Used to post in micros way back in the day and gleaned a lot from their COTW (Concept of the Weeks), hoping to pay the forum back by making one for Hearthstone.

Making the push? Trying to win a tournament? Can't decide what cards to put in? Hopefully this guide will hopefully improve your deck-making skills and take you to the next level! According to Hearthstone simulations going from rank 5 to legend gaining even +1% winrate (50%->51%) means it takes almost 300 less games (~920-620=300) to hit legend

Golden Rule: The card you put in has to increase your win rate more than the card you take out

__________________________________________________

Deck:



Question 1: I've been facing secrets decks, do i put in Kezan Mystic?:


Answer: Let's use rough numbers, let's assume Hunters+Paladins+Mages (the secret classes, really popular atm) make up 40% of the ladder at legend push levels. We'll say most of them play secrets in their deck, so 30% of the ladder has secrets that can be stolen by the kezan mystic.

Since most of these are aggro, you'll want the kezan by at least turn 7 (preferably much earlier). Assuming you mulligan for it that's an average of ~15 cards (assuming you dont completely mulligan cards like flame imp away, plus extra cards from warlock hero power) to try and get your kezan. That's 50% of the time you'll have it by the time the game's decided via secrets against aggro.

If you do steal a secret, your win equity against aggro goes from say 40% to 70% (sometimes they resteal it, flare it, kill you anyways, or play around the secret)

Total: 30% of the time you face a secrets deck, 50% of the time you draw it in time, if you do steal a secret your win % increases by 30%
(.3*.5)=.15*(+30% win)= ~+4.5% win equity

HOWEVER, this was replacing a vanilla 4/3 4 mana with a 4/3 4 mana kezan. The other times you face a non-secrets deck and draw kezan you could have had say a BGH.

Remember the Golden Rule (The card you put in has to increase your win rate more than the card you take out) We'll say not having BGH for control decks decreases your win equity by about 3.50% total, making it ~+1% to put in a Kezan, thus we should replace BGH with Kezan.

NOTE: See how the win% was figured? Mess with the numbers a bit. For example, say you rarely face secrets deck (~10%), but face a lot more control. BGH easily becomes the card to use.

Question 2: Why does Gruul suck?



Let's use our newfound approach to find his win%

50% of your games you dont draw him (+0%), 20% of the time you draw him but cant play him while his replacement would've helped stave off aggro (-20% win % against aggro), 15% of the time you play him but your opponent has an easy counter such as BGH, polymorph-type removal, or value trades (-30% win % when you use an 8 mana card and this happens), 10% of the time he's a break-even play, 5% of the time he wins you the game over his replacement (let's say +60% over his replacement)

Totals: (50%*0%dontdraw)+(20%*-.20drawcantplay)+(15%*-.30drawplayBGHed)+(10%*0playneutralEV)+(5%*.60 wcondition)=0%-4%-4.5%+0%+3%= -5.5% win equity from a single card.

Let's assume his replacement is Dr. Boom, his drawcantplay goes down because he's 7 mana (instead of 8), drawplayBGHed goes down because it isn't a total loss (has 2 1/1 exploding bombs), and his win condition goes up due to the bombs. We can easily see why Dr. Boom is played so much.

Final Question 3: Why doesn't the above deck use Jaraxxus?



First, as a legend deck it should be hard (hopefully) to replace any of the cards, so Jaraxxus has to be pretty good to be put in.

His problems begin immediately however, his drawcantplay is high, this deck focuses on winning before turn 9. More importantly, many of his perks (emp thar turn 10 8 mana jaraxxus/dread infernal play), and shadowflame, are not in the deck.

This brings up the other most important rule: Decks need to synergize. In a game with 30 random cards, the more cards that work with other cards, the better the deck will be (win condition goes up).

Top 10 combos the above legend deck has:
Power Overwhelming/Dire Wolf/Abusive Sergeant + Egg
Power Overwhelming/Dire Wolf/Abusive Sergeant + imp-losion
Power Overwhelming/Dire Wolf/Abusive Sergeant + haunted creeper
Power Overwhelming/Dire Wolf/Abusive Sergeant + small creature + Void terror (very powerful can be win condition)
Knife Juggler + imp-losion
Knife Juggler + haunted creeper deathrattle
Knife Juggler + imp gang boss active
Knife Juggler + egg deathrattle
Knife Juggler + voidcaller deathrattle
Voidcaller deathrattle + Malganis + implosion/demons on board previous turn

Where does Jaraxxus fit in there?

TL;DR Conclusion:
1) Consider all the positives and negatives when deciding to replace a card, quantify it roughly if possible (this is where skill comes in), choose the one with higher EV
2) Win condition cards are fun to play (Gruul, Deathwing, etc.), but often fall short when all factors are considered (holding them vs. aggro, getting BGHed, etc.)
3) Synergy Synergy Synergy. The more synergy a deck has the more it can be played the stronger it becomes.

Hope this helped, feel free to ask questions

Bonus-page: Why doesn't XX legendary see play?

terms:
dontdraw: If your deck revolves around this card and you dont draw it, your win % suffers
slow: Slow cards that don't immediately affect the board suffer against aggro decks, both for being a dead card and for allowing aggro to get a turn to value trade/hit face
bgh: you either need to bait out the BGH, or risk a massive tempo loss

Druid:
Malorne: bgh, slow

Hunter:
King Krush: bgh
Gahzrilla: slow
Note: Both cards would do well in other decks, but suffer in Hunter's current meta

Mage:
Flame Leviathan: bgh, slow

Paladin:
Bolvar Fordragon: (possibly bgh), slow

Priest:
Prophet Velen: bgh, slow

Rogue:
Trade Prince Gallywix: slow, not part of current rogue meta

Shaman:
both legendaries see play

Warrior:
Iron Juggernaut: slow, rarely played but i've at least seen it some

Neutral:
Millhouse: You face the power of Millhouse Manastorm
Lorewalker Cho: slow, weak
Baron Rivendare: slow, dontdraw (requires deck built around him but hard to draw)
Stalagg/Feugen: slow, dontdraw, bgh (hard to draw both, live long enough to have them both die, then avoid having thaddius being BGHed or sylvannas'ed or w/e)
Mimiron's Head: slow
Hemet Nesingwary: slow, weak ability
Toshley: slow
Black Knight: slow, weak card against non-taunt decks
The Beast: slow, bgh, gives opponent minion for killing
Mogor the Ogre: slow, bgh
Maexxna: slow
Illidan: slow, bgh, low health
Gazlowe: slow
Troggzor: slow
Rend Blackhand: slow, aggro decks rarely use legendaries
Sneed's: slow, vulnerable to silence
Foe Reaper 4000: slow
Chromaggus: slow
Onyxia/Nozdormu/Nefarian/Mekgineer/Majordomo: slow, bgh, power not good enough to justify
Deathwing: slow, auto-loss if they have counter

is that deck current? its my exact list with a dire wolf over shadowflame

apparently dire wolf is the secret card which keeps you from getting top deck skill commanded

it's a month old, a card or two can definitely be swapped out, such as shadowflame

dire wolf is very good for all the potential combos though

I feel like Flame Leviathan could see play in the right mage deck.

Prophet Velen sees some play in Mind Blast decks

Toshley is a totally solid card, the issue isn't that he's slow, it's that the 6 hole is highly contested. Some very good players have tried him there, it's just that he's outclassed (bigtime) by Slyvanas and Emperor, and you typically don't have room for more

Black Knight sees play, Nefarion is a good card, and Sneeds, although slow, pops up from time to time

Poor Rend died when people gave up on trying to build successful dragon pally decks

I really, legit, had good results with Rend in my warrior deck. I dont think he's bad - I just think the dragon decks are bad

Theres a majordomo mage deck that people used to get legendary with that ive played. It runs double block/barrior alex and healbot its actually super fun to play and rapes slow control decks. Nothing like being rag having a rag with barrior and blocks up.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/24760...o-grinder-mage

I watched a streamer playing majordomo mage about a week ago

I'd imagine a huge % of decks now run sludge or another taunt--i think TBK is playable. Only ones that don't are face hunter and they can draw one with animal companion, some mages (freeze), most rogues (fatigue runs deathlord)--but zoo/demonlock/handlock run taunts and TBK can be a huge swing, warrior, shaman, druid run at least 2 taunts, paladin runs a giant one plus sludge, mages some times run sludge, priests run sludge and deathlord and hunters run up to 4 or 5 (sludge, animal companion and hound master). The issue with TBK is if you don't have him at the right time he's a really ****ty 6 drop--4/5 vs let's say sylv 5/5 or at worst case the no text 6/7.

capone. that's the issue. the tempo swing is great, but the tempo swing with emperor/sylvanas is greater.

it depends on the deck...

I believe in Bolvar...rational or not

IDK, I'm not the biggest emperor fan-he's great in combo decks and control but if you are top decking, he is mediocre and he's mediocre if you don't have many cards. I don't think any of these cards are going to 1 card save you, although Sylv might.

I think you need to expect to be regularly killing ~5 mana worth of taunt for TBK to be good. If your just killing senjins (i.e., half a belcher), it's meh. So I wouldn't play it in an environment with lots of zoo and hunter -- which, btw, Rank 5 currently has tons of.

Well you're not including emperor in decks where you are dropping your cards as soon as they hit your hand (facehunter/zoo). you put it in controlly/combo decks (druid/warrior/freezemage). And in those decks, it's generally better than TBK because it allows you to get your bigger threats out faster (or combo your threats more efficiently)

You guys want to use this thread as a general help me build/fine-tune a deck thread? Or should we start a new one for that?

Working on building a Malygod Shaman deck after playing a bunch of Dragon Lock and loving it. Started off trying to have Dragon's then realized why even do that when I only ended up putting in Corrupters and I could just forget them and only use Fire Ele's.

Here is what I've got so far. I got rid of lots of normal things (Rockbiter, Al'akir, Shredder's) cause I'm looking for lots of cycle. Obviously the goal is to burst hard from hand with or without Maly. Emperor could make some crazy bursts possible even w/o maly since all the damage spells are already cheap.

No Chow's cause I figure with the number of cheap damage spells I can afford to use a few of them for removal and still be able to win. Couldn't get rid of creepers and FT just seems like too much early value to clear and stay alive for burst turns.

Went back to Unbound's due to all the overload.

1 Fireguard 2 Gnomish to synergize with T3 unbound and still be able to play Gnomish on T5 with 4 mana.

Only going 1 Hex to make some room for stuff, but I think 2 ES 2 Storm is too good right now since I'll have SP often to deal with Patrons.

Harrison for Patron mainly and more draw for combo pieces.

1 Healbot cause I'll probably be taking lots of damage from aggro early.

Boom because it still isn't nerfed.

I think you have too many creatures.

That deck just looks like you want to be killed before turn 7 by aggro decks

Help please, I am trying to make a decent Druid deck. All f2p,only packs are from gold during daily quests, so not much there. Just want to maximize what I have, realize I'll never have a powerful one.

Here's what I have so far:



Here's what I have available, the ones with the jewels are from packs, right?

Druid:
Nothing available

Neutral:
Murlock Tidecaller x1
Faerie Dragon x2
Ironbeak Owl x1
Knife Juggler x1
Mad Bomber x1
Youthful Bremaster x1
Earthen Ring Farseer x1
Injured Blademaster x2
Questing Adventurer x1
Thrallmar Farseer x1
Defender of Argus x1
Mogu'shan Warden x1
Spellbreaker x1
Azure Drake x1
Stranglethorn Tiger x1
Venture Co Mercenery x1
Frost Elemental x1

Any advice would be greatly helpful ad I'm still learning which cards are good and which will work for Druids (trying to finish a daily quest, not sure if I even like this class yet).

Anything to swap out or just change all together?

Thanks everyone

Just drew a BGH. Assume that should go in most decks?

for 2 more mana savage roar does what claw does for your face and all minions, minus the armor. get the azure drake in there ASAP. I was going to say for the healer but you have no other 5 drops so maybe drop a gnomish since you still get the cantrip but also get the spell power which is where swipe can shine. find a spot for 1 silence and that bgh, maybe drop one of those bombs, it looks pretty heavy

Except for face hunter, it pretty much goes everywhere.

I'd replace 2 x river croc with 2 x faerie dragon, both mark of the wilds with an earthern ring and owl, and 1 x stormwind with the azure drake. Then I'd buy Nax