Stonekeep examines how-to counter and beat the very popular Aggro Pirate Warrior.

Introduction

It’s not hard to notice that Pirate Warrior has taken over the ladder. Not necessarily in terms of the strength ceiling – Reno decks seem to be performing better in the hands of best players. However, it’s definitely the uncontested number one when it comes to numbers. With the introduction of two new cards – Patches the Pirate and Small-Time Buccaneer, an already solid deck has become one of the best in the current meta.

Just to give you an example if you haven’t played that much yourself: I’ve played 278 games since the expansion launch and 99 of my opponents were Warriors. I’d say around 95% of them were either pure Pirate or Dragon Pirate decks. So that’s about 94 out of 278 games against some sort of Pirate Warrior – almost exactly 1/3 of my games. The numbers shape up to be very similar to the pre-Gadgetzan Midrange Shaman, which clearly dominated the ladder.

Sadly, for most of the players, Pirate Warrior is not a fun deck to play against. It’s very fast, a lot of games end by turn 5. It means that most of the people wanting to play slow decks have a hard time, because instead of focusing on their own game plan and having fun, they have to focus on not dying and ignore whatever their deck wants to do.

Pirate Warrior is a force to reckon with, but it’s not unstoppable. There are actually a lot of ways to stop it – not necessarily completely a counter, but to make your life against them much easier.

Pirates, Pirates Everywhere

(If you don’t care about the math and reasons why Aggro is so popular, proceed to the next section)

We know that Pirate Warrior is all over the ladder. But before proceeding to the counters, I want to talk a bit about why the deck is so popular. Because I’m absolutely convinced that it’s not the players who you should fault for playing the deck, it’s the system (however silly it sounds).

Pirate Warriors are most popular around the ranks 10-1. It’s the most common deck by far between ranks 5-1. But they are less popular in the lower parts of the ladder (rank 15 or so) AND they are also less popular on the Legend ladder. I’m not saying that no one plays Pirate Warrior there – the deck is just less common. That is really easy to explain if you understand that ranks 5-1 (and 10-5 to some extent for people aspiring to hit rank 5, not Legend) are the most grindy ranks in the game. There are no win streaks any more. You need to win 25 more games than you lose in order to get Legend. Sounds simple, but in reality it’s not since you’re matched with people of about the same skill (unless you’re a pro player, that is). It’s a huge time commitment and in the end, your win rate doesn’t matter. But Stone, what are you talking about? How can it not matter? It’s quite simple – what matters is how many more games can you win than you lose in a given time period. For example, if you want to hit Legend from rank 5 in 15 hours, it means that – on average – you need to win 1 and 2/3 games more than you lose per hour.

Now, if your average game lasts about 10 minutes, you can only play roughly 6 games per hour – so only about 90 games in 15 hours. In those ~90 games, you need to win 25 more games than you lose – so if you want to hit Legend in 15 hours, playing 10 minutes per game on average, you need to end up with a 58-33 or similar score. It means that your win rate needs to be roughly 64%. And that’s quite a lot considering that you face formidable opponents.

Then, let’s cut the average time per game in half. If you can play ~12 games per hour instead of the ~6, you now have double the games to hit Legend in – about 180 instead of 90. Since, once again, all you need is 25 more wins than losses, your final score can be let’s say 103-78. Which is about 57% win-rate.

So what does it mean in the end? Quite simply, if both Aggro player and Control player want to hit Legend from rank 5 in 15 hours, the Aggro player will need only 57% win-rate to achieve that, while Control player will need about 64% win rate. That’s 7% win-rate difference and that’s actually huge in a game where every % of win rate really matters. It means that if you have less time or you want to hit Legend as quickly as possible, it’s much more beneficial to play an Aggro deck, even with slightly lower win rate, than a Control deck.

Other Points:

Aggro decks cost about 1/3 of the average price of a Control deck.

Aggro decks are easier to play in order to achieve the same results as Control decks.

Faster games mean that you can much more easily play on mobile while commuting/doing something else.

Punching your opponent in the face and watching his health go down might be fun.

In the end I really understand why people play Aggro decks. The game pretty much forces you to play Aggro if you want to be most efficient. And as long as the ladder system won’t change, people will play fast decks. So please, don’t call those decks “cancer”. Don’t call players who play them “braindead”. It’s not fair.

But by all means, go ahead and try to counter them!

Best Decks to Counter Pirate Warrior

The most obvious, and probably best way, to counter Pirate Warriors is to just play one of the decks that were already established as strong against them. All you need is to pick the right deck and see how your win rate improves.

One thing that you should not expect is winning 90% of your games against Pirate Warrior. That’s one of the strengths of the Aggro decks – even if you run a deck that’s strong against them, the matchup is only slightly in your favor (e.g. 60/40). That’s because some of Aggro deck openers that are almost unstoppable and no matter what you do, one in a few games is lost right from the start. Those counters are more subtle, as they try to target Pirate Warrior by having an okay/good matchup, while still keeping solid win rate against other popular decks. You could probably build a deck that wins almost every game against Pirate Warrior, but it would most likely be weak against the rest of meta.

Reno Decks

First and possibly most obvious counter to Pirate Warrior are Reno decks. Even though it’s only a single card, Reno Jackson is nearly an auto-win card against Pirate Warrior. If you manage to stop, or at least slow down, the initial push and then drop Reno – you win the game. The deck is equipped to deal 30 damage before running out of steam, but not 50+ damage. Sometimes Reno alone isn’t enough, but most of the Reno decks run more healing, Taunts or other effects that allows them to stall the game.

But you can’t just build any Reno Jackson deck and expect it to work. Without other anti-Aggro techs, Reno Jackson isn’t enough. You often won’t even survive until turn 6 to play it. Another thing is that you can’t bank on always drawing Reno, so you want to make your deck possibly the best in case you don’t ever see our favorite explorer with glorious mustache. I’d say that your win rate without drawing Reno drops at least in the half, but that’s still fine – the games where you auto-win thanks to Reno make up for that. That’s the thing about Reno decks and one of the more common mistakes I’m seeing. In the heavy-Aggro meta, you can’t make your slow deck too greedy. There is simply no reason to. Sure, you gain an edge in slow matchups, but then you lose horribly to any fast deck. You want to build your deck to be the best against fast decks while still having some late game win conditions for slow matchups.

Example Deck Lists: Dog’s Reno Mage, Stonekeep’s Reno Dragon Priest, Savjz’s RenoLock

Shaman

Shaman, as in every Shaman deck. I mean, probably not EVERY, but definitely most of them. Currently all the popular Shaman archetypes – Aggro, Midrange and Control – have decent to good matchups against Pirate Warrior. Let’s go through them one by one and explain why.

Aggro Shaman has a very similar game plan to the one of Pirate Warrior. Tempo out in the early game, deal as much minion damage as possible, then finish the game with weapons + burn (in case of Shaman) or Charge minions (in case of Warrior). And while both decks execute that game plan well against slow decks, if you match up those two together, Aggro Shaman is just stronger. There are a few reasons for that. Shaman’s early game minions are more efficient and a little harder to kill. The 1 damage weapon (from N'Zoth's First Mate or Upgrade!) isn’t good against Shaman, but not vice versa (Spirit Claws are great against Pirate Warrior). Warrior needs an early Fiery War Axe to keep up. Then, Shaman runs Taunts, which are obviously a great way to stop the Aggro decks. Feral Spirit spawns two Taunts, often tanking two weapon hits (amazing card against Arcanite Reaper) and in the mid/late game, thanks to a few totems played, Shaman can also play a cheap Thing from Below which is both a defensive card and solid threat (similarly, Warrior has the Dread Corsair, which can even be played earlier, but it’s only 3/3). And then, Aggro Shamans run Maelstrom Portal which is an amazing turn 2 play. If Warrior opens with three 1 health minions, you can just sweep them away with a single card AND get a random 1-drop.

Then, the good old Midrange Shaman. The deck is just all-around strong, it has good early game, a lot of removals, AoEs, Taunts etc. It shares most of the strengths with Aggro Shaman, so I won’t repeat everything. But one extra thing is that you can actually tech in is Jinyu Waterspeaker to negate the only Midrange Shaman’s weakness – complete lack of healing.

And the Control Shaman. Well, you see, even though the Control Shaman lacks the early game necessary to fight against Pirate Warrior, it has a way around that. Comeback mechanics. Control Shaman lists often run up to 6 AoE cards (2 copies of Maelstrom Portal, Lightning Storm and Elemental Destruction). A lot of lists also play Doomsayer just for a good measure. Then, the Taunts – after the deck deals with the board, it can Taunt up. While it depends on the exact list you run, most of the Control Shamans run at least 3-4 Taunts that slow down the Warrior. And then, after stabilizing the board and Taunting, Control Shaman can also heal – it’s hard to lose the joust part of Healing Wave, there is also a Jinyu Waterspeaker and – if the game goes for long enough – Hallazeal the Ascended. All in all, if Control Shaman doesn’t die VERY quickly, it won’t die at all.

That’s terrific news for Shaman fans – everyone should find something for themselves. However, the fact that Aggro Shaman works so well against Pirate Warrior creates another problem. If the deck gets even more popular, we’re just trading one Aggro deck for another.

Example deck list: Zorkthar’s Aggro Shaman, Bloodyface’s Midrange Shaman (pre-Gadgetzan), Thijs’ N’Zoth Control Shaman

Zoo Warlock

Zoo Warlock is one of the oldest archetypes in Hearthstone. While it had its ups and downs, it was always a part of the meta. The deck is cheap, relatively fast and strong – what more do you want?

It was one of the most popular decks after last expansion – One Night in Karazhan – because of the Discard package it got. Sadly for Zoo players, the deck didn’t receive any strong additions in Gadgetzan, so it basically remains the same. Still, the same doesn’t mean bad. Even without the new cards, Zoo is still a solid deck and Pirate Warrior matchup is one of the reasons you might consider playing it.

Zoo relies on the heavy early/mid game board presence and ultimate board control. It runs a lot of early game, sticky minions that are efficient – especially at killing small stuff. As much as Warrior can overwhelm the board against slow decks, Zoo can overwhelm the board against Pirate Warrior. Without the early minion presence, Pirate Warrior mostly depends on the weapons and Charge minions to finish the game. While Warlock’s Life Tapping can help it a bit, Voidwalker and especially Defender of Argus are good ways to stop that.

I’d say that the Zoo is the worst of the “counters” on this list, as the matchup is much closer to 50/50, but it’s still a solid deck to play against all the Pirate Warriors.

Example deck list: Ostkaka’s Discard Zoo Warlock

Anti-Yarrr Techs

But what if you don’t want to play one of the decks I’ve mentioned before? Maybe you don’t like them, maybe you want to test something different, maybe you have to finish quests for some other class. Or maybe you already play one of those, but want to optimize them against Pirate Warriors? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. To improve your matchup against Pirate Warrior, you might also play certain tech cards. I’ll list a few examples, there are obviously more, but once you learn what’s good against them, you should be able to determine that yourself!

Weapon Destruction

A lot of Pirate Warrior’s damage is weapon based. The deck runs 6 base weapons – 2 copies of N'Zoth's First Mate, Fiery War Axe and Arcanite Reaper + 4 weapon buffs – 2x Upgrade! (which can double up as a small weapon) and Bloodsail Cultist. There are also cards that synergize with Warrior having an equipped weapon – Small-Time Buccaneer, Southsea Deckhand and Dread Corsair. As you can see, the deck is pretty much based around the weapons. Against some other decks, destroying a 3/1 weapon usually prevents – that’s right – 3 damage. However, against Pirate Warrior, it might prevent way more than that. If you destroy that 3/1 weapon, now it can’t be buffed to 4/2, Deckhand won’t get charge, Small-Time Buccaneer on the board won’t get an extra 2 attack. That’s 9 damage you’ve just potentially prevented by hitting a 3/1 weapon.

When it comes to ways to destroy weapons, there are a few of them. Bloodsail Corsair, Acidic Swamp Ooze, Harrison Jones and the new Toxic Sewer Ooze. Harrison Jones, while probably the best out of 4, is out, because it’s too slow. 5 mana is simply too much – you often need to hit a weapon way earlier. Then, out of the other 3, Acidic Swamp Ooze is simply the best, because it destroys a whole weapon, not only a single charge. It also has the best stat/mana cost distribution out of the 3. If you feel like you need more than one and you can’t put second Acidic Swamp Ooze, because you play a Reno deck, you should probably go for the Toxic Sewer Ooze.

I’d say that right now every deck should run Ooze. Doesn’t matter if you’re playing Aggro, Midrange or Control – it’s just a good tech.

Taunts & Healing

Since healing is mostly tied to each class, I’ll focus on the Taunts more. If you run that class that has access to strong life gain – e.g. Paladin (Forbidden Healing), Priest Greater Healing Potion or Druid (Feral Rage), by all means, you can add that to your deck. It will definitely make your Pirate Warrior matchup easier. If you manage to stabilize the board, healing yourself makes it much more unlikely that Warrior will kill you with weapons and chargers. If your class doesn’t have access to strong healing, you can try cards like Mistress of Mixtures, Earthen Ring Farseer or Refreshment Vendor. Those can be okay additions to some decks, although they generally aren’t as strong as class health gain.

Now, onto the Taunts. Here, obviously the class cards might again be stronger. E.g. you can run Bloodhoof Brave in Warrior or Ancient of War in Druid. But when it comes to the Taunts, we have some solid Neutral options too:

Second-Rate Bruiser is a new card from Gadgetzan expansion and it’s probably the best anti-Aggro Taunt in the game right now. When your opponent has 3 or more minions on the board, which is very common against Pirate Warrior, it’s a 3 mana 4/5 Taunt. It’s both cheaper and has more attack than Sen'jin Shieldmasta. It means that the effect is nearly always active in the early game, when you need it most, while later, when you already stabilize, you can probably afford to pay 5 mana for it. Great tech card and I expect it getting into slower decks if the meta stays similar.

Sen'jin Shieldmasta I’ve just mentioned is also a solid option. While Second-Rate Bruiser is a better anti-Aggro tech, if you’re looking for a 4-drop that’s good against Pirate Warrior, Sen’jin should be it. And most importantly it’s a cheap option available to everyone. However, if you run some Dragons in your deck, Twilight Guardian is an even better option for a 4-drop!

Another new Taunt that’s really good against Pirate Warrior is Dirty Rat. The Battlecry might be risky on turn 2 – if it pulls out a Frothing Berserker or Kor'kron Elite, it can be game over. That’s why you sometimes want to hold off to it, unless you’re in a desperate position. The card starts to shine around turn 4-5. Pirate Warrior will most likely want to play minions first, before the slower player gets board control. By turn 4-5, the Warrior might not have a single minion in his hand. It means that Dirty Rat becomes a 2 mana 2/6 Taunt with no downside whatsoever. But that’s not the only thing – the Battlecry actually becomes an upside in the mid game, when you already have board control. If you pull out a Charge minion – especially Leeroy Jenkins (because it’s the card they most commonly hold onto) – you can kill it on your own terms, without it charging into your face first. Dirty Rat pulling out Leeroy means that you prevent 6 damage from Leeroy + play a health mana Taunt, so that’s a 12 health swing for just 2 mana.

But those cards fit into slow decks. They aren’t great in faster decks. However, there is one card that is amazing in fast decks and works wonders against Pirate Warrior. The card is Defender of Argus. If you play an Aggro or Tempo decks without any natural, strong Taunts, you might think about Argus. Especially if your deck bases its game plan on board control (e.g. Zoo Warlock) or runs minions that synergize with buffs (e.g. Aggro Paladin). Since it produces two Taunts, it makes it hard for the Warrior to get through. And with Taunts on the board, you can start pushing for face damage instead of worrying about your health. Not to mention that Taunting minions with Divine Shield is a nightmare for Warrior to deal with.

Doomsayer

Doomsayer’s popularity has grown heavily at the start of this Standard year, first in Control Paladin, but then other decks have also followed and decided to include it. The card is basically great against any Aggro or Tempo deck. Main game plan of those decks include getting the board initiative in the early game and dealing as much face damage with minions as possible, before the slower deck can react.

Turn 2 Doomsayer is probably the best counter to this strategy. While it doesn’t always work, when it does, it kills 1 or 2 small minions while preventing the fast deck from developing for a single turn. It might not seem like a big deal, but let’s do a quick comparison. Let’s say Shaman (going Second) plays a turn 1 Tunnel Trogg and you play t2 Doomsayer. Shaman hits you and passes. Now, it’s your turn 3 and you face an empty board, without any threats. Now let’s say that you didn’t play that Doomsayer and Shaman played Totem Golem. Instead of the empty board, you stare at 5 attack of two minions, one of which can grow even further.

It was an extreme example, the card is probably even better against Shaman than it is against Pirate Warrior. But even against Pirate Warrior it’s solid one. Pirate Warrior often curves out really fast, on turn 2 they might already have 3-4 minions on the board. But something like a turn 2 Doomsayer or even turn 1 Coin + Doomsayer (if it goes off) not only prevents tons of damage, but also removes the early Pirates from the board, which stops the Bloodsail Cultist Battlecry.

And in the worst case scenario, since Pirate Warrior doesn’t run any hard removal or Silence, Doomsayer tanks at least 7 points of damage. That’s of course not as good as it going off, but it’s still a solid consolation prize. Most of the decks would love to run 2 mana healing for 7 against Aggro anyway. So playing a Doomsayer against Pirate Warrior is basically a win-win situation.

Mind Control Tech

Mind Control Tech is one of the most interesting tech cards in the game, because it might be extremely powerful when used in the right meta. While Patches the Pirate has increased the Pirate Warrior’s strength significantly, it also made the deck weaker against MCT. Hitting MCT on the curve was nearly impossible before, but it is right now if Warrior gets a quick start with a few 1-drops.

But how strong is MCT against Pirate Warrior? You obviously aren’t stealing anything big, but you don’t need to. Even the absolutely worst case scenario – stealing a vanilla 1/1 (like N'Zoth's First Mate is already worth it. If you do that, you basically play a 3 mana 3/3 + 1/1 + deal 1 damage. That would be an amazing 3-drop and everyone would play that. But that’s just the worst case scenario. If you roll high and steal a 2-drop or 3-drop, that can be just game over for Warrior. He’s losing the strength while you get more minions to trade with. Even stealing the Patches is quite strong – the 1/1 has Charge, so you can immediately kill another minion (like Southsea Deckhand with it.

Not to mention that MCT is generally quite a strong tech in the current meta. It’s easy to hit something against Shaman. Dragon Priests are also decent at flooding the board. I think it’s a great time to play MCT in your decks.

Closing

There are obviously more strong, anti-Pirate Warrior techs, but listing them all would take too long. You surely get it by now – ways to deal with their early boards, to stop the damage or gain health – that’s mostly what you want against the deck.

Pirate Warrior seems to be slowly losing in popularity as more and more people play the right decks and tech in the correct cards. But it still remains one of the most popular decks on the ladder. If you’ve learned something from this article, you also might contribute to the Pirate Warrior’s extinction. That’s great for everyone who hates the Blitz games and dying on turn 5.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. If you want to be up to date with my articles, you can follow me on Twitter.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!