Regionals Primer-Part 2

There are four decks I want to cover today, those being the non-rush decks that made top 8 at either Regionals or the Darkmoon Faire at GenCon. But first, I would like to say that I've done some more playtesting with the rush decks as opposed to against them. I said in Part 1 that if I were going to play rush, I would play Alliance Mage, but after playing with the decks I think that Krol Blade in particular is too good to not have, so I think the Alliance Hunter is probably the rush deck I would play.

Moving along, we're going to talk about a deck that took one of the 16 top 8 slots at GenCon but that slot was the top one in the Darkmoon Faire, Oliver Schmid's Horde/Shaman deck. This deck is very good against rush decks. It has several cards that are just nightmares for rush players. The first is Searing Totem. It will almost always kill one ally and if you can manage to sneak it in on turn 2 when you're on the play, they will be forced to remove it before they can play any more allies. Next up are the protection cards Draconian Deflector and Ghost Wolf. Each one gives you the option to essentially negate one attack. The Deflector also gives your hero protector so he can save any of your allies that look like they may get taken down in combat. The allies in this deck are also very good vs. the rush decks. Taz'Dingo may be the best ally in the current metagame. Ophelia Barrows is a pain, Kulan Earthguard serves double duty attackign and defending and Zy'lah Manslayer is usually the nail in the coffin for any kind of swarm deck. But the beauty of this deck is its midgame. It has a great matchup vs. the rush decks obviously but it can also play well into the midgame with cards like Thunderhead Hippogryph and Kulan Earthguard being able to get some decent damage through the midgame until the Annihilators and Manslayers can finish off the opponent. One card that has been surprisingly very good in control on control matchups is Searing Totem. A lot of games tend to reach quasi-stalemates. Once the stall sets in, Searing Totem can sit behind your wall of protectors and force your opponent to get aggressive since it can effectively be 2 points of damage per turn. One last thing to note about this deck is its relative cheapness to build. It is mostly uncommons with no epics so the total price tag for a builder is much smaller than some of the other top decks. The only weakness I see is against decks designed to go well into the late game and bring out the Alliance heavy hitters. Vanquish helps, but other than that there aren't any ways to stop Bronzebeard and Proudmoore. I expect to see a lot of Shaman decks at Regioanls.

The next deck to talk about is the Warlock deck. The one that took top 8 was an Alliance based Warlock deck. This deck actually passed on 2 of the Warlock's top cards against rush decks, Grimdron and Rain of Fire. Rain of Fire is probably not quite good enough given the rest of the deck's power vs. the rush, but I think that Grimdron should go in if you plan on playing the deck at Regionals because there will be a lot of allies that simply die to Grimdron. The warlock also has access to one of the best card drawing spells in the game in Life Tap. The Warlock deck may have the most balance from the mid to late game as Infernal is a huge threat that can end the game quickly. But if they can survive the Infernal they get to deal with the Alliance's brutal endgame. Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker, Lady Jaina Proudmoore and King Magni Bronzebeard. I personally prefer to play the Horde warlock so I can play Taz'Dingo. The ally selection I use is very similar to the Shaman plus my pets. I think both the decks are very good vs. the rush but I think the Warlock might have a slight edge vs. the Shaman with Infernal, better card drawing, and Soul Link.

The next deck that made top 8 and should be popular at Regionals (for any who can afford to build it) is the Mage control deck. The idea behind this deck is similar to the Alliance Warlock. Survive the early game and then let the Alliance's big baddies mop things up. This deck will tend to make more one for one trades early in the game seeking to gain card advantage through card drawing. Frost Nova is an all star vs. the rush decks. Unlike the Shaman and Warlock decks, however, this one is not going to go easy on your wallet. With several Epic characters and the very expensive rares, Counterspell and Frost Nova, the price tag on this deck can get over $400 easily. Overall, the above three decks are going to overall be very similar in overall agendas (despite being different in how they accomplish those agendas). They are all very good vs. rush decks and are going to be pretty even vs. each other. The Mage deck will have one advantage though having a better matchup vs. the Warrior conbo decks which I am about to talk about. I will go into deck specific matchups later in the week, but having access to Blink and Counterspell is very nice when your opponent goes for the Heroic Strike/Mortal Strike tomfoolery that brings us to the last deck of this post, the Gorebelly combo deck.

I call it a combo deck because it so frequently just sits there until building up several Heroic Strikes/Mortal Strikes/Rak Skyfurys and then unleashes 30+ damage in one turn. This deck plays the most like a combo deck of any deck currently in World of Warcraft. One thing that's a little scary to me though is Sword of Zeal with the Deathdealer's Breastplates this deck runs. It could get a little scary. The Gorebelly deck has a worse matchup vs. the rush decks than any of the other decks above. The matchup still isn't bad, just closer than the others. Where the Gorebelly deck really shines is against the control decks. With its ability to explode with large amounts of unhealable, unpreventable damage makes it a beast vs. the decks that want the game to last a long time. Since these decks apply little pressure, the Gorebelly player can sit back and build up the perfect hand to do as much damage as possible. With a few armors, he can sit almost untouchable until the very late game against these control decks. While the control decks are saving up for Magni Bronzebeard, the Warrior deck is playing for something like triple Heroic Strike, triple Mortal Strike. If you think that rush players may be scared away by all the hate and that control players will come out in full force, this is a good metagame choice. If you think there will be a lot of rush, you should probably look for something else, because this matchup is too close vs. rush to expect to beat a flood of them all day.

Well, that wraps up part 2 of my regionals primer. In part 3, I will talk about a few decks that may not have shown up in top 8's yet, but may still be popular choices for players at Regionals. Then I'll move on to matchup analyses for the decks.