Hearthstone guide: An in-depth look into the Druid + legendary decklists

?Ancient of Lore is a minion that’s also found in every deck. In most cases, Ancient of Lore will enter play as a 5/5 body that casts Arcane Intellect which is great value for 7 mana: it gives you board presence and fills your hand at the same time which will often be a game turner.

If that’s not good enough a bargain, Ancient of Lore has the option to restore 5 health on battlecry, making it extremely important against Mages who tend to burn down the Druid quickly. 

The huge minion that it is, Ancient of War is going to save your life against many aggro decks. The 10/5 version is rarely used as it’s easy to remove but the 5/10 taunt body is something many decks will struggle with (Warlocks in particular run no hard removals and neither do most Mages). In most cases, it will trade at least two for one and sometimes even three or four for one. Even if it becomes victim to hard removal, Ancient of War is still worth it because it’s not too expensive and baits out cards that can otherwise get rid of your Ragnaros, Cairne or Ysera. 

Despite being a great card, we strongly advice you to craft Ancient of Lore first: some contemporary versions of the Druid (namely StrifeCro's buid that we examine below) have found ways to work just fine without Ancient of War by using Defenders of Argus for protection and if you have 400 dust to spare it's better spent on the Ancient you'll always need.

 

II. Situational crafts

 

Naturalize is the cheapest unconditional removal in the game. It has big drawback but many times the card your opponents draw won’t matter too much if naturalizing something means killing your enemy or removing that Ragnaros in order to stay alive. This is also the only way the Druid has to remove minions without relying on damage but because if it’s drawback you’ll want to save it for emergencies.

Naturalize is also a good replacement for Tinkmaster Overspark so those with poorer collections might want to include one copy in their decks.

Nourish is a support card with two modes of which the ramping choice is rarely used: spending your entire turn to ramp up that late in the game is never worth it.

The other option, however, will draw three cards which is a way better deal. Nourish shines in the late game when you have enough mana to cast it and follow it up with another card while at the same time keeping a rich hand. It’s even better when you have board control and can afford to spend half or more of your mana.

The reason most high-level Druid decks avoid running Nourish, however, is that it’s often a dead card before late game. Casting it on T5 is risky because it spends all the mana and leaves opponent’s board untouched, for which you’ll be often punished. It’s still cheaper than Ancient of Lore dust-wise, though, so it can be sort of a poor man’s replacement for it.

Fitting the entire one theme of the Druids, class’ legendary Cenarius offers such a deal as well. His first battlecry casts Power of the Wild to all your minions, giving them permanent +1/+1, which comes in handy when your side of the board is populated and you want to more quickly finish your opponent or ensure favorable trades in the late game.

His second battlecry effect summons two 2/2 taunters. While this doesn’t sound like a big deal on T9, getting two blockers can be life-saving: surviving for one extra turn is precious regardless of what type of deck you’re playing.

Although Cenarius is played in high-tier Druid decks (the aforementioned StrifeCro build for example), we suggest that you’re not too hasty with his crafting. There are other legendaries which are way more important for Druids and acquiring a Cenarius can certainly wait.

 

III. To the neutral pool!

 

The neutral pool offers a big choice of cards which can fit well into a Druid deck. Loot Hoarder and Harvest Golem are welcome in most of the builds as they're good minions by themselves (Harvest Golem has built in value in it while Loot Hoarder will draw you a card while cleaning up early game minions). Sunwalker is a great replacement if you lack Ancients of War – it’s a 6 mana taunter with divine shield which makes it good against low-cost aggro decks. If the divine shield is not popped with hero abilities like Fireblast, Dagger Mastery or Shapeshift, the Sunwalker will soak in at least two attacks which is fine for that cost.

Staying on blue rarity, we ought to mention the Wild Pyromancer, a card that became extremely popular during the boom of the aggro decks. The Pyromancer has a lot of synergies with Druid’s spells and helps the class stay alive in otherwise very difficult match-ups. It might be a “flavor of the month” card (it’s far less useful in control mirrors) but as long as aggro decks are popular every slower build will need a couple of those. You should check out our “Card spotlight” article on the Pyromancer to learn all of his uses.

Defender of Argus is another card you might want to craft if you plan on running a midrange Druid. He comes in to make for the absence of Ancient of War in those decks and is considered by many to be better choice between the two. 

Two epic cards that control Druids run are Faceless Manipulator and Big Game Hunter. Manipulator’s uses are obvious – copying your or enemy’s big threats for just 5 mana is great as Manipulator’s targets will often cost more. This will allow you to get a cheaper version of them which in turn frees up mana to do more stuff in the same turn. The Big Game Hunter became popular when Ragnaros dominated the late-game meta and he was an easy way to clear the threat. He can also snipe the Molten and Mountain Giants which control Warriors and Warlocks like to run so consider Big Game Hunter if those decks give you much trouble. If you have both Faceless Manipulator and BGH in hand, you can, for example, copy their Ragnaros and they snipe it, making for a powerful T7.

  
Although not particularly good in the midrange Druid decks, those three widely used in the heavy control set-ups that players like Savjz have been seen to run.

Good Druid decks make use of a lot of legendaries and that’s what makes them extremely expensive. Bloodmage Thalnos is a natural choice for every spell-heavy deck and Druids are no exception. Sylvanas is also a no-brainer and these two should be priority crafts on your way to building an ultimate Druid deck.

Tinkmaster Overspark and The Black Knight are two legendaries whose popularity was dictated by the shift in the meta. Tinkmaster is way to Polymorph away opponent’s big threats and deal with them more easily (even if you get a 5/5 Devilsaur it’s still better than having to face a living and breathing Ragnaros, Sylvanas, 5/10 Ancient of War, Tirion or a fat Edwin van Cleef). The card is also more versatile than the Big Game Hunter because it can deal with threats that are below 7 attack and is rarely a dead card because of that.

The Black Knight, on the other hand, is nothing that special, merely a counter to Defender of Argus, Ancient of War and Earth Elemental. Even if he doesn’t get to destroy a taunter, he can still come in play as an overpriced Chillwind Yeti (playing 4/5 for 6 is better than not playing anything. Just cast it if you know your opponent has run out of taunt cards). 

 

Climbing up the mana curve leads us to more legendary cards that druids love. A popular minion in the current meta is Cairne Bloodhoof, a 4/5 for 6 that spawns another 4/5 on deathrattle, meaning he’s essentially a big and expensive Harvest Golem. Similar to the Golem, Cairne will always 

give you two for one trades (unless he’s silenced, of course) and sometimes even three or four for one if you’re fighting a low-cost aggro deck. Pair him with Defender of Argus and watch your opponent go insane, trying to invent an efficient way to go through him.

?Ragnaros is another card that Druids love to play. Not only do Druids have efficient ways to protect this legendary by playing him behind meaty taunters, but they can also Innervate him before T8 which no other class can do. A T6 Ragnaros (1x Innervate) is a scary thing to face and a T4 Ragnaros (2x Innervate) will often decide the game there and then unless immediately killed by hard removal.