What We're Playing on Descent of Dragons Day 1

Welcome to Descent of Dragons! New expansions are my favorite time to play because all sorts of decks can work. This expansion has the potential to be one of the most powerful expansions we've ever seen in Hearthstone based on community and streamer feedback.

I do quite a bit of theorycrafting after each final reveal stream and spend lots of time tinkering prior to actually getting to play. I love theorycrafting without outside influences, so I didn't watch early streams much. I love the Out of Cards deckbuilder (shameless plug) since you can put as many cards as you want in and then remove cards as needed. For me, the trickiest and most fun part of a new expansion is figuring out where new cards belong and how to use them in cohesive decks with cool win conditions. For others, they try to create the best meme possible. My favorite decks do both!

We wanted to share the decks we are most excited to play as a content team at Out of Cards. Here's what we came up with and will be playing Day 1! Let us know what you are excited to play in the comments below!

NudeWookie's Day 1 Decks

Pirate Warrior in 2019?!? Yep, and I think it's gonna be good. Your goal is to utilized your Invoke cards over and over again to hit face with Galakrond, the Unbreakable. Combine this with some incredibly high-tempo plays using new Pirate support cards and you set yourself up for a powerful finish when you play Galakrond, the Unbreakable into Charge minions!

Did you set it to Wumbo? Unpopular opinion, but I was a big fan of Prince Keleseth Rogue. It was the first deck I ever hit Legend with. Consider this my attempt at recreating a similar style but for Druid. With Embiggen and some ramp, poof: you've got my Embiggen Dragon Druid deck! I'm excited to see how Embiggen performs, it may be niche, but it will be fun! And that's what Hearthstone is all about.

The more I spent time figuring out how this deck could work, the crazier it seemed to me that I hadn't thought of it already. It has so so many packages that work well and somehow all fit into the deck together: Rush, Dragons, Mechs, and Highlander. There are a good number of tutor cards and plenty of powerful tempo plays to be made. It may struggle a bit against heavy aggro token decks, but if it gets a lead it will steamroll the opponent. Threat after threat after threat, just the way Rexxar likes it. 

ShadowsOfSense's Day 1 Deck

Listen. Right. Hear me out.

I understand that this is like, three different decks in one. Just be glad I didn't decide I wanted it to be Highlander too, I guess.

Oh, but then I could include Dragonqueen Alexstrasza and she's a Dragon and a Battlecry...

No, I've already overloaded this deck enough.

Basically, you're trying to complete your Quest ASAP using the low-cost Battlecry cards like Sludge Slurper and EVIL Cable Rat so that you can use your new Hero Power to make large boards and buff them to high heaven.

There are exactly enough Invokers to completely Invoke Galakrond, but with the addition of the Hero Power reward you shouldn't have much trouble with it.

Demonxz95's Day 1 Deck

This deck revolves around using the following combo to win the game: Prophet Velen - Grave Rune- Wretched Reclaimer- Holy Smite. This obviously costs more than 10 mana, but fear not because Fate Weaver is here. Two copies of Fate Weaver make this combo possible. Although only two Invokes are needed for the combo to work, I have enough to full Invoke Galakrond and some extra for the sake of consistency and also because a fully leveled up Priest Galakrond is pretty good.

The combo is fairly flexible. As long as the first Fate Weaver hits at least 3 combo pieces, you can play it pretty much whenever. The second one though, will require a bit more waiting time and hit more of the pieces. Only one Grave Rune and one Wretched Reclaimer is required for the combo to work, although I run two of each anyway for added consistency. The second Grave Rune and Wretched Reclaimer can then be used on something like Khartut Defender to increase survivability and healing. In the event that you're running into an opponent with a lot of Armor, you might need both Grave Runes and both Wretched Reclaimers to win, but it's still very much possible. That said, it is possible that using in a Platebreaker can achieve the same outcome with less cards, although this is very much a tech choice.

linkblade91's Day 1 Deck

This deck is so derpy; a classic example of "trying too hard". It lacks draw, and it has barely enough Invokers to fully upgrade Galakrond, the Unbreakable. But screw it, I'm gonna make it work! I believe!

The deck tries to get around the lack of draw through sheer generation: Dead Man's Hand, Zephrys the Great, Frightened Flunky, Stonehill Defender, The Lich King, and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza can all create cards. It has survivability in the form of Reno and the healing-Taunts, and Galakrond himself (with the help of Kronx Dragonhoof) can blow up the mid- to late-game with huge Taunts.

I don't think the deck will be good for Ranked, but it should be fun nonetheless and I'm happy to try it out. Fire Plume's Heart is my favorite Quest, and Highlander is an excuse to stuff the deck with lots of fun cards that wouldn't normally fit in the same game.

FearGralex's Day 1 Decks

Dragon Soul was a card that I always enjoyed trying to abuse, although Priest didn't quite have the setup for it. Now with Chenvaala, we've got this effect in Mage, the true spam-spells class. One thing that I find great about this is that [Hearthstone Card (Chenvaal) Not Found]a's an Elemental! This gives it a lot more utility- it can be tutored with Sandbinder, made cheaper with Elemental Evocation, or help you complete the new Sidequest, Elemental Allies.

The general goal of this deck is to play kind of like a combo deck- you set up a turn where you can play a bunch of spells in one turn and get a huge payoff with something like Chenvaala, Mana Cyclone, Vex Crow, or even Archmage Antonidas. Everything else in the deck is included to set up this massive turn- we've got cheap spells like Ray of Frost and Magic Trick, and spell generators like Banana Buffoon and Cobalt Spellkin.

The cherry on top is that pretty much every card in this deck helps fuel Mana Giant, which means we've always got a plan B of just dropping some big ole' 8/8s for far too cheap. Overall, I just like how every card in this deck meshes together really well- it forms a super pleasing overall package.

Dragonrider Talritha and Frizz Kindleroost are both extremely strong cards if you manage to get a good tempo boost out of their effects- however, that can often be difficult to do since most Dragons are pretty expensive. That's why this deck keeps its Dragon curve as low down as possible, in order to make sure we get extremely strong benefits from either of our two key legendaries.

The other spicy late-game plan we've got is Da Undatakah- it can copy Dragonrider Talritha's Deathrattle several times or hit a couple other nice Deathrattles like Bronze Herald or Tasty Flyfish. The one issue I could see with this deck is that it's a bit low on card draw- our hope is that it can play low enough to the ground to close out games in the midgame.

Handlock got a couple of super spicy tools this expansion- Life Tap's never looked so good. Dark Skies is actually the marquee card of this archetype, I feel. Warlock hasn't had a consistent board clear for this cheap since Defile. Having access to Dark Skies lets this deck run all sorts of greedy stuff- Supreme Archaeology/Plot Twist combines with Fel Lord Betrug and the new Transmogrifier to set up some super big plays. We've also got the new hand-size tools to combine with the OG's, Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake. All in all, you've got a deck that definitely goes big- even if it sometimes goes home after.