This list is a fantastic tempo deck that comes out to a roaring start, replenishes its hand by drawing and usually playing two cards a turn in the midgame, and ending things before the Villain can get stabilized. And best of all, it costs very little dust, with one legendary card and only five rares.
List
2x Soulfire
1x Power Overwhelming
2x Abusive Sergeant
2x Leper Gnome
2x Voidwalker
2x Undertaker
2x Dire Wolf Alpha
2x Haunted Creeper
1x Ironbeak Owl
2x Knife Juggler
2x Loot Hoarder
2x Nerubian Egg
2x Harvest Golem
2x Dark Iron Dwarf
2x Defender of Argus
1x Leeroy Jenkins
1x Doomguard
Strategy
This is not an all-out "face" aggressive deck, but rather a board-control, tempo-oriented deck. Take advantageous trades when you can, trade up using temporary buffs and build a board of one- and two-drops. Play two (or more) cards most turns. Don't worry so much about card advantage as board advantage. Even if your Paladin opponent Consecrations on four mana, many of our dudes leave a minion behind when they die, and we can almost always rebuild to an impressive board just one turn later. Unless you are super low on life and in danger of dying the next turn, spam that hero power when possible. Trust me, it feels great.
Card Thoughts
Knife Juggler: Backbone of the deck. Do not play him without a plan to abuse him. Some of my favorite plans include The Coin + Juggler on turn one if I have two one-drops to follow-up or Haunted Creeper turn two then Juggler, Abusive Sergeant and attack to trade on turn three for three knife throws out of nowhere.
Undertaker: Don't let him sit as a 1/2 unless it is turn one and you have deathrattles coming on line turn two. Otherwise hold him for a devastating extra 2/3 or even 3/4 on turn three or four at the cost of only one mana. Plus, one-mana knife throws are a huge bonus.
Defender of Argus & Dire Wolf Alpha: Be mindful of your minion placement, especially when you have either of these in hand. Keep in mind they don't play particularly well together on the same turn, since they only buff adjacent minions and they plop a summoning sick new dude in between your souped-up, ready-to-fight guys. They also work quite differently, with the wolf great on a board where you will trade off a couple weaker dudes from the center of your board and then immediately cascade his bonus to the next minion in line. Generally, I'll keep my weaker minions (the 2/1s) in the center of the board. Usually the bigger guys don't get as much value from the wolf's attack boost, but they can be great targets for the Defender's taunt-granting.
Loot Hoarder: An atypical choice, but one I have been extremely satisfied with. He is another two-mana, efficient deathrattle trigger for the Undertaker, and while the card draw is less important with Warlock's Life Tap, it is still nice. The one toughness (defense?) is not as much of a liability in Zoo because we have the luxury of tempo on our side. Even if our Villain trades two mana to hero-power kill our two-mana card that replaces itself, that is a net win for us because we probably played one or two other cheap spells that turn, while they may have had trouble doing anything else.
Soulfire: Obviously excellent to finish, but don't be afraid to use it early to establish board dominance. In what the Villian thinks should be a trading situation, Soulfire will let you drop a new minion, keep the one you had, and kill theirs, all for the low, low cost of emptying your hand. Luckily, our hero power will help us recover from this pure tempo play swiftly. If you can cast a minion to leave Soulfire as your last card in hand, cast it, then draw using Life Tap, that is big game.
Singletons
Doomguard: Since we can't play a second copy of Leeroy, this does a good imitation. I never want two in my hand at once and it is not good to have Soulfire + Doomguard both with the prospect of discarding one to the other, so I stick to only one. Playing this with an otherwise empty hand feels like cheating.
Power Overwhelming: Another card-disadvantage, tempo play, again I never really want two at once. I'm not running the Void Terror combo and since I have 4x two-power buffs and 4x one-power buffs for the Nerubian Egg, I don't need to rely on this to make the 4/4 Nerubian. Sometimes this makes my Egg into a four-power attacker with divine shield, but usual I find it acts more like a third Soulfire, dealing the final four points at a cheap cost and ending the game before the drawback matters.
Ironbeak Owl: This is the last slot in the deck for me, and I am sort of interested in squeezing another Owl in somewhere. He doesn't deathrattle and he doesn't have a great body, but it seems like he always makes some positive contribution to the board state. In the best case, he silences a troublesome large taunter. Otherwise, he'll usually remove the value from an opposing Egg or Harvest Golem.
2x Soulfire
1x Power Overwhelming
2x Abusive Sergeant
2x Leper Gnome
2x Voidwalker
2x Undertaker
2x Dire Wolf Alpha
2x Haunted Creeper
1x Ironbeak Owl
2x Knife Juggler
2x Loot Hoarder
2x Nerubian Egg
2x Harvest Golem
2x Dark Iron Dwarf
2x Defender of Argus
1x Leeroy Jenkins
1x Doomguard
Strategy
This is not an all-out "face" aggressive deck, but rather a board-control, tempo-oriented deck. Take advantageous trades when you can, trade up using temporary buffs and build a board of one- and two-drops. Play two (or more) cards most turns. Don't worry so much about card advantage as board advantage. Even if your Paladin opponent Consecrations on four mana, many of our dudes leave a minion behind when they die, and we can almost always rebuild to an impressive board just one turn later. Unless you are super low on life and in danger of dying the next turn, spam that hero power when possible. Trust me, it feels great.
Card Thoughts
Knife Juggler: Backbone of the deck. Do not play him without a plan to abuse him. Some of my favorite plans include The Coin + Juggler on turn one if I have two one-drops to follow-up or Haunted Creeper turn two then Juggler, Abusive Sergeant and attack to trade on turn three for three knife throws out of nowhere.
Undertaker: Don't let him sit as a 1/2 unless it is turn one and you have deathrattles coming on line turn two. Otherwise hold him for a devastating extra 2/3 or even 3/4 on turn three or four at the cost of only one mana. Plus, one-mana knife throws are a huge bonus.
Defender of Argus & Dire Wolf Alpha: Be mindful of your minion placement, especially when you have either of these in hand. Keep in mind they don't play particularly well together on the same turn, since they only buff adjacent minions and they plop a summoning sick new dude in between your souped-up, ready-to-fight guys. They also work quite differently, with the wolf great on a board where you will trade off a couple weaker dudes from the center of your board and then immediately cascade his bonus to the next minion in line. Generally, I'll keep my weaker minions (the 2/1s) in the center of the board. Usually the bigger guys don't get as much value from the wolf's attack boost, but they can be great targets for the Defender's taunt-granting.
Loot Hoarder: An atypical choice, but one I have been extremely satisfied with. He is another two-mana, efficient deathrattle trigger for the Undertaker, and while the card draw is less important with Warlock's Life Tap, it is still nice. The one toughness (defense?) is not as much of a liability in Zoo because we have the luxury of tempo on our side. Even if our Villain trades two mana to hero-power kill our two-mana card that replaces itself, that is a net win for us because we probably played one or two other cheap spells that turn, while they may have had trouble doing anything else.
Soulfire: Obviously excellent to finish, but don't be afraid to use it early to establish board dominance. In what the Villian thinks should be a trading situation, Soulfire will let you drop a new minion, keep the one you had, and kill theirs, all for the low, low cost of emptying your hand. Luckily, our hero power will help us recover from this pure tempo play swiftly. If you can cast a minion to leave Soulfire as your last card in hand, cast it, then draw using Life Tap, that is big game.
Singletons
Doomguard: Since we can't play a second copy of Leeroy, this does a good imitation. I never want two in my hand at once and it is not good to have Soulfire + Doomguard both with the prospect of discarding one to the other, so I stick to only one. Playing this with an otherwise empty hand feels like cheating.
Power Overwhelming: Another card-disadvantage, tempo play, again I never really want two at once. I'm not running the Void Terror combo and since I have 4x two-power buffs and 4x one-power buffs for the Nerubian Egg, I don't need to rely on this to make the 4/4 Nerubian. Sometimes this makes my Egg into a four-power attacker with divine shield, but usual I find it acts more like a third Soulfire, dealing the final four points at a cheap cost and ending the game before the drawback matters.
Ironbeak Owl: This is the last slot in the deck for me, and I am sort of interested in squeezing another Owl in somewhere. He doesn't deathrattle and he doesn't have a great body, but it seems like he always makes some positive contribution to the board state. In the best case, he silences a troublesome large taunter. Otherwise, he'll usually remove the value from an opposing Egg or Harvest Golem.
Example Board State
The scene depicted above was not the nut opening to a match, but it is pretty close, and with a slow start, our Villain had no chance.
 |
| At Rank 9, Villain should be no slouch, but we put a hurt on him by turn 4. |
VT1: pass
T1: The Coin, Knife Juggler
VT2: make a 1/1 soldier
T2: Undertaker, Leper Gnome, knifing soldier and Villain (30-26)
VT3: make a 1/1 soldier
T3: Nerubian Egg, Voidwalker, knifing soldier and Villain (30-17)
VT4: Truesilver Champion, attack Voidwalker (30-18)
T4: Defender of Argus, knifing Villain (30-7)
VT5: concede
Substitutions
If you don't have Leeroy, save up some dust and make him. I'd say he should be your first legendary crafted on account of him fitting into most aggro decks and some combo ones. A second Doomguard or Arcane Golem could do in a pinch. Otherwise, this deck is one of the cheapest you will find, with just five rares and one card from the Construct quarter.
Happy hunting and learn to love card disadvantage. I have!
Substitutions
If you don't have Leeroy, save up some dust and make him. I'd say he should be your first legendary crafted on account of him fitting into most aggro decks and some combo ones. A second Doomguard or Arcane Golem could do in a pinch. Otherwise, this deck is one of the cheapest you will find, with just five rares and one card from the Construct quarter.
Happy hunting and learn to love card disadvantage. I have!
I have a friend let's call him Will, he doesn't want to post to this blog next to his real info so I am anonymously posting his response:
ReplyDelete"I don't really like cards like Leeroy or leper gnome in that deck since it normally wins on board control and trading up rather than pure face damage. Also "Mind if I roll need" is a good cycle card, but not very sticky so I tend to avoid it.
When I play something like that, I like 2 doomguards and 2x FLAME IMP (I could not imagine the deck without it). Other cards I've used are some 1/2 drops like young priestess, amani berserker. Void terror is good synergy with egg, power overwhelming, temp +2 attack buffs, I usually use at least one of those.
Previously I'd used cheap sticky cards like argent squire or shieldbearer, but I think they don't pull their weight with things like the egg in the mix.
Suprisingly I haven't tried undertaker, but I think it would be quite good."
i actually have two zoo decks saved. the first one is more traditional with shieldbearer, flame imp, etc, but this particular version is built around the undertaker, hence underwarlock. as such, i loaded all the reasonable deathrattles in there. rather than keep guys on the board, it tends to trade up with the buffs while playing more than one card a turn to build the board.
ReplyDeletei had some good success with this particular build last month after playing other versions of zoo previously. i really liked the original one, but the void terror-egg stuff was not my style.
Great blog. All posts have something to learn. Your work is very good and i appreciate you and hopping for some more informative posts. Hearthstone Boosting
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