Cubelock Mulligan Strategy & Guide
Against Aggro you want to have early board-clears and life-gain cards, and against Control you want essential combo pieces.
VS Everything
- Kobold Librarian – Cheap minions that draw cards have always been good, but this is one of the better ones. It activates Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, cycles through your deck, and provides you with a much needed 1-health minion for Defile that you don’t hate to put into your deck.
- Skull of the Man'ari – Pulling big Demons from your hand is your best way to win in the mid game. The slight downside is that you might not draw any of your big Demons by Turn 5 (although it doesn’t happen often).
VS Fast Decks
Higher Priority (Keep every time)
- Defile – One of the strongest board-clearing tools in all of Hearthstone, Defile is amazing at getting you through the early game. Defile handily clears small minions, and is one of the only ways to do so while also removing Deathrattle-produced tokens.
- Doomsayer – The reason you play Doomsayer is that the card is amazing vs Aggro. When played on Turn 2, it usually pops and destroys the whole board. Not only you can clear some early game minions this way, but you also force your opponent to skip board development on his turn.
- Stonehill Defender – It’s not an amazing card, but it’s your only Turn 3 play, and it’s better to drop a 1/4 Taunt than just tap most of the time, especially vs Odd Paladin, where it can actually trade into some of the 1/1’s.
Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)
- Lesser Amethyst Spellstone – This card is pretty bad at first, but even after just a single upgrade, it gets amazing. That’s why you keep it with Kobold Librarian, so you can guarantee a 5 damage + healing on the curve.
- Hellfire – While it might seem like a desperate keep, your ability to clear the board in the mid game is often what wins you the matches vs Aggro decks. Keep it against decks that like to flood the board a lot, such as Odd Paladin.
VS Slow Decks
Higher Priority (Keep every time)
- Mountain Giant – Against slow decks you can afford to spend your first few turns Life Tapping, which sets you up to play Mountain Giant on turn 4. Mountain Giants that early can often win you games, but it also soaks up opponents removal, making your later threats harder to respond to.
- Possessed Lackey – After the nerf, Lackey is too slow to keep vs Aggro, but it’s still good vs slower decks. After all, you want to pull out those Demons from your deck somehow.
Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)
- Doomsayer – Keep when going second and the rest of your hand is okay. Even though it’s more of an anti-Aggro card, sometimes you can keep it vs slower decks too, in order to answer their early game plays and stall their board development. DO NOT keep it if you’re going first, because you will need Taps on Turn 2 and 3 to play Giant. Going second, you can Tap on Turn 2 and drop Doomsayer on Turn 3, setting up a Turn 4 Giant really well.
- Carnivorous Cube – This deck is built to take full advantage of the Cube, and if you keep it in your opening hand you don’t have to find it. You probably want to have at least a Mountain Giant or Skull of the Man'ari before you keep a Cube though.
Cubelock Win Rates
Winrate stats are currently unavailable for this deck at the moment!
Cubelock Play Strategy
With this deck you’re trying to set up powerful plays with Carnivorous Cube, either to make an unbreachable wall or an OTK combo.
Vs Aggro
Games against Aggro aren’t different than usual. Most important thing is to constantly clear the board and survive. In case of Cube Warlock, the key moment is usually surviving until you clear the board and drop Voidlord your opponent can’t answer (e.g. he has no Silence). It can sometimes happen as soon as turn 6-7, although the biggest swing with Cube Warlock happens on Turn 10 – thanks to the Bloodreaver Gul'dan. But, how can you survive that long when your opponent is constantly trying to push damage? 
Most important part is AoE damage. Your deck runs two AoE damage spells – Defile and Hellfire + a slightly different form of board clear, Doomsayer. All of those are really strong in different cases. Hellfire is just your generic 3 AoE damage – it’s enough to clear most of the early game minions your opponent will play. Defile is better when it comes to those tricky boards – if you can line up the health totals of minions, you can even clear 4-5 health minions, as well as everything up to that point. Doomsayer is easiest to counter, but also strongest in the early game, as your opponent will have to skip a turn if he can’t clear it. It’s also a good “proactive” stall tool – after you clear a board, you can drop Doomsayer to force your opponent to skip a turn. Very useful during later turns, when you have something you want to play next without being interrupted. Sometimes you can also drop two Doomsayers on a single turn – it increases the chance of them blowing up quite heavily. Yes, you use two cards instead of one, but it might be worth it if you need to stop your opponent from getting huge board.
On top of those, this build uses Lord Godfrey. Even though 7 mana cost seems quite expensive, it’s very useful, especially against those board flooding Paladins or Zoo Warlocks. Not only it should be able to clear the board quite easily (it’s almost impossible to play around it AND putting multiple minions on the board at the same time), but it also leaves a 4/4 body that you can get another trade with next turn.
One of the most important skill is picking the right AoE for the right situation. Generally, in the early game, try to rely mostly on the Doomsayer. Later in the game, it really depends on the deck you play against. If your opponent doesn’t really play 1 health minions, then you should take Defile value whenever you can. If he does – then you can be a little more greedy with it and wait for a good opportunity. Don’t use your AoE too lightly – Aggro decks usually have multiple ways to refill the board, so if you AoE down two small minions, you might not have a way to deal with e.g. Call to Arms or board flood from Zoo. 
But, even with lots of AoE, your opponent will still deal damage – it’s just something you can’t help. For that reason, in order to keep yourself alive, you run quite a lot of healing. Sadly, the Dark Pact nerf reduced the total healing of your deck by 8, which is massive in Aggro matchups. Still, between 2x Dark Pact and 2x Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, you can heal for quite nice amount, not to mention that Bloodreaver Gul'dan is usually a game over for your opponent, not only because you resummon Demons, but also because you heal for 3 more per turn.
Preserving your life total is important, but don’t mistake not taking damage at all with preserving health. Kobold Librarian is still one of the best cards vs Aggro, even if you take 2 damage. If it trades into your opponent’s 2/1 (for example), then you indeed took 2 damage, but you saved probably 4 or 6 in the long run. Life Taps are similar – even though taking damage and doing nothing is terrible against Aggro, tapping brings you closer to your big Demons (and ways to summon them), as well as AoE and healing cards. You should still Hero Power in the early game, and in the mid/late game if you have free mana and still lots of health. Safe health really depends on the matchup and situation – e.g. aggressive Paladins don’t have a lot of ways to deal damage without board, but Tempo Mage can kill you from 20+ health over 2 turns, with no minions at all. 
Voidlord is a key card when it comes to surviving. But one is often not enough – not only it can get Silenced, but opponents sometimes have ways to get through it (e.g. Sunkeeper Tarim). That’s why cards like Faceless Manipulator and Carnivorous Cube + Dark Pact are so great – you can extra copies of it, so now even if your opponent Silences or deals with one, he still has another to go through.
If you get to Turn 10, a big Bloodreaver Gul'dan is usually GG, assuming that you can revive at least one Voidlord (+probably a bunch of Voidwalkers and possibly some Doomguards). If you have Gul’dan in your hand already and you’re just a few turns off, try to not make any risky plays. Just clear the board constantly and heal up as much as you can. Turn 10 swing is going to win you the game almost every time, so there’s no reason to risk it. If your opponent somehow answered your board (e.g. Even Paladin running Equality combos – not really an Aggro deck, but you get what I mean), then try to Hero Power every turn and continue with your previous game plan of clearing the board. Now with a better Hero Power, there is no way that a faster deck will outvalue you.
Vs Control
When playing vs slower decks, just surviving is not enough. Cube Warlock is not a high value deck. You don’t run multiple tools that generate extra resources, or ways to win a slow, fatigue-oriented game. In the long run, lots of decks are going to destroy every threat in your deck (e.g. Control Warrior), destroy your deck (Rin, the First Disciple or just kill you through some combo (e.g. Mind Blast Control Priest can deal lots of damage from the hand after setting you up to 15 with Alexstrasza). Of course, it all depends on the match, but you usually have to just kill them before you run out of resources. 
First and one of the most important cards in those matchpus is Mountain Giant. I’d say that around 1/4 of the games with Cube Warlock are won around Turn 6-7 thanks to the Giants. Dropping a Giant on Turn 4 is really big when your opponent can’t answer it right away, mostly because you can do so many things later while still putting pressure. Your opponent has to play defensively, while you can push. Most of the time, unless there is some high priority target on the board, you just push face damage. 8 per turn is a lot and can’t be underestimated, especially against Warlocks (which should already be around 20-24 health from the taps and Librarians). After dropping the Giant, you have a few things to do. You can play another Giant, copy the one you have with Faceless Manipulator, play Skull of the Man'ari. On Turn 6 you can either drop Possessed Lackey (good thing is that if you have something on the board already, your opponent might be too busy to worry about silencing it). You can also eat your Giant with Cube and Dark Pact it. The last play is especially powerful if you need to attack something and lose health in process. For example, your opponent drops a 5/5 minions. Hitting it, then dropping Cube and killing it results not only in healing your Giant up, but also getting an extra one. However, if you play a matchup in which putting pressure is important, you’d want to do that even on a full health Giant just to get an extra 8/8.
However, that aggressive push won’t always work. Your opponent might have an answer, or put a Taunt wall. If that’s the case, take the game a bit slower, especially with a very reactive hand. There is no harm in just clearing the board and waiting until Turn 10 swing or Cube combos to close out the game. 
Talking about Cube combos – in slow matchups, it’s usually better to copy Doomguards than Voidlords. While Voidlords provide a huge wall, not only they aren’t aggressive enough, but Voidwalkers also dillute the Bloodreaver Gul'dan spawn pool. It’s a big issue a lot of players don’t think about – reviving 3-4 Doomguards is usually game-winning, while reviving 6 Voidwalkers and Voidlord is… not bad, but underwhelming. So it’s generally better to save the Cube combos for Doomguards. The best way to set those up is Skull of the Man'ari. Once it summons Doomguard, you go face (or bump it into something, you can even get the first one down to 1 health as long as it doesn’t die), then Cube + Dark Pact it, and then get another 10 damage. That’s already up to 15 damage, with two 5/7’s on the board your opponent has to clear. Then, if you go into your Gul’dan turn, you will most likely re-summon more Doomguards, often closing out the game as soon as Turn 10. 
Since the deck runs no Siphon Soul or Twisting Nether, your reactive game vs slow decks is much weaker. You can still kill a single minion with Voodoo Doll + Mortal Coil / Dark Pact, but once your opponent puts two or more big threats, you might have a very hard time. That’s the problem you solve by simply putting pressure all the time. If you have minions on the board and your opponent is pretty low, he has to remove them / Taunt up / heal up all the time, leaving no room to develop. However, this strategy takes a huge toll on your value. If you constantly push, your opponent usually gets the better trades, removes your minions efficiently etc. and you often end up getting outvalued. It doesn’t matter as long as you can kill your opponent first, though.
Talking about the Hero Power, once you transform into DK, that Hero Power is often one of your main win conditions. Simply using it on your opponent every turn can put a lot of pressure on their health – like a better Hunter’s Hero Power. It’s best when you face a Warlock who hasn’t transformed yet. Generally, try to use it every single turn – in the best case scenario you “suck” their Hero, while deal with the board with removals like Hellfire, Spellstone etc. However, if you have a board yourself and clearing something will protect your board, it’s often worth to clear with the Hero Power too. It all depends on the context, how much burst you have, how much health your opponent’s at, board states etc.
Alternatively, since the deck runs 2x Stonehill Defender, there is also a chance that you will discover Rin, the First Disciple. She gives you an alternative win condition, especially against decks that can outvalue you. Against decks that can just kill you, like Mind Blast Priest or Quest Warrior I’d mostly ignore her and go for the pressure – you need to win fast. But she’s an amazing win condition for example against a Quest Priest or against a regular Control Warrior.
Card Interactions
- Faceless Manipulator and Prince Taldaram (this build doesn’t run it, but he’s a viable option) summon the targets of Carnivorous Cube when they die if they copied it. If they copy a Doomguard, Bloodreaver Gul'dan is that much more likely to summon additional Doomguards when played. Also keep in mind that while targeting Carnivorous Cube is their intended purpose, they can also target opposing minions such as The Lich King.
- If you think your opponent has Explosive Runes, you can use it against them by playing Possessed Lackey or Carnivorous Cube into it. You’ll still take four damage when you play Lackey, but the Cube absorbs all of it.
- Carnivorous Cube is a great way to punish your opponent for playing Doomsayer.
- Skull of the Man'ari and Doomsayer have an interesting interaction a lot of people don’t think about. Start of turn effects are resolved in the order they were played in. So if you play Doomsayer first and THEN Skull, even if you have a Demon in your hand, Doomsayer will proc first and only then your skull will summon a Demon. However, the other way around is more common. If you have Skull already equipped and a Demon in your hand, it would often be foolish to play Doomsayer, as that Demon will immediately die.
- Another interesting Skull of Man’ari interaction is that it pulls out a Demon BEFORE you draw a card. So, as long as you have a Demon in your hand and you don’t suspect that your opponent will destroy the weapon, it is possible to finish turn with 10 cards in your hand and not overdraw. Whether it’s worth it or not really depends on the situation, but sometimes you really don’t want to play any card and it’s better to take a slight risk of him destroying the weapon than to let’s say play Hellfire vs no minions.
Cubelock Card Substitutions
Although Despicable Dreadlord and Vulgar Homunculus are excellent cards that otherwise have good synergy with the deck, you can’t include them because they derail your consistency with Possessed Lackey, Skull of the Man'ari and most importantly Bloodreaver Gul'dan. You really want Gul’dan to summon as many Doomguards as possible to end the game. 
Skull of the Man'ari, Carnivorous Cube, Voidlord and Bloodreaver Gul'dan are absolutely irreplaceable. Other cards, however, including Doomsayer, Spiritsinger Umbra or Mountain Giant can indeed be replaced. Here are some of the cards you can consider using instead:
- Siphon Soul and Twisting Nether – These cards are often run in Cube-based Warlock decks, and there’s nothing wrong with them. They are absent from this list to make room for Faceless Manipulator and Mountain Giant, so if you don’t have or don’t want to run that package these are good choices to replace them with.
- Prince Taldaram – While it’s not really a “budget” replacement, if you have Prince, but you don’t have Voodoo Doll, you can drop all of the 3-drops and run Prince Taldaram instead.
- Faceless Manipulator – Again, if you’re missing one of your Epics/Legendaries, you can try out a Faceless manipulator. It’s a flexible card that fits into Cube Warlock really well – you can put more pressure by copying a Giant or Doomguard vs Control decks, or you can put another huge Taunt by copying Voidlord vs Aggro.
- Bloodmage Thalnos or Tainted Zealot or Kobold Geomancer – Spell Damage combos well with Defile, so slower Warlock often include it. Defile is a strong enough card on its own, so it’s not necessary to run any Spell Damage, but if you’re looking for spots to fill this is a good place to look. Each of the cards above have their individual strengths. Thalnos draws a card when he dies, Zealot adds Spell Damage to an additional Defile tick, and Geomancer is guaranteed to be in your collection!
- Acidic Swamp Ooze – Weapon destruction isn’t a bad tech in the current meta. It works best against Tempo Mage (Aluneth) and in the mirror matchups (Skull of the Man'ari), but destroying a Vinecleaver or even Unidentified Maul versus Odd Paladin will also hurt him a lot. And most importantly – it’s a cheap way to fill some of the gaps in the deck.
P.S. If you don’t have Skull or Cubes, but want to play a similar deck, you can always try out the Demon Control Warlock. However, keep in mind that it still requires a different set of Epics to run.
Card Omissions
Cube Warlock is one of those decks in which you’d like to play more than 30 cards, but you have only 30 card slots. Some of the cards are missing simply because they HAD to be cut. It doesn’t mean that they are necessarily bad, and different lists might still run them, but you just had to remove something.
The most notable exclusions is probably Rin, the First Disciple. The Cube-less lists based around Voidlord are very passive, waiting for their opponents to run out of threats. For these decks, Rin is way more helpful than for this build. Rin dramatically accelerates the plan of running your opponent out of threats by removing their deck entirely. The strategy is effective in a lot of the Control matchups, but doesn’t go well in pair with the more aggressive strategy of this list. The turns Control Warlock decks would be spending to cast Rin seals are the turns this deck spends comboing Carnivorous Cube to end the game.
You might be skeptical about playing the slow Warlock deck without any copies of Siphon Soul or Twisting Nether, but they don’t fit this deck perfectly. These cards are very defensive, and great for outlasting your opponents threats, but this is a deck that wants to be proactive during the turns those cards would be necessary. You can still add one copy of each if you want, and it will make your value game much better. However, if you want to slow down and drop some combo consistency, you might as well just play the Demon Control Warlock instead.
Putting this deck under fringe is madness. The deck is still very strong. I played it last season a fair bit because I enjoyed it and never found myself using deathpact on Lacky, I thought it was an awful play and mostly used it on cubes.
Deck is still very strong – though, the past weeks & months have seen multiple changes to this deck from it’s rein when Raza priest dominated, some changes I wouldn’t agree with.
Did my 5 games for the chest at rank 2 with a slightly edited version, won all 5 and went to rank 1. I wouldn’t say this deck is weak or fringe at all. Nerfed and slightly weaker, but not fringe.
We base that list on current stats, and currently the stats say Cubelock is low tier at the moment. If it is as good as you say it is, then it will pop back up soon. These decks are going to be constantly shuffling for the next week or so.
Happy to see it back in great decks.
But yeah of course, I imagine a lot of shifting still to come.
I meant best decks* Haha
Rank 5 currently. I hated this deck! I used to lose to it all the time with warlock just scrapping by with 1-3 hp left. Now I can’t wait to see warlock! It gets rofl stomped by secret mage and now odd Pali or murloc Pali can put some extreme pressure early on. The Nerf to the dark pact 4 healing instead of 8 is what really nerfed this deck so hard. They can’t be so agressive with their hero power or hellfire anymore. I think it’s balanced now but apparently people are still playing it super aggressive like they still get 16 healing total from dark pact.
R.i.P. my love </3
Totally nerfed 🙁
How you win druid taunt
What is the best counters to cube lock?
When it comes to common ladder decks, Tempo Mage is probably the best one against Cube Warlock. Odd Rogue should also be fine. Those decks should be about 60/40 vs Cube Warlock.
Odd Control Warrior and Control Priest are also favorable, but those decks are much more difficult – if you haven’t played them in the past you will most likely lose against Cube Warlocks, because the matchup is hard to play. However, if you master them, they should also be around 60/40 or at least 55/45 against Cube Warlock.
The best counter would probably be Odd Face Hunter – the deck is like 70/30 vs Cube Warlock, which is a very good counter. But then again, it’s bad against so many other common decks, such as all kinds of Paladin or Spiteful Druid.
Hey guys, im about so craft this Deck, but i dont have enough dust for LORD GODFREY and SPIRITSINGER UMBRA, do you have a good idea on what to replace them until i can craft the 2 cards?
Replace Umbra with taldaram and cut the 3 drops, and craft godfrey. If you don’t want to craft godfrey add a twisting nether
Umbra can be somewhat reliably replaced with Spellbreaker. The card really improves some combos, but it’s not necessary.
As for the Lord Godfrey, in this specific list I’d just run a second Doomsayer (since it uses only one). Other solid replacements are e.g. Acidic Swamp Ooze/Gluttonous Ooze, Plated Beetle or Stonehill Defender. Twisting Nether might also be a replacement, but only if you face more slow decks and not Aggro. Nether is often too slow vs Aggro, and you’d rather have some more solid early game instead.
i had a nightmare where i was assaulted by two Carnivorous Cube…seriously.
Everybody is using weapon destroyer these days to counter cubelock. So if you have a doomguard in your hand you cant summon it to not lose your other cards. What would you suggest if our weapon is destroyed? Shuld I craft a rummaging cobold and put it into deck to use ün case of skull is destroyed?
Weapon is not the only method of cheating minions in this deck (if opponent doesn’t have any answer for it you probably won). As a backup you’ve got lackey + pact and always you could use faceless to multiply your winning conditions.
I play this deck and i am rank 3 but if i play against face hunter or burn mage i insta lose.
Are there some card replacemants so those matchups arent so unfavered ?
2 plated beetles could give you extra 6 health and are good against aggro in general (but ther’s not too much room for such a replacement). If you see tempo mage or face hunter ther’s not much you can do. Heal, press them with giants and pray for bad draws for them. 🙂 Every deck has some weak match-ups.
Sometimes just playing Doomguard from your deck is the right answer. Losing two random cards is often not a big deal. But it really depends on the matchup and the situation. For example – do you NEED those Doomguards to win the game? If you do, go ahead and play them, there is nothing else you can do. Or let’s say that you stare at a 5/5 minion that will put you on a quick clock if you don’t kill it – also play that Doomguard and pray that you don’t discard anything valuable.
To be fair, the only discard that REALLY hurts is Bloodreaver Gul’dan. As long as you don’t discard it, you still have a way to win the game.
Jesus, just spent 3000 dust on it and it just dosent click, no early game.
1.Kobold 2.Tap 3.Board Clear 4.Giant 5.Weapon 6.Lackey + Pact. After that any combo with Cube and Doomguard. That should click. 🙂
Right now, how crucial is Umbra? is the only card missing
i played a list like this for quite a while. He kinda bring life to this deck and won me mirror matches/control match due to umbra + cube + doomguard combo burst. I think that umbra is really good from my experience, but he is NOT NEEDED.
Umbra is a she, actually. I respect she does have a somewhat manly appearance due to her cross species thing, but seariously, respect the pronouns. (Such as he, she, ze, and bhe)
Science N’Zoth is dead in Season its pretty nice to have
And also “Balebul Banker” could be used in this deck for more Doomguards
Why don´t use “Zola the gorgon” in this deck? U can get even more combo.
prince3 and faceless are usually better since u get those on board. Zola can copy cube which is good but it require alot of mana and set up.
But its good if you run out of demons, i mean u have one more Doomguard (if u copy)to get from Skull of the Manari.
Many people crying about this deck, many waiting for a nerf, but to be honset this is a combo deck, so it is pretty easy to mess your opponent up. Deny him dark pact, Gul’dan or just hit his face with burn dmg and he is screwd. Geist, tempo mage and milling is the right answer (and of course weapon removal + silence).
And just to add something: not that i’m against the nerf, but game developers shouldn’t touch doomguard or pact cause zoo and control warlock are innocent and shouldn’t be punished with this deck as well. I think enough is just putting cube on 8 mana (cause its stats plus agony effect just begs for that) insead of 5 and problem is solved.
The developers actually released a statement about a week ago in regards to this deck. They said they have no immediate plans of nerfing this deck. They said given the current win/loss ratio they don’t believe it’s overpowered, and that success with this deck is based off skill level more than anything else.
I would say it’s a weird statemet. 10% of players are using this deck. Cost of it in dust is extreme, multiply it by number of players in total and we have the same story as jade druid. 🙂 Well this is business, but only skill you ever need in hearthstone is to know what your opponent has in his deck and just play the worst card they would expect for their next turn.
I use a cube free control and I would hate it if they nerfed dark pact and lackey just because of this deck.
I’ve been running variants on Malygos Miracle Rogue on and off for a very long time, it’s like my go-to kind of build. Although it’s not in a good place right now, requiring Wanted! to get extra coins, it does pretty well against Cubelock as long as they don’t get Skull of the Man’ari on curve.
The trick is to kill the Possessed Lackey then Sap the resulting big demon back to their hand… hence the problem with the Skull on curve. Should probably try and tech in an ooze or Harrison Jones.
so… been thinking about this, taunt druid and quest rogue (maybeb pala 2). Which is the most funny deck and/or op?
Nerf time for this. Just because it’s not aggro doesn’t mean people can take the moral high ground. It’s too dominant and is becoming as boring and depressing as Pirate Warrior back in the day. There’s some skill but not much beyond turn 5 or 6.
Main lock here and cubelocker since day1 🙂 i’ve played many versions of cubelocks,but imo this list:
-umbra was good pre-nerf for raza priest after turn 8-9,now is usually a dead card in hand
-tar creepers is not good in this deck…when you topdeck it in late usually is useless…we have many answer for first turns
-2x faceless is better for many reasons -> copy your cube or the opponent cube(and void and doom),doomguard for encrease number for dk ,giants for a good turn 5 and it’s very powerfull vs aggro with weapon cause you can target your voidlord on turn 6 for prevent silence
-i play 1 owl(better for defile combo) and gluttonous for mirrors and it’s good
-sometime i think to cut godfrey…imo could be better in a control more than here…i give him another 1 month chance,not anymore
Why would you cut tar creeper.
You know in this meta is a lot of aggro decks there is no better answer than tar creeper for turn 3.
Like the creator said this is deck that you want more than 30 cards
cause you have all cards for play 4 turn if you manage them good 🙂
i didn’t write that i use 2 plated beatle for good treads
reach legend yesterday. XD
Umbra USELESS???
r u serious this card give you insane OTK combo
She gives strenght to this deck, combo and control
better faceless
Main Cubelocker since day 1? May I kindly ask for your address? I’d like to personally express my pent up emotions towards everybody who is playing this extraordinary deck. 🙂
hahahaha lmao. Hopefully ur not playing as odd paladin which is even worse!
Any chance you could post your deck list?
Why cut Faceless Manipulator?
Hello! I don’t have Doomsayers, Voodoo Dolls, or Spiritsinger Umbra. Is there anything that I can replace these cards with? I have all the other Legendaries but I think I’d like to avoid crafting Umbra if I can.
You should probably craft doomsayer if you have the dust, as they are being used a lot. I don’t have Umbra either, and I threw a faceless manipulator in. It’s actually decent and very flexible. You can copy your opponent’s big minions or your own voidlords/cubes/giants.
Umbra is such a powerful card in this deck. Cubing a Doomguard with umbra in play, then nuking the cube gives you an immediate 20 point damage spike. You can do without the doomsayers or voodoo dolls, but if you can craft umbra, go for it.
I’m not a fan of this deck, however having all the cards necessary to build it I put it together and went on a 14 game winning streak… Cubelock is so over the top its sickening… having played the previous 2 most cancerous decks in hearthstone ( jade druid and Rasa priest) I thoroughly believe this is perhaps the most vile deck in HS history… it needs merged badly.
Same feeling here, not a very engaging deck to play and I feel weird playing a deck that just outright wins me games unless my opponent draws insane. Its unstoppable against almost every deck.
Hi! I really like this deck and (somehow) got the 2 legendaries from packs (hero and weapon). I am a f2p player and whenever i spend dust, i go ask people on the internet for their opinions about is something worth crafting. My question is – are the mountain giants worth crafting? I thing they work great but my goal is to craft cards that can be played in a lot of decks…pls help ;(
Sorry for my bad english…i am practising a lot but still..
Read guide careful it says that mountain giant isnt necessary
Great deck i hit legendary from rank 13.
Yeah it has problem with some decks on lader but in right hands this deck is insane
i have 1600 dust which should create SPIRITSINGER or LORD GODFREY ? :/
I would craft spiritsinger because of 25 dmg combo.
You can substitute lord godfrey for twisting nether etc
In current meta it is impossible to pass rank 2 with this deck because of two specific decks taunt druid & control priest when u face one of them just press the concede button, all my matchups are a loop of taunt druid, control priest, spiteful druid (unfavored), any mage deck (unfavored). after this loop i play against one of the decks that i could beat like : paladin,tempo rouge,zoo warlock,hunter (if u lucky),mirror.and so on.
Yeah taunt druid is big problem. Only way to win him is early mountain giant
But in standard i cant find way to beat frostlich janna.
Also if the mountain giant with me They always have Naturalize and mill me for two cards 🙁 ,Big spell mage also auto-lose by their Ooze,Harrison,Poly.
It’s because Taunt Druid and Control Priest hard counter both aggro and Cube Warlock. Right now most logical choice for a deck I would say.
I mean I’m 5-0 vs taunt Druid you just got to get doom guards and then otk with guldan. Pray they don’t have Harrison on 5 too.
It bothers me a bit that nothing has been done about this deck at all, even considering it’s domination before The Witchwood rolled around. The deck has made like Bane and bent the whole meta around it’s leg. To start, many of the comments are saying things like “oh it’s not a broken deck, it loses to aggro”, which equates to me as you flip a coin and either play aggro or control, with midrange being thrown off to the side, for the most part, and even in Control v. Control, Cubelock wins unless it’s an OTK like Shudderwock. In the Aggro v. Cubelock scenario, the deck has to lose by turn six, otherwise the Possessed Lackey into Voidlord plus eight health has basically won you the game. Even in aggro, Cubelock has made taking Spellbreaker or Owl in every deck regardless of circumstance a necessity. Back when I played the game, silence was a tech choice, but now Cubelock has the meta so twisted that it’s a guaranteed two-off.
My second problem with the deck is it’s minions. Of course, Blizzard never could have foreseen that all of these cards would interact in this way, and for that, credit goes to the players. The fact remains, however, that these interactions are well… bullshit. The thing I relate it to is the card text for the Dark Magician Yugioh card- “The ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense.” That’s Cubelock: the ultimate deck in terms of attack and defense. Due to the crazy flexibility of Carnivorous Cube, a warlock can either bust out 36 Total health or 15 burst damage depending on what Lackey cheats out, and in either situation, you’re screwed unless you’ve got a silence. The spells are also a huge problem. Of course you’ve got your Defile, but that isn’t really overpowered, nice anti-aggro tool, most of the problem comes from the healing. As if warlock didn’t already have the upper hand on aggro and most other control decks, only two copies of Dark Pact and Amethyst Spellstone end the game with the warlock at 30 health more often than not.
FInally we get into some proposed nerfs, some I’ve heard or seen, as well as a few of my own. Of course, I’m no Blizzard developer. I have no idea what the nerfing process is like, or how much thought is put into changing a card. I’m simply a semi-casual player looking for a better experience by bringing a deck off the throne it’s on, and getting it on a power level around equal to the rest. The goal would be to change the deck to bring its power level down, but not pull a Warsong Commander and make the deck unplayable. The first example of this unplayable nerfing that I’ve heard is “Give Doomguard Rush”. Now, while this works theory, stopping Cubelock’s ridiculous 15-20 Damage burst, it ruins Doomguard’s entire identity. Changing Doomguard would also have a serious ripple effect on Demonlock and Zoo, and create more problems than is necessary, so it’s most likely best to leave the classic cards out of this. Another nerf that completely destroys Cubelock, though, is much more thought out with more reasoning is, “Change Carnivorous Cube to say ‘Battlecry : Destroy a friendly minion with power 4 or Less’”. Now yes, this ruins Cubelock as a deck, which I honestly don’t mind, but keeps it so that it can still be played with, either in warlock or other classes, and still allows Cubing Voidlord. The deck becomes more defensive, loses the burst, and would have somewhat visible counterplay. My nerfs target what I believe to be the two most obnoxious cards in the deck, Voidlord and Dark Pact. Dark Pact is fairly simple, make it cost Two or Three mana. Easy, Execute style nerf, that doesn’t cripple the deck or the combo. Even execute is still being used in control warriors. For Voidlord, I direct attention to the Grizzled Guardian, a Druid 8 Mana 3/5 that recruits two 4-or lower cost minions upon death. Now 4-or lower minion season will basically always be better than Voidcallers, so the mana cost makes some sense, but I still believe that 9 mana for what is essentially a 6/18, not even accounting for any Cubes or Bloodreavers, is norm enough. I think that making the Voidlord 10 Mana might be a little overkill, so the only other place to hit is its stats. Personally, I think that anything from a 3/8 to a 1/9 would make the card astronomically easier to deal with, while still being the wall that it’s made to be.
If you managed to find this and read the whole thing, thanks! I’m happy to know what this community thinks about the deck. Hopefully we can keep it constructive, though. No need to tell me I’m bad and the only reason I lose to Cubelock is cause I play garbage quest Hunter. I already know that. These were just my thoughts on how to inch the deck’s power level down.
Is godfrey a good choice against the odd/even paladins horde in ladder right now?
I mean, defile, hellfire, 3 mana taunts and the spellstone can do his work to survive without the body defile?
yes he got really nice board clear.
especially in this aggro meta
Would it be good if i add the black knight to the deck?
Can someone tell me how to use this deck? I’m stuck at rank 17 because a priest comes along and mind controls insta kills or board clears my stuff and Odd Hunter kills me with Hero power. I understand the spiritsinger Umbra combo that gets 4 doomgaurds to deal 20 damage but it requires 5 exact cards in your hand!
Should I just make a different deck or keep grinding?
As long as you have played a few demons before hand you should easily out tempo him after you Guldan. Also priest decks are really slow so u can just cube/giant him. In slow matchups u want to avoid getting a void lord on the bird so u can one shot him with Guldan
Spiritsinger is a very hard combo to pull off. The meta is very aggressive right now, so I would suggest you to use other card. Knowing the other decks will help you avoid their strog plays. Against hunter or aggro paladin keep your taunts and use dark pact on whatever you have on board as soon as you’ve lost 8 health. Priest can mind control a voidlord but cannot beat you on the fatigue game, since you have Gundan Deathknight, so imo don’t try to be aggressive and focus on controling the board and killing his minions. People say “omg cubelock is so overpowered” but reality is you will loose some games. That’s life.
I have the easiest time vs Cubelock using Spiteful Priest. When I use tempo or aggro, I always lose if I can’t finish before turn 7-8, which doesn’t happen often when cubelock drops a few taunts. Feels like a bit of rock paper scissor going on. cubelock beats aggro, aggro beats spiteful and spiteful beats cubelock.
I agree Cubelock takes more skill then I thought!
thanks for advice.
As long as you have played a few demons before hand you should easily out tempo him after you Guldan. Also priest decks are really slow so u can just cube/giant him. In slow matchups u want to avoid getting a void lord on the bird so u can one shot him with Guldan
oh ok I see where I went wrong.
They need to nerf Cube so that 1. it doesn’t trigger deathrattle of the target and 2. it reproduces the minion in the state it was devoured (for example, if voidlord was silenced with 7 health remaining, cube gives back two 3/7’s.
Cube is fine and cubelock itself is not OP if you compare it to other meta decks
Cubelock is not op – period. There is no comparison needed, it’s a strong deck well-deserving of its tier 1 status that can be easily “side-decked” as Yu-Gi-Oh players say. It has a lot of weaknesses that someone can exploit and if you know how Cubelock works, you know how to beat it. It’s a fair match.
Great guide, as always. One suggestion is that you may want to remove Spiritsinger Umbra from the omissions section as it is now included in the deck.
I think it’s only the list they updated. Guide is yet to be done.
The guide was just updated earlier today (or late yesterday). It also looks like the Spiritsinger Umbra was removed from the omissions section.
The deck should have been nerfed before, glad to see it gets punished now.
Why no more Faceless Manipulator, it’s great for copying cubes, giants, voidlords/doomguards or your opponent’s big minions
Replace Tarcreepers and Giants with Stonehill Defenders and Doomsayers. Much better. Rank 3 getting to 2 soon I think. Stonehills give a chance for another Voidlord. Doomsayers for Aggro.
Rotten Applebaum instead of Doomsayer working for me to.
I want to play this deck so much but I may have to disenchant all of my legendaries plus my secret tempo mage and odd paladin in order to do so
It’s never worth disenchanting all your cards for one deck plus. Odd pally is one of the highest rated decks in the meta. Learn your way around that deck and you’ll be good with that. Same thing goes for secret tempo. All decks have their perks.
First time played cube lock today.
A slightly different list but mechanic is the same.
What I have to say is the deck feels really really good when it works. Like I can win games with paly and others but they always feel very close, like I have to struggle a lot.
Not with this deck though! The games you win feel amazing, like not even close. Sometimes you feel like there is nothing the opponent could possibly do to you. It’s amazing.
Can someone explain to me why Voodoo Doll is in this list? With 2 Lackeys, 2 Cubes and more by Faceless wouldn’t Sanguine Reveler be the better option? Even more if you’re above 22 HP.
And with all the mirror matches and Paladins why is there no weapon removal? I think you could easily cut one Mortal Coil for an Ooze.
***IMPORTANT UPDATE***
The best replacement for the rotated 2x Mistress seems to be 2x Gluttonous Ooze.
Unfortunately that also means the end of Prince Taldaram, which seems to be a little too greedy in the actual meta.
***IMPORTANT UPDATE***
Isit possible to replace all legends in the deck with non legends and still make it work?
not really, bloodreaver gul’dan seem to powerfull. lord godfrey himself make a big difference too.
is this going to be the final deck for witchwood or do you think it will change alot. Basically should I craft this deck now or wait to see how the meta develops.
I would wait. The first couple of days of a new expansion, especially with a rotation is in flux. If you’re not bursting at the seams with dust, I’d wait a couple of weeks before crafting epics or legendaries. Or anything if you’re really tight on dust.
I got 8000+ from hall of fame and some disenchanting but ill probably wait
I’m with you. I’m sitting on 8,800 (8K from HoF). I’ve learned from crafting cards in the past like Don Han’Cho from the early Gadgetzan days.
Right now, I’m trying to resist the urge to craft Baku.
I’m with you. Odd decks seems pretty powerful as well as fun. I was really hoping to get Baku from packs.
I opened Baku in my first 10 packs so I’ll probably just play pally
Is there any substitute for umbra and for one voodoo doll?? Or maybe I should make these cards??
This Is The Best Deck Ever And I Think IS Unbeatable.
THIS DECK MUST BE NERFED FAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Still have mistress of mixtures in Witchwood version
And N’Zoth 🙂
The deck list at the top hasn’t been updated to The Witchwood yet – we just don’t know how it will look.
We posted the cards that are rotating out and a list of potential replacements in the Introduction, and we’ll update the deck & guide once the expansion hits and play test the new version 🙂
I see the value of running N’zoth, but since I’ve never owned him I guess a Mortal Coil will have to suffice until the rotation.
The second legendary I ever got was prince taldaram. I was just a beginning player, and there was no use for taldaram in the frozen throne. A friend advised I try to make a simple secret mage, so I used the dust on an ice block.
I play mainly warlock now, and have regretted dusting him ever since.
Lesson learned, wait quite a while before dreaming a legendary bad.
Or, use this sites guide, it’s pretty useful for deciding whether to dust (At least for me!)
deeming*
Use dog’s version where he replaces one faceless for spiritsinger. It makes the deck a lot better and way more consistent. I kept losing games using this version of the deck, however when I add spirtsinger my winrate jumps way up.
lol, faceless manipulators are a lot more consistent than umbra.
You can copy:
your own voidlord summoned via lackey or skull turn 5;
you opponent’s voidlord in mirror matches or late game against priest (but you should play trying to avoid them stealing your voidlord);
your own mountain giant summoned the turn before in slow matchups;
your opponent’s mountain giant in mirror matches;
your own doomguard for burst damage (though it’s better to cube it because of guldan);
something good on the opponent’s side (i.e. obsidian statue or lich king against big priest; tirion or other big minions against spiteful, etc),
etc.
Umbra is almost completely useless before turn 9 and it does only work with doomguards (with voidlords there’s an insane voidwalker flooding). If you want the same result (but with more flexibility) you should try playing 1x sanguine reveler. At 10 mana with Prince Taldaram the result is the same (cube + taldaram + pact + reveler).
What about mistress vs beetle? It really sucks to resummon 2x mistress with nzoth when you’re above in hp and board (but i.e. a little below in the fatigue count).
How do you know whether to mulligan against a fast or slow deck before the game has started?
You just have to get a feel for what’s being played. Depending on the class you’re facing, you can usually guess what deck your opponent has. Right now of the top decks, paladin is just about the only aggro deck going. A little bit of hunter too. Warlock and priests are going to be slower matchups. Mage will try to burn you down fast.
Just try to learn the decks as you go. There won’t be too many different decks that’ll you’ll be playing against.
Of course, you can never “know” for sure, but it boils down to the meta knowledge. For example, take a look at the deck stats from Vicious Syndicate: https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-84/
And now you face Paladin. Significant majority of the Paladins on the ladder are playing aggressive decks, so you mulligan vs a fast deck. You CAN be wrong, let’s say 1 in 15 games you will meet a Control/Exodia Paladin, but majority of time you will meet fast decks.
On the other hand, look at the Warlock. 16% is Control and 3% is Zoo. So it’s safe to say that you want to mulligan vs a slow deck, because that’s what most of the Warlocks play.
You also need to be aware of the meta around the rank you’re playing, because it differs. E.g. in lower ranks, you might meet more Zoo, so you need to be ware of that (just an example).
Sometimes it’s impossible to determine that, e.g. back in Un’Goro, there was a point where Pirate Warrior and Taunt Warrior was 50/50. In such cases, you generally want to mulligan for the faster deck. You can recover from a bad mulligan vs a slow deck, but if you keep your greedy cards and throw away removals / cheap stuff against Aggro, you will have a very hard time. In general, reading the meta is one of the most important skills to learn when playing Hearthstone.
Of 15 games only 2 won now. This deck is not good anymore.
I’ve played this deck and I’ve achieved a 78% winrate from rank 7 to rank 4
Well I got 55% with this deck and 82% with Zoo
This is a skill heavy deck so you have to think very carefuly about what you do and you need to have a plan for the game
It is good. People are teching against it and have learned how to play against it, but it’s still good. I think that the problem lies somewhere else, maybe you’re playing a bad build (the one in the article is a general one – you might want to adjust it to the meta you face), maybe the meta you play against is not friendly for Warlocks, maybe you aren’t playing it optimally, etc.
With this deck I won 7 games in a row, then lost 6 games in a row, then won 6 games in a row and then lost 8 games in a row…
i realized 2x mortal coil is replaced with Doomsayers. Any suggestions which i should put? Currently I’m running mortal coils.
Doomsayers. But Cubelock isnt the strongest deck anymore. Play Spiteful Priest. This deck is top tier rn.
Lol. Cubelock IS the strongest deck around. Both control and aggro decks need to heavily tech against it to be 50-50 most of the times.
Spiteful vs Cubelock is favorable to spiteful only if you run something like 2 weapon removal and 2 silence.
Moreover Warlock is still the most banned class in tournaments (especially cube variants).