Conquest Line-up Choice

[Paracel 165]

Hi everyone,

I have a 400 word essay due tomorrow an important Conquest tournament coming up next Saturday, a qualifier for university Hearthstone team. The format is bo3 with bans, bo5 in the finals, although I'm not yet clear on it and will clarify further. 

I'd like some community help, if you don't mind, as I have very little Conquest experience behind my back. 

Here is a list of my possible options. I have to lock classes before Friday.

My Comfort Decks :

Spoiler

 

1) Zoo Warlock. I feel like it's a good deck, but suffers hard from Shaman presence. It definetly has Conquest applications and I'm quite proficient with it.

2) Dragon Warrior. Fell out of favor, but once again, I know my way around it and it can punish some matchups. 

3) Midrange Shaman. Best deck in the meta, 'nuff said. 

4) Freeze Mage. The underdog that can shine with Warrior ban. All the games I've played with it his season I felt like I was 60-70% favored, excluding Warrior whom I can ban. It didn't stop me from getting into 30% loss territory occasionally, though.

5)Hunter, various flavors. Didn't give it the attention it deserves, but I can play these. I have experience with midrange Secret, but I probably can handle hyper-aggresive or greedy versions, too.

 

Decks That I Own But Not Sure About 

Spoiler

 

1) Druid. Whether Malygos or Token, I keep playing them and I keep losing with them, like I can't grasp the whole thing together. And Druid used to be my most played class! I favor Token personally but admit with shame that Onyxia-powered versions are beyond my wallet, so it's probably Malygos, or Malygos Token. I think I can pilot Druid up to 75% of its capabilities. And deck is so good that could be enough.

2)Control Warrior. Same story. I've picked it up just recently and I'm not exactly sure if I can play it perfectly. Ladder performance with it has been ups and downs, and Conquest is a whole different thing. I'm also afraid that Control Warrior is vulnerable to targeted line-ups. I own Fatigue Edition, I can scrap up the C'Thun versions if I dust really hard, and N'Zoth is out of equation 

3)Pirate Warrior. My opinion is that Pirates are cool but inconsistent. Also I have never played the actual deck, but it's not like I can't attack with everything wrong.

4)Reno Warlock. Much like Pirates, inconsistent, and pretty much only good against Warrior. I only have non-N'Zoth, combo version, and while I'm fine playing it, I don't feel like it would be a good choice right now. But maybe a perfect line-up with this deck can be found.

5)Tempo Mage. Technically I'm 2 cards away from Tempo Mage. I think that the deck is really good, and I favor burn versions rather then value builds. But this is the kind of deck that requires proficiency. Because landing RNG shots is hard.

 

I won't talk about Rogue and Paladin. As good as these classes are, I have zero relevant Paladin cards, and I'm one VanCleef and 1000 games away from being OK with Malygos or Miracle Rogue. 

How do you approach your Conquest line-ups? What advice do you have for me? I'd like to hear opinions on the matter.

Thanks in advance! I hope that together, we can succeed in the Ultimate Quest To Stop Being A Total Scrub!

For the 3rd person viewers, I'll be back with updates and thoughts later today. I actually have an essay to write.

[positiv2 953]

I will actually be attending a small tournament later today in which I'll be using N'zoth control warrior, midrange hunter, midrange shaman, ramp/taunt druid, c'thun mage and secret paladin.

Now, I don't know how familiar you are with tournaments, so I might just be repeating what you already know.

General line-up notes
Try to find out what your opponents will be playing before the tournament. If most of your opponents usually play aggro decks, pick counters to aggro decks, such as control warrior. 
The best decks on ladder aren't necessarily the best decks in tournaments. You see more diverse meta (as you can't face Midrange Shaman 5 times in a row) and often need to pick decks that are generally good or suck only because of current meta. That's why murloc paladin is an alright choice. This also means you can take a surprise deck, such as Majordomo Executus mage (or the aforementioned C'Thun mage) or murloc warlock, though it is risky if you aren't familiar enough with the decks.
Specific line-up notes
Zoo, Mid Shaman, Freeze mage and Hunter are solid picks. I am not entirely sure about dragon warrior, but that's because I haven't seen him in a tournament since the Execute nerf. One of its best powers is that it is good against midrange shaman, which you won't see that often, especially if you will be able to ban a deck/class. That is also why fatigue warrior is fine here - you can ban the bad matchups. It's important to know the deck and be able to play it well before you take it to a tournament, so if you don't feel like playing it, you should keep the dragon warrior in the lineup. The same goes for your other decks you're not sure about.

Tournament-related notes
If the decks repeat (you take 5 decks and play them in Ro32, Ro16, Ro8 and so on), make notes about the decks the winners use. Remember to take a pen and paper in order to do so, it happened to me a multiple times I forgot to do so.
Don't BM. This might be a common sense, but I won 2 or 3 games thanks to my opponent's BM.

I saw you play and since I don't think the competition will be super tough as you will play against "random" people at your uni, I am pretty sure you will get qualified, so don't worry about it too much.

[Valks 2,375]

On 10/19/2016 at 2:53 PM, positiv2 said:

The best decks on ladder aren't necessarily the best decks in tournaments.

Prime example of this.