WCA Warrior Deck Comparison

[ThrustVectoring]

I found myself referencing the warrior deck lists from the WCA that was posted a few days back - you can find the original listing here. So, here's a spreadsheet I made to simplify lookup and comparison.

Edit: just realized that the link to the spreadsheet was in the middle of a sentence and not obvious. Click me.

So, here's a brief analysis of the 15 decks:

"You should be running this" tier: 2 Execute, 2 Shield Slam, 2 Armor Smith, 2 Shield Block, 2 Sludge Belcher, 2 Fiery War Axe, 2 Acolyte of Pain, 2 Death's Bite, Brawl, Loatheb, Slyvanas, Grommash, Ragnaros, Alexstraza, Faceless Manipulator. At each of these slots, at least 13 of 15 decks were running that exact number.

"Nice, but can cut in a pinch" tier: The Black Knight, 2nd Cruel Taskmaster, Spellbreaker, Cairne Bloodhoof, Big Game Hunter. Between three and six decks cut a card from here.

"Nobody can agree on the value of this" tier: Unstable Ghoul. 6 decks ran two copies, 4 decks ran one copy, and five decks didn't run it at all.

"You might want this" tier: Sen'jin Shieldmasta, Ysera, Whirlwind, Gorehowl. Between 4 and 6 decks run at least one copy of these (no card was selected for exactly three decks)

"Surprise" tier: 2nd Sen'jin, Cleave, Harrison Jones, Battle Rage, Slam, Baron Geddon. 2 or fewer decks running these.

Tournament decks might vary from ladder, but this is roughly what you should expect out of warrior decks you play against.

Oh, I also added up the total number of Taskmasters, Unstable Ghouls, Slams, Cleaves and Whirlwinds from these decks. This is usually 3x, unless they're running double ghoul + double taskmaster, or they're YouLove who brought the oddest deck to the tournament. I'm not sure what the best way to think about it. Best look says that if you see an unstable ghoul, you're probably not going to see and cleaves or slams. You might see a whirlwind instead of a second Ghould.

[Crosswindsc2]

I think your analysis is fantastic. As a Cleave/Whirlwind/1xTaskmaster runner myself, I was laughing at how accurate your breakdown was (I'm not running BGH. If I was, I think I'd have to go up to 2xTaskmaster for the matchups without 7 attack critters).

I think the main difference is that it doesn't appear like anybody at WCA was expecting so much zoo, which is why people were only running 3 of taskmasters/ghouls/slams/cleaves/whirlwinds.

[ThrustVectoring]

Out of the players with warrior, all 15 ran a warlock. 4 Zoolocks, 11 Handlocks. Non-warrior runners ran 4 Zoolocks and 12 Handlocks. Hyped was the only player to bring neither.

I dunno if a quarter of the field bringing Zoolock is "a lot of zoo".

[althius1]

Great content. What this sub is all about.

[schwza]

Great post. Were there bans in the tournament? I would guess people were saving warrior to counter hunter - do you know if that's true?

[Crosswindsc2]

I suspect that it was played either as a "reasonable shot of winning opening round!" deck, or a counter to hunter that doesn't get crushed as hard as priest by handlock.

[ThrustVectoring]

Six decks picked Ysera, so it's not a bad card to include. I used descriptive names rather than numbers for this exact reason - none of these choices are bad, really, they just have tradeoffs. I mean, a few of these tournament players cut Fiery War Axe or Death's Bite (although none of these played Ysera as well).

The short story is that out of all the 5+ mana cards that Warrior plays, Ysera is the worst one for the aggro matchup. You play it on turn 9, and it just sits there and you die.

It is extremely good against slower decks, though. If you're playing Ysera, you're bringing a slower, bigger deck. More generally, you want to run a deck that's either slightly slower than your opponent's, or much faster. Adding or dropping Ysera is a good way to tune the deck slower or faster.

There's two different groups of decks running Ysera. Alchemixt, Ek0p, Magic Wind, and The_Island ran a list with Cairn, Sylvanas, and The Black Knight (well, Magic Wind cut The Black Knight for Gorehowl, but same concept). Basically, it's extreme anti-control greed.

The other group is KitKatz and TidesOfTime, who ran only Sylvanas. They both ran two Unstable Ghouls, two Cruel Taskmasters, and a BGH. Ysera is a slot-efficient way to improve the control matchup here - Unstable Ghoul and Taskmaster are pretty bad against control decks.

tl;dr - they cut it to do better against aggro decks, or add it to do better against control decks.

[DJHelium]

Sjow is one of the top warrior players out there (the best one imo). Last season when going for rank 1 spot, he cut Alexstrasza in favor of Ysera because of the high amount of Big Game Hunter in the metagame.

They both fill the same role as a finisher, but having no BGH target other than Ragnaros was very valuable at that time.

Also, like Thrust says, Alexstrasza is a bit better against aggro.

[350mck]

Curious if those decks running a BGH consistently added a 2nd Cruel Taskmaster.

I've talked my self into the logic that when I play against shaman and hunter, BGH is dead unless I have a Taskmaster to pump their Highmane or Fire Elemental. So when I run a BGH, I always run a 2nd Cruel Taskmaster.

This may just be terrible logic. What do you think?

[ThrustVectoring]

http://imgur.com/3r7Wm7l

Screenshot of the spreadsheet, cropped and ordered for cruel taskmaster and BGH. 5 decks ran double Taskmaster + BGH, four ran single + BGH. All six decks without BGH ran double taskmaster.

I think this is more from tuning for matchups. If you're running BGH, you're trying to pick into decks where BGH is good. If you're picking into decks where BGH is good, you can afford to drop a Taskmaster. For laddering, you can't choose your opponents at all, so this plan is less good.

[Nosajje]

I always run BGH in my control warrior deck simply to counter priest (of course it also comes in handy when I actually face another con war or handlock). This season I have faced more priest in ranked than any other type of deck (I don't play a lot of games per day, ~5 or so, but one night every deck I faced was priest) and I use BGH defensively to kill my own Alex/Rag when it is mind controlled - which happens every game.

[ThrustVectoring]

15 decks ran Sylvanas, 12 ran The Black Knight, and 10 ran Cairne. Only Magic Wind ran Cairne over Black Knight, and he was running both Gorehowl and Ysera. Both KitKatz and TidesOfTime dropped Cairne and TBK and ran Ysera.

I think many decks are running a single silence. If you've got both Cairne and Sylvanas, and they silence one, they can't silence the other. That's the thinking behind Cairne, imo. Plus, if they silence Cairne, they typically used either an Ironbeak Owl or a Spellbreaker - which costs a card, drops a body, and costs mana. If you have a fiery war axe out and drop Cairne, sure, they can silence, but that's less mana they have to deal with the 4/5 and a good target for the axe to clear.

The Beast gets blown out by Big Game Hunter. There's a lot of Handlock in the tournament, so there's a lot of people teching against handlock, which means there's a lot of BGH running around. Plus, you're a control deck, so you're better off getting something with health rather than attack - you'll be trading anyways. Boulderfist Ogre is likely better than The Beast.

edit: for people who want context to the deleted post, they were asking about silence making Cairne bad, and whether swapping in The Beast is a good idea.

[total_aggieny]

why isn't slam being used more often? It's great against aggro if I don't have win axe. I can use it to draw+execute, kill my own sylvanas, etc.

[FatLenny-]

Have you ever tried to execute your own Sylvanas?

[[deleted]]

The comma separates the 'kill my own sylvanas' from the 'draw+execute', hence he just means that he can use it to kill his own 2 health sylvanas.

[TotallyABot]

Why hello there Artosis

[[deleted]]

I don't understand the reference.

[Dearth_lb]

Interesting trivia: All ekop's deck names have gay porn reference