[WILD] Comparing Tempo and Control Mecha’thun Warlock
My winrate to legend was 65%, there it's better to play control Mecha This is because you dont need the tempo tools to contest an aggro board and these cards are suboptimal vs control. Control mechathun is not build to win with tempo vs aggro like tempo Mecha but has easier combo pic.twitter.com/VtzlW5uwcZ
— Alpha110hs (@alpha110hs) October 11, 2019
The content of this article was created mainly by Alpha110, who is also responsible for the metasurveys. He plays his own Mecha’thun deck mainly having reached rank 36 Legend in the last and rank 39 in the current and the season on Eu.
If you are more a fan of a video instead of a text guide, you can either visit the video by alpha, featuring a Mecha’series or a video by Darkseeker comparing 2 different Mecha’thun decks.
Introduction
Hi, I’m alpha110. I play mainly Warlock decks and create Surveys of the Wild meta.
I have long been a fan of Mecha’thun Warlock. I fondly rember attaining the rank of legend for the first time with it. It’s a deck that rewards strategic planning and is clear in its wincondition.
My main deck right now is Tempo Mecha’thun warlock. It is a really promising subarchetype which is indicated for example by being good against the tier one decks and it has a good winrate of 59.9 on Hs replay.
This season I have gotten a peak rank 39 on Legend ladder so far. However the deck performed best on the climb to legend itself with a winrate of 65 % for me with 42-22 on Eu and Na Server.
My deck is a tempo and more early game focused deck with a secondary otk, and has more emphasis on Guldan.
The Classic Mecha’thun Deck is a classic controlling otk deck.
Tempo Mecha’thun and Control Mecha’thun Comparison
Note: I will focus more on my deck as it’s a newer subarchetype.
I started more as a Tempo and aggro player than contro. This is why my deck has developed into what it is now.
Recently, I have been dedicating more time to deckbuilding and play testing different decks.
First a few facts. I peaked rank 36 legend with it last season, Neon featured it. Also, I wrote a guide to the deck here on reddit with a decklist.
This deck has been played by 270 people from rank 5 onward and has a winrate of 59.3 %.
However, this is with a deck without Zephrys so it should get a boost once people run the updated list.
Tempo-Mecha’thun
Playstyle:
This deck focuses on keeping good control of the board and leveraging a swing turn with Eggs or Voidcallers on board. It is important to be wide early to set up a good flames turn if necessary, learning the timing of this card is greatly important to this deck.
It is quite similar to the early game of Cubelock. I am sure that the playstyle of Cubelock is known so I will not get more into it.
Another pillar is to develop your demons. This is done by using sense demons to tutor it and voicallers to put them in play. The skull is a means to quicker dump your demons but not absulutely necessary.
The midgame is about maintaining board control, discounting with emperor as well as using Hemet to activate Reno and Zephrys.
Note that however this my deck aims to win tempo swings and with its demons be it on board or resurrected especially vs aggro opponents that can’t outresource it.
It is thus very close to a tempo deck with midrange components as well as an optinional and harder to achieve otk.
Remarks:
- Try to balance curving with 1 drops Eggs and Sense Demons to have a good board position to profit from either Plague of Flames or the demon pulls of Voidcaller.
- You should be focused on winning on the board more as this is the primary win condition vs aggro especially.
- You have great board clears and tempo plays with Voidcaller and Lackey/Egg flames plays.
- Compared to normal mechatun the deck fights for board more with lackeys eggs and is thus better vs aggro. Flipping the board with Plague of Flames is strong if its followed by a big demon, this is since it has no heal 5 drops in Ziliax and Healbot.
- Ziliax is replaced by the Flames in the board control department. He can still be an inclusion instead of the skull. He is good for beggining players of the deck as it allows for easier health management.
- The early Egg as well as the Lackeys is a change in an attempt to get ahead on board instead of play form behind.
- If you have Plague of flames play either Emperor or hemet.
- Emperor can also be used vs Aggro to get an earlier Voidlord or Guldan.
- With Hemet you will get great draw quality.
- Guldan will win you vs most aggro, so you can toss combo pieces more freely or even Hemet with plague in the deck.
- The class vs that is true is secret mage and odd rogue.
- Geist is an issue for the otk.
- Try to manage your health total vs mage esp.
- You run no real dead draws in Bloodbloom and Catacylsm. This helps vs Aggro early on.
- But it is harder to otk with Mechathun, this is the tradeoff you take for the tempo build.
- Most aggro has no response to Guldan.
- Vs Decks like Jades and none geist Reno decks you will still be able to win with Mechathun.
Control Mecha’thun
Playstyle:
This deck aims to play early 1 drops, most often tap on 2 and then uses Sense Demons into Voidcaller to attain board control. It has no Lackeys and no Plague of Flames. The curve is higher of this deck. The midgame is caracterized by Ziliax and Healbot. Around turn 6,7,8 you want to utilize boardclears and play Emperor to hit 2 of your combo pieces. Hemet can be used to speed up the combo. This deck is somewhat easier to play in the mid to late game if you survive there. The combo can be achieved with a full hand and empty deck making this significantly easier.
Remarks:
This deck is more vulnerable in the early turns.
Mulliganing for Sense Demons and Voidcaller is even more important.
Ziliax Healbot can stabilize you in the midgame
You can use Bloodbloom Twisting Nether vs Boards like sniplock.
You need to 2 ticks with emperor.
The winrate of the archetype on hs replay is on average at least 3.5% lower than tempo Mecha’thun.
Dis/Advantages for both
Tempo Mecha’thun
Advantages:
- Better early game, cheap board clear, better vs aggro, easier set up discount with Emperor, bigger board, better Guldan, easier bloodlust set up with lackeys, lackey rng.
Disadvantages;
- No nether, also no neather discount with bloodbloom, worse midgame heal, worse vs control, worse vs rat, need anti-rat set up
Control Mecha’thun
Advantages:
- Easier to set up Mecha’thun since no need to dump hand, midgame heal, twisting neather.
Disadvantages
- Early game is weaker without the 6 card Lackey Egg Flame package, so it relies more on sense demon draw.
- You have more of a chance of dead draws early with the combo spells.
- You will less likely gain the board and voidcaller is your only real option to achieve that consistently.
Advanced strategies:
Tempo Mecha’thun:
- Managing lackeys to match board width of oppoents, so that you get a good Flames kill.
- Baiting aggro to put more on board so much that you can still handle to then stabilize on board with card advantage
- Managing number of 1 drops you keep in hand either to use with flames or to use for Rat protection.
- Building a wide low attack board using Voidwakers esp. to sneak a Bloodlust vs Controls
- You can use Sense Demons to create toakens but they will be pulled by Skull.
Contol Mecha’thun:
There are less advanced strategies, that I can think of right now.
- One is to use Solarium with Emperor discounted on your combo turn to avoid Ratting.
- Using nether with Bloodbloom and Renoing after.
Winconditions:
Tempo Mecha’thun
- Tempo and board control vs aggro, Demons, Zephrys esp. bloodlust, Guldan, Mecha’thun
Contol Mecha’thun
- Outcontrol aggro, combo control
Tempo Mecha’thun – General guide to the cards
It contains:
- The 0-1 drops: Sac Pact, Mistress, Mortal coil, Librarian, Lackeys, Power Overwhelming
- The Egg and Flames package. Nerubian Egg, Evil Genius, Plague of Flames
- The demon package: Sense Demons, Voidcaller, Voidlord, Malganis, (Skull)
- The Reno activator and deck thinner: Hemet
- The otk-preper and mana cheater: Emperor
- The healer: Reno
- The Boss: Guldan
- The Backup-plan: Mecha’thun
- The bloodlusty Joker: Zephrys
Flexcards Ziliax or Nether for Skull.
My decklist
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- ### Tempo-Mecha
- # Class: Warlock
- # Format: Wild
- # Year of the Dragon
- # 1x (0) Sacrificial Pact
- # 2x (1) Kobold Librarian
- # 2x (1) Mistress of Mixtures
- # 1x (1) Mortal Coil
- # 2x (1) Plague of Flames
- # 1x (1) Power Overwhelming
- # 2x (2) Defile
- # 2x (2) EVIL Genius
- # 2x (2) Nerubian Egg
- # 1x (2) Zephrys the Great
- # 2x (3) Sense Demons
- # 2x (4) Voidcaller
- # 1x (5) Skull of the Man’ari
- # 1x (6) Emperor Thaurissan
- # 1x (6) Hemet, Jungle Hunter
- # 1x (6) Reno Jackson
- # 1x (7) Lord Godfrey
- # 1x (9) Mal’Ganis
- # 2x (9) Voidlord
- # 1x (10) Bloodreaver Gul’dan
- # 1x (10) Mecha’thun
Flexspots: Skull, Mal’ganis
Subs Ziliax, Twisting Neather.
BmK69 deck
AAEBAf0GDNsG9Q/
- # Class: Warlock
- # Format: Wild
- # Year of the Dragon
- # 2x (0) Sacrificial Pact
- # 2x (1) Kobold Librarian
- # 2x (1) Mistress of Mixtures
- # 2x (1) Mortal Coil
- # 1x (1) The Soularium
- # 2x (2) Bloodbloom
- # 2x (2) Defile
- # 1x (2) Zephrys the Great
- # 2x (3) Sense Demons
- # 1x (4) Cataclysm
- # 2x (4) Voidcaller
- # 1x (5) Antique Healbot
- # 1x (5) Zilliax
- # 1x (6) Emperor Thaurissan
- # 1x (6) Hemet, Jungle Hunter
- # 1x (6) Reno Jackson
- # 1x (7) Lord Godfrey
- # 1x (8) Twisting Nether
- # 2x (9) Voidlord
- # 1x (10) Bloodreaver Gul’dan
- # 1x (10) Mecha’thun
Conclusion:
In my view which deck is better depends entirely on you, and your playstyle. The winrate of my deck point to it beeing on the same powerlevel as the control deck. And this is due to different strenghts of the deck.
My deck (Tempo Mecha’thun)
- My deck needs some practice to play it correctly, small decisions matter a bit more.
- If you are more drawn to tempo play, setting up good trades and like to learn how to optimally use lackeys and the plague of flames clear then you should consider playing my deck.
- However the early game is basically on the level of cubelock till turn 4, so you can contest very well. Thus the tempo part of the game is more stable due to better draws, also with a lower curve less dead draws early.
- So if you face a lot of decks such as Mech Paladin where early board control is important to try it out.
- It is a tempo deck with a secondary otk.
- The recovery options later for my deck are smaller so the early games is more important.
- Later in the game the deck still has good options however the otk is harder to be achieved.
- It sacrifices consitency vs control for anti-aggro and tempo capability. Vs aggro Guldan is stronger due to Mal’Ganis and is the primary win conditon.
- You can make it a bit less highrolly without skull and add Twisting Nether however there is no bloodbloom to cheat out the neather.
Control Mecha’thun
- The classic Mecha’thun is more stable and less trade and board reliant with stronger late game recovery options.
- It is an easier deck to play as people are used to it and it plays more like control otk.
- It is more reliant on drawing sense demons early, it does not have the plague option to clear wide boards with lackeys and tokens.
- It is a more stable deck once you reach the lategame with more clears such as twisting nether.
- The combo is to be achieved easier since you don’t need to dump all your hand.
- It is less successive to ratting
Take home message:
I feel my deck has a place in meta and it is to be considered a subtype that you can play when you face certain pockets of the meta where early board control matterdds more.
The control version is a lot easier to play and will probably remain what you should use if you don’t have a great deal of experience with Mecha’thun.
But I would suggest you try to play with my deck as well if you mainly play control Mecha’thun just so that you see what options are available to you if you face a lot of decks that require early interventions.
Outlook:
I have tried to make a hybrid, however the issue is that I need 2-3 cards Slots for 2x Bloobloom and cataclysm. And cataclysm makes it impossible to go the flames route for otk.
I hope you have a good time with Mecha’thun whichever you try out.
Alpha110
I am happy to do a free of charge 30 min session if you want to try out my deck and want some guidance.
Contact: reddit
PM Btag: Alpha110#2852
Twitter: alpha110hs
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