your opponent's resources (and will to go on). The archetype never received much in the way of targeted love until Murder at Castle Nathria changed that. Now with the return of Deathrattle Druid to Standard, we can borrow some of that goodness for Hadronox and N'Zoth, the Corruptor, along with all the various other cards that have been released since then.

A few key cards give us the boost we need to hopefully become relevant. Prince Renathal provides more Health to work with, keeping us alive for just a tad bit longer while we get the resurrect train goin'. A ton of card draw has entered the game over the years, giving us N'Zoth tutors like Capture Coldtooth Mine, copying tools such as Moonlit Guidance, and more generation with Nature Studies or Planted Evidence. And of course, the new cards can help us proc Deathrattles (with Hedge Maze), possibly tutor Hadronox while copying its effect (with Death Blossom Whomper), and even play it again with Flobbidinous Floop.

Sule's Hand Discard Warlock

I don't play a lot of Wild, but when I saw Tome Tampering my very first thought was: "There has to be some way to break that with Malchezaar's Imp." Behold with fear and trembling my very shoddy attempt at bringing GiantsLock back into Wild! Basically, I started with Tome and Imp, then jammed in every minion whose name contained the word "Giant." Prince Renathal is included to both give us more health to play with and so we have enough room in our deck for all the Giants while still including Control tools like Defile.

You might also notice that we're running a pair of 3-Drops that summon minions from the deck: Skydiving Instructor and Dinner Performer. They both exist to find Malchezaar's Imp if we don't draw him, meaning that our mulligan gameplan can go all in on finding the Tome and then we can Tap, Tap and Tap until the Combo turn, which is:

• Play (or summon) Malchezaar's Imp.
• Play Tome Tampering.
• Hope that we draw at least three or more 1-Cost Giants.

Are we at all sure that this deck can win games? Not really, why do you ask?

What are you going to play once the time has come? Upload your decks using our deckbuilder and share them with us in the comments below!