You can have Lord Jaraxxus as a playable minion on the board if he’s introduced by the random call in deathrattle of the void caller. Never seen that happen before.
Also, lord jarraxus is technically a minion, so you can’t play him if your board is full. Interesting!
I just had the most bizarre arena match. The first 5 plays by the opponent were innervate, alarm-o-bot, coin, alarm-o-bot, and then… 3 more alarm-o-bots on the next 3 turns. I suppose this is technically possible in an arena deck, but to have been able to pick up 5 of those in one deck, and have them all available over the first 5 turns … that’s gotta be one in several hundred million or less. Was something fishy going on?
Did you kill the alarmobots? They go back into his hand after going off
Were all 5 Alarm-o-bots out at once? If not, it probably wasn’t 5 Alarm-o-bots: you don’t sacrifice the Alarm-o-bot when its effect triggers, it is returned to your hand.
Oh, duh. I thought they were destroyed during the transition, but it’s just swapped. No, it was too early, I didn’t get the chance. They actually seem like they might be somewhat useful with innervate early on, to deploy before a lot of opening decks can counter them. I guess it’s very luck based, and you’d have to have a high value card in your starting hand that was meh if it didn’t work out right.
Would you say that there is a rank at which deck composition really starts mattering, such that below that rank, even bad decks will reliably win if handled by competent players?
If so, what rank would you say that is?
it’s hard to dissect ranks because, iirc, about 3/4 of all players sit between rank 15 and below. that leaves little room to answer your question; and is, i think, also one of the reasons why there are so many complaints about the ranked system, especially from newer players.
I’m trying to figure out how much blame to assign my incompetence to deck building, and how much to assign to actual in-play errors.
One approach here would be to grab a successful net deck and see how well I do with it. But that’s hard-to-impossible because in the good net decks there always seem to be crucial expensive cards (legendaries usually) that I just don’t have.
Here’s what I’m trying right now, which is a modified version of a net deck:
Blessing of Might x2
Abusive Sergeant x1
Argent Squire x2
Elven Archer x1
Wargen Infiltrator x2
Young Dragonhawk x2
Equality x2
Bluegill Warrior x2
Ironbeak Owl x1
Loot Hoarder x1
Divine Favor x1
Coldlight Oracle x1
Wolfrider x1
Truesilver Champion x2
Consecration x2
Hammer of Wrath x2
Cult Master x1
Reckless Rocketeer x2
Guardian of Kings x2
The original called for leper gnome which I’ll get around to crafting someday but for now, the best sub I could think of in the cards I have was young dragonhawk. (At least it has a chance to get that two damage in before it dies.)
Orignal has Leeroy Jenkins. For that I’ve substituted the two reckless rocketeers, thinking about reducing them to one and grabbing something cheaper more in keeping with the style of the deck.
Original has that one that does eight damage spread randomly through the enemies. I just don’t have anything to substitute for this. I grabbed Guardian of Kings instead, just because I’ve always liked the card. Admittedly it’s not in keeping with the style of the deck (expensive, not aggressive, defensive) but… I just couldn’t think of anything to match eight damage spread through the enemie’s ranks. I could try a giant, maybe, or the new tank with divine shield.
Finally the original had two divine favors, I only have one. I substituted in a couple of card-draw options. (Cult master, loot hoarder).
There were also a couple of cases where I only had one copy of something that called for two copies in the net deck, and I just subbed in some similarly statted minion.
Actually, on realizing how cheap leper gnomes are I went ahead and crafted them and put them in the deck.
Since that point, my record is eight wins, six losses, which is admittedly better than I was doing before but is still a pretty small sample size, and still not very good.
I have to say, though, many of the times that I do win feel decisive in a way I’m not used to.
Well, it’s probably both. You can make up for an unoptimised deck with good play (or exploit poor play, however you like to frame that), but some decks, there’s just no winning with.
The deck you posted looks like a “Shockadin” type build which was run before naxx, where the aim was to empty your hand as fast as possible and re-fill using divine favor for the final burst. I ran this deck for a little while back then, but it just wasn’t my thing.
With that in mind, running just one copy of divine favor and running additional card draw kind of defeat the central idea of the deck, which is empty your hand and then re-fill. Any additional card draw apart from divine favor weakens divine favor, since that’s once less card you’ll draw, and you paid for that card draw by having less stats for your mana. Also, just one copy of divine favor means you might never draw it (likely in a fast deck like this), so you might not draw into your win condition. Cult Master is right out, at least with Loot Horder you could possibly throw it out and then Divine Favor for one more card.
With that said, you can still probably empty your hand with limited card draw if you curve low enough, so lets go through your substitutions.
Young Dragonhawk for Leper Gnome. Leper Gnome is almost always seen in every aggro deck, and the reason for that is that it costs just 1 mana, and its guaranteed 2 damage due to his deathrattle. Often, against weapons classes like Rogue, it’s 6 damage for 1 mana (you hit, he hits the leper gnome to clear it, deathrattle goes off). In a deck where face damage is the most important, Leper Gnomes are almost an auto-include. Contrast with Young Dragonhawk, which gets pinged for free by mage, and does not trade favorably with anything. I suppose the dream is getting a Young Dragonhawk out and managing to buff it somehow for wombo damage, but how often are you going to be able to do that?
Reckless Rocketeers for Leeroy Jenkins. Again, the idea of this deck is face. Back when Leeroy was 4 mana, this was another auto-include for aggro decks. At 5, aggro decks will still probably run Leeroy, but nobody will pay 6 for 5 damage. Games will often be over at 6, and it’s a card that you can’t dump, meaning one less draw from Divine Favor. Imagine if you have a hand with 2 of these in it, Divine favor loses a LOT of power.
Guardian of Kings for Avenging Wrath. I think this is a basic misunderstanding of Avenging Wrath, the key part of it is not that it deals 8 damage, it’s that it deals 8 damage on the turn you cast it, and only costs 5 mana. Again, goes with the theme of the deck - fast, cheap damage.
In general, for this deck, I would think long and hard about subbing in any card that costs above 3. Think, if you want to empty your hand by turn 5, you need to spend 2 cards every turn on turns 3 onward. With that in mind, think about subbing cards like Dire Wolf Alpha (more damage on the turn you play it, reasonable body for the cost, enables your smaller minions to trade up), Shattered Sun Cleric, Acidic Swamp Ooze (to kill weapons and 3 damage for 2 mana is great, you want to get your mana’s worth of damage for this deck)… Maybe even razorfen hunter?
Also consider cards like Chillwind Yeti, Defender of Argus, Dark Iron Dwarf, but very few of them. Not more than 4 cards that cost 4 or more, I would think.
Why not make a zoo deck? It’s one of the cheapest decks around, and you can really feel the power. I resisted playing zoo for the longest time, but once I did, I realised just how substandard my homebrew decks were. Now, although I like to mess around with things like mill Rogue, Pirate Rogue, Tempo Rogue (see a theme?), I sometimes bring out the Zoo deck again to remind myself what a GOOD deck feels like. Every draw is just the right draw, you top deck all your answers, you always have the tools you need to clear the board and take control… Honestly, I would really really recommend you try Zoo.
Zoo also helps you learn how to trade effectively and board control, something which aggro decks like Shockadin don’t really do. But still, learning how to play aggro decks and when to clear the board/when to push for face is also a skill.
Lot’s of good advice here, which I appreciate.
It seems like you misunderstood me, though, to be saying my substitutions were as good as or better than the ones substituted for. But as I said, they were just my attempts to do something similar with the cards I do have. And I thought I had been clear in saying that I did not consider guardian of kings to be anything like avenging wrath–I just didn’t have anything at all that seemed like a good sub, so I just went with a similarly costing card that I like. I do totally get avenging wrath’s function in this deck, I just don’t have anything that works like that.
I’ll be trying other decks in coming days, this was just a first experiment. But as I said, it turns out all the good decks are such that I just don’t have those cards, so I can’t really do any of them perfectly. (Especially given I don’t have any of the Naxx cards after the first level, and just a few GvG cards.)
Nice point about the card draw mechanism in the deck I posted, it hadn’t occurred to me that the two cards are working against each other. I’d had Jeeves in there before, maybe that fits a little better than cultist, though it would be even more situational than divine favor.
ETA Oh yes and concerning board control and trading etc, for this shockadin deck I did indeed have to “unlearn” that stuff. 
I have only an unclear idea what a zoo deck is, btw. At this site Hearthstone Decks - 2023 it’s not listed as a deck type option. Is it synonymous with one of those listed there?
A Zoo deck is built around using a whole mass of cheap, cost effective minions to maintain board control. It’s mostly done with Warlock because the low average cost means you need more card draw, provided by Life Tap, and it’s got cards like Flame Imp and Doom Guard whose downsides are less significant in this type of deck.
Here is an example.
Sorry, wasn’t clear, but basically what Grumman said.
More examples: The perfect zoo (rank 6 Legend) video update :o - Hearthstone Decks
The original zoo, pre-naxx (since it seems you don’t have naxx, you might want to run this. It’s a bit out of date but still very good) Reynad Zoo Warlock - Hearthstone Decks
With regards to the substitutions, I understand that you might not have the cards, I’m just explaining why the subs you made were not fitting into the aim of the deck and so might not show the true power of the deck. Like buying a Ferrari and saying “well, rubber tyres, wooden tyre, same thing, I like wood better”. Subs still have to be made with the aim of the deck in mind, otherwise the deck just performs far worse. Like GoK, it’s triply bad - the heal is pretty pointless, it’s a high costed card and doesn’t do damage, and it clogs up your hand making divine favor worse.
So anyway, just my 2 cents on deckbuilding and card substitution, take it as you wish. 
As always, have fun! TO TEH FACE!!
EDIT: Also, regarding zoo, you want to spend all your cards so that cards which have the detrimental battlecry of “discard a card” (soulfire, doomguard) don’t mean anything, and you just tap afterwards to refill your hand.
How effective are undertaker/deathrattle decks? They seem like a natural aggro deck, with low cost deathrattle minions and a unit that can be deployed on turn one and get stronger (webcrawlers in a hunter deck are particularly great), but having tried them with both warlock and hunter I’m not having that much success. The enemy player pretty much always manages to take out or silence my undertaker(s) before they get significantly strong, even if I start out with a perfect hand.
But then with other aggro low cost minion decks I’d probably lose the same way, without the extra synergy.
Specifically, here’s my hunter deck. Suggestions?
2x Arcane Shot
1x Leper Gnome
2x Undertaker
2x Webspinner
2x Explosive Trap
1x Dire Wolf Alpha
2x Haunted Creeper
1x Ironbeak Owl
1x Loot Hoarder
2x Mad Scientist
1x Scavenging Hyena
2x Animal Companion
2x Kill Command
2x Unleash The Hounds
1x Arcane Golem
2x Wolfrider
1x Houndmaster
1x Leeroy Jenkins
1x Stampeding Kodo
1x Maexxna
I’d use another houndmaster if I had one. Mad scientist/explosive trap seems to work well overall. I’m not sure if I’m getting great use out of unleash the hounds. Occasionally they can line up perfectly with a hyena, but I’ve rarely had both cards at the same time. It can be pretty powerful to drop both on turn 5 if your enemy has a few minions on the board. In theory this would be good against an aggro deck, and maybe it’s a small sample size, but I’ve rarely had it turn things around for me.
Edit: I have no Savannah Highmanes. I know those are super good minions.
… have you been playing hearthstone what are you doing =p
Last season was basically dominated by the Hunter deathrattle deck. Every. Single Game. “Bring out your dead” coin “I feel Icky!”
So yes, you could say that they are effective. Very effective. Deck kind of looks like this CANCER HUNTER - Hearthstone Decks but there was an even faster variant that ran things like arcane shot and arcane golem to close the game out even faster.
Ugh.
You don’t see it much now because everyone is messing around with GVG, and because everyone learned to deal with Undertaker + Leper Gnome opening, otherwise you just autolost the whole of last season.
Anyway, the idea is not only that the undertaker gets big, but rather it always manages to trade favorably (i.e. take something out and survive, get big enough to take something else out and survive again or take out something bigger and most expensive). After a certain point, your board is so big that you can just send everything to the face and press your hero power until you win.
EDIT: Just saw your deck. Why just 1 leper gnome? 2 is standard, increases greatly your chance of getting undertaker coin 1 drop with deathrattle, which is the best possible start.
Hyena a bit slow. You don’t have time to buff it up, better to spend your mana for more bang.
Kodo and Maexxna too slow. Remember, you don’t care about the board, you care about his face. Both Kodo and Maexxna are not good for face. Either Belchers (protect your board) or Highmanes (more face).
Why no freezing trap? Freezing trap is a fantastic tempo card, it basically means that your opponent gets scared to remove your board with his minions (or rather, he can’t), and you get to hit more face. Also, Eaglehorn bow. Very mana efficient card, especially if you hold it until your trap gets triggered. Think of it like this, each trap gets a free +3 damage tacked on to it. Isn’t that fantastic?
Just saw that you don’t have Highmanes. More’s the pity, but in that case either belchers, or… maybe Boulderfist Ogres. Don’t knock these guys, they take a lot to take out, and can dish the pain. They’re not as sticky as Highmanes, but eh, not as good as the best is still pretty good.
Also, all you other people need to add me as a friend! I want to creep on your games! =D