What is going on with warlocks?

[Abelcain 1]

I just started playing the new expansion for the first time since they changed all the cards and stuff. I was looking up decks on a few different websites, and next to the deck lists there was a message that said something like "warlocks are not currently viable in the meta, but these are the best possible cards at the moment" or something.

I'm curious now, because I went from rank 25 to 9 with my hunter deck without ever playing against a warlock, which I thought was strange.

 

Can anybody fill me in on what happened to warlocks this expansion? Are they actually non-viable, or are the pros still figuring out new card mechanics or something?

[FanOfValeera 253]

Warlock is the worst class by far.

Its quest sucks so bad, without a new expansion and fitting cards, there is no way you can play that quest viably (Is this even a word?) For zoo, quest is slow, and reward is not great, 3/2 imps die to pretty much everything. For control, quest is so underwhelming again.

After Reno Jackson and other important cards in renolock rotated out, and as Kazakus is not enough to define an archetype (maybe in priest, it is), control variants became much weaker. Some players tried to play handlock, with cards like Humongous Razorleaf, such as Trump and StanCifka (this guy loves handlock I guess) and deck seemed to perform badly, so that Humongous Razorleaf started seeing play in priest, not warlock.

Loss of Dark Peddler and Imp Gang Boss affected zoo harshly, especially the IGB was a perfect minion for a zoo deck. And then there was Power Overwhelming, gave some explosive power to zoo. New egg and Ravenous Pterrordax can't fill their role, at least, not in standard

Discard zoo w/o quest seems playable perhaps, Clutchmother Zavas is good card for that archetype obviously. And there are still cards from Karazhan.Though we have a problem, mage and taunt warrior are pretty common in ladder, and they just laugh at zoo. Also, midrange paladin is the new 'deck-to-beat', and zoo can't do that too. 

Not much is seen to be refined for warlock, even by pros. While it is one of the best classes is wild, in standard, it is extremely rare and fragile to so many different things.

If you're sure you will queue against pirate warriors and midrange hunters all day long, you can play it though.

[KingMe 289]

This make me sad because Aggro Zoo was one of my all time favorite decks. Discard Zoo is good with some of the new cards but it's still not enough as it struggles in the new meta. I have however seen a few pros playing around with a Kazakus Warlock but it too is still underwhelming. I have my fingers crossed that Warlock gets some better cards this year to help bring it back that and Tempo Mage. (Not Elemental) 

[VaraTreledees 138]

Warlock is playable, but the main problem is that control warlock lacks a viable method of healing, while aggro warlock lacks a finisher (or more apt to say, it struggles to close out the game once it starts to lose board if the opponent is above 5 health), a weapon and just generally the ability to swing the board.  Handlock is still playable, I went from rank 20 to rank 10 with only 2 or 3 losses, which isn't super impressive but I am also a pretty poor handlock player.  It feels like a deck that is on the cusp of being good, if molten giants got their nerf reverted it would be a perfectly serviceable deck.  Zoo feels the same way, it just needs a little bit to be strong again.