Bogbeam, Ironbark, and most of all Overgrowth play a huge part in this, and your ability to plonk giant minions onto the board with ease after you hoard mana crystals is often too much for your foes to do anything about. It’s a deck that’s been popular in one form or another since the very earliest days of Hearthstone’s existence, but fell off the radar after nerfs to vital cards like Nourish and Wild Growth. Now, it’s as good as it’s always been though, offering huge minions on turns you have no business playing them. Our Big Druid guide contains a very strong and refined version of the deck, along with some general strategy advice for piloting it. After that we’ve got some Mulligan tips for you, before we break down all of the combos that give this deck such an extraordinary amount of power. Big Druid deck list - Ashes of Outland Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game. Deck Import ID: AAECAZICAsUEiLADDkD+AcQG4p8Dl60DsK0D/a0DjK4D3q8D/7UD6LoD7LoD7roD87sDAA== The rest of this guide will be updated once the meta has settled down and we know what the most popular decks are, and what the strongest versions of those decks are. Everything below this point refers to an earlier version of the deck.
- Best Budget Decks - Hearthstone: Best Budget Decks for Ashes of Outland 2. Tier List - Hearthstone deck tier list (Ashes of Outland) 3. Embiggen Druid - Embiggen Druid deck list guide (Ashes of Outland) 4. Token Druid - Token Druid deck list guide (Ashes of Outland) 5. Treant Druid - Treant Druid deck list guide (Ashes of Outland) 6. Quest Druid - Quest Druid deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
Big Druid is all about ramping your Mana all the way up as fast as possible so you can play the menagerie of big minions that fill up this deck. The new Ashes of Outland spell, Overgrowth, as well as Breath of Dreams from Descent of Dragons, mean you can keep your deck cycling whilst reliably drawing your ramp cards every game. Enormous minions such as Scrapyard Colossus and Winged Guardian will all have a massive impact when played on the board way ahead of their cost. There’s no fancy combos with this version of the deck either. Previously, Master Oakheart would be the play you’re looking for, but since he left the game, you’re mostly just looking for big Dragons to play. Early game: Get ramping. You need to get ahead on mana as quickly as possible with Breath of Dreams and Overgrowth. Without this, you’ll never be able to out-tempo your opponent. Remember to ensure you have a Dragon in hand when casting Breath of Dreams or you won’t get that sweet sweet mana crystal, and you’ll just draw a card (although sometimes you’ll need card draw desperately so it is worth playing). With any spare mana, Strength in Numbers is worth playing, since you’ll be able to complete the Sidequest as you go anyway. Mid game: If all goes well, however, by the time the mid game is supposed to start naturally you’ll be way ahead on Mana. Your opponent should be on about 4 or 5 mana while you go up to about 8 or so, in the ideal situation. When you get the opportunity, just plonk a big minion onto the board. Emerald Explorer is a great shout, as it allows you to Taunt up and Discover another huge Dragon to play afterwards. Exotic Mountseller works excellently when you’re at a high enough mana total too, since Bogbeam and Ironbark will be discounted to 0 mana. This lets you summon a bunch of 3 cost Beasts for very little extra effort, with one coming along every time you cast a spell. Sure, these minions aren’t the greatest, but a free Ironfur Grizzly is better than nothing. Also, we highrolled King Mukla and it was very satisfying. Late game: Your gameplan doesn’t really change that much from here. All you need to keep an eye on is switching to an aggressive style of play, especially against control opponents. Once they catch up on mana, the likes of Plague of Death can finish any chance you thought you had of victory. Alexstrasza can be the final nail in your opponent’s coffin though - suddenly putting them at 15 Health and killing them immediately is a great finisher. Either way, you want to start going face when it’s safe to do so.
Big Druid Mulligan guide
As nearly half the cards in the deck cost six or more Mana you’ll want to find all the ramp you can in your mulligan.
- Breath of Dreams gives you an extra Mana crystal whilst simultaneously offering your deck some much-needed cycle. 2. Overgrowth puts you a whopping two mana ahead for future turns. That’s pretty damn powerful. 3. Strength in Numbers is a solid card to keep if you have your ramp cards as well. It’ll give you a sudden burst of tempo later on which you’ll often desperately need to bring you back into the game.
Big Druid tips, combos and synergies
Here’s how the combos all stack up in this particular version of Big Druid. Careful study of these will definitely improve your play if you’re new to piloting this sort of deck.
- Ironbark and Bogbeam will not discount to 0 mana if you use The Coin or Innervate to get to the 7 mana threshold. You need to have 7 empty mana crystals, which does mean you can get up to that level by casting the likes of Overgrowth.
- Using Exotic Mountseller alongside discounted spells like Bogbeam and Ironbark lets you summon a board of minions for free once you hit 7 mana.
- Scrapyard Colossus completes your Strength in Numbers Sidequest in one go, summoning another minion from your deck as you do it.
- Frizz Kindleroost is a nice way to contest the board early and discount some of your minions, but he’s not essential - don’t feel bad if you need to play Overgrowth instead.
- It’s important to remember that Swipe can deal 4 damage to the enemy face. Keep count of your existing minions and always count for lethal damage.
- Remember, you can’t target your own minions if they have the text ‘can’t be targeted by spells or Hero Powers’. This means you won’t be able to cast Ironbark on your own Winged Guardian or Evasive Drakonid, something easy to trip up on.
- Alexstrasza can be used to heal your own Hero if you’re super low on health. This has saved us multiple times, putting us back up to 15 and giving that little bit of extra time.
- You’ll want to keep out of range of burst damage against Demon Hunter. Kayn Sunfury lets their minions completely ignore Taunt, so keeping their board clear is even more vital.
