Your soul shall be mine!



There are only two classes in Hearthstone that don't have a dedicated thread here. Shaman, which no one plays. And Warlock, one of the more popular and versatile classes out there. (Well, there is a warlock thread, but no one responded to it).

Warlock features what many consider to be the best hero power in the game (2 mana and 2 health for a card) and currently occupies the 2, 6, and 9 slots on this week's meta snapshot, the only class with three top-10 decks. And those three are very dissimilar, from the Malygos deck that runs spells and lots of inexpensive minions, Zoolock, a fairly aggressive deck where you seek board control with inexpensive minions, and Handlock, which relies on giants and taunts. There's also the Demonlock deck, that was popular a month ago, but is fading in popularity.

Two of my favorite youtubers/streamers run a lot of Warlock decks, so you can check them out.

Strifecro has several playlists featuring Malylock, demonlock, and handlock available at https://www.youtube.com/user/strifecro/playlists

Trump has more than twice as many wins with warlocks as he does with any other class. And has many videos available here: https://www.youtube.com/user/TrumpSC/videos

Strength of warlock lies in a combination of hero power, (arguably best) versatility of cards/archetypes, and unfortunately they have some of the best new cards.

their 1 drops are strong (flame imp OP), they have the best in slot 3 drop in imp gang boss, and given you can orchestrate decks around it, one of the best 4 drops in the game in voidcaller. their hero legendaries are both very good (most classes only have 1 good class legendary) and they have reliable board clears/aoes that not all classes possess

fact that a bunch of different zoos work, from a classic version to a now-defunct undertaker build to facelock zoos to the midrangey version with demons, shows the raw power.

it's insane the best dragon deck is also warlock, given not only does it look nothing like strict handlock, but they dont even use the blackwing tech bc imp gang is flat out better (!)

handlock has been a super strong deck for as long as the game has been around. sometimes you get run off the board by super aggro decks but typically handlocks have good matchups all around.

demonlock, as OP mentioned, is not that popular, but it's mainly because it's basically the 4th or 5th strongest version OF warlock. it is still totally viable and good though.

about the only deck that no longer is good is murlocs. that USED to be a thing.

I really like to play warlock, and I am exceptionally bad at it for some reason. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Like, I'm okay at Zoo, but Malygos or Handlock, forget about it.

I like that Warlock lends itself to being the most unique class in Hearthstone. Tons of different ways you can go with a lot of different builds.

Yeah, that's why I went about crafting Warlock legends first. There are so many viable builds. And it's fun to have a lot of cards in hand, even though that makes it much more difficult to come about the right play. Definitely a lot of skill required to play the control Warlock decks.

The skill is realizing what cards they can have to kill you and how much you can afford to get hit before you start healing since getting Molten is one of the keys to victory of this deck. Handlock is definitely hard, I suck at it.

To me Handlock and Oil (and possibly Maly) are some of the most skillful decks out there but have a high learning curve but once you learn it your win %s should be quite good. There are other skillful decks (fatigue, but the win %s suck).

oil is far more punishing when you misplay than handlock

I'm running really hot against hunter right now w/ handlock. let's make 3-legend quick plz

people don't realize either it takes a lot of skill to play a zoo deck. zoo isn't just yoloswagface #huntard it's a board control deck that needs to make lots of good trades and run enough power to grind the opponent down while he uses all his removal.

Zoo is one of those decks that it is hard to play perfectly, but you can be sort of bad and have the deck carry you a lot from the crazy curve that rarely fails and just powerful starts.

I'm trying out this new deck Joeysc2 was playing today that is pretty much handlock, but weird. I can only guess Justsaiyan built it originally for something specific to the meta he was seeing. I think I really like it for the WTF factor. Saiyan is the king of weird one of's, but whenever I play his decks they work so I don't even question it.

I think Joey swapped something for a Sunwalker (I have to assume Belcher, gonna have to watch the vod). It works way better against patron for Death's bite.

ONLY 1 Mountain giant, so weird.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitive...demon_warlock/

How can this guy possibly claim to have an 80% win rate against face hunter? Is he drawing { caller + argus + malgans } more often than his opponents are drawing { owl }? All the one-for-one removal spells take place after the charge damage has already hit once. The Imp Gang bosses and Implosions just feed huge Unleashes, and he doesn't have the tools to make use of 1/1s that zoo has. It's like handlock, but without the 2 mana 4/5 taunts of the 0 mana 8/8 taunts. Nevermind the whole fact that the warlock hero power feeds directly into and is organically countered by the hunter's hero power.

Imp Gang boss is sooooooo ****ing good against Hunter. I'm 5-0 against face hunter this month with the "Handlock" deck posted above from Joeysc2 (twitch handle). Sure it gives tokens that can feed unleash, but all the tokens kill things. It is often a 3 for 1. You really have to play with them to see how good it is.

I can't say how good that Demon deck is cause Molten's are certainly part of my win rate, but IGB is legit.

80% win rate means he's played it 5 times and won 4 times, 1 by disconnect, 1 by opponent misclicking kill command on his own face. thats all

Yay warlock thread.

double checked his list, no sludges or sunfuries. his deck is a pretty clear dog to face decks. #facts

Most people are playing midrange hunter though no? Also, I agree it looks super weird. Looks like malylock without Maly and the combo.

Trump has started a new "deck teachings" series. This one targeted at specific deck archetypes.

First up: Zoo

trumps teaching videos are pretty good

he made a few minor mistakes in that video though, which amuses me

Zoo seems underpowered to me.

Now that I crafted Sylvanas, I decided to redo my Handlock list. It is now nearly the same as Strifecro's:



Difference is that, since I don't have Jaraxxus, I'm running a second Defender of Argus.

Main difference between this and my old list is

+ Sylanas
+ Zombie Chow
- Shadow Flame
- Loatheb
,
Thoughts? My main question is Loatheb. Should I have eliminated it?

loatheb is insanely good in handlock. a 2nd defender could get awkward sometimes but should be fine generally. You might also consider earthen, (strifecro runs a one of in most of his handlock lists fwiw) it's a reasonable early body vs aggro and can heal up your huge minions as well which is great vs something like patron where they'll often look to axe down things like drakes over two turns.

Warlock is # 2 (handlock), 3 (demonlock), 8 (zoo), and 15 (Malylock) on this week's TempoStorm list:

https://tempostorm.com/articles/temp...r-to-a-counter

Also came upon a decent article on teching handlock.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitive...way_to_legend/

I'm currently trying to decide whether or not I should craft a Lord Jaraxxus, Eredor Lord of the Burning Legion or not. Handlock is probably my favorite deck type, but Jaraxxus isn't used in any other decks and I'm wondering if I should craft or more versatile card. There are variations of Handlock that use Ragnaros, but I don't really know how much use I'll get out of Rag either.

Maybe even Mal'Ganis would be more versatile since I could use him in a demon handlock variation as well as demon zoo.

I would personally craft rag before jaraxxus 100%. rag is super versatile and imo probably about the 3rd best overall legend given his neutrality.

I run a pretty similar deck except I think I have a siphon soul in there. I'm also debating whether I should craft Jaraxxus or Rag. If the game goes to or near fatigue, I find that not having either leaves me with not enough end game power.

I got malganis from a pack last week but haven't tried putting him in my handlock since the deck doesn't have any demons. So it didn't seem like it would provide much value.

Ragnaros is much better to craft even if you only play warlock I think. Jaraxxus is really fun though. In other news, I legit have no idea how to play handlock. Too many cards in hand, head explode.