Article by Jotto

Hello everyone, this is Jotto and welcome to the 20th MLG/ManaGrind tournament review. This week we saw a very well-known Magic the Gathering player joining the ranks in Hearthstone, Tom Martell.

Starting with the European tournament, the top four started off with a very odd Paladin aggro/mid-range deck that focused around divine shields, more on that later. From there we had a fairly normal top four consisting of a watcher Druid along with its sister deck, Druid beat down and rounding out the top four we had a Shaman pure mid-range deck, no “OTK” to be found here.

The story in the North American tournament was quite interesting with a Warrior legendary minion deck coming second and Druid beat down, making a showing along with a Warlock Zerg aggro deck with no epics or legendary cards, an impressive feat. However, the star of the top four was Tom Martell, who came in first with a Warlock “handlock” deck. Tom Martell is a Magic the Gathering pro player who is very accomplished in that card game. It is interesting to see some of the very experienced and talented players from Magic the Gathering also playing Hearthstone, and I hope that we will see more from him in the future.

The Deck

Analysis

So, about that Paladin shields deck...

This deck revolves around the concept of using divine shields to block as much damage as possible and keep your threats on the board. However, the deck also found intricate ways of using the mechanic as we’ll get into later.

Starting with the early game, the deck utilized a selection of very hard to remove threats for early game pressure, these included Argent Squire and Scarlet Crusader which are both very difficult to remove. On top of that, the deck also played Youthful Brewmaster as a tech to recycle almost every minion in the deck. The minions in the deck all have a battlecry, divine shield or charge. The ability to reset these traits is invaluable.

Lastly, for the early drops we have an Acidic Swamp Ooze to deal with weapons that can cause a lot of harm to the deck. The Argent Protectors allow you to renew the divine shields on minions and efficiently attack into other minions without trading.

On to the mid to late game, the deck took advantage of Argent Commander for removal and direct damage which could be reset using Youthful Brewmaster, and also used Azure Drake to draw and a Sunwalker as a very potent blocker in the mid-game.

Aldor Peacekeeper served as a way of dealing with big threats. While, Ragnaros the Firelord and Guardian of Kings held down the late game. Warning’s deck also abused Blood Knight to take advantage of the excess of divine shields on hand to make it a 6/6 or 9/9 minion for three mana.

For weapons, the deck played the standard Truesilver Champion for removal and burst damage in the mid-game.

Lastly, the deck played a wide variety of spells to complement its minions, starting with Consecration, Avenging Wrath, and Equality. This combination allowed him to wipe the board and deal a large amount of collateral damage to the enemy hero.

The deck also played Hammer of Wrath to cycle, removing early threats. Divine Favor added to draw a large amount of cards against the slower decks. Finally, it played Redemption which was used mainly to resurrect the divine shield minions, again recycling their protective shields.

Conclusion

In closing, with the patch coming out nerfing some of the core legendary minions it is hard to judge where the metagame is going, but it definitely seems to be speeding up. That, in turn, I predict, will make the return of watcher decks as they are very good against aggro. We’ll have to wait and see.

Thank you all for reading and I’ll see you next week!

MG_Jotto

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Article by Jotto, Edited by Homebrewed, Formatted by Whale_Cancer