Cubelock

Wild format
With the start of the Year of the Dragon, Doomguard and all key cards of the deck in Kobolds & Catacombs rotated to wild, making Cube Warlock a wild-exclusive archetype. For more information, see Game format.

A Voidlord a day keeps the aggro away.

Cube Warlock (sometimes referred to as "Cubelock") is a combo focused Warlock control deck type.

Deck Type

Cube Warlock is considered as a combo/control deck due to the existence of many board clears and removals, but it also has strong tempo plays with cheating out and copying Doomguards and Voidlords with cards such as Carnivorous Cube and Dark Pact.

Possessed Lackey and Skull of the Man'ari are essential to the gameplan of Cubelock, summoning threats against other control decks before they can be answered, and Voidlords to counter the more aggressive decks.

The ability of Cubelocks to copy and summon more Doomguards can be devastating for many decks. Destroying a Carnivorous Cube, that targeted a Doomguard, with Dark Pact summons two more Doomguards, dealing 10 extra damage on top of what the original one dealt before being destroyed. Prince Taldaram and Faceless Manipulator can be used to copy Carnivorous Cubes with strong targets, and Manipulator can also become another Doomguard or Voidlord. To make things even more devastating, Spiritsinger Umbra can activate Carnivorous Cube deathrattle immediately while also leaving the Cube intact, capable of summoning more Doomguards. Additionally, the Doomguards can potentially be resummoned by the battlecry of Bloodreaver Gul'dan, allowing for another burst.

While setting this combo up, the Warlock can survive using Defile and Hellfire to control the board, Lesser Amethyst Spellstone to create large health swings, and Dark Pact to recover tempo in the form of healing.

History

Cube Warlock was one of the most popular decks in the Kobolds & Catacombs and early Witchwood metas. Its combination of control and combo gameplay made it strong against both aggro and control match ups, especially with its best competition, Highlander Priest, receiving a heavy nerf shortly after K&C was launched.

The deck had great consistency, with many of their cards serving multiple purposes and few ways to 'whiff'. Deathrattle synergies worked on both Possessed Lackey and Carnivorous Cube, and the Cube could be used as a deathrattle trigger itself. Demons could be summoned from both the deck or hand by Possessed Lackey and Skull of the Man'ari respectively, preventing drawn demons from being dead cards. The deck also boasted incredible healing from Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, Bloodreaver Gul'dan's hero power, and Dark Pact itself.

Players often had little to no counterplay or answer against Cubelocks, as the warlock could target their high-value demons with Carnivorous Cubes immediately and then activate the deathrattle within the same turn, giving the opponent no time to silence or destroy their threats.

Despite the balance team's hopes, both the Standard rotation and cards from The Witchwood had very little impact on Cubelock's power. In Patch 11.1.1.24589, Possessed Lackey and Dark Pact were both nerfed. While this didn't fully kill Cubelock, its popularity slowly gave way to Even Handlock. With the Year of the Dragon rotation, the deck became restricted to Wild format only.

Cubelock found many successes in Wild as well. Cards like Voidcaller and Mal'Ganis that Cubelock never had access to while in Standard. The introduction of Serpent Egg and EVIL Genius in Rise of Shadows sparked a faster egg-based variant of Cubelock with a more aggressive early-game but retaining the typical slower Warlock package with Voidcaller and big Demons.

Cubelock remained a strong competitor in the Wild meta for the rest of the Year of the Dragon after receiving Plague of Flames and Expired Merchant in Saviors of Uldum and Dark SKies in Descent of Dragons. A larger viable pool of cards meant that previously staple cards like Skull of Man'ari and Voidlord began to be omitted in some builds of the deck.

Initially in the Year of the Phoenix, Cubelock remained a powerful deck in high levels of Wild play, but changes in the meta ultimately meant that Cubelock was no longer a top tier deck despite receiving several powerful cards like Enhanced Dreadlord, Unstable Felbolt, and Animated Broomstick. However, it did remain a viable deck and one could expect reasonable success with it.

Common cards

This section concerns content exclusive to Wild format.

The following cards are usually in the deck.

Core cards

The following cards are played in most or all versions of the deck:

Egg Varient

Optional cards

The following cards are played more than occasionally, but not always: