How to win cheaply on the Hearthstone ladder: play Warlock Zoo (Zoolock).
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.
In August, I played a bit more constructed Hearthstone and got up to Level 8 by the end of the month. I won quite a bit in the final week but never got to a point where I was plateauing, which leads me to believe there was still more room to advance if I just kept grinding ladder matches.
This particular list I will feature is an update to the old Zoolock deck from the spring, but with the addition of a deathrattle theme from Naxxramus. I call it Underwarlock, after
Undertaker, a huge addition from the Construct Quarter of Naxx. I've added as many relevant cheap deathrattles as possible to maximize the one-drop.
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.
Example Board State
 |
| At Rank 9, Villain should be no slouch, but we put a hurt on him by turn 4. |
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.
VT1: pass
VT2: make a 1/1 soldier
VT3: make a 1/1 soldier
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!
