The study break has arrived about a week ago and there's still about a week to go. Besides teaching English and some occasional reading, I haven't really done much. I'm still contemplating whether I should write the third part of the Seattle trip -- something tells me that the part of the story that matters to me had already finished. We all know what happened in TI4 and there's really no need for me to repeat things. Not to mention that my friend completely screwed up all the photos I took with the players there. Such is life.

This post is going to be specifically about Hearthstone. In particular, two decks which I've played quite a bit for the past two or so months. To be honest, I'm still pretty new to the game. I've only started playing seriously since May, and I only have about 600 wins. I haven't played any TCGs besides Yugioh and a bit of MTG, and I wasn't very good at either. So please take everything here with a grain of salt! I'm pretty bad at games. But anyways, here are the two lists.

The first decklist I want to share is a variation of Zoo which I've been playing for about a month and a half. I have about 300 or so wins with Warlock, 99% of which were from Zoo and I'd say that my winrate is probably something like 60%, maybe a bit higher than that before Hunters became popular. 

Acidic Swamp Ooze is probably my favourite tech card. It gets a lot of value against Control Warriors, Hunters and the occasional Miracle Rogue. Against Hunter, I will always keep this card because getting rid of Eaglehorn Bow is a huge tempo swing. Same goes with Warrior. Against Rogue, you need to be careful not to play this card too soon, since a 1-2 weapon has little value and Ooze dies really easily to SI:7 Agent.

I used to despise Zombie Chow in Zoo, but now I consider this card to be key in winning with Zoo in this format. There's a misconception, I think, that Zoo is an aggro deck (my friend even suggested putting in Leeroy), whereas it's really all about board control. Specifically, Zoo's winrate goes up so much if you can stabilize the board by turn 5, and you need to make sure the deck has enough 1-2 drops that are resilient enough in the early game. Argent Squire used to be decent, but it's too weak to random stuff like Earthshock and Acolyte of Pain. Zombie Chow, however, eats up Mad Scientist and Creepers, and you usually don't have to worry about its Deathrattle, since the point of this card is to trade, not to hit face. Together with Flame Imp and Voidwalker, the 6 1-drops help to give the deck the consistency it needs since you really need to put on pressure from turn 1.

The 1 Owl is mostly there due to the Hunters. This card shuts down Mad Scientist and Creeper, and I usually keep this card in my starting hand. The best early cards vs Hunter are usually Voidwalker, Owl, Ooze and Harvest Golem. That's how I usually mulligan this matchup. I used to run 2 Owls but it's very cloggy. One additional thing: save the Owl for Tirion versus Paladin.

I prefer Shattered Sun Cleric over things like Scarlet Crusader because it goes better with things like Egg and skittles, and having a more resilient board in this format, is better than aggression (which is what Scarlet Crusader is good for). I only run one Void Terror since any more is too inconsistent. Dark Iron Dwarf is a nice card but there's really no room for two since so much of this deck is about the early game.

Doomguard's actual effect:

Charge. Battlecry: Discard your other Doomguard/Soulfire

I'm still thinking about the number of Abusive Sergeants and Power Overwhelmings I should run. They are cards that helps a lot with trading, but having too many clogs your hand. With that being said, the two copies of Power Overwhelming actually helped out a lot in the Hunter matchup, which is basically a race to get the other guy to 0 life first. Usually Hunter wins since the Warlock hero power gets countered hard by Hunter's, so Power Overwhelming can be really clutch.

That's really all there is to this deck. I think people write off Zoo as a sort of auto-play deck that requires no thinking, but it really doesn't play itself (unlike something like Aggro Warrior). There are other things such as keeping the amount of minions vs Hunter to a maximum of two (to the impact of Buzzard + UTH), and to stop lifetapping at a certain point vs Druid (to prevent the Force of Nature + Savage Roar combo), although I really can't list them all here. 

The cards which could work in this deck include Undertaker (although you'd need a few more Deathrattle minions, Leper Gnome being probably the best one) and Loatheb. Loatheb is particularly good in theory since as a win-more card you drop at Turn 5, it stops board clears and usually wins you the game if you already have a good field. I really don't like random cards Voidcaller and Stalagg and Feugen and things like that, since they go against how this deck is designed to be: a mix of early game pressure and board control. For this reason, I also consider Hellfire to be quite bad.

Zoo's popularity has taken a big dip recently. It hasn't done very well at all at the recent tournaments (VGVN, WEC etc), and the reason for that, I think, is less due to the rise decks like Mad Scientist Hunter and midrange Druids, and more because of how the deck naturally works. Zoo is such a straightforward deck that it loses to itself sometimes. There's rarely a moment to playing Zoo where you can genuinely outplay your opponent. Sometimes you just have to hope your Soulfire doesn't discard your Doomguard (which happens to me all the time), and if you don't establish board presence by the first few turns, you will slowly die to control decks with no way of coming back. It's a fun deck, but I think Zoo's era is pretty much over. It's still okay for climbing ladder, though.

In my next post I'll talk about Shaman.

EDIT:

I've been climbing ladder for the past few days. Besides the occasional Shaman, I'm also experimenting with an undertaker version of zoo, which has been doing pretty okay. The biggest changes are obviously the two copies of Undertaker, replacing the Abusive Sergeant and the one copy of the Power Overwhelming, as well as Loatheb.

Out of all the matchups, this deck seems to do surprisingly well versus Face Hunter, although it seems to do okay versus other Hunter matchups as well. And by 'okay' I really mean breaking even, since Hunter has a natural advantage versus Zoo at the moment. Turn 1 coin into Undertaker + Zombie puts so much pressure on Hunter, and if you draw into something like a turn 4 Defender of Argus, your chances are very good. It's just that Hunter gets a ridiculous amount of card advantage from Buzzard UTH (the only board clear in the game that also gives you hand advantage), and you have at most two turns after UTH for Zoo to push for the win. Which is why Power Overwhelming is so damn important here.

Loatheb has been a really amazing card so far. Not many people expect this card in Zoo, I guess (but every deck runs Loatheb, really). If I play this on turn 5 with a big board, I usually win outright. With coin, I will usually keep this card versus Miracle Rogue. Even towards the middle-game, Loatheb is never a bad top deck. It's just a solid card that trades well and doesn't discard your other Soulfire on summon. Really good meta-call.

I really don't like Undertaker nor Zombie Chow, but as one-drops they really help Zoo in catching up with other decks in this increasingly aggro/fast meta. Zombie Chow's heal effect has never really hurt my chances in pushing for the win, since my board is usually too powerful for the +5 to do anything. Undertaker, on the other hand, can be a totally dead draw late game, but that's what you get for focusing on the early game so much.

The ladder, as I experienced it, seems pretty diverse right now, which is obviously completely contrary to reddit's constant complaint of Hunters. The decks to beat right now, besides Hunter, are Zoo (I played quite a few Zoo mirrors), Fast Druid (aka Kolento's list with Oozes and Spectral Knights), Paladin and Deathrattle Priest. I also see Warrior Control from time to time. Hunter is the only bad match up for Zoo. Every other matchup is at least 50-50, and if I verse other less common decks such as Ramp Druid (which I think is a bit slow for this meta), it's 70-30 in my favour. But this meta is very fast, and very aggro. Which I don't particularly like. But hey, I guess I'm the one contributing to the problem.