Quick story time: Way back in 2013 as I was prepping for Worlds I wasn’t really happy with the game. At the time we were neck deep in the changes CZE had made to the game and to put it bluntly it drained a lot of the fun for me. While Wife and I were really excited as this was the first time I had qualified for Worlds, I wasn’t super excited to test. In reality I was way more interested in the highlander and especially classic side events that were going to be held. In the end I didn’t prep very well and brought an oddball deck (shocker!). That deck was based around the dual rogue/warlock hero Mistress Nesala.
Like the other monster dual heroes, the succubus is prevented from running horde/alliance cards and talent cards. However, gaining access to 2 classes worth of cards otherwise gives you a really wide swathe of options. I don’t really recall my build for 2013 (it was bad), but since then I’ve toyed with a number of different versions. One is enabled by her demon status. The easy stuff is of course including quests like What Illidan Wants, and You are Demon, Rakh’likh. Those are already proven commodities in other decks such as the infamous Tyrus list. Since this deck doesn’t have access to the integral Unholy Power, a different path must be chosen. I present exhibit A:
“Sweeps, Bleeps, and Creeps”
First off if you haven’t seen Spaceballs or didn’t recognize that quote stop reading. Go find it and watch the movie. Don’t worry the class can wait.
Really this idea focuses on the first part of that quote, sweeps. Nesala has the ability to field an unprecedented number of board clears compared to other classes. You get Fel Blaze. You get Demonic Torrent. You get Boundless Hellfire. You get Engulfing Blaze. You get Poison the Well. You get Carnage. You get No Mercy. You get…the idea. The variety of ways to clean up the board with this class pairing. Additionally, the clears provide further utility in the form of damage to your opponent or feeding other cards such as Overkill or Surge of Adrenaline. The latter being especially important. Our mistress only comes to the table with 25 health. That isn’t a whole lot. You are going to want to ensure you have a consistent flow of cards and while the quests are quite good, there are still situations where you want to grow your hand outside of quests. Bloody Ritual and Promises of Power are strong cards, but it is a difficult bargain to make when your starting life total is so low. Surge can be a great option while also providing food for No Mercy or other finishing moves if you so choose.
What’s the drawback? Well the blue menace is probably the first thing that comes to mind and with good reason. Fel Blaze isn’t nearly as impressive if all the damage gets prevented. Obviously, it is even worse against Tyrus. Any red aggressive builds are going to be left in a tough spot if they overextend but that may not be a significant portion of the meta. That’s the trade-off you make for being able to burn your opponent out with your removal spells. Unfortunately this idea hasn’t really gotten much traction for us due to that specific vulnerability. Both Simon McKey and Tyrus Blackhorn are too common to justify having so many dead cards. That being said you can clearly lean more into the rogue side and get a slightly different set of brooms to try and tidy up the board, ones that are significantly more effective against both aberration as well as gigantic horned monsters.
Being a glorified Roomba isn’t all this dual hero offers. There are a few things I try to look at when examining the dual class heroes, and one of them is saturation. What can both classes accomplish so you can possibly overwhelm an opponent’s defenses? For this build you get lots, and lots of discard.
The Art of No Fun
Our group of friends enjoys titling each other “Captain No Fun” when they are the current wet blanket. Mistress Nesala loves to have enjoy herself by ruining other people’s good time. What better way to ruin things than Voidfire Wand?
Voidfire Wand
4cc Equipment Weapon – Wand
1 (frost) ATK / 1 strike cost
When combat damage is dealt with Voidfire Wand to a hero, the next time that hero’s controller would draw a card, he skips drawing it instead.
Now that can be mean. This wand is an oldy, but a goody. Usable by cloth classes (mage, priest, warlock) it has seen some tournament level play for a while but it has the potential to excel here. In our interview with Pat Eshgy, he mentioned that he felt this might be a viable route to take the hero and I am inclined to agree. Think about it for a minute, you have access to a plethora of targeted discard and all on the cheap. Rogues and Warlocks are the classes you go to when you want to rip a target out of your opponent’s hand. If something does manage to slip through you can scoop it up with Banish to the Nether, Miniature Voodoo Mask, or any number of other universal answers provided by either class. Between all of the targeted discard and even generic discard such as Victimize you can quickly demolish an opponent’s hand leading to the victory condition of “you never draw another card”.
The low health total issue still hasn’t been resolved though. That can be addressed cleanly with a few different options. Bazul is just as happy to team up with Nesala as he is with Tyrus and bring the gift of a 6 health swing. Sardok still will take one for the team if there are rampaging hordes in front of you. Let’s take a moment to appreciate Sardok for a moment. There are few allies with protector that consistently see play and he is one of them. The physical resistance comes into play more than you’d think as well. Deathwish and Broderick powered hero swings of course, but Fang and Ring of Trials activations also get shrugged off. Even the mighty Anub’arak just bounces fruitlessly away from the voidwalker. That’s a lot of potential power from a mere 1 drop. Just to add insult to injury, he’ll eat Magni tokens for free too.
Ally with a cool ability got you down? Hesriana is happy to team up with a kindred spirit and be the bar bouncer, flinging the enemy out of the game. The ubiquitous succubus is a thorn in the side of many decks and a lynchpin for the classic format as a whole. A topdecked warlock pet can turn the tide of plenty of games. Whereas a well-orchestrated RFG will be the final nail in the coffin. Sure it can get complicated sometimes if you run Sardok, but it is a small price to pay for LIMITLESS POWER…
Ahem.
When all is said and done you can ride off into the green fel flame infused sunset on your trusty Felsteed with Kel’thuzad riding shotgun if you want. One of the advantages of pairing these classes is that you can include the majority of the tournament tested cardboard and then season it with even more tournament caliber cards from the other class. Dreadsteed needs no introduction but the strength of this mount cannot be understated. One of the drawbacks of playing many of the other classes (rogue included) is that often there is no option for a good mount. The “free cards” they create by virtue of turning resource drops into additional value can propel a deck from mediocrity to stardom.
Our testing of this list hasn’t been extensive, but it certainly has potential. It also has some weaknesses, at least on paper. Let’s take a moment to review some of the pitfalls you’ll need to navigate.
Nobody Is Perfect
Discard is great and all but you need to follow it up. If your opponent plays a Garet Vice, and you proceed to shred their entire hand for the remainder of the game, guess what? If you didn’t deal with that werewolf he will get there. Even if it takes 13 turns. There are certainly worlds where this deck draws dead due to the high quantity of discard. Or you are simply dead-dead due to the low health total. Granted you get Poison the Well and other ways to keep yourself alive, but you need to draw them at appropriate times. There is going to be a delicate balance between trying to keep from flatlining while still disrupting enough to enable your wand-based win con. Even if you connect with the wand a face-up quest could allow your opponent to wriggle out of the lock. When things are going well you are going to feel invincible. When they don’t go well you’re going to feel as helpless as the other guy did under voidfire lock.
Speaking of the devil, let’s assume you make Voidfire Wand the primary win condition. The quest base is definitely influenced and it may be where most of the effort needs to be focused. Cleansing Witch Hill and Signed in Blood seem like natural inclusions. Eye of the Storm as well since that 25 health disappears quickly. That’s 12 resources already and zero of them draw cards. See the problem? Generally speaking, I try to include both an early game draw option such as A Question of Gluttony, or What Illidan Wants as well as a mid or late game one that provides more cards so you can refill later on. You are Demon Rakh’likh would fit here, but do you really want to run over 16 resource cards? What about Junkboxes Needed? Between Eye of Kilrogg, Lesson of the Nether, Purloin, Poach, or whatever other targeted discard you want to runcards such as junkboxes, and possibly Commander Ulthok, become much easier to profitably land. The proverbial cup overflows with blessing, or maybe curses since she’s a demon? I don’t know I’m not an expert here. Bottom line is the cup needs to be a little bigger and it will be difficult to trim the decklist. Maybe you follow the path I have below and push your card draw into your other card slots. Drain Will and friends aren’t completely dead if your opponent has no cards in hand. Maybe they are not quite as effective but they don’t have entirely blank text boxes.
To close out, I am pretty confident that this is not the correct list. By pretty confident I mean I am as close to 100% sure you can be without actually being 100%. There is something there though, hopefully someone can uncover it.
Hero
Mistress Nesala
Master Hero (2)
2x Kel’Thuzad
Abilities (27)
4x Banish to the Nether
2x Carnage
4x Drain Will
3x Eye of Kilrogg
4x Poach
4x The Promises of Darkness
2x Victimize
4x Poison the Well
Allies (11)
3x Dreadsteed
4x Hesriana
4x Sardok
Items (4)
4x Miniature Voodoo Mask
Weapons (2)
2x Voidfire Wand
Quests (10)
4x A Question of Gluttony
3x Junkboxes Needed
3x Signed in Blood
Locations (4)
4x Eye of the Storm
Total cards in deck: 60
Random('s) Thoughts 