Let's Brew! A New Deck Building Series on HSP

List of Episodes

Introduction

Drink with me, friend! It’s Newton, back here today to introduce the exciting new HSP-original ‘Let’s Brew!’ series. I got the idea from one of my favorite gaming writers, Carsten Kotter. Here is the link to all of his previous work/articles. The basic premise of each article in the series is to help navigate the audience through the motivation and thought process of developing a deck. This is vastly different than most available Hearthstone articles and threads on the internet as it places less emphasis on individual card selections. Therefore, the point of the series is to act more as an instructional aid as opposed to just another available Top Legend deck list.

With this article being the first installment of the series, I figured I should feature a deck that has gone through the entire construction/testing process [multiple times] and that I was intimately familiar with. Thus, I’ll be going over the development process of my original June Top 40 NA Divine Wisdom deck. After setting precedence with this article, each subsequent episode will then feature a new deck voted by you in the Possible Suggestions Voting section below. Moreover, this series will be a HSP collaborative effort, meaning you’ll have the opportunity to read from your favorite writers with each iteration. With all this established, Let’s Brew!

Motivation

Though only indirectly related to the actual construction of the deck, I believe motivation is extremely important. The more invested a deck-builder becomes with his/her deck, the higher likelihood of success. My primary motivation for creating the Divine Wisdom deck may resonate greatly with many of you: to create a fun and viable inexpensive deck to play. As a free-to-play (F2P) player, I did not own a vast majority of the Hearthstone cardpool at the time I started working on the deck. However, I did open both copies of Divine Favor and Blessing of Wisdom from packs.

My experience with Magic: the Gathering had taught me the worth of having good card draw and filtering in a deck. As a result, I felt Divine Favor and especially Blessing of Wisdom had a lot of untapped potential as the backbone of a deck. At the time (summer 2014), Divine Favor had already been established in Shockadin but Blessing of Wisdom saw little to no play. Under the right circumstances however, I felt Blessing of Wisdom could do a great one mana Mana Tide Totem impersonation without being as susceptible to removal and enemy minions.

Thought Process

Core Cards

Core cards provide the foundation for which the original deck concept is built upon. Some excellent examples of these type of cards are Mechwarper, Flamewaker, Violet Teacher, Molten Giant, and Grim Patron. Mechwarper is the primary enabler for Mech-based decks, allowing them to snowball quickly due to its mana reduction ability. Flamewaker, in conjunction with Spare Parts and other Mage spells, is responsible for the revitalization of the Tempo Mage archetype. Violet Teacher, playing nicely with Power of the Wild, is the architect behind Token Druid. Molten Giant can often be played for well below its normal casting cost due to Warlock’s hero ability to draw cards, subsequently dealing damage to itself in the process. Finally, Grim Patron is responsible for arguably the top deck in Hearthstone: Patron Warrior.

When building around Divine Favor and Blessing of Wisdom, we’re forced to maintain a low mana curve while having durable minions that were difficult to kill. Argent Squire is the quintessential model minion that the decks wants due to its divine shield. In addition, cards that protect other minions by making it difficult for opponents to reach specific minions are also desirable. In the deck’s original inception, Argent Protector and Noble Sacrifice were excellent examples of these types of cards. Argent Protector is still in the deck today while Noble Sacrifice has since been replaced by Annoy-o-Tron.

Examples from Divine Wisdom: Argent Squire, Argent Protector, Annoy-o-Tron, Shielded Minibot

Support Cards

These cards usually support the core strategy in an obvious way without requiring too much set-up. Some good examples of achieving this include adding additional Mechs in Mech-focused tribal decks or incorporating additional traps to a Hunter deck to support Eaglehorn Bow. This can even extend to adding additional sweepers (i.e. Explosive Sheep) or life gain (i.e. Ice Barrier) for combo-based decks that require more time to set-up their win condition. Moreover, typical “Core Cards” may act as supplemental/support cards as well if they are part of a sub-theme in the deck (see Mechwarper below).

With regards to Divine Wisdom, the deck needed additional low-cost minions with upside that fit into what the deck wanted to do. These cards included the Mech package of Cogmaster, Clockwork Gnome, and Mechwarper that paired up great with the already existing Mechs of Annoy-o-Tron and Shielded Minibot. Additionally, Knife Juggler is great in any deck with a low mana curve as you’ll be able to generate a higher damage throughput ratio.

Examples from Divine Wisdom: Cogmaster, Clockwork Gnome, Knife Juggler, Mechwarper, Muster for Battle

Consistency

Consistency is usually solved in the form of card draw. In particular, would a deck fall apart if certain cards aren’t drawn. Moreover, are there redundant pieces in a combo deck (i.e. Blizzard and Flamestrike) or multiple win conditions (i.e. Grim Patron, Frothing Berserker, and Grommash Hellscream)? These questions must be answered.

With regards to Divine Wisdom, the consistency enablers also happen to be the cards the deck is built around: Blessing of Wisdom and Divine Favor. Blessing of Wisdom allows you to draw into Divine Favor and vice versa. Moreover, both cards have the additional benefit of not interfering with each other as long as you’re sequencing your plays correctly. More specifically, you can play your Blessing of Wisdom on a minion, draw with Divine Favor, and then attack with the Blessing of Wisdom minion all on the same turn. Furthermore, the deck adds redundancy by incorporating multiple minions with divine shield (see Core Cards section above).

Examples from Divine Wisdom: Blessing of Wisdom, Divine Favor

“Good Stuff”

The ‘good stuff’ card section is flexible in its definition. Good stuff cards typically consist of cards that are not instrumental to the primary plan of the deck but are too good of an option to pass up. They may range from weapons (i.e. Fiery War Axe) to sweepers (Swipe) and even value minions (Fire Elemental). These type of cards are typically featured in most mid-range builds for the various hero classes.

With regards to Divine Wisdom, Equality allows the deck to effectively deal with larger minions while Consecration helps improve the aggro mirror-match. Even better, Equality in conjunction with Consecration form a devastating one-sided board clear effect. In addition, both Truesilver Champion and Quartermaster give the deck the additional value and reach it sorely lacks. Finally, though probably already obvious to many of you, Quartermaster combos nicely with Muster for Battle as well.

Examples from Divine Wisdom: Equality, Truesilver Champion, Consecration, Quartermaster

Possible Suggestions Voting

Structure

Each of the following suggestions will have a brief deck description (provided by the proposed author). You may notice that Option 4 (Anti-Aggro Malygos Lock) is already an existing meta-game deck. Each episode will offer one additional meta-game deck as an option in case you’re more interested in learning about the development process of an established deck. Here are the contending options!

Option 1: Shaman – The Death & Resurrection Show; Stonekeep

Deathrattle Shaman deck with couple of innovations like using Injured Blademaster and Ancestral Healing combo. The aim is to stall the game early and win with big Deathrattle combos in late game.

Option 2: Priest – Face Is The Place; Stonekeep

Zoo-like’y Aggro Priest deck with a lot of card cycling and buffs. The aim is to deal as much damage as you can in the first few turns and then finish enemy off with Mind Blasts, Holy Smites and Shadowbombers.

Option 3: Warlock – FaceLock; Modded

An aggressive Warlock variant designed to cheat out minions big and small to beat your opponent’s face in with them. The deck contains plenty of burst for when you lose control of the board.

Option 4: Warlock – Anti-Aggro Malygos Lock; Hoarth

Molten Giant and Lord Jaraxxus are good cards! Let’s play with them.

Voting

Below is a quick recap of all of the available choices. Please vote here.

Shaman – The Death & Resurrection Show; Stonekeep
Priest – Face Is The Place; Stonekeep
Warlock – FaceLock; Modded
Warlock – Anti-Aggro Malygos Lock; Hoarth
Free to suggest your own idea here!
This is a waste of time, please discontinue the series!

Closing

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick introduction to the Let’s Brew series. Keep in mind that future episodes will go further into depth as all of those decks are currently unfinished products and will require extensive testing from our writers. With all of that said, the proposed decks will still be mandated to reach at least rank 5 (ideally Legend like this article) in order to maintain legitimacy. Once again, feel free to leave suggestions on how we can improve things here at HSP. If you’ve enjoyed my writing, make sure to up-vote this article and maybe even reference it to your family and friends! 🙂