Hearthstone Priest, Paladin, Warlock Standard Warlock

Norwis’ Day-1 Scholomance Academy Zoo Warlock decklist

Scholomance Academy Zoo Warlock Norwis

With the Scholomance Academy just around the corner, Norwis is here to share his day-1 decks for Zoo Warlock in the Standard format. Norwis is a long term Hearthstone pro player, and soon streamer on Twitch, you can find him at twitch.tv/norwis_. Throughout the years, he spends most of his time competing for rank one in both formats, lately focusing on the Master Tour events. Zoo Warlock is the current favorite of Norwis. Norwis played the Egg Zoo Warlock throughout July. 

The new inclusions for Zoo Warlock from the Scholomance Academy

The Scholomance Academy expansion brings in several exciting tools for the Zoo Warlock archetype in Standard. There are few notable cards Norwis plans on including in his day-1 builds. The most notable is the new legendary card, Disciplinarian Gandling. The synergy of this card with the builds of the egg-version of the archetype is, at first glance, an excellent win condition. 

Another notable inclusion is Spirit Jailer. While this card is only a 1/3 with no direct effect, Norwis believes the card makes the cut with its long-term effect of healing your hero by two to four health. One weakness of Zoo Warlock right now is the amount of damage your hero takes throughout the game. As there was previously no way to restore health for the class, this might be just what Zoo Warlock needed to become even stronger. 

Norwis’ Day-1 decks

The first Zoo Warlock list is the one Norwis says he believes in the most before playing any matches in the new expansion. It’s effectively the current build of Egg Zoo Warlock, with several straight improvements. There’s little experimentation in this list, but it’s certain to perform well throughout the early days of the Scholomance Academy expansion. 

*editors note* Deck codes are currently not functioning with the new dual-class cards. Apologies.

The second list, however, takes a whole new route—Norwis’ more experimental list built around the concept of Darkglare. Darkglare gained a lot of popularity recently in the Wild format, and it’s now making its way back into the Standard format. This list is quite different than the Egg Zoo Warlock list. However, it has the potential to be much more explosive. Darkglare allows you to end games as early as turn three, something almost no other deck in the current meta has the opportunity to do. 

An interesting inclusion with this is Flesh Giant, a new card from the Scholomance Academy expansion. As you reduce its cost every time you deal damage or heal yourself throughout the game, it’s quite easy to make it cost very little early on in the game. 

Hyper-draw Zoo

The third version of Zoo Norwis is planning on working with is the build sentered around Varacious Reader. The card acts as Jeevus used to for various aggressive style decks. However, now the draw until 3 cards in your hand effect only costs you two mana. In addition, the card doesn’t have a draw-back against other aggressive decks as it only counts for you.

This list has a lot of potential, norwis argues, however, it may take some time to find the right balance between low-cost cards and value.

For more Hearthstone strategy content, be sure to read all about Alphacord’s latest guide to Highlander Quest Mage in the Wild format.

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