Introduction
Hello friends, I’m Shudogin! Today I am writing about a deck that I find fascinating, the double savage-roar Druid. This is one deck that does very well in the current meta, even though it utilizes only a few new Goblins versus Gnomes cards. It finds particularly good matchups versus Control Warrior and Handlock, common decks on the ladder. I find that this makes Double Roar Druid a solid choice in any player’s set of decks.
Overview
There is nothing as satisfying as killing your opponent from 19+ health when there are no cards on the board. This deck delivers devastating combos and crushing board control. The classic combo druid has been a staple in Hearthstone since before Naxxramas. Using two force-of-nature and savage-roar combos allows us to have consistent board clear and reach. Because of druid’s natural abilities to get to late game faster than other classes, we can pack this deck full of late game powerhouse cards.This deck does not solely focus on “ramping”, that is, increasing the cards that can be played on a given turn. While Double Roar Druid does incorporate some of the common ramp cards, such as innervate and wild-growth, we avoid the more early game centric ramp cards. Because of this, I feel confident labeling this deck a Combo Druid, instead of a Ramp Druid.
Card Choices
The Double Roar Druid has seen a recent resurgence in popularity, mostly because of the increase of Handlock and Control Warriors on the ladder. In my opinion, the reason that Handlock and Control Warrior are so prolific this season, is because of Goblin versus Gnome’s aggressive mech cards. Both of these decks can deal with mech deck’s aggressive nature. With this in mind, here are the cards that I think make Double Savage Roar Druid work to its full potential.A classic card combo in any druid deck, innervate and wild-growth provide a druid unique ramp. These cards allow us to gain a huge tempo advantage over our opponent. The innervate provides many ridiculous plays, such as turn one chillwind-yeti, when used in conjunction with the coin. These innervate combos are essential to beating aggressive decks that attempt to rush us down early. wild-growth gives us a huge advantage versus control decks, where we would be simply be using our hero power. While neither of these cards allow us to have more than 10 mana in our pool at any time, innervate can be played after 2 or more mana crystals have been used in a turn, to restore the 2 mana. Wild growth also has an interesting effect when used at 10 mana, allowing us to draw another card.
wrath is how we deal with early aggression. This card particularly shines in aggressive matchups featuring an enemy undertaker or knife-juggler, allowing us to simply remove the problem from the board. In addition to being excellent removal, the card draw ensures that we are drawing towards our combo cards.
Perhaps the most important combo in this deck, is force-of-nature plus savage-roar. This signature combo allows us to deal significant damage from apparently weak creatures. Savage Roar allows us to turn our 6 damage tree tokens into 12 damage. Because Savage Roar not only affects our minions, but also our character, we can deal 14 damage with no other minions on the board. If we save innervate and use our second Savage Roar, we can deal up to 22 damage with no minions on the board. This combo puts Mage’s spell combos to shame. The reason double Force of Nature Savage Roar is strong, is because we can reliably draw into this combo. Because we run two copies of this combo, we can also use Force of Nature as a board control tool without worrying about not being able to finish off our opponent.
In a meta full of Handlocks and Control Warriors, big-game-hunter consistently pays for itself. Now that almost every mid-range and control deck is utilizing dr-boom, there will consistently be a target for Big Game Hunter to remove.
shade-of-naxxramas is an amazing addition to our vanilla Force of Nature Savage Roar combo. This card forces our opponent to use removal, or else be hit by a huge creature when we Savage Roar combo. In addition to being a fantastic addition to our Force of Nature combo, the Shade can be a reliable card for trading with enemy minions. Because it gains 1+/1+ at the beginning of our turns, it can ensure value trades with enemy minions.
swipe is amazing versus decks that like to spew low health creatures at us. Swipe is one of the premier anti-aggro cards, which is something that we need as we stall for turn 9 so that we can deliver our combo.
chillwind-yeti is the first of our powerhouse ramping cards. If we are able to use innervate to play a turn one or turn two yeti, we can establish strong board control. Chillwind Yeti was chosen in this slot over piloted-shredder because many classes have a way to deal with a 3 health creature early in the game. While the shredder does drop another minion to replace itself, many classes have no removal mechanism that can deal with a 5 health creature. I went with a vanilla Chillwind Yeti over a mechanical-yeti because we do not really have a need for spare parts, whereas a spare part can allow our opponent to make plays against us.
keeper-of-the-grove is another tool we can use to support our advantage. Once again, we can establish board control versus aggressive decks by using the Keeper’s damage or silence to our advantage. With the abundance of deathrattle cards, silence has only became more valuable since the release of Goblins versus Gnomes.
druid-of-the-claw offers us the choice of removal and pressure, or a huge taunt. Combined with the other taunts in our deck, Druid of the Claw makes it incredibly hard for aggressive decks to compete with us. Because the Druid of the Claw is a 4-6, as opposed to the 3-5 sludge-belcher it allows us to kill 4 health creatures that the Belcher is weak against. In addition to being a decent taunt, we can use the charge option on this card for instant removal.
sludge-belcher is a card that I debated being in this deck. spectral-knight has traditionally held this spot in our mana curve, but after playing against nothing but an onslaught of zoo and mech decks, it became apparent that more taunt can only be good for us. This addition to our deck gives us more stall versus aggressive decks.
sylvanas-windrunner allows us to swing the board in our favor. Being a 6 cost 5-5 minion is not bad by itself, but combining that 5-5 body with a mind-control deathrattle makes this card extremely valuable. Sylvanas is excellent at denying ragnaros-the-firelord plays, as well as to an extent dr-boom. Both of these legendary cards are seeing a significant amount of play in control decks, making Sylvanas a strong counter in other late game decks.
ancient-of-lore is another great card that can be accessed earlier in our mana curve due to our ramping mechanisms. This card increases the probability that we will have our combo cards when we need them, on turn 9. Against heavily aggressive decks, Ancient of Lore’s heal can also give us just the bit of health we need to finish the game.
ancient-of-war was another card that I teched in versus the significant amounts of aggressive decks I found on the ladder. Ancient of War gives us a huge 5-10, which can be incredibly difficult to remove against aggressive decks.
dr-boom has seen extensive play recently, and with good reason. This relatively cheap 7 drop has been included in almost every deck since Goblins versus Gnomes came out, simply because he can be played from ahead, or when behind. Dr. Boom offers amazing removal with his Boom Bots, and then a solid 7/7 body afterward. Additionally, the Boom Bots still give some value, even if Dr. Boom himself is hit with removal.
ragnaros-the-firelord is another amazing ramp target in this deck. If we can play an early Ragnaros, our opponent often has no answer for it. Even if we are not able to ramp this card out early, playing a turn 7 Dr. Boom into a turn 8 Ragnaros is devastating.
Playing this Deck
With this deck, we try to use innervate and wild-growth to out tempo our opponent until we can use our force-of-nature and savage-roar combo to finish them off. Because several of our class specific Druid cards offer us choices in the way they are played, we can see success versus both control and aggressive decks.wrath, keeper-of-the-grove, and swipe should be used liberally against aggressive decks early, to keep board control. Because Druid has a wide variety of taunts available, we have several ways to stabilize the board in our favor. Additionally, because we utilize two Force of Nature and Savage Roars, we can use these cards to control the board, and still be able to perform our full combo as the game wears on.
Control decks are where this Druid shines. Because we can put out huge threats earlier than they can, we can force our opponent to make unfavorable trades. Additionally, many control decks are required to use their hard removal on our shade-of-naxxramas, making our other late game threats much more likely to stick to the board. Our 14 damage combo also makes a punishing impact on Control matchups, allowing us to end the game quickly.
Mulligans
When we are playing versus control decks, we typically strongly value cards that allow us to utilize our mana ramping mechanisms, as well as cards that allow us to silence their threats.- wild-growth
- shade-of-naxxramas
- innervate
- wrath
- chillwind-yeti
- keeper-of-the-grove
Playing against aggressive decks is a little more complicated, it is important to make sure that they cannot snowball out of control with cards like undertaker. Additionally, if we have an Innervate in our opening hand, mulliganing for a Chillwind Yeti is a strong play.
- wrath
- swipe
- innervate
- keeper-of-the-grove
- chillwind-yeti
Tech Choices
Depending on the kind of decks you find on the ladder, here are a few tech cards that help in certain matchups.Switching the sludge-belcher for spectral-knight yields the more classic Combo Druid decklist, increasing our win rates in matches such as Control Warrior and Miracle Rogue.
Swapping ancient-of-war for piloted-shredder gives us a better matchup versus many of the slower control decks. By applying more pressure early in the game, we can make sure to get our opponent into our 14 damage combo range by turn 9.
Changing out a big-game-hunter for a card like senjin-shieldmasta gives this deck an advantage versus aggressive decks.
Adding a cenarius in the place of ragnaros-the-firelord would be interesting if you find your games dragging on past turn 9.
