Overview
At its core Elwynn Boar Warlock is trying to equip the Sword of a Thousand Truths by killing 7 Elwynn Boars in a single game. Normally that would take forever and multiple copies of the Boar across many turns but through a combination of Bat Mask, Bloodbloom, and Plague of Flames you can do it all in a single turn for as little as 6 mana. The average game time with this deck hovers around 4 minutes which makes it one of the most efficient decks for climbing if your goal is to grind games quickly rather than sit through 15 minute control mirrors. It has been quietly terrorizing the Wild format and is currently one of the fastest and most consistent OTK decks available.
The Combo
The combo itself is elegant in its simplicity. You play Elwynn Boar for 1 mana, then Bloodbloom for 4 mana which converts the cost of your next spell from mana to health, then cast Bat Mask which would normally cost 8 mana but instead costs 8 health. Bat Mask sets the Boar's stats to 1/1 and fills your entire board with 1/1 copies of it. Then you play Plague of Flames for 1 mana which destroys all of your minions and for each one destroys a random enemy minion. Since your board is full of Boars, that is 7 Boar Deathrattles triggering at once which immediately equips the Sword of a Thousand Truths, a 15/3 weapon that destroys all of your opponent's mana crystals after you attack. Swing face and the game is over.
The total mana cost is just 6 which means this can realistically fire on turn 6 if you've drawn well. More commonly you'll fire it around turns 7-8 while stabilizing against aggressive opponents but the speed ceiling is absurdly low for an OTK deck. Defile can also serve as the kill trigger instead of Plague of Flames since all the Boar copies share the same health and will die to the first tick of damage.
Draw and Tutors
The deck lives and dies on finding the four combo pieces as quickly as possible and every non-combo card in the deck is designed to facilitate that. Kobold Librarian, Mortal Coil, and Fracking are your draw tools and your Hero Power is critical too since you should be tapping aggressively in the early turns to dig through the deck. For tutors the deck has three cards that each find a specific combo piece. Darkbomb deals 3 damage to a character and if it kills draws a Shadow spell which finds Bloodbloom since it is a Shadow school spell. Living Flame is a 2 mana 3/2 minion whose Deathrattle draws a Fire spell which finds Plague of Flames. And Fae Trickster is a 3 mana 2/4 whose Deathrattle draws a spell that costs 5 or more which finds Bat Mask as the only spell in the deck at that cost. These tutors are what push the deck from a meme into a competitive strategy as they dramatically increase the consistency of assembling the combo on time. Both Living Flame and Fae Trickster need to die to trigger their tutors which means they also serve as early game bodies that trade into the opponent's board before drawing you your combo pieces.
Felstring Harp
Felstring Harp deserves its own section because it is one of the most important cards in the deck and completely transforms how the health economy works. It is a 1 mana 0/3 weapon and while it is equipped, whenever your hero would take damage on your turn it restores 2 Health instead and loses 1 durability. This means that Life Tap which normally costs 2 health now heals you for 2 instead. Kobold Librarian's 2 damage to your hero becomes 2 healing. Raise Dead's 3 damage becomes 2 healing. Every single self-damage effect in the deck gets flipped on its head and that swing is massive. A Life Tap going from minus 2 to plus 2 is a 4 health swing per use and with 3 durability charges on the weapon you're getting multiple flips before it breaks.
This is what allows the deck to be so reckless with its own health as a resource. Without the Harp the sheer volume of self-damage from Life Tap, Kobold Librarian, and Raise Dead would kill you before you could assemble the combo in a lot of games especially against aggro. With it equipped you can tap aggressively, cast Raise Dead to recover combo pieces or reload your hand, and come out the other side with more health than you started with. Against aggro decks specifically the Harp is often what keeps you alive long enough to fire the combo. It turns what would otherwise be a suicidal draw engine into a sustainable one and is the main reason you can afford to pay 8 health for Bat Mask via Bloodbloom on the combo turn without being dead on board.
Stall and Survival
Armor Vendor gives both heroes 4 armor which buys time against aggressive decks. Glacial Shard freezes a threatening minion to buy a turn which is often all you need. Defile is your primary board clear for when aggro gets ahead of you. In a deck full of 1-health minions Defile can cascade multiple times and is often your only real answer to a wide board. It is also one of the most skill-testing cards in the deck since you need to be careful about board states if you suspect you'll need a Defile soon while also keeping it available as a secondary combo trigger.
Recovery
Raise Dead is quietly the MVP of the deck as for 0 mana at the cost of 3 health it returns two friendly minions that died to your hand. This serves double duty as both a recovery tool when combo pieces die early and as a way to get your Boar back if it dies before the combo turn. Dark Pact offsets the life cost from Bloodbloom by restoring 8 health after destroying a friendly minion which means you can combo even at lower life totals. Cursed Catacombs is a 0 mana spell that lets you Discover another card from your deck making it Temporary which gives you yet another way to dig for combo pieces at no mana cost. In games where you're close to assembling the combo but missing one piece it can be the card that gets you over the finish line.
Mulligan
Your mulligan is aggressive and focused. You want to find any of the four combo pieces being Elwynn Boar, Bloodbloom, Bat Mask, and Plague of Flames or cards that directly tutor them like Darkbomb and Living Flame. Everything else gets tossed. The deck has enough draw that you'll find your stall tools naturally but the combo pieces are the bottleneck so every mulligan decision should be oriented around assembling them. Against aggro specifically I'd keep Defile and one Armor Vendor since dying before you can combo is the primary way this deck loses but even then I wouldn't keep more than one defensive card as the best defense is a fast kill.
Matchups
The deck's greatest strength is its speed. Against slower control and combo decks you're often faster than them which means they have to have specific disruption or you just win. Decks that try to set up elaborate win conditions over 10+ turns are basically free wins. Aggro is the trickiest matchup because you're spending your early turns drawing and assembling rather than fighting for board. Defile is your best tool here and knowing when to deploy it versus waiting for a bigger cascade is the main skill expression in these games. The hardest matchups are decks with hand disruption like Mutanus or Dirty Rat effects that can snipe your combo pieces. If they pull your Boar or Bat Mask before the combo turn you're in serious trouble since the deck has very little backup plan. Raise Dead can recover from one snipe but multiple disruption effects are usually game over.
Tips and Tricks
One of the most common mistakes I see with this deck is being too conservative with your life total. Between Life Tap, Bloodbloom, Kobold Librarian, and Raise Dead you're constantly spending health as a resource and that is fine. A Warlock at 1 health that combos on turn 6 still wins the game. Be aggressive about tapping and don't panic when your health gets low unless you're facing a deck with burn damage. Felstring Harp completely flips the script on your self-damage so getting it equipped early is a priority and with it active you can tap and Raise Dead freely.
Also count your Boar deaths carefully. The Sword doesn't activate until exactly 7 Boars have died so if something goes wrong with the Bat Mask turn or a Boar got sniped earlier you need to know where you stand. Raise Dead and a second copy of the Boar can help you get there across multiple turns if the clean one-turn combo isn't available but that's the backup plan and not the primary line.
Final Thoughts
Elwynn Boar Warlock is one of those decks that looks like a meme on paper but plays like a competitive powerhouse once you understand the lines. The combo is surprisingly resilient with the tutor package backing it up and the skill ceiling with Defile and life management gives you room to outplay opponents even when the draw doesn't cooperate. If you're looking for something fast, explosive, and a little unhinged for Wild it is hard to do better than this right now.