March of the Lich King is releasing soon, and with six expansions, an expanded core set, and a whole new class to build for, it can be somewhat overwhelming trying to figure out what to do first. With that in mind, I’ve brewed some sample decks that you can start with after you open your packs. Some of these might be great, and some might be terrible; some card choices are certainly incorrect and some cards are likely missing, but since the set is not yet released, all of them have a perfect 100% win rate! In other words, feel free to use these as inspiration; change cards, mess around and have fun. We’ll know what the meta is very, very soon; until then, at least one of these decks should pique your interest and align with your dust budget. GLHF!
Big thanks to my Coin Concede co-hosts, Edelweiss and RidiculousHat, as well as Hunter expert extraordianaire Sidisi, for their advice on devising and refining these lists. Also thanks to Decktech for trailblazing this kind of theorycrafting roundup before going on to bigger and better things as part of the Hearthstone team.
Table of Contents
Death Knight
Frost Burn Death Knight
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Burn seems like the way to go for Frost Death Knight. This version goes all in to get access to Frostwyrm’s Fury and Marrow Manipulator for stall and additional damage, as well as Lady Deathwhisper to copy burn spells like Icy Touch, Howling Blast, and Remorseless Winter. Deathchiller also provides some old-school Flamewaker vibes, only cooler.
Unholy Aggro Death Knight
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I wasn’t expecting to go all in on Unholy, but Grave Strength kept calling to me as a viable Unholy win condition. The card acts as a persistent Bloodlust for 4 mana, which seems too good to pass up. The deck also runs Anti Magic Shell, which can be annoying for opposing decks to deal with in the midgame. Most of the rest of the deck is card draw and undead, the latter of which helps get Stitched Giant down ASAP.
Demon Hunter
No Minion Relic Demon Hunter
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The concept for the Souleater’s Scythe deck is pretty simple. I took Relic Demon Hunter, removed all the minions, and put in all the new Demon Hunter spells. The three minions that you discover are Stheno, Xy’mox and Jace. The downside is you won’t get Xy’mox or Jace discounted, but since we don’t run Brann anymore, that’s not terrible. The upside is that you can keep the minions in the souls until you’re ready to use them (except for Xy’mox to infuse him), so it’s much harder for opponents to pull them out of your hand; at worst, you get to choose which of the three minions you won’t have access to.
Druid
Armor Quest Druid
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When I saw Crypt Keeper, my thought immediately went to Quest Druid given how much armor it naturally churns out. You could easily get Crypt Keeper down on the board early enough to make an impact given the armor gain. Plus, if plan A of punching your opponent in the face fails, you still have room for all the typical Renethal Ramp Druid nonsense to finish the game out.
Undead Aggro Druid
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Aggro Druid is already one of the better decks in the Nathria meta, and the undead cards just seem to fit together nicely. This deck keeps the curve extremely low to get max value from Unending Swarm, and since the board should stick thanks to the deathrattles that summon minions, Composting makes sense to come back into the list as an additional draw engine that should be fairly consistent. Worth noting that this deck contains no legendary cards and only four epics total (only two of which are from the new set), so this is a pretty attainable budget deck if you don't have a lot of packs to open.
Hunter
Arcane Quest Hunter
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Quest Hunter’s been nerfed enough times that it’s kind of iffy, but the new arcane package gives us an opportunity to slim the list down by cutting Renathal and removing the secret package that was necessary to power Multicaster. Since Conjured Arrow draws cards once we hit 6 mana, we can eliminate a number of dead draws from the deck in the form of late Dun Baldur Bunker or duplicate secrets, allowing the quest to come online faster and push more consistent damage once the quest reward has been played.
Shockspitter Hunter
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Shockspitter incentivizes us to attack a lot, and it can provide a lot of from-hand burst to finish the game out. To that end, I added in Northshire Farmer, Selective Breeder, and Dire Frenzy to make lots of Shocksplitters, and added in weapons and cards that make weapons (read: Wildseeds). Ideally, we start attacking from turn 1 and build up the battlecry on Shocksplitter so that we can play three or four of them once the opponent puts up enough taunts that our minions can no longer hit face.
Mage
Arcane Burn Mage
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Vexallus sends us in a pretty clear direction: Generate as many Arcane Bolts as possible, get a little spell damage, and then pew pew until the opponent’s portrait explodes. To that end, we run Aegwynn to juice future minions with +2 spell damage, and most of the other minions in the deck cost 3 mana or less to be able to fit into a 10 mana turn alongside Vexallus (to double the Arcane Bolts) and Magister’s Apprentice (to make them cost zero mana). The rest of the deck is Ping Mage minus skeleton things, so the boosted hero power can act as a secondary win condition if necessary.
Paladin
Dragon Control Paladin
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Everybody loves dragons! We take the shell from non-Jailer Control Paladin and work in more dragons, so we activate Kazakusan fairly consistently after we’ve played Order in the Court. Don’t sleep on Timewarden, either; the fact that the battlecry persists into the next turn means that cards like Raid Boss Onyxia and chains of dragons from Amalgam of the Deep and Bronze Explorer can turn into brick walls in the late game.
Holy Pure Paladin
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Is For Quel’Thalas! the card that finally makes Kotori Lightblade playable? That remains to be seen, but it does seem better than the Holy spells Paladin has had up to now. This deck takes the Pure Paladin shell that’s emerged since Maw and Disorder and works in For Quel’Thalas!, Feast and Famine, Kotori Lightblade and Blood Matriarch Liadrin. The two new spells combine together nicely to give your hero boosted attack and lifesteal in the midgame, and that’s even more so if you can double the attack with Kotori. Late game, you have the usual Order in the Court shenanigans to find Lightrays, Cariel and The Countess to finish the game.
Priest
Undead Priest
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I’ll just say it: The undead package in Priest is weird. There’s definitely a motif that involves lot of minions dying and coming back, but the undead that Priest got don’t seem to have a solid theme there. What did get the undead tag, though, is Shadowed Spirit, which does 3 damage to an opponent when it dies. With that in mind, this deck is designed to kill and resurrect as many Shadowed Spirits as possible, so if the minions attacking on board and the individual deathrattle activations don’t get you over the line, you can play Xyrella, the Devout as a scuffed Tamsin’s Phylactery finish.
Thief Priest
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What better way to experience the new set than by playing with the cards your opponent unpacked? This is fairly close to the Nathria Thief Priest list, with the additions of Mind Eater for extra thievery, and Sister Svalna because that card is just good value in any non-aggressive Priest deck.
Quest Priest
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Similar to Thief Priest, Quest Priest doesn’t need too much help, but Sister Svalna and the nerf to Theotar help smooth out the quest’s stage two curve, and allows us to cut Lightbomb, which has been steadily falling off in value since the Edwin nerf. Astalor Bloodsworn also makes his way into the list, as he fulfills the two, five and eight mana requirements with a single card slot.
Rogue
Garrote Rogue
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I know. I KNOW. I don’t want this to be a thing either, but we all need to prepare together. Garrote Rogue got another Octo-bot activator in Ghostly Strike, so we’re close to replacing the Augmerchants’ convenience pings. More importantly, though, Rogue got Shadow of Demise for yet another Garrote, and Silvermoon Arcanist, which gives +2 Spell Damage for 3 mana, with the restriction that you can’t target your opponent’s face the turn you play it. Luckily for you, Garrote doesn’t need a target to hit face. Leave it to Rogue to always find the loophole.
Concoction Thief Rogue
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If you just want to play with concoctions, this seems to be the most straightforward way to do that. This takes Nathria Thief Rogue, cuts the secrets and secret accessories (along with Theotar, now at 6 mana), and puts in all the concoction cards. The quantity of concoctions should replace the consistent draw that the secret package provided in the old list, though if making your opponent play around both Objection! and Counterspell every turn was the main draw of the old version, this might leave you feeling like it’s missing something.
Shaman
OTK Control Shaman
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This is pretty close to Nathria Control Shaman, but with two big inclusions: From De Other Side and Bonelord Frostwhisper. In general, the goal is to play From De Other Side with Bonelord Frostwhisper, Denathrius, and some combination of Brann, Bolner and Macaws in hand. All the minions in hand get summoned, the attack from Denathrius heals you for 10 (hopefully), and the Frostwhisper dies immediately at the end of the turn. This opens up the path to a bajillion damage the following turn: You can either open with Brann or Bolner for free and then Denathrius, or for the premium jumbo damage package, you can lead with Denathrius and then play Bolner and/or Brann followed by Macaws. Druid and Death Knight can build up a lot of health but that should be enough to get through even those life totals.
Warlock
Undead Resurrect Warlock
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Warlock is easily the hardest class to build this expansion, which says that we might need to wait for the mini-set to provide some missing tools to really get to see the potential of the new Warlock cards. Based on what we have avilable to us now, though, the deathrattle cards clearly point us in a direction of resurrecting Dar’Khan Drathir after cheating that out with Flesh Behemoth, but how to get there is the puzzle. This deck takes the approach of going full control in the early game, while only running the aforementioned undead to maximize chances of finding Drathir off of a Flesh Behemoth deathrattle. We can cheat that into play via either Amorphous Slime or Masked Reveler, both of which can summon a copy of Drathir, after which we have Infantry Reanimator and Habeas Corpses to resurrect it. Habeas Corpses is also a Shadow spell, meaning Tamsin can double that up for even more Drathir. This gameplan is, er, optimistic, but when you do pull it off, it’ll feel amazing.
Warrior
Charge Warrior
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Charge Warrior got a couple of new tools in this set, particularly Sunfire Smithing, which both provides a weapon and buffs a minion in hand; if we can land that on Galvangar or Grommash Hellscream, that can add up to 16 damage to our combo to get through Druid armor or Blood Death Knight health. We also have Bonelord Frostwhisper to provide some redundancy for enabling the full combo; if you can get Frostwhisper killed off, you should only need one copy of To the Front to get Galvangar or Grom on board with a full compliment of copies and Battleground Battlemaster.
Fire Enrage Warrior
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Enrage Warrior was one of the decks that got to viability thanks to Animated Berserker coming back into Standard with Knights of the Frozen Throne, and with that phasing out, we get the combination of Sunfury Champion and additional Fire spells to help damage your minions. Light of the Phoenix in particular should fill a need in Warrior that hasn’t really been addressed since Cutting Class rotated out, and Blazing Power should help push some additional damage, and Embers of Strength will help to get more value out of the effects that rely on having multiple friendly minions damaged.
Thanks for reading!
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