Ritual Disruption (Anti-Combo Deck)

The Boomsday Project released several cards which support combo decks, including the infamous Mecha’thun which people have been experimenting over the past week. It’s too early to tell how influential combo decks will become in the recent meta, but if they do become common, this deck will be the perfect weapon against them.

Currently warlock has the best tools to deal with these decks, with howlfiend + treachery + defile combos, gnomeferatu, and demoinic project.

Playing this deck properly requires you to have a good understanding of what deck you’re up against, how their combo works, and when to play your key cards to ruin their day. Did that druid just play Dreampedal Florist? Maybe it’s time to play your demonic projects.

I’ll be writing a more detailed review later, but I think this deck provides a nice core for people to play with and make adjustments to their liking.

Sample games:

https://hsreplay.net/replay/zA4trNijjHxYQXCPnzPu47 = Against malygos druid 

https://hsreplay.net/replay/ZekQvYWBt68opEptmMKZmE = Against inner fire priest (My previous list included Rin which I’ve determined is too slow. I had trouble setting up a good howlfiend turn here, but demonic project saved the day.)

https://hsreplay.net/replay/GyZNp7sDMvrzQqCr6uxRSB = Against odd paladin

https://hsreplay.net/replay/ZekQvYWBt68opEptmMKZmE = Against zoo

Quickguide:

There’s two distinct ways to play this deck depending on whether you’re against aggro or control/combo. Against aggro you’ll want to play on curve, focusing on board control over card draw, conserving your health for the long game. Against control you’ll play similarly to handlock, taping whenever possible in order to draw all your disruption cards (howlfiend + treachery combo, demonic project, gnomeferatu).

Key cards and how to use them in this deck:

Gnomeferatu: Inexperienced players will just throw this card out willynilly without really thinking about it. Against aggro this is okay, you’ll actually want to play it on turn 2 just to have something on board. But against a combo deck playing this card early could actually help your opponent out. I often weave it into turn 4 or 5, playing it after tapping or when I have 2 mana hanging and need to prevent overdrawing. Sometimes you hit a mecha’thun or malygos or some kind of combo enabler and just win the game, other times you’ll hit something that wont impact the game that much. But keep in mind, any card you hit gives you some insight on exactly what you’re up against, which can be very valuable in the long run, dictating how you play through the rest of the game.

Howlfiend: Originally I included 2 copies of this. But over time I realized it’s only important to have one. And experienced player will know when to use the treachery combo. I’ve played this in situations where my opponent still had 10 or 15 cards in their deck, but a full hand, and a perfect defile setup on board. I’ve had situations where I burned a lot of cards, but didn’t see any combo cards and was a little sad, but the burn still helped out a lot in the long run, because it slowed them down. It limited their draw, made it difficult to respond to my future turns. Sometimes if you have a perfect setup you might just want to go for the combo. You can use demonic project later to target their other minions after they’ve drawn the rest of their deck, or just follow it up with Bloodreaver Gul’Dan and start sucking the life out of them.

Treachery: Why two copies? Good point, the second copy could be a flex card. As stated, an experienced player really only needs one howlfiend treachery combo to give those combo decks a bad time. But I’ve found the second copy useful in giving the opponent a doomsayer. I suppose it could be removed though. Against aggro you could use the one copy to give them doomayer, and against control you’d want to use it with Howlfiend.

Demonic Project:

It takes practice and experience to know when to play this card. The set up to make mecha’thun go off is glaringly obvious. But other combo decks require knowledge of the deck itself. Druid combo decks could have three big minions that they hold: lich king, alexstraza, malygos. Obviously you want to hit Malygos. So it can be a good idea to wait til you see Lich King (siphon soul it), and Alexstraza (put taunts in the way or soulstone/trade, into demonic project to hit Maly).

In the future I’ll think about writing a more detailed guide on this, but as you can see, it just takes common sense and an understanding of what you’re up against to know when to play Demonic Project.

As far as what minions you want to target in your own hand? Against combo decks you usually wont be worrying about this. Killing their combo usually equals a win, even if it means transforming a voildlord into a void terror. Against aggro however, you wont need demonic project anyway, so you can use it to specifically target your howlfiend, as you wont need that card either.

Skull of the man’ari:

I felt weird including this card with howlfiend in the deck, which is part of the reason why there’s only one copy of howlfiend. But keep in mind that it summons the minion at the start of your turn, so you can deal with your howlfiend. You can actually use the skull to set up howlfiend, which opens up your mana to be able to hit it with stuff, double defile, soulstone/hellfire or something. When normally, your howlfiend combo would cost 8 mana minimum howlfiend + treachery + defile. Setting the combo up with skull a turn early gives you options to burn more cards.

In short, be careful and stategic with your skull. If you’re up against aggro and howlfiend isn’t in your hand, go for it. But against combo/control, think of this as a late game card that you use to get your voidlords out at the end, or a way to set up your howlfiend.

Stonehill defender:

Just thought I might mention that I found it better to pick lower mana options with Stonehill against control/combo if you need to tap into your key cards (howlfiend+treachery, demonic pact, gnomeferatu). Against aggro however, pick whatever value taunts you can find, think about curving out well.

Giggling Inventor:

A good card that slows down aggro quite a bit. I added it primarily for aggro. What I love about it is that it can also set up defile pretty well. You may not have a 2 health minion on the board all the way, but you might find situations where the annoyotrons stick on the board, and you’re able to set up a good defile the next turn.