A Dog on a Quest

April 16 2017


Journey to Un’Goro has been off to a great start! I’m surprised that so many classes are playable right now and the power level feels about right. So far the quests have been interesting to play with and even within some classes the best decks aren’t even established! Curse of Naxxramas or League of Explorers are currently up there as my favorite sets but Un’Goro threatens to surpass them.

Starting with the quests, I am pretty happy with how they are balanced. Completing a quest is obviously very powerful but none of them are too strong. That none are home runs is a good thing. If quests were the only thing to be doing in Un’Goro that would take fun out of deckbuilding! The one exception to this is the Warrior quest, jamming Taunts into a deck isn’t especially fun deckbuilding.

There is, however, one quest that really jumps out in terms of being fun to build around.

Quest — or Exodia — Mage was the first deck I built in Un’Goro. When Blizzard first revealed the card I had the same reaction as most people in thinking that this would be great for combos. So when the expansion came out I tried to build it.





Exodia Mage is a really fun deck but one that’s ultimately very easy to counter. Dirty Rat really hurts but after another year of Standard he’ll be gone! Maybe Exodia will make a comeback then. The deck also has some potential in conquest format since its polarizing matchups can help clean sweep a deck.

After having fun with the Mage quest I tried out the Rogue quest. Despite hitting Rank 1 Legend with the deck I was pretty sure it was terrible. The quest was easier to complete than most imagined, that’s for sure. Despite that, I was pretty sure that Arcane Giant Miracle was better and had superior matchups overall. That said, it’s pretty cool to see where Quest Rogue moved as most are now taking a more value-based approach.

Ultimately though I think that Miracle/Arcane Giant Rogue is the place to be. Quest Rogue shouldn’t vanish completely but it’s popularity will depend on the relative power of Dirty Rat and aggro.

So, how fast do things at the beginning of an expansion? It turns out that they can change so quickly that this article needed to be revised between drafts!


So, I’m going back on Arcane Giant Rogue being the best choice. The more I played with it and Quest Rogue the more I discovered that my initial read on consistency was flipped. The quest just seemed so hard at first! Despite this initial impression I’ve been converted.

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One of the big revelations was the inclusion of Vanish. This card really cements your good matchups and gives you an outside chance in your bad ones. Coldlight Oracle and the cycle-heavy versions of the deck also help smooth things out.

Even aggro decks, which were an initial concern, are mitigated by the inclusion of Glacial Shard. By bouncing your Shard you lock down their best minion and are left with a two-mana 3/2 or 2/3 and that’s not the worst. Any leftover mana can be turned into freeze or card draw and both those are pretty good! Add to all of this that you are a Patches deck so you’ll normally start with the board.

If you want to pick up the deck, never mulligan the quest is step one. Never ever mull it. That said, you don’t need to play it turn one either. If you have another activator in hand, or you plan on going the Igneous Elemental route you can play to the board on turn one. Swashburgler or Fire Fly on turn one can go a long way to contesting the board until you get rolling.

All in all Un’Goro has been a blast so far. Happy Questing!



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Writer // Dog
Graphics // Shiroiusagi
Editor // Hayl