I’ve spent the last few days locked in my apartment, playing as many games of Hearthstone as possible. Now that Knights Of The Frozen Throne has finally been let out its tomb, players have been coming up with new and interesting ways to use the cards in their collection. Priest seems to be all over the ladder, with Death Knight Anduin and Raza The Unchained allowing for nearly infinite loops of damage. Warriors burn away their minions’ health points, buffing them, drawing cards and just being really annoying. I’ve been messing around with a bunch of decks, but only one really captured my attention: Jade Druid.
Malfurion’s visit to the Mean Streets Of Gadgetzan hasn’t changed much since its original release, with Primordial Drake and Earthen Scales jumping on the bandwagon after Journey To Un’Goro. The deck still plays the same: you curve out with Jade Idols, Jade Blossoms and Wild Growth until you have enough mana to start using Nourish, Jade Behemoth or Aya Blackpaw.
The Knights Of The Frozen Throne meta is all out of whack right now, but there are a few strengths a deck needs to have in order to stand a chance at victory., Your deck archetype has to have powerful, game-changing cards that an opponent is going to have trouble dealing with. Ultimate Infestation is Druid’s go-to spell, the powerhouse that completely fills up your hand, gives you a powerful minion and a little armor protection. Only having two cards in your hand can seem like a game losing catastrophe, but if one of those is this Epic spell, your whole hand fills up in no time.
Keep in mind that it’s very easy to overdraw or deck out if you don’t use Ultimate Infestation properly. It took me a few games to realize that if I played UI on turn 10 without proper planning, I’d end up with more cards than my hand could handle. Nothing hurts more than bad calculations that force you to overdraw your last Jade Idol.
In order for an archetype to move up the ranked ladder, it’s going to need a way to survive Aggro decks. KOFT might not be as stupidly fast paced as The Grand Tournament or League Of Explorers , but it still has plenty of fast decks that will fuck your shit up. Aggro Druid, the other main deck I’ve been playtesting, absolutely wrecks in the match-up. You can’t do anything on turn five when you’re looking down a Gigantic Hydra , two 2/3 Fire Flys and a Tar Creeper spitting in your face.
Thankfully, Blizzard did give Druids a great tool to deal with Aggro, called Spreading Plague . Summoning five 1/5 scarabs with Taunt will ruin Pirate Warrior’s day and make Garrosh wish he had just stayed home. Against slower match-ups, like Priest, the card is dead most of the time, but having it around is totally worth the few dead draws.
Deck List:
2x Innervate
2x Earthen Scales
2x Jade Idol
2x Wild Growth
2x Wrath
2x Feral Rage
2x Jade Blossom
1x Fandral Staghelm
2x Swipe
2x Nourish
2x Spreading Plague
2x Jade Behemoth
2x Ultimate Infestation
2x Jade Spirit
1x Aya Blackpaw
1x Primordial Drake
1x Lich King
Deck Export String: Just copy this onto your clipboard, open your collection and the deck’s ready to use!
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How do you feel about Jade Druid in Knights Of The Frozen Throne ? Tell us in the comments.
