Not sure if anyone still comes here but I am thinking it might be a good idea to replace Arfus with Sonya? Arfus is more expensive; he puts 2/2 on the board. Sonya also has 2/2 in terms of stats but for 3 mana instead of 4.
Arfus is in this deck for one reason, the lich king DK cards. But some of them are pretty bad in this deck anyway and clutter up your hand.
Also, sometimes you would want to shadowstep FC to give you even more cards, as it makes Tess much better.

If we replace Arfus with Sonya, we can basically do the following:
– Drop FC early or even 3 times on T9
– Drop Sonya after and kill minions with the FCs
– Each will generate a 1/1 FC in your hand that will again have echo, so it can be played 4 times for 10 mana many turns in a row if games go really long.
– Tess will replay an insane amount of stuff, even more than with Shadowstep on him; additionally, it saves the shadowstep itself.

And what if we don’t combine Sonya with FC? You can play her and kill off an SI:7, Elven Minstrel and Blink Fox you have on board by e.g. trading with a mountain giant and end up getting 3 awesome battlecries for 3 mana, even if she’s only on board for that one turn.

I think this is actually providing more value in the long run tbh. Let me know what you think!

Won first try with:

– Prophet Velen
– Holy Fire
– Holy Smite
– Mind Blast
– Shadow Visions
– Psychic Scream

Tactitc: You just wait until you have Velen and Holy Fire / Mind Blast in hand (preferably). If it gets out of hand and you’re about to lose, just scream if you can and play Velen right after. Once the opponent can’t clear him right away, which is very hard in this mode, you OTK (and even heal) with the combo. Especially big minions that threaten to kill your Velen can be taken out by Holy Smite after playing him, as it is not needed for the OTK combo. Shadow Visions helps to draw you the spells once Velen is in hand. Good luck!

I have actually had the same feeling recently, just did not articulate it that well and put it in perspective so much. I just realized that the rotation of the rat just made me miss something. I’ll never forget the one Razakus game I played in which I had Raza in my hand on T4 and my opponent played Dirty Rat, pulling the minion RIGHT next to it. I said „Wow“ and my opponent then answered „Astonishing“ when I played the other card immediately after and it turned out to be Raza. Good times. Anyway, thanks, I feel that would be great as well.

That’s ridiculous.

Mind Control, 10 Mana priest basic

Still learning a lot and playing another build, I truly wonder why Vilespine is supposed to be good here. I much prefer two Witchwood Pipers and 2 Assassinates over Vilespine + Ooze, I also don‘t really love the Faldorei here as it can dilute the vanishes. Last but not least the Elven Minstrel doesn’t have enough effect for my taste. Sub those for 2 of the 1 dmg draw ones (sorry I forgot the name, playing in another language myself) and try it, I like that version very much. It’s almost like playing no minions but the upside is that the two sprints keep your hand full and vanishing the pirates is quite good then without killing your 4/4s or milling yourself. The only thing I’m wondering is whether a second blade flurry would make sense in the build I described.

Hands down dog. Just because he gave me so many fun decks throughout picking up the game.

This has to be one of the worst rated decks I have ever seen. Why? Doesn’t look special but it seems like enormous amounts of people tried it and got disappointed. What is so wrong about it?

Don’t get me wrong, it might be due to the fact that the culture around hearthstone is often hyped by decks fairly quickly. Seeing all new decks that get the occasional win are „meta-breaking“ according to Youtube and so on, the description just sounds like it’s a deck that „might sometimes get an 8/3 Kingsbane“ (but actually lets you die with your pitiful 2/3 in hand 90% of the times). I agree that rereading the article it’s not like you said that anywhere but I think I was influenced by the overall „omg it’s OP!“ tonality, making the contrast sound flat out bad, if you know what I mean. So no offense either way! It’s probably for the better to read the occasional objective opinion about hearthstone than the OP cries eventually…

I do not agree to the Kingsbane part at all – I took this deck from rank 20 to rank 11 over the course of the last two weeks after not having played ladder in a while, using the following two subs:
– Faldorei
– Vilespine
+ 2 Assassinate
-Gluttonous Ooze
+Witchwood Piper

I regularly end up with a Kingsbane that has 12/6 Lifesteal and I feel that outside of RNG (good cards from Lich King for a lot of burst) and Skulking Geist there’s only heavy, heavy aggro to stop you. Even those decks can be countered if their draw is off slightly or yours is on point.
I have not once lost to priest and warrior and only twice against Taunt Druid, in both cases only due to the Lich King (One player had 4 mortal coils from 4 ticks… the odds are somewhere near 0.0014%) and the other player had the weapon, milled a pirate with naturalize and had branching paths. Not something you can rely on. I have also not lost against Midrange Paladin, Miracle Rogue or Mage yet.
The only real enemies of this deck are Malygos OTK Druid, early Jaina Mage, Odd Paladin and Odd Rogue.
Even Warlock and Shaman can only beat you with way better draw than you, if both are on point, you still win. So yes, it’s off-meta, yes, it has a counter; but it does not have “a few good match ups in Warrior and priest” because that would be horrible. It straight out beats all decks that are about control or value.

Most toxic comment in Hearthstone still is “EZ” and it always bothers me when people say it after top decking (I am aware of the concept of irony but it’s happening so regularly that I am starting to think that some of the people saying it actually believe it to some degree)

You could try and replace him but he really is OP here. I didn’t think that +1/+1 is that much of an effect but it’s absolutely insane. If he doesn’t get killed and your opponent tries to rush you, attacking and putting a lot on board instead, you can attack with him, vanish everything, get your KB attack in, play him twice next round. So he gave you 2 bodies with 5/4 and in combination +3/+3, which is a LOT of stats.
Having said that, you could try and go for either The darkness (yes, seriously) or more traditionally, for Zola.

Zola you would obviously use on one of the pirates or on a shinyfinder, so you can either get the weaker but alright buff of +1/+0 with a little combo potential or get your weapon back if the situation comes up that you have to use it but don’t have a way of getting it back reliably. It’s probably versatile enough.

The darkness, on the other hand, is actually fun in a kingsbane rogue. I played around with it during the Coldlight mill rogue era, Valeera is the key here. You get 2*darkness for 8 mana and then have enough wiggle room to either attack + shinyfinder or doomerang and re-equip, etc. since it gives your opponents 6 candles instead of 3, it will actually not even take long to activate them and 3 candles are enough for both to wake up. So it really discourages your opponent from drawing any more and a milled candle or 2 are not important. Slows them down either way and gives less opportunity for your opponent to play combos or very efficiently for that matter.

It’s definitely leaning more towards fun if you sub in the darkness (if you have it) but it’s so much fun to play when it works, even if you cannot attack once with it.

Good point, didn’t even notice that. Thanks

How is this different to any version before? I mean, sure, it was a good deck and I don’t mind still playing it but is there actually something that is different that I am not seeing?

Not so great atm because I had a face-off with about 5 minion based hunters in a row earlier today, haha… oh well. Aside from that encounter, it‘s like you said though, I won like 90% of the games against control and slower types of decks. I‘d love to post stats but I am currently playing iPad only as I have to get my computer fixed… no addon for that there. Sorry! But definitely recommended!

Gave it some more play and this deck is insane. Here‘s some of my encounters:

Druid:
Early game lets you collect cards quite nicely. Picking the minions apart one by one is fine. When Hadronox hits, you can vanish the board, most of the time killing a considerable amount of minions. Second Hadronox with cube is also an EZ vanish. By the third board, you usually have the AOE, so you can sap the cube and kill the board. After that you basically won. Not so much with Malygos druid or any OTK version, though!

Priest:
Weaker minions, watch out for OTK though. Flood with pirates from valeera early on, scream is absolutely great to even help you, especially when you can add another kobold to it going back into your deck. Amara priest you can simply outvalue. Just don’t have your kingsbane copied by Benedictus!

Big Warrior:
Super fun. They have lots of removal that needs to target minions. Just don’t do anything and watch them mill themselves. When their big boards hit, just vanish and heal.

Mage:
Tricky if they get to freeze you but overall doable. Not so many mages around atm. Try to keep the doomerangs in hand in case you get frozen, that way you should be able to take out the water elemental(s).

Hunter & other rogues:
Early game is pretty hard sometimes as there’s an early board flood. Sometimes prep vanish is a good choice here. Be wary of tar creeper followed by vicious fledgling as that is one of the games that can spiral out of your control easily.

Paladin:
Risky to let a lot of the minions live, rather play your pirates on curve to provide the occasional help with clearing off the board. Later, vanish after level up is great to mill and regenerate (and remove the stats). Sunkeeper is a concern, keep their boards small or your health high.

Warlock:
They are warlocks and therefore pretty hardcore. But usually a combination of doomerang and a direct hit will take out giants, you can also wait for a while as they just have to tap. So vanish is actually an aoe in itself here.
Try hiding the fact you’re playing kingsbane if their draw is bad.

Shaman really depends but I am really lucky here; didnt have to play against Shudderwock yet!

Really, if you have the cards, give it a spin, it’s like the old days!

I feel like this deserves a comment: I won with this deck by playing Milhouse Manastorm and landed the killing blow with him. Now I feel like Hearthstone should have achievements and this should be one of them!

Kind of an all or nothing deck. If the enemy can remove the combo you’re almost certainly dead. Hadronox and only 1 naturalize is fairly rate to actually work when it’s basically too late after a clear of your minions.

Such a meme, actually annoyed me greatly to lose to this the other day (before having any idea that this is about Windfury)

Was actually thinking about it myself earlier when playing mryaguts build. No activator needed. Still preferring his version though as it seems very hard to get the weapon buffed without poison, so faldorei are simply necessary to survive imo. Zola also doesn’t hurt…