ETC OTK Control Warrior Deck List & Guide – Darkmoon Faire – November 2020

Check out alternative versions of this deck on our ETC Warrior archetype page!

ETC OTK Control Warrior Mulligan Strategy & Guide

VS Fast Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Ancharrr – Excellent early weapon and card draw tool.
• Corsair Cache – Great weapon tutor.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Brawl – Keep against decks that flood the board, such as Evolve Shaman and Zoo Warlock.
• EVIL Quartermaster – Keep against decks that you can challenge on the board early on, such as Hunter and Paladin, but not against decks like Rogue that have tons of early removal spells to protect their minions.
• Armorsmith – Keep against decks that deal a lot of face damage but have poor tools for fighting for the board, such as Hunter.

VS Slow Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Ancharrr – Excellent early weapon and card draw tool.
• Corsair Cache – Great weapon tutor.
• Rattlegore – Many slow decks can potentially starve you out but can have difficulties dealing with Rattlegore, so getting it out early becomes a major priority.

ETC OTK Control Warrior Play Strategy

The most important thing to understand when playing a combo deck is how your combo works. ETC Warrior’s combo is superficially simple, but there are many variations of how you can pull it off, so it warrants a lengthy discussion.

First of all, your basic combo. Play E.T.C., God of Metal, shoot it with Pen Flinger, and then copy it twice with two copies of Bloodsworn Mercenary. Play Animated Broomstick to give all your minions Rush. This is a ten-mana, five-card combo that gives you seven Rush minions, all of which can deal six damage to the face (two from each ETC) when they attack the opponent’s minions. If all the ETCs survive their attacks, the combo can deal up to 42 damage, and if all ETCs die when attacking, the combo still deals 36 damage (ETC deals damage to face before it dies). Your opponent has to have at least nine Health worth of minions on the board for the full combo to work, or at least five Health worth of low-attack minions (two or less) or seven Health worth of any minions for you to be able to deal exactly 30 damage.

It is important to note that you do not need the full combo in many cases. For example, if you have minions on the board, they can go face, and if you give them Rush with Animated Broomstick, E.T.C., God of Metal will also deal damage to the opponent when they attack. This is why sticking a Rattlegore on the board can be so strong, as it amplifies the damage you can deal by a lot.

If you have minions on the board, you need to be careful with your board space. In such cases, you can use some of the minions before making all the E.T.C., God of Metal copies. For example, fill your board with two ETCs and the Animated Broomstick and summon a third ETC after you have traded away two minions: the Bloodsworn Mercenary will not have Rush, but the ETC will because it is a copy of another ETC that has Rush.

If you are missing some of the combo pieces, you may still be able to pull off a partial combo. For example, you can give your ETC Rush and have it attack an enemy minion that it can survive so that it gets damaged and can be targeted with Bloodsworn Mercenary. Note that the ETC copy will have Rush too even though the Bloodsworn Mercenary will not! Alternatively, you can Shield Slam your own ETC if you’re low on armor to damage it for Bloodsworn Mercenary.

Some of the ETC Warrior decks use Guardian Augmerchant instead of Pen Flinger to damage E.T.C., God of Metal for copying. The Guardian Augmerchant version is better against big minions and armor (ETC will always survive its attack resulting in guaranteed 42 damage against a board of big minions) and in scenarios where the opponent cannot answer the initial board and you can win over two turns. The Pen Flinger version, on the other hand, can flexibly and repeatedly deal one damage to various targets during the game as long as you remember to return Pen Flinger to your hand after use. Note that Pen Flinger has to survive the spell you cast for it to be returned back to hand.

Remember that only minions with Rush activate ETC’s effect. Animated Broomstick is absolutely vital to give enough minions Rush for the one-turn-kill.

Depending on the Health of your opponent and how many minions you have on the board, you can pull off the combo as early as turn seven (with one Bloodsworn Mercenary): if you have some minions on the board that can go face and you can Rush the others into the opponent’s minions, you have the potential to deal more than 30 damage that early. When playing ETC OTK Warrior, there are often opportunities for lethal.

VS Aggro Decks

There are two ways to win against aggro decks: either you use the good old Risky Skipper + Armorsmith + Bloodsworn Mercenary combo to gain a ton of armor and simply outlast the aggro deck or beat them down with Rattlegore, or you counter-punch them with a full or partial E.T.C., God of Metal combo.

Against aggro decks that will run out of damage, such as Face Hunter, Armorsmith is a great option. Against aggressive decks that have a lot of resource generation, such as Rogue, you need to keep your options open longer and look for those counter-punch opportunities. Sometimes you can win those matchups with armor as well, whereas sometimes you want to hold your Bloodsworn Mercenary for the combo. Of course, sometimes you don’t find Risky Skipper and sometimes you miss some of your combo pieces, so your draw can heavily influence the path that you choose.

For the most part, you play as a regular control deck against aggro decks. Choose your answers carefully so that you will not run out of them before the aggro deck runs out of threats. For example, if you have a lot of armor generation in hand, you can often be greedier with your removal spells as you can afford to take some damage. Sometimes you want to keep an Evolve Shaman’s board clear most of the time, whereas with other hands you want them to Evolve their minions first and you will simply Brawl the board afterward.

Bulwark of Azzinoth can be great if there is no weapon removal and you face a limited number of big minions, whereas it goes down quickly against tokens. Note that you can use your last charge of Bulwark of Azzinoth to deal damage to a minion and not take any damage in return. This is sometimes useful when that one damage makes the difference between removing a minion from the board or not.

VS Control Decks

Against Control decks, the key card is Rattlegore. If you can play your Rattlegore and it goes unanswered, you have an opportunity to make copies of it and just roll over your opponent. Rattlegore is the key in different ways in different matchups though: Against Priest, you’re perfectly fine with them stealing your Rattlegore, as it will then give you a guaranteed target for your combo as long as you’re close enough to the combo so that Rattlegore does not kill you first. Against other Warriors, you need to be aware that playing Rattlegore gives them a target for the combo if they are also playing E.T.C., God of Metal, so you want to have enough Armor to survive the combo in you suspect that it is an option.

ETC OTK Control Warrior Card Substitutions

ETC Warrior, like most Control Warrior decks, is prohibitively expensive and there are only a limited number of replacements available. The combo itself requires E.T.C., God of Metal and two copies of Bloodsworn Mercenary, so they cannot be replaced under any circumstances.

• Rattlegore is one of your main win conditions alongside the combo itself, so it can be difficult to replace. However, it is possible to build the deck with Galakrond, the Unbreakable, which can give you the additional damage to win games and potentially replace Rattlegore.
• Bulwark of Azzinoth is a potent defensive tool, but it is optional. If you cut the Bulwark, you probably also want to cut Corsair Cache, as you will not have enough targets for it. Possible replacements include Galakrond, the Unbreakable and Minefield.
• Lord Barov is just about too good to replace, but you can give Plague of Wrath a try as an alternative.
• Shield Slam is strong, but there are other removal options available, especially Coerce.
• Brawl and Bladestorm are your strongest control tools, but there are some lists that attempt to cut some of them in favor of even more card draw, such as Stage Dive and another copy of Cutting Class.
• Ancharrr is too central for card draw and cannot be replaced.