Hi everyone, escabe here with my first deck writeup on outof.cards.

Back in my YuGiOh days, I was a huge fan of decks that used alternate win conditions, e.g. Exodia, Mill or Final Countdown.
Therefore, I was pretty intrigued about getting kind of a burn option in HS through Hakkar, the Soulflayer.

I used to play Hakkar-Priest for a while in Standard, but once rotation hit and shifted Awaken the Makers to Wild, I rebuilt the deck completely, including, amongst others, Feugen and Stalagg. I did have a lot of fun with it when I played it, but did not play it that much, roundabout 20 ranked games in total.

With the release of Saviors of Uldum, I was pretty sure to be able to strengthen the weak early-game of the deck, especially by incorporating Grandmummy and Psychopomp.

Rebuilding the deck and trying it out on the ladder, I was astonished about the win rate it sported.
Granted, I started out at Rank 20, but a 21-2 record for a win rate of 91% is not too bad for a home brew, I'd say, even in lower ranks.

How it works

The deck can win in several ways: overwhelming your opponent, outlasting them or corrupting their deck with enough bloods.

To overwhelm them, you mostly use Thaddius. He can be summoned an absurd amount of time by combining Feugen/Stalagg with Spirit of the Dead, Embalming Ritual, Seance and Wretched Reclaimer. They can also be resummoned through Psychopomp, Eternal Servitude, Catrina Muerte and N'Zoth, the Corruptor.

Outlasting is achieved though lifepoint gain in form of Amara, Warden of Hope. You can generate multiple copies of her through Seance and Spirit of the Dead.

In order to win by burn damage from Corrupted Blood, you have to increase the probability of your opponent drawing more Bloods than you do. Therefore, it is necessary to use your Spirit of the Deads carefully to make sure that the amount of copies shuffled into your deck is maximized. It is also essential to choose what to shuffle. Shuffling too many [Hearthstone Card (Loot Hoarders) Not Found] and [Hearthstone Card (Dead Ringers) Not Found] can be devastating in the late game.

Most of the matches I played, I won through a combination of overwhelming and outlasting my opponent. Sometimes I even had such a firm grip on the match that I kept my opponent at 3 life or lower, waiting for the first Corrupted Blood to hit (https://hsreplay.net/replay/SMVTNzo9JdvwV526iusjLN).

How I tend to mulligan

• I always keep Loot Hoarder, Grandmummy and Dead Ringer alongside Awaken the Makers.
• If I have one of those three minions, I keep one Psychopomp as a follow-up.
• I do like to keep Feugen or Stalagg.

Change Log

• C1, Sep'19: Cut Anubisath Warbringer for a Tortollan Shellraiser.

Weak / flex spots of the deck

• Zerek's Cloning Gallery: The results I had from it are mostly underwhelming. I feel that it doesn't do enough for its cost in this deck.
• Coffin Crasher: The body is nice for the cost and it keeps board presence through its effect. However, it is a risk to pull things from the hand that I don't want to have out in that specific circumstance, therefore it sometimes is difficult to fit in.

I still haven't found suitable replacements for them though. Any ideas are highly welcome.

Incorporation of "Descent of Dragons"

Descent of Dragons does not offer much in terms of upgrades to the deck.

One card that I find very useful though is Grave Rune. I'll try to incorporate at least one copy, probably replacing Embalming Ritual or the aforementioned Zerek's Cloning Gallery.

Also, seeing Murozond the Infinite in action on the sneak preview videos on youtube, I guess this is stronger than I initially anticipated. This might be replacing Coffin Crasher.

Track record

Season 65: As mentioned in the introduction, I started at Rank 20 and finished at Rank 10. Played 23 games in total with 21 wins for a win rate of 91%.