Hex: Heart of Darkness

I've decided depart from the realm of pointless speculation and insert a deck list that you might actually have fun with.  The deck's name is Heart of Darkness after the Joseph Conrad book.  Note: This title has absolutely nothing to do with Spiders and Zombies, so maybe just call it "The Swarm" or something.  I usually name my homebrews after books :p

Quick note before you continue: I'm not a pro, nor do I profess to be one.  If you're looking for a deck that will win you a tournament, you should probably look somewhere else.  I tend to make moderately competitive homebrews with a slight thematic twist.  My primary goal is to give you guys a deck that I've had fun with and that you can try out.

Heart of Darkness

Champion: Zared Venomscorn

25 Blood Shard 

4 Brood Creeper

2 Xarlox the Brood Lord

4 Extinction

2 Inquisition

3 Life Siphon

4 Murder

3 Relentless Corruption

4 Terrible Transfer 

2 Pact of Pain

3 Zombie Plague

2 Bottles Vitae

2 Chimes of the Zodiac 

Strategy

The strategy is straightforward: kill anything your opponent plays while swinging with troops that will generate generate spiderlings for you.  Zombie Plague, Xarlox, and Relentless Corruption will also whittle down your opponent's deck, giving you a potential out for decking them in extended games.  Chimes of the Zodiac will also allow you to replicate one of your nineteen actions in the deck to truly punish other control decks.  With Chimes, Life Siphon is lethal at eleven resources, and Terrible Transfer can swiftly turn the game in your favor with the massive board clear and life-gain.

There is one card missing from here that many people would likely expect to see: Xentoth's Inquisitor.  Xentoth's is arguably the most powerful card in the Alpha right now due to its ability to return to the field repeatedly.  The card's cost increase isn't working properly right now, and it was banned from competitive play in the most recent tournament, which was my initial motivation behind keeping it from the deck.  The array of troop destruction actions and your Champion ability should be able to make short work of Xentoth's Inquisitor your opponent's may have in its early stages (Using your champion's ability and following it up with an Inquisition will remove the little bugger for good).  That troop destruction will hopefully buy you time until later in the game where you can chain a few Life Siphons or Chimes of the Zodiac at your opponent.

I should also discuss the choice of Champion.  Zared is in the deck mostly to deal with Xentoth's Inquisitor and other important one-toughness troops like Ruby Pyromancer.  He requires four charges, which is steep, but the alternatives are Gozzog, who is strong and spammable, but I feel is underwhelming considering the life gain and reach your deck already has; and Herczeg, who essentially mimics Pact of Pain.  Zared is often a guaranteed kill spell on weak cards where Herczeg costs you life.  In the end it comes down to preference, and all three are fine choices, but since most decks have things that Zared can shot anyways (or could if the become infected by the plague), I feel he's a decent champion for the job.

Chimes of the Zodiac is fairly key for the deck, and I've wavered on whether or not to up the number of copies to 3.  You generally only want to see one in the early turns, and the deck can certainly win without it, but resolving one gives you amazing card advantage against other control decks.  If you cast a Relentless Corruption with Chimes in play, not only does the copy trigger the Escalation (if the copy draws you 1 card, the original will draw you 2, for a total of 3), but Chimes actually shuffles the copied Corruption back into your deck as well, effectively creating more Escalation cards for you to draw.  

Your Spiderspawning troops is a portion of the deck that is somewhat gimmicky, but these few men need a few rotations through opposing Zombie Plagues to be removed from your deck, unlike Xentoth's Inquisitor.  Additionally connecting with one of them can quickly snowball the game if your opponent doesn't have an answer. Spiderspawns can trade with most of the smaller troops in the game, and can even team up to take on the larger ones.

Weaknesses

The deck can have a hard time with creatures that have Spellshield.  Extinction is a nice catch-all, but maneuvering around Spellshield can be tricky, which is why it is important when dealing with other creature decks to try to withstand as much as possible by either creating an army of spiders after an extinction or by stalling the game state to a point where you can use Chimes to reap massive Card Advantage off your opponent.  Early Zombie Plagues are key in long games to ensure you decay their deck, and hopefully will generate some men in the process.

For your reserves, consider additional copies of Zombie Plague, Inquisition, and Chimes of the Zodiac.  Corrupt Harvester can give you a nice, consistant source of life gain against very aggressive decks, though at four resources you really need extinction more than not.  Chaos Key works well against Indestructible troops, and Bone Warrior is deceptively annoying, ensuring you board presence after an extinction and giving you a consistent Xentoth's blocker.  If you don't fear the Plague, feel free to add in the Inquisitor with the rage gem.  I don't find this as strong as Brood Creeper, but the ability to play the Inquisitor over and over again isn't something you can readily ignore--it is kind of cheap though.

That about wraps it up.  Enjoy the swarm.