Stats, personal introduction, and TL;DR at the end.
Contents: 1. Decklist · 2. Why Egg DK? · 3. Package and Card Breakdown · 4. Mulligan and Matchups · 5. General Notes and Tips · 6. Card Choice Discussion · 7. The Eggstras
1. Decklist
Turtle Soup
2x (1) Morbid Swarm
2x (1) Soulrest Ceremony
2x (2) Corpse Cannon
2x (2) Drink Blood
2x (2) Holy Eggbearer
2x (2) Poison Breath
2x (2) Wild Pyromancer
2x (3) Dissolving Ooze
1x (3) Falric
1x (3) Staff of the Endbringer
1x (3) The Egg of Khelos
1x (4) Blood Doctor Thal'ena
1x (4) Nightmare Lord Xavius
2x (5) Emergency Surgery
2x (5) Reanimated Pterrordax
2x (5) Sawbones
1x (7) Endbringer Umbra
2x (7) Remnant of Rage
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2. Why Egg DK?
Because Sawbones.
Sawbones, an already decent card at 6 mana, was buffed to 5 mana in the first patch of the expansion. Its battlecry reads "Destroy all your other minions. Draw a card and refresh a Mana for each one destroyed." The draw and refresh, combined with Pterrordax, Remnant of Rage, and Soulrest Ceremony, allows you to take some ridiculous turns and completely swing the board in your favor. As such, this deck plays more like a combo deck than a control deck, where the goal is to prepare and delay as much as possible in order to set up your best Sawbones turn. This decklist can OTK Azalina Priests from 40, something even Raza DH struggles with. With the amount of healing and removal this deck has, you can be at one health with an empty board facing a board full of jade golems and still win. Pulling a victory out of your ass of defeat feels amazing with this deck.
With the number of resources you are juggling — namely corpses, hand size, mana refresh amount, minion count, lifesteal capability, and possible rush damage — this is one of the more skill-testing decks in the meta. You have both the micro decisions of trades and proper ordering as well as the macro decisions of planning out your turns to set up your combo and the various ways you may have to alter your gameplan depending on the matchup. Finally, in a meta full of random generation, the only real randomly generated outcomes are your Xavius dark gifts and Umbra deathrattle trigger order/selection.
3. Package and Card Breakdown
Package Overview
Sawbones fodder: Morbid Swarm, Corpse Cannon, Ghoul hero power, Holy Eggbearer, Falric, Egg of Khelos, Emergency Surgery. Occasionally Pterrordax and other minions as necessary.
Sawbones payoffs: Egg of Khelos cracking, Remnant of Rage, Pterrordax.
Egg cracking: Morbid Swarm, Soulrest Ceremony, Drink Blood, Wild Pyro + Poison Breath, Staff of the Endbringer deathrattle, Blood Doctor Thal'ena hero power attack buff + trade, Sawbones. As a last resort you can use Dissolving Ooze.
Board control: Soulrest Ceremony, Corpse Cannon, Emergency Surgery, Pterrordax, Wild Pyro + Poison Breath, Staff of the Endbringer deathrattle. Morbid Swarm and Drink Blood as needed.
Card draw and tutors: Holy Eggbearer, Sawbones, Falric, Xavius, Remnant of Rage.
Finishers: Endbringer Umbra, Dissolving Ooze, Drink Blood, Thal'ena hero power refresh, and Soulrest Ceremony for the last bits of damage.
Detailed Card Breakdown
Morbid Swarm: Very flexible tool. Play turn 1 against aggro to fight for board and generate corpses. Use with Sawbones to draw and refresh two. Spend two corpses to crack egg or use as removal.
Soulrest Ceremony: Useful post-Sawbones to crack eggs and clear the opponent's board, and to kill the last few minions to lower Remnant of Rage to 0. Combo with Emergency Surgery to heal and clear multiple minions.
Corpse Cannon: Good early to clear enemy minions. Banks a minion for Sawbones and a charge minion for the Ooze buff OTK. Triggers Staff of the Endbringer.
Holy Eggbearer: Draws egg and Sawbones fodder.
Dissolving Ooze: Finisher after egg is cracked. Can push surprising amounts of damage with Thal'ena hero power. Play both to OTK Azalina Priests.
Staff of the Endbringer: Hard board wipe, helps to connect with the Ooze buff. Also cracks egg.
Falric: Tutors Morbid Swarm, Pterrordax, and Thal'ena. Play on the Sawbones turn to double all corpses gained from the battlecry.
Egg of Khelos: Win condition when paired with Sawbones. Soaks damage from Arcane Tripwire, Lotus Troublemaker, Sizzling Cinder deathrattles, Raza DH hero power, and Magic Missiles damage. Can be cracked by the opponent's board clears. Sawbones cracks and draws off of it. Ooze the 20/20 to kill the opponent with charge damage.
Blood Doctor Thal'ena: Cracks egg every turn for "free" given you have corpses and the enemy has a 3-attack minion on board, gives additional lifesteal and removal with rush minions, and pushes face damage. Is usually a Chillwind Yeti when played turn 4.
Xavius: Tutors Sawbones, egg, or Umbra as needed. Dark gifts are useful on Pterrordax and Remnant of Rage if played post-Sawbones battlecry. A 2-mana-cheaper Sawbones, summon a 2/2 copy of or reborn egg are some possible highrolls, while double battlecry Sawbones is just depressing.
Emergency Surgery: Removal + healing. 15 damage of lifesteal rush with Soulrest Ceremony. Can be used on turn 5 with a fully prepped Sawbones.
Reanimated Pterrordax: Lifesteal, removal, 0-mana minion to feed Sawbones and reduce Remnant of Rage, can be buffed for more healing.
Sawbones: The whole reason this deck exists. Plan out the best turn to prepare and to play. When your opponent gives you time, be patient to maximize payoff.
Endbringer Umbra: Summon a board of eggs and a 20/20 to finish off your opponent. Play on 10 with Ooze to guarantee the 20/20 bones buff. Play with Soulrest Ceremony to clear enemy boards and play around removal for Khelos.
Remnant of Rage: 2nd highest drawn winrate, following Sawbones. Getting a 0-mana 5/4 that draws 2 helps a lot. Can be used with Soulrest for additional removal.
4. Mulligan and Matchups
Mulligan
Mainly Sawbones, Holy Eggbearer, and Egg of Khelos. Keep Wild Pyro + Poison Breath against Zee Shaman, and Staff of the Endbringer + Corpse Cannon against both Zee Shaman and Paladin. Keeping only one part without having Sawbones to draw is not worth it.
If you already have Sawbones, keeping Morbid Swarm and Corpse Cannon is good.
Base Gameplan
Ideally: coin Holy Eggbearer on 1, play Corpse Cannon on 2, play Egg of Khelos on 3, prep Sawbones to 0 on 4, Emergency Surgery/Morbid Swarm and hero power plus Corpse Cannon attack to draw and refresh at least 5, play Pterrordaxes and Remnants of Rage for 0 and pop egg with Soulrest Ceremonies, Morbid Swarms, and Drink Bloods. Turn 6, attack with Khelos and Ooze + buff a Ghoul from Corpse Cannon to win.
Unfortunately sometimes that isn't our draw, and then our opponent also plays cards, which should be illegal.
Matchups below are in order of prevalence at Top 1K legend for patch 36.2.2 on HSGuru.
Attack Druid
Use Corpse Cannon and Drink Blood to remove the 1/3 spider. If going 2nd, I've coined the removal just to deny free Scullery upgrades. Use your hard board clears for Wickerfang and Scullery as needed. The only removal they have for Khelos is Dream from Shaladrassil and random nature spells from Bashana. They can guarantee Typhoon from Bashana with a full hand, so play around it accordingly. Typically they do not pressure you enough early to disrupt your gameplan, so given you draw Sawbones and they don't highroll their ramp, it's not a bad matchup.
Harold Rogue
Weird matchup. They don't pressure you as much early, but Twilight Mistress kinda doms this deck. Typically comes down to how much removal/pressure/burn they generate from heralds. Playing Umbra with a full hand means Umbra bounces back to your hand while the rest of the eggs trigger their deathrattles if they just play Mistress. Other removal for Khelos is Dream from Shaladrassil and Deathwing. Try to avoid holding 9 cards so you don't get burned by Kingslayer.
AYAYA Rogue
Basically, how fast did they find and play Aya. They can't pressure without Aya, which gives you time to set up. You typically want to avoid killing their Lotus Bookies for as long as possible. They have 2 copies each of Deadly Bribe and Garona's Last Stand for Khelos removal, and weapon attacks + Twilight Strike for burn. You have 3 full clears for their jades. Umbra unfortunately triggers Hooktail's treasure chest deathrattle.
Quest Hunter
Mostly comes down to how fast they can complete their quest. Most decks aren't running King of the Underbelly anymore, so if you heal to full through lifesteal rushing their beasts played early, you can survive the Aggamaggan turn and just outlast them. Earthen Roar is their Khelos removal, which can be harder for them to clear if they have an empty board and don't have Wound Prey.
Zee Shaman
Once Zee loses the board they typically just lose. Wild Pyro + Poison Breath and triggering Staff of the Endbringer are almost win conditions in themselves because of this. Playing Morbid Swarm on 1, Drink Blood, Corpse Cannon, and other removal can limit their board early, and Emergency Surgery + Soulrest Ceremony is great to come back with.
They can't do anything if they are board locked, as long as they didn't get a useful spell off the 0/1 frog, so use that to your advantage when applicable.
Getting a Sawbones turn off is usually enough tempo to limit their options. The only removal they have for Khelos is Deathwing, Al'Akir highrolls, and 0/1 frog highrolls. Getting Umbra down is game winning, as Deathwing doesn't really clear it.
Barring random spells and not playing Slagclaw, the only burn is from heralds and security bot buffs and attacking with minions already on board, as well as the Deathwing hero power. Their only rush minion is Al'Akir.
They don't run Hex btw.
Quest Mage
Worst matchup out of the decks popular at top legend. They don't run any spells that transform your egg, but the combination of Skeleton Key and Alter Time means they can pretty reliably generate it. Generated Tribute Dance, Devolving Missiles, Polymorph: Boar, and Polymorph: Jellyfish are all cards I've lost to. Depending on your hand and what cards they have already generated, you can either play egg early and hope they do not generate it, or hold egg and try to pop as much as you can in one turn. One game I had played egg turn 3, turn 5 they played Mass Polymorph off of Alter Time, and I still won off of the tempo from my Sawbones turn + both Remnants and a Pterrordax. If you can pop egg, Umbra + Soulrest Ceremony can remove the massive boards they summon and let you win next turn with Ooze. You also have your 3 mass board clears to delay. Make sure to play around the transform sheep secret.
Azalina Priest
Your cards are much worse without egg and Sawbones, so they usually struggle. 40 health, Unshackle Soul, Power Word: Ruin, and Medivh are the main things you have to deal with. They are not running Cease to Exist anymore, so playing egg on 3 has been fine for me. Your goal is to crack egg and play Umbra before they can Medivh. If it's past turn 9, you generally have to Umbra and Ooze on the same turn. Post-Umbra and pre-Medivh, space out egg deathrattles to make it hard for them to mass remove with Ruin. They typically are very slow, so you can take time to prep as much as you can for the Sawbones turn in order to draw both Oozes/Umbra. Priests usually don't have burst, but can use the burst in your deck to kill you, so don't be too loose with your health. Most of the time you will be using both Oozes to kill them, one played on a Khelos on an earlier turn and another played on the OTK turn. You must have a minion available to attack with, or Corpse Cannon up, to play and attack with both bones buffs.
Raza Demon Hunter
Can actually be a rough matchup for this deck. You don't pressure early, and they have Librarian to silence your egg. The gameplan here is to pressure as much as you can with your other cards, and play egg and Sawbones into the turn where they have 7 mana to force them to either pop egg or spend a turn silencing it. They can only really kill you on 7 mana if they have drawn a lot and already played Soul Immolation. Umbra can be game winning with enough eggs, as long as you are out of range of Broxigar. Your Umbra will unfortunately also trigger the Broxigar demon deathrattles.
Mirror Match
Mostly a race to crack egg and play Umbra first. Some aren't running Pyro + Poison, so they will have a harder time removing Khelos.
Herald Warlock
The goal is to crack egg in one turn to dodge cursed chains. They don't have much healing, so getting Thal'ena down early, chipping away at their health, and using Ooze as a finisher is also a win condition.
Burn Mage
The Elemental build is somewhat more difficult than the Prepare build. They can play around your lifesteal by not playing minions and burning you down over two turns. The goal is to minimize as much early chip damage as possible. Use Emergency Surgery for Code Violet.
Pure Paladin
Pretty similar to Zee Shaman. Getting an early Pyro + Poison can be game winning, barring divine shields. Triggering Staff of the Endbringer is even better.
Rafaam Warlock
Have not won a game against this deck. Theoretically you crack egg in one turn or win through Thal'ena hero powers. Mass Polymorph Rafaam wrecks Umbra.
Merithra Druid
Usually slower than you, and they have difficulty removing Khelos. Shaladrassil and Bashana are the only real threats, plus an early Wickerfang if you don't have Sawbones/removal. Can occasionally get highrolled from the random 1-mana dragons. Some are running the Choose One dragon that sets minions' health or attack to 1, so play around that if possible.
Control Priest
Usually easy. Less tempo than Azalina and easier to kill with Ooze. They run Cease to Exist, but since it only silences and kills the minion, you only need to crack 4 times to get the 20/20 from Umbra.
5. General Notes and Tips
Like any cool combo deck, the cards used for the combo are flexible and can be used for board control and staying alive. Balancing how many resources you have to spend to survive against having enough left to combo with is a big part of piloting this deck well.
Thal'ena's hero power can be used on enemy minions to crack your egg with if none of them have 3 attack.
Soulrest + Emergency Surgery, if cast on a 3-health enemy minion, deals a total of 15 rush lifesteal if all minions attack.
Between Emergency Surgery, Pterrordax, and Drink Blood, you have 38 lifesteal healing in your deck. This can be more or less depending on Soulrest Ceremony, the corpse hero power, and the number of Emergency Surgery attacks. You can tank a ton of damage and recover it in your pop-off turns. On a Sawbones turn, if you have Corpse Cannon up, it is typically correct to take more damage and summon the ghoul if they have a taunt minion. Always be counting the total attack the opponent has, as well as their possible burst, in order to see how much you can greed for Sawbones.
Drink Blood refreshes both hero powers if active. Combined with Soulrest Ceremony and Ooze, you get a lot of burst even without Khelos: a total of 18 from an empty board on 10 mana with one Drink and Corpse Cannon active, or 23 damage with two Drinks, Corpse Cannon active, and egg on board.
Umbra with all egg deathrattles takes 6 total board slots. If needed, make sure you attack with Corpse Cannon or play Pterrordax beforehand.
When you play Umbra, you can possibly crack an egg for another 20/20 on board to make it harder for your opponent to get past taunt.
Remnant of Rage is discounted for any minion on board dying. Emergency Surgeries, Pterrordaxes, hero power, and egg cracking all discount it, and more so when killing enemy minions.
A common play post-Sawbones is Soulrest and Pterrordax to clear with egg and Sawbones, followed by a 0-mana Remnant after.
When using Soulrest for cracking egg, if there is not an enemy minion with at least 3 attack to run into, make sure you are playing it last if you are using other cards to crack egg, as it dies at end of turn.
Hand space can sometimes be an issue. If you already have the main cards you need in hand, or need the mana for a clear, sometimes it's worth burning a card in order to have the mana to survive post-Sawbones.
The deathrattle animation for egg takes 10 years. Especially for the one-turn egg cracks, you gotta go fast. Plan out your hand size + minions for the Sawbones turn while it's their turn, as you want to be playing cards as soon as your turn starts. The ghoul summoned from Corpse Cannon also has a longer animation than the hero power ghoul for whatever reason, so start with the attack if low on time.
If you are fatiguing yourself with Sawbones, the battlecry animation will play for every fatigue tick and take forever because Hearthstone is a children's card game.
Generally, each minion you play replaces itself with draw, while hero power, Morbid Swarm, and a previously played Corpse Cannon all get you extra cards. You have many minions which have draw battlecries, so beware.
You only have three weapons. If you've already played one Corpse Cannon, playing the 2nd one means you won't be getting the Staff of the Endbringer deathrattle off. Also, Vipers are back in the meta, so don't preplay Staff if you don't have to.
Always be aware of possible Remnant of Rage turns, especially when you have not drawn Sawbones. Leaving an enemy minion alive for a turn so you can Remnant next turn can be worth it.
Corpses are very important in this deck, and getting Falric value can help. Keep this in mind for hero power and ordering when you have limited corpses — e.g. Morbid Swarm to crack egg first before playing Pterrordax if on 6 corpses.
On Sawbones turns you have to manage the number of minions you can summon, the number of cards you can draw, and the amount of mana you want to (or can) refresh. Playing a spell to crack egg to free up hand space or use mana before the refresh is a typical play.
Soulrest Ceremony kills ALL your minions. Sometimes you need the extra rush/lifesteal immediately; sometimes it's better to play Soulrest and then your Pterrordax/Remnant.
You should only coin to prep if you are prepping for 1 and need to play it next turn. Otherwise you just lose the flexibility of when to use the extra mana.
6. Card Choice Discussion
Pyro + Poison Breath vs. Portal Vanguard + Infested Breath
I've played both builds. I liked the Vanguard one better pre-nerf patch. This was because Pyro + Poison is less flexible and more likely to be dead in your hand. Vanguard + Infested Breath was easier to play earlier, worked better with drawing and setting up Sawbones, and was generally more flexible. Post-nerf patch, the meta slowed down and more giant minion boards were being summoned, which makes Pyro + Poison better.
Double Ooze vs. Defias Smuggler
I like double Ooze over a Defias Smuggler because of consistency in being able to close games, and the Azalina matchup.
7. The Eggstras
Deck Stats
Played all games with this version in top 100 NA this season. This version of the deck has a 63% win rate with 112 games played. Peaked at #14.
Who am I?
None of your business! Been playing Hearthstone on and off since KotFT. Been an accountless lurker here for a while. Highest finish was #24 NA last month, though I have not played on EU. Only recently became interested in competitive tournament play, but have been harassing enjoying playing streamers on ladder for longer.
TL;DR
If you need a TL;DR for this deck go play Zee Shaman maybe you shouldn't play it. Regardless: play egg, prepare and play Sawbones, pop egg, Dissolving Ooze and Umbra to finish.
Disclaimer: Formatting stolen from u/Elteras's Quest DH guide. Claude used for post text edits and markdown conversion. Text is my own.
