Rumble Run Warlock Shrine Guide

Last updated on Dec 20, 2018 at 07:56 by Kat 5 comments

This guide is designed to aid you in Rastakhan's Rumble Runs. It goes into great detail about Shrine choices, Card Buckets, and Teammates to help you make optimal choices when forging an optimal deck throughout a Rumble Run.

1.

Warlock Shrines

1.1.

Blood Pact

Blood Pact is a high-tempo Shrine that will allow you to leverage your Health to be able to play spells. It is capable of very fast victories but also comes with a high risk. If you pick this Shrine, you will start your Rumble Run with the following 10-card deck:

Warlock Cards Neutral Cards

With Blood Pact, you will naturally want to play many spells as early as possible to gain an advantage from your Shrine as soon as possible. However, it is important to keep 2 things in mind when doing so. Firstly, it is very easy to run out of cards, using your spells straight away will yield a short-term tempo advantage, but will lose you a long-term value game. Secondly, your Health is very important, especially against later bosses who begin with much higher Health than yourself. To overcome these, you should try to hold onto your spells until there is an opportune time to use them, whilst also making full use of Life Tap. Additionally, you should try to save your big power turns where you use many high-Cost spells for when you have Violet Illusionist or Leering Bat in play.

To synergise with Blood Pact, you will want to focus on picking up high-Cost spells from your card buckets. Unfortunately, there are not many options available that are not removal or board clears. Two exceptions to this are Ectomancy and Bane of Doom, which you should pick up at every opportunity. Secondly, you should make sure to pick up a supply of Lifesteal to ensure that your Health does not get too low from playing spells. You should look toward Hir'eeks Legion and Life Takers to try and pick up Queen of Pain and Felsoul Inquisitor. As both of these cards are demons, they are great targets for Bloodfury Potion, Demonfire, and Demonheart. Lastly, you should pick up as many Molten Giants as possible from A Dark Hand and Blood, as they will almost always be able to be played for free with your Shrine.

When choosing Teammates after your second and fourth win, Leering Bat should always be your highest priority. With no other ways to get Violet Illusionists other than the one starting in your deck, it is important to stock up on immune effects to allow you to freely use your spells when necessary. If Leering Bat is not available, Dark Diviner should be your second choice, providing you with a full hand of spells that can be played with your Shrine. It is important to note that Blood Portal is not a good Teammate to have as it will cause you to rapidly burn through your Health with very little to show for it.

If you manage to defeat the first 6 bosses, you will have the ability to upgrade your Shrine. Fortified Spirit is a great first choice for your Shrine. Its naturally high Health will allow it to absorb a lot of damage, leaving plenty of room for it to be healed. Alternatively, you can choose Boon Reaper to help refill your hand as you will be naturally burning through a lot of spells with the help of your Shrine.

1.2.

Dark Reliquary

Dark Reliquary is a Shrine that greatly rewards you for every card you Discard. Though the value of its ability has a high variance, it is very easy for it to snowball out of control for quick victories. If you pick this Shrine, you will start your Rumble Run with the following 10-card deck:

Warlock Cards Neutral Cards

Dark Reliquary is a Shrine that will reward you for very inefficient play. You should try and Discard your cards as quickly as possible, while not killing your own minions, to trigger its effect to summon you random Demons. In almost all cases, the value lost from wasting a Soulfire on your opponent's face or using Shriek on an empty board is greatly outweighed by the random Demons summoned by your Shrine and the tempo generated. Very often you will be able to get quick victories from the sheer tempo gained from the Shrine.

You should prioritise picking cards from the Discard bucket at almost every opportunity. The effect of the Shrine means there is almost no drawback to filling your deck with as many Discard effects as possible. One exception to this is if High Priestess Jeklik is offered. Its strong synergy with Discard effects means you should always pick it whenever it is offered from the Life Takers and Taunt buckets.

After your second and fourth win, you will have the option to add a special Teammate minion to your deck. You should always pick Ravenous Familiar whenever it is available. Not only does it have very strong synergy with your Shrine, but the large number of Discard effects used makes it very likely you will end up Discarding any other Teammates picked. If Ravenous Familiar is not available, Dark Diviner is a solid second choice and will fill your hand up with spells that can be used as fodder for Discard effects.

After 6 wins, you will have the ability to choose from a random selection of powerful Shrine upgrades. Everlasting Devotion is an excellent first choice if it is available and will allow you to double up on your Shrine to make your Discard effects even more efficient. Alternatively, Boon Reaper is a great second choice and will help refill your hand to make up for the large number of cards you will be Discarding.

1.3.

Hir'eek's Hunger

Hir'eek's Hunger is a very powerful Shrine build around dealing damage to your own Hero. It has many powerful combos available that can create huge amounts of burst damage each turn. If you pick this Shrine, you will start your Rumble Run with the following 10-card deck:

Warlock Cards Neutral Cards

Hir'eek's Hunger will allow you to slowly chip away at your opponent's Health by deflecting many common self-damage effects like Flame Imp and Life Tap toward your opponent. However, the true power of the Shrine comes from powerful combos using Unlicensed Apothecary. As you only start with one copy in your deck, it is important to save it for the most opportune moment. When combined with cards like Fiendish Circle, it can be used to deal 20 damage before factoring the damage of any other cards you play. You should save up for these power turns while staying in control of the board to burst your way to victory.

When picking cards buckets, the Blood bucket should be where you look first. Regularly using it to pick cards like Spirit Bomb and Chittering Tunneler will give you great tools for controlling the board while chipping away at your opponent's Health in the process. As it is very hard to come by additional copies of Unlicensed Apothecary, picking up Dark Possession from the Jinx bucket or Carnivorous Cubes from Sacrifice is a great way to gain more. To pair with your Unlicensed Apothecaries, you should also try to pick up a few copies of cards that spawn many minions such as Fiendish Circle from Jinx or Imp-losion from Hir'eek's Legion.

When choosing Teammates after your second and fourth victory, there are no options that have amazing synergy with Hir'eek's Hunger. However, Dark Diviner is great well-rounded pick and a solid first choice. Alternatively, if you end up taking a lot of self-damage while your Shrine is dead or lack board clears, Vile Necrodoctor is also a very good choice.

Once you reach 6 wins in a row, you will have the opportunity to choose from 1 of 3 random upgrades for your Shrine. Everlasting Devotion should be your first choice to allow you to double its effect for even more powerful combos with Unlicensed Apothecary and reducing your Shrine's downtime where you are forced to damage yourself. If that options is not available, Pact with the Loa is always a very reasonable second choice and will minimise the time you will have to go without having your Shrine in play.

2.

Warlock Teammates

Teammate Comments
Blood Portal Blood Portal is a card that is not as strong as it may first appear. Though its effect may seem strong, you will either waste too many cards or make yourself take too much damage to get a worthwhile amount of cards from its effect.
Dark Diviner Dark Diviner is a great card to have in any deck. Although it has no good synergy with any of the Warlock Shrines, the value it offers by generating up to 10 spells cannot be overstated.
Leering Bat Leering Bat is a seemingly unspectacular card that functions as a more consistent version of Violet Illusionist. However, Immunity is an essential requirement for the Blood Pact Shrine, making Leering Bat a must-have Teammate.
Ravenous Familiar Ravenous Familiar is a niche Teammate that has solid stats that is able to trigger Discard effects without having reducing the number of cards in your hand. While this effect is not very useful on its own, efficient Discard effects are essential when using Dark Reliquary.
Vile Necrodoctor Vile Necrodoctor is a solid utility minion. It can be used in any deck if you are unfortunate enough to lack board clears or find your Health frequently gets too low.
Warp Stalker Warp Stalker is a fairly underwhelming Teammate overall. Though its effect may seem useful for the self-damge of Hir'eek's Hunger or a hand refill for Dark Reliquary, the Mana Cost required to use your Hero Power multiple times makes it too expensive and inferior to cards like Dark Diviner.
3.

Card Buckets

After each victory, you will be offered a choice of 3 different card buckets that you can add to your deck. Each bucket contains 3 cards that fit a certain theme and will help shape your deck in different ways.

The table below contains a list of all the possible Warlock card buckets. The comments section contains further details of each bucket and when to choose them.

Bucket Comments
Hir'eek's Legion Hir'eek's Legion contains a range of cheap Demons similar to those found in Constructed Zoo Warlock decks. The bucket can be a solid early-game addition to any deck, but should not be picked too frequently as you will find yourself running out of cards quickly.
Discard Discard contains all of the Discard effects available for Warlocks. The drawback of Discard effects are too great, especially in the long drawn-out encounters against later bosses, and should only be used with Dark Reliquary.
Life Takers Life Takers contains all of the Warlock cars available with Lifesteal effects. Most of the cards are far too low-value to be put to good use, however, Lesser Amethyst Spellstone and Siphon Soul can be used as solid removal options for any deck.
Taunt The Taunt bucket, as the name suggest, contains many of the Taunt minions Warlocks can use. Most of the cards in the bucket are very weak, but there are a few solid cards like The Lich King and Sludge Belcher that can be a great late-game addition to any deck.
Wrath Wrath contains all of the AoE spells and board clears that Warlock can use. You should try to pick up Defile or Lord Godfrey for all of your decks to provide powerful board clears if you lose control of the board.
Sacrifice Sacrifice contains a range of spells and minions themed around destorying your own minions. The cards in this bucket are very weak and should not be considered, with the exception of Carnivorous Cube.
Blood Blood contains minions and spells themed around damaging yourself. It has many good choices to synergise with Hir'eek's Hunger in addition to Molten Giants which can be utilised in all decks once your Hero starts to get a higher base Health in the later in encounters.
Dire Demons Dire Demons is the other half of the Hir'eek's Legion bucket, containing all of the high-Cost demons available for Warlocks. Many of the minions are very solid mid and late-game cards, such as Despicable Dreadlord, Dread Infernal, Abyssal Enforcer, and Mal'Ganis, all of which are solid late-game choices for any deck.
A Dark Hand A Dark Hand contains cards that are stronger with a full hand of cards or will help you fill your hand. The there is not enough support available to truly get enough value from this bucket. However, it has some strong standalone choices available like Emperor Thaurissan, Kobold Librarian, and Molten Giant.
Jinx Jinx contains an odd mix of Warlock spells, many of which are covered in other buckets. Additionally, it contains a few unique cards like Arcane Giant, Fiendish Circle, and Ectomancy, which are all great in combination with Blood Pact.
4.

Changelog

  • 20 Dec. 2018: Guide added.
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