Hey Evident, I have a couple of questions (totally fine if you don’t know.)

Does the portal count as a minion for Sea Giant’s cost reduction?

Can you copy the portal with Faceless Manipulator?

I’m glad someone is excited for the day when half the ladder is playing Jade Druid and the other half is playing Midrange Jade Shaman. 🙂

If you wanted to make this better in control matchups, you could add Sir Finley. A more defensive hero power that restores health (Priest/Warrior) or helps with board control (Mage/Druid) are much better targets for Justicar.

Hey,

Malkorok is a pretty good replacement. He is a large threat that provides a tempo swing most of the time. Because he is a minion, he can also receive buffs from Grimy Gadgeteer. An 8/7 with a free weapon on turn 7 is insane in this deck. However, Gorehowl is a key card in matchups where there are a large number of medium sized threats (Dragon Priest and Midrange Jade Shaman), so your win rates against these decks may decrease. If you choose to include Malkorok, you should probably play this deck more aggressively and try to close out the game by playing big minions on curve and removing your opponent’s major threats.

If Malkorok doesn’t work, you could try a different large threat such as Ysera if you are facing control decks, or a copy of Revenge to help beat Pirate Warrior and Aggro Rogue.

Or you can just get a Gorehowl off of Malkorok every time. 🙂

Even after the decrease of Aggro decks after the nerfs, Fibonacci can still come up with a Control Warrior decklist to play to Legend. That is pretty awesome.

I have been thinking of playing Control Warrior in Wild for a long time. I just don’t have the dust to craft the cards I don’t have for this deck. Instead, I am considering playing a N’Zoth Control Warrior with 2x Sludge Belcher, 2x Deathlord, and Sylvanas Windrunner. Then I would only have to spend about 380 dust to build a solid deck. Anyways, I really like this decklist, and I hope someday that I will get to play it when I have the dust. Give this man an upvote for a great deck/explanation!

Hey,

First off, thanks for giving this a go! I’m sorry to hear that it hasn’t been working out for you. This deck is difficult to pilot, especially in control matchups. There are a few things you can do to achieve a better winrate.

Step 1: Identify the deck you are playing against.
If you see a Warrior on the ladder, your brain should immediately go “Pirate Warrior” and you should then figure out what cards in your deck best counter Pirate Warrior. The above mulligans are just your best early game options. You may have to make decisions for each individual matchup. For example, keeping Grimy Gadgeteer against Pirate Warrior is not a good idea, as it can easily die. You are better off keeping Taunts and removal like Bash and Fiery War Axe, which are all solid cards to help you deal with your opponent’s early game board flood. However, when you play against a Reno Mage, you can probably keep Grimy Gadgeteer as Reno Mage is a slower matchup.

Step 2: Identify the amount of large threats in your opponent’s deck.
You only have so much hard removal. If you run out of hard removal and your opponent plays an Alexstraza or Ysera, you could be in trouble. So identify the targets that you need to save hard removal for. In Reno Mage, your looking at an Archmage, an Alexstraza, Thaurissan, anything big off of Kazakus potions, and possibly a large Twilight Drake. Some lists also run Medivh. Correct me if I’m missing any. You need to save your removal for these threats. In decks like Jade Druid, you will never be able to have enough hard removal for all your opponent’s huge Jade Golems. Therefore, you need to play more aggressively and use removal to keep your minions alive.

Step 3: Stay focused.
This is crucial. You need to keep track of how many threats your opponent has played and how many they are likely to have left. You need to understand which cards your opponent is likely to have/play. You need to play around AoE spells like Swipe and certain forms of burst damage. If your opponent is Pirate Warrior, and he has no cards, no minions, and no weapon, and you are sitting at 6 health with 2 Taunt minions, do not set him to 12 health or lower. This could allow him to topdeck Mortal Strike for the win. I strongly recommend getting Hearthstone Deck Tracker to help you see what your opponent has played.

Step 4: Don’t get tilted by Brawl.
Brawl can be a terrible card at times. However, it is one of the best board clears in the game, and can remove a horde of Jade Golems when combined with hard removal or a weapon. It is easy to get frustrated when Brawl doesn’t work out. Sometimes, you will simply have bad RNG. The only thing you can do when this happens is to stay calm and keep playing with a positive mindset or to take a break from the game.

Step 5: Make changes!
This deck is still a work in progress and is definitely not perfect. Making some changes to the decklist can help you win certain matchups more often. For example, Dirty Rat can be amazing against Midrange Jade Shaman. Sure, pulling a Jade Chieftain seems bad, but it’s one less 8/8 Taunt you have to worry about later in the game. This deck also has no weapon removal, so adding a Harrison Jones or an Acidic Swamp Ooze might be a good idea. I have even tried out some crazy stuff like Rend Blackhand and Nefarian that worked decently well against control decks like Reno Mage and Renolock. Try out some changes to see if they improve your winrate!

I realize this was a little long. I hope this answered some of your questions. If you have any more questions, be sure to let me know and I will get back to you as soon as I can. If you have any changes you think would make the deck better, try them out or tell me about them so I can test them out. Lastly, don’t give up! Although it is difficult to play, this deck is viable! It just might need a few tweaks here and there. Good luck!

Hey,

As I said in an earlier comment, this should probably be called a Midrangy Control Warrior. However, “Midrangy Control Warrior” sounds terrible and wouldn’t fit in the name, so I decided to go with “Midrange.” Sorry if this caused any confusion!

I appreciate that you think this is a solid deck. If you have any suggestions for it, please let me know!

Interesting. I would consider removing the 2x Fierce Monkey for Grommash and a Cruel Taskmaster. However, I don’t have Grommash right now and I’m not going to craft him unless Control Warrior/Midrange Warrior remains a solid deck after Justicar rotates. If this deck is still good after Un’Goro, I will give this a shot! Thanks for the idea!

Hey,

Emperor Thaurissan is a huge win condition in this deck. It provides a large threat that the opponent has to answer, and it allows you to play more of your buffed minions/removal spells per turn. In addition, if it receives a buff, it becomes even more difficult to answer and can obtain value for multiple turns. Finally, if you have either Brawl or Sylvanas Windrunner in hand when you play Thaurissan, you can reduce the Sylvanas + Brawl combo to an affordable mana cost. For these reasons, Thaurissan is a great inclusion in the deck.

Just as a side note, most of the legendaries in this deck are solid picks and don’t have great replacements. Ysera is still really, really good in this deck, but you may find yourself losing some extremely long fatigue games because you don’t have Elise to squeeze value out of dead cards. If you do lose some games with this deck, don’t give up. If you come up with some changes that you think would make the deck better, then please let me know! I’m still tinkering with it.

Hey,

Unplayable, or “none of the professional players use this”? I’m always trying out new crazy stuff in my decks. Just because a card is “unplayable” doesn’t mean it can’t be useful in the right deck/matchup. I tried it out in this deck with some extra dragons, but I was having draw inconsistences, so I cut him. I am currently experimenting with Dirty Rats.

Hey,

Ysera is another major late game threat, so it should be ok. Just remember to try and bait out hard removal with your buffed minions so Ysera can achieve full value. Good luck with the deck!

Hey,

It’s probably better described as Midrangey Control. It keeps some of the solid Control elements to win both the faster matchups and the slow fatigue games. These cards make the deck more versatile and removing them would significantly reduce the winrate of this deck. Brawl is especially useful against decks that can summon hordes of high health minions, such as Dragon Priest, Midrange Jade Shaman, Jade Druid, and health buffs from Kazakus in Renolock and Reno Mage. Justicar allows you to gain life consistently against Aggro and helps stack up armor for fatigue matches. Elise is a solid win condition against control decks if you run out of major threats.

Sweet deck. Is there still enough Aggro at high ranks to warrant 2 copies of Maelstrom Portal?

If you choose a Taunt minion like Sunwalker, you can probably take out a Fierce Monkey and replace it with an Acidic Swamp Ooze.

Hey,

Justicar is a key card in this deck, but you could replace her with another solid 6 drop like Cairne Bloodhoof or Sunwalker. Another option would be an Ironforge Portal. A third option would be some kind of weapon removal, so either Harrison Jones or an Acidic Swamp Ooze. As I said, I’m not sure how removing Justicar will affect the overall performance of the deck. Try some of these changes out and let me know what works for you!

Hey,

First off, thanks for trying out my wacky deck. 🙂

Sounds like you had a Tempo/Secret Mage matchup. I haven’t seen any of those on ladder, so I can’t say for sure how to make that matchup better.

Eater of Secrets is a very situational card and is only good against Mage in the current meta. I don’t think it is the best choice, but if you want to add one, you could take out a Bloodhoof Brave or a Grimy Gadgeteer. As the meta seems to be slower now, it is probably better to replace the Bloodhoof as Grimy Gadgeteer provides much more value. Let me know if it works for you!

Whew. Thanks for posting this Evident. I needed it! 🙂

Alright, thanks!