It's time to bust out the Druid cards and buff up some tokens. If you're looking for games to end fast, this is the deck for you.
This week we finally got around to playing on of the only two classes we haven’t played yet: Druid. Warrior is still on the list, of course. What do you mean, we haven't played Hunter? What’s a Hunter?
Nobody wanted me to play Jade Druid, so I ended up piloting Egg Druid for a week. And what a week it was, yuck. I narrowly scraped together a 50% win rate with this deck and, appropriately, it felt like I was flipping a coin at the start of every game. Certain hands felt unbeatable against certain decks, but other match-ups felt unwinnable. In fact, I didn’t keep a winning record against any deck that I played more than once. As usual, that makes for a pretty small sample size, but the manner in which Freeze Mage (0-2) beat me made it feel like there was no way that ratio was ever going to improve.
[deck]63743[/deck]
Alright, it is probably quite clear that I did not enjoy playing this deck at all, but there are some positives. Firstly, games are fast. Whether you win or lose, you generally can tell the outcome by about turn five. If by that point you are not sure if you will win or lose, it might be worth conceding to save time anyway. You probably aren't playing this deck to have fun so you might as well move on.
That speed comes at a cost, however. A friend described Egg Druid as “Pirate Warrior without any reach.” That may seem flippant but it also felt quite true. If your opponent stabilizes the board you are donezo. You sure as hell aren’t winning with burn spells as a Druid - this deck doesn’t run Swipe - and have you tried beating Spikeridged Steed with a bunch of 1/1 minions? Yeah, good luck.
Secondly, while certain match-ups seem unwinnable, there are a few that strongly favour the Druid. On top of that, certain draws make the more even match-ups lean heavily towards you. Your chances of victory shoot up every time you manage to stick a minion to the board for more than a turn. I found myself actively wanting to go second because the coin allows you some absurd starts that the Innervate-less version I played usually don’t have access to. I don’t know if that is actually correct, but, luckily, you never have to make that decision.
What are those positive match-ups? Basically anything you can go under - most midrange decks, for example. Egg Druid has a lot of sticky minions and Soul of The Forest can do a lot of work against decks that want to remove all your threats. I played against an old school Control Warrior this week, and won easily because removal is really, really bad against this deck. Taunt Warrior, on the other hand, was an absolute nightmare. Bashing your head against a wall of sturdy taunt creatures is not a winning prospect for an egg. Alley Armorsmith makes Egg Druid cry in a corner.
So do I recommend you play this deck? It’s certainly fast, and that can be important to ladder grinding. I didn’t find it to be particularly strong, however, and that is just as important. The biggest upside is probably the customisability of the deck. There are a lot of ways to build aggressive Druid decks. The one I used is definitely not optimal but there is plenty of wiggle room in which you can find a list which is fast and effective.
