It’s been under a week since Whispers of the Old Gods came out, and Hearthstone feels like a different game. New decks are constantly popping up; gone are the days of Midrange Druid and Secret Paladin. Even though the Old Gods have flipped everything upside down, there’s still one old deck that’s stayed relevant, Zoo Warlock.
Unlike the other decks that became unplayable after the format change (good riddance Mysterious Challenger ), Zoo Warlock stayed relatively unchanged. They only lost Implosion , a card that was really too good to begin with. It’s still the same deck: spam the board with as many little minions as possible and using them to trade efficiently with your opponent by using buffs like Abusive Sergeant and Power Overwhelming.
WOTG gave Zoo Warlock plenty of other amazing cards to fill the board-spamming void. Possessed Villager may seem simple at first glance, but getting 2/2 worth of stats of one mana is nothing to ignore. Having sticky minions in your deck, or minions that stay on the board after large removal, are an important part of keeping board control. There’s a reason Haunted Creeper was considered one of the best cards in the game.
Darkshire Councilman is Zoo Warlock’s new secret weapon. Drop this 1/5 for three mana, and then use Forbidden Ritual to buff him to absurdly high numbers. It’s the best two-card combo to come out of WOTG and there’s no way you can get anywhere near as much value with anything else. I honestly think the combo is a bit overpowered, having a Councilman stick around can singlehandedly win you the game.
Zoo Warlock has been around since Hearthstone was in beta and it’s a simple deck that’s easy to learn but hard to master. Knowing when and where to trade takes practice, because you don’t want your Imp Gang Boss dying before he’s spit out a few baby Imps.
When you mulligan, you want as many one-mana minions as possible, like Argent Squire,
Possessed Villager or VoidWalker . The perfect curve (in my opinion) is Voidwalker-Knife Juggler- Imp Gang Boss or Darkshire Councilman- Forbidden Ritual . Throw in a Reliquary Seeker or a Gormok The Impaler and you can beat most decks.
Dragon Priests and Warrior decks will give you the most trouble. Their board clear is intense, it’s hard to come back from a Holy Nova or a Ravaging Ghoul.
Here’s the decklist I use: I’m testing Reliquary Seeker instead of Argent Squire . If you don’t have Gormok the Impaler it’s fine to replace him with a second Sea Giant or whatever you can get your hands on.
Warlock 2 x Forbidden Ritual 2 x Power Overwhelming
2 x Flame Imp 2 x Dire Wolf Alpha
2 x Possessed Villager
2 x Voidwalker
2 x Dark Peddler
2 x Darkshire Councilman
2 x Imp Gang Boss
Neutral
2 x Abusive Sergeant 1 x Argent Squire 2 x Dire Wolf Alpha 2 x Knife Juggler 1 x Dark Iron Dwarf 2 x Defender of Argus 1 x Gormok the Impaler 1 x Sea Giant
