Mulligans

The four cards above are almost always kept in every matchup, but check out the matchup descriptions below to get a more detailed explanation which other cards are important to keep in each individual matchup.

The deck plays out like the older midrange style, relying heavily on taking the board early and pushing the advantage with a few large finishers. Against aggressive, board-centric decks, value trading and snowballing off a large, uncontested frothing berserker or festeroot hulk is usually enough to close out the game. Against control decks, it is important to soften them up with an early minion buffed with either cruel taskmaster or rampage up to a point where a frothing/bloodrazor combo or Grommash can finish them off.

Introduction

After playing over 200 games with the rush warrior archetype everywhere between rank 4 and top 1000 legend, I landed on this aggressive / midrange take on the deck that peaked at 650 legend for me on NA last season and got me legend from rank 3 with a 70% winrate this month. The deck has strong matchups into Paladins and Secret Mage, slightly favorable (55%) matchups into the current Druid and Rogue archetypes, but is unfavored against control (Warlock / Big Spell Mage / Odd (non quest) warrior).

Notable Card Inclusions

Before I get into the specific matchups, I want to touch on some of

the more notable inclusions in the deck because the deck preforms much

better in the context of the metagame than it would appear on paper.

+

These two cards are probably the ones that look

the most out of place at first glance of the list, however, they serve a

duel purpose of adding extra burn to the deck while also providing

utility in the early game. The body that cruel taskmaster provides is

often invaluable at keeping the board state at bay against even paladin

and rampage excels at creating a large early game minion that the

current control decks have a difficult time dealing with.

vs

The consistency of having an early board is

paramount to the success of tempo and midrange decks so an additional

1-drops alongside Town Crier are necessary. The majority of other lists

I have seen run firefly and I did too for a long time because of the

strength of having the additional body to get more value out of a Battle Rage or Frothing Berserker turn. However, the more I played with them,

the more I noticed that having 2 health was limiting some of the plays I

could make with the various whirlwind effects in the deck. With the

decline of Odd paladin after the first few weeks and the inclusion of

Rampage and Cruel Taskmaster , just having the 3 health on Dire Mole made

all the difference in being able to combat multiple early game board

states which is why I eventually made the switch. (e.g. Dire Mole into

Cruel Taskmaster to beat silver hand recruit into Amani Berserker against

paladin or Dire Mole into Rampage against a Kobold Librarian opening

from warlock.)

Because of the nature of the

rush mechanic, I was having a difficult time finding a solid tempo play

to make on an empty board on turn 5 in control matchups. Trying various

options such as Bittertide Hydra , Cobalt Scalebane , and even muck

hunter , I found that each had a notable weakness (Bittertide Hydra was

unplayable in half of the matchups due to its weakness to cards like

Arcane Missiles , Cinderstorm , and Avenging Wrath , Cobalt Scalebane never felt

good on an empty board, and the deck didnt have enough reliable

whirlwind effects to run Muck Hunter without it being a liability).

Festeroot Hulk performed surprisingly well, often getting up to 6, 7, or

8 attack before falling and being out of range of a large amount of

removal with its 7 health. The ability to jam it on 5, and proceed to

clear the board with rush minions, or push face damage with chargers to

buff him up before he attacked just felt really good.

vs

Most rush warrior lists that I have seen

run worgens over militia commanders or even both. The 3-3 body of the

worgen was underwhelming to me in that it didn’t have favorable value

trades into many decks other than even paladin, it rarely survived to

combo with Rampage or Rampage , and it never felt good to play on an

empty board. Militia Commander on the other hand, was included to combat

mid game taunts such as Stonehill Defender and Tar Creeper while also

surviving to receive the aforementioned damaged minion synergy effects.

*The removal or worgens from the list did lower the amount of rush

minions from 6 or 7 down to 5 which had the upside of making Town Crier

more consistent in finding a specific rush minion, but also made

Woodcutter's Axe less reliable to find a target for the deathrattle

which is why there is only one axe in the list.

Thanks for

bearing with me through those explanations as I know they were a bit

long winded, however, the refining process of decks is often left out of

the conversation and underappreciated so I wanted to be detailed in

outlining my reasonings behind card choices based on about 200 games of

testing in legend. Anyway, onward to the matchup breakdown!

Matchups

Even Paladin

Paladin decks are probably the rush warrior’s best matchups giving me

around a 72% winrate over 30 games. Against even paladin your board

control tools line up so well since your 1-drops easily contest the turn

1 silver hand recruit and your 2-drops between Cruel Taskmaster, Redband Wasp, Woodcutter's Axe, and Rampage give you a large variety of tools to deal with their

2-drops. When the call to arms turn comes around, Blood Razor plus a

minion on board usually keeps the board state in your favor. It can

sometimes be difficult to stick the Frothing Berserker in this matchup because of

Truesilver Champion and Blessing of Kings being able to trade into very

efficiently at that mana slot, so ill sometimes hold onto the frothing

on turn 3 unless I have nothing else to play or they had a weak turn 2.

The key to closing this matchup out is to continually keep the board

state in your favor by value trading and to avoid overextending into a

Consecration on 4 or an equality clear past turn 6. If you can find the

time to stick a Festeroot Hulk it will usually finish the game for you

if Grommash Hellscream doesn’t.

Secret Mage

If you queue into

mage just pray it is secret mage because it is about as good, if not

better than the paladin matchup. The first 4 turns are the most crucial

in this matchup making the mulligan phase especially important. Their

ideal openings are usually Mana Wrym into Sorcerer's Apprentice + spell or

Arcanologist on 2 into Kirin Tor Mage + secret on 3 so the ability to

deal with 3 health minions early is crucial. The main ways this deck

does that is either a 1-drop into Cruel Taskmaster or Woodcutter's Axe , or a

Woodcutter's Axe + Redband Wasp combination. The other way is having

Blood Razor on 4 but that can sometimes be too slow to keep in the

opening hand unless you already have the aforementioned 1 and 2 drops.

If you can manage the board by turn 4 the game is typically in your

favor as long as you keep the board clean and thread in the armor hero

power here and there. The only other caveat to this matchup is playing

around the secrets; because the deck only runs 2 spells, you almost

always want to play around Explosive Runes by sacking a Dire Mole , town

crier or acoloyte of pain into it, unless you already have the board and

are a bit low on life in which Militia Commander and Festeroot Hulk

absorb the damage quite nicely. If you are on the coin, try to save it

if you have Rampage in you first few cards because they will often

damage your minions and landing rampage will often result in them

blowing a turn on Frostbolt or Fireball to clear the threat.

Quest Rogue

This matchup ended

up being around a 55-60% winrate for me which was lower than I had

originally expected it to be. It very easy to take the early board, as

would be expected, but pushing the damage can sometimes prove to be

difficult if they manage to have Glacial Shard as their bounce target. Preparation+Vanish can often times prove to be quite a setback as many of the

minions in the deck are not inherently powerful before they have time to

grow (Frothing Berserker and Festeroot Hulk ) or are buffed with Rampage / Woodcutter's Axe .

However, as bad as that all sounds, the matchup is still a favorable one

as they don’t always have both the tools to deal with the boardstate

and develop minions for the quest completion. The majority of the time,

the best way to finish off this matchup is having Blood Razor to get

through Wax Elemental and being able to stick a Frothing Berserker alongside

other minions for a large burst combo.

Closing Thoughts

Anyway, that about wraps up my rush warrior guide! Thanks

to anyone who stuck around to read the whole thing and I hope it was

helpful. Feel free to comment below and either let me know what you

think or ask any questions on topics I didn’t touch on like some notable

exclusions to the list or some of the more obscure matchups.

Lok-tar ogar! Rush on my warriors!