While I was testing for Worlds, I came up with a solo Shaman deck that featured Hatchet Totem, Black Amnesty, Blackout Truncheon, and Cold Forged Hammer as the weapons of choice. Among other things, one issue was the lack of good quests. Call to Arms: Arathi Basin was great, and Proving Grounds was serviceable, but what else was there? I based the original deck in Horde, but the majority of the cards had even costs, so For Great Honor was out. The deck also featured four Maelstrom of Steel and always wanted to play a card on turn two, so A Question of Gluttony was bad after turn one. Rise and Be Recognized was fine, but running it alongside the Call to Arms made the draws very clunky, and the combination improved opposing "Bladehands" Spigotgulps and Skumm Bag'gos.
Finally, I stumbled across an interesting card: A Rare Bean. After I saw it, I started looking through the deck. Weirdly enough, there were 28 rares, including all the weapons, and 32 commons, which included all of the burn. It was the first time A Rare Bean had ever been good for me, and it worked fantastically. Eventually, the deck picked up some uncommon and epic armor to blunt the impact of Blizzard, but A Rare Bean was just the quest I was looking for.
Of course, the experience made me wonder if I could build a deck where A Rare Bean was exactly the quest I was looking for. So I made a couple!
Making a Bean deck at common seemed too easy. A Rare Bean is the perfect quest for Lazy Peon, and it's not too hard to figure out. I wanted a challenge that's a bit more unusual, so I started with uncommon instead. My goal was to get maximum value from A Rare Bean, so every single non-quest in the deck needed to be uncommon. With 16 quests and 44 uncommon non-quests, the Bean would hit at a 98% clip.
While you can do this for any class, I'm going to jump over to one I haven't written about in a while: Warlock. As most of the good Warlock cards are either common, such as Eye of Kilrogg and Drain Will, or rare, like Hesriana and Backlash, I knew it would be an interesting challenge. I've also written quite a bit about the Alliance lately, so we'll go with the Horde.
Warlock's got a lot of good commons and rares, but the uncommons aren't wholly void of good cards. Steal Essence and The Promises of Darkness are both awesome. Doom Blossom and Life Tap are also quite good. Since rares are out, I've also lost access to normal talent spec cards, which makes my hero choice wide open. Dominate is a card that's grown on a lot of people. But there's one Warlock uncommon in particular that I love: Warlock Training.
We also need to consider the Pets. The uncommon Pet list is fairly short: Apocanon, Gakmat, Grimdron, Morfiel, and Rulrin. Apocanon is there for us since we're already Traitor, but I don't think any of the rest are going to make the cut.
Since the cards that we've got so far are leading us toward an aggro deck, I think we'd better stick to that. Offender Gora is an uncommon, so she's definitely in. Unfortunately, with Bloodsoul unavailable, things get a bit sketchy after that. Dark Archon Farrum is the next best option, so we'll stick him in there. The 2-drop slot is even worse—Wysko is the only truly playable 3 ATK 2-drop, unless you consider Borlis Brode playable. Mojo Doctor Zin'tar somewhat approximates a 3-ATK ally, but that's pretty rough. I'm going to dip into Aldor and grab Vindicator Kentho, rather than play an ally with uncertain power.
There's an embarrassment of riches at the 3-drop slot, which is a nice change of pace. Aside from Apocanon, we have Broan Charges-the-Fight, Joja'bee, Johnny Rotten, and the combolicious Warbringer Arix'amal. Warbringer is asking a bit much, while Broan and Johnny Rotten are definitely good. Still, I don't think they're going to match up with the 3-cost 4/4, or Joja'bee's power, which will let you drop a quick Warlock Training on the turn you play him.
For equipment, there are a few things that might be worth playing. Runesong Dagger is decent, but we are focusing our deck around a quest that doesn't draw cards. Cuffs of Devastation is pretty brutal, and I think Dryad's Wrist Bindings could be a great draw engine for the deck.
The resource base can use commons based on the rules I set myself, so I'm playing A Rare Bean, One Draenei's Junk . . ., Orders from Lady Vashj, and Eye of the Storm. A quick glance through the uncommon quests reveals exactly zero that I'd want to use in this deck. Equipment decks that attack with their hero could make an uncommon quest base work, with Samophlange, Voidwalkers Gone Wild, and possibly The Deathforge as options. Counterattack! is there as well, but it's not worth playing in a deck chock full of allies.
The list!
Hero: Plague Demonsoul
Allies: 24
4 Joja'bee
Abilities: 21
Locations: 4
Quests: 11
The main issue I see with this deck is a lack of reach—it's very single-minded, but it doesn't have a good way to win if the main assault gets stalled. I'm not sure if a solution is available within the uncommon restriction. It's got a decent amount of draw with Promises and Life Tap, but they're no Backlash. Of course, when you start with a premise like A Rare Bean, you're not going to be able to do everything. On the plus side, between A Rare Bean and One Draenei's Junk . . ., you've got seven quests that virtually guarantee your choice of several cards for only 2 resources.
Now the bonus section: EPIC BEAN!
Things the Epic rarity is usually used for:
—Cards that cost 8 or more
—Cards with huge, game-changing effects
—Cards you would usually only run one of
—Cards you would usually only run five of (hi McArthur!)
Things the Epic rarity is not usually used for:
—Cards that are boring
Unfortunately, most decks need a few cards that are boring. Cards don't have to do something flashy and cool just to be good cards. Nether Fracture? Boring. Victimize? Boring. Bloodsoul? Boring. But they're good cards! It turns out that it's hard to build a deck when you take out all of the boring cards. Actually, it's really hard to build a deck, because you get almost no ability cards at all, and absolutely zero class-stamped ones.
The main source of good epics is equipment, so this will be an equipment-based deck by necessity. It's also tough to put together a reasonable curve. This is what I came up with:
Hero: Halavar
Allies: 14
Equipment: 30
3 Black Felsteel Bracers
3 Cloak of Darkness
3 Tankatronic Goggles
Quests: 16
If you can afford to build this deck, more power to you. This didn't actually turn out as rough as I thought it would. Adyen the Lightwarden's ability doesn't mean all that much, but he is a reasonable 3/3 for 3 resources. Leeroy Jenkins is more of a removal trick than an offensive beater in this deck, but he gets it done. And most of the equipment turned out to be fairly cheap, resource-wise.
Good luck, and may all your Rare Beans be epic!
