Zoo Warlock is one of the oldest decks in Hearthstone, and has been helping new players learn the ins and outs of the game since the very earliest beta phases. It's a deck that's focused on maintaining gentle early-game control, before snowballing into the kind of broad threat that the opponent will often struggle to overcome.
Although Zoolock struggled to catch up with the pack at the start of 2017, it grew in strength considerably throughout the second half of the year. Right now it's not quite in the top tier of competitive decks, but it may well rise higher during the Witchwood era. Let's hope so, as it's a great deck for newcomers to use to learn the ins and outs of Hearthstone's various mechanics and make ladder progress at the same time.
In our guide to playing the new Witchwood version of Zoolock, we've highlighted a deck list that's about as good as it gets right now, and should prove a pretty effective way of climbing the ladder. We've also got some strategy advice about how the deck functions, a bit of advice on the Mulligan process and we've also updated our combo tips to suit the latest version of the deck.
Zoo Warlock deck list and strategy
The following deck list is seeing the most competitive play right now, and we've updated the rest of our guide to reflect its make-up:
Warlock ----- --------- Neutral
2 x Flame Imp ----- --------- 2 x Acherus Veteran
2 x Kobold Librarian--------------- 2 x Fire Fly
2 x Mortal Coil --- ------------ 1 x Prince Keleseth
2 x Soulfire ---- ----------- 2 x Tar Creeper
2 x Voidwalker ---- -----------2 x Saronite Chain Gang
2 x Duskbat --- ----------- 2 x Sea Giant
2 x Hooked Reaver
2 x Despicable Dreadlord
2 x Doomguard
1 x Bloodreaver Gul'dan
General Strategies/Combos.
-Vs Aggro decks try to get a voidwalker in your opening hand, Saronite chain gang is good too.
-Dreadlord is amazing vs Paladin, the one damage at end of turn wrecks their hero power.
-Kobold librarian or flame imp + duskbat is a strong turn 4 move. The bat summons two 1/1 bats if you're hero took damage. Coin + imp + bat is even stronger on turn 3. Alternatively you can tap + bat (aka tapbat) on turn 5, but it's not quite as strong, but still a good play.
-Always play keleseth ASAP, unless you're going die or be very close to lethal if you play it. Sometimes it's important to get a taunt up to save you, but generally getting keleseth out is a priority.
-Guldan is powerful, but don't be too afraid to soulfire or doomguard and risk losing it if you have good tempo and can set up a next turn lethal by playing doom or soulfire. Obviously if you have lethal on the board with soulfire/doomguard it's fine, but even setting up a next turn lethal warrants risking the Gul'dun mil IMO.
Generally this is a face deck. But if you can make value trades it's usually the smart move, especially if it protects a stronger minion. (Value trade means killing one of his minion with yours, but yours stays alive. Even more value if you can kill a minion of higher mana cost with one of your lower mana cost minions.)
That's all for now. If there's interest I can maybe update the guide to include class specific mulligans/matchup strategies etc.
See you by the hearth! :)