Deck of the Week #4, Board Control Warlock

by Team [IHU] - 7 years ago

Every Friday legendary player [DKMR]Alchemixt breaks down Don’t Kick My Robot’s “Deck of the Week” . These decks are seeing a lot of play either in constructed ladder or tournaments. Team DKMR explain the deck lists and how to play them. Make sure you check out Don’t Kick My Robot if you want to become a better player or check out their premium services if you would like them to do a 1 on 1 coaching session with you to help you better your game. View past Deck Lists of the Week.

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[DKMR]Alchemixt here from team Don’t Kick My Robot to bring you this week’s Deck of the Week. This one happens to be a personal favorite of mine as I used this particular deck to climb from rank 25 to legendary in under 10 hours last season. The deck that we will be discussing is an aggressive board control Warlock deck. Not only is this deck a great choice for tournament play and ranked play but, it is also very quick and you will be able to get in many more games than you usually would. Take a look at DKMR’s take on the aggressive (tempo) Warlock

DKMR Warlock Deck List

Board Control

This is going to be one of the longer sections because it is also very likely that it is the most important. The main idea to understand when playing this type of Warlock deck is that even though you have the capability to win games very fast and potentially rush down your opponent, not every game should be played out like that.

The purpose of this deck is to constantly keep your opponents side of the board clear while adding to yours. When your opponent has nothing of value on his side of the board then that is ideally when you would start attacking him directly. Every game and every situation is different but generally you want to aim for board control as opposed to rushing down your opponent. Now on the other hand, if it’s turn 5 and your hand consists of a Leeroy Jenkins and a Power Overwhelming, you probably want to shift gears towards ignoring most of what your opponent is doing.

Soulfire – This card ends games on the spot. Imagine your opponent passes turn 1 and you coin out two 1 cost creatures. Now your opponent plays a creature and next turn you play yet another creature and Soulfire their only minion. This is turn 2 and you have 3 creatures to their 0.

VoidWalker – This card will let your other more valuable creatures hide behind it in order to attack your opponent directly or trade more effectively.

Abusive Sergeant – This is the card that will let you make the most valuable trades with your opponent’s creatures for board control. Ideally you would want this effect on an Argent Squire in order to trade off with a bigger creature and only lose the divine shield as a cost. This card can also be used to get through large taunts as well.

Argent Squire – Very cheap creature which is great to buff up. Cards like Defender of Argus and Dark Iron Dwarf are great to use in combination with the Argent Squire because of the divine shield.

Flame Imp – Taking 3 damage sucks but the body you get for 1 mana is a fantastic deal.

Knife Juggler – Synergizes well with the whole deck. Since you are playing so many low cost creatures each turn you can really get good value from your jugglers.

Harvest Golem – Possibly one of the best neutral cards in the game. Although it is not flashy the fact that it is hard to kill and you can usually get a 2 for 1 out of it makes it a must have in this type of deck.

Dark Iron Dwarf – This has all the same information that was applied to Abusive Sergeant. This just fills out the curve nicely and provides a larger body.

Argent Commander – We thought about placing this card in the burst damage section but usually what ends up happening is that you kill off 2 creatures for 1 card. Generally you kill a larger creature then they trade off a smaller one on their turn. Either way this card provides great board control while also having the ability to burst them down late game.

Burst Damage

Most aggressive decks have some form of burst damage. The difference between burst damage and constant damage is that burst damage is not usually predicted by your opponent or played around nearly as much. The ability to put out large amounts of damage instantly and out of nowhere is what allows for the board control style of play that we recommend with this deck.

The reason we are able to consistently keep board control and chip away at the opponents life is because we will still be able to finish the game even if we are not playing as aggressively throughout the whole game. So in an ideal world, you would be trading off your creatures all game while chipping off at your opponents life total here and there. You soften them up to 14 and then they start playing their late game powerful cards. At this point you can now play your Leeroy Jenkins and Power Overwhelming plus Soulfire to finish the game even though you opponent is just starting to take the control back.

Power Overwhelming – The part of this card that says your creature dies at the end of the turn is pretty much irrelevant. 1 mana for +4/+4 is huge! Usually this card with be used in combination with a charge creature to deal the killing blow. However, frequently, you may want to use this on something like a Harvest Golem or Bloodmage Thalnos in order to break through some large taunt creatures and get that card draw (from Thalnos).

Leeroy Jenkins – Probably the best finisher in the game and great when combined with Power Overwhelming, Defender of Argus, Abusive Sergeant, or Dark Iron Dwarf.

Arcane Golem – This basically fills the role of the second Leeroy Jenkins. Try and save this card for finishing the game because playing it early can put you at a huge disadvantage (giving your opponent an additional mana crystal).

Utility

These are cards that go along with the board control aspect but serve a slightly different purpose.

Mortal Coil – Great against other aggressive decks and seeing that is replaces itself as well as being super cheap makes this card fit nicely into the deck. Even the matchups where this card is weaker, there is usually a spot when you can make it work.

Young Priestess – One of our favorite openers is Young Priestess and then coin into a VoidWalker. The Young Priestess can potentially be game breaking when allow your creatures to survive through cards like Lightning Storm, Swipe, Holy Nova, and Consecration.

Dire Wolf Alpha – We almost put this guy into the board control section but he really only makes a huge impact once you have already establish some board control because clearly you will want him to be buffing 2 creatures that are next to him. Keep in mind that you can attack with a creature buffed by the wolf then play a charge minion in the same place to also get a buff that turn. This essentially allows your Dire Wolf Alpha to buff 3 creatures in one turn as opposed to just 2.

Defender of Argus – We wish we had some some relevent information to put here but really he is just a spectacular card and fits perfectly into a deck that is spamming creatures onto the board all game.

Bloodmage Thalnos – This card may seem out of place to many of you and alot of people, we know usually remove it for something like a Doomguard. We like this card for the following reasons. He is a cheap creature that can be buffed and traded off nicely especially when combine with cards like Abusive Sergeant and even Power Overwhelming. The spellpower is actually quite relevant in this deck since we play both Mortal Coil and Soulfire. You will usually never be excited to have Bloodmage Thalnos in your opening hand but you will never mind having him also. Basically, he is a solid card that is never really bad in any situation.

Ironbeak Owl – This is our first reaction to the Tinkmaster Overspark change. Having a silence effect in any aggro deck can be nice especially for getting through taunt creatures. This could definitely be many other cards now that Tinkmaster Overspark has been nerfed but we think that the owl is a fine replacement for now.

Endurance

Life Tap. The Warlock’s hero ability is arguably the best one in the game and certainly one the best for aggressive decks. The reason why this deck can even do what it does is because of Life Tap. Life Tap allows you to not worry about running out of cards which is the biggest reason why board control is so strong in this style of deck. By trading off your creatures with your opponents it may not seem like it is accomplishing much however, they will eventually run out of cards where you will always have a constant supply. Life Tap also give you the ability to last with late game control decks. The reason Shaman doesn’t auto win with Lightning Storm or Warrior doesn’t auto win with a Brawl is because it usually doesn’t make a difference. Even if they kill off 4 creatures you will still be playing on average, 2 creatures a turn.

I hope you all enjoyed this weeks deck and please try it out on the ladder. Do not be discouraged right away if you lose because it is more difficult to play than most since there are so many decisions each turn.

Guide written by [DKMR]Alchemixt

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