After completing the comprehensive Perils in Paradise preview, it’s time for theory-crafting! We encourage you to read the card preview as it is likely to shed light on many of our decisions regarding deck building.
Our first Data Reaper Report for Perils in Paradise is scheduled for Thursday, August 1st! We will note that should there be balance changes within the first few days of the expansion, the Data Reaper Report could be delayed. We will provide an update in such a case on our Twitter.
We remind you that you can help us perform our analysis by contributing your Hearthstone game data. This can be done using Firestone, which provides us with all its user data (with an option to opt out). Alternatively, you can contribute data through our Hearthstone Deck Tracker plugin. Installing the plugin is very easy and will only take a couple of minutes of your time. We appreciate and thank all our contributors for keeping this project going. We remind our existing plug-in contributors to check on their plug-in and make sure that it is still active. Sometimes, with big patches, the plug-in deactivates inadvertently.
Remember that while we have extensively worked to produce the featured decks, they are still untested, and nothing can replace the post-launch refinement that is backed up by real-time game experience and data.
If you have a limited collection, we highly recommend that you DO NOT make big crafting investments on any theory-crafted deck. Wait at least a few days to see what strategies end up being strong and fun before making a significant commitment.
Let’s travel through the Perils in Paradise.
Breeze Artist Rainbow Mage
The addition of Seabreeze Chalice makes the execution of a Sif burst combo significantly easier in Rainbow Mage, as it offers three instances of damage that each get boosted by spell damage. This build improves the existing Watercolor Artist shell of Rainbow Mage by replacing Frostbolt with Chalice.
We run a single copy of Chalice because we want to be more likely to draw ‘Buy One, Get One Freeze’ with Watercolor Artist and discount it to 0-mana. Sif/Buy One/Chalice becomes a 9-mana combo that deals an incredible amount of damage.
Another card that should be strong in Rainbow Mage is Tidepool Pupil. It’s a very flexible minion that can help us find additional removal, discover value or card draw, as well as direct damage.
Raylla Rainbow Mage
One concern we have about Rainbow Mage is whether its clock is fast enough for the upcoming format, which might see a surge in late game lethality. In this case, Mage may have to accelerate the execution of its win condition. This build attempts to do that by including Raylla, our Paladin Tourist, tapping into a Concierge/Service Ace discount engine.
Our first goal is to accumulate Sunscreens and Divine Brews, along with Concierge and Service Ace. Our second goal is to draw Sif, which should be very consistent thanks to Grillmaster finding it every time.
We then proceed with a combo that can occur as early as turn 5 (or turn 6 with a Tidepool Pupil weaved in), in which we play Concierge, Service Ace (for 2-mana) and then cast as many free Divine Brews and Sunscreens as possible on the Service Ace. This can help us rapidly discount our hand, with Sif being the top priority. The build cuts Sleet Skater and Inquisitive Creation to make it easier for us to discount Sif. The curve is intentionally low.
The result is likely to be a very cheap Sif, which we can Reverb to execute a huge burst combo with Seabreeze Chalice.
This deck also has a faster win condition involving Raylla, which can be fueled by cheap spells to generate a wide board that’s impossible for a faster deck to clear and pressures slower decks too. Concierge/Raylla wins the game on turn 7 against an aggressive deck every time. Our goal is just to survive to that point.
Rising Spell Mage
There are two additions that we love in Spell Mage. Tide Pool essentially has 100% uptime in the archetype and will easily trigger all its charges to help us accumulate resources. We suspect it will outclass the slower Infinitize the Maxitude. Rising Waves is an AOE effect that helps us stabilize against aggression and scales against bigger threats.
Both cards cost 3 mana, which is exactly the breakpoint you want for Manufacturing Error. With Rising Waves and Heat Wave, Spell Mage now has more consistent AOE follow-up to a turn 5 Error, which is a boon to its survivability in faster matchups.
Shanty Drunk Mage
This could be the most exciting new Mage deck to emerge in Paradise. If you want to try something new, this is it. Mage has the potential to develop an archetype with incredible summoning potential, executing crazy mid-game swings that can completely obliterate faster decks, while applying a heap of pressure on slower strategies.
Here’s how to make it happen. Concierge takes center stage alongside Divine Brew and Sunscreen, but this time with the purpose of discounting Sea Shanty. The deck itself only runs 4 spells: Lifesaving Aura, Divine Brew, Sea Shanty, and Volume Up. On turn 4, we tutor all these spells with Volume Up, duplicating either Divine Brew or Sea Shanty.
On turn 5, we can already go off with Concierge and just repeatedly play 0-mana Sunscreens and Divine Brews. Ideally, we play Lifesaving Aura on turn 1 to accumulate three Suncreens, or two Sunscreens from weapon swings of a turn 3 Volley Maul. Drink Server can provide us with a cheap drink to use. A coin from Greedy Partner can also be very helpful. Grillmaster offers soft redundancy to Volume Up.
The outcome of this turn is a massive, buffed Concierge, as well as a combination of Mantle Shapers and Sea Shanty. It’s entirely possible to summon a full board of 5/5 pirates, or to hedge them over multiple turns to force out removal from the opponent.
Of course, this deck can also execute a big Raylla turn.
Drunk Lynessa Paladin
Lynessa might be the strongest Tourist of the set, one that could completely transform the Paladin class. We’re featuring two different Lynessa Paladin builds with different approaches and win conditions.
The first build runs both a board-centric win condition, as well as over-the-top burst potential. The board-centric win condition involves Sea Shanty and works on a similar principle to what we’ve seen in Drunk Mage. The difference is that Lynessa replaces Concierge as the centerpiece. Our goal is to accumulate coins through Greedy Partner and Metal Detector. Find Divine Brew, Tidepool Pupil and Sea Shanty with the help of Grillmaster. Find Lynessa with Caricature Artist if necessary and discount her with Sea Shill.
Once we go off with Lynessa, we can discount Sea Shanty incredibly fast as every spell that targets a character is repeated. A discounted Sea Shanty itself is doubled up by Lynessa, so we’re looking at a full board of 5/5’s again as the outcome, on top of whatever damage we dish out through direct damage spells.
The other win condition is burst through Horn of the Windlord. Equip Horn, play Lynessa and buff ourselves with Divine Brew. A single, fully stocked Divine Brew is worth 13 attack damage for 7 mana (each Brew splits into two Drinks when Lynessa’s on board). Add Horn’s attack value with Windfury and you get 32 damage. That’s not counting any direct damage spells we’ve managed to weave in during the process, such as Holy Glowsticks.
What’s nice about Divine Brew is that it’s flexible enough to serve as a strong defensive spell, with Wild Pyromancer offering a way for us to clear boards with it. This is a nice build to fit the old Pyro/Equality combo in, with the goal of having versatility and defensive resilience against aggressive decks.
Interactive Lynessa Paladin
The other option is to go all-in on Paladin’s OTK potential through direct damage spells and set up our win condition to be as fast as possible. We’re featuring Jambre’s build from the theorycrafting streams, as we couldn’t disagree with any of his card choices. This involves running Lynessa as the top end card, so that it’s always drawn by Grillmaster, while the rest of the deck is dedicated to extract the most out of the Lynessa turn in terms of damage.
Holy Cowboy allows us to discount Hammer of Wrath to 1 mana on the Lynessa turn and repeat it. With Mixologist, we search for Heart of Fire to accumulate more damage. Once we have 15 damage through direct damage effects and the mana to spend them, we know we can kill the opponent from 30 during the Lynessa turn. Count your mana and count your damage at every opportunity, to avoid missing lethal. It can happen as early as turn 6.
Sandcastle Handbuff Paladin
Established Paladin decks may not have many new additions. Sanc’Azel should be a very powerful card in Handbuff Paladin. The more you buff the minion, the bigger the attack buff it provides to a friendly minion once it turns into a location. This opens another avenue for Paladin to execute burst from hand, though it does depend on having a minion in play as well as an enemy minion in play.
Cheese Showdown Paladin
It’s a similar story in Showdown Paladin, where Gorgonzormu should be incredible, but there’s not much else we want to add. The Cheese fits Showdown Paladin’s strategy like a glove, perhaps more than any other deck, as it’s a great enabler of Sea Giants and/or Zilliax, especially in a Showdown turn.
But even outside of the context of a board swing combo, the Cheese is just a massive threat to be followed up by either Crusader Aura or Flash Sale.
Snatch Excavate Rogue
Excavate Rogue is getting some good upgrades for its late game, both in terms of value and removal. The main question concerning Thief Rogue archetypes is whether they can continue to scale into the late game at a steady pace, or whether high lethality decks will force them to reconsider their strategy.
When it comes to new cards, we’re most curious about Snatch and Grab and Eudora. Snatch and Grab offers us powerful removal that potentially costs 0 mana in the late game thanks to The Azerite Scorpion. Eudora is a slow card, but one that generates powerful win conditions that can help us close the game.
Both these cards require activation through cards from other classes, so our immediate thought went to boosting our thief generation. The option that stood out for us is Drink Server, since we’re guaranteed to generate a card from another class that is cheap and has three charges. A single Drink Server can help us complete Eudora’s quest by itself, while discounting Snatch and Grab by 3 mana. Considering its early game body, we believe it’s superior to Petty Theft.
Shack Wishing Rogue
Wishing Rogue might be a faster alternative to Excavate Rogue, as it is more focused on a major blowout turn in the mid game, rather than a grindy value game plan. With ‘Oh, Manager!’ and Metal Detector, our coin generation is significantly better to fuel Wishing Well.
We also have the option to run Knickknack Shack, which helps us to draw into our win condition and its activators. This build leans into the location by maintaining a cheap curve of cards that can chain multiple triggers of Shack, such as Valeera’s Gift. Dig for Treasure has a 50% chance of finding us a 2-drop, with the other 50% chance drawing our main win conditions.
Snatch Cutlass Rogue
Cutlass Rogue gets a major boost in Spectral Cutlass activators. Both Petty Theft and Drink Server are amazing cards for this purpose. A single Drink extends the durability of Spectral Cutlass by 3. The other thing they do well is discount Snatch and Grab. We think Snatch and Grab is the perfect removal card for Cutlass Rogue, as the archetype tends to struggle when dealing with big minions or taunts that get in the way. Instead, with a discounted S&G, Cutlass Rogue can suddenly remove threats while getting ahead.
Another card that should be amazing in Cutlass Rogue is Knickknack Shack, since our deck is very cheap. One line of play is to drop Shack on turn 3 and click on it to draw a card immediately. On turn 4, while Shack is locked, we equip Spectral Cutlass. On turn 5, we can start chain drawing with Shack while buffing our weapon.
Cute Location Rogue
This is a uniquely built deck that leverages Rogue’s natural synergy with Giants (thanks to Breakdance) alongside Knickknack Shack’s drawing capability. Snowflipper Penguin and Ancient Totem are strong targets for Cursed Souvenir, ‘Eat! The! Imp!”, and The Crystal Cove. Their free cost makes them strong cycles targets for Shack too. Sea Shill makes our Warlock spells cost no mana, along with enabling a turn 4 Vona. The best, guaranteed line for this to happen is to play Party Fiend on 1 twice with Shadowstep, then play Cursed Souvenir on 2 and Sea Shill on 3.
After our potential early aggression, we pivot to a Seaside Giant game plan. Our 0-mana minions help The Crystal Cove become a board positive play on turn 3, while Knickknack Shack can discount our giants very rapidly thanks to our cheap curve. Remember that our Warlock cards will activate Velarok. Kaja’mite Creation is added to boost Velarok’s consistency and give us another stable turn 2 play.
Lamplighter Elemental Rogue
Finally, let’s go over the scariest Rogue deck this expansion. Lamplighter has the potential to be an oppressive finisher in Rogue due to bounce effects magnifying its scaling damage. If we play an elemental for the first 6 turns, Lamplighter deals 7 damage on turn 6. This is a Shockspitter-esque clock.
At this point, we can start Breakdancing and Stepping Lamplighter to deal ~30 damage across two turns. We can even copy it with Sonya after a Shadowstep. By turn 8, every opponent without a significant amount of armor just dies. We’re not even counting on our junk elementals to deal any damage.
The key is making sure we’re playing an elemental every turn. Otherwise, the game plan falls apart. This is why we’re running 8 copies of 1-mana elementals and 8 copies of 2-mana elementals. Quick Pick and Knickknack Shack help us find our finishing pieces without gassing out. Shack is an amazing draw engine for this deck because our curve is extremely cheap.
But remember, don’t play Quick Pick and Shack on curve! An elemental every turn! No compromises!
Vona Pain Warlock
Pain Warlock has a great chance of emerging as one of the premier aggressive decks in the format, especially if killing Druids becomes a top priority. New cards are significantly boosting its early game snowballing capabilities too, replacing some of the more questionable cards in the deck and giving it a clean look.
Party Fiend is simply one of the best 1-drops in the format, which should give us a great chance of seizing the board early against any opponent. Cursed Souvenir is a brutal turn 2 play that opponents will struggle to deal with. Fearless Flamejuggler could become as big as a giant at an early stage of the game. Vona is a massive stats bomb that protects us from being rushed down while also offering sustained late game pressure.
Should the format become extremely combo-centric, the deck can always fit Speaker Stomper and Cult Neophyte back in.
Token Deathrattle Warlock
This novel aggressive build tries to leverage the Warlock’s deathrattle-styled set alongside the Death Knight’s token-styled set. There are several overlapping synergies between tokens and deathrattles. The most obvious ones are Corpsicle and Horizon’s Edge, our primary sources of damage, as both are fueled by our minions dying.
Another card that helps us glue things together is Eliza Goreblade, as she amplifies the damage of our sticky threats. Thanks to a turn 4 Felfire Bonfire, we can Summoner Darkmarrow alongside Goreblade on turn 5 to double her deathrattle and make it very difficult for our opponents to outlast. Goreblade can also be amplified by Ravenous Kraken. A single Ghouls’ Night into an empty board becomes a source of 15 charge damage to the face after a doubled Goreblade deathrattle.
The deck contains several deathrattle minions that get discounted to 0 mana after Felfire Bonfire, making it easy for us to combo them with Darkmarrow or sack them with ‘Eat! The! Imp!’ and Ravenous Kraken.
It’s not all tokens and deathrattles though. This deck can go tall. A single Horizon’s Edge fully discounts Seaside Giants, which can happen quickly in a deck that’s built around killing its own minions.
Demon Wheel Warlock
We had to try a slower, late-game-oriented strategy in the class, even though everything points to Warlock’s viability purely relying on the aggressive side of the spectrum.
Our main lead is Felfire Bonfire. An active Bonfire on turn 4 allows us to play a Wretched Queen or Enhanced Dreadlord on turn 5, which is an even faster way to develop them compared to Nemsy. This is very important, as it makes it easier for us to follow up their death with Endgame, completely locking out an opponent looking to carve out a path to our face.
Another decent survivability tool is Health Drink. A 3-mana Drain Soul sounds bad, but when we get 3 charges of the card, we get to heal a lot while killing multiple enemy minions. We sacrifice some initiative for card advantage.
We do have some optimism that Warlock can survive early game aggression, but its late game is where it’s truly lacking. There’s not much else we can do besides playing Wheel, surrounding it with its best support cards, and hoping for the best.
Giants Rainbow Death Knight
The introduction of several proactive tools has encouraged us to re-explore the Corpse Bride Rainbow Death Knight variant. Thanks to Ghouls’ Night and Dreadhound Handler, two terrific corpse generators, a turn 5 Corpse Bride becomes very consistent. Combined with Stitched Giant, this is the strongest early pressure play available to the class. If the meta becomes highly lethal, Death Knight may be forced to take on the beatdown role to compete.
But Stitched Giant is not the only giant that Death Knight can utilize. Thanks to Horizon’s Edge’s 5 charges and easy unlocking requirement, we can completely discount Seaside Giants with a single location. Both Crop Rotation and Army of the Dead are devastating follow-ups to Horizon’s Edge. A turn 4 Horizon’s Edge dares the opponent to play into it before seeing their board get blown up.
The token-centric nature of the deck synergizes well with Gorgonzormu and Eliza Goreblade. Eliza turns Ghouls’ Night into a burst finisher. On one hand, our opponent doesn’t want to play into Horizon’s Edge, but if they keep their board cleared, Ghouls’ Night can deal 10 damage to their face post-Goreblade.
Burn Rainbow Death Knight
This build attempts to reinvent the popular approach of Control Rainbow Death Knight with a Tourist package. Buttons draws 3 cards in this deck, tutoring both Threads of Despair and Malted Magma. Instead of generating value for the late game, we try to generate as many corpses as we can in a control shell, to fuel our two damage sources: Horizon’s Edge and Corpsicle.
Corpsicle might be considered an aggressive card by some, but we think it suits this style of deck very well. We aim to control the board and use any mana available to shoot Corpsicles at the opponent. We can also use them as a never-ending source of removal. Corpsicle might be the strongest enabler of Climactic Necrotic Explosion, providing us with a lot of damage to put the opponent in reach of a CNE lethal.
A Horseman hero power paired with Corpsicle is a decent clock in late game matchups. We’re shooting a Fireball to the face every turn. If the opponent doesn’t pressure us effectively enough to force us to spend mana on defensive plays, they lose the game relatively quickly.
Buttons Plague Death Knight
Plague Death Knight can run a Tourist package too. Buttons tutors us three cards of good quality: Frosty Décor, Malted Magma and Down with the Ship. Malted Magma and Frosty Décor are strong survivability tools, which help us extend the game and let the plagues do the work. Whether plagues do enough work in a high-powered format that contains a lot of burst damage, is another story.
Prison Rainbow Death Knight
The strangest variant we’re featuring for Rainbow Death Knight runs a unique win condition that puts our opponent in board prison. The combo involves 5 cards: Reska, Taelan, Amalgam and two copies of Death Growl.
In the finishing play, we play Reska between Amalgam and Taelan. We cast Death Growl on both Amalgam and Taelan, giving Reska those two deathrattles. What happens next is that whenever Reska dies, it shuffles back to the deck while keeping its enchantments (Amalgam) and draws itself back immediately as it’s the highest cost minion in the deck (Taelan).
This means we have an infinite source of Reskas. Our opponent can no longer play the game. If they develop 7 10/10’s on the board, we’ll just steal all of them with an infinite supply of 0-mana Reskas. Unless they can burst us from hand, they cannot win.
A partial combo is also possible with just Amalgam, Reska and Death Growl. It leads to us always having a Reska in our deck, which is powerful, but doesn’t yet put our opponent in prison.
To support this combo, which requires a lot of specific cards, we focus on pure survival and cheap draw/generation. There is no need for us to support another win condition, as once we put our opponent in prison, we win the game against any deck that relies on minions to win.
Tourist Pirate Shaman
Shaman is getting support for a diverse set of playstyles. One of them is an aggressive deck, utilizing the pirate package in Demon Hunter. Carefree Cookie works well in this deck, as we can play it while charging pirates into enemy minions, evolving them into random 2-drops.
The deck consists of multiple ways to snowball charging pirates, such as Hozen Roughhouser and Adrenaline Fiend. We can have very fast starts, especially with Treasure Distributor, where we flood the board and rush down opponents very quickly.
However, this deck can also take its time and set up a late game combo that is not easy to play around but requires some setup. It involves playing Dangerous Cliffside and equipping Horn of the Windlord. We click location, swing weapon, click location, swing weapon, click location the third time. This summons 6 charging pirates. We then buff them with Bloodlust from Thrall’s Gift, dealing a total of 30 damage.
This combo should only be necessary against a deck like Control Priest. In most matchups, we can just utilize Horn of the Windlord with Skirting Death or Turn the Tides for more modest amounts of burst.
Seven Rainbow Shaman
This Rainbow Shaman build looks to maximize the number of different spell schools to leverage the incredible Cabaret Headliner. Thanks to Tourist access to the Demon Hunter set and Watcher of the Sun, we run every single spell school in our main deck. Add Siren Song to the mix and we should be able to turn Razzle-Dazzler into a full board threat at a relatively early stage of the game. We need Dazzler to ramp up quickly, as it is our main win condition in every matchup.
Frosty Décor is an amazing follow-up to a turn 4 Hagatha and should help slower Shaman strategies stabilize. We run Malted Magma over Baking Soda Volcano as a Fire spell due to the awkward turn 4 overload of Volcano that can delay our Frosty Décor.
Conductivity Jive Shaman
A Razzle-Dazzler Rainbow Shaman is very reliant on winning through the board and doesn’t pressure opponents early, so there is a danger that it won’t be fast enough to beat high lethality late game strategies. This alternative build aims to incorporate off-board burst finishers. Instead of ramping threats, we focus on card draw and tutors to find our win condition pieces. There are two main combos we need to remember.
The first is Sigil of Skydiving, Conductivity and Jive. It requires us to play Sigil a turn earlier, then transform the charging pirates with Conductivity/Jive to summon three copies of Ragnaros. This combo is worth 27 damage total into an empty board and can cost as little as 3-mana thanks to Cabaret Headliner.
The second is Horn of the Windlord, Conductivity and Skirting Death. Conductivity/Death requires the opponent to have three minions in play but can steal up to 12 attack. Add Horn’s damage and we’re looking at a full 30-damage play. If we manage to discount Conductivity/Death, we don’t even need to pre-equip Horn, as both spells can cost as little as 1-mana in total.
While the opponent can play around one combo, it’s very hard to play around both in any optimal fashion. Playing around Jive requires them to develop a board, yet playing around Skirting Death requires them to avoid developing a board. It’s a case of picking your poison that they will not be happy with.
Gaslight Incindius Shaman
Another fun win condition that is available to Shaman is Incindius. Our game plan is to play Shudderblock, then play Incindius to triple its battlecry and shuffle 15 Eruptions into our deck. We then play spell damage minions (Zapper/Thalnos), Mini-Shudder and Gaslight Gatekeeper. Eruptions scale with spell damage, so with two spell damage minions, every Eruptions deals 4 damage. A total of 60 damage in our deck should be more than enough to kill the opponent from full life. This can happen consistently by turn 8 but does require two setup plays that leave us vulnerable.
An alternative win condition in faster matchups involves Murloc Growfin. If we don’t have time to play Incindius, we can just focus on building a big board that an aggressive deck cannot deal with. The deck runs plenty of survivability tools to get there. We’re not big fans of Meltelemental, but we like its stalling potential in this deck, helping us curve into Hagatha/Décor.
One strong interaction exists between Fairy Tale Forest and Dorian. We can play Forest on turn 3, hold the charge and trigger it on turn 4 after playing Dorian. We have a 1 in 3 chance of finding either Incindius or Shudderblock, which greatly escalates our ability to set up our win condition.
Pirate Aggro Demon Hunter
We expect Demon Hunter to be very aggressive in this expansion. The pirate package naturally encourages us to flood the board and snowball through cards such as Treasure Distributor, Adrenaline Fiend and Hozen Roughhouser. This build also leverages Dangerous Cliffside well, since we have 4 cheap weapons, as well as Spirit of the Team, that we can set up beforehand. We drop the location on turn 4, click it, then attack with our hero and click the location again. This instantly summons 4 charging pirates.
Our low curve and board flooding capabilities synergize with Gorgonzormu and Ticking/Pylon Zilliax. Bartend-O-Bot helps us find Paraglide and sets it up for us to activate its Outcast form and avoid giving the opponent cards.
Pain Aggro Demon Hunter
Another option is to tap into the Priest set and incorporate the Pain package. This is a slightly tweaked list inspired by Corbett. Priest has received a lot of aggressive cards that Aggro DH can utilize well. Brain Masseuse is an incredible 1-drop. Narain gives us reload and becomes scary if we can find Acupuncture copies with it. Acupuncture is just a great nuke for the purpose of bursting down opponents as quickly as possible.
We want to run weapons to punch minions and take damage so that we can discount Sauna Regular faster. Hot Coals is a fantastic board clear for aggressive mirrors thanks to its asymmetrical effect. We run a Recursive/Haywire Zilliax for the self-damage effect at the cheapest cost.
Aranna Fatigue Demon Hunter
A vastly different Tourist approach is the Fatigue Demon Hunter deck. Our goal is to hit fatigue, develop Aranna and then trigger as many draw effects as possible, generating massive fatigue damage that is redirected to the opponent. Most players have attempted to utilize Glaivetar as the big fatigue trigger, but we didn’t like how clunky the Outcast package was.
Instead, we’re counting on Weight of the World and Rest in Peace to resurrect Aranna for 3 mana on our combo turn. Our focus is to run a cheap build with a lot of cards we can easily dump from hand, such as Crystalline Statue.
Once we hit fatigue, we resurrect Aranna, then play two copies of forged Weight of the World. Depending on how small our hand is compared to the opponent’s, this will deal OTK worthy damage.
Sharpshooter Naga Demon Hunter
Naga Demon Hunter may not be done. The addition of Tidepool Pupil and Adaptive Amalgam makes it a lot easier for Demon Hunter to maintain the Sharpshooter chain, as we can now run 8 Naga 1-drops. Tidepool Pupil helps us discover a spell we’ve played during the Sharpshooter turn. Amalgam serves the role of a Mistake with one less health. We don’t care about its stats. We care about it costing 0 mana after Frequency Oscillator.
This build drops the Grasp/Shopper package because we’re looking to go off early. Even with a 4-mana Sharpshooter, this deck can blow up opponents as early as turn 6-7. It could shine in OTK mirrors where both players ignore the board. You generally don’t want to play passively against a Sharpshooter deck.
A scary return could be on the cards.
Pain Zarimi Priest
Much like Demon Hunter, Priest is heavily encouraged to go into an aggressive direction this expansion. It’s not just because of the cards, but the increased lethality that we expect to occur should make it difficult for slower Priest strategies to compete.
Zarimi Priest is an established shell that has seen a lot of success during Whizbang and can refresh its build with a few upgrades. We add the Pain package with Brain Masseuse, Acupuncture, and Sauna Regular. Acupuncture is a great card to copy with Narain when we want to finish opponents off. Note that it discounts both Sauna Regular and Thirsty Drifter.
Another card that’s amazing with Ticking Zilliax is Gorgonzormu. We would run this card in Zarimi Priest without a tribal tag. The fact it’s a dragon too is just icing on the cake. It’s the perfect addition for the deck.
Note that Pip is not an accidental cut from the deck that we forgot about. The card has consistently been the worst performer for Zarimi Priest and we’re not sure Acupuncture will help much. There is merit to try Narain instead as a value engine.
Parrot Automaton Priest
Could Automaton Priest become a competitive option? We wouldn’t hold our breath, but this archetype is getting a lot of fun support in this set. We like the idea of Trusty Fishing Rod pulling an Automaton from our deck so we can copy it. Catch of the Day is another strong Rod target.
Pet Parrot is possibly the best new card for the deck, as it can summon an Automaton. This build tries to leverage Pet Parrot harder, so that it can always have a powerful 1-cost card to repeat, which also leans into Thirsty Drifter and Pip. Mixologist and Griftah are strong candidates for the role. If Narain finds us additional copies of Automaton, we’re in business.
Sasquawk Reno Priest
Even though we’re not optimistic about Reno Priest’s chances, it does get some sweet cards in this set that enhance its ability to grind opponents to dust. Sasquawk is going to be a star performer, an incredible late game card that can completely lock out games. A simple follow-up on any of our powerful minions, such as Aman’Thul or Zilliax could be backbreaking. There is no need to set up a “card slinging” turn. Sasquawk is enough reason for us to run Vol’jin.
A card we love for Reno Priest is Rest in Peace. Much like Sasquawk, it can summon our most powerful minion for a mere 3 mana. While it does summon the opponent’s most expensive minion too, it shouldn’t be a problem. If we resurrect our Virus Zilliax, Aman’Thul or Yogg-Saron, then the enemy minion gets immediately taken care of. We think RIP is so good that we’re running a second copy of it inside ETC.
This is also the perfect deck for Narain, as Priest always looks out for more value engines. When it comes to the early game, we wonder if Nightshade Tea is worth testing. While it does come at a self-damage cost, a single cheap removal card that can deal with three enemy minions in the early game is worth thinking over. It could be a better card than Twilight Torrent, for example.
Overplanner Medium Priest
This Control Priest deck tries to leverage Twilight Medium through two information providing cards: Overplanner and Narain. Our primary game plan is to find Overplanner and try to position the best end game card we can find at the top end of the deck when we expect to play Medium. If we can cheat out one of those cards for 1 mana, we can amplify the advantage through Power Word: Synchronize or Rest in Peace.
With Parrot Sanctuary, we can also play Twilight Medium a turn early, which is a massive difference for cards that cheat mana to this extent. We can play Parrot Sanctuary on turn 2, then turn 3 Narain, turn 4 Overplanner and turn 5 Twilight Medium.
An interesting synergy exists between Dorian and Birdwatching or Creation Protocol. Most of the minions in our deck become extremely powerful when they turn into a 1 mana 1/1, so Dorian is very likely to generate something impactful. Puppet Theatre is another card that seems mandatory in a deck that runs Rest in Peace.
Muscle Drunk Hunter
Not too differently from Mage, the most exciting direction for the Hunter class might involve a Concierge engine that enables a big mid game swing. The featured list is carefully built to maximize the consistency in which we can execute a Concierge turn on turn 4-5.
The secret comes with All You Can Eat. This deck runs minions from five different tribes, with three of them acting as major pieces in a Concierge turn. Concierge is a Pirate. Mantle Shaper is an Elemental/Naga. Tidepool Pupil is a Naga.
Our game plan is to find Concierge and Cup o’ Muscle at the highest priority. On turn 2, our best play is Drink Server, which has a 50% chance of finding you a 1-mana Drink from a different class. On turn 3, our best play is All You Can Eat. By turn 4, if we have Concierge with some combination of Mantle Shaper and Tidepool Pupil, we can already go off. We play Concierge, Cup o’ Musclex3, Tidepool Pupil to discover another Cup o’ Musclex3 and play our free Mantle Shapers. This is a crazy number of stats in play that can occur quite consistently on turns 4-6 thanks to All You Can Eat.
However, this deck doesn’t sit around and wait for the Concierge turn to arrive. We can still curve out normally like a Token Hunter would. We run Leeroy and Huffer (Patchwork Pals) to soak Muscle buffs.
Hungry Amalgam Hunter
Hunter is one of the classes with the potential to build a successful deck entirely dedicated to juicing up Adaptive Amalgam. We have a wide plethora of buffs and tutors for the purpose of growing it and redrawing it.
Bunch of Bananas and Cup o’ Muscle are flexible buffs we can use whenever we have some mana floating around. We give Amalgam rush with Absorbent Parasite. We give it taunt with Bronze Gatekeeper. Windury with Sailboat Captain. Always a Bigger Jormungar might be the most important buff, as it turns Amalgam into a genuine, persistent nuke. An Amalgam with Rush, Windfury and ABJ is when the opponent starts panicking.
The most important tutor is Trusty Fishing Rod, which always pulls Amalgam, so you can imagine what happens when this innocent 1-drop soaks all the previously mentioned buffs. Besides that, All You Can Eat works perfectly as a tutor to multiple important pieces in the deck. Birdwatching offers further redundancy.
This deck can patiently set up an OTK from hand too. Once we have an Amalgam with Rush/Windfury/ABJ at 13 attack, Leeroy kills the opponent from 30. Leeroy deals 6 damage and Amalgam is summoned to overkill the Whelps by 12 each. 12+12+6= 30.
Hungry Handbuff Hunter
This might be the deck where Ranger Gilly synergizes with best, or at least, he doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. A Handbuff Hunter shell has existed for a while but hasn’t been able to compete. Cup o’ Muscle should be a fantastic card in the archetype, since so many of its minions rely on having their attacks buffed. We can also spice up the deck with a removal package including Char/Death Roll/Chatty Macaw. Undercooked Calamari is another nice addition to the deck that helps us swing the board back.
All You Can Eat helps this deck so much by filling our hand for Messenger Buzzard, while acting as a very consistent tutor. Note that we have a couple of beasts with a second tribal tag. Chatty Macaw and Hollow Hound (a critical minion) are very likely to be drawn by AYCE as a result.
Hungry Big Hunter
Hunter doesn’t have the ramp that Warrior has access to, so a 7-mana Ryecleaver isn’t as appealing. But Food Fight should work better in this class, as we have both Char and Star Power as good options to kill the Entrée. Star Power could lead to a very big swing if the opponent is trying to pressure us.
Hunter may not have Hydration Station, but it does have Stranglethorn Heart. This deck is very good at cheating out and resurrecting 4/20 taunts. Blaze it.
Note that a forged Titanforged Traps has a 72% chance of offering us Bargain Bin, which is a soft tutor for The Ryecleaver. Save All You Can Eat for Ryecleaver. Do not play it before then. Patchwork Pals is another decent card to play between the Ryecleaver swings, building our own Call of the Wild.
Thanks to Sidisi for the inspiration on this one.
Virus Control Warrior
Control Warrior looks like a scary deck, with the potential to dominate faster matchups through mass Zilliax resurrections, on top of having the option to run Odyn to OTK opponents at the later stages of the game.
This build does not main deck Odyn. We decided to put it inside ETC because we believe Chemical Spill to get Zilliax out is crucial, so we don’t want Odyn to block the way. Not only is it a back breaking play on turn 5 (or turn 4 if we played New Heights), but we also recommend doing it throughout the game, even in situations where we have the mana to play Zilliax. The reason is that by popping Zilliax’ divine shield, we can set up to kill it at least once on the turn we play it. This avoids having our entire game plan nullified by a Mind Control (Yogg, Reska), an erasure (Reno, Aman’Thul) or a transformation effect.
Once Zilliax dies, Inventor Boom and Hydration Station take care of the business. There is no aggressive deck that can get through a wall of Zilliax once we get the ball rolling. Slower decks without effective mass removal will just die too.
Note the incredible value of All You Can Eat. Razorfen Rockstar, Tidepool Pupil, Needlerock Totem, Zilliax and Marin. All neatly organized to be drawn by the card. Rockstar works incredibly well with Sleep Under the Stars for a mass armor gain combo that can help us survive burst or kill our opponent post-Odyn.
Our ETC runs a second Chemical Spill, in case we have Zilliax in hand and Spill wins us the game the next turn. Odyn (for those Control Priest matchups) and Fizzle (for even more Zilliax walls) are the other options.
Virus Reno Warrior
Reno Warrior should enjoy what the Druid set has to offer. Trail Mix is a huge card for the archetype that allows us to play Brann two turns early. Play it on 5 mana if you have Brann in hand. New Heights and Sleep Under the Stars go without saying. The ramp should help Marin become a better card too, as it’s not been that great in the archetype so far.
We’ve replaced Town Crier with Tortollan Traveler. Since we’re not running All You Can Eat, Traveler becomes the best tutor for Zilliax, discounting it to 7 mana. Sometimes we’ll draw a 4-mana Hamm. Not too bad on curve.
There are a million things we can put in ETC, so we’ve kept it simple for now. We take Trail Mix if we’re playing ETC on 4 and have Brann in hand. We take Fizzle when we need more value. We wear Safety Goggles when we need emergency armor.
Ramp Sandwich Warrior
Sandwich Warrior is the main archetype that’s being pushed in the Warrior set. It looks fun, but whether the power matches up with the fun, we’ll have to see. We don’t like Food Fight in this deck because it limits the minions we can put in the deck. It’s also difficult to activate without running mediocre cards such as Char.
Instead, we’re counting on Chemical Spill. It’s a lot faster thanks to our ramp. New Heights lets us play Chemical Spill on turn 4. Trail Mix lets us play Chemical Spill on turn 3. Most of the top end minions in our deck are very good summon targets for Chemical Spill. The only one who is a little awkward is Muensterosity, but two 6/4’s aren’t too shabby.
After Chemical Spill, our biggest play centers on The Ryecleaver. We should draw it relatively consistently thanks to Instrument Tech. We play Ryecleaver on 7 and swing. The next turn, we play a combination of All You Can Eat, Quality Assurance and Sleep Under the Stars to draw as many minions as possible from our deck and place them between the slices of bread. We swing the second charge and summon all of them to the board. If our board gets cleared somehow, we have Hydration Station to reload.
Hungry Taunt Warrior
We’ll be surprised to see a more aggressive Warrior deck become competitive this expansion, but a Taunt Warrior deck running Battlepickaxe does look nice. We have an incredible amount of reload thanks to All You Can Eat and Quality Assurance, which makes Detonation Juggernaut stronger. Note that AYCE acts as a soft tutor in this deck too, which is very likely to find us a 0-mana Dread Corsair. Tortollan Traveler is a great addition too.
Cooked Blackrock Warrior
This wouldn’t be a vS theorycrafting article without a Blackrock Warrior recipe. Draconic Delicacy does seem incredibly hard to deal with after it’s buffed by Blackrock ‘N’ Roll, as does Muensterosity. Undercooked Calamari scales well with the buff. Line Cook gives us more bodies. We’re running Yogg-Saron to Mind Control our minion back after it gets inevitably yoinked by the opponent.
Virus Dragon Druid
Druid got a dream set, one of the strongest we’ve seen for the class. Dragon Druid looks terrifying. Pay attention to the mulligan in this deck. Dozing Dragon becomes a strong consideration for a mulligan keep in aggressive matchups when you have Trail Mix, New Heights and Splish-Splash Whelp as options to accelerate into it. It also discounts Fye by 3. Terrific card for the archetype.
Trail Mix, in general, is a card that requires smart planning. Can we drop Zilliax next turn with Hydration Station in hand? Do we need to Yogg-Saron? Is there an opportunity to play an early Marin? Doomkin to slow down our opponents? Dorian/Flowerchild? There are a lot of possibilities.
Dragon Druid’s late game becomes very consistent too. Hydration Station resurrects Zilliax and Fye. Tortollan Traveler helps us find our key taunts more often. Sleep Under the Stars is generally amazing. We’ve cut less impactful spells, such as Swipe and Malfurion’s Gift, to accommodate our new spells. Mediocre removal is less important when we can outpace our opponent. We have a clear win condition in faster matchups that’s easier to execute thanks to Zilliax, while we expect Dozing Dragon to be a big boost in those matchups too.
Vistah Ramp Druid
Druid looks just as beautiful without dragons. This Ramp Druid build maximizes the potential of Mistah Vistah by incorporating a Big-Spell package. Crystal Cluster and Tsunami are the best immediate follow-ups to Vistah. Later in the game, after Zilliax was played, Hydration Station becomes another strong replay candidate. But don’t sleep on Frost Lotus Blossom and Sleep Under the Stars either.
Access to the Mage set grants Druid an early AOE board clear, Rising Waves, which could be quite impactful at letting us survive early aggression to support our greedy curve.
Once we ramp into a high mana count, we can find our key minions with Pendant of Earth. With Crystal Cluster looking so strong, this might the time to bust out the Toyrantus.
Seaside Location Druid
A different Tourist approach focuses on locations and Seaside Giants. Druid might have the strongest assortment of locations in the format. Magical Dollhouse helps us boost our early AOE effects to survive, while Tide Pools and Hiking Trail provide good value while being easy to unlock for multiple uses in a single turn.
Our game plan is to ramp, drop locations and try to chain trigger them to the point where can play free Seaside Giants. We can tutor Giants with Pendant of Earth and copy them with Shattered Reflections. Cruise Captain Lora is a big accelerator of Sea Giants. XB–931 Housekeeper can discount Giants with Hiking Trail very quickly, while giving us a burst of armor.
Concierge Boomkin Druid
We end the article with the most terrifying deck of this expansion. Concierge looks amazing in Mage and Hunter, but in Druid, it takes a perverse turn. This build is almost identical to the one made by TicTac. We just cut Malfurion’s Gift for Rising Waves. Gift can be useful on the combo turn for additional copies of Swipe, while Rising Waves isn’t good on the combo turn (it will kill our Concierge if we’re not careful). But Rising Waves helps us fend off aggression better, which is going to be the strongest form of counterplay for this deck.
Our goal is to set up an OTK through Concierge discounting Seabreeze Chalice to 0-mana, while pairing them with spell damage effects.
Magical Dollhouse has a banked cost. Go with the Flow costs 0 mana with Concierge. A mini-Drake is the third spell damage booster available to us. Tidepool Pupil can help us copy a Seabreeze Chalice on the combo turn. Bottomless Toy Chest helps us do that before the combo turn. Lifebinder’s Gift and Funnel Cake make sure nothing we play ever costs mana. Pendant of Earth helps us find Concierge.
Remember that every point of spell damage increases the total damage of Seabreeze Chalice by 3. We can quite realistically accomplish +4 spell damage, which turns a single fully stocked Chalice into 18 damage. This deck needs to do a lot of math, as early as turn 5, to find potential lethal. If the opponent has a lot of minions in play, a Swipe on the combo turn can help us direct the Chalice damage face, but sometimes we will have lethal through the minions anyway.
Not for faint hearts, this one.
Special thanks to iWUS for helping to proofread our content this week. Also, thanks to our Patreon and Gold supporters who have provided feedback on these decklists.
The Data Reaper Podcast will return to discuss the early impressions of the Perils in Paradise meta! Follow us on Twitter for updates on when it will occur, if you want an early scoop on developments before August 1st, when Data Reaper Report #300 comes out. A grand anniversary!
We’ll see you then.
P.S. No, we will never stop calling it Twitter.
The Vicious Syndicate Team
