How viable is budget Ramp Druid now?

[Mursilis 34]

So this current month I've been trying ranked play with a low budget Ramp Druid loosely based off this guide: https://www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone/low-budget-ramp-druid-naxx-deck

 

I say loosely as I really don't have any cards outside of Classic beyond a handful of standard ones I crafted, so no Naxx cards.  I realize that may affect the rankings I can obtain, but I'm not getting very far at all.  Rank 15 has been the best I've been able to achieve to date, and I didn't last at that rank for long.  I either get rushed early by a Face player, or just overpowered by a dragon based deck, some Grim Patron Warriors or even a few Warlocks running Dreadsteed decks.

 

I'm honestly not quite sure what to change either in the deck or my strategy to better cope with these types of decks, especially the dragon based ones that seem to be the flavor of the month.

 

Innervate x2
Wild Growth x2
Wrath x2
Acidic Swamp Ooze x2
Faerie Dragon x2
Big Game Hunter
Questing Adventurer
Spider Tank
Swipe x2
Chilwind Yeti
Keeper of the Grove x2
Piloted Shredder x2
Starfall
Azure Drake x2
Druid of the Claw x2
Ancient of Lore x2
Ancient of War x2
Ironbark Protector

 

Some notes:

Swamp Ooze is in place for all the weapons I seem to encounter, and as a decent 2-mana minion so I have something to play in the early game.  Same goes for Faerie Dragon. 

I had two Questing Adventurers until very recently when I switched one for a Spider Tank.  I have gotten the QA up to decent size before and it's been helpful, just slow to progress.  ST may help with the 2-for-1 trades better.

Starfall is for clearing the ineviatable legendary minions I run into from almost every opponent, and also doubles as an AoE spell for rush decks.

 

I guess the main issue I see is that I don't have much synergy built into this deck, while most other decks have a general theme where each card boosts another for greater power per card played.  Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[positiv2 953]

Naxx and BrM are very valuable to druid. Emperor Thaurissan fits in the deck style of accelerating mana by lowering the mana cost of your cards. By turn 6 you should have quite a lot of cards in your hands and lowering the cost of them is very useful. Druid of the Flame is an anti-aggro card that can clear two 3/2s or three 2/1s. If you are facing control, you make it a 5/2 to trade with a midrange minion. Sludge Belcher is almost a must-have card for many classes and especially for druid. It stops a lot of aggro when left unsilenced and even if it gets silenced, you still have a 3/5 on the board. Zombie Chow is a great card both against aggro and control. Since you probably won't go face in the early game, the deathrattle usually does nothing. Shade is very strong against control decks and is also strong in combo druid. However, if you have problems against aggro, I recommend using Druid of the Flame instead. Kel'Thuzad is extremely strong in ramp druid as you have multiple taunts and your opponent usually wasted their silence already. You don't have many removal spells so you have to trade, making KT even better. 

tl;dr save for Naxx and BrM

 

I feel Ramp Druid is favoured against aggro. Druid is able to play taunts early and stabilize sooner than other classes. 

 

Having four 2-drops is too much in my opinion. I suggest removing the Faerie Dragons and use one Robo Cub and one Druid of the Claw or one Harvest Golem.

I don't really see a reason to include QA as he grows too slowly. Druid usually plays one big minion each turn. To make it better than Spider Tank, you would have to play 2 cards and that means wait 2 turns. If you get a bad hand, QA makes it even worse. Include a Spider Tank or a MCT in its place.

I don't personally like Starfall. If you drop it on turn 5, your opponent will still have cards in his hand to recover. However, if you find it very useful, keep it. Otherwise I recommend using Druid of the Claw. 

Ironbark Protector is the only card that gets hit by BGH. If you don't see BGHs often, it is an OK addition. If you run into BGHs, playing a smaller taunt such as Sunwalker is usually better.

 

Not having BrM and Naxx is quite significant, but you still should be able to do better than rank 15. I don't think this deck can reach rank 5, but you still should be able to get to rank 12. 

 

Try building towards the newer Ramp Druid deck instead of the old one you are building now.

Edited September 19, 2015 by positiv2

[Mursilis 34]

I was somewhat afraid you were going to say that the adventures are pretty important to get high rank.  But as you say, I should be able to get higher than 15 with what I have.  I do see a lot of people using Kel'Thuzad and Emperor Thaurissan, so guess I'll do some dust collecting for the foreseable future.

I was leaning towards replacing the Questing Adventurer with another Spider Tank as well.  When I get one I'll do just that.  I do also see your point about having 4 2-drop minions.  On the flip side I have run into multiple situations where I have nothing to play for the first 3 turns and that hurts quite a bit.

Still, that's just a few card changes overall.  Perhaps some of the issue is my playstyle as well.  I'll look into saving one or two of my games to see if I'm going about it all wrong.

Thanks for the input.

[Mursilis 34]

So I've got a pair of examples of battles where I'm just completely overwhelmed.  Mind you these are happening at rank 17.  I know I still have some work to do regarding when to trade minions and when to go face, but I don't think any choices there would have changed the matches all that much.  Any input would be helpful.

[SeekNDestroy 0]

Noticed something in Game 2.

 

@ 1:56 why did you play the taunt? You could of played the charge and cleared the board. Then once he played the 5/5 you wouldn't of had to waste a swipe. Now you wasted one of your best AOE cards in the early game.

 

I can maybe see why you did that against a mage. But in this situation i think my play would of been better.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[positiv2 953]

General tips: Once you lose board control as a druid, it is hard to regain it. Druid can't really play from behind as you don't have many good spells and The Combo costs too much (and you also do not have The Combo in your deck). This is the main disadvantage of druid. This means it suffers against other control decks with faster starts. Another case is priest. He favoured against Ramp Druid as he can take control of one of the minions using Shrinkmeister+Cabal or destroy your 2 small minions using Madness (which is quite rare when playing druid since you dont have that many small minions in your deck.). 

 

You had to give up on dropping a minion by Sylvanas while you did not draw into your Ancients of Lore or Keepers of the Grove resulting in him having greater board and the ability to maintain it because you had no minions on the board and, as I said previously, this gives druid a really hard time. It was at this point when you lost the game. He was able to drop his combo in form of Paletress and Mukla's Champion while you did not have any board. I would play the situation differently, but I am not sure what was the best play. 

 

I don't really see a reason to play Blood Knight in your Ramp Druid. You probably should have killed the bombs from Boom to play around Bloodlust. Although he did not play Bloodlust, it probably still was a better play in my opinion. At the very least, you should have used you hero power as 1 hero's HP doesn't matter as much as 1 minion's HP. He was also quite lucky by drawing Mistcaller in first ten cards. He gained a huge amount of value by this and you could/should have change your playstyle to a bit more aggressive one. However, lacking the combo, it was nearly impossible to deal enough damage. I would have played few things differently, but I am not entirely sure of the best plays. 

[Mursilis 34]

Thanks for taking a look.  Sounds like I'm not doing anything ridiculously stupid, more the legendary minions are making things very difficult.  That and I need to continue to work on when to attack which unit/face and when.

 

Just a note, Blood Knight is in the deck as a placeholder until I get another Spider Tank.  Fun to play against Paladins, but otherwise just a standard 3-mana drop minion.