Introduction
Deck building in Hearthstone is like no other card game. Building a quality deck of only thirty cards when you have an ever-changing card pool really sounds tough when you think about it. On top of that, you can only have two of each specific card maximum in your deck! In this article, I’m going to examine a few of the struggles that I have had and witnessed of when to include a one-off and when to add another!
What is Deck Consistency?
As a general statement, having two cards in your deck will maximize the probability of drawing that card during the course of a game. In the same way, having a deck made of all two-offs will maximize the quality and consistency of your deck. Now you might be saying “Well, that’s great but when I play Paladin, my Consecrations are always at the bottom of my deck. Paladin just sucks.” Unfortunately, that is just some real bad luck. A deck should not be measured by the condition that it is in when it loses, but instead by the amount the deck wins. That is what consistency is all about.
Many players defend one-offs and think that playing a lot of one-offs is a way of being prepared for any situation! Well, that logic is also a bit flawed. As a deck builder, you should be able to consolidate the cards in your deck based on the situations that will come up the most.
Consistency Statistics
One of Hearthstone’s most tried and true decks is the Aggro Warlock deck known as Zoo. Here is a list that is common today on the ladder and otherwise.
This list has basically two one-offs as you can not have more than one of the same legendary in each deck anyway. Those singleton cards are Ironbeak Owl and Sea Giant. Statistically speaking, you have a 40% chance of drawing one of those by turn nine. Making the deck consistent, there are eight cards in the deck that cost one mana. The probability to draw one of those cards by turn two going first is 82% and 87% going second. So as you can see, there are cards in every deck that need to be drawn each game and cards that don’t need to be drawn as often.
In the case of Ironbeak Owl, this card is a card that does not need to be drawn every game to win. It helps to silence some pesky taunt creatures that may block up the board or minions with effects that give your opponent too much of an advantage like Emperor Thaurissan. Other than that, the minions can go above and beyond for support to kill larger taunt creatures in combination with cards like Power Overwhelming and Abusive Sergeant.
Sea Giant is one of the deck’s win conditions and while it may sound like a good idea to have two while it is in play and you can cast it for cheap, the deck has other ways to win such as Mal’Ganis and Doomguard.
Diversity
A diverse hand is a happy hand! With the power of one-offs in your deck, you open the gates to more ways to deal with problems on the board or to pull ahead and keep an advantage against your opponent. This also increases the probability that one of the plays in your hand really is the best play you can make. With a greatly diverse hand comes great responsibility! Make sure to think through your options thoroughly before you make a decision. A non-diverse hand with a lot of the same cards will have less options and you may be forced to make a suboptimal play based on your hand.
Quite conversely, there are some cards that are better to have in multiples. Burn spells like Eviscerate, Kill Command, and Fireball can be powerful to dealing the last points of health to the opponent in succession. Swipe and Fan of Knives can also be useful to clear a bigger board when they are both used at the same time.
In different cases card quality goes up and down depending on the role of the card in the deck.
Core Cards
In my past article entitled “The Keys to Building Your Own Deck” I went over how over many seasons of Hearthstone, the core cards of Control Warrior have stayed the same. As stated, the reason that there is a core set of cards is so the deck remains consistent. The core cards are considered essential and play an important role in every game with each Control Warrior list. Core cards of a deck should not be left on the sidelines as a one-off as they are an integral part of their respective lists.
Having a one-off depends on this fact. For instance, most Midrange Shaman lists run a single Doomhammer as a late-game win condition. If you are building a Shaman deck and you feel like your deck doesn’t need a Doomhammer to win the game or by the point you need it you have drawn a huge chunk of your deck anyway, adding one copy of it is a solid plan.
On the other hand, an auto-include in a huge margin of Rogue decks is the card Preparation. This is because of the spell and tempo-oriented strategies of Rogue decks. If you were struggling to cut copies of this card you might ask yourself if your deck is of the spell and tempo strategy to gain more card advantage than your opponent and win the game with more options in your hand. You might be experimenting and your Rogue deck is a slower, more minion dense build that is not capable of using Preparation to its full potential. This might be a cause of your list running less than two Preparations.
Tech Cards
You know them and love them, the cards that cause the most blowouts on the board, tech cards! From Kezan Mystic to Big Game Hunter, these cards are stuck into decks as singletons to keep the opponent from doing anything too crazy. Tech cards are dependent on the nature of the particular meta. If there are a lot of Hunter and Mage decks playing secrets in their decks, a Kezan Mystic will do the trick. In the same way, Acidic Swamp Ooze will punish the great weapons of Warrior and Rogue. Be extremely careful with these cards! They have very diminishing returns if they are not played for the value that they hold. It is also important to not get overly excited when playing with your tech cards. You might think that you should add another Kezan Mystic because of the Bear Trap you stole last game that swung the whole game in your favor but more than one copy in any deck is extreme.
Deck Rhythm
There are certain cards in every deck that cause the whole pace of the game to change. One example that comes to mind is Fel Reaver. As of the early this August season, Fel Reaver has become a standard addition to Mech Mage decks, proving very effective in many match-ups. Fel Reaver is a card that can lock your opponent out quickly. When you play the card, you are telling your opponent to deal with it and if they do not, they are in for quite the bruising. So, in this case you should add two to the deck.
In some Combo and Midrange Druid lists, the combination of Force of Nature and Savage Roar are used to great effect to burst the opponent down from rather high life totals. As both cards are pieces of the combo, lists often run one copy of each card so neither of them clutter the hand during the early and mid-game.
Deck Repetition
Throughout the course of deck building, there comes a time when you are forced to figure out what card is better than another even though they fill the same role. In a recent experience of mine, a friend asked if they should run Antique Healbot, Guardian of Kings, or a combination of both in their Paladin list. The short answer is to run one of each as their stats come up better or worse depending on the situation. The reason is that while Guardian of Kings may be a lower quality card as far as healing goes, it is a solid body on the board and you will mind less that the heal could be wasted. Unlike Antique Healbot which heals for a lot but is only a 3/3.
Conclusion
Deciding the amount of each card is only one hurdle in deck building but it is a nuance that is often overlooked. The consistency of your deck matters greatly and it will influence how you perform in games versus a large gauntlet of decks. In only thirty cards, every single card choice is important so make it count!
I hope everyone is enjoying the fun of The Grand Tournament!
Any questions? Comment below or tweet at me on Twitter!
About the Author
Hey, my name is James ‘Momir’ Judlick. I’m 17 years old and I’m from Maryland. One night on Reynad’s stream he said that Tempo Storm was looking for writers and here I am now! I’ve been playing CCGs all of my life and when I started playing Hearthstone during the open beta, I got so hooked to this game and I haven’t stopped! I started out playing with Druid and Mage. I have since stuck with them and picked up Rogue along the way as my favorite classes. Hearthstone is a huge passion of mine and want to share my knowledge of the game with more people. This game being such a big part of my life, I really want to make sure that my articles are awesome! I want to write articles about small but complex theory of the game but do it in a fun way that’s easier to read.
I’m available on Twitter @_jvjudlick
Also I lurk around some Twitch chats, say hi! @Microman900
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