On January 21st, 2020, a mini-set of cards was added to Hearthstone: Darkmoon Races! It’s an official addition of 35 cards to the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire expansion, and the cards are found in those same packs. You can also craft them with the standard rarity costs. Thankfully, there aren’t tons of them, but I’m a little torn on how I feel. If the packs would try and prioritize the new cards, that would be fine. At least it’s only 35 cards. That said, these cards will certainly have an impact on the meta as it continues to develop.

Sadly, I missed the teaser for these cards, as it has been a very busy week for card games. The impending Kaldheim expansion has taken a lot of my personal time. That having been said, we’re still going to look at Hearthstone’s new cards, because it’s a great game. This week we’re going to take a peek at the top decks for Hearthstone as of Darkmoon Races, in no particular order. These are all, for my money, the best decks going. Not every deck is going to have new cards in it though. For example, Highlander Hunter has nothing new in it.

The new Hunter/Hunter Cross-Class cards don’t really seem to impact it (yet). That’s bound to change though. Some decks have changed more than others. As always, I’ll go over what makes the deck tick, a code so you can import it to your client, and more. Since there are so many powerful decks, I’m going to be going through them and picking the most powerful and interesting ones. I’m always excited for new cards though. Perhaps we’ll come back to this mini-set in a week and talk about the most powerful cards in it.

Some of these decks might not work out for you, and that’s okay. That’s why I try to go over what I like/don’t like about them. I’ve played games like MTG long enough to know that a deck that is great is not necessarily a fit for me. I may just not pilot it right, or I may never see the combos that are supposed to come from it. But with that said, let’s talk about the Hearthstone Darkmoon Races decks that are standing out! I scoured the internet to figure out what will be the most fun and successful. As the weeks go on, I’ll try and add more decks to this, so stay tuned!

It’s fascinating how just one card can take a deck from being mediocre to being “Wow, this deck is gas!” and that is all thanks to Nitroboost Potion. It’s literally the only new card in the deck. It’s just enough to bring the deck back into prominence and probably keep it there. It makes every card we want to win that much better. Since all we want to do with Weapon Rogue is stab the other player again and again with our weapon/equipment cards, Nitroboost Potion’s gonna make that a reality.

We’ve got lots of cards that boost our weapon’s Attack, too! Vulpera Toxinblade, Doctor Krastinov, and Deadly Poison for example. We also run cards that cost less based on our Weapon Attack. So we buff and buff, and then we start stabbing!

Nitroboost Powder makes this go at dangerous speeds! So let’s talk about that new card. It’s a 1-cost spell, and it gives a Minion +2 Attack. But if you cast it as Corrupt, it also gives your Weapon +2 Attack! It’s a 1-cost spell, so we can very easily drop this turn 2! But we want to hold out for the right moment. With a weapon equipped, it does quite a bit. For example, Cutting Class (5-Mana Spell) costs X less for each point of Attack your weapon has. So we could draw 2 cards for 1 or even 0!

Dread Corsair is a 3/3 Taunt (4 mana) that costs 1 less per point of Attack on your weapon again. Your Steeldancer creates a random minion with a Cost equal to your weapon’s Attack and puts it in play. So if we have an 8 or 9? It could be something monstrous. What’s our weapon of choice though? Self-Sharpening Sword.

It’s the only weapon we need. So how do we get to it a bit faster? Other than typical card draw per turn, Secret Passage replaces our hand with 4 cards from our deck, that swap back next turn. So you can ditch your hand, and try for the Sword/Potion. Cutting Class is expensive, but we can use it while we already have a sword to try and find another one. Finally, Greyheart Sage draws us 2 cards if we have any Stealth creatures when it comes into play.  Our Stealth cards:

• Spymistress (1-Cost, 3/1)
• Worgen Infiltrator (1-Cost, 2/1)
• Sneaky Delinquent (2-Cost, 3/1, also creates a 3/1 Stealth upon Death in your hand)

Self-Sharpening Sword is a ¼ Sword for3 mana, and after our Hero attacks, it gains +1 Attack. So we partner this with cards (creatures and spells) that buffs its attack further. With that, we just start stabbing away directly at the other player. Vulpera Toxinblade for example gives your weapon +2 Attack. Deadly Poison also gives it +2 Attack. We can use Doctor Krastinov as a really aggressive option too. The Vulpera is 3 mana, Deadly Poison is 1, and Krastinov is 5. However, whenever this creature with Rush attacks, your weapon gains +1/+1.

Suddenly, that ¼ weapon is a ⅖, or even a 3/6! The higher our weapon’s durability, the higher it’s going to grow. Then we combine it with those buff cards. We could easily have a weapon that hits for 10-12 a turn. Just shank away until the problem is gone! The only problem are decks that stack Armor (Druids/Warriors) so you have to start quick.

For those cards with Taunt, we have a few options too. We have the Backstab/Eviscerate combo, for example. It costs 2 mana total. Backstab hits a creature that is undamaged for 2 (for 0 mana), and Eviscerate costs 2. It normally deals 2 damage, but if it’s a Combo card, it now hits for 4. So you play them in that order to hopefully bop the offending creature away. We also have lots of those smaller, aggressive creatures to fight down opponents.

Doctor Krastinov can help as a 4/4 Rush, or Steeldancer. Steeldancer summoning a minion with a Cost equal to your attack can do just about anything. Jandice Barov helps too, as she summons two 5-Cost minions, and we pick one that dies when it takes damage. We combine these spells to buff our weapon and start swinging as soon as it’s safe. If we can get it to 10+, it should only take a couple of turns. We also have our creatures to swing when they’re safe to do so. If the other player has no taunt creatures? I’d just swing face just about every turn, but that’s me. We just keep hitting the other player harder and harder every turn. It’s easy and it’s fun!

Weapon Rogue Decklist | Hearthstone Darkmoon Races Decks

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Cards

X2 Backstab (0)

X2 Deadly Poison (1)

X2 Nitroboost Poison (1)

X2 Secret Passage (1)

X2 Spymistress (1)

X2 Worgen Infiltrator (1)

X2 Eviscerate (2)

X2 Sneaky Delinquent (2)

X2 Greyheart Sage (3)

X2 Self-Sharpening Sword (3)

X2 Vulpera Toxinblade (3)

X2 Dread Corsair (4)

X2 Steeldancer (4)

X2 Cutting Class (5)

X1 Doctor Krastinov (5)

X1 Jandice Barov (5)

Deck code

AAECAaIHAtnRA6rSAw60AcsD7gaIB+IHubgDz7kDqssDiNADi9ADitQD1dQD99QDgeQDAA==

Are there decks more reliable/faster than this one? Sure there are! But I picked this because it was revived via one card. That’s a brilliant thing to see. It’s a solid, low-cost deck. It doesn’t really cost a lot of dust either. At 6,440 Dust, there are worse ones to craft. It’s satisfying, it’s fun. The longer you have your sword, the stronger it can be. You can keep buffing them by attacking, and by casting spells on top of them. Simply using Nitroboost Potion makes that ¼ sword a ¾, before any other buffs. So you just stab away! You’re going to rush the other player down just as fast as possible.

I love Merfolk Paladin, that’s not a big secret around here. It’s a fun concept! You take those adorable, weird little fishy jerks, buff them, and start hammering someone’s noggin in. A pair of new cards once again breathes life into a solid deck. Murloc Paladins was already a decent deck, but with the new cards Rally! and Crabrider, we have the potential to obliterate people. Throw a few more cards in, and we can potentially drop 20 damage on turn 3! If the other player doesn’t have a Taunt creature, we can just start hammering damage home. Out of the decks we talk about for Darkmoon Races, this might be my favorite among the other Hearthstone concepts.

We can keep spamming the board with annoying Murlocs, and the advent of Rally! means we can recover from a board wipe. Aggro decks in general can be completely stomped out by one well-timed boardwipe. But if we can just bring back a 1, 2, and 3-cost minion from the grave? We’re suddenly back in action. This is especially useful if we just pull Crabrider and Murloc Warleader! Then if we combine that with Scalelord’s Divine Shield for Murlocs? We can just do more and more damage. It’s my favorite way to play Hearthstone.

In a perfect world, when we have The Coin, we can really kick this deck off at high speed. That’s because Crabrider is amazing. A 2-cost Murloc that’s a 1/4 Rush/Windfury! All we need to do is scale up that damage number (Huh? Huh? Come on, I thought that was funny). So in an ideal world, here’s what we do.

• Turn 1: Pop Coin, cast Crabrider. We can swing on a creature if they have one.
• Turn 2: Hand of A’dal (Grant it +2/+2, draw a card). Swing on the face for 6 total damage.
• Turn 3: Cast Murloc Warleader (Grant Murlocs +2 Attack). Swing for 12 total damage.

Now the other player is almost defeated! If we can use another Hand of A’dal, or Coldlight Seer will help. We want to keep Crabrider at as high of a health total as possible. This is in case of the other player hitting it over and over to try and kill it off. This isn’t our only winning card, but we can sure use it to great effect.

Murloc Tidecaller for example gains +1 Attack whenever we summon a Murloc. So when we play Imprisoned Sungill and it awakens from being Dormant, Tidecaller gains +3 Attack! Murloc Tidehunter will help, giving the Tidecaller another +2 Attack. We can make this safer through Scalelord, which gives our Murlocs Divine Shield.

Murgur Murgurgle is also still very much a relevant card. A 2/1 Murloc that we want to die immediately, we still get one free attack out of it, since it comes out with Divine Shield. When it dies, we shuffle Murgurgle Prime into our deck. Murgurgle Prime is a card to help us win pretty quickly too.

He’s the most expensive card in the deck, the Prime clocking in at 8 mana. When he comes into play, the 6/3 Divine Shield Murloc summons 4 other Murlocs, and also gives them Divine Shield. Suddenly, we can play very aggressively. This is a deck where we want to swing on face as often as possible. The other player is going to keep running into Divine Shielded Murlocs, so we’re pretty safe.

We need more Murlocs; we always need more. If our Crabrider strat doesn’t work, we need to keep the board filled and ready to go. Underlight Angling Rod is a 3/2 for 3 Equipment, and when we attack with it, we add a random Murloc to our hand. Then we have Rally! to bring back a 1, 2, and 3 cost-friendly creature that’s died. If we have specific creatures only in the grave, we can control what comes back. Almost every creature in this deck is 1, 2, or 3 cost though. The only exceptions are Felfin Navigator and Scalelord at 4 and 5 apiece.

Felfin is another Murloc Lord, giving our other Murlocs +1/+1 (as a 4/4 for 4). Scalelord gives our Murlocs Divine Shield, so they can get free hits in. Do you see what this deck does now? We just keep the tide coming, and swing at every opportunity. We deal with Taunt creatures by just running them down and keeping the threats coming.

We also have Toxfin, a ½ for 1 that gives a friendly Murloc Poisonous. That will drop any creature it hits (except for things like Divine Shield of course). We can give that to just about any threat we need to. That’s the best part about this deck. It’s very low cost. We can keep cards in hand and drop a threat whenever itis most convenient. We also have Redscale Dragontamer that draws a Dragon whenever it dies (Deathrattle).

If we really want to push things, we drop Animated Broomstick, our only non-Murloc creature. Why? It gives our other Minions in play Rush! So we can use our weaker Murlocs to remove threats and save Crabrider for hitting the other player in the face.

The name of the game is really simple. Play Murlocs, hit the other player in the face. We can use Hand of A’dal on whichever aggressive Murlocs we are playing, but for my money, I hope for Crabrider/Hand of A’dal/Murloc Warleader combo. That way, by turn 4 or 5, we’re going to win.

Merfolk Paladins, Ride Out! Decklist | Hearthstone Darkmoon Races Decks

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Cards

X2 Animated Broomstick (1)

X2 Imprisoned Sungill (1)

X2 Murloc Tidecaller (1)

X2 Toxfin (1)

X2 Crabrider (2)

X2 Hand of A’dal (2)

X1 Murgur Murgurgle (2)

X1 Murloc Tidehunter (2)

X2 Redscale Dragontamer (2)

X2 Coldlight Seer (3)

X2 Murloc Warleader (3)

X2 Salhet’s Pride (3)

X2 Underlight ANgling Rod (3)

X2 Felfin Navigator (4)

X2 Rally! (4)

X2 Scalelord (5)

Deck code

AAECAZ8FAtAH/LgDDsUD2wOnCLWYA5WmA8i4A8m4A/a4A/u4A8rBA5XNA/neA/vjA5HkAwA=

What a fun deck this is! And it’s being played at a high level. I prefer to try and swing for that turn ¾ damage as high as possible. Otherwise, I’m going to use my spare, weak Murlocs to deal with threats, then go for the face. Remember, if we lose Murgurgle, that’s a good thing. We want that Prime, and it will be worth getting him. It’s a pretty reliable, aggressive deck, and it’s satisfying to watch low-cost Murlocs get bigger and meaner. That’s the name of the game, my friends.

Mozaki OTK Combo still needs a little work, but it’s very powerful – again, thanks to one card. Are you tired of reading that yet? Darkmoon Races adds a lot to a variety of the Hearthstone decks, that’s just a fact. It’s again, just one card that a deck needed to get set up. It’s a deck that was already good, but the ability to refresh mana crystals via Conjure Mana Biscuit means we can spam way more spells. This of course, comes via Mazaki, Master Duelist.

As long as she’s in play, anytime we cast a spell, we gain Spell Damage +1. It stacks again and again, as long as we keep her out. The idea is that we get her out, and spam our cheap spells to make sure we obliterate someone in just one non-stop blast. We need lots of card draw though, so we have to be smart, efficient about what we do. We can do it in one turn, or we can do it in two. Either way is just fine.

The best part about those Mana Biscuits we get (two come from each spell), they cost 0 mana! A 0 mana spell, that grants us +1 Spell Damage, and gives us 2 cards! In a perfect world, we can make those 2-or-less spells cost 0 mana. It’s not a guarantee, but boy would it be amazing! We’ll go over how, don’t worry.

We. Need. Cards. That’s what we need, we need cards. A lot of them. We also need to lower the cost of our spells to make them free or close to. Incanter’s Flow is so important. The faster we can cast it the better. It reduces the Cost of Spells in our deck by 1 mana. This can go to 0. This means this and Arcane Intellect need to show up ASAP. We want them both in our starting hand if possible. The third starting card should be Gadgetzan Auctioneer/Mozaki, Master Duelist if they’re a slow control deck. Otherwise, against Aggro, Brain Freeze would be a godsend.

Arcane Intellect costs 3 mana and lets you draw 2 cards. This isn’t as great as Cram Session though. We want to draw into that after Incanter’s Flow if possible. If we can drop that for 1 or 0? Better. Why is Cram Session so key to the strategy? It draws a card – Improved by Spell Damage. We can use an early Bloodmage Thalnos with one, to get two cards for next to nothing. The other, I want to see late in the game with Mozaki, Master Duelist.

Between Incanter’s Flow and Sorcerer’s Apprentice, we desperately want to get these out. That would give all of the spells -2 cost (-1 in the deck from Incanter’s, anything we cast costs -1 less from Apprentice). Towards the 5-mana time, we want to get Mozaki, Master Duelist in play. Thank God she’s a ⅜, so she’s pretty strong.

The more spells we play, the higher our +Spell Damage gets. It’s not a “until end of turn” Spell Damage buff, it persists. This is when you want to start blasting out your cheap spells. Heck, affect your own creatures if you have to! Do whatever you must! If you can get to +5-+10 Spell Damage, you’re going to drop serious bombs. During this time, you want to use that new Conjure Mana Biscuit here. With two 0-cost Biscuits that grant you 2 mana back, we can do more and more. With the high amount of +Spell Damage, we can comfortably fill our hand back with cards through Cram Session. Hopefully, you’ve got all your spells down to 1-0 mana. Most of the spells in this deck, after all, cost 1 or 2 anyway! Don’t feel bad if you can’t burn someone down in one turn though.

After all, all the damage we’re doing from simply playing spells, cards like Arcane Missiles (3 damage randomly split among all enemies – baseline), and Frostbolt (3 damage to a Hero and Freeze it -baseline) become terrifying. Also, don’t forget – we have Evocation. A baseline 1 mana spell, fills our hand with temporary Mage Spells. They are discarded at the end of the turn. So we do this with a full mana supply and just stack Spell Damage! When you’ve got enough Spell Damage buffs to defeat someone in one turn, just drop a Frostbolt on them.

We also employ Magic Trick to get a mage spell that costs 3 or less, and that can be the difference between victory and defeat too. If you’re worried about your opponent having healing/armor stacking, you’ll hold your big damage (Frostbolt/Arcane Missiles) until the very end. You’ll still use Mozaki, and just spend more time stacking, and using Evocation to drop someone. If we can keep Sorcerer’s Apprentice (or two copies of them), that would make Evo and our various spells even easier to cast. If everything costs 0 mana, it’s just going to make people very sad.

We also want to make sure that when this is going down, Gadgetzan Auctioneer is in play. He makes us draw a card anytime we cast a spell! So we cast a spell, draw a card. Cast a spell, draw a card. This keeps stacking +Spell Damage, and hopefully, start putting more of our reduced cost powers into play.

Mozaki OTK Combo Decklist | Hearthstone Darkmoon Races Decks

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Cards

X2 Arcane Missiles (1)

X1 Evocation (1)

X2 Magic Trick (1)

X2 Mirror Image (1)

X2 Ray of Frost (1)

X2 Brain Freeze (1)

X2 Devolving Missiles (1)

X1 Primordiail Studies (1)

X1 Bloodmage Thalnos (2)

X2 Conjure Mana Biscuit (2)

X2 Frostbolt (2)

X2 Incanter’s Flow (2)

X2 Sorcer’s Apprentice (2)

X2 Arcane Intellect (3)

X1 Mozaki, Master Duelist (5)

X2 Gadgetzan Auctioneer (6)

Deck code

AAECAf0EBO0FxbgDkssDzc4DDasEtATmBJYFpAe8CJ+bA/+dA8G4A+DMA8fOA/fRA4XkAwA=

Honestly, this always feels like a sort of complicated deck to play. You have to pay a lot of attention to what you have and what you can do. It comes down to wise resource and card draw management. Conjure Mana Biscuit makes it so much more efficient. For 2 mana, we make two 0-cost spells that give back 2 mana. We have two copies of this spell also. We could in theory get more from Magic Trick and Evocation! Who knows?! It’s a fun deck, but it’s going to be challenging to use, unless you’re already fond of the Mage strategy. If you can cast a Biscuit early, use one early if you need to to get some spells or something out, but hold one for later (if possible – emergencies happen). It’s not a world beater, but with patience, a bit of cleverness, and heck, some luck, you can drop a 20 point Frostbolt and make someone’s day very unpleasant.

We’re running 3 high-cost, legendary dragons in this deck. Why? Because it’s Druids, mate! It’s not going to be hard to hit 10 mana before the other player. However, the new cards coming to this deck (Dreaming Drake, Resizing Pouch, Umbral Owl) do not necessarily break or make this deck OP. It was already a solid deck, they just add a few more options to make things kick off the way we’d like. These cards give us a bit more time and offer additional cards.

We still want to summon lots of really annoying dragons, drop Malygos, and then swing on the our opponent (literally, via Swipe). With Malygos in play, we have +5 Spell Damage. Between Swipe and Moonfire, we can do an absolute beastly amount of damage. We’re still going to keep using cards like Ysera, Unleashed and Alexstrasza, but hopefully we’re going to get Malygos into play and just bomb the other player. So what do the new cards do, and what is our overall strategy? They aren’t too confusing, gratefully.

In theory, this can be a OTK combo, if we have the right spells in our hand/cards in play. I’ll bring that up, but if the enemy is an aggro deck, we aren’t going to get that far. Instead we’ll be playing stuff on curve, slowly pinging away and setting up our clutch of Dragons. I’ve always kind of been a big fan of Druid decks. I appreciate playing huge creatures ahead of the curve.

We’re trying to do one of two very important things in this deck: Either pop Malygos and Swipe someone into oblivion, or Ysera, Unleashed, card draw into those Dragon Portals and just slam down tons of dragons. From there you just swing someone down into tiny pieces. Both are very efficient. To help us get there, we have three new cards.

Dreaming Drake is a new card that buffs if Corrupted. A ¾ for 3 Mana, it’s a Dragon that has Taunt, and if it’s Corrupt, it gains +2/+2. Just cast Overgrowth with Dreaming Drake in hand to corrupt it right away. Plus we have two empty Mana Crystals for the upcoming turns! Having a ⅚ Taunt Dragon in play is going to be enough to slow at least some players down.

If you just need something in the mid-late game to make someone think twice, you’ve got a 1-cost spell: Resizing Pouch. We Discover a card that costs equal to our remaining Crystals. If we do this at 10 mana, we get a 9 Mana card discovered. Pretty much everything in that bracket is a pure monster. You can honestly use it at any time of the game though. You could also drop it at 1 mana, and get a shot at having another 0-cost card like LIghtning Bloom (Gain 2 Mana Crystals this turn only – Overload 2) or Innervate (Gain 1 Mana Crystal this turn only).

It’s great at any stage of the game. Umbral Owl costs 1 less for each spell you’ve cast this game, as a 4/4 Rush for 7. We can at some point drop it for 1 or 0, and that’s pure value for something we’re doing all game anyway. We have two creatures that can come out for 0 too, to slow down opponents. This and Anubisath Defender. That’s a ⅗ Taunt that costs 5 but can be 0 cost, if you cast a spell that costs 5 or more this turn. Brilliant.

We want to try and hold a Dragon in hand for many of our turns though. But why? Breath of Dreams is why! It’s a 2-cost spell, that draws a card. If we have a Dragon in hand, we gain an empty Mana Crystal. This and Overgrowth give us permanent empty Mana Crystals for future turns. So if we can do these back to back, we’ll hit 10 mana in no time. Once we’re dropping these low-cost, high-value creatures, consider casting Arbor Up. That give sus two 2/2 Treants, and gives all of our minions +2/+1.

Now those creatures we dropped for next to nothing are now very intimidating. We need card draw, but we don’t have a ton of it though. We have some though, like Overflow. It restores 5 Health to all characters (so our opponent sadly gets healed too) and draws 5 cards for us. If we can drop this after Ysera, Unleashed is in play, this could be hilarious.

She’s a 4/12 for 9, and when she comes into play, we shuffle 7 Dream Portals into our deck. When we draw those, we summon a Random Dragon. If you draw into those Portals, you still draw another card after that (since it’s not a physical card that goes into your hand). Just some fun facts for you.

We want to Mana Ramp as much as we can, so we can get those big three dragons into play. Ysera helps by giving us extra dragons to swing with. Alexstrasza isn’t a world beater, per se’ either. But she is a 8/8 for 9, and has a killer Battlecry. When she comes into play, target player’s Health is set to 15, no matter what it’s at. Are they battering you? Heal to 15. Opponent at full somehow? Drop them to 15! It’s a great set up for Malygos.

Malygos is my favorite way to win with this deck. Against slower decks, we’ll hold our Swipes for him. Malygos is a 4/12 for 9, that grants Spell Damage +5. Now Swipe, a 4-cost spell is our game winner and board wipe. It normally deals 4 damage to an enemy, and 1 damage to all other enemies. Now it’s 9 to 1 and 6 to the rest! If we drop Swipe and then a Moonfire (assuming someone’s at 15 health), that’s nearly enough to defeat someone.

We also have all those annoying dragons to beat at someone’s face with. That’s the key here, friends! Weaken someone with dragons and stay up on Mana Ramp. If we need to, drop Malygos, and just Swipe someone down the rest of the life total. It’s definitely a deck you an OTK with if you’re of the mind to. Just remember, faster decks won’t let you get away with as much.

Flying Through The Sky! Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah! Decklist | Hearthstone Darkmoon Races Decks

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Cards

X1 Innervate (0)

X2 Lightning Bloom (0)

X2 Moonfire (0)

X2 Crystal Power (1)

X2 Nature Studies (1)

X2 Resizing Pouch (1)

X2 Breath of Dreams (2)

X2 Dreaming Drake (3)

X2 Overgrowth (4)

X2 Swipe (4)

X2 Anubisath Defender (5)

X2 Arbor Up (5)

X2 Overflow (7)

X2 Umbral Owl (7)

X1 Alexstrasza (9)

X1 Malygos (9)

X1 Ysera, Unleashed (9)

Deck code

AAECAZICBP4BtAPFBPatAw1A0wO5lAPvogPbpQOMrgPougObzgPw1AOV4AOL5AOM5AOP5AMA

Dragon Druid is a hoot. It leaves a fair bit to chance with Ysera, Unleashed, but I look at her more as an insurance policy. If we do play her before Malygos, we can get some truly wild Dragons. Starting on Turn 4 (3 with The Coin) we can start Mana Ramping, getting a leg-up on our opponent. Once we’re at 10 mana before them, we can start abusing them with seriously big legendary dragons, getting our hand filled with cards, and waiting for the perfect time to strike. The best part about a Malygos OTK, is if you have the cards in hand, you don’t even have to attack. You can just let your Moonfire and Swipe do all the heavy lifting for you. Then you just loudly declare ZAP!

Surprise! Demon Hunters are still really really good! The Darkmoon Races cards we picked up just make it faster and meaner. That’s all we needed: A Hero Power that costs (0) Mana, right? So we can just give ourselves 1 temporary Attack point per turn! Sadly it’s not permanent, otherwise, it would be filthy broken. We’re going to use quite a few new cards, too: Illidari Studies, Felsaber, and Felfire Deadeye. Between these, and a few other cards, we’re going to pick up speed, and swing down on someone maddeningly hard.

Though one of the choices kind of confuses me. Il’gynoth changes our Lifesteal to also just damage the enemy Hero instead of healing us. But we only have Il’gynoth and Aldrachi Warblades for lifesteal. Now, we do Discover other cards in this deck, so it’s possible to get more. There may simply be no other useful cards to put in the deck that meets our needs. I mean, it’s still great to get those cheap ways to deal extra damage, don’t get me wrong.

Most of the stuff that made Demon Hunter great already is here – Kayn Sunfury, Bladed Lady, Altruis the Outcast, Relentless Pursuit. But a few more cards to give us extra damage can never be a bad thing, right? I do want to say that Relentless Pursuit might be my favorite Demon Hunter card. Why? More damage and immunity for a turn! So let’s talk about Demon Hunters and Felsteel.

Felsteel Executioner is a huge part of this deck, and it’s very clear to see why. A 4/3 for 3, this Elemental, if you cast it Corrupt, it becomes a weapon instead. So just play a 4-or-higher cost spell first. Then you get a 4/3 weapon for 3 mana! That’s incredible. Since this is a deck/archetype based on attacking with our Hero, we certainly want to make that happen. Our other weapon is Aldrachi Warblades, which is great when paired with Il’gynoth.

But the Executioner has more base damage without much effort. Plus Demon Hunter has a 1-cost Hero Power, that gives us +1 Attack for the turn. Thanks to Darkmoon Races, we can make that 0 mana! Felfire Deadeye is a new card that makes our Hero Power cost 1 less. Plus it’s a ⅔, so it will likely stay for a few turns.

Speaking of new cards, we also run Felsaber. It’s a really interesting card, and it might be my favorite one to play before Felsteel Executioner. Felsaber is a ⅚ for 4, but it can only attack if your Hero attacked this turn. So we make sure we have a weapon, buff ourselves, and swing! The next turn can be violent and brutal if we’re lucky. What do we want next? So this would be turn 5, likely.

Relentless Pursuit is a 3-cost Spell, and it gives our hero +4 Attack and Immune (free from damage) for the turn. On top of that, we drop Twin Slice (+2 Attack). Then we spend another 1 mana to use Second Slice (+2 Attack). That’s 8 damage, stacked on top of Felsteel Executioner (4 Attack). So we, this turn swing for 12 damage, and then swing with Felsaber, which is just another 5 on top of that. In one turn we doled out 17 damage. Our weapon is still likely good to go for the next turn too! Sure, it won’t hit nearly as hard, but now we start playing creatures, and swinging with our Hero. If we can get Kayn Sunfury and a few creatures, that’s just to our advantage. After all, Kayn Sunfury has Charge and makes your attacks ignore Taunt. So we can just swing swing swing away without a care in the world!

On turn 5, if we have The Coin, and a Bladed Lady in hand, we can also drop her for 1 mana. That’s probably making things just a little complicated. But she does cost 1 mana if you have 6 or more Attack. We just need the Felsteel and something like Twin Slice to make that happen.

This is our biggest burst possibility. But we also have other ways to deal damage. Another new card will synergize nicely with Altruis the Outcast. He deals 1 damage to all enemies (including Hero) anytime we play our Left/Right-most card. How can we make sure that works out? Well, play whatever you have whenever you can, but also remember Illidari Studies! It Discovers an Outcast card, which will then be put on the end of your hand. The next one we play costs 1 less too.

If we can have Pen Flinger on the other side of our hand, that would be filthy. So we play Pen Flinger, to deal 1 free damage, and trigger Altruis’ 1 damage AOE. Then we cast Illidari Studies to return Pen Flinger to our hand. Cast the next Outcast spell (the one that is now on the end of your hand), whatever it might be. That’s another 1 AOE damage. Cast Pen Flinger again for another 1 damage to the enemy Hero, plus the 1 AOE. We can keep this up as long as we have cards. We can also get a card from Manafeeder Panthara if we attack before we cast it. Very helpful!

If we set up the above damage combo (Felsteel) again in the late game (as late as a game as you get with Demon Hunter anyway), consider also casting Blade Dance. It deals damage equal to your Attack to 3 random enemy minions. It’s a great way to wipe a few minions away, but it’s great at virtually any time of the game. If you really need to swipe a few things off the board, that’s how you can get it done.

But with Altruis the Outcast in play, we can make sure that we keep dealing damage to enemy minions over and over. If we can keep the other player’s field clear, we just attack their face with even less stress than ever before. This is a deck where we just swing over and over, attacking the enemy player’s face every single turn we possibly can. Not as much stressing about the enemy minions, thanks to how much of a chance we have to just AOE stuff down.

Doctorate in Illidari Studies Decklist | Hearthstone Darkmoon Races Decks

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Cards

X2 Illidari Studies (1)

X2 Twin Slice (1)

X2 Pen Flinger (1)

X2 Manafeeder Panthara (2)

X2 Wandmaker (2)

X2 Felfire Deadeye (2)

X2 Aldrachi Warblades (3)

X1 Blade Dance (3)

X2 Felsteel Executioner (3)

X2 Relentless Pursuit (3)

X1 Altruis the Outcast (4)

X2 Felsaber (4)

X1 Il’gynoth (4)

X1 Kayn Sunfury (4)

X2 Bladed Lady (6)

X2 Skull of Gul’dan (6)

Deck code

AAECAea5AwTMugPaxgP8yAPQ3QMNh7oD17sD4LwD2cYDn80D+84D/tEDxd0DzN0D194D8+MD9OMDkOQDAA==

Oh boy, what a fun deck! People sure seem to hate Demon Hunter, and it’s easy to see why. We can cut someone down to about half at the turn ⅚ mark without much effort. We’ve got lots of neat little combos. We can start with Felsteel Executioner, and finish up with the Aldrachi/Il’gynoth combo if we want. It probably wouldn’t take much more than that. Other than these, don’t forget you also have Chaos Strike, which is another +2 Attack for the turn (which also draws a card) for 2 mana! You can probably see the pattern by now. Boost attack, swing, swing, swing. It’s really easy to use, and once you start buffing, the other player starts to sweat. Even if they have healing, we can likely just push their numbers back down.

What’s that, you say? Do you want more Nitroboost Potion? Say no more, my friend. We’ve got you covered! This deck is made more powerful thanks to a pair of cards. One of them, Sword Eater comes from Darkmoon Faire, and Nitroboost Potion dropped courtesy of Darkmoon Races. This is a deck where we stack Armor to the absolute heavens and laugh at our foe. Between this and Ancharrr, we have our most powerful, most useful cards. Right now, Ancharr is probably the most important card in every Warrior deck, which says a lot about how they work right now. It’s a 3-cost weapon that brings you a wealth of annoying Pirates from our deck.

What makes it so strong is only putting the choice Pirates we need and none else. It will fetch for us the Sword Eater, Risky Skipper, Sky Raider. Risky Skipper is part board wipe, part Armor Builder. How? Why, through the Armorsmith! We’ve got a few ways to really trounce the other player. We can just batter the opponent with weapons, or we can wipe the field and use our Boom Bots to hit the enemy player for 1-4 damage! If there are no minions to hit, it has no choice but to hit Face, after all.

That single dose of Nitroboost Potion is just what we need, too. I like this on both the Ancharrr and the Reaper’s Scythe, but perhaps it is best used on Sword Eater. That’s a free 3/2 Sword that turns into a 5/2. A free 10 damage? Nothin’ like it! Though getting 6 damage across three minions on the Reaper’s Scythe is always a fun bonus.

Sword Eater is hands down the best card in the deck. It is drawn from Ancharrr, which is drawn (potentially) from Corsair Cache. It makes our damage higher by giving us a weapon, and it makes Cutting Class cost less. This all makes Nitroboost Potion better as well! If it’s cast as Corrupt, it not only gives a creature of yours +2 Attack, it also gives that to your weapon. So you hold it until it’s time, and you smash someone into pieces. Again, that’s a free 10 damage from Sword Eater.

We’re only running one Nitroboost, but it’s all we really need. Having two would be neat, but I can’t fathom what to cut to make that happen. Everything else in the deck has a purpose and probably belongs. So we can use Corsair Cache to draw a weapon and give it +1 Durability. Whether it’s Ancharrr or Reaper’s Scythe, it’s useful. Reaper’s Scythe has higher base damage (4), and a Spellburst effect. It makes it so this turn, hitting an enemy minion deals that damage to the adjacent ones. Zap, 4 damage to three creatures!

However, Ancharrr draws a Pirate from the deck every time it attacks. So getting 3 Pirates this way? We have three flavors of Pirates to pull, and they’re all key to our success. So let’s talk Pirates, and not the Dark Water kind.

• Risky Skipper: God, Risky Skipper is so good in this deck. After you a player a minion, you deal 1 damage to all minions. This is as a ⅓, and we have 2 copies of the card. We can make a copy of it with Bloodsworn Mercenary for maximum overdamage. We’ll come back to this card.
• Sky Raider: A nice, simply 1-cost Pirate. A ½ Pirate, when we summon this, it adds a random Pirate to our hand! It could be anything! But free cards that we don’t have to slot in our deck are never a bad thing. It brings immediate value.
• Sword Eater: Our key to maximum damage through Nitroboost Potion. This ⅖ Taunt Pirate equips a 3/2 Sword onto our Hero. If we Nitroboost him, he becomes a ⅘ Taunt, and still gives us a sword (now a 5/2). Since Bloodsworn Mercenary can’t copy Battlecry abilities, he’s not an ideal target.

Risky Skipper+Armorsmith is potentially so powerful. Armorsmith comes out for 2 mana, and anytime a friendly minion takes damage, you gain 1 Armor. Risky Skipper helps us do quite a few things on top of that. Battle Rage (2 Mana) draws a card for each friendly character that’s damaged, for example. That can be a lot of draw! Then we combine this with Bomb Wrangler! Once we’ve cleared their board, this card really shines.

Keeping a backup of this and Risky Skipper in hand is great if possible. We also have Shield of Honor to give Risky Skipper (or something else) +3 Attack and Divine Shield to survive a bit of damage. So let’s talk that. When this minion (Bomb Wrangler) takes damage, you summon a 1/1 Bomb Bot. When Bomb Bot dies, it deals 1-4 damage to a random enemy (this can include the player).  So she takes damage from summoning a minion, we get a Bot, and putting it into play triggers an AOE 1 damage. Bot dies, we get another bot, rinse, repeat until Bomb Wrangler dies. In a perfect world, the enemy player is hit for 12 damage.

That’s why it’s so important to be able to board wipe through the Risky Skipper. But if we combine this with Armorsmith, we can stack plenty of armor. It’s not going to be huge stacks though. We pair that Armor with Taunt to create a barrier. From there we go face as quick as possible. That’s another excellent use of Shield of Honor. Give it to our strongest Taunt minion, so it can deal even more damage without stress. Finally on the “Deal damage to minions for benefit”, we have Bloodboil Brute. Normally a 7-cost, it costs 1 less for each damaged friendly. So we can sneak out an early ⅝ Rush for next to nothing. He also counts enemy minions that have been damaged, so he can drop for 0 if we’re lucky.

In the early game, we also have Warmaul Challenger. A 3-cost 1/10, it has you pick an enemy minion. Then they battle to the death! They trade blows until one drops. It’s a fantastic way to pick off an early threat. We’ve also got Kor’kron Elite as a 4/3 Charge minion. He’s fun to give Shield of Honor or Nitroboost so we can then hit for 6 or 7 damage. If you’re of the mind, you can tack an Inner Rage for 0 mana onto one of these bruisers. That deals it 1 damage and gives it +2 Attack. That’s just an other stack of damage!

That’s what this deck excels at: We’re doing damage, and doing it fast. A lot of our minions have decent health pools to survive damage, and we can easily wipe away low-cost minions. If we are in need, we can also use Lord Barov to set all other minions’ Health to 1. Then we have him die, to deal 1 damage to all minions. It’s a dangerous proposition, but if we have the weapons to just swing face and win the game, it works out.

It’s still one of the top decks for a reason. Nitroboost and Sword Eater work together famously to do lots of unreasonable damage to the player. We’ve got card draw, minion damage, and the power to just rush fools down.

Nitroboost 2: Electric Boogaloo Decklist | Hearthstone Darkmoon Races Decks

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Cards

X2 Inner Rage (0)

X1 Nitroboost Potion (1)

X2 Risky Skipper (1)

X2 Shield of Honor (1)

X2 Sky Raider (1)

X2 Armorsmith (2)

X2 Battle Rage (2)

X2 Corsair Cache (2)

X1 Ancharrr (3)

X2 Bloodsworn Mercenary (3)

X2 Bomb Wrangler (3)

X1 Lord Barov (3)

X2 Warmaul Challenger (3)

X1 Kor’kron Elite (4)

X1 Reaper’s Scythe (4)

X2 Sword Eater (4)

X2 Cutting Class (5)

X2 Bloodboil Brute (7)

Deck code

AAECAQcGHN6tA8C5A+PMA5PQA4HkAwwWkAPUBNypA92tA6S2A6u2A7u5A5y7A5HQA/fUA7XeAwA=

Out of the Darkmoon Races decks, this might be the least expensive. Only running a pair of Legendaries helps. We have lots of useful targets for Bloodsworn Mercenary and plenty of ways to get damage on the board. A few solid weapons, a way to boost one, and a ton of card draw, this is an aggressive, satisfying deck to play. It’s more Tempo than Aggro, to be honest. We rely on always being on the draw, making sure we always have a move to play. I think the best cards to have at the start are Warmaul Challenger, Corsair Cache, or Ancharrr. That of course depends on the match-up. In lower ranks, you may also want to consider EVIL Quartermaster instead of Bomb Wrangler. You lose fewer minions that way and receive a free Lackey, and gain 3 Armor. It may feel safer and more reliable, but I’ll leave that up to you.