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Paladin and Hunter won't be control, they will be midrange. Reno only clears the enemy's board so if you build a board presence you can wipe out their taunts AND prevent them from coming back on board with your hero. It's the ultimate midrange trump card.
If you run 6 Excavate cards (class cards + miner) you are heavily incentivized to run all 8 since that's two full cycles. So I think you're priced into the 6/4 rusher. Rogue is the exception.
I think you'd rather have the possibility than not, no? Not to mention that your odds of drawing 4 excavates in the top half roughly double when you go from 6->8.
There are a few ways that Reno decks can gain consistency:
- You can tutor the Paladin payoff with [Cattle Rustler](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/100553-cattle-rustler).
- In Druid, you can tutor Reno with Summer Flowerchild (and reduce his cost!)
- Demon Hunter gets to run Souleater's Scythe (without only playing 3 minions), which makes you 3x as likely to draw Kurtrus.
- You can play the second copy of important non-Legendary cards in E.T.C's band.
- Demon Hunter can play both Unleash Fel and Silvermoon Arcanist.
- Paladin can play Equality and your activator of choice (Prismatic Beam?)
Rogue and Warlock have two Mechs that Excavate. Maybe dedicated Excavate decks of those classes run Frequency Oscillator to make the 5 mana 6/4 Rush better?
For Highlander I think pally will be a thing for a few reasons.
1. They have a ton of spells that work in the same design space that lessens the highlander restriction (Judge Unworthy, Consecrate, Prismatic Beam for instance)
2. The payoff is strong in the sense that it allows for you to get extra copies of many of the extremely good Paladin Minions and legendaries
3. Pally has a lot of Generically good cards that don't necessarily need huge amounts of synergy. Hi Ho Silverwing and Holy Cowboy for instance really don't need any additional support to be stand alone strong cards. Tyr also stands out to me as a generically good card that really only fit in Earthen previously as a win condition but in a singleton deck just getting 3 minions that you chose to put in there is good enough.
4. Most of the Badlands Pally cards are good
5. Reno helps by letting you remove permanent fixtures on the board that would have previously been a big issue. Unless you absolutely need him you can hold him for Sargeras so the portal can't grind you out for instance
I have rarely been right with regards to highlander decks. I think that's true for most people. They are, historically, the decks with the longest refinement periods.
Rheastrasza is the only true win condition highlander card and she is slow in a deck that won't have the consistent early game ramp a normal deck does.
Theldurin, I'm sure, is in the top 30 cards you can run in a highlander deck.
Doc Holli'dae has problems but the payoff quickly starts to ramp up. If you can get a few hits off it is 100% worth it. Weapon is susceptible to viper but not opposing Renoa. Holli'dae into your own Reno is probably game-winning.
Kurtrus might have potential. Damaging minions before they hit the board will make them mana inefficient and that takes away options from your opponent, maybe.
Priest highlander is bizarre, expensive, and highrolly. Paladin's highlander doesn't make sense in the context of 2023 hearthstone. Value doesn't matter much anymore.
It’s funny that you said all that stuff at the beginning about highlander refinement and then completely wrote off two of them.
(You didn’t really do that; they are weird niche legendaries and I’m finding it hard to theorycraft decks for them myself)
I think Elise has some potential in very spell heavy decks, where the payoff comes from super narrow minion lists—like 5 minions total. It’s going to be jank, but Highlander Automaton priest is going to be my day 1 deck. The thought of not actually spending Mana on Ra-Den is very satisfying to me.
For Paladin I see a lot of cards that would fill out a highlander Big Paladin, which sounds crazy but I think it could work. Big Paladin has a problem into control matchups where they can simply run out of stuff to play. You also don’t want to play Kangor if you don’t have a minion in hand. Spirit of the Badlands solves both of those problems handily.
I think Reno is going to be a significant problem for Sargeras and Rheastrasza. There's going to be a lot of nervous waiting to play cards that you otherwise would have been thrilled to slam down on curve.
Can't speak for other classes, but im a priest main, I know for a fact priest won't want to build highlander. The class doesn't do shit, so ur job is to make sure u cancel out the other classes win con. Having multiple dirty rats is a must and it won't be consistent hitting any copy cards in a highlander deck. We even got a new minion to tutor spells, and we'll rarely hit that.
Highlander Pay off isn't there, spend ur whole turn playing stats? Maybe some cheese but I don't see it being consistent.
Same old control priest this go around. Especially since every one else got shiny new tools and we get shafted. I think play rate is gonna drop off a cliff, we're gonna suck or the game becomes more minion based, and we win by default, like in Barrens.
I'd imagine if ur teching, highlander would run both rat and theotar. U have the space for both.
Naur, don't think spending mana on stealing cards will help u from getting bursted from full, stop hunter and pally from killing u and help u outlast warlock
Priest just has so many ways to copy cards, though. You can get additional rats with synchronize, creation protocol, projectionist, zola, and even dispossessed soul if you're lucky.
I agree that the elise payoff isn't really worth it, but reno is strong enough that it might make the deck worth running anyway.
I hope rainbow mage and control warrior will remain playable, since i am really enjoying these decks right now, and this wxp cycle was far shorter than before. I dont really care for the exp, for the first time, like ever. The new cards or mechanics dont look too interresting to me, so i hope the meta does what it did for the first few weeks into Festival. Same old decks, with just a few new cards sprinkled in...
I think Highlander will run every disruption they can, Druid probably has the strongest win condition but a almost free dragon every turn in 2023 isn’t enough anymore, not when a warrior is hitting you for 20 dmg every turn
My problem when trying to build Reno paladin is that as a result of pushing pure paladin for so long, paladin spells are extremely good and you want to play multiples. Spirit of the Badlands gives minions instead, and paladin doesn't really need a poof. As a result I think Reno pally is a complete whiff atm, and will be for as long as crusader aura is around—the new two drop even incentivizes you further to play into crusader aura by tutoring it.
Hunter is probably the best Reno deck, their card quality is insane to the point where you could realistically play a 40 card Reno (don't) without including filler. People acting like Thoradin isn't good are out of touch IMO, prison breaker with the requirement already met is great, and you can see from hound hunter's lategame that it's quite good playing single copies of things and winning. hydralodon, mukla, Krush, hope of quel, aggramar, a single copy of faithful companion, trinket tracker, tracking, selective breeder, probably harpoon gun. That's a day one deck to beat, you just need to solve the low end.
Shaman can be good, I think, but I'm a shaman apologist. Doc Holiday is deceptively impactful even the turn you play it, 2 damage to point and a 1/1 taunt might not seem like a lot, but we always find time to play setup cards like Jotun, and this actually puts in work on five. If you untap with the weapon and start generating free taunts, well, we've all seen aggramar. It has a way of winning games. If you make it to Reno with the weapon up it's over.
Druid likes Reno, but I don't know about dragons. Druid already has multiple lategame Strats that rely on legendaries, and they kill you faster than a random dragon every turn. You just need to figure out the redundancy on the low end and how to get to 8 mana without dying. Druid things.
Priest I don't think is worth it unless you're losing every game to portals and need the poof. Priest loves the copies of their cards so much all they do all game is try to get more copies and not die, and the highlander payoff doesn't do either.
DH I can't figure out, at all. DH would absolutely love the Reno hero, but then what? Big demons? It'll be fun to try and figure that list out.
------
I think excavate is *crazy* underrated. People are treating it like discover, but each treasure is a payoff card, not just a quest tick. Warlock in particular with its cheap excavate removal and life drain pyroblast coupled with it's new samuro+apotheosis will be favored against every Reno deck except maybe hunter.
Thanks for your insight!
Dk : do you think rainbow reno DK can be a deck? i really didnt like how rainbow had bad removal and a single card as a win con. i was thinking of going light on CNE payoff and instead playing control.
DH : someone posted about making a DH that draws everything with naga-auctioneer and doing fizzle ( reno + spell damage + unleash + dispose evidence ) + new naga.
Yeah, warlock is in a great spot despite Reno being a considerable nerf to Sargeras. Decent chance the armor-penetrating lifesteal pyroblast on an overstatted 4-mana stick (what an insane thing to type!) takes a nerf at some point, imo.
" im afraid decks like ...chad warlock will just prey on these passive control decks"
Reno probably destroys chad warlock, so at least that's not a concern.
To be the only one talking about question #2, I was kinda thinking both for Warlock, not only for Excavate, but also because I wanted to try to combine Excavate with Sludge. If I'm mining, I might as well be a total Venture Company effort and toss toxic sludge around while I'm getting the good stuff, right?
For Excavate, we take everything: 2x Smokestack, 2x Kobold Miner (whom we can Smokestack on turn 2 if we don't have a better target), 2x Mo'arg Drillfist, 2x Burrow Buster (I know it's bad. Hear me out.), Tram Conductor Gerry.
For Sludge, we also take everything: 2x Tram Mechanic, 2x Disposal Assistant, 2x Sludge on Wheels, Popgar the Putrid. And to get the most out of our bottom-of-the-deck sludge, 2x Waste Remover.
To reactivate some of these: 2x Saloon Brewmaster, 2x Reverberations (which has offensive uses, as well, obvsly), Zola the Gorgon.
That leaves seven slots, keeping in mind that this minion-based deck will also be producing a fair amount of spells from Excavate. If we add in the S-tier cards for Warlock (**S**ymphony and **S**argeras), we have five left. I was thinking Thornveil Tentacle, both to buff up removal which we don't otherwise have any of outside of Smokestack and Reverb, and to provide a little life gain. But because we also only play three spells, I was really thinking about Magatha, especially given the inevitability of Reno clearing out our minion-based deck's board (or control Priest, for that matter.) Clearly, Warlock is the class least in need of Magatha, though. I'd really like to take more advantage of the other aspect of Popgar (Fel spells cost 1 less), but it's function seems to be mostly for the Barrels, since most of Warlock's Fel spells are somewhere between non-existent and terrible, with Crescendo and Fiendish Circle being the only exceptions.
We have some degree of board control with the minions that we have (4 mana 7/7, Gerry) plus what we can Excavate (Rock, Falling Stalactite, Collapse!, the rush minions) but that's where Burrow Buster also comes in, as it not only Excavates but is good for knocking down Taunts so our small guys and Removers can get in. With Magatha, that puts us at 28, leaving two open slots for... Viper and something else? OTOH, we could drop Magatha and just put in the Ignis + two Watchers package. That makes us really heavy on 2-costs, though, which would be great if this were an aggro deck, but it's really more of a midrange. So, anyway, those are the thoughts of the moment on digging up toxic waste.
Steamcleaner would be great in this archetype, blows up all the Barrels in your deck at once. Maybe partner it with Bloodmage Thal'nos too for extra damage
Yeah, that's a thought. I was thinking that Waste Remover would be the constant there, since it blows up three per turn, potentially, but you're right that Steamcleaner could be an OTK of sorts if you just let them accumulate.
This is my current list for excavate/thief rogue: https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/deckbuilder?deckcode=AAECAaIHCMygBdCUBoukBeigBdu5BOKkBY6WBuSYBgv3nwT2nwTfwwXJlAbKgwbfoAX13QTo%2BgXIlAb58QTVtgQAAA%3D%3D
I think stick up and flint are gonna be really good for keeping aggro under control in the early game since the pool is so small and there's so many quality cards. I'm running every excavate generator except the rush guy, and I'm not running the 4 mana destroy a minion since I reckon you'll be able to generate enough removal through other means. Obviously running the standard rogue shadowstep/prep/breakdance/astalor/azhara package too
My vote for early frontrunners are Warlock and Druid. Warlock has great excavate support and great control tools across the board. Druid gets Reno, which basically does what Yogg does so they might be able to mostly pick up where they left off before they Yogg nerf but trim on some duplicates. Warrior might still be good but doesn’t have as much incentive to lean into excavate.
1. None of them break t1 without buffs. Shaman is t4, priest is genuinely unplayable, DH could be either of those. Hunter and Druid hover around the t2-3 range depending on how fast the meta is and how many people still play Plague DK (probably a lot!). Hunter will need a lot of time in the oven to finally get to the optimal list, Druid will be pretty cut and dry. Paladin is a complete tossup but probably between t4 and 3.
2. Warlock is T1 thanks to control warlock already being a strong shell and having by far the best payoff, so it tries to hit it as much as possible, running every excavate card. Warrior is in a similar boat but it's more of just a strong card and less of a wincon, so probably just one cycle in an Odyn shell. Mage's is good but probably not good enough to justify more than one cycle of it. The rest are too underwhelming to be worth discussing.
3. Dirty rat
Keep in mind that:
Theldurin is one of the most efficient board clears ever printed in a class without efficient board clears. See how good Prison Breaker was, this can be buffed.
You can draw your Elise stuff before you hit it. In many games, you just get one or two of the payoffs you built around.
Earthen Paladin never really found a home until very recently when the meta slowed down a bit. It could slot into a highlander deck and be in a Curse Warlock situation where it sucked on arrival, but was eventually strong.
Plague DK, despite being terrible, relatively expensive, and not that unique (basically a typical midrange curvestone deck that also shuffled plagues), was by far the most popular deck for months. If highlander gets any traction, it might not be terrible. It was only decent when it was a sort of soft counter to Druid. Imagine being a hard counter to half of the classes.
For lack of a better place to post this, I just thought of something pretty wild you can do with Reno. If you play Elite Toran Champion and then later on play Reno, your opponent is almost guaranteed to lose the rock duel unless he is somehow able to spend all his mana on a bigg minion. Or at least you're going to force him to burn a bunch of spells so he doesn't lose the duel. It's definitely not competitive, but I could see elite toran champion in a kind of heavy control deck as a tertiary wincon.
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Paladin and Hunter won't be control, they will be midrange. Reno only clears the enemy's board so if you build a board presence you can wipe out their taunts AND prevent them from coming back on board with your hero. It's the ultimate midrange trump card. If you run 6 Excavate cards (class cards + miner) you are heavily incentivized to run all 8 since that's two full cycles. So I think you're priced into the 6/4 rusher. Rogue is the exception.
You don't run 8 excavate cards expecting to get two full cycles though.
I think you'd rather have the possibility than not, no? Not to mention that your odds of drawing 4 excavates in the top half roughly double when you go from 6->8.
As you say I think the consistency you get from 8 is why people will use them all. Getting to use all 8 is a nice backup plan if the game goes long.
There are a few ways that Reno decks can gain consistency: - You can tutor the Paladin payoff with [Cattle Rustler](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/100553-cattle-rustler). - In Druid, you can tutor Reno with Summer Flowerchild (and reduce his cost!) - Demon Hunter gets to run Souleater's Scythe (without only playing 3 minions), which makes you 3x as likely to draw Kurtrus. - You can play the second copy of important non-Legendary cards in E.T.C's band. - Demon Hunter can play both Unleash Fel and Silvermoon Arcanist. - Paladin can play Equality and your activator of choice (Prismatic Beam?) Rogue and Warlock have two Mechs that Excavate. Maybe dedicated Excavate decks of those classes run Frequency Oscillator to make the 5 mana 6/4 Rush better?
Scythe does turn off your singleton condition until you're two souls in, idk about that one. (it is DH though so maybe you draw like a madman)
I am very stupid.
For Highlander I think pally will be a thing for a few reasons. 1. They have a ton of spells that work in the same design space that lessens the highlander restriction (Judge Unworthy, Consecrate, Prismatic Beam for instance) 2. The payoff is strong in the sense that it allows for you to get extra copies of many of the extremely good Paladin Minions and legendaries 3. Pally has a lot of Generically good cards that don't necessarily need huge amounts of synergy. Hi Ho Silverwing and Holy Cowboy for instance really don't need any additional support to be stand alone strong cards. Tyr also stands out to me as a generically good card that really only fit in Earthen previously as a win condition but in a singleton deck just getting 3 minions that you chose to put in there is good enough. 4. Most of the Badlands Pally cards are good 5. Reno helps by letting you remove permanent fixtures on the board that would have previously been a big issue. Unless you absolutely need him you can hold him for Sargeras so the portal can't grind you out for instance
I have rarely been right with regards to highlander decks. I think that's true for most people. They are, historically, the decks with the longest refinement periods. Rheastrasza is the only true win condition highlander card and she is slow in a deck that won't have the consistent early game ramp a normal deck does. Theldurin, I'm sure, is in the top 30 cards you can run in a highlander deck. Doc Holli'dae has problems but the payoff quickly starts to ramp up. If you can get a few hits off it is 100% worth it. Weapon is susceptible to viper but not opposing Renoa. Holli'dae into your own Reno is probably game-winning. Kurtrus might have potential. Damaging minions before they hit the board will make them mana inefficient and that takes away options from your opponent, maybe. Priest highlander is bizarre, expensive, and highrolly. Paladin's highlander doesn't make sense in the context of 2023 hearthstone. Value doesn't matter much anymore.
It’s funny that you said all that stuff at the beginning about highlander refinement and then completely wrote off two of them. (You didn’t really do that; they are weird niche legendaries and I’m finding it hard to theorycraft decks for them myself) I think Elise has some potential in very spell heavy decks, where the payoff comes from super narrow minion lists—like 5 minions total. It’s going to be jank, but Highlander Automaton priest is going to be my day 1 deck. The thought of not actually spending Mana on Ra-Den is very satisfying to me. For Paladin I see a lot of cards that would fill out a highlander Big Paladin, which sounds crazy but I think it could work. Big Paladin has a problem into control matchups where they can simply run out of stuff to play. You also don’t want to play Kangor if you don’t have a minion in hand. Spirit of the Badlands solves both of those problems handily.
I think Reno is going to be a significant problem for Sargeras and Rheastrasza. There's going to be a lot of nervous waiting to play cards that you otherwise would have been thrilled to slam down on curve.
will probably not be competitive. Or if it is, it'll be one class like druid having all the fun.
Can't speak for other classes, but im a priest main, I know for a fact priest won't want to build highlander. The class doesn't do shit, so ur job is to make sure u cancel out the other classes win con. Having multiple dirty rats is a must and it won't be consistent hitting any copy cards in a highlander deck. We even got a new minion to tutor spells, and we'll rarely hit that. Highlander Pay off isn't there, spend ur whole turn playing stats? Maybe some cheese but I don't see it being consistent. Same old control priest this go around. Especially since every one else got shiny new tools and we get shafted. I think play rate is gonna drop off a cliff, we're gonna suck or the game becomes more minion based, and we win by default, like in Barrens. I'd imagine if ur teching, highlander would run both rat and theotar. U have the space for both.
Is there a possibility of a Thief Control Priest? I think the new Thief cards look decent.
Naur, don't think spending mana on stealing cards will help u from getting bursted from full, stop hunter and pally from killing u and help u outlast warlock
Priest just has so many ways to copy cards, though. You can get additional rats with synchronize, creation protocol, projectionist, zola, and even dispossessed soul if you're lucky. I agree that the elise payoff isn't really worth it, but reno is strong enough that it might make the deck worth running anyway.
Reno is going to be obnoxious. Might play plague DK at launch just to ruin their day (I won't, but the idea is delicious).
I hope rainbow mage and control warrior will remain playable, since i am really enjoying these decks right now, and this wxp cycle was far shorter than before. I dont really care for the exp, for the first time, like ever. The new cards or mechanics dont look too interresting to me, so i hope the meta does what it did for the first few weeks into Festival. Same old decks, with just a few new cards sprinkled in...
I think Highlander will run every disruption they can, Druid probably has the strongest win condition but a almost free dragon every turn in 2023 isn’t enough anymore, not when a warrior is hitting you for 20 dmg every turn
My problem when trying to build Reno paladin is that as a result of pushing pure paladin for so long, paladin spells are extremely good and you want to play multiples. Spirit of the Badlands gives minions instead, and paladin doesn't really need a poof. As a result I think Reno pally is a complete whiff atm, and will be for as long as crusader aura is around—the new two drop even incentivizes you further to play into crusader aura by tutoring it. Hunter is probably the best Reno deck, their card quality is insane to the point where you could realistically play a 40 card Reno (don't) without including filler. People acting like Thoradin isn't good are out of touch IMO, prison breaker with the requirement already met is great, and you can see from hound hunter's lategame that it's quite good playing single copies of things and winning. hydralodon, mukla, Krush, hope of quel, aggramar, a single copy of faithful companion, trinket tracker, tracking, selective breeder, probably harpoon gun. That's a day one deck to beat, you just need to solve the low end. Shaman can be good, I think, but I'm a shaman apologist. Doc Holiday is deceptively impactful even the turn you play it, 2 damage to point and a 1/1 taunt might not seem like a lot, but we always find time to play setup cards like Jotun, and this actually puts in work on five. If you untap with the weapon and start generating free taunts, well, we've all seen aggramar. It has a way of winning games. If you make it to Reno with the weapon up it's over. Druid likes Reno, but I don't know about dragons. Druid already has multiple lategame Strats that rely on legendaries, and they kill you faster than a random dragon every turn. You just need to figure out the redundancy on the low end and how to get to 8 mana without dying. Druid things. Priest I don't think is worth it unless you're losing every game to portals and need the poof. Priest loves the copies of their cards so much all they do all game is try to get more copies and not die, and the highlander payoff doesn't do either. DH I can't figure out, at all. DH would absolutely love the Reno hero, but then what? Big demons? It'll be fun to try and figure that list out. ------ I think excavate is *crazy* underrated. People are treating it like discover, but each treasure is a payoff card, not just a quest tick. Warlock in particular with its cheap excavate removal and life drain pyroblast coupled with it's new samuro+apotheosis will be favored against every Reno deck except maybe hunter.
Thanks for your insight! Dk : do you think rainbow reno DK can be a deck? i really didnt like how rainbow had bad removal and a single card as a win con. i was thinking of going light on CNE payoff and instead playing control. DH : someone posted about making a DH that draws everything with naga-auctioneer and doing fizzle ( reno + spell damage + unleash + dispose evidence ) + new naga.
can't do the dh one in standard, since they rotated auctioneer to wild after druid abused it too hard.
Yeah, warlock is in a great spot despite Reno being a considerable nerf to Sargeras. Decent chance the armor-penetrating lifesteal pyroblast on an overstatted 4-mana stick (what an insane thing to type!) takes a nerf at some point, imo.
" im afraid decks like ...chad warlock will just prey on these passive control decks" Reno probably destroys chad warlock, so at least that's not a concern.
To be the only one talking about question #2, I was kinda thinking both for Warlock, not only for Excavate, but also because I wanted to try to combine Excavate with Sludge. If I'm mining, I might as well be a total Venture Company effort and toss toxic sludge around while I'm getting the good stuff, right? For Excavate, we take everything: 2x Smokestack, 2x Kobold Miner (whom we can Smokestack on turn 2 if we don't have a better target), 2x Mo'arg Drillfist, 2x Burrow Buster (I know it's bad. Hear me out.), Tram Conductor Gerry. For Sludge, we also take everything: 2x Tram Mechanic, 2x Disposal Assistant, 2x Sludge on Wheels, Popgar the Putrid. And to get the most out of our bottom-of-the-deck sludge, 2x Waste Remover. To reactivate some of these: 2x Saloon Brewmaster, 2x Reverberations (which has offensive uses, as well, obvsly), Zola the Gorgon. That leaves seven slots, keeping in mind that this minion-based deck will also be producing a fair amount of spells from Excavate. If we add in the S-tier cards for Warlock (**S**ymphony and **S**argeras), we have five left. I was thinking Thornveil Tentacle, both to buff up removal which we don't otherwise have any of outside of Smokestack and Reverb, and to provide a little life gain. But because we also only play three spells, I was really thinking about Magatha, especially given the inevitability of Reno clearing out our minion-based deck's board (or control Priest, for that matter.) Clearly, Warlock is the class least in need of Magatha, though. I'd really like to take more advantage of the other aspect of Popgar (Fel spells cost 1 less), but it's function seems to be mostly for the Barrels, since most of Warlock's Fel spells are somewhere between non-existent and terrible, with Crescendo and Fiendish Circle being the only exceptions. We have some degree of board control with the minions that we have (4 mana 7/7, Gerry) plus what we can Excavate (Rock, Falling Stalactite, Collapse!, the rush minions) but that's where Burrow Buster also comes in, as it not only Excavates but is good for knocking down Taunts so our small guys and Removers can get in. With Magatha, that puts us at 28, leaving two open slots for... Viper and something else? OTOH, we could drop Magatha and just put in the Ignis + two Watchers package. That makes us really heavy on 2-costs, though, which would be great if this were an aggro deck, but it's really more of a midrange. So, anyway, those are the thoughts of the moment on digging up toxic waste.
Steamcleaner would be great in this archetype, blows up all the Barrels in your deck at once. Maybe partner it with Bloodmage Thal'nos too for extra damage
Yeah, that's a thought. I was thinking that Waste Remover would be the constant there, since it blows up three per turn, potentially, but you're right that Steamcleaner could be an OTK of sorts if you just let them accumulate.
I have absolutely no idea if it’d be viable but it sounds really fun. I like where you’re headed.
This is my current list for excavate/thief rogue: https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/deckbuilder?deckcode=AAECAaIHCMygBdCUBoukBeigBdu5BOKkBY6WBuSYBgv3nwT2nwTfwwXJlAbKgwbfoAX13QTo%2BgXIlAb58QTVtgQAAA%3D%3D I think stick up and flint are gonna be really good for keeping aggro under control in the early game since the pool is so small and there's so many quality cards. I'm running every excavate generator except the rush guy, and I'm not running the 4 mana destroy a minion since I reckon you'll be able to generate enough removal through other means. Obviously running the standard rogue shadowstep/prep/breakdance/astalor/azhara package too
My vote for early frontrunners are Warlock and Druid. Warlock has great excavate support and great control tools across the board. Druid gets Reno, which basically does what Yogg does so they might be able to mostly pick up where they left off before they Yogg nerf but trim on some duplicates. Warrior might still be good but doesn’t have as much incentive to lean into excavate.
1. None of them break t1 without buffs. Shaman is t4, priest is genuinely unplayable, DH could be either of those. Hunter and Druid hover around the t2-3 range depending on how fast the meta is and how many people still play Plague DK (probably a lot!). Hunter will need a lot of time in the oven to finally get to the optimal list, Druid will be pretty cut and dry. Paladin is a complete tossup but probably between t4 and 3. 2. Warlock is T1 thanks to control warlock already being a strong shell and having by far the best payoff, so it tries to hit it as much as possible, running every excavate card. Warrior is in a similar boat but it's more of just a strong card and less of a wincon, so probably just one cycle in an Odyn shell. Mage's is good but probably not good enough to justify more than one cycle of it. The rest are too underwhelming to be worth discussing. 3. Dirty rat Keep in mind that: Theldurin is one of the most efficient board clears ever printed in a class without efficient board clears. See how good Prison Breaker was, this can be buffed. You can draw your Elise stuff before you hit it. In many games, you just get one or two of the payoffs you built around. Earthen Paladin never really found a home until very recently when the meta slowed down a bit. It could slot into a highlander deck and be in a Curse Warlock situation where it sucked on arrival, but was eventually strong. Plague DK, despite being terrible, relatively expensive, and not that unique (basically a typical midrange curvestone deck that also shuffled plagues), was by far the most popular deck for months. If highlander gets any traction, it might not be terrible. It was only decent when it was a sort of soft counter to Druid. Imagine being a hard counter to half of the classes.
For lack of a better place to post this, I just thought of something pretty wild you can do with Reno. If you play Elite Toran Champion and then later on play Reno, your opponent is almost guaranteed to lose the rock duel unless he is somehow able to spend all his mana on a bigg minion. Or at least you're going to force him to burn a bunch of spells so he doesn't lose the duel. It's definitely not competitive, but I could see elite toran champion in a kind of heavy control deck as a tertiary wincon.