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Hearthstone4 years agoNestor "jhoves" Abuluyan Jr.

Tips and Thoughts on Demons in Battlegrounds - 12k MMR

Hey all, I'm Stryder and I'm a 12k MMR player in North America. According to HS Replay, despite having a pretty solid win rate (average placement of 4.19), Big Demons are one of the most unpopular deck types sitting at a popularity of 5.3% compared to Murlocs at 21.4%, Dragons at 14.6% and Mechs at 11.4%. I’ve found that big demons are one of my most consistent boards to consistently place top 4 and consistently place top 2 in non-murloc lobbies.

Here’s some thoughts and tips on going big demons, excluding anything about Jaraxxus because I think he’s fairly self-explanatory. Heroes that I typically play with Big Demons:

  • Pyramad – I find his hero power works really well in the early game while your Weaver is still growing. If you have a weaver on turn 1 and find two demons, you could potentially have a 5/13 minion by turn 3.

  • Maiev – I find that she does extremely well with Demons because you inherently end up staying on Tier 1 for a couple extra turns anyways, so you have a chance to look for Wrath Weavers and demons early on.

  • Hooktusk – she is absolutely awful post-nerf and you shouldn’t play her if you can avoid it, but her hero power does let you have additional chances at finding Tier 1 demons and Wrath Weavers

  • Rafaam – works well for the same logic as Maiev, you stay on tier 1 for a couple extra turns anyways so if Weavers show up in the shop you can grab them. People also love giving you 2/4 Vulgar demons when you’re Raf so you can likely get an early triple of these

  • George – again, not a great hero and you should probably avoid picking him, but unlike a lot of other compositions, a lot of your eventual end-game minions are bought pretty early so you can use your hero power on minions like Wrath Weavers and Soul Jugglers and these minions will be with you for most of the game. Playing demons and staying on Tier 1 a couple extra turns as George as opposed to tiering on turn 2 also reduces the chance you lose your first 4-5 fights fighting other heroes that have much more impactful early-game hero powers.

  • Reno Jackson – I won’t always use my hero power on the Wrath Weaver because once you do you’re forcing demons 100%, however if there is an early Wrath Weaver on board and one other demon, having a golden 6/6 by turn 3 that gains +4/+4 every single turn can usually guarantee you a spot in the top 4.

Other minions that really work well with big demons:

  • Goldgrubber – big demons often end up running a lot of golden cards on their board, between Wrath Weavers, Floating Watchers and Soul Jugglers being the most common, Goldgrubber works really well alongside these golden minions

  • Brann – I personally like picking up Brann when I play big demons, not only is it a good card to have on hand in case you want to transition to Murlocs but in the late game you can taunt most of your board and pick up some Strongshell Scavengers (give your taunt minions +2/+2) and beef up your stats quite quickly. Plus, with the introduction of Amalgadon having the Brann on hand gives it a couple extra adaptations and Amalgadon is always a welcome addition

  • Selfless hero – a bit of an underrated card in my opinion but having a golden selfless hero is amazing for a big demon board, especially when you’re not running jugglers and demon tokens.

Other thoughts and tips:

  • Finding a golden Wrath Weaver is one of the most important aspects of the composition. Having a golden Wrath Weaver and 10 gold means it’s 5 health for a 20/20 buff on your minion in the early game. Often, I’ll find myself staying on a lower tier for an extra turn or two just rolling to make sure I get a golden Weaver.

  • Considering how fast the meta is right now, building a composition where essentially you cap out at tier 5 with Malganis and Voidlords is really nice because you don’t need to search for 6* minions to make your board work (such as Beasts with mama bear, Murlocs with megasaur and Pirates with Dread Admiral). Imp Mama is a nice addition if you’re playing jugglers but you absolutely don’t require one to make your board work. As a result, even if you don’t necessarily win 1st place in every lobby, I find you consistently do well with big demons because it’s less of a all-or-nothing approach going for those highroll discovers

  • 1/3 Unstable Ghoul combined with an imp mama on board is an effective way of fighting against mech boards and murlocs that may have divine shield, just be careful of cleaves because your imp mama will spawn a taunt demon to the right of herself

  • Sometimes when I murloc transition, I’ll save the Wrath Weaver and not sell it that turn, just as a bit of an insurance policy in-case I low-roll with my transition, having a taunted 50/50 Wrath Weaver is sometimes enough to kill a couple big minions and either win the fight or keep you alive. I also find when I do this I don’t necessarily always need to hit the nuts and get divine/poison murlocs, having a big Wrath Weaver on board and a couple of bran-bagurgled murlocs is sometimes enough and you can transition over the course of 2-3 turns rather than a single turn.

Here's a game of me playing Big Demons with Pyramad in which I tried to outline my thoughts throughout the video: https://youtu.be/tsHcD8y0Nik

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