Warrior as a class has always been a solid choice that tends to lean into long, drawn out games. With the Warrior’s armor build up, outlasting your opponent is a core tenant of most Warriors. However, recent developments in the meta game after Whispers of the Old Gods and Standard format have brought a more tempo oriented deck to the top of the meta. Enter the Dragon…Warrior.
For the uninitiated, tempo refers to the ability to use your mana in a cost-effective way, spending all of it to clear the board or keep up with your opponent’s board presence. Using a Blackwing Corrupter on turn five to get rid of a pesky Ethereal Conjurer is a great example of a tempo play, as you’re evening the playing field. It just so happens that many dragons from previous expansions synergize well with this sort of mentality.
A lot of games boil down to outlasting your opponent while chipping away at their health. Tempo plays like the aforementioned Blackwing Corrupter, the charge minion Alexstrazsa’s Champion, and the Kor’kron Elite do well at mitigating board control and dishing out early damage. Weapons are a great way of neutralizing threats so that these minions stick around for a little while longer. Once your opponent’s health has dropped to 15, start dropping your Drakonid Crushers, which will be 9/9 for 6 mana if the condition is met. They’ll be so busy dealing with that threat, that your Grommash Hellscream/Enrage combo (of which there are many) should finish the job.
Let’s not forget the essentials. Removal like Execute, weapons like Fiery War Axe, and finishers like Grommash can’t be replaced. They’ll take care of big-name threats for cheap (Hellscream excluded), and they’re Warrior staples for a reason. From there it can be a little flexible. If you don’t care for Frothing Berserkers, maybe something like Bloodhoof Brave is more up your alley. One of the better things about mid-ranged decks like this is that there’s a bit more variety to the non-essential cards.
Even Dragon Warrior’s worst match ups land in the 50-50 range. Zoolock and Aggro Shaman can sometimes just get a better curve (re: tempo) than you, that’s the nature of card games for you.
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