For this week's Deck Clinic, I received the following email from Mikkel from Denmark. He needs a bit of help tuning his [Victor Baltus] Demon deck:

Hi my name is Mikkel Rasmussen and I am a player from the small country of Denmark. I've been thinking (like a lot of other people, of course) of [Victor Baltus] demon deck and would feel honored if you would take a look at my deck list. 

 
Of course I could remove the blue empower and make it the new demon hero, but that would leave me without the extra [Summoning Portal] and the constant +1+1 to all my allies.

 
Would love to hear your thoughts on the deck as I haven't really played versus the current meta with it yet.

Hero: [Victor Baltus]

Allies: 25

4 [Vylokx]

4[Jadefire Scout]

4 [Jadefire Hellcaller]

4 [Jhuunash]

4 [Sardok]

2 [Maazhum]

3 [Trista, Herald of the Fel]

Abilities: 16

Equipment: 8

4 [Miniature Voodoo Mask]

4 [Bottled Void]

Quests: 12

4 [What Illidan Wants, Illidan Gets…]

2 [Signed in Blood]

2 [Far from the Nest]

4 [Seeds of Their Demise]

I fell in love with Empower Warlock ([Trista, Herald of the Fel]) after reading it and thought of it as being another "[Summoning Portal]" if only it were in the right deck. It's not bad that she's a 5-2 either (it doesn't have an insane amount of health, but with a little control, it shouldn't be a problem) and in a worst case scenario, it has already searched your deck after another card to fill its space in the hand.


My worst problem is ability and equipment destruction. I can go Destruction with another hero but then I lose the pump of all my allies getting permanent +1+1 for only 2 cost. I could run dragons and [Twilight Citadel] but I simply can't find any room for them. I need to play against some meta decks, seeing as the store I play at isn't that competitive.


And yes, it's far from the nest you're seeing, I thought, what's worse than seeing a [Jhuunash]played from the hand? the same [Jhuunash] being played yet again from the grave.

Anyone who's played the WoW TCG lately has probably seen a [Victor Baltus] at their local Battleground. How could you not? Victor's flip coupled with the slew of new Demon allies seem like an obvious choice.

I began testing Mikkel's deck online. Warlock does pretty well against Mage as the decks are actually quite similar. They both have their own AOE damage, their own ally removal (Warlock's is quite a bit better asMage relies a bit much on [Timriv the Enforcer]), and they both have access to [Miniature Voodoo Mask] to deal with annoying problems.

The deck did struggle a bit against the more aggressive decks. The turn 2 flip slows Warlock down and a loss of tempo like that on the draw made the games unwinnable. Mikkel's list also struggled with the new Harmonize combo decks simply because the removal he was packing cost a bit too much. When the Harmonize decks start with a first turn [Keeper Sharus], you need to answer that almost immediately or fall behind. The easy fix to the problem in both areas was the inclusion of [Fel Blaze]. [Fel Blaze] does unfortunately hit your hero but it doesn't affect any of your allies except for [Trista, Herald of the Fel]. The ability to start with a first turn [Sardok] and follow it up with a [Fel Blaze] gave me a solid line of play against the [Keeper Sharus]/[Keeper Balos] start.

I honestly liked Mikkel's deck quite a bit and didn't feel very much needed to change. I did swap out some things to compete a bit more with the current metagame. [Vindicator Saaris] was included to combat the rise of the Solo plate decks. While the armor in Core is super strong it's also really expensive so a card like [Vindicator Saaris] creates a huge tempo swing in your favor. I only ran a single copy as against almost anything but Solo Plate, [Vindicator Saaris] is pretty useless and I could search her out at the exact time that I need her via [Summoning Portal].

Why does anyone in Core play [Fel Covenant]? Did I miss something? With alternatives like [Banish Soul] and [Void Rip], I can't see the reason to run [Fel Covenant] when it routinely deals you 6 damage when you remove an opposing [Mazu'kon]. Sure, [Fel Covenant] may be better than [Banish Soul] in the mirror match but I'd still rather fall back on [Void Rip] than use [Fel Covenant]. Needless to say the card got cut.

I also made some cuts to the quest base. While [Signed in Blood] is a fine card, I'm not sure it's needed in Warlock. The biggest reason I could see to include the card was to shut down opposing [Twilight Citadel]s and it does a fine job at that but wouldn't it just be better to shut off [Etched Dragonbone Girdle] instead? In this case, the Girdle is the bud and you can nip the problem off with a timely [Miniature Voodoo Mask]. While quests in Crown of the Heavens were of higher quality than sets previous, I still don't think many people are running more than eight quests (save for the Harmonize/[Emerald Emissary] deck that was showcased at the recent Chinese DMF). Sadly, though Mikkel really liked [Far From the Nest] to return his [Jhuunash] on turn 6, I couldn't think of a scenario where I wouldn't want [Vylokx] on turn 6 over a resurrected [Jhuunash] so that quest also bit the dust. Though it's probably a slim consolation, we can always play [Trista, Herald of the Fel] and [Jhuunash] together on turn 7.

I also added in a couple cards that I really wanted to test out. While I'm not generating tokens, I found [Soul Cleave] a good way to clear out a [Sardok] you don't need before playing a [Jhuunash]. While you aren't technically generating card advantage with [Soul Cleave] (as you trade two cards for two of their cards), the trick to make the card work is to make sure you hit bigger allies than the one your sacrificing. I also added in the new [Monstrous Void] as I felt the deck needed a big closer. On my podcast, we debated the usefulness of [Monstrous Void] and opinions varied from “win more card” to “awesome”.

An issue I had with Mikkel's deck was ending the game. If we can open with a turn 1 Demon and follow that up with a hero flip on turn 2, we can often get in some big damage through the first 4 or 5 turns. Eventually, however, the opponent will stabilize and begin to pick off our threats which makes [Monstrous Void] a good choice for this deck. Once your opponent begins to stabilize, you drop out a [Monstrous Void] and ideally generate at least two 5/5 Demons (though the more the merrier). While I'm not sure the deck warrants including three copies of the card, I found it to be extremely useful in almost all of my matches and I think folks should give it an honest shot.

Mikkel's ally base seemed pretty solid and standard. I honestly didn't change much there expect tweak some of the final numbers. The last addition to the deck was the inclusion of Big Daddy Demon, [Prince Xavalis]. He's a 4/3 for three so he's already a good value and couple that with his game ending, Demon generating game text, I felt I'd be doing everyone a disservice by not including him.

Here's the final list that I had been testing through the weekend:

Hero: [Victor Baltus]

Allies: 26

3 [Jadefire Hellcaller]

1 [Vindicator Saaris]

4 [Trista, Herald of the Fel]

3 [Vylokx]

4 [Jadefire Scout]

4 [Jhuunash]

4 [Sardok]

3 [Prince Xavalis]

Abilities: 20

2 [Summoning Portal]

3 [Monstrous Void]

4 [Fel Blaze]

4 [Banish Soul]

4 [Life Tap]

3 [Soul Cleave]

Equipment: 7

3 [Bottled Void]

4 [Miniature Voodoo Mask]

Quests: 8

4 [Seeds of Their Demise]

4 [What Illidan Wants, Illidan Gets. . .]

I hope you liked this edition of the Deck Clinic. If you have a neat deck idea that could use a little help, feel free to drop me an email at aquestionofgluttony@gmail.com and I'll happily take a look.

-Sean