hearthstone 10 New Decks to Try in Hearthstone: Rise of Shadows

[KatHS 16]

Check out the latest decks to try in Hearthstone's new expansion!

With the release of Hearthstone's latest expansion, Rise of Shadows, comes the opportunity to experiment with brand new decks. The aim of this article is to provide some complete decks from all classes for you to try out, or simply use as a foundation for your own creative deck ideas!

Druid

Druid has had nearly all of its Armor-gaining survival tools ripped away in the Year of the Dragon, but fear not, because Rise of Shadows introduces a broad range of healing effects as a replacement. Without further ado, I present to you Heal Druid:

Heal Druid is a defensive deck that makes use of healing effects to not only survive, but to activate cards like Lifeweaver and Crystal Stag.  In the late game, the deck aims to flood the board with copies of Lucentbark to create a recurring wall of Taunt minions that is very reminiscent of Taunt Druid. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Hunter

The Year of the Dragon was a tragic loss for Hunter, resulting in the loss of powerful Spell Hunter tools like To My Side! and Rhok'delar; however, it may be too soon to mourn as I offer you Malygos Hunter in its place:

Malygos Hunter takes advantage of Jepetto Joybuzz by only including a small subset of minions in the deck like Malygos and Vereesa Windrunner. Having access to very cheap Spell Damage allows Malygos Hunter to take advantage of cheap spells like Rapid Fire and Arcane Shot to burst down opponents. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Mage

Mage lost its most powerful late game card, Frost Lich Jaina, in the Year of the Dragon. This forces Mage to re-evaluate its preferred archetype without the luxury of guaranteed late-game sustain. With this in mind, I take you on a trip back in time with one of Mage's most iconic decks, Freeze Mage:  

Freeze Mage is another deck that can take advantage of Jepetto Joybuzz. With so many powerful minions like Archmage Antonidas, Malygos, and Kalecgos available, the amount of late-game burst-damage potential is huge. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Paladin

With the premature rotation of Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane, Paladin regains some of its freedom to explore other archetypes. The Rise of Shadows expansion has added multiple cards to help Paladin transition to other archetypes, so I bring you Dragon Paladin and Secret Paladin:

Dragon Paladin is a Midrange deck that can continually pump out big minions. It makes full use of the new cards Dragon Speaker and Bronze Herald to ensure that there is a continuous supply of big Dragons to play onto the board. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Secret Paladin is the return of one of Paladin's most powerful archetypes. The new tools for the deck make it much more aggressive than past versions of the deck. Its new Secret synergy provides the deck with Secret variants of 3 of the games most powerful cards, Undertaker, Fiery War Axe, and Totem Golem with Secretkeeper, Mysterious Blade, and Sunreaver Spy respectively. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Priest

Priest loses Shadowreaper Anduin in the Year of the Dragon, forcing it back to keep the burden of the Lesser Heal Hero Power. This forces Priest into a more traditional Control role, as seen in this Control Priest deck:

Control Priest relies on core Priest removal tools to keep the board clear and remove any opposing threats. The addition of Forbidden Words helps neutralize the bane of Priest's existence, 4-Attack minions, and Lazul's Scheme turns Cabal Shadow Priest into a 6-Mana Mind Control. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Rogue

Rogue arguably receives some of the most fun tools in the Rise of Shadows expansion, including EVIL Miscreant, the most efficient way to generate the new Lackey minions. In honor of this, I present to you, Lackey Rogue: 

Lackey Rogue plays very similarly to most combo-oriented Rogue decks. As part of the deck, it includes EVIL Miscreant and Spirit of the Shark to generate large numbers of Lackeys to torment opponents. In the late game, the deck uses Heistbaron Togwaggle to create fantastic treasures to defeat opponents. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Shaman

As the worst class by far at the end of the previous expansion, any new Shaman cards are a godsend. Shaman was given a range of new Murloc cards to play with, and in respect to these, I give you Murloc Shaman:

Murloc Shaman plays as you would expect a Murloc deck to, exploding onto the board with powerful tribal synergies. However, new additions greatly increase the flexibility of the archetype. Toxfin now provides the deck with removal, Soul of the Murloc adds resilience, and Underbelly Angler provides late-game value generation. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Warlock

Warlock was perhaps the class hurt the most in the Year of the Dragon, losing powerful defensive tools like Amethyst Spellstone and Voidlord. In their place, Warlock received new tools that reward drawing cards that are fully utilized in the new archetype, Shuffle Warlock:

Shuffle Warlock aims to capitalize on the large number of cards drawn by Plot Twist. It uses Fel Lord Betrug and Dollmaster Dorian to turn a few card draws into a board full of minions. A guide for the deck can be found here.

Warrior

The Rise of Shadows expansion bring diversity for Warrior, allowing it to expand beyond Control archetypes. New Bomb-shuffling cards, like Wrenchcalibur, expand on a mechanic that was first introduced in the Goblins Vs. Gnomes expansion and put opponents on an inevitable clock as they draw through their deck, as seen in Bomb Tempo Warrior:

Bomb Tempo Warrior uses Midrange minions to aggressively pressure opponents while simultaneously shuffling Bombs into their deck. A frontal assault often leaves opponents vulnerable to being killed by a single Bomb draw for explosive victories.  A guide for the deck can be found here.

[Tupi 30]

man, ran up against a rogue with the rogue scheme and legendary minion Togwaggle...talk about a situation way worse than the early Shudderwock.

[FanOfValeera 253]

Secret Paladin and Bomb Warrior seems to be the winners of Day 1. They are everywhere, other than some hunter players who only goes face to farm people who are trying new things.

Both Control Warrior (non-bomb) and Control Shaman seems nice to be honest. Those are the decks I loved the most from Day 1. Also, I enjoyed playing Maly Druid but it requires some serious tweaking.

[Taan 46]

So far I played against against Bomb-Warrior (obviously), which seems like people might start to complain soon enough...Blastmaster Boom is really damn powerful and gives me flashbacks to way more annoying times, with much less options in my own cardpool.

Then I saw a Spell-Power-Tempo-Mage. I never thought of Tempo-Mage as a good deck and this one was pretty cheesy too.

But what had the most impression on me was Murloc-Shaman. Sludge Slurper and Underbelly Angler are simply powerhouses, but what caught me off guard was Soul of the Murloc ...having a full board of Murlocs against you who just spawn more Murlocs when you kill them while you are waiting for the "grumble grumble grumble"-sound of Bloodlust...well its pretty similar to the old Token-Druid I guess.

Oh yeah and I started with Burgle-Rouge, which is a lot of fun so far (and always a nice way to test out new cards).

Edited April 10, 2019 by Taan

[Hanz39 53]

Bomb Warrior is Evolution Shaman 2.0 a deck purely based on RNG.

You can either draw 3 bomb in the same turn or never draw them.

[BladeBraver 5]

On 4/10/2019 at 1:26 PM, Hanz39 said:

Bomb Warrior is Evolution Shaman 2.0 a deck purely based on RNG.

You can either draw 3 bomb in the same turn or never draw them.

I see the point of the bombs as to be fuel for Blastmaster Boom, not as a win condition themselves, unlike Evo Shaman.

However, it is extremely fun to watch a Druid try to Nourish into an answer to Boom, only to hit every bomb in the deck along the way.