[BT Mojorge] Haste Bloodfang 2020 World Champion Deck List and Analysis
Hey everybody, it's BT Mojorge here with my 2020 World Champion deck list. I always like sharing my lists here because the decks on the shadow era forums were always super helpful to me when I first started playing Shadow Era (and still help me today when searching for new deck ideas). I also wanted to share some of my reasoning behind some of my card choices. I have actually posted about this deck before, sharing my first iteration way back in September here, and then posting an updated version in December alongside my other Slugfest deck lists here. Even though these are older lists, most of the things I discuss there are still true today, so I would recommend looking at those if you want to take an even deeper dive into building and playing this deck. Many of you reading this are likely already familiar with the meta situation leading up to the world championships, in which case you can skip the next few sections. In case you aren't, I discuss it briefly below as the meta situation was a key reason behind me choosing to bring Bloodfang, and a large part of why it did so well in this world championships- this may not be the case in other metas.
The meta: Leading up to WC 2020, three decks were the clear favorites: Lakmire Darkclaw, Irum Loest, and Krugal Victor. These three decks almost perfectly counter each-other. Irum Loest is a deck that primarily relies on dealing electricity damage to opposing allies in order to renew resources, which doesn't work well against weapon heroes that do not play very many allies, such as Lakmire Darkclaw. Lakmire Darkclaw is a deck that primarily relies on spamming attachments and weapons, which tends to do poorly against Vic, a hero that comfortably runs Sorcerer of Endia and A Legend Rises: two anti-attachment cards. Victor likes to control the board and spam allies, which simply gives Irum Loest more fuel for their game plan.
I didn't want to bring one of the top three decks because I knew that it would almost certainly mean running into someone running the counter deck. For example, I thought about bringing an Irum deck, but that would mean hoping that I would not run into Darkclaw- an unlikely scenario. That doesn't mean that you can't bring one of the top three decks and do well, it's just that you have to shore up weaknesses instead of focusing on already-winnable MU's. For example, TJ Dubdub heavily focused on anti-Darkclaw techs by bringing Aramia with Distortion Harness rather than play Loest.
Bloodfang isn't as good as Darkclaw against Irum, because you have to play allies to execute your game plan (unlike Darkclaw- although you can still abuse Midnight Howl here to deal damage with an empty board). That said, BF is much better than Darkclaw against Vic, because he can more effectively fight for and keep control of the board and has more natural outs to problematic cards like Sorcerer of Endia.
No Towering Brute: Towering Brute is the most effective counter to Haste Bloodfang- even more than Braxnorian Soldier, because he comes out a turn earlier and can only be killed by abilities outside of combat when it is damaged (this is important because it means that even Eye of the Dark Forest won't work on him). Fortunately, none of the top 3 decks can play Towering Brute (Darkclaw technically could, but Lakmire only works when you control only Wulven allies).
The list:
Hero: Bloodfang (48 cards)
Ally (20):
2x Bloodpack Shaman
4x Wulven Prophet
2x Wulven Scout
4x Wulven Tinker
2x Dark Riding Hood
1x Den Mother
1x Howlfang, Terror of the Vale
4x Crusher of the Weak
Ability (19):
4x Midnight Howl
4x Blood Moon
4x Captured Prey
4x Will to Fight
1x Wulven Resilience
2x Confluence of Fate
Item (4):
4x Eye of the Dark Forest
Location (4):
4x Lakmire: Training Outpost
Deck Code: 1665374B
MVP- Den Mother: I didn't expect Den Mother to be as strong as she was, because she only has 3 health and her broken passive can simply be disabled by the location. Yet, Den Mother proved to be absolutely critical in the Darkclaw match-up, because Darkclaw has no way of dealing ability damage to remove her. Also, often times you won't have the location against the opposing Darkclaw player because they will play their own Lakmire on top of yours. 5cc is also pretty important: I often found in my games that it is pretty hard to get to 6cc, especially since I like to skip saccing a resource early in order to get more utility out of Wulven Prophet. 5cc also lets you do the absolutely broken T5 BF ability -> Crusher + Den Mother. 6 attack is also crucial, making her a viable ally to slap a haste attachment on for some massive late-game damage.
Changes from Slugfest list: -1 Howlfang +1 Den Mother, because this list runs fewer 3cc allies than my older lists and so Howlfang is less good.
Good call- Eye of the Dark Forest: Because I expected Towering Brute to be completely absent from WC, I decided to entirely drop Death from Above and Torn Apart. Torn Apart is only really worth it against Fatties while Death from Above only works on 4cc or lower allies. Eye on the other hand deals with everything, including Sorcerer. It also can be played and sit on the board for a while until you really need to use it.
Changes from Slugfest list: -2 DFA -2 Torn Apart +4 Eye
Maybe replace- Dark Riding Hood: I put Dark Riding Hood in my deck for two reasons: firstly, this deck loves spamming Prophets, but they aren't really a big threat unless their attack gets boosted. Dark Riding Hood cheaply turns an otherwise wimpy board into a real threat, especially when paired with Howlfang. Secondly, Dark Riding Hood goes extremely well with Eye and the entire haste package because you can use her to steal cards from the top of the opponent's deck. This really helps in slower MU's like against Zhanna or Vic, which I happened to not run into at all, so perhaps this card could have been replaced. Putting Eye back into the deck made me want to bring Dark Riding Hood again, similar to my original list.
Changes from Slugfest list: -2 Wulven Predator +2 Dark Riding Hood
48 cards: Everything else that I discussed in my Slugfest post about this deck still rings true, including my discussion of why I choose to run a 48 card deck. The thing is, consistency is not all about a 40 card deck. For Haste Bloodfang, consistency is about a balance between abilities and allies. Your abilities are worthless without allies, and your allies are much less valuable without abilities. I see many Bloodfang players cut a bunch of allies in order to get to 40 cards, but my experience has been that I too often draw into more abilities than allies. This strategy of running 48 cards can backfire, and I had one or two games in WC where I drew into nothing useful. That said, more often than not, this deck can make up for that with tremendous draw power and the ability to seek any ability you happen to need with Wulven Prophet.
No "techs:" I decided against Shriek of Vengeance, Acid Jet, or other generic tech cards. That's because this deck can't easily keep tech cards in hand from turn to turn: saccing tends to be really difficult already because you need to hold onto 3-4 different cards at once to have those gigantic turns where you spam your entire hand out in one go. Techs like these would only make sacrifice choices harder, crippling my own game plan for a questionable advantage when opponents will often run multiple copies of their key cards anyway.
Unrelated theory on why Vic didn't do so well: Lots of players have claimed that Vic can easily defeat Irum Mages with the inclusion of Decoy Trap. This was true- at first. Why not anymore? Well, the thing is, Decoy Trap (like all traps) works best when it is unexpected. Many Irum players probably thought that the facedown 2cc traps players were playing was a Snare Trap when Vic first started running Decoy Traps, and thus played sub-optimally. Now that everyone knows that Vic runs Decoy Trap, it can be easily played around via Pathfinder's Machete and other means. Rarely will a Vic player be able to catch an Irum player off guard and cause them to lose their Lightning Strike. This is almost certainly not the only reason Vic did poorly this WC, but I suspect it is a large part of why Vic wasn't able to beat Irum in crucial matches. At the same time, Darkclaw decks wised up and shored up their defenses against Vic by running techs like Death From Above, an excellent counter to Sorcerer.
