Dies to Removal

Jack was asking me about my deck last night so I thought I'd post my list for his benefit.

[deck]Patron Warrior[/deck]
Class (21)
2 Inner Rage
2 Execute
2 Whirlwind
2 Armoursmith
2 Battle Rage
1 Cruel Taskmaster
2 Fiery War Axe
1 Slam
2 Frothing Beserker
1 Shield Block
2 Warsong Commander
2 Death's Bite

Neutral (9)
1 Unstable Ghoul
2 Acolyte of Pain
2 Gnomish Inventor
2 Grim Patron
1 Harrison Jones
1 Emperor Thaurissan
[/deck]

How is the Harrison treating you? I am honestly loathe to run a 5 mana card that doesn't do anything if you aren't playing the warrior mirror/midrange hunter matchup. Has it been good enough in those matchups to justify it in your opinion?

Rogue's not super popular, but they do have a favourable matchup against this deck. Jones helps shore that up too. I imagine hitting a Paladin's 1/4 weapon ain't bad either.

Really, there's not a lot on this deck that he wants to play turn 5 anyway. He's not playing Belcher and you usually want to hold Patron until you can set up the win.

Harrison has been incredible for me; Control Warrior is very popular at high legend afterall.

According to my tracker, hunter (22%), warrior (15%), paladin (11%) and rogue (9%) are a majority of the meta for me, but you can cut Jones as appropriate.

[deck]Patron Warrior[/deck]
Class
2 Execute
2 Whirlwind
2 Armorsmith
2 Battle Rage
2 Cruel Taskmaster
1 Fiery War Axe
1 Slam
2 Frothing Beserker
2 Warsong Commander
2 Death's Bite

Neutral
2 Unstable Ghoul
2 Acolyte of Pain
2 Gnomish Inventor
2 Piloted Shredder
2 Grim Patron
1 Sludge Belcher
1 Emperor Thaurissan
[/deck]

Here's what I'm playing at the moment. Haven't dropped a game yet from rank 18 to 14. Not sure I'll try for legend this month, but if this deck keeps running well, you never know.

Inner Rage is one card that doesn't look great to me. I haven't actually tried it (being that I somehow don't own any), but I was never that sad to see my opponent playing it in the past. Patron for zero's just that good, I guess?

Yeah, you need to be able to flood early vs hunter and Druid; waiting till turn 7/8+ is too slow.

It's also zero mana removal vs aggro and a cantrip with acolyte of pain.

Crafted one copy to test it out, pulling a Shredder for it. I've only played a few games since then, and drew Rage twice. Never felt dead at least, which was my biggest concern.

RIP Patron Warrior...

About a week from now Warsong Commander will be changed from "Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge" to "Your Charge minions have +1 Attack". WTF!?

Better nerf might have been to change it to simply "Your minions with 3 or less Attack have Charge". No raging Patrons can attack. No pumped up Berserkers can one-shot kill. Or just don't nerf it at all since Patron Warrior seems a whole lot less popular now than it was a couple of months ago.

Just such a strange change, turning a unique card into a worse Raid Leader...

impression I'm getting is that it was needed even still, the deck makes aggro really bad (outside secret pally), and was still really strong at the highest levels

It was strong, no doubt. But if it needed a nerf, destroying a unique card in the process seems like the wrong way to do it. Commander is 100% unplayable in anything now, even casual decks. Could have given +2 attack, or costed 2 mana, or something! Raid Leader is a terrible card, and this is far worse.

A more fair nerf would probably be to change berserker to only activate when friendly minions are damaged so that it wouldn't punish the opponent for playing the fucking game.
I'm okay with the nerf, though. I was shite with the deck and still got so many wins just from power level alone, and would actually use it as my main deck late in the month. The main reason it needed a nerf was because they printed a whole new expansion, and this deck remained on top without playing a single new card. That shows a failure in game design.

And, personally, I'm more than a little happy to possibly be able to play rogue again

Pretty sure rogue loses hard to Secret Paladin, though I haven't tried it yet (getting a few more games in with Patron while I can). I wonder if it's time to play a midrange Hunter with Flare...

Dragon Priest is another option

Patron Warrior was brought back to life with the release of the Old Gods giving us Ravaging Ghoul and Bloodhoof Brave. Made it to legend with an incredible win percentage popping me right into 6th in NA. Made it as high as 3rd before I lost one.
About the only bad match-up this deck has is Call of the Wild Hunter, though Priest can be tricky at times. Don't think I lost a single game to Mage or Paladin, and maybe 95% win rate against Shaman (and aggro decks in general). Warlock is easy if they're playing zoo and still a good matchup if they're playing hand lock. Rogue and Druid are rarely played these days, but you can beat them easily enough too just because they're bad.

I'll post a decklist later. There are only 3 or 4 flex slots with this deck, which I've filled with Blood to Ichor, Loot Hoarder, Slam, and Ragnaros.

[deck]Old Gods Patron Warrior[/deck]
Class
2 Inner Rage
1 Blood to Ichor
2 Execute
2 Whirlwind
2 Armorsmith
2 Battle Rage
2 Fiery War Axe
1 Slam
2 Frothing Beserker
2 Ravaging Ghoul
2 Bloodhoof Brave
2 Death's Bite
1 Grommash Hellscream

Neutral
1 Loot Hoarder
2 Acolyte of Pain
2 Grim Patron
1 Dr. Boom
1 Ragnaros the Firelord
[/deck]

How could it be made standard viable?

The loss of Death's Bite is going to hurt like hell, but I imagine it could be done successfully (says a guy who hasn't played any standard).

I'd probably recommend another Blood to Ichor, another Loot Hoarder and something strong to take Dr. Boom's slot. Maybe Sylvannas? Might try Emperor Thaurissan too, though he became a lot worse for this deck after it became an attrition deck instead of a combo deck. Even that 7/7 Scarab guy could be reasonably good. Taunt minions are decent in this deck just because they protect your patrons.