Quest Control Warlock Deck List Guide (Kobolds and Catacombs, KAC) – December 2017

Our Quest Control Warlock deck list guide will go through the ins-and-outs of the potentially viable deck from the Kobolds and Catacombs Expansion! This guide will teach you how to mulligan, pilot, and substitute cards for this archetype! For now the deck guide is theorycraft, but as soon as the expansion goes live we will start updating it right away!

Introduction to Quest Control Warlock

Thanks to the new expansion Kobolds and Catacombs, it is now possible, probably viable and potentially a very good idea, to play the almost-forgotten Warlock Quest – Lakkari Sacrifice. The entire theory behind this deck is that as long as you play Cataclysm with a sizeable hand, you can activate the Quest on Turn 4 and play a control shell around it from there, because you are going to win with Nether Portal‘s infinite value of constant threat generation. Always keep Cataclysm.

Quest Control Warlock Mulligan Strategy & Guide

The mulligan section will be divided into two parts – against fast decks and against slow decks. Fast decks are generally the Aggro decks (e.g. Pirate Warrior) or high tempo Midrange decks (e.g. Murloc Paladin, Midrange Hunter). Slow decks are slower Midrange (e.g. Token Shaman) and Control decks (e.g. Highlander Priest, Handlock). In general you want to be drawing as many cards as possible in order to find that Cataclysm by Turn 4 and complete the Quest as soon as possible, so keeping cheap card draw is never a bad idea.

This deck faces a rather interesting mulligan decision because of the unique situation it tries to put itself into – discarding the entire hand on Turn 4. Against faster decks that often won’t matter and is not always the best line of play, but against control decks going for your win condition is crucial as early as possible. Since you want to discard everything, you actually don’t want to keep your best cards in the matchup and would rather toss them away. In any matchup, you 100% want to keep Malchezaar's Imp because it will completely negate Cataclysm‘s downside.

VS Fast Decks

Against aggro decks you want to preserve as much health as possible in the early game, so look to play your cheap removal and early game taunt minions. If the deck is hyper aggressive, it’s worthwhile tossing the quest because it’s not likely to be a factor in that game. The good old saying “as long as you don’t lose, you will win” has never been more true than in this case.

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Vulgar Homunculus – this is your best early game defensive tool and most efficient minion, excellent at contesting the board on Turn 2 and feeding into your Spellstone.
• Defile – whenever you are facing an aggressive deck, always keep Defile. It’s a cheap way to clear minions with the potential to be a full board clear, especially earlier on.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Lesser Amethyst Spellstone – is generally speaking exactly what you want against fast decks that will be producing threats and bringing your health down, but it’s not the most easily castable card. Keep it with cards that enable it, but if you don’t have any of those, there are better removal options and taunts you can look for.
• Despicable Dreadlord – this is a great card, but it is at its strongest when you are able to curve into it. Keep with other early game minions leading up to your Dreadlord turn in order to maximize its effect.

VS Slow Decks

Against Control you are looking to play the value game. It doesn’t get better than completing the Quest, which will eventually exhaust your opponent’s capabilities of answering the imps, but until then your plan is to play a control game and that’s what you have to do. Board clears and hard removal are king in grind matchups, so look for your best answers and ways to prolong the game. Since you don’t want to draw your best cards, you want to feed Cataclysm enough cards so that it will activate the Quest in one go.

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Kobold Librarian – draw is what you want initially and this can start the cycling chain as early as Turn 1.
• Dirty Rat – most often than not you will be playing Cataclysm as fast as possible. Doubling down as a defensive minion and being able to pull down something valuable only for it to be annihilated a turn later is about as good as it gets.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Skulking Geist – sometimes you are going to face a Jade Druid or a Highlander Priest, in which case you want your Geist as fast as possible. It is entirely reasonable to keep it, play it and then go about completing the Quest, making sure you can outvalue them once you start rolling.
• Hellfire – keep this if the opponent is going to be playing sticky minions that won’t be wiped by Cataclysm and play it before the latter.

Quest Control Warlock General Game Plan and Play Strategy

Though it might at first glance appear that the deck is built on a gimmick, we have to take into account how consistently we can actually pull the gimmick off. The answer? Very consistently! Assuming we are even going for it, which against a true aggro deck wouldn’t be the case, we can aggressively Life Tap twice before Turn 4. Provided you are actively mulliganing for Cataclysm and drawing a lot of cards, you are going to be able to find Cataclysm very often by Turn 4 and the odds rise rapidly from there, to an almost guaranteed success by Turns 6 and 7. Even if you don’t, the “combo” is placed inside a control shell that is mean to clear the board and remove threat after threat, so for the most part you will be playing a true Control Warlock with the powerful Bloodreaver Gul'dan, which is a win condition all by itself.

The deck can be adapted to whatever the meta turns out to be, but for now it’s mostly optimized to crush aggro and tempo decks while relying on the infinite value win condition of Nether Portal and the longevity provided by Bloodreaver Gul'dan. We have built it with a lot of self-sustain to survive the first weeks of the new meta, where those aggressive decks prey upon unoptimized experimental lists, but that’s definitely not the only way to build it. Cards like Voidlord can make a huge impact, especially with Gul’dan, and an even more demon-centric version can play things like Skull of the Man'ari. Meanwhile, taking it to the control extreme, the deck can make use of additional board clears and hard removal such as Blastcrystal Potion in order to truly remove every threat á la draw-go style, however time will tell what the best approach is as the meta settles down.

Don’t forget to tech your deck with the appropriate cards when you find yourself having trouble – Rummaging Kobold can recycle your weapon when facing weapon hate (which you will, at least at the start) and there are plenty off Oozes to pick from if you find yourself needing weapon hate, though Gluttonous Ooze offers the most sustain.

Have fun with Kobolds and Catacombs!