Pirate Warrior Deck (Updated!) – Descent of Dragons

Our Heartstone Pirate Warrior Deck List Guide takes a look at this archetype for the Descent of Dragons expansion! This set brings back the potential of an old classic, one that brought a smile to aggro players everywhere. That's right, it looks like Pirate Warrior might just be ready for its resurgence in the Standard meta. While it isn't a foregone conclusion, the deck has certainly received some powerful options that could push it into the forefront of the ladder.

Pirate Warrior is a pretty notorious deck, and while it has largely been out of Standard for a while it has still been wreaking havoc in Wild. The deck was at its peak when Patches the Pirate was at full strength and popping out of the deck to smack you in the face on just about every turn one. Some of those powerful cards were eventually nerfed or rotated out, so the Standard format could breathe a sight of relief. Breathe easily no longer, because based on some of the new cards brought on in the Descent of Dragons expansion, it looks like this list is back on the menu.

Pirate Warrior Deck List

Here's a look at the top performing Pirate Warrior deck in Descent of Dragons so far:

Pirate Warrior Mulligan Guide

Always Keep

• Sky Raider - What a great card for this deck! A 1-cost Pirate that gives us an additional resource to replace it. This is exactly the type of card you are looking to play in an aggressive deck. Yes, it doesn't have the greatest stats, but we can buff it up or just get in some chip damage with it.
• Town Crier - Not a Pirate but gets us a Rush card to work with. We aren't playing many, so we're either getting Faceless Corruptor or Restless Mummy, which are both strong future plays.
• Parachute Brigand - This card reminds me of the days of Patches. It doesn't have charrrrge, but it is likely going to get on the board for free which gives us more damage and presence which our opponent is not going to be happy about. Sky Raider is a great pairing with this card.
• Ancharrr - This is a bit slow, but getting to continually get resources back for punching with this is well worth it. It is ideal to keep this with a 1-drop of some sort.

Possible Keeps

• Bloodsail Raider - Obviously far better with a weapon, but you can keep it if you have a 1-drop.
• Livewire Lance - Not as strong as Ancharrr, but generating resources for attacking is extremely strong in a deck that has very little draw in it. Best kept with at least one 1 or 2-drop.

Play Strategy & Card Combinations

The name of the game is aggression. You want to take over the board immediately and start pressuring your opponent. Weapons will likely be used frequently to take out minions on our enemy's side of the board. This will allow our minions to get in repeated damage turn after turn. As we get into the mid-game, however, we will want to turn those sharp objects towards the opponent and finish them off for good!

One of the main ways to lose as an aggressive deck is to quickly run out of resources. That's why a card like Ancharrr is so insane! Not only is it a weapon, which this deck loves, it will generate you additional cards that you will likely be able to slam on the table immediately. Make sure to attack first with this weapon in most cases, you might get a card that fills the situation better than what is in your hand!

Skybarge is another interesting addition to Warrior's Pirate synergy mix. It's not a Pirate itself, but it can get quite out of hand if you can pair it with some cheap ones. You really don't want to play this on turn three, try and wait to get at least a couple of triggers.

Upgrade! has been added to the list to bolster Ancharrr, Livewire Lance , and Arcanite Reaper . We really don't want to be playing it for the 1/3 weapon, because that will dilute the weapon pool of Hoard Pillager . We only want to be getting one of those three weapons listed previously.

Faceless Corruptor appears on its face to be one of the craziest cards in the Descent of Dragons set. It will standout in decks like this one that run a lot of cheap minions. By running Town Crier , we will be able to grab it pretty reliably. This card might end up so problematic that opponents will just about never be able to leave anything on the board without worry about having to deal with two 5/4s. The one issue with this card in a deck like this is the high cost. If we get this in our hand too early in the game, we might not be able to push enough aggression to get value out of it.

Your minions should have really punched your opponent pretty close to destruction as we go into the later turns. We've got both Arcanite Reaper and Leeroy Jenkins as potential options to finish them off. If your opponent isn't in the teens by the later turns and they've got a board, you've likely lost the game. This deck doesn't exactly have a lot of comeback mechanics in it. Sometimes it works out that way with aggressive decks like this, that's just the Pirate life!

Card Substitutions

• Heroic Strike - Better in a more all-in version of the deck, but still a consideration.
• Sharkfin Fan - The stats are a bit weak, but it does pair well with Skybarge and all of our weapons.
• Southsea Captain - Better in a version of the deck where we're only playing Pirates. We do have quite a few non-Pirate based cards in this version.
• Frothing Berserker - While we wouldn't be running any Whirlwind effects, it would be likely that we could power this thing up without them.
• Darius Crowley - Strong card and we can pull it with Town Crier if we're running it at the time. I opt for Zilliax instead because it can pair with Skybarge which is a great card to Magnetize with.
• Zilliax - Strong overall minion and can pair up with Skybarge to make a hard to remove minion that launches damage at your opponent.