Dr. Piratelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Craft Patches

I was psyched when the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was announced. Finally, we would see some relief from the endless cavalcade of midrange Shaman decks – a phenomenon that was only worsened by the Yogg-Saron nerfs and One Night in Karazhan. If I saw one more Thunder Bluff Valiant hit the table, I was going to craft a real Spell Damage totem out of driftwood and fling it through Ben Brode’s office window.

The previews looked deeply promising. Shaman didn’t look like it was getting much good stuff, and other archetypes were getting buffed up nicely (Go, Dragon Priest, go!). Patches flew right by me. My response was basically: “Oh, so Stonetusk Boar is legendary now, eh? Nice. Are you guys running out of ideas?”

How much difference could a 1/1 on turn one make?

It makes a whole damn lot of difference, as it turns out. And people weren’t happy about it.

I was one of those people. Playing against Pirate Warrior over and over was bad enough, but the bigger problem was the metagame response to this deck. Since aggro was suddenly so effective, many control archetypes flew out the window faster than you could scream, “AVAST!” (My only consolation is that Patches was now gleefully humping midrange Shaman’s bloated corpse while singing drunken sea shanties.)

Even non-pirate Warrior decks sped up and focused on those critical first four to six turns. It wasn’t enough for Pirates to be fast – now the whole game felt like it had gone on a meth binge at Heisenberg’s lab (Editor’s Note: 2013 called, it wants its Breaking Bad references back. (Justin’s Note: 2008 called, it wants its jokes back.))

I deeply resist anything that’s popular. Maybe it’s my history as a teenage goth and the accompanying aversion to whatever the cool kids are doing (though, really, there are no cool kids playing Hearthstone – just people who beat me in Ranked). Isn’t playing a mathematically superior deck like cutting yourself an unearned break? Sure, you can get to the top of the mountain in a helicopter, but hiking makes you a better person, right?

So I gravitated toward infinite golem Druid decks, Kazakus Mage decks, Finja Murloc decks, and Grime decks (and played them aggro, which is hilariously incorrect. January Justin is pointing and laughing at December Justin who is stupid.). Anything but Pirate Warrior decks. “I can’t take the EASY way out! Fifteen year old Justin thinks you’re just trying to be POPULAR and BORING!”

However, the more time I spent playing against Patches decks, the more I came to admire their fast, brutal gameplay. If dragon Priest is rapiers at dawn in powdered wigs, pirate Warrior is 3 AM prison shanks while wearing chicken suits. And truthfully, I like to win. And Patches (and his tentacle monster toothbrush shank) wins. (And fifteen year old Justin didn’t pay his own rent, so screw that kid.) I got rolled over by this deck enough times that I decided that in order to beat ‘em, I had to join ‘em.

So I crafted Patches. Immediately, my pirate Warrior deck’s win-loss ratio improved. In a best case scenario, Patches can score me an additional 2-3 points of damage per game, and in an aggro deck, that’s significant. And unlike other decks, which often provide longer games, pirate Warrior wins or loses extremely quickly. If you make a bad call, you know exactly which choice killed you, because you only made 15-20 choices in the entire game, which probably didn’t even reach turn eight.

I can’t stress enough how important that is for new players. One of the problems with any form of competitive gaming, from fighting games to first person shooters to collectible card games, is a lack of connection between actions and results. It’s not always easy to draw straight lines between your in-game choices (in deck building and play) and how it results in your victory or death. Limiting the number of choices made by beginner players can help them identify and correct their mistakes.

One of the things that really intrigues me about pirate Warrior is how it forces you to think about playing for damage, tempo, value, and weight. Since it’s an aggro deck, you’re always trying to power through your opponent’s life total with cards like Southsea Deckhand, Small-Time Buccaneer, and the occasional lucky Bloodsail Raider. Playing for damage is the default setting for this deck, and there’s something that feels really damn great about murdering your way through your opponent’s life total in five short turns.

Understanding how to play for value is almost as important as the relentless drive for damage. In most decks, your 1-3 mana drops are merely there to buy you time to hit your 4 drops and combos. In pirate Warrior, those tiny minions are your path to victory, and losing them hurts. You have to get as much value out of these tiny minions as you possibly can, because chances are, you’re not going to get many chances to replace them – if the game goes past turn eight, you’re probably dead. Each one of those pirates needs to carve off a significant amount of enemy health while helping you maintain a dominant board state.

Speaking of board state, judging and responding to tempo is clutch too. Even weaker board clears like Consecration, Maelstrom Portal, and Whirlwind are day-ruiners. While “DON’T HOLD BACK!” is the default strategy for Pirate Warrior, you have to constantly evaluate board state and know when to sacrifice a pirate or your own life points to maintain favorable tempo. And if your opponent is coming up on the mana total for a board clear, you may want to keep a pirate or two in your hand instead of playing them and exposing them to harm.

In this deck, your pirates were born to die, so they have virtually no weight. Each one needs to spend their short, brutish lives working hard. If someone drops a Twilight Guardian or Sen’jin Shieldmaster, you’re forced to choose between burning a weapon attack and life points or burning two or (ugh) three of your precious pirates to clear the way for that delicious damage waterfall. Playing for weight is very difficult, but if you’re forced into that situation, you have to be flawless. This deck tolerates no bad decisions.

Mastering these four skills is essential to improving your overall Hearthstone win ratio. Even if you hate Patches, and you’d lock an Australian in a trunk for playing this deck, you may want to be a hypocrite and play it for yourself, for all of the valuable lessons it can teach you. Worst case scenario, Patches eats a neft, and you dust his slimy ass for 1600 dust. If you received him in a pack, kudos! You came out way ahead on dust / gold. If you crafted him, now you can go craft something else. You have nothing to lose but your gothy self-imposed chains.

And for me, a guy who sees every game as one giant punching simulator, it feels awesome to completely ignore your opponent’s first few rounds worth of minions while smashing their life totals.“Nice Murlocs. Now pardon me while I beat your face in! AVAAAST!”

(Pro tip: watch the hell out for dragon Priest when you’re playing pirate Warrior. They have board clears (Holy Nova, Dragonfire Potion), spot removal (Shadow Words), extremely high value low cost creatures (Twilight Whelp, Wyrmrest Agent, and Netherspite Historian) and excellent mid level creatures (Blackwing Corruptor, Blackwing Technician, Azure Drake, Drakonid Operative). And the Priest hero ability combined with Kabal Talonpriest has the capacity to keep taunters in play and life totals high and extend the game past your deck’s stamina. Priest is even better at maximizing value in this meta, and that’s awful for pirate Warrior players. Pirates versus ninjas is an argument. Pirates versus dragons is a slaughter.)