Heal Zoo Warlock Deck List Guide – Boomsday – August 2018

Our Heal Zoo Warlock deck list guide for the The Boomsday Project expansion will teach you how to play this explosive Warlock list. This Heal Zoo Warlock guide includes Mulligans, Gameplay Strategy, Card Substitutions, and Combos/Synergies!

Introduction to Heal Zoo Warlock

While Zoo Warlock is a very old archetype, one of the Hearthstone’s classic, players have tried a new approach to the deck late in The Witchwood meta. Zoo is naturally a deck that takes a lot of damage. Usually, it doesn’t matter – if you’re the aggressive one, your health total is not a big deal. There seemed to be no point in playing healing before.

However, this build plays healing not only for the sake of gaining health, but also because of the synergies. Not only you can play a free Happy Ghoul after gaining health (and a free 3/3 in the early game is very, very strong in an aggressive deck like this one), but you can also burst your opponent down with a buffed Lightwarden. You can consistently make it a 3/2 (or 4/3 after Prince Keleseth), but a well-timed Fungal Enchanter can easily add 6 or 8 extra attack out of nowhere.

The deck is much more early-game oriented than the regular Zoo lists. It has no late game staying power and it relies on its explosive nature to snatch quick wins against decks that didn’t have perfect answers for your early game. Heal Zoo is an answer for a very greedy meta we currently have – lots of the decks are cutting their early game in favor of the mid/late game plays, and a hyper-aggressive deck like this one can punish that.

It’s hard to say whether the deck will last through the rotation, when the meta changes completely, but right now it’s rising in popularity, becoming the #1 Warlock deck.

Boomsday Heal Zoolock Deck List

This is a potential Boomsday version of the deck (credit to Rdu). It has yet to be refined, but if you are looking to try Heal Zoolock in the new expansion this might be the way to go! We will be refining our lists and guides as soon as we can! The deck list after this one is the version that was used prior to the expansion.


Deck Import

Deck List

Deck Import

Heal Zoo Warlock Mulligan Strategy & Guide

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

  • Kobold Librarian – Solid, aggressive stats. It cycles. It damage yourself, so activates the ability to heal your Hero. It’s one of the best 1-drops in the game. Always keep it.
  • Flame Imp – Comparable to Kobold Librarian in this deck. Instead of cycling, it gets +1/+1 in stats. Both are amazing cards to drop on Turn 1, though.
  • Prince Keleseth – There is no matchup or situation in which you want to mulligan Prince Keleseth away. The win rate associated with this deck skyrockets when he’s in the opener. If you have it – keep it. If not, look for it!
  • Happy Ghoul – A great card if you can get it out for free, and you should be able to, since you have six cards that potentially heal you. You should usually get it out between Turn 2 and 4, unless you draw really poorly.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

  • Lightwarden – You can keep it with a healing card, although unless you have a perfect hand, such as Flame imp + Lightwarden + Voodoo Doctor, I’d mulligan it away.
  • Voidwalker – Keep against Paladin. 1/3 stats and Taunt are good against small dudes, but it’s not great against majority of the meta. You have better 1-drops you can look for, and the chance that you won’t get any is incredibly small.
  • Voodoo Doctor – Keep with Happy Ghoul or Lightwarden.
  • Despicable Dreadlord – Keep against Paladin. It might seem weird to keep a 5-drop in a deck like that, but trust me, Dreadlord wins the game against Odd Paladin.

Heal Zoo Warlock Win Rates

Winrate stats are currently unavailable for this deck at the moment!

Heal Zoo Warlock Play Strategy

Vs Aggro

When you play Aggro vs Aggro mirrors, the most important thing is tempo. If you utilize it correctly, even a small tempo advantage can translate into a big board advantage over time and eventually into value too. Right now, slow matchups are more common than Aggro, but Aggro are still a thing on the ladder – mirror matchups, Odd Rogue, Odd Paladin. This deck generally works okay against Aggro, because of your early game tempo swings and the ability to value trade and then heal up your minions.

The most important thing against Aggro is to not fall behind. Your only comeback mechanic against wide board is Despicable Dreadlord, and it only deals 1 AoE damage. It will work only if your opponent isn’t careful or simply can’t play around it, which isn’t often. This means that you can’t afford to make slow, low tempo plays in the early game. You want to drop minions instead of going for value. Life Tapping is generally a bad play unless you can’t do anything else. Even on Turn 2, if you can choose between tapping and dropping a 1-drop, you generally should go for the 1-drop (especially if that’s a Kobold Librarian, then you might even topdeck another).

Dealing damage to your opponent is not important. I mean, ultimately it will be – but not in the early/mid game. Here, you want to take control over the board. Try your best to value trade – clear a minion while keeping yours alive. That’s also why opening with Prince Keleseth is perfect – your minions will have +1/+1, which means that it will be easier to trade. At the same time, you want to do your best so your opponent won’t be able to value trade into your minions. Let’s say that you clear a 1/2 with your Flame Imp, leaving it at 1 health. If your opponent has a 1/1 minion, he will now be able to clear it. But, you can always try to prevent that by placing a Taunt (VoidwalkerTar Creeper) in between them, buffing it out of range (Fungalmancer) or even healing it up.

When it comes to healing, it is very important to use it correctly. First of all, Voodoo Doctor. It’s the only healing you can target, and the target plays a big role. If you have a Happy Ghoul in your hand, you should generally heal yourself – this will let you drop Ghoul for free. The only exception is when you can heal something to value trade, and then you have another healing card you can drop next turn anyway alongside Ghoul. This is especially useful if you can keep a bigger minion around, such as the Dreadlord. Another thing when it comes to healing is ordering. I know that it sounds obvious, but I’ve already seen people making this mistake. Play your Lightwarden before dropping a healing card. If you play to drop Fungal Enchanter, try to get as many value trades first as possible. Like I’ve mentioned, board control is most important against Aggro.

Despicable Dreadlord is often an MVP of the Aggro matchups. It deals 1 AoE damage every single turn, and they might have a hard time removing it. Ideally, you want to protect it the best you can – drop it behind a Taunt, make it clear the board etc. Then, the most common answer is Silence, but even then it’s a tempo loss for your opponent, which is a win for you. If you need to trade with your Dreadlord, try to heal it afterwards.

Void Ripper can be a really powerful tool in some scenarios. Against Aggro, you will mostly use it for efficient trading. Let’s say that you have a 3/3 minion and your opponent has a 3/2 minion. That kind of board is already a great Void Ripper target. Flipping your opponent’s minion means that you will be able to trade into it while leaving a 3/1 behind on your side. Just like with healing, order is important when doing a Void Ripper. First get your pre-Void Ripper efficient trades (e.g. a 2/1 into a 3/2), THEN flip and get the rest of the trades. Alternatively, if you’re going face, first attack with the minions that will have a lower attack after the flip, and only then drop Void Ripper.

This deck isn’t late game heavy. Without cards such as Doomguard or Bloodreaver Gul'dan used by the regular Zoo builds, you can’t really afford a very long game. Your main staying power is Life Tap – in the mid/late game, once you run out of steam, you will draw 2 cards per turn. That’s why it’s important to get ahead on the board earlier – if you’re ahead, you will be able to afford tapping. If you aren’t, Hero Power would only put you further behind. The ideal strategy against Aggro is to control the board until you get a solid advantage, then suddenly switch to the face race plan. Lightwarden is a perfect card for that. You can drop it one turn, do your usual trading, and then next turn drop a Fungal Enchanter and start going face. Lightwarden can be a 7/2 or 9/2 quite easily, so it’s a massive burst tool. Finish the game with Leeroy Jenkins, Soulfire or Lifedrinker – those are your extra burn from hand cards. You can also look for a Void Ripper lethal – especially if you have Tar Creeper on the board, you can get some extra damage out of nowhere.

Vs Control

As you can imagine, games against slower decks are completely different than Aggro mirrors. In this case, controlling the board will not be as important – especially since there is not much board to control in the early game anyway. You will nearly always get ahead on the board. What is important is to take advantage of that and kill your opponent before the late game. You don’t stand a chance against late game Control deck – some will grind you out of resources (Big Spell Mage), some will combo you (Shudderwock Shaman), some will put a massive wall of Taunts you will have no way getting through (Taunt Druid). Basically, you need to kill them before they can perform their own game plan.

That’s why tempo is also very important against Control decks, just for a different reason than against Aggro. The more tempo you have, the quicker you will be able to kill your opponent. In the early game, you generally want to go all in – drop as many minions as you can and deal as much damage as you can. There are only a few things you might want to play around, such as Doomsayer (dropping 6 damage on the board, like Flame Imp + Coin + Flame Imp, without having the ability to deal the last 1 damage can be devastating against decks running Doomsayer) or Defile (try to play around it, but it’s not the end of the world if you get Defiled – the card will get value against you at some point anyway).

Do you trade or not? That’s a very important, and difficult question. Ideally, you’d prefer to deal as much face damage as possible and let your opponent do the trades. But sometimes trading will actually give you more damage in the long run, and those are the situations you need to look out for. It all depends on the board state and situation, but there are three main scenarios in which trading is a good play. First scenario is your opponent dropping a high priority target. For example, you do want to trade away that Northshire Cleric or Mana Tide Totem unless you’re really close to killing your opponent. If you don’t, your opponent will draw 2-3 more cards and might find that AoE he needs to come back into the game. Another scenario is getting a value trade while having other, smaller minions on the board. For example, you have a 3/3 and 2/2 on the board, your opponent drops a 2/3. If you don’t kill it with your 3/3, he will get a free trade on a 2/2 and then either damage your 3/3 or maybe clear another minion. The last scenario is – obviously – playing around AoE clears. You generally want to trade in order to protect your higher health minions. Let’s say that you have a 4/4 minion on the board against Warlock who might drop a Hellfire. Leaving a small minion on his side lets him trade into your 4/4 and then AoE. If you clear it first with something else, his Hellfire will leave a 4/1 on your side of the board, and that’s important. Even if the AoE would clear your entire board anyway, it might still be worth to clear a minion, so your opponent won’t end up with a board advantage (assuming a non-mirrored AoE, such as e.g. Flamestrike). Against Druid, other than Taunt, you also might want to try to play around Spreading Plague, which is kind of like an AoE, but even more punishing. To play around it, try to trade off your smaller minions and keep only the bigger guys on the board. If you have some 4 attack minions, you might also save a Despicable Dreadlord to finish off the 1/5 Taunts.

While you want to go all-in in the early game, in the mid game you might want to try to manage your resources. Your board should be big enough to put pressure on your opponent, but not big enough to just lose the game to AoE. If you already have let’s say 10 attack on the board in the mid game, instead of going for the highest tempo play again, you might e.g. Life Tap + drop a small minion. Try to weave in Life Taps in the mid/late game for two reasons – first of all, so you will have a way to refill the board after AoE and second – so you can find your burst finishers. When it comes to playing around AoE, you can also utilize your Void Ripper. You can flip some of your minions to keep them alive after AoE, e.g. turn a 3/2 into a 2/3 against 2 damage AoE. You can also use it to keep your Lightwarden alive. E.g. you can buff it to 7 Attack, hit with it, and then if you suspect an AoE, flips it into a 2/7 minion. Now it will be out of range of most of the removals, and you will still be able to buff it. If you feel like your opponent doesn’t have a way to clear it easily, you might keep it as a 7/2, but flipping it is often correct. Notably, Void Ripper can also be used to deal with boards of Totems, Spreading Plague (especially when combined with Dreadlord) and Doomsayer.

Even if you’re going for some trades, try to deal as much face damage as you can, especially if you’re already holding onto some of your win conditions. Even though Zoo Warlock isn’t known for its massive burst, Soulfire can deal 4 damage, Lifedrinker – 3, Fungalmancer – 4 (assuming you have minions to buff) and Leeroy Jenkins – 6. You can sometimes combine them together, e.g. Leeroy + Soulfire is a very common burst finisher for 10 damage. Void Ripper is also a way to deal some extra burst damage. Flipping Voidwalker gives you +2 damage, while flipping Tar Creeper gives you +4 damage. You can also flip your opponent’s Taunt (it works best against cards such as Tar Creeper, Primordial Drake and Sleepy Dragon) it in order to get through it more easily, ultimately buying you more damage. Given that you should be able to deal quite a lot of damage in the early game, look for the opportunities to finish the game every turn. You’d be surprised how often you might be able to kill your opponent from ~20 health with some decent board.

Heal Zoo Warlock Card Substitutions

Prince Keleseth

There is no direct replacement for Prince Keleseth in this deck. Just removing him from the list leaves a gaping hole in your mana curve that cannot be filled by a single card. I’d say that Keleseth is a vital part of the deck, but you can TRY to build it without him. If you do, you definitely need to fill your 2 mana slot in a meaningful way. The best three cards to do that right now are Vulgar Homunculus, Dire Wolf Alpha and Demonfire. The first one is a solid 2/4 Taunt with a Demon tag, it’s a well-rounded card and a good Turn 2 play in most of the matchups. The second one is a good 2-drop in board flood decks, since you will be able to buff your small minions / tokens and trade up. The last one, while not amazing, can be used either as a buff on one of your small Demons, or as a 2 damage removal if you need it. It’s a good follow-up to Turn 1 Demons such as Voidwalker or Flame Imp. You want to include at least four 2-drops.

In order to fit those cards (you’d want at least four 2 mana cards), you want to remove some of the other cards – Void Ripper or Lifedrinker would probably go away first. Tar Creeper is suboptimal if you don’t face many Aggro decks. Perhaps you could drop a Saronite Chain Gang, since it’s worse without Keleseth.

Other Card Replacements

Besides Prince Keleseth, Zoo Warlock is a deck that can be built on a budget quite easily. This build runs only a single more Legendary and a single Epic, and both of them can be replaced without hurting your win rate that much.

  • Leeroy Jenkins – The most popular Heal Zoo builds run Leeroy Jenkins as its burst finisher. However, it’s not necessary at all. In fact, lots of players seem to be getting better results after substituting Leeroy with Doomguard. While it gives you less damage and you can’t reliably combo it with Soulfire to finish the game, it’s much better mid game play. Dropping a 5/7 (or even 6/8) with Charge can give you a massive advantage, and since the deck has some explosive openings, you might even be able to drop it without discarding anything (or discarding only 1 card).
  • Void Ripper – It’s a tech card, which is pretty useful in the current meta. However, it’s not a must-have card and it can be replaced quite easily. You can use a second Doomguard (or first if you do have Leeroy), second SpellbreakerVicious Fledgling or Glacial Shard.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

36 Comments

Discuss This Deck
  1. Noxter
    August 8, 2018 at 6:27 am

    Great Deck! Love it!!

  2. Dominic
    August 7, 2018 at 3:25 pm

    I just tried to upload this deck and it’s saying it’s invalid

  3. Ravaner
    August 5, 2018 at 2:44 pm

    This deck is amazing!! Streak 21 wins!!!

  4. Cardman123
    August 1, 2018 at 9:10 pm

    This deck is horrible. Don’t know how any of you endorse it. Loses against almost all decks in the current meta

    • MTNbiker77
      August 2, 2018 at 9:00 am

      weird. I went from rank 18 all the way to 8 in a few days with just this deck. Had a huge win streak as well. Maybe you are playing it wrong?

    • TrungNguyen
      August 2, 2018 at 7:45 pm

      You are either bad of unlucky!

  5. Vincent
    July 22, 2018 at 2:06 pm

    Took out Spellbreaker and Leroy for 2x Doomguard which improved my winrate a lot (legend ladder).

  6. TrungNguyen
    July 20, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    This is the best deck ever! Thank you so much for posting this! I’m finally legend! It took a long time but it was well worth it!

  7. Gavrila Alexandru
    July 19, 2018 at 10:33 am

    I removed the Void Ripper and added a second Spellbreaker. From rank 14 to rank 9 i had an amazing run. 11-0 win streak. I like this deck, it’s amazing and so much fun playing with it. I totally recommend it.

    https://imgur.com/a/JqPnija

  8. ZMcCoN
    July 18, 2018 at 7:43 pm

    Finally an aggro deck that isn’t just blow-n-go. Heal Zoo has finesse; way more fun. The only time I lose really is against another Heal Zoo. What’s the best strategy for mirror matches?

  9. Dam0k
    July 17, 2018 at 6:42 am

    Hello, im playing a bit more budget version right now of this deck without prince keleseth and leeroy jenkins. And i have also bloodreaver guldan so. This is the deck: https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1102147-happy-ghoul-warlock-zoo
    And ive replaced dire wolf with mortal coil and guldan. And can someone please tell which cards craft next to make my deck better? (Im f2p and i have 500 dust right now) i was thinking about crafting leeroy jenkins? Idk guys im beginner can you please help me?

    Ps: sorry for my english 🙂

    • Acau
      July 17, 2018 at 11:44 pm

      Yes sure, just craft leeroy to replace one of your doomguard. Leeroy is like fireball, but with a body. Also, Leeroy is a classic card and is used in many other decks.

    • Macaroon
      July 18, 2018 at 11:25 am

      I think Keleseth matters more than Leeroy in this particular deck, but Leeroy is a better craft overall so that one is up to you but in zoo doomguards serve the same purpose. I think demonfire (2 mana buff a demon by +2/+2) is a pretty good inclusion if you don’t run Keleseth.

      • Dam0k
        July 21, 2018 at 4:27 pm

        Thanks for help guys! I think ill craft keleseth as soon as possible and ill replace leeroy with doomguard!
        Thanks again and good luck on ladder!

  10. Ody
    July 13, 2018 at 5:24 pm

    This deck is actually crazy went from rank 10 to rank 5 in 20 min without any lose gratz

    • azairvine
      July 15, 2018 at 12:12 pm

      While it’s a great deck, I’m calling bullsh*t on the time frame! You couldn’t load up enough games to go from rank 10 to 5 in 20 mins much less actually play them!

      • AgentMango
        July 16, 2018 at 8:20 am

        I’ve been playing this deck and got to rank 5 with it too but it’s not that fast of a deck. Your averaging 2-minute games starting at r10 4 stars with a bonus star already. Seems unlikely to me. Even 30 minutes is stretching it.

  11. Skoopy
    July 13, 2018 at 3:27 pm

    I fucking love this deck!
    I took the Voidripper out and got the 2nd Spellbreaker, cause i feel like the Voidripper is useless. For agression what do you switch? A Tarcreeper or smth? I guess its not worth. So go for the 2nd silence, against big TauntDruids at turn 4 or 6, just to pass the taunts and going for face all the time. If you draw lucky, even a up-armored druid should be done in your turn 6-7. I also kept the two Dreadlords, cause i face so much OddPallys. And its working well. At least iam only 15 now, but my winstreak of 8 wins shows it all. Maybe i switch one Dreadlord into one Doomguard. But for now its working well. Also thought about Glinda, as you all mentioned, but like i said, this Leeroy gets MVP so often! especially with 7/3 and finish with Soulfire. Dudes, this is insane!

  12. Koftehor
    July 13, 2018 at 2:20 pm

    How do you perform this deck when play against a control deck like big Spell mage or taunt warrior? Aoe is killing all of my minions and it is really hard to play against brawl, flamestrike, blizzard ext… Any tip? (sorry for my english)

    • Macaroon
      July 18, 2018 at 11:15 am

      Don’t play too much into their aoe, both taunt warrior and big spell mage don’t play a lot of minions early on besides low curve taunts. So they have to aoe in order to clear your boards, even if it’s just a few minions. Try to only play 3-4 minions and a time and buff them rather than going wide, and tap aggressively to refill your hand to dump after they clear.

  13. Elzein
    July 13, 2018 at 9:09 am

    I came to HTD after facing this deck 5 times straight. Not surprised to see you guys have already noticed the meta shift. Luckly I was able to beat it consistently with Even Shaman, going for the long game and taking advantage of the Elemental’s battlecries for removal. The version with Doomguard felt stronger though, it’s as if the deck had 3 copies of Leeroy.

    • MilesTegF
      July 20, 2018 at 1:12 pm

      With Even Shaman is not hard to fight this deck, unless the warlock uses Keleseth in their T1-T2.
      Then, it becomes a really difficult match, not impossible to win, but very very hard.

  14. DanTheMan
    July 13, 2018 at 3:44 am

    So, Im running this list, but

    – Tar, Jenkins

    + Doomguards

    is it still not simply better to run Jenkins?

    Considering crafting him (but like always there is NO dust).

    Doomguards just feels Bad cuz u always mill something, and those cards you mill might actually make A big difference for the board presence in the long run dont you think?

    thnx

    • Skoopy
      July 13, 2018 at 3:22 pm

      I feel like LeeRoy fits very well in this. I agree that Dooguard is a really good replacement for him, but i go so many matches were Leeroy just ended it, sometimes even with 7/3 after Keleseth. So good in my opinion and worth crafting it!

    • azairvine
      July 15, 2018 at 12:16 pm

      That’s why I’m really hesitant on Doomguards – I’m always gonna lose cards that I need in my hand. Why have30 cards in the deck if you can just throw 4 of them away? I guess you need to strategise more and run the hand down so you don’t lose the cards, but that’s a big risk in itself as you’re limiting your options. I’m not sold on Doomguards.

  15. kurvgaza
    July 12, 2018 at 3:41 pm

    HS is total crap 🙂 so delete the game, have fun with everything else 🙂

  16. Taho
    July 11, 2018 at 2:36 pm

    Really?!?! You just HAD to post this guide didn’t you! Today 6 of 13 games at ranks 4 and 5 were against this deck. All the sudden the diverse ladder meta has disappeared.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      July 12, 2018 at 9:05 am

      To be fair, I wrote the guide BECAUSE the deck was getting more popular, not the other way around. As much as I like to believe that we (HSTD) have a big impact on the ladder, it definitely wasn’t our doing this time 🙂

  17. StreetPiglet
    July 10, 2018 at 3:13 pm

    I like this build with the exception of no Doomguard. I understand that it doesn’t really fit the idea of the deck but it is Zoo after all. I personally like to switch at least a Void Ripper because you only really ever switch a Tar Creeper’s health at least I do. Just wanted to know any thoughts or suggestions you had.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      July 11, 2018 at 2:14 am

      I’ve actually played both versions yesterday and I liked the Doomguard one more. However, Leeroy version is by far the most popular one so I’ve decided to cover that one for now. But don’t worry, I’ll take a closer look at the deck again in a few days and update it if the Doomguard version turns out to increase in popularity and/or have a significantly higher win rate 🙂

      • Tweeg
        July 11, 2018 at 5:25 am

        I’ve always loved zoo and loved tinkering with the shells that are already created. Since we flood the board, I prefer the leeroy version. Also, in order to give this deck more punch, sea giants would be optimal in this build. It’s only easy to remove a couple of cards for them. I’m willing to bet the stats will show even higher win rates with sea giants in place, I know I have when I tried it.

        • Stonekeep - Site Admin
          July 11, 2018 at 9:22 am

          Sea Giants might be interesting, especially against decks like Odd Paladin or Token Druid. I’ll try them out soon!

          • PPAP
            July 12, 2018 at 2:11 pm

            If you try Sea Giants, you should also try to also add Glinda (as she is good both with the giants and with your ghoul)

          • JadeDragon31
            July 14, 2018 at 10:16 am

            What would u take out to add sea giant glinda package? quite a few choices imo. with so much early board presence id presume leeroy as much as i hate to think it for glinda and one tar creeper and void ripper for giants as void ripper loses synergy with giants, glinda could make a decent leeroy substitution if void ripper was kept but imo its unneeded if u can flood the board with cheap to free giants using glinda. with so many early game minions i feel only one tar creeper needed to help get u to win condition. ill try this combination out and respond with results but would love everyones input / suggestions here.