Low Cost Masters in 2 Days

Hearthstone is a great game where you can use a variety of strategies and create a solid deck with any hero. Admittedly, I might have been a little too excited when I finally got to create my first Hearthstone deck, but the one I made was a Shaman deck called Control Baby!! I started with knowing the critical elements of a good control deck and then opened up my 50 packs and saw how my cards fit together. Every control deck will need:

1. A fair amount of spell, weapon and minion based removal, single damage as well as area of effect (AOE).
2. A mix of low and mid range minions that are have card draw, spell power, can trade 2 for 1, or are solid cost effective defensive units.
3. A few strong late game minions that pack a punch and will buff your smaller minions

So now I’ve opened up my packs and surprise I don’t have loads of epic and legendary cards, well that’s just fine because there are plenty of rare and common cards that serve the same purpose and that is the critical point I want to emphasize. Picking cards that synergize well together while making sure that I am covering all my bases ensured that I had a strong deck. Here is what I came up with:

1. So for removal I got two Rockbiter Weapon, two Stormforged Axe, as well as two hex, two Forked Lightning and a one Lighting Storm. Lighting Storm is a critical AOE spell that does 2-3 damage to all enemy minions so I disenchanted my extra cards and crafted another for just 100 dust! I realized that a lot the removal spells that the Shaman gets and a few of the minions use overload so for what I was given Unbound Elemental synergized very well and so I included two of the 3 cost 2/4 Unbound Elementals (Whenever you play a card with Overload, gain +1/+1). I also got one Iron Beak owl (Battlecry: Silence a minion) and added that to my deck.
2. For my mix of low and mid range units with card draw I felt like two 2 cost 1/2 Novice Engineer – (Battlecry: Draw a card) were good. I also got one 5 cost 4/4 Gadgetzan Auctioneer (When you cast a spell, draw a card) & I later got a 2nd in a pack I won. I also got two Mana Tide Totems which I tend to save for mid game and two 5*4/4 Azure Drakes (Spell Power +1. Battlecry: Draw a card). For defense I got two Feral Spirits and two Sen’jin Shieldmasta, and as a 4/5 taunt Sen’jin is fantastic and these are cards almost everyone gets. I also got one Defender of Argus, a 4 cost 3/3 (Battlecry: Give adjacent minions +1/+1 and Taunt) and 1 Sunfury Protector, a 2 cost 2/3 (Battlecry: Give adjacent minions gain Taunt). I ran both till I got a second Defender of Argus , then I swapped it out with the Sunfury Protector because over the first day I felt the Sunfury Protector didn’t play as well for me as the Defender did. I also got a Youthful Brewmaster and since I have a lot of minions with battlecry it fits nicely, and at worst it’s a 2 cost 2/3.
3. For late game I got one 7 cost 6/6 Stormwind Champion (Your other minions have +1/+1), and later added a 2nd in a pack I won in my first day. I also got a fire elemental which has good stats and with its 3 damage battlecry is a solid 2 for 1.

Sure if I happened to get a legendary Bloodmage Thalnos I would have added it to my deck. But even without these legendary cards I was able to create a very strong deck and get to masters. Remember it’s not important that you get an exact deck of 30 specific cards but that you choose cards that fill the roles you need them to.

One thing I’ve learned on my first day of playing that I didn’t absorb when I was watching people on stream is that in Hearthstone every card your opponent plays gives away their hand and reveals to you their intentions. This is something I learned from playing poker, Mike Caro famously said “Figure out what your opponent wants you to do, and then disappoint them.” In Hearthstone, once I figure out what they’re trying to do I make sure to focus my moves in a way so that I’m constantly disappointing them and preventing them from carrying out their strategy.

One example, I was playing another Shaman deck and the first card he played was a Murloc. Well that told me TONS about what kind of deck he’s using. Either it’s a low cost minion deck with Flametongue Totem, Bloodlust and such for buffs or he’s not a very good player for running that card in which case I’ll probably just outplay him. So my goal was to keep his on-board minion count low and letting my hero take damage by using the Rockbiter Weapon and Stormforged Axe to maintain board control while keeping the AOE and silence cards I had in my hand for when he made his move. Whenever he played a card that buffed other minions I’d take it out immediately. If I had ended up being wrong about my opponent’s strategy I could have quickly adjusted after seeing his next few turns.

Let me mention one more critical thing, you must be very picky about your starting hand! Send back most cards that don’t help early game including Hex, Lighting Storm and all 5+ mana cards. You won’t use them early and there will be plenty of time to draw them later. I also veto Mana Tide Totem because it always dies if I put it out early and so it basically sits in your hand or it’s a 3 cost draw 1 card and the Novice Engineer is much better in this situation. I veto Lighting Storm & Hex because on the first 3-4 turns you’re not going to want to use this as removal, stick with Forked Lighting, Rockbiter Weapons and Stormforged Axes in the early game.

Glhf & see you in masters,

][{obayshi ][/][aru