Overall a good card, as long as it summons another big boi or value. Druid and Hunter card.

Budget Witching Hour / Star Aligner after the rotation.

From time to time I play Kingsbane decks since The Witchwood. Spider version is good vs. control and slow decks overall. This one is rather optimized for weak matchups – aggro (as you always miss some combo piece, never lucky :), because the deck is already good vs. control even without cards like Eviscerate, Cutthroat, Spiders, 2nd Vilespine or even shadow reflected double Assassinate.

Mossy Horror isn’t needed post nerfs. Five mana life leeching taunt Zyliax is really nice addition. Just today I even magnetized 2 X Zilliax. Ooze is rarely needed, but you never know. What I really miss is Eviscerate (instead of Shiv?).

An advise: Control Warlocks keep their Nosferatus for when your only card in the deck is Kingsbane. Either kill them before or keep Shinyfinder to draw Kingsbane immediately .

Big Spell Mage: Either kill it fast, or save your Saps and Vanish for after t9, and you’ll be fine. Don’t let to much minions on the board, or vanish them.

Vs. slow decks, you usually wait to use Deadly Poisons with Valeera, but vs. those decks that run Geists, use them as fast as possible, including Doomerangs. You can win without those, but why not use them.

Vs. Taunt Druid, save Saps for Cubes.

Don’t play Valeera if it’s your 10th card. Look that Shadow reflection doesn’t burn your next card.

Again _a just fair_ card which is ruining the new mechanic, the same as it was with the rush and the magnetic. Vanilla stats: 8 for 4 mana. Upside: text and a tribe tag. Downside: unpractical health stat line -> everything immediately falls into the water. We can wait to see other cards for synergies in a specific (aggro/tempo?) deck, but why not just play Gnomish Inventor or something, which is actually – consistent. Ticket Scalper not only needs to survive but also needs to have a specific target usually played after your card. 50% trigger probability is low for 4 mana 5/3, but this one doesn’t surpasses 20%.

Today we got another card Belligerent Gnome: 2 mana 5-6 of stats, which is above average and we are still debating usefulness of the card, so what then to think about the 4 mana 5/3 with a hard condition?!

This card is an insult.

Neutral Vulgar Homunculus (conditional attack / no self hurting). It’ll be used in midrange, control, even… decks.

Kathrena?

Excellent article (as always from authors of this site). I can only add – Emeriss. 🙂

Let’s hope the effect will not be “just fair” and understated as it was the case with The Witchwood “rush” minions and mechs of The Boomsday Project. If “overkill” cards are less efficient without triggering the effect, then they should be more than efficient when triggering it.

Bane of Doom always deal 2 dmg, this one needs to kill a 1-2 hp minion to summon 5/5.

Do we get any freebies? A Free Legendary?

Shuffle this with Elephant and Banker.

Eternal question: Do you run Zola and/or Azalina?

An advice for those having problem fighting aggro, especially Zoolock… Of my last 18 games vs. Warlock (rank5), I won 14 of them (only 2 Even Warlocks; the first 3 loses are mainly because of no experience I have now).

The tip is… to mulligan for Spider Bomb – every time you face Warlock (it helps vs. Even Warlock’s giants, too). This is already 80% win. You still probably lose, if they pull the best Zoo opening ever: Keleseth, Infusion, 5-6 drops on turn 3, including 2 X Imps or 2 X Gang. …To assure the missing 20% of win probability, our way towards the turn 5 must not be polluted with absolutely unnecessary cards. Just that. Let’s hope to draw at least one of these (if you already don’t have): 1 X deathrattle trigger, Grizzly, Giggling or Flanking Strike. Candleshot, Mark and Shaw also help. Heck, on t5, 1/3 of your deck is already drawn.

The thing is they don’t know what to do with the bomb. Whether they attack it or ignore it, half, if not the whole of their board will be gone – just enough to not get killed by turn 5. The bomb simply guarantees you the turn 5, where you can start to stall the game with taunts, flanks… Rexar on turn 6 is another saving weapon to kill their hopes of regaining the board. (Mossy is too late, but helps as turns pass.) After this, whatever you do with the available tools is fine. Having Grizzly on 5 (with empty Warlock’s hand), then cubing it is kind of a humiliation, etc.

If you start without coin and the bomb, you can always hope to get it from the next 2 draws. Dropping the bomb on turn 4 and play dead isn’t too late yet. You can run Stitched Tracker or Tracking to get the bomb.

If you have both the bomb and the egg, the worst possible move is to play the egg instead. If you miss both, always play Stalker on 3.

Regarding Odd Rouge matchup, the problem is they Vilespine your Grizzly on t6, but at least they don’t flood the board easily as Zoolock. GIggling is better on t5 even if it provokes Blood Knight which you can kill with a Hunter’s Mark.

After saying all of this, Zoolock doesn’t need to be dreaded matchup. Sure, aggro decks will get their portion of wins, but you can and you should achieve good ratio against them, if not even achieve a positive ratio as me.

My ranked score with this deck is 64 % winrate (c. 80 games). If not for my blackouts and misplays it could be better, certainly in hands of more skillful player.

Deck is definitely fun and powerful. 🙂 I’m not sure is Odd Rouge really a terrible matchup. Of all aggro decks, I have the best results vs. that one. Only mulligan can screw you (but will save you next game). Rexxxar is the most important.

https://hsreplay.net/replay/CYUf7jAEKmNWTALNGdRCei

Yes, Tracking is annoying, sometimes you lose because of it (discard Rexar and all the mega beasts for Kathrena) . Use it early if you really have problems, need to act quickly or because of bad opening cards. Otherwise, keep it for later, because when it helps it’s game saving / winning move. Test Umbra, not a bad choice, but it can be slow.

Yes, it’s not needed. Reasons: Clumsy, what to replace?, one kill on t6 onward is enough as you start taking control of the board with other powerful tools and you start laughing on the 2nd Plague or Giggling. You have Rexar, Candle, Keleseth beasts, Kathrena, bombs, Shaw… everything…

It’s hard vs. aggro, but I still win at worst 30-40% of those matchups. Today I’m 1-1 vs Odd Paladin, 3-2 vs. Odd Rouge, 2-3 vs. Zoolock. Don’t get disheartened if you lose a lot of games in a raw (me, 8 yesterday). After that, you will get lucky with mulligan and win even vs. bad matchups. Some hints vs. aggro:

– Mulligan for Stalker, Candleshot, Rexar, Ooze vs Rouge and of course Egg.
– Weaker mulligan but still okay: Flanking Strike, Play Dead without an Egg, H’s Mark (if you expect taunt or big buffed minion like Sea Giant or magnetic), Bomb.
– Giggling is better to keep then Mossy. Giggling screws up with Blood Knight, though. Mossy on t6 is usually to late; either you kill your own Giggling or an opponent played some buffs like Fungalmancer. Rather wait to draw Mossy instead of keeping him.
– Vs. aggro don’t hesitate to play Stalker with coin or t3.
– This deck is not about Keleseth. Keep him, to play on two, but don’t hesitate to discard him with Tracking.

Believe me the deck is very powerful overall. One usually kills himself by Tracking, lol.

Thanks for the reply.

After 133 games played, I must say I don’t miss Tracker. On the other hand, Ooze helped me numerous times: to kill 4-1 Rouge weapon, Necrium Blade, Supercolider, Twigg and Kingsbane. The thing is: Tracker is a great value, but you can live without it; Ooze drastically disrupts an opponent’s game plan which is IMO more important.

Ooze or Tracker?