Hearthstone at its core is a game that people should have fun with, but that can get bogged down in the pursuit of competitive meta strategies. Thus, I humbly present Memes and Dreams, a series on Out of Cards looking to bring some good ol' memey fun into people's Hearthstone experiences. Each week we will do a deep dive on a different 'for fun' deck, discussing the basic ideas of the deck, what makes it tick, and roughly how to pilot it. This week we give Warlock's Quest one last 'Hurrah!'
RIP Rafaam
I started this series covering my favorite meme deck of all time, Supreme Archaeology Rafaam-lock, and that deck remains my pride and joy to this day. However, Darkmoon Races introduced Envoy Rustwix, which in addition to letting you keep your deck, gives premium Prime legendaries, which are far and away stronger than a jumble of random legendaries. Rustwix leaves Arch-Villain Rafaam in the dust, outclassed and out-jerked. Some of you may be familiar with this deck as Brian Kibler has played it semi-frequently in the past couple of months. However, with the rotation right around the corner, Rustwix's Prime shenanigans will be made much less ridiculous since Supreme Archaeology will no longer be around to cheat out value with 0-mana cards like Msshi'fn Prime and Kargath Prime. This is our last chance to see value of such a severe degree, and I implore all those who have the required cards to try this ambitious and wonderful deck.
The Meme - A typical Control Quest-lock plan, get the quest online ASAP and just keep clearing the enemy board.
The Dream - Set up the trifecta of Envoy Rustwix, Kanrethad Ebonlocke, and Vectus to create an infinite supply of Prime legendaries and drown your opponent in absurd levels of stabilization, board presence, and value.
Key Cards
Supreme Archaeology is the backbone of a greedy Warlock deck once again. 0-cost Prime minions are extraordinarily powerful and what makes this deck so fun to play. Technically the main components for infinite Envoys will stay in the rotation, but standard Warlock Quest package
Envoy Rustwix is the Dream this deck is built around. By himself, he's a decent value card for Control decks, but when built around, he becomes an engine of infinite value. His antics will stick around for another year or so, but this is the Prime time to make use of his Prime gaming.
Kanrethad Ebonlocke is important because he helps nearly guarantee the Rustwix can go infinite by resurrecting him. It makes the deck a little difficult to build around since we are dissuaded from running or playing any other demons.
Honorable Mentions
There is little to say about Plot Twist that hasn't already been said. It enables Supreme Archaeology as its only real function. However, it also can't be understated how nice the healing value Plot Twist combined with Aranasi Broodmother provides. We don't run any Soul Fragment cards, so our primary source of healing comes from cycling and drawing Broodmothers. You almost never want to actually play the Broodmothers though, their death interferes with Kanrethad Prime's resurrection effect and you never know when you might need some burst healing in the late game with a second Plot Twist.
Vectus, in a similar vein to Kanrethad, helps a lot with making the train of Primes infinite. Kanrethad and Envoy are the only deathrattles we run (Khartut Defender is technically in the deck, but he is played in case of emergency), allowing Vectus to duplicate their effects and cement your position in the late-game.
Budget / Alternate Options
There are a fair number of required legendaries to make this deck what it is, but there are some that could be trimmed if you're on a budget. Sky Gen'ral Kragg is by no means necessary to the game plan and acts as a strong stabilization tool, offering Taunt and an immediate 4-damage to a minion. However, Bone Wraith makes an adequate replacement in the 4-mana position since it also does an excellent job at stemming aggro and stabilizing. The next legendary to go would be Vectus. Losing Vectus does open room for defensive Deathrattles, such as an extra Khartut Defender. Kanrethad Ebonlocke helps create the infinite loop but isn't always needed for it (you'll have to rely on Rustwix getting lucky). Licensed Adventurer is an alright card to include and can help round out curves or get an AoE into effect when you need it. Supreme Archaeology andEnvoy Rustwix can't really be taken out without making an entirely new deck, but that's covered later in the section.
Most of the Epics in this deck are board clears, which is unfortunate because that makes them hard to replace. School Spirits can act in place of Dark Skies and an early-game tool, but unfortunately loses its single-target flexibility. Twisting Nether is a bit harder to replace since hard AoE removal is difficult to come by. Cascading Disaster technically also provides hard AoE removal, but it's still Epic and thus not budget. Ogremancer isn't AoE removal, but is still a powerful tech card that can shut down spell-based strategies such as Rogue or Mage. Felosophy is a card that I hesitated to put in the deck at all since it feels overkill at times. It could honestly be replaced with any card that you feel works in the deck.
This deck uses some unorthodox methods for clearing the board, such as Plague of Flames without much token generation. If you want, you can swap in a more typical Soul Fragment oriented strategy with Soul Shear, School Spirits, Luckysoul Hoarder, and Soulciologist Malicia. Just remember to not include Spirit Jailer since that messes with Kanrethad Prime. You could also go harder on some Year of the Dragon goodness before rotation and include Warlock's surprisingly powerful Dragon package with Crazed Netherwing and Nether Breath. One or two more strong dragons such as Alexstrasza or Runaway Blackwing help round out the synergy.
Matchups
VS Aggro
A large portion of the deck is dedicated to dealing with Aggro. Mulligan for Armor Vendor and Dark Skies since those cards are the best way to stabilize against aggression and board damage. Although the deck offers a plethora of board clears, it also important to make sure that you use them wisely. IF you can, anticipate an opponent's board development before playing something like Hellfire to try and optimize how much you clear. Creative use of Hysteria can also go a long way in clearing as much of the board as possible. Don't obsess over Hysteria clearing absolutely everything on the enemy's board, just make sure you give yourself the greatest chance to remove the largest threats. Unfortunately against something like Burn Mage or Weapon Rogue, the tools at hand are a bit limited. You'll have to rely on Plot Twist + Aranasi Broodmother sustain.
VS Control
This matchup is typically a walk in the park, albeit a very long walk. In most cases, you can play Envoy Rustwix and Kanrethad Ebonlocke as soon as you can and start the value engine pumping. However, playing around enemy removal will be integral in a handful of matchups. Mage and Priest have ways to deny or steal your Rustwix value, so make use of Plague of Flames to kill them the turn you play them so your opponent can't muck anything up. The most patient and stressful matchup by far is against Tickatus Warlock though. Dig through your deck for Rustwix and hold onto him to the best of your ability until both of the enemy Tickatus are played. If you also manage to secure Kanrethad and/or Vectus, you should be in the clear. Once you remove the opponent's large threats in the form of Tickatus and Y'Shaarj, the Defiler, you'll start making your deck exclusively out of Prime legendaries and should be able to outvalue the enemy from there.
VS Combo
Once again my meme-y Control deck is brought before Combo only to die ;-; This deck has no large threats until you start generating Primes, so get on that ASAP. Play Rustwix as soon as you can and hope that the Primes you get will be able to push enough pressure onto the opponent before they can assemble their combo. Unfortunately, some Combo decks will be able to draw through their entire decks before you can even complete the Quest and will simply destroy you before you can say "Archaeology". It is the sad truth of many Meme decks to perish at the hands of Combo, but that's why I also cover meme-y Aggro decks.
Conclusion
This deck is a whole lotta fun and does a nice job of highlighting some of the cooler aspects Warlock got to use in Year of the Dragon. Aranasi Broodmother's on-draw effect is something I will dearly miss and hope to see more of in the future. Meanwhile Supreme Archaeology gifted me some of the most fun I've had in Hearthstone ever and might be enough to get me to try Wild (although that format still gives me the heebie-jeebies, especially with all the nerf reverts). It pains me to see Arch-Villain Rafaam overshadowed once again, and by an almost explicitly stronger meme no less! That said, I highly recommend trying out this deck while there's still time to make use of 0-mana Prime cards.
What is your meme deck of choice? Do you try different ones for each expansion or do you try to evolve old ones with new cards? Do you have any meme dream stories? Tell us in the comments below!
Comments
It's so interesting to me that Supreme Archaeology is the class quest card from Saviors of Uldum which has had the greatest long-term staying power (and has recently been well above "meme" grade - seeing competitive ladder/tournament play over the past year or so, off an on). Several of the quests from that expansion saw play early after their release, particularly Priest, Shaman, and Druid (even Paladin's reborn quest!). Some have seen very little serious play (looking at you Mage, Warrior). I remember Warlock's quest was dismissed as trash tier for a long time upon release, but gradually saw more and more play as people found ways to exploit its late game value bombs. Now it's the only one other than Priest that I see any time now.
I was never lucky enough to unpack it and I don't have any plans to craft it (because I am stupid stingy with dust), but it always looked like a super fun archetype to me in its different permutations. I think it's a great example of how a "trash" card can eventually become meta viable, and in this case - the sole survivor of the legendary quest cards from 2019.
I've been playing this exact deck a lot recently, and I can tell you all that it is fun as hell, and very competitive. As with any value-oriented control deck, aggro will sometimes rush you down, but the amount of healing available through Armor Vendor and Aranasi Broodmother is significant. Tickatus can be a pain if he burns your Envoy Rustwix or Kanrethad Ebonlocke, but otherwise you should be able to generate enough Primes to make up for other lost cards. Other control decks can all be handled with a bit of luck and smart enough plays.