Decklist

Not my own creation: https://hearthstone-decks.net/barnes-druid-31-legend-unknown-score-11-7/

### Kael'thas

# Class: Druid

# Format: Wild

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# 2x (0) Aquatic Form

# 2x (0) Innervate

# 2x (0) Lightning Bloom

# 2x (0) Moonfire

# 2x (1) Biology Project

# 1x (1) Moonbeam

# 2x (1) Waveshaping

# 1x (2) Bottomless Toy Chest

# 1x (2) Capture Coldtooth Mine

# 2x (2) Magical Dollhouse

# 2x (2) Moonlit Guidance

# 2x (3) Pendant of Earth

# 1x (3) Swipe

# 1x (5) Barnes

# 1x (6) Kael'thas Sunstrider

# 2x (6) Starfire

# 2x (8) Sleep Under the Stars

# 2x (10) Ultimate Infestation

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Background

Reached top 100 NA for the past three months playing Barnes Kael'thas Druid. In the previous months, I played Champions Druid and peaked at top 5. But after Ysiel was nerfed, I switched over to Kael'thas Druid, since the deck plays similar cards. Kael'thas Mecha'thun was my first time legend deck back when Kael'thas reduced spells to 0 (completely broken), so I have some fond memories of Kael'thas OTKs.

The deck is a solitaire deck that doesn't interact with the board whatsoever (more so than Quasar Rogue imo), so this is definitely not a deck for everyone. However, it's fun to pilot the deck based on the matchup and the combo APM turn, so I would recommend this deck to those who like flashy APM turns with quick matches.

The deck is surprisingly consistent and usually does its OTK turns 4-5. I've had Turn 3 OTKs quite a handful of times, thanks to Biology Project ramping 2 extra mana crystals.

Warning: Do NOT play this on mobile. As an APM deck, you physically cannot OTK due to the animations. I play on a Mac with the default trackpad, so I'm sure if you can also OTK with a decent computer.

Finished the Legend Climb today ending with 10 wins in a row.

Damage Potential

At its core, the basic gameplan is: Draw Barnes, play Barnes to get Kael'thas, shoot bunch of spells at opponent's face.

Based on the spells in the decklist, we have:
2x Moonfire (2)
1x Moonbeam (2)
1x Swipe (4)
2x Starfire (10)
2x Ultimate Infestations (10)
for a total of 28 damage, which is not enough to do the full OTK.

Each copy of Magical Dollhouse (+1 spell damage) gives +9 damage if you cast all your spells while it's active, so we have 46 damage. However, we usually need to spend some of our low cost cards like Moonfire to proc Kael'thas and card-draw cards like Ultimate Infestations during the combo before getting to play the Dollhouses, which cuts the damage.

This is why in Renathal matchups, you need to spend Moonlit Guidance or Bottomless Toy Chest to fish for copies of damage cards or Dollhouse that you need to finish off the opponent's health.

Every damage to face matters, since you might not be able to play all your spells due to the animation time and turn length. So on turns 2-4, if you Hero Power, just go face instead of trading with a minion. The OTK happens early enough that the extra damage to face is usually better than killing an enemy minion.

When to OTK

The most important part of the deck is to know when you have to execute the combo. Sometimes, you just have to play out the combo to avoid tech cards and lethal from opponent next turn and hope that you can find these extra damage copies and Magical Dollhouses on time during the combo turn.

You can usually go in for the kill when you have either Barnes/Kael'thas, 2 cheap spells, and a big spell (SUtS or UI). The cheap spells can be anything that will refresh your mana (Innervate, Lightning Bloom, Biology Project) or costs 0. Aquatic Form is a good combo with Waveshaping played earlier to ensure that you can increment the Kael'thas spells while getting another cheap spell from Aquatic Form.

An example game would be as follows:
Turn 1: Waveshaping
Turn 2: Hero Power
Turn 3: Pendant of Earth to draw Barnes
Turn 4: Coin/Innervate, Biology Project, Barnes, Ultimate Infestation, Lightning Bloom, ..., and play your other mana refresh and draw cards to OTK with Kael'thas

Some advice:

SUtS refreshes your mana, so playing Biology Project before your other cheap spells is recommended. With SUtS, draw first to see if you have enough card draw (UI or another SUtS). If you do, refresh 2x to get the mana. Or go draw 1x and refresh 1x to get more cards.

When you do the OTK, after casting UI, I recommend checking the history tab to see what cards you've drawn before the draw animation of UI concludes so that you have a better idea on what card to play next (Dollhouse, cycle spells to play SUtS, etc.).

Count your Kael'thas spells! It's important to know when your spells cost 1 from Kael'thas, since the card cost graphic isn't updated immediately when available.

Mulligan Guide

The goal is to OTK turns 3-6 (ideally 3-5), so the mulligan section below will be geared towards finding an early Barnes (Barnes + additional mana).

If you draw Kael'thas early, it's not the end of the world. The combo is going to be one turn later, though this can decide the outcome of a match.

Always keep: Barnes, Pendant of Earth, Waveshaping, Aquatic Form

You only need one of Barnes or Pendant of Earth, so mulligan other copies away if you have any way of getting Barnes. Pendant of Earth's main purpose is to be played on turn three to draw Barnes. I prefer keeping Barnes over Pendant of Earth so that I don't have to play Pendant on Turn 3 and less chance to draw into Kael'thas, but Pendant can be a keep against aggro so that you can heal for 5 by drawing Barnes.

Waveshaping and Aquatic Form are efficient draw cards to fish for early Barnes.

Sometimes keep: Bottomless Toychest, Moonlit Guidance, Innervate, Biology Project, Lightning Bloom, Sleep Under the Stars, Ultimate Infestation, Capture Coldtooth Mine, Magical Dollhouse

Bottomless Toychest and Moonlit Guidance: Discover cards to get early Barnes. Less useful than Aquatic Form or Waveshaping due to costing more, but are good cards to find early Barnes. Keep one if you don't have the other premium options above in Always Keep. Be careful with Moonlit Guidance copying Barnes, since this means Barnes has a 50/50 of pulling another Barnes or Kael'thas.

Innervate, Biology Project, and Lightning Blooms are keeps only if you have a way to play Barnes early. Otherwise, I recommend against keeping them, since you really want to find Barnes (Barnes or Pendant of Earth). If you have a way to find Barnes, only keep one copy of these in mulligan, since you need to find SUtS or UI as well.

Biology Project > Innervate = Lightning Bloom keep in this order if you have Barnes tutor. Biology Project can be played early to ramp you two extra mana crystals (good to accelerate the combo, so play early if you think you can combo next turn to have more mana available. do be careful that the opponent has +2 mana next turn, so play cautiously) or played on the combo turn as +1 mana, so it's better for the added flexibility. Innervate and Lightning Bloom are both good to play Barnes early with Kael'thas and are also good during the combo turn to get the extra mana.

SUtS and UI are similar to the above mana cards. Like above, only keep if you have Barnes tutor, and only keep one copy to draw into your cheap spells. SUtS is better than UI for the draw + mana refresh, but keep UI over SUtS if you already have other mana refresh available.

Capture Coldtooth Mine is flexible for being able to tutor a low cost spell for Kael'thas or a high cost spell (UI) for the card draw. Keep if you have Barnes tutor.

Magical Dollhouse: Exclusively keep for the Renathal or armor matchups (expected decks are Mage, Priest, Druid, Warrior, Death Knight). You need all the damage you can get. Otherwise, they're not necessary and you would rather find cards for Barnes tutor.

Rarely keep: Kael'thas, Swipe

In Renathal matches, Kael'thas can be kept if you have mana ramping available from Innervate/Biology Project and the card draw from SUtS/UI. The deck relies on OTKing as soon as possible, so finding a way to tutor Barnes is better for the 1 less mana compared to playing Kael'thas. Renathal decks are slightly slower, and you need some time finding the Dollhouses and

Swipe is a decent card to specifically counter Razorscale. It's a decent keep against Paladin (CTA), but only if you have a way to get Barnes tutor. Better to OTK a turn earlier than have a card draw used for Swipe.

All the other cards are used as cheap spell or damage for the OTK, so they can be tossed away.

Matchups

I don't think there's any matchups that are too heavily favored or unfavored for Kael'thas Druid, since the deck can cheese out wins super quickly but also folds to bad card draw RNG. In general, Renathal classes are harder to deal with due to the added health and tech cards.

Favored

Seedlock: Seedlock doesn't do enough damage or have enough tech cards to threaten Kael'thas Druid. Builds a medium-sized board by turns 3-5, but a little too late. Also does self-damage making the combo turn much simpler.

Boarlock: Boarlock doesn't perform their own combo faster than Kael'thas.

Quest Priest: Doesn't threaten enough; mainly has survivability, which Kael'thas OTK just ignores.

Odd Questline Hunter: Does some damage but not enough to stop the Barnes combo by turn 5.

Slightly Favored

Quasar Rogue: This is primarily personal experience, since I don't know how consistent Quasar Rogue is to do their combo by turn 5. Quasar Rogue usually requires setup in advance for Quick Pick or Knickknack Shack. Rogue has a lot of card draw, but Kael'thas Druid hits the combo a turn earlier from experience.

Miracle Rogue: Builds a decent board by turns 3-5, but it doesn't do it fast enough to stop the OTK. Cult Neophyte is a problem, though, which is why it's only slightly favored.

Discolock: Primary reason why it's so important to play Barnes instead of Kael'thas. Just one turn is usually the difference in losing and winning. Discolock can build big boards and do direct face damage, but it's just slow enough to squeeze out the OTK. Soul Barrage nerf helped a lot.

Big Shaman: Ancestral's Call is the only real issue. Otherwise, just play Barnes and OTK.

Libram Paladin: Dumps a lot of stats early, but a turn slower than the OTK usually. Watch out for Cold Feet and Rebuke.

Imbue Mage: Most Imbue Mage decks I've encountered are quite unoptimized. Renathal versions are slightly tougher to beat, but Imbue Mage just doesn't do enough damage, especially as the Reckless Apprentice combo is non-existent against Kael'thas Druid. Objection and Ice Block are the primary concerns, but the deck is slow enough that you can usually kill the opponent the next turn against Ice Block or play Barnes then a following Kael'thas next turn against Objection.

Non-token QL Demon Hunter: Builds a board very quickly but not as fast as Token QL. Glide is sometimes annoying, but the OTK is fast enough that Glide is not as big of a concern. Main concern is Mana Burn against a big board.

Even

Token QL Demon Hunter: Token QL DH builds a board fairly quickly with the tokens and Remnant of Rage. Scary but manageable with early Barnes.

Renathal Druid: 40 health, armor, and tech cards are tough to deal with though. But it kinda just ramps then dies if you hit the right cards.

Ticktock Warlock: Lots of tech cards and 40 health. Similar to Renathal Druid; you can OTK with early Barnes.

Unfavored

CTA Paladin: Builds a board with Irondeep Trogg and slams Crusader Aura, so the game is usually over by turn 4-5. On top of that, Razorscale, Rebuke, Nerub'ar Weblord, Oh My Yogg, etc. makes the matchup very difficult.

Odyn Warrior: It's just so much armor early on with Unleash the Crocolisks and Igneous Lavagorger. As stated above, this deck can deal 46 damage with two Dollhouses, so it's already cutting it close. You have to hope Moonlit Guidance and Bottomless Toy Chest gives more copies of your damage cards.

Renathal/Hostage Mage: 40 health, Objection, Ice Block that's recycled over and over. Quest variant is less difficult than Hostage Mage, but Renathal Mage has the survivability post-Ice Block that Imbue Mage doesn't really have that makes the matchup almost impossible after an Ice Block.

Closing Thoughts

This just about covers Kael'thas Druid. There's definitely some niche situations I haven't covered like deciding whether to activate Dollhouse early to proc Bottomless Toy Chest vs save the charge for the combo turn, but hopefully this is a good baseline.

Kael'thas Druid is a fairly consistent combo deck. It's pretty good at climbing once you've gotten used to the deck, though your success may vary based on the pocket meta.

It's a deck that somewhat depends on early card draw RNG, so don't be discouraged if some games don't go your way (e.g. unlucky Kael'thas topdeck or not drawing any cheap spells after UI).

The deck is also pretty cheap: Kael'thas is free, so the deck costs ~3600 dust with Barnes, 1x Capture Coldtooth Mine, 2x Sleep Under the Stars, and 2x Ultimate Infestations. So give it a shot if you like APM combos 👍