Hearthstone 23: The Evil League of EVIL

[Zevox]

Welcome to twenty-third GitP thread for Hearthstone. For anyone who doesn't know, Hearthstone is a video card game from Blizzard, based on the Warcraft series. The game is free to play and available here (http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/), so if you're interested, give it a shot. You've got nothing to lose but your free time. :smallwink:

For new players, something to be aware of is that there are a number of hidden "quests" you can complete which will give you free gold, dust, or even a pack. A complete list can be found here (http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/1088-list-of-quests-and-daily-quests-in-hearthstone). Be aware that not quite all of those are ones you'll be able to complete quickly though.

And here is a list of Playgrounders currently in the game, for both NA and EU servers:

GitP UsernameBattle.net ID (US)
GandarielCiabatta#2958
Geno9999Geno9999#1674
Gluteus_MaximusRubiksCube#11427
HamsteTheorules#1234
KishGrazzt#1417
Lord RaziereTrizap#1729
NerociteJoeKage#1852
otakuryogaScootaloo#1471
RodinRodin#1811
SeerowOshi#1354
StevesciguyStevesciguy#1442
TheGlyphstoneGlyphstone#1419
ThranatarThrantar#1416
YaelUrashima#1810
ZevoxZevox#1522



GitP UsernameBattle.net ID (EU)
GandarielCiabatta#2958




GitP UsernameBattle.net ID (US)
aethernoxethernox#1948
AgentPaperAgentPaper#1193
AmberVaelAmberVael#1225
AnarionAnarion55#1254
AntonokAntonok#1704
AnxeGoCorral#1879
BaelotBaelot#1149
CogwheelOmegaNixon#1123
banthesunbanthesun#1782
Dancing OwlbearOwlbear#1586
Destro YersulDestroYersul#1239
D_LordVolrock#1367
Duck999Duck999#1349
DuosDoctorDapper#1491
Firedaemon33Firedaemon#1486
flat_footedHiigara#1357
Fleeing CowardScorch#1432
GAADGAAD#1126
GaelbertSamHouston#1563
GamerlordGamerlord#1612
GandarielCiabatta#2958
GanorenasGanorenas#1457
Gluteus_MaximusRubiksCube#11427
GomipileGlodd#1784
Gray MageGrayMage#1723
GrytormGrytorm#1777
HamsteTheorules#1234
Haruspex_PariahHaruspexPari#1254
HatevahHatevah#1405
heronbpvAvan#1991
HircineIllusiveMan#1616
Jaxzan ProditorJaxzan#1878
jindra34JinRia #1770
JohnjimcoJohnJimco#1482
KarohtKaroht#1505
KishGrazzt#1417
KradeKrade#1266
LegoShrimplegoshrimp#1722
Landis963Landis963#1789
Loreweaver15Loreweaver#1199
Lunix VandalLunixVandal#1952
MacGiollaMacGiolla#1982
MathMageMathMage#1797
MCerberusMCerberus#1734
mistformsquirrlmistformsqrl#1430
moosabiMoossabi#1325
Mystic MuseNSFJunkblade#1400
Neon KnightVultureCrook#1434
Neriractorneriractor#1483
NerociteJoeKage#1852
nhbdyNohbdy#1927
OlinserOlinser#1393
OnionbreathGiantSquid#1845
OrcusMcPOrcus#1805
otakuryogaScootaloo#1471
Pokonicpokonic#1166
PsyBombPsyBomb#1878
QwertystopQwertystop#1897
r2d2gor2d2go#1262
RodinRodin#1811
RosstinRosstin#1609
SamBurkeSamBurke#1486
SeerowOshi#1354
ShishnarfneGruschenka#1375
SholosVeebeebee#1383
Stabbity Rabbit StabityRabit#1362
TechwarriorTechwarri0r#1572
TemoteiTemotei#1507
Tesla_pastateslapasta#1973
Thanatos 51-50Thanatos5150#1407
TheGlyphstoneGlyphstone#1419
The Hellbugthehellbug#1216
The_JackalTheJackal#1499
ThranatarThrantar#1416
TogarthAsparag#1680
Trouble BrewingHairyPoppins#1949
UserCloneUserClone #1545
VolatarVolatar#1750
YaelUrashima#1810
YanaRaltis#1807
ZeroNumerousZeroNumerous#1913
ZevoxZevox#1522
ZmekJadeReaver #1783


GitP UsernameBattle.net ID (EU)
AdumbrationAdumbration#2419
Aran ThuleAranThule#2780
AvarisAvaris#2378
Avilan the GreyBeardedgeek#2355
Beelzebub1111SirArthurIV#1244
boomwolfBoomWolf#1169
DadaScrattlebear#2863
D-naras Dinos #2811
Epinephrine_SynSilverSeraph #2931
Fleeing CowardScorch#1432
Frog DragonVasemmasti#2618
FyreByrdFyreByrd#2962
GandarielCiabatta#2958
GolemsVoiceCrazyCat#29897
HewhosaysfishHeWhoSezFish#2503
Hippie_VikingHippieViking#2866
Infernally ClayWinny#1904
JormengandTrianna#2529
LionheartLionheart#2440
Mr.SilverSilverSmiles#2462
MurmaiderMurmaider#2273
PoscaMazura#2636
RaddishRaddish#2730
ScionoftheVoidJayPsi#2775
ShinyRocksMoodyTuskarr#2790
SianSian#2690
SilfirSilfir#2863
SlyGuyMcFlySlGuyMcFly#2562
TokayTokay#2518
TomeTaejix#2836
VolthawkVolthawk#1214
WeimannWeimann#2716
WraithIllusionist#2224
XianderXiander#2814

------------------------------------------------
So, final reveal of all the remaining Rise of Shadows cards happened today, and the full gallery (https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/expansions-adventures/rise-of-shadows/cards#all) is up. Thoughts on the many new cards:

Neutral
Potion Vendor: Hey, a good healing card for those Druid healing synergies! And maybe for Priest Northshire nonsense. Much nicer to have this battlecry on a smaller minion than on the 3/3 for 3 it was previously on I think, especially for Priest Northshire shenanigans, might push this into seeing more play than that did.
Toxfin: If Murlocs are good, this is too. As with every time they've printed more Murloc stuff, I'm just crossing my fingers that the resulting deck isn't good.
Arcane Servant: River Crockolisk but an elemental. Even Elemental decks wouldn't run this. Filler.
Dalaran Librarian: Neat, but the only deck I can imagine wanting it is Silence Priest, and I don't think that looks good enough at this point.
Mana Resevoir: 2 mana, 0 attack, effect is just spell damage. Crap. Plus we saw this as a 3 mana demon with just +1 health before, and that saw no play, so yeah, definitely crap.
Spellbook Binder: Eh, I doubt there's enough good spell damage cards or decks that want them to get this guy into constructed.
Sunreaver Spy: Very strong secret synergy card, basically custom-made for Paladin, since they're the ones who can curve it out. Pretty good evidence that Secret Paladin will be a real thing.
Arcane Watcher: Interesting that they let it attack if you have any spell damage, but spell damage cards generally aren't good enough to make that worth it, I think. Silence Priest might run it, if that works, but I'm inclined to think it won't.
Faceless Rager: Might actually see play, honestly. A Handlock-like deck could get a lot of use out of something like this copying the high health of a Twilight Drake or Giant. Needs a specific deck like that which can get good, durable minions down early though, I think.
Flight Master: Weird, probably bad.
Hench-Clan Sneak: Mediocrity incarnate. Arena card, nothing more.
Magic Carpet: Probably not good, but maybe somebody comes up with a deck that can abuse it somehow. I'd bet against it though.
Portal Keeper: Probably not good, except that it does have great synergy with Plot Twist. If it sees play, I'd predict it's in exactly a Plot Twist-running Warlock deck.
Proud Defender: Very nice taunt minion, the closest thing we got to a replacement for Tar Creeper. Probably not as good as that card, but I think there's every chance this guy sees a lot of play in Control decks.
Soldier of Fortune: The drawback is probably too much for this to see play.
Violet Spellsword: This might be playable, it becomes decent at 2 spells in your hand, above-average at 3+. You're probably really gunning to consistently have 4+ though to make it strong, and that seems iffy to me.
Azerite Elemental: So its stats aren't good, and its effect is just spell damage, that doesn't even happen unless it survives a turn. Yeah, this looks pretty bad.
Dalaran Crusader: Pack filler/arena card.
Recurring Villain: Actually has potential, I'm just not sure what decks have enough buffs to justify running him. He does only need +1 attack to trigger though, so maybe Druid with their +1/+1 AoE effects? Seems a bit costly for Token Druid though.
Sunreaver Warmage: Interesting. If Big Spell Mage were still a thing, this would have an obvious home there, but all of those cards are gone, so it's a theoretically good card in search of a deck that runs enough big spells for it to work. May or may not find it, I'm not sure right now.
Eccentric Scribe: Not bad, but probably not constructed-worthy.
Mad Summoner: Very strange card. Goes great with the new Warlock AoE/buff spell, but I think that may be too specific a combo to see play, and I struggle to think of what else you would do with it.
Portal Overfiend: See Portal Keeper comments.
Safeguard: Seemed to have potential at first glance, but upon reflection, it's basically worse Rotten Applebaum - +1 mana to turn the healing into a 0/5 taunt. Maybe Deathrattle Hunter sees enough value to having it around for Oblivitron that it runs it, but I'm skeptical even of that.
Violet Warden: One of the better-statted spell damage minions we've ever seen, actually. Still probably falls short of seeing constructed play though.
Underbelly Ooze: It's Grim Patron, but 2 health bigger and 2 mana more. Hard to completely discount it given that card's history, but the higher mana cost makes it harder to work with. We'll see if somebody finds a way to break it.
Tunnel Blaster: That's not bad at all, actually. Reminds me of Primordial Drake, though the AoE being a deathrattle instead of a battlecry is definitely worse. Might still be playable though, especially if aggro is a concern.
Heroic Innkeeper: Bigger Frostwolf Warlord is worse Frostwolf Warlord. Crap in constructed, but very good in that "all minions are 1/1 and cost 1" Brawl.
Whirlwind Tempest: How many good windfury cards are there again? Oh, hardly any? And it's 8 mana, so you're not comboing it with anything ever? Yeah, this sucks.
Burly Shovelfist: One of the better high-cost commons we've seen, may even verge on having a use in constructed (Rush Warrior?). I'd still lean against it, but there might be the off chance.

Druid
Blessing of the Ancients: On the one hand, this is +2 mana over Mark of the Lotus. On the other, Twinspell. May well enable Token Druid once again.

Hunter
Rapid Fire: Good card that probably goes in all Hunter decks. It's 4 "ping" cards for the price of 2, which is solid enough on its own, and could get scary with Vereesa Windrunner. A swing with her weapon sudden turns these into 4 mana deal 12 (plus the 2 from the weapon). One of the better Twinspell cards, I think.
Ursatron: Solid card that almost surely goes into Deathrattle Hunter.
Arcane Fletcher: Interesting. Very specific both in its trigger and what it draws you though - feels like it wants to be in a combo deck of some kind, but I don't know what that deck would be.
Hunting Party: Probably too slow to see constructed play.

Mage
Magic Dart Frog: Flamewaker Lite is probably still good enough for Tempo Mage to run it. Would definitely be if it still shot twice per spell, once is definitely notably weaker than Flamewaker, but I'm still inclined to think it's enough to see play in that deck, if that deck works out at all.
Kirin Tor Tricaster: I am not sure whether this sees play or not. It's mainly strong with Arcane Missiles and Shooting Star, but its drawback can be mitigated by Sorcerer's Apprentice. But it's also competing with the 4/3 spell damage +2 card, so unless you run both, that probably just beats it, I think.

Paladin
Mysterious Blade: I was actually watching the reveal stream, and let out an "F you" at the dev who remarked about how a 3/2 weapon would be too good to print without a conditional. Anyway though, yeah, Firey War Axe is back, but in Paladin for some godforsaken reason, and it needs secrets to work now. But secret on 1 into this on 2 is strong, so yeah, Secret Paladin will probably be a thing. I just hope it turns out more midrangey rather than aggro, so I might actually play it.

Priest
Hench-Clan Shadequill: For +2 health on Yeti you're getting Zombie Chow's drawback? Eh, much as Priest doesn't generally care about that, I'm still not sure that's worth it.
Unsleeping Soul: We are back on pushing Silence Priest I see. Not particularly impressed by this one at the moment, I don't think it sees play, but if I'm underestimating that deck maybe it does.
Convincing Infiltrator: Oh hey, a strong deathrattle for that 2-drop from earlier to copy! I don't think this alone will make that card playable, but this one just might be. Not totally sure, but the potential is there I think.

Rogue
Daring Escape: Eh, probably doesn't see play. Rogue has better ways to return minions to their hand already, is generally happy just returning one, and there's no extra upside here beyond returning multiple.
Waggle Pick: One of the most solid weapon cards Rogue has ever been given. Likely to see play I think, it's just generally pretty good.

Shaman
Mutate: Eh, if Unstable Evolution wasn't seeing play outside of meme decks, I doubt this will either. Mostly exists for Hagatha's hero power to hand you.
Soul of the Murloc: Half-cost Soul of the Forest is frightening. Probably strong enough to go into any more aggressive Shaman that comes into being for the next two years, definitely in any Murloc Shaman if that works out.
Underbelly Angler: Frighteningly good, giving a Murloc deck much more staying power over the course of a game. This is the card that makes me worry Murloc Shaman will be a thing.
Witch's Brew: Why isn't this echo? Is it limited to just repeating once, maybe? Odd if so. Probably a card that mostly exists for Hagatha, I think, unless Control Shaman really desperately needs healing.
Scargill: Could be scary in the late-game, but since Murloc decks prefer not to get there, I'm not totally sure they'll want this guy, even if Murloc Shaman takes off.

Warlock
Impferno: Has potential in Demon Zoo, for sure. Not totally sure it makes the cut, or if Zoo wants to run enough demons for it, but will be tried.
Darkest Hour: I guess the idea for this is that you run it to combo with Rafaam's Scheme? That's about the only potential I see to it, and that doesn't look strong enough for me to think it'll see play.
Jumbo Imp: The "while this is in your hand" text kills it I think.

Warrior
Sweeping Strikes: Minions with this effect have never seen play, doubt this spell will either.
Vicious Scraphound: My favorite card from this last batch of reveals, goes in Control Warrior no questions asked. Great little anti-aggro card, great synergy with Zilliax, good to get off Omega Assembly and Boom's hero power, just all-around solid for a control deck.

[Kish]

I'm puzzled by "repeatable this turn." Have they decided to remove the Echo keyword after all?

[Zevox]

I'm puzzled by "repeatable this turn." Have they decided to remove the Echo keyword after all?
My only guess on that is that it can only be repeated once. Otherwise, yeah, should have just said Echo, doesn't make sense that they'd leave that off.

[Divayth Fyr]

My only guess on that is that it can only be repeated once. Otherwise, yeah, should have just said Echo, doesn't make sense that they'd leave that off.

"Repeatable this turn." is what Unstable Evolution uses, so it shouldn't be limited to one repeat.

Of course the only consistent bit of Hearthstone is the lack of consistency, so...

[Psyren]

Aww, I was too slow: I liked Geno's "EVIL: Every Villain Is Legendary"

Anyone know why Witch's Brew doesn't just have Echo instead of the clunky repeatable this turn language?

EDIT: Man, I'm really slow :smallsigh:

[CarpeGuitarrem]

This thread title has a PhD in horribleness.

[Resileaf]

I assume it's to not have any interactions with other cards that might have effects with 'echo' cards.

[Seerow]

I am on mobile right now but I cannot wait to get home to properly Express my hype for silence priest coming back.

[Zevox]

I assume it's to not have any interactions with other cards that might have effects with 'echo' cards.
There's only one such card though: the Rogue 4 mana 3/5 that gets +1/+1 whenever an echo card is played. Which has never seen play, and isn't even in the same class as Witch's Brew, so I sincerely doubt they're concerned about that.

[Kish]

There's only one such card though: the Rogue 4 mana 3/5 that gets +1/+1 whenever an echo card is played. Which has never seen play, and isn't even in the same class as Witch's Brew, so I sincerely doubt they're concerned about that.
Also, it would truly be amazingly lame if they were deliberately doing, "This card has Echo, but we're not saying Echo because we don't want it to buff cards that get buffs from Echo cards."

(Next set: "This card ties up two of your mana crystals the turn after you play it, but it's not Overload.")

[Seerow]

I am home now! So before I gush and get into the new cards, the thing with Echo is it was a keyword exclusive to the Witchwood expansion. At the time they released that expansion they decided it was a one-set thing, which is why similar cards from the past (such as Unstable Evolution) did not get updated. As a result any new cards released after the set also will not have Echo.

It's the same reason even though we've seen some revisiting of Joust-style mechanics, none of them have the Joust Keyword.

The reasoning is a bit weird, but their logic is they don't want to have a bunch of keywords that only see use on a handful of cards and make that extra overhead a new player needs to learn to figure out what cards do. So it is far more common to see keywords left by the wayside than integrated into the game more fully (such as Rush and Lifesteal).

[Seerow]

So gushing time! First, Silence Priest! I am fairly sure I've talked about this before, but this was my all time favorite deck of all time. It started out as "haha unicorn priest" back in Karazan trying to make the forums-proclaimed worst card ever work in a deck. Then in Ungoro it became actually viable. It is a huge part of the reason I've got around 700 wins on Priest. I love the game winning tempo aspect of it. I love the combo potential of it. I love the meme-ness of it. Everything about it is great.

And I actually think I made a post an expansion or two back about what would be needed to make it make a comeback. My wish list was basically hugely overstatted minions with drawbacks other than "Can't Attack", so if you don't draw the silence, you can still make the decision to use the card. And we got that in spades with this reveal. Give your opponent a coin when you attack is fantastic. Can't attack without spell power is pretty great as well, since it gives an alternative way to proc (though I don't know that Priest has any good options for spellpower at the moment). In fact, let's look at all the new silence priest support:


Dalaran Librarian - 2 Mana 2/3 Common Neutral Minion - Silence Adjacent Minions

That is a solid body that can activate up to 2 of your minions. Play it early game for tempo if you don't have anything better, save it to enable something later otherwise. This is great.

Arcane Watcher - 3 Mana 5/6 Rare Neutral Minion - Can't Attack unless you have spell damage

This is the one I am least sure about from the bunch, because we don't really have a lot of spell damage in priest (though there is a lot of neutral spell damage support I saw in the dump)

Hench-Clan Shadequill - 4 Mana 4/7 Common Priest Minion - Deathrattle: Restore 5 health to the enemy hero

This one is honestly good enough to see play outside of silence priest. 5 health to your opponent isn't a huge draw back, and the stat line is very competitive for its mana.

Unsleeping Soul - 4 Mana Common Priest Spell - Silence a Friendly Minion, then summon a copy of it

This is the new purify of the set. But instead of drawing a card, you get a bonus minion! Turn 3 drop Watcher into turn 4 drop this for 10/12 of stats with no drawback on Turn 4. That is potentially game winning in the early game.

Soldier of Fortune - 4 Mana 5/6 Common Neutral Minion - Whenever this minion attacks give your opponent a coin.

This is another one I really love because the draw back is a decision. Every time you attack you choose if it is worth that attack to give your opponent a mana. In some matchups/situations it can be the same as "Can't Attack". But in other situations, if you didn't get one of your silences and need to make that trade to stay in the game, it's totally open to you. The design of this card is perfect in my opinion.





For other cards I am excited about from the Reveal/Card dump, here's some highlights (I'm not going to transcribe all of the last 50, someone else can if they really want to)

Impferno - 3 Mana Rare Warlock Spell - Give your Demons +1 Attack, deal 1 damage to enemy minions
Mad Summoner - 6 Mana 4/4 Rare Neutral Minion - Fill each players board with 1/1 Imps

These two together are pretty awesome. 9 mana flood the board with 2/1 imps... actually on second thought that's a 2 card build your own Onyxia with a slight buff to the whelps but a 4/4 instead of an 8/8. Not as great as I thought when I first saw Mad Summoner.

Impferno is probably still pretty good though as a board buff and board clear in one card.


Blessing of the Ancients - 3 Mana Common Druid Spell - Twinspell. Give your minions +1/+1

So Remember I was saying Token Druid needed one more board buff to become viable but I didn't think we'd see it this set? Well here we are. With effectively 4 more to slot into each deck. Yeah. Token Druid is going to be a thing. 3 mana is expensive, but if you're hitting at least 4 minions it's worth it. And token druid is going to have -so- many ways to reload the board. This is going to be great.

Magic Dart Frog - 3 Mana 1/3 Common Mage Minion - After you cast a spell, deal 1 damage to a random enemy minion

I feel like this solidifies the tiny spell mage archetype we've seen strung along. It's nowhere near as good as Flamewaker, but Flamewaker was broken. This is absolutely good enough to see play and will be probably Mage's best anti-aggro tool for a while.

Sweeping Strikes - 2 Mana Rare Warrior Spell - Give a minion "Also damages minions next to whomever this attacks"

Okay so I know my main gush was over Silence Priest, but this card right here? Oh my gosh. If there was ANY doubt Tempo Warrior was going to be a thing, this eliminates it for me. This plus any rush minion is basically "Remove 3 minions from your opponent's board". Use it on Akali? Remove 3 minions from your opponents board, draw 3 rush minions and give them all +5/+5. Use it on Zilliax? Get to heal for 9, or more if you magnetize first. This effect is ridiculously powerful and has always been held back by being limited to weak minions without initiative. Getting it as a buff you can apply to whatever changes everything. This card by itself will define Tempo Warrior for the next 2 years. And sneaky blizzard tried to hide it in the card dump. Hah, not fooling me!

[Zevox]

Also, it would truly be amazingly lame if they were deliberately doing, "This card has Echo, but we're not saying Echo because we don't want it to buff cards that get buffs from Echo cards."

(Next set: "This card ties up two of your mana crystals the turn after you play it, but it's not Overload.")
Agreed.


I am home now! So before I gush and get into the new cards, the thing with Echo is it was a keyword exclusive to the Witchwood expansion. At the time they released that expansion they decided it was a one-set thing, which is why similar cards from the past (such as Unstable Evolution) did not get updated. As a result any new cards released after the set also will not have Echo.
[...]
The reasoning is a bit weird, but their logic is they don't want to have a bunch of keywords that only see use on a handful of cards and make that extra overhead a new player needs to learn to figure out what cards do. So it is far more common to see keywords left by the wayside than integrated into the game more fully (such as Rush and Lifesteal).
If true, I have to say I think that is a very dumb reason. It's easy to learn what keywords mean, just mouse over the card, and none are complicated, Echo included. And once you know what they are, just using them saves you time and makes understanding the cards that much easier. Plus in this set they seem to have made a point of bringing back a few previously one-expansion mechanics, with Omega Devastator and Unidentified Contract.

The more confusing thing is surely referring to the same mechanic in two different ways on different cards.


It's the same reason even though we've seen some revisiting of Joust-style mechanics, none of them have the Joust Keyword.
Fun fact: Joust was never a keyword. It was a fan shorthand for the mechanic, since the first cards revealed that used it had "Joust" in their names (Tuskarr Jouster and Master Jouster, IIRC), and it was explained as a card game way to mimic jousting. It could have been made a keyword, but for whatever reason they never assigned it one.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

And "Echo" is just such an intuitive keyword, too! Honestly one of their better ones. I'm also disappointed in the notion that they wouldn't try and continue to use it; it's a very strong mechanic. I feel like they really should have kept using it, the way they kept using Discover.

[Kish]

If true, I have to say I think that is a very dumb reason.
Yes, that's incredibly stupid. Aside from the fact that we wouldn't be having this discussion if the Echo mechanic wasn't still on cards being introduced, if they didn't want it to carry forward, why ever make it a keyword at all instead of just sticking "repeatable this turn" on all the cards that, as it is, use the Echo keyword?

[Geno9999]

Magic Dart Frog - 3 2 Mana 1/3 Common Mage Minion - After you cast a spell, deal 1 damage to a random enemy minion

I feel like this solidifies the tiny spell mage archetype we've seen strung along. It's nowhere near as good as Flamewaker, but Flamewaker was broken. This is absolutely good enough to see play and will be probably Mage's best anti-aggro tool for a while.


Dart Frog is 2 mana, not 3 mana. If it was 3 mana, I wouldn't consider it, and I tried to make a Vex Crow deck work back in Witchwood. I am going to make that deck again for this expansion, but still. At 2 mana, it brings to my mind Knife Juggler and Mana Wyrm. Differences being that Dart Frog can only target minions with its effect, which along with it's defensive body, yeah I agree, this is going to be Vex Crow/Tiny Spell Mage's best answer to an Aggro vs. Aggro matchup. Playable, but won't carry the deck on it's back.

Soul of the Murloc:
...DEAR GOD, CRAFT THIS GOLDEN, because I for one welcome our new Murloc mrrglords! The fact that this is 1) cheaper than the comparable Primal Talismans and Soul of the Forest, and 2) spawns a Token Minion with a relevant tribe: Murloc. While we will be losing a lot of good murlocs with the rotation of Un'Goro, Warleaders and Coldlight Seers are Classic, and Shaman in particular can use their new Scargil and/or Underbelly Angler with Ghost Light Angler from Witchwood for late game boardfill. This also opens the door for Murloc Shaman to make use of Token spawning cards that normally wouldn't work with Murloc buffs, including Shaman's own Hero Power, Violet Teacher, and Lackeys. It's not a mistake that Shaman gets a Murloc minion that also adds a Lackey to your hand.

[Gandariel]

Ah, the smell of a new thread.

To answer on the Echo discussion: Blizzard has clearly said that they won't reuse keywords.
Therefore, Echo won't be seen again as a keyword outside its native expansion. (Reasoning: one year from now, Witch brew might be the only card in standard with that keyword. It's useless to have people learn a keyword for just one card)

Anyways, I'll just copy paste my previous message:

So, a few days ago I was asking suggestions on which cards to include in our rating-guessing game, and someone suggested to simply put all class legendaries.

Therefore, without further ado, here's the Rise of Shadows rating form! (https://forms.gle/i11gvQGhqzTZYyxe6)

As always, everyone's welcome to join and try to predict how good the cards will be... especially you lurkers :smalltongue:

Ratings are "Trump ratings", as in, the final validation will be the "Trump reviews Trump reviews" of this expansion (and there's a description at the start of the form).

Winner gets... well, bragging rights!

The form will be open until the expansion is officially out!

[Rynjin]

To answer on the Echo discussion: Blizzard has clearly said that they won't reuse keywords.


...Really? Because I'm pretty sure plenty have been re-used. Lifesteal in particular springs to mind. Rush looks like it's going forward as well.

[Gandariel]

Those weren't expansion-specific keywords.

They are keeping Rush, Lifesteal, etc because they want to keep printing cards with those abilities for the foreseeable future.

They printed Echo cards in just one expansion, and they are printing one more right now, with no explicit intention on doing more.

Thing is, if they keep the keyword they force people to memorize it, and you can't have too many. With the rotation, it's also pointless to keep only one Echo card in the game for a year and have the keyword just for that.

It's also worth noting that "repeatable this turn" is super simple wording, whereas overkill or Twinspell for example would be too complex to write without the keyword.

[Divayth Fyr]

The thing is, you don't need to memorize the keywords - you can hover over the card to get them explained to you.

[Gandariel]

Yes, but it's still Blizzard's decision, they stated it more than once (and proved it by printing Witch's brew).

In other news, I'm very conflicted about some of the legendaries up for discussion. I'll post detailed ratings when I can.
Secret paladin looks sick.

[Resileaf]

Game devs famously have a very poor opinion of their players.

[PraetorDragoon]

Welcome to twenty-second GitP thread for Hearthstone.

the twenty-second thread, Hearthstone 23. Hmmmm. :smallconfused:

[Requizen]

I for one am ready for the rotation.

I think my last ~12 games have been about 8 Odd Mages for some godforsaken reason. Please get rid of Baku sooner.

[The Glyphstone]

I had my first encounter with Mechathun druid recently, down at rank 24. Now i know why people hate it.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

Sweeping Strikes - 2 Mana Rare Warrior Spell - Give a minion "Also damages minions next to whomever this attacks"

Okay so I know my main gush was over Silence Priest, but this card right here? Oh my gosh. If there was ANY doubt Tempo Warrior was going to be a thing, this eliminates it for me. This plus any rush minion is basically "Remove 3 minions from your opponent's board". Use it on Akali? Remove 3 minions from your opponents board, draw 3 rush minions and give them all +5/+5. Use it on Zilliax? Get to heal for 9, or more if you magnetize first. This effect is ridiculously powerful and has always been held back by being limited to weak minions without initiative. Getting it as a buff you can apply to whatever changes everything. This card by itself will define Tempo Warrior for the next 2 years. And sneaky blizzard tried to hide it in the card dump. Hah, not fooling me!

I think my favorite use of this is on Darius Crowley (which may be just because I opened a golden one at witch wood opening and I'd really like that deck to work). 7 mana 8/8 or 10/10 plus board clear, and able to threaten to gain +4/4 ish each turn. Or just swing face for 10. It could force the enemy to drop a board wipe just to get rid of it if they have no silence or hard removal because it's 'that' snowbally.

[Anarion]

Yes, but it's still Blizzard's decision, they stated it more than once (and proved it by printing Witch's brew).


While it's probably for simplicity, I wonder if "repeatable this turn" interacts differently than echo with cards that queue off of spells you've played this turn (like Krag'wa) so the difference might be meaningful in that regard.


I had my first encounter with Mechathun druid recently, down at rank 24. Now i know why people hate it.

It's floating around at various levels. What's annoying is that the Hakkar druid deck looks almost identical, but they play slightly differently and don't get countered quite the same way (with Hakkar you want to kill everything else they put out and flood their board, with mecha'thun, you sometimes don't want to give them ways to kill off their own cards).

[zlefin]

Game devs famously have a very poor opinion of their players.

one for which there is in fact a fair bit of justification. the player base is large, there's a lot of idiots out there, so there's bound to be some in the playerbase.. also, you want to make things easy for the more casual users (who're also far less likely to provide feedback). And it's not like this is a new topic that needs figuring out; how to address this exact issue in ccgs has been looked at extensively for a long time now.
people who post on forums about a game are usually far from typical players.

[Rynjin]

Those weren't expansion-specific keywords.

They were introduced by expansions; Frozen Throne and Witchwood respectively.

If you make a keyword and want to keep using a mechanic, you should keep using that keyword.

[Rodin]

I for one am ready for the rotation.

I think my last ~12 games have been about 8 Odd Mages for some godforsaken reason. Please get rid of Baku sooner.

The Even/Odd thing seems to have really gotten out of hand. I'm counting my blessings when I don't see that start of game effect, because it's rampant in ranked right now. Odd Mage. Odd Warrior. Odd Paladin. Odd Rogue. Even Paladin. Evenlock. Even Shaman.

And when it's not any of those, it's midrange Hunter.

Just...get me out of this meta. Please. While there's a couple of fast decks on the horizon, I don't think they're anywhere near as fast or lethal as the ones currently running around.

[Zevox]

Yes, but it's still Blizzard's decision, they stated it more than once (and proved it by printing Witch's brew).
Nobody is arguing against that, so that's beside the point. The contention is that it is an extremely poor, nonsensical decision. It is more confusing to refer to the exact same mechanic in different ways on different cards, and keywords are not difficult to learn considering the game will explain them to you just by highlighting the card they're on.


the twenty-second thread, Hearthstone 23. Hmmmm. :smallconfused:
D'oh, forgot to edit that when I posted the new thread. Fixed.


I for one am ready for the rotation.

I think my last ~12 games have been about 8 Odd Mages for some godforsaken reason. Please get rid of Baku sooner.
I am as well, though Baku is on the short list of things I'll miss (with Gen, Frost Lich Jaina, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, and a handful of Un'goro cards like Stonehill Defender). I am very ready for all of the OTK decks to die one thousand deaths and for Deathstalker Rexxar to never trouble me again, though.

Speaking of, general thoughts on the expansion/coming meta period, anyone?

Personally, I'm split between hope and fear. With all of the value cards the set is adding I'm hoping that we might finally get a midrange-to-control dominated, value-oriented meta, unsullied by crazy OTK decks that just auto-win against control decks. But I fear that the very strong cards they revealed for Secret Paladin and Murloc Shaman in that last batch of cards, coupled with Beast Hunter still being mostly intact, will lead to a more aggressive, midrange-at-slowest meta, and most or all of those beautiful value cards will fall by the wayside.

I'm most looking forward to seeing a new Control Warrior take shape, and hoping Control Shaman and a Plot Twist-using Control Warlock work out. I'd also really love it if Dragon Paladin could be a real thing, but I think the support they gave that was too tepid, and it'll be tier 3 tops - very disappointed they chose to push so many Secret Paladin cards instead of giving that more help.

I sadly think Mage got the shaft in the end here. Kalecgos is great, and maybe the small spell cards will work out for a tempo Mage, but their value cards just don't look good enough without Khadgar (particularly since they did not get a new 6-drop class card for Power of Creation to discover, so it's stuck discovering 3/3s and 5/5s more often than it should), and one legendary won't make that work I think. Plus they got nothing to help with the survivability issues they're sure to have with the loss of Frost Lich Jaina and Arcane Artificer. We'll be waiting for future expansions to see Kalecgos actually doing anything, I fear.

Druid I think is Token or bust. Maybe the healing synergy stuff will work out, but I think that's a long shot, I really don't think they've got quite enough good ways to heal for it. And Rogue's in a weird spot where the support they got for the Thief archetype looks quite good, but it's not clear what kind of deck that makes, and the other stuff they got is value-oriented, but they've never actually been able to support a value/control deck before, and the weaknesses that have prevented that from happening haven't really changed, so I'm not sure how things work out for them.

And Priest, I have zero faith in Silence Priest, but Control Priest with the new Resurrection cards may have potential, particularly since if Catrina Muerte dies and is then brought back via Mass Resurrection, she could start resurrecting herself, which would be crazy. Definitely an iffy deck, but if it can avoid running small minions, it might work out.

[Tvtyrant]

I rather like having matches that are quick, it makes laddering easier...

Isn't baku one of the things that slows down aggro? It rotating strikes me as a problem for wanting a midrange format.

[Zevox]

I rather like having matches that are quick, it makes laddering easier...

Isn't baku one of the things that slows down aggro? It rotating strikes me as a problem for wanting a midrange format.
Only in Warrior. In every other class that uses him, Baku is enabling a powerful aggro deck: Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue, and Odd Secret Mage are all the most aggressive decks in the meta right now.

[Geno9999]

One of the things that makes me hesitant about Control Priest is the loss of Spirit Lash and Psychic Scream, along with Shadow Visions making the AoE that remains harder to use in time to counter Aggro. That said, Convincing Infiltrator and Tunnel Blaster just might act as good enough cards both as a speed bump against Aggro and as good Resurrect targets.

[heronbpv]

Speaking of Priest, and the new meta, just came across this Firebat's video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZTstOeq21I

Seems like we're back at goofy Priest shenanigans. Don't think it's gonna be this obtuse post rotation, but it's the sort of play I enjoy doing with the class. The wackier, the better :D

[Gandariel]

So, regarding our quiz (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdWKjDNKIXoM6HFB2RAC6PWp6DSqi41cGIhJ1y1eeZ7 xJ12mw/viewform) (which everyone's invited to join! 8 answers so far!)...

Here are my votes and reasoning!


Keeper Stalladris: 5 stars
Just too good, even with just one activation, and the baseline 2/2/3 is not even bad. I think Token druid might be tier 1 or 2, and this will be a key card in the deck, which means five stars.

Lucenbark: 1 star.
I don't expect heal druid to be a serious deck

Oblivitron and Vereesa Windrunner: 1 star
The tradition of bad hunter legends continues. I don't see either of these working. Both too slow.

Kalegos: 4 stars
I think it'll definitely be used in Control Mage, i'm not sure how good the deck will be.

Khadgar: 3 stars
Archmage Arugal seemed insane, and he never saw any play. This looks even more insane... I don't know. I really don't know.
Hedging my bets by saying 3 stars, but I feel this one could be either a 1 or a 5.


Commander Rhyssa: 5 stars
Bellringer sentry isn't rotating, and they printed a great new secret. I feel it's gonna be a tier 1/2 deck, and Rhyssa is definitely good in that deck

Nozari: 1 star
Playable in Control Paladin, but i have *serious* doubts about Control Paladin being a deck

Madame Lazul: 2 stars
Pretty decent in every matchup, i don't see why I wouldn't add it to most priest decks (except Rez Priest, of course).
Thing is, I feel this card is really good, but on the other hand, I feel that if my decklist had 31 cards and i'd have to remove one, this is the one i'd remove, because it's not central to anything, doesn't serve any purpose, it's just there.

Catrina Muerte: 4 stars
This should be the star of Rez priest.


Heistbaron Togwaggle: 4 stars
Insanely strong and reliable. Not 5 stars because lategame Rogue Legendaries always sucked so far

Tak Nozwhisker: 1 star
No immediate value, hard to combo... and it's a lategame Rogue legendary


Swampqueen Hagatha: 5 stars
Super strong. If Shaman is a thing this should be a thing as well

Scargil: 2 stars
They printed some insane Murloc support, so I expect the deck to be at least decent.. but I'm honestly not sure this card is good enough to be in it. I mean yeah, turn 7 you can fill your board with Murlocs.. but you can already do that.

Arch-Villain Rafaam: 5 stars
Great in control Warlock, which will always exist as a deck.

Fel Lord Betrug: 1 star
Too gimmicky. I'm not feeling him

Blastmaster Boom: 1 star
Statistically, one of these new archetypes is gonna bomb, and it's fitting that it would be Bomb Warrior :P

The Boom Reaver: 2 stars
Feels really good for Control Warrior, in a Varian kind of way. And Varian ended up being bad.
Yes this only creates a copy, but I don't know, I don't think the effect is broken enough to be a 10 mana card.

[Anarion]

Took the survey, here are my ratings

Stalladris: Easy 5 star rating, it's a huge value generator and cheap efficient stats. Good in all situations as long as your deck isn't so tight that you can't make room for him.

Lucentbark: 4 stars. I think the druid healing deck has enough cards to at least be solidly tier 2 and he'll feature.

Oblivitron: Also 4 stars. I think there's a mech deathrattle deck of some sort, this will feature. It might or might not be taht good but will at least be competent.

Vereesa: 3 stars. I think she's too expensive and there's too much weapon destruction always floating around to realize what she's offering, but she might still feature as a top end finisher in a niche deck to do 14 damage in one turn with a beast in play.

Kalecgos: 5 stars. Free spell, likely to be fairly appropriate to the situation, useful body, huge value if he stays in play. If there's a viable mage deck, he'll be in it, even if it's aggressive.

Khadgar: 2 stars. Bad stats, same as archmage arugal, requires other cards to support and there aren't very many of them and they're not that great. Holding him for the 8 mana combo is kinda blargh.

Rhyssa: 4 stars. She's efficient and her ability is cool, but she's not that great with some of the secrets and we're losing some support cards. Her deck is probably good, but I'm not willing to commit to tier 1 yet.

Nozari: 3 stars. control paladin loses it's death knight, unclear if the banker/Shirvallah win condition is adequate.

Lazul: 5 stars. Effect is very efficient, offers meta knowledge. Will be run, I'm just betting that there's a priest deck that's good enough to count.

Catrina: 5 stars. high value, will be in priest if it's good

Togwaggle: 4 stars. Expensive to use, effect might be worth it.

Tak: 1 star. I think he's bad and slow. I might be wildly wrong though.

Hagatha: 4 stars. Not fully confident Shaman will be good, but she's strong.

Scargill: 3 stars. Murlocs are cheap anyway

Rafaam: 2 stars. Too expensive and random.

Betrug: 4 stars. Expensive on turn 10, but immediate value with the right deck.

Boom: 5 stars. Is Boom

Reaver: 4 stars. This guy puts a lot limits on deck construction. Might be worth it, but he sucks if you get a cheap minion.

[Rodin]

So now that we know all the cards, what decks are people thinking of trying for this expansion?

My first thing will definitely be to try and tune my Espionage Rogue to fit in with the new cards. It's just too much fun and Tak looks like he'll allow some of the crazy stuff I play that deck for. I'm also hoping for a reduction in aggro (along with an actually good 2-drop) to mean that I don't fall as far behind as I often do in this meta.

The other one that's really taken my fancy is Bomb Warrior. It's been a while since I've played Warrior since the idea of Odd Warrior bores me to tears, so I'm hoping that a Midrange Rush/Bomb deck with Boom as the finisher will do well.

For a tertiary...I dunno, Silence Priest maybe? That's the only other deck that looks really different from the norm. Token Druid is Token Druid, Secret Paladin is Secret Paladin, Hunter looks like they're just going to tune their already existing Midrange decks. Murloc Shaman looks more powerful than previous editions, but I've still done Murlocs enough that I'm doubtful about sticking with that deck for long. I'm not convinced Heal Druid will be a thing.

Sadly, I think my Elemental/Dragon Shaman deck won't survive the rotation. It just loses too many cards, and no longer having Unstable Evolution removes the big Krag'wa engine that got me through the control matchups.

[Rynjin]

I'm gonna tune up this Shuffle Rogue. I first tried it at start of Boomsday and it sucked hardcore. It sucks SLIGHTLY less now, and the addition of cards like the Demons that shuffle 2/2 Rush minions and Tak could make things fun.

But Bomb Warrior, a hypothetical Burn/Spell Damage Hunter, Smol mage, Mech hunter, Secret Paladin, and Murloc Shaman all look like they could be fun too.

[Zevox]

So, regarding our quiz (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdWKjDNKIXoM6HFB2RAC6PWp6DSqi41cGIhJ1y1eeZ7 xJ12mw/viewform) (which everyone's invited to join! 8 answers so far!)...
Mine:
Keeper Stalladris: 4 stars.
- By all rights this should be 5 stars, but I'm not super confident that Druid will be strong this expansion. My guess is Token Druid being tier 2-3, and this isn't a defining card for it I think, just a generally very strong one for the class, so it only gets 4.

Lucentbark: 1 star.
- I do not think heal Druid works out, nor that it takes long for people to determine that.

Oblivitron: 4 stars.
- Deathrattle Hunter should see play just off the strength of Nine Lives alone, and this probably goes in it. Might be a star higher or lower depending on how strong the deck ends up being, but I'd be stunned if it's 2 or less stars.

Vereesa Windrunner: 2 stars.
- I think there will be enough experimentation with this plus the new 1 mana damage spell as a big burst damage combo for it to get the second star, before it falls off as just inferior to Beast and Deathrattle Hunter.

Kalecgos: 1 star.
- A great card that deserves 5 stars held down by the rest of the class around him. It's like I've been saying the whole preview season: Jaina and lots of the other strong Control Mage cards are leaving, and before the Year of the Mammoth Control Mage really wasn't a thing. I do not believe that either the Year of the Raven or this set provided what Mage needs for it to continue to be a thing, so I think Control Mage is dead this expansion period. I'd love to believe otherwise, but I don't.

Khadgar: 2 stars.
- Again, the card could have been great, but the deck for it just isn't there. Will see more experimentation than Kalecgos though I think, and just maybe it'll somehow find a niche in a more tempo-oriented Mage alongside Vex Crow or the like, but the big value plays they tried to set it up for demand a better Control deck than the class will have to capitalize on, I think.

Commander Rhyssa: 5 stars.
- Secret Paladin looks like a front-runner to be a tier 1-2 deck, and this goes into that automatically and helps define it. Easiest 5-star on the list.

Nozari: 1 star.
- In a world where Equality costs 4 (and a big F you to Blizzard for that, btw) and the Dragon package they're printing got fairly minimal support, I don't think this lasts long outside of maybe people like me, who will play even bad Control decks if they're fun enough.

Madame Lazul: 3 stars.
- A great card that I'm hedging on mainly because the big direction that Control Priest seems to want to go this expansion is the value resurrection route with Catrina and Mass Res, and that obviously doesn't want a small body minion like this. If another form of Control Priest without the resurrection theme works out it'll be good, or maybe if Silence Priest is an actual thing and wants a value card, but I fear it might just be consigned to the fringes by the resurrection stuff.

Catrina Muerte: 4 stars.
- I don't think Resurrect Control Priest will be top-tier, but I think it probably will be good enough to be a part of the meta, and obviously Catrina is a defining piece of it.

Heistbaron Toggwaggle: 4 stars.
- This thing is so powerful that I can't see it not seeing play, despite being a value-ish card in Rogue. Might be the top end of what is otherwise a tempo-oriented Rogue or something, I don't know, but the sheer potential of playing this guy, grabbing that crown, and then prepping it out for a huge tempo swing seems like it has to find a place in the meta, just perhaps not the top spot.

Tak Nozwhisker: 2 stars.
- Value card in Rogue, and unlike Toggwaggle it really needs a Control deck to work, which Rogue has never managed. I think it's like Tess in that people will like it enough for it to see fringe play, but never really be good.

Swamp Queen Hagatha: 4 stars.
- I hope I'm underrating this, fear I'm overrating it. Control Shaman got some very nice new toys between this, Living Fountain, Hagatha's Scheme, and maybe Witch's Brew, plus it has a big advantage on many other Control decks just through still having a Hero card that generates massive value, so my hope is it can be at least tier 3, if not better.

Scargill: 2 stars.
- While I fear Murloc Shaman may be strong, possibly even tier 1, I think this guy may fall out of it. Will definitely be tried a lot at first, but honestly, I think he does fairly little when you think about it. On any given late-game turn you can probably play about as many other Murlocs without him as with, just because you're saving 4 mana by not playing him, and that 4 mana 4/4 statline is nothing to write home about.

Arch-Villain Rafaam: 1 star.
- I think Control Warlock has better options and Zoo doesn't want a card this expensive.

Fel Lord Betrug: 4 stars.
- Entirely because I think he will meet the "defines a tier 3 deck" criteria, that deck being Control Warlock with Plot Twist and all of its myriad synergies. This plus Plot Twist is a nutty powerful turn 10 play, it's just that the rest of the deck is more iffy, particularly with the loss of Defile and Spellstone. Might wind up dropping a star or two if the deck is actually sub-tier 3, but I have just enough faith in it to guess it will be tier 3.

Blastmaster Boom: 4 stars.
- I think that Control Warrior with some bombs and this Boom can manage to be at least tier 3, though it may or may not be the best version of Control Warrior, that part I'm not sure of. I do think that anyone who tries to go "all-in" on bombs with things like Upgrade for Wrenchcalibur and Augmented Elekk to get extra bombs into the opponent's deck will be doomed to disappointment and failure, as I see that as only viable against combo decks that want to draw their whole deck or slower Control decks, and likely to get run out of the meta by faster decks like Secret Paladin and Beast Hunter. But a normal Control Warrior that runs exactly Wrenchcalibur, Clockwork Goblin, and Blastmaster Boom can have a bomb or two in the opponent's deck before Boom wants to come down often enough to make him good, and the number of bombs from just those cards are just enough to become a way for the deck to turn just dragging the game out into a win condition (besides fatigue). Heck, the deck may even try to drop Clockwork Goblin and run just Wrenchcalibur for bombs, though then I fear it becomes much less consistent in getting a bomb into the enemy deck before it wants to play Boom.

The Boom Reaver: 1 star.
- A card you're happy to discover off Omega Assembly or Doctor Boom's hero power when you need more big stuff, but that is definitely not worth putting in your actual deck.
...looking at it, that is a lot of 4-star ratings. Just because it's hard to call which of these decks will end up on top and thus earn that 5th star I suppose, aside from Secret Paladin, particularly since Beast Hunter didn't get a legendary (though I think that's a very good thing for the game's health, that deck does not need help). But hey, the point of this is to get as few stars off from reality as possible, so yeah, I think I'll go with this, I'm reasonably confident all those 4-stars are at least between 3 and 5.


So now that we know all the cards, what decks are people thinking of trying for this expansion?

My first thing will definitely be to try and tune my Espionage Rogue to fit in with the new cards. It's just too much fun and Tak looks like he'll allow some of the crazy stuff I play that deck for. I'm also hoping for a reduction in aggro (along with an actually good 2-drop) to mean that I don't fall as far behind as I often do in this meta.

The other one that's really taken my fancy is Bomb Warrior. It's been a while since I've played Warrior since the idea of Odd Warrior bores me to tears, so I'm hoping that a Midrange Rush/Bomb deck with Boom as the finisher will do well.

For a tertiary...I dunno, Silence Priest maybe? That's the only other deck that looks really different from the norm. Token Druid is Token Druid, Secret Paladin is Secret Paladin, Hunter looks like they're just going to tune their already existing Midrange decks. Murloc Shaman looks more powerful than previous editions, but I've still done Murlocs enough that I'm doubtful about sticking with that deck for long. I'm not convinced Heal Druid will be a thing.

Sadly, I think my Elemental/Dragon Shaman deck won't survive the rotation. It just loses too many cards, and no longer having Unstable Evolution removes the big Krag'wa engine that got me through the control matchups.
Control Warrior, Control Shaman, and Dragon Paladin are my top choices - that last despite thinking it certainly won't be any good. Also want to try out Control Resurrection Priest, Plot Twist Controlock, and maybe some kind of value Rogue using Nozwhisker (either Pogo Hopper oriented or just generally Togwaggle's Scheme/Academic Espionage oriented). And maybe if I get lucky Secret Paladin will be midrangey enough that I'll be able to stand playing it. I think Mage and Druid are probably dead to me this expansion, and of course Hunter always is.

[Seerow]

I actually did ratings the day the poll went up, and forget what I rated at that time. We have a lot of new info since (thanks to the preview streams all day yesterday) so I don't want to try rerating, but I do want to respond to a few things others have said.




Arch-Villain Rafaam: 1 star.
- I think Control Warlock has better options and Zoo doesn't want a card this expensive.


You're right that control Warlock doesn't want this, but you're looking at it wrong. It's a 1-card value engine to instantly supply a late game for Zoo. This will probably be the only card with a cost over 5 in any aggressive Warlock deck. If they fail to get the win early, throw out Rafam and now you've got a heavy late-game to try to close out the game.


Commander Rhyssa: 5 stars.
- Secret Paladin looks like a front-runner to be a tier 1-2 deck, and this goes into that automatically and helps define it. Easiest 5-star on the list.

This one I thought was going to be really good, but several people tried Secret Paladin yesterday and it seemed to really be struggling. They get an explosive start, but then run out of value very quickly. Without the reload that came from Divine Favor, I'm not sure Secret Paladin can reliably close out the game. If they get cleared once or twice, they basically just lose. The new secret and Rhyssa help prevent that from happening, but I am feeling like it may not be enough.


Lucentbark: 1 star.
- I do not think heal Druid works out, nor that it takes long for people to determine that.

Lucenbark: 1 star.
I don't expect heal druid to be a serious deck

I agree with Lucentbark as 1-star, but heal synergies are totally going to happen because the 5 mana two rushing 4/4 minions card is -so- good. Lucentbark himself is a meme and people will have fun trying to make boards of 5+ lucentbarks, but the early game heal package is no joke.


Blastmaster Boom: 4 stars.
- I think that Control Warrior with some bombs and this Boom can manage to be at least tier 3, though it may or may not be the best version of Control Warrior, that part I'm not sure of. I do think that anyone who tries to go "all-in" on bombs with things like Upgrade for Wrenchcalibur and Augmented Elekk to get extra bombs into the opponent's deck will be doomed to disappointment and failure, as I see that as only viable against combo decks that want to draw their whole deck or slower Control decks, and likely to get run out of the meta by faster decks like Secret Paladin and Beast Hunter. But a normal Control Warrior that runs exactly Wrenchcalibur, Clockwork Goblin, and Blastmaster Boom can have a bomb or two in the opponent's deck before Boom wants to come down often enough to make him good, and the number of bombs from just those cards are just enough to become a way for the deck to turn just dragging the game out into a win condition (besides fatigue). Heck, the deck may even try to drop Clockwork Goblin and run just Wrenchcalibur for bombs, though then I fear it becomes much less consistent in getting a bomb into the enemy deck before it wants to play Boom.

Boom seems like an easy 5 star card from what we saw yesterday. Basically every time someone dropped a 3-bomb boom, they won the game. But mostly highlighted this because I want to tack onto the Bomb Warrior discussion as a whole.

I feel like the Clockwork Goblin and Wrenchcaliber package is good for any warrior, and is probably all that Control Warrior runs with. Augmented Elekk works if you are doing bombs in a more tempo based deck, because a 3 mana 3/4 is actually pretty decent tempo, there's not a ton of 3 drops that are really going to do you significantly better. As far as Upgrade, that probably does not work out. But I do want to try it with both Wrench and Sul'Thraze in the deck, since that gets you two weapons that both really like Upgrade. If there's a lot of weapon destruction in the meta though, that idea goes out the window fast.



Tak Nozwhisker: 1 star
No immediate value, hard to combo... and it's a lategame Rogue legendary


Adding cards to your hand is actually the definition of immediate value. But I do agree as a late game rogue legendary in yet another expansion with no defensive tools means it probably doesn't work. The value it provides is so insane though I want to see it work. If nothing else it makes Academic Espionage even more highrolly.

[Zevox]

I actually did ratings the day the poll went up, and forget what I rated at that time. We have a lot of new info since (thanks to the preview streams all day yesterday) so I don't want to try rerating, but I do want to respond to a few things others have said.

[Re: Rafaam]
You're right that control Warlock doesn't want this, but you're looking at it wrong. It's a 1-card value engine to instantly supply a late game for Zoo. This will probably be the only card with a cost over 5 in any aggressive Warlock deck. If they fail to get the win early, throw out Rafam and now you've got a heavy late-game to try to close out the game.
Eh, the only time Zoo has ever done anything like that before was with Bloodreaver Gul'dan, and I don't think Arch-Villain Rafaam is anywhere near that level of power. In that deck he'd be more of a desperation play than anything else.


[Re:Commander Rhyssa]
This one I thought was going to be really good, but several people tried Secret Paladin yesterday and it seemed to really be struggling. They get an explosive start, but then run out of value very quickly. Without the reload that came from Divine Favor, I'm not sure Secret Paladin can reliably close out the game. If they get cleared once or twice, they basically just lose. The new secret and Rhyssa help prevent that from happening, but I am feeling like it may not be enough.
"Yesterday?" What happened yesterday that let people try anything from an unreleased set?

Anyway though, much as I'd like that to be the case, even if people tried it and it wasn't immediately working out as well as expected, I wouldn't assume that one day of testing would yield the best version of the deck, so I won't put much stock in that just yet.


I agree with Lucentbark as 1-star, but heal synergies are totally going to happen because the 5 mana two rushing 4/4 minions card is -so- good. Lucentbark himself is a meme and people will have fun trying to make boards of 5+ lucentbarks, but the early game heal package is no joke.
I think it very much so is. Druid only got the one good way to heal for 5, unless they get lucky enough to set up a multi-heal Potion Vendor, and even then that's 2 good ways tops, which is not enough. I don't think it's realistic for them to expect to drop Crystal Stag early enough of the time for it to see play.


Boom seems like an easy 5 star card from what we saw yesterday. Basically every time someone dropped a 3-bomb boom, they won the game. But mostly highlighted this because I want to tack onto the Bomb Warrior discussion as a whole.

I feel like the Clockwork Goblin and Wrenchcaliber package is good for any warrior, and is probably all that Control Warrior runs with. Augmented Elekk works if you are doing bombs in a more tempo based deck, because a 3 mana 3/4 is actually pretty decent tempo, there's not a ton of 3 drops that are really going to do you significantly better. As far as Upgrade, that probably does not work out. But I do want to try it with both Wrench and Sul'Thraze in the deck, since that gets you two weapons that both really like Upgrade. If there's a lot of weapon destruction in the meta though, that idea goes out the window fast.
That is again something I would like to believe will be true... well, sort of, I might actually prefer for the bomb package to fail but a more Dragon-centric Control Warrior to be king, despite how much I'd like have Doctor Boom back. But again, not going to jump to conclusions based on what I assume was some pre-release test games or something, those aren't likely enough to be indicative of what we'll see once the full player base gets to try things out to be worth getting my hopes up.

[Rodin]

"Yesterday?" What happened yesterday that let people try anything from an unreleased set?


Blizzard had a big pre-release event with a bunch of prominent streamers, where they all were playing on a LAN and had full access to the new set. I'm not sure what the full list is, but the ones I know were Kibler, Trump, DisguisedToast, Alliestrasza, and I think Kripparian. They were all streaming on their personal Twitch channels so you should be able to see the VODs.

[Geno9999]

I'm excited to try Vex Crow Mage, and try out what Rogue has to offer this rotation. Odd Rogue and Odd Paladin is what carried me to having a half-decent collection, but with Baku being out, I think the closest I can make post-rotation would be a Thief Rogue (just need to craft the Cutlasses. Not sure about going all out and making Tess Greymane though.) Probably will also end up with a Token Zoolock, though probably not the all Demon version that Blizzard is trying to push with their Deck Recipes (which, by the way have been shown with the new Patch. Whizbang will only give you the Rastakhan Rumble recipes this time though.) Jumbo Imp seems a bit too restrictive be the pre-nerf Corridor Creeper of the deck, still weighing if Imp-ferno is still worth running with Knife Jugglers and Scarab Eggs.

[Rodin]

I'm excited to try Vex Crow Mage, and try out what Rogue has to offer this rotation. Odd Rogue and Odd Paladin is what carried me to having a half-decent collection, but with Baku being out, I think the closest I can make post-rotation would be a Thief Rogue (just need to craft the Cutlasses. Not sure about going all out and making Tess Greymane though.)

Tess is one of the weaker cards in the deck, and she's really only in there for meme-ing. I think she's a lot of fun and provides a lategame push to help you beat out the infinite-value decks like Jaina and Rexxar, but she's not essential for the deck by any means. The best thing you can do with her is swap heroes and then replay all your Rogue cards in order to get a full board and draw a million cards. Oh, and she allows swapping back and forth between heroes too - like getting a Zul'jin and playing him for the Battlecry, then playing Tess to go back to Valeera. With the Death Knights rotating out, Tess's power goes down significantly.

The Cutlasses, on the other hand, are critical. Many of my games are decided by whether I get Cutlass + Deadly Poison + fuel to keep the durability up. I think Kibler even runs a Greenskin solely for the Cutlasses.

[Geno9999]

The Cutlasses, on the other hand, are critical. Many of my games are decided by whether I get Cutlass + Deadly Poison + fuel to keep the durability up. I think Kibler even runs a Greenskin solely for the Cutlasses.

Oh I know, I've run into a few Thief Rogues. My Zoolock and Odd Paladin decks are not equipped to outlast an active Cutlass, much less one that has 2+ Deadly Poisons.

Which makes me think about something: with the Legendary weapons rotating out, would weapon destruction really be commonplace? Obviously if Secret Paladin gets off the ground they'll run Mysterious Blade, breaking Warrior's Supercollider or denying a bomb from Wrenchcaliber is always nice, and of course crippling Thief Rogue's recovery can win you the game. But on the other hand Acidic Ooze is a tribeless Razormaw against half of the classes; Mage, Priest, and Warlock (with the exception of Jaraxxus but I doubt he'll see serious play post-rotation) have no weapons period, Shaman might not run Likkim or any weapon at all in their decks. Hunter just might be the fourth class that pushes Ooze into being a one-of tech option though, with Headhunter's Hatchet taking over Eaglehorn Bow's spot in Midrange Hunter (though Eaglehorn has shown up in Hunter regardless if the deck uses Secrets.)

[Anarion]

I feel more and more like the card ratings are just varying by how we each rate the different classes and their archetypes. Almost all the legends they've printed this time fit into at least one archetype clearly (except you, late game Rogue legendaries :smallmad:) and would be run if that archetype is a viable competitive deck. We're just taking our best guess on things like the fact that secret paladin looks a lot stronger than control paladin right now.

[Seerow]

Blizzard had a big pre-release event with a bunch of prominent streamers, where they all were playing on a LAN and had full access to the new set. I'm not sure what the full list is, but the ones I know were Kibler, Trump, DisguisedToast, Alliestrasza, and I think Kripparian. They were all streaming on their personal Twitch channels so you should be able to see the VODs.

There were 6 total. Those 5 are all right, I know there was one more female streamer, but it is not one I am familiar with and I only saw her once popping in on someone else's stream. But yeah I spent most of yesterday watching the stream VODs from Krip/Trump/Kibler.


Eh, the only time Zoo has ever done anything like that before was with Bloodreaver Gul'dan, and I don't think Arch-Villain Rafaam is anywhere near that level of power. In that deck he'd be more of a desperation play than anything else.


It is much weaker than Gul'Dan, but it is strong enough to potential turn a 100% loss into a having a chance to win. That is probably enough to warrant a card slot. I could end up being wrong on this, but if Rafaam fits anywhere, it will be there. I see almost no chance Control wants it.


I think it very much so is. Druid only got the one good way to heal for 5, unless they get lucky enough to set up a multi-heal Potion Vendor, and even then that's 2 good ways tops, which is not enough. I don't think it's realistic for them to expect to drop Crystal Stag early enough of the time for it to see play.


Maybe not, but there's also Lifesteal and other neutral healing options. I think some of the early lists going around running Ancient of Lore or Healing Touch will ultimately fall through, but I don't think you need more than 2 or 3 ways to heal for it to be pretty reliable.


Edit: So I created a personal fireside gathering to get a head start on cracking packs from my preorder (sadly nobody near me is interested enough in hearthstone to get to play around with the brawls that are offered), but man it was a bit of a roller coaster of a pack opening. Started with legendary on Pack 1. Then went almost all the way to pity timer, then a few packs later got a double legendary pack, before going most of the way to pity timer again.

In the end, over the course of 131 packs, I cracked 7 legendaries, all of the commons, most of the rares, and a big chunk of the epics. 7 legendaries is basically exactly average for what you'd expect in 130 packs, so not upset, but I am hoping for some better luck from the packs I get from gold next week.

I'd have better stats, but since the set isn't officially released, the filter and DE buttons don't work quite right with the new set, so it's hard to see things like "which epics do I only have one of?" at a glance.

My legendary pulls:
Khadgar (1st pack)
Nozari (39th pack)
Heistbaron Togwaggle (52nd Pack)
Archvillain Rafaam (52nd Pack, double!)
Barista Lynchen (74th pack)
Swampqueen Hagatha (105th pack)
Catrina Muerte (106th pack)

[Zevox]

Blizzard had a big pre-release event with a bunch of prominent streamers, where they all were playing on a LAN and had full access to the new set. I'm not sure what the full list is, but the ones I know were Kibler, Trump, DisguisedToast, Alliestrasza, and I think Kripparian. They were all streaming on their personal Twitch channels so you should be able to see the VODs.
Ah, that must be where Trump's most recent videos came from. Makes sense. Still, I really don't think it's wise to take that as indicative of the power level of these cards/decks on its own, it's doubful that they happened to throw together the best version of them on the first try - and some of the decks they were running were clearly just not good, like Pogo Hopper Rogue or Kripp trying a much more difficult to pull off new Mecha'thun Warlock.


I feel more and more like the card ratings are just varying by how we each rate the different classes and their archetypes. Almost all the legends they've printed this time fit into at least one archetype clearly (except you, late game Rogue legendaries :smallmad:) and would be run if that archetype is a viable competitive deck. We're just taking our best guess on things like the fact that secret paladin looks a lot stronger than control paladin right now.
Yep, that's basically how this works. Trump's star ratings are an attempt to predict how strong the cards will actually be in the overall new meta. Because rating the cards in a vacuum gives silly results that don't reflect reality at all - for instance, Nozwhisker is obviously a powerful card, and in another class could be totally busted, but we've been rating him low because we all know how things go when Blizzard tries to push value/control Rogue despite them having little healing, no non-neutral taunt, and few and bad AoE options.


Which makes me think about something: with the Legendary weapons rotating out, would weapon destruction really be commonplace? Obviously if Secret Paladin gets off the ground they'll run Mysterious Blade, breaking Warrior's Supercollider or denying a bomb from Wrenchcaliber is always nice, and of course crippling Thief Rogue's recovery can win you the game. But on the other hand Acidic Ooze is a tribeless Razormaw against half of the classes; Mage, Priest, and Warlock (with the exception of Jaraxxus but I doubt he'll see serious play post-rotation) have no weapons period, Shaman might not run Likkim or any weapon at all in their decks. Hunter just might be the fourth class that pushes Ooze into being a one-of tech option though, with Headhunter's Hatchet taking over Eaglehorn Bow's spot in Midrange Hunter (though Eaglehorn has shown up in Hunter regardless if the deck uses Secrets.)
Eh, most of the legendary weapons haven't seen much play in a while anyway. Occasionally you ran into a non-Even Control Warlock who had theirs, or a Spell Hunter who had Rhok'delar (which is hardly the most important one to destroy), but I think that's the most I've seen of them in quite some time. Valy'nyr up until Even Paladin got hit hard by he Equality nerf, but the answer to that was always silencing the buffed minion, not destroying the weapon. Yet despite that, weapon destruction has remained a fairly common tech. I think that as long as we've got weapons-using classes like Hunter and Warrior being generally common, it'll be worth running some weapon destruction. Definitely if Secret Paladin is common, breaking a Mysterious Blade and getting a body out at the same time would be a big deal.

Pity that Gluttonous Ooze is rotating, it's so much better than Acidic Ooze for anti-aggro weapon destruction. That's a card I'd happily add to the Classic set if we could.


Maybe not, but there's also Lifesteal and other neutral healing options. I think some of the early lists going around running Ancient of Lore or Healing Touch will ultimately fall through, but I don't think you need more than 2 or 3 ways to heal for it to be pretty reliable.
The only strong lifesteal card available to them is Zilliax, which is a legendary, so they get one of those in their entire deck. And if the enemy removes it via a spell it doesn't hit that magic "5" healing number, and it comes down on turn 5 anyway, so except when you have the coin you're not getting it out there to heal before Crystal Stag's on-curve turn.

And other neutral healing options are basically Earthen Ring Farseer, who is fine but only heals for 3, which isn't enough.

[Resileaf]

In other news, I've finally won a Rumble. :smallbiggrin:

[Psyren]

Blizzard had a big pre-release event with a bunch of prominent streamers, where they all were playing on a LAN and had full access to the new set. I'm not sure what the full list is, but the ones I know were Kibler, Trump, DisguisedToast, Alliestrasza, and I think Kripparian. They were all streaming on their personal Twitch channels so you should be able to see the VODs.

The Trump vs. Disguised Toast matchup was all kinds of insane.

Kripp meanwhile had yet another Mecha'thun OTK to watch out for :smallsigh:

[Rodin]

The Trump vs. Disguised Toast matchup was all kinds of insane.

Kripp meanwhile had yet another Mecha'thun OTK to watch out for :smallsigh:

Meh, previous editions of Warlock Mecha'thun were nothing special, and Warlock has lost a ton of the control tools they were using to get to that point (most notably Spellstone and Defile). I reckon it will lose out to all but the hardest of control decks and will thus not be seen all that much. Even prior to the expansion I can't recall the last time I ran into a bona-fide Mecha'thun deck - the combo decks I run into have mostly been either Malygos or Togwaggle.

[Seerow]

The Trump vs. Disguised Toast matchup was all kinds of insane.

Kripp meanwhile had yet another Mecha'thun OTK to watch out for :smallsigh:

The mechathun deck was interesting but honestly terrible. The only win he got with the combo required walking over to Trump and asking him to skip lethal and kill a minion for him

[Psyren]

The mechathun deck was interesting but honestly terrible. The only win he got with the combo required walking over to Trump and asking him to skip lethal and kill a minion for him

Eh, that's more a weakness of the deck he surrounded the combo with. It's a three-card combo (well, 4 if you can't use your opponent to get rid of Dorian), so you can do just about any control chassis to pull it off.

With that said, controlock as a whole is weaker due to losing cards like spellstone, vulguar homunculus, voidlord etc.


Meh, previous editions of Warlock Mecha'thun were nothing special, and Warlock has lost a ton of the control tools they were using to get to that point (most notably Spellstone and Defile). I reckon it will lose out to all but the hardest of control decks and will thus not be seen all that much. Even prior to the expansion I can't recall the last time I ran into a bona-fide Mecha'thun deck - the combo decks I run into have mostly been either Malygos or Togwaggle.

I'll be giving Warrior Mecha'thun a go once the set is live.

[Rodin]

The other notable thing for Mech'a'thun decks is that Combo Hate is absolutely a thing with this expansion, with two different Neutral cards being around to target it. If combo decks gain a serious foothold, expect to see Unseen Saboteur and Hecklebot around to counter them. In Kripp's video that he posted, he only won the second game because on the final turn he dodged a Saboteur which had a 75% to win the game then and there.

[Zevox]

The other notable thing for Mech'a'thun decks is that Combo Hate is absolutely a thing with this expansion, with two different Neutral cards being around to target it. If combo decks gain a serious foothold, expect to see Unseen Saboteur and Hecklebot around to counter them. In Kripp's video that he posted, he only won the second game because on the final turn he dodged a Saboteur which had a 75% to win the game then and there.
Indeed. Between that and the drastic weakening of combo decks with the rotation stealing so many of their tools, hopefully they'll be relegated to the fringes of play now.

Plus, if Warrior decks with bombs are a thing, Mecha'thun decks in particular will hate those, even if they are Control decks.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, I have little hope for otk combos, what I'm thinking of trying is something like Vargoth + Malygos +Kalecgos + Antonidas. I won't get all the combo pieces together probably, but that wouldn't be the point. instead these four cards are good because each one has some kind of synergy with each other already and whatever I get together will be something I exploit:

Vargoth + Malygos +whatever spell I have: twin casted powered up spell
Malygos + Kalecgos: 0 cost powered up spell
Kalecgos + Antonidas: 0 cost spell that gives me a fireball
Antonidas + Vargoth: twin cast fireballs
...and so on!

also probably add my Ysera, because that gives you free spells therefore Ysera + Vargoth, things like that. the dream of getting a twin-casted, powered up zero cost fireball is not in the cards, but when you got this much potential ridiculousness, why limit yourself?

[Zevox]

Yeah, I have little hope for otk combos, what I'm thinking of trying is something like Vargoth + Malygos +Kalecgos + Antonidas. I won't get all the combo pieces together probably, but that wouldn't be the point. instead these four cards are good because each one has some kind of synergy with each other already and whatever I get together will be something I exploit:

Vargoth + Malygos +whatever spell I have: twin casted powered up spell
Malygos + Kalecgos: 0 cost powered up spell
Kalecgos + Antonidas: 0 cost spell that gives me a fireball
Antonidas + Vargoth: twin cast fireballs
...and so on!

also probably add my Ysera, because that gives you free spells therefore Ysera + Vargoth, things like that. the dream of getting a twin-casted, powered up zero cost fireball is not in the cards, but when you got this much potential ridiculousness, why limit yourself?
The thing to remember there is that Vargoth is not at his best with targetted spells like Fireball, since he casts them at random targets. If the opponent's board is larger than yours he may have good enough odds to hit something beneficial, but if the opponent's board is larger than yours, is Vargoth copying a Fireball, Frostbolt, etc even that good for you?

On another note, I went and pre-made shells for the three decks I want to play post-launch: Control Warrior, Control Shaman, and Dragon Paladin. Rise of Shadows cards in purple, because shadows.
2x Eternium Rover (1)
1x Omega Assembly (1)
2x Execute (2)
2x Warpath (2)
2x Weapons Project (2)
2x Shield Block (3)
2x Smolderthorn Lancer (3)
2x Clockwork Goblin (3)
Archmage Vargoth (4)
2x Omega Devastator (4)
2x Wrenchcalibur (4)
2x Brawl (5)
1x Dragonmaw Scorcher (5)
2x Emberscale Drake (5)
Zilliax (5)
Blastmaster Boom (7)
2x Crowd Roaster (7)
Doctor Boom, Mad Genius (7)
This is definitely the one I'm most confident in, just due to how hard it was to narrow down what to include and what to cut for all of the good cards I realized were options. I like the thought of trying Vargoth here: goes well with Weapons Project and Shield Block for big armor gain, Omega Assembly for value, and Execute if the enemy is the only one with damaged minions. Can even be an emergency combo with Brawl, if I cast that on turn 9+ and get a terrible result, giving me at least a 50/50 to turn that around if I have no better options.

Alternative cards for it: the 2nd Omega Assembly and Dragonmaw Scorcher (both of which I really want to get back in if I can, probably replacing Eternium Rover if there's not enough aggro to warrant running that), Devastate, Shield Slam, Vicious Scraphound (surprised he didn't make the cut, I do like him), Dyn-o-Matic, Supercollider, Gorehowl, Harrison Jones and/or Acidic Ooze (to go with Weapons Project). Could go heavier in the Dragon direction with things like Alexstraza, Dragon Roar, Scaleworm, and Firetree Witchdoctor, though then you probably cut the bomb package; could also remove the Dragon package for some of the other alternatives, almost certainly a more mech-focused direction with Dyn-o-Matics.

2x Lightning Bolt (1)
2x Sludge Slurper (1)
2x Earthen Might (2)
2x Likkim (2)
2x Menacing Nimbus (2)
2x Lightning Storm (3)
2x Spirit of the Frog (3)
Archmage Vargoth (4)
2x Hex (4)
2x Proud Defender (4)
2x Hagatha's Scheme (5)
1x Sunreaver Warmage (5)
Zilliax (5)
2x Rain of Toads (6)
Swamp Queen Hagatha (7)
Hagatha the Witch (8)
2x Walking Fountain (8)
Shudderwock (9)
I'm sadly less confident in this one than I was before trying to make it due to the difficulty I had deciding what goes in it. Part of the problem is there's two different directions that Shaman's cards push in right now: a minion- and battlecry-heavy direction (Hagatha and Shudderwock reward those, but they're losing a lot of good battlecry minions in rotation), and a spell-heavy direction (Spirit of the Frog, Vargoth, Krag'wa, Electra, and Zentimo reward those - but so far that has been the weaker direction, and also I don't have some of those legendaries). And in either direction, finding good early-game cards is tough. Likkim feels like the class standout there, so it plus some cheap overload cards feels mandatory, hence the Lightning Bolts and Sludge Slurpers. I even thought about Feral Spirit, just for another overload for Likkim. But then that also pushes you towards other overload synergy cards like Thunderhead (which I also presently don't have), but then that pushes you towards a more midrange deck... yeah, feels hard to figure out how to make this one work, but I want to try. Hagatha's Scheme, the new Hagatha, and Walking Fountain basically demand that it be tried.

Thought about trying the Dragon package here too - Crowd Roaster, Dragonmaw Scorcher, Firetree Witchdoctor, maybe Twilight Drake. Might wind up amending it to that direction, particularly since it provides more battlecry support.

2x Cathedral Gargoyle (2)
2x Faerie Dragon (2)
2x Flash of Light (2)
2x Wild Pyromancer (2)
2x Aldor Peacekeeper (3)
2x Bronze Herald (3)
2x Consecration (4)
2x Equality (4)
2x Proud Defender (4)
2x Truesilver Champion (4)
2x Twilight Drake (4)
2x Dragonmaw Scorcher (5)
2x Dragonspeaker (5)
Zilliax (5)
2x Crowd Roaster (7)
Tirion Fordring (8)
Alexstraza (9)
Nozari (10)
Not expecting too much out of this, but hoping it'll be fun, and not get run over too bad by the rest of the meta. Fun fact, I don't have those Cathedral Gargoyles, so that'll be 800 dust out of my pocket once it comes time to make this. Really hoping I pull Nozari and those Dragonspeakers in my packs so that the cost is minimized. Firetree Witchdoctor is a bit iffy here too, Paladin spells aren't generally great, but I figure it's worth trying.
Edit: Actually, realized I forgot to put in Pyromancers, which go with all of the spells I'm running, so cut the Firetree Witchdoctors for those.

Other cards I thought about: Scaleworm (almost included, but there's so many 4s already...), Shrink Ray (but I don't have it, so I'll just use Equality), Lightforged Blessing (as a one-of to try), Glow-Tron, Time Out, Lay on Hands. The only one of these where I didn't consider Vargoth, he doesn't work so hot with most Paladin spells, only really good with Consecration.

[Geno9999]

Keeper Stalladris - 4 stars: Goes in every Druid deck. Problem is that it will be hard to judge how good Druid will be post-rotation without Naturalize, their Mana ramp nerfed, and losing the powerful Armor cards from K&C. Stalladris himself is fantastic, but I don't think he'll be able to propel a Druid deck to tier 1.

Lucentbark - 3 stars: Heal Druid just might be a deck, though I'm thinking it will be from how powerful Crystal Stag is, and comboing with Flobbidinous Floop. A midrange variant of Token Druid if you will. While Lucentbark might provide late-game defense and sticky minion, I don't think he'll be a consistent card in Heal Druid's decklists.

Oblivitron - 2 stars: I was tempted to just give this a one star, but I'll give it two stars just because it might have a Mech Hunter deck starring this, Mechanical Whelp, and Nine Lives. So, just barely meeting the requirements of "defines a deck."

Vereesa Windrunner - 2 stars: Will see play in a Malygos-combo style deck. The problem is, this will be in Hunter, a class not known for pulling off combos consistently due to their limited draw options.

Kalecgos - 3 stars: Provides a LOT of value to Control Mage... if Control Mage is even a thing post-rotation. Mage just might have enough tools in theory with their Frost Novas, Doomsayers, Blizzards, Flamestrikes to burn out Aggro deck's resources, but beyond that, I can't quite picture an endgame plan for Mage against other control decks beyond "I have free Pyroblasts now."

Khadgar - 2 stars: Generating extra minions is a rather powerful effect, the thing is that much of what you want to use with Khadgar are either very expensive (Power of Creation, Jan'alai) or conditional (Conjurer's Calling, Unexpected Results, Vex Crow) or both. That either means getting him to survive a turn (with 2 health, good luck with that,) or playing him together with the cards you want him to combo with. Fun, but not consistent.

Commander Rhyssa - 4 stars: Terrifying in Secret Paladin, but I'm not sure she'll define Secret Paladin. Really, that would go to Sunreaver Spy and Mysterious Blade.

Nozari - 4 stars: Thinking about it, this has a lot to do with most aggro decks being slowed down by Blizzard, both through rotation and what cards are given to Aggro decks. Don't need to Equality a board if they're all 1/1 Imps, so just play with fire, put some Lifesteal on him and rest easy. What does this have to do with Nozari? Well, Nozari is less of an Aggro counter, and more of a Midrange and value counter, especially more grindy matchups. Blastmaster Boom burst you down? Just Nozari and relax.

Madame Lazul - 5 stars: Goes in any priest deck that isn't rolling out the Mass Resurrection package. Especially valuable in a Control/anti-combo deck just for the info provided.

Catrina Muerte - 3 stars: Goes in Resurrection Priest, but I think the deck wins because of Archmage Vargoth. She also seems more fitting in a Wall Priest deck, with the timing of her effect, making it difficult to combo with her.

Heistbaron Togwaggle - 4 stars: Marin Fox's treasures quite powerful, the problem being that you had to divert resources to breaking the chest, and it was completely random. Togwaggle solves this, both by being a discover effect, and with the ease of getting Lackeys and activating Togwaggle in the first place.

Tak Nozwhisker - 4 stars: Pretty much doubles the value of Togwaggle's Scheme, Lab Recruiter, and Academic Espionage, and then draws for you. Rogue is looking to be a terrifying late-game value class.

Swampqueen Hagatha - 4 stars: Powerful in Control Shaman, especially with Shudderwock.

Scargil - 4 stars: Might be over estimating the impact of this card, but Scargil does offer some late-game board refill for Murloc Shaman with Ghost Light Angler.

Arch-Villain Rafaam - 3 stars: Having a hard time seeing him in a deck, but the idea of him acting as Plan B just might make him work in Control. Not so sure about being in Zoo though.

Fel Lord Betrug - 2 stars: Powerful effect, but minions won't stick around, so even if you do combo with Plot Twist, Control decks can simply remove him next turn. Lack of Voidlords and Blood Reaver Gul'dan is what hurts this card the most.

Blastmaster Boom - 4 stars: Worst Case scenario he is a War Golem. Next best is good old Dr. 7. Anymore than that and he is a nightmarish burst of damage. However, this Boom lives breathes and dies on if the Bomb cards are integrated into Warrior decks. However, I do think Blastmaster Boom + Bombs complement Midrange/Control Warrior decks strategies fantastically, especially now that most Control decks have lost a lot of recovery with the rotation (Death Knights in general had given survivability to most classes, Jaina, Rexxar, and Gul'dan where IMO the most powerful in this regard.) Also given that Clockwork Goblin is a relatively cheap card to run and can be found though Dr. Boom's Hero Power or through Omega Assembly, I dare say Blastmaster Boom is worth running even if all you have for bombs is 2 Clockwork Goblins.

The Boom Reaver - 2 stars: I'm thinking there might be a fringe Control Warrior that focuses on cards like Boom Reaver, Big Bad Archmage, and big minions in general and... have a below 50% winrate.

[Requizen]

Curious to see how Midrange Spell Hunter does with losing Spellstone and Deathstalker. They still keep Zul'jin, and Vargoth is a solid addition already. The new cards seem to push a spell style or at least partial spell style.

[Seerow]

Curious to see how Midrange Spell Hunter does with losing Spellstone and Deathstalker. They still keep Zul'jin, and Vargoth is a solid addition already. The new cards seem to push a spell style or at least partial spell style.

With no more weapon or to my side I strongly doubt we'll see a pure no spell Hunter again. But a hunter with generally strong midrange stuff and high value spells with zuljin to amplify those spells I can totally see. The new 6 Mana twinspell in particular I expect to be awesome with Zul Jin. Playing them out gets you 4 5/5 rush minions, Zul Jin gets those all back and add two more to your hand. And the only thing you really have to cut to make that work is unleash.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Does ZJ add twincast copies to your hand? It's unclear to me.

[heronbpv]

@CarpeGuitarrem:
I believe so, and in the case you cast both the twin spell and it's twin copy, it'll cast the spell twice, and give you a new twin copy, as it's part of the twin spell effect.
But of course, Hearthstone and consistency are usually at odds, so don't quote me on that until we're in the clear. xD

[Joran]

BTW, in preparation for the year-end rotation and Hall of Fame starting TOMORROW, here's a reminder.

1) Craft any card that's going into the Hall of Fame if you don't own it (preferably golden), it's a free card or dust.

The link below will tell you what to do if you value dust or value golden cards and have a copy of the card.

(tldr: if you value dust, craft any card you don't own in Golden and any common rarity cards in golden, otherwise stand pat)

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/avt3ro/hall_of_fame_craftdust_guide/

2) With the new arena rules coming (no longer standard, instead, rotating block of cards), start an arena run and play it until 2 losses. Your run will be retired for you, you'll get the rewards, and you'll get a free arena ticket too. It's free dust and gold.

[Seerow]

@CarpeGuitarrem:
I believe so, and in the case you cast both the twin spell and it's twin copy, it'll cast the spell twice, and give you a new twin copy, as it's part of the twin spell effect.
But of course, Hearthstone and consistency are usually at odds, so don't quote me on that until we're in the clear. xD

Exactly this. I see no reason why twinspell would not proc when using zuljin. When it uses tracking and the like you still draw, or when yogg casts a spell like cabalist tome, you get the generated card. Zuljin/twinspell should work the same way unless there's something funny going on.

[Joran]

Did the poll last night, but I don't remember exact numbers.


Keeper Stalldaris: I think I put this at 4, but should probably put it at 5. Easily a good card for a token druid with synergies with Wrath, Power of the Wild, and the new Crystal Power. Only issue is if Token Druid is good enough.

Lucentbark: If I had the guts, this should be a 1. Too vulnerable to steal, polymorph, silence effects. Druid also lost a lot of their defensive tools that let them get to Lucentbark.

Oblivitron: 2 stars, Stats suck, but Hunter has some interesting mech synergies, but Hunter has struggled historically against aggro, so probably too weak and most people will probably go the Beast synergy deck that's already pretty good.

Vereesa: Same as above. I don't think Hunter has many spell synergies either (no Shooting Star equivalent anymore) and living until 7 mana is a big ask.

Khadgar: 3 stars? Or was it 4? I think it'll be playable and interesting. Someone's going to find something broken with this. (Upon waking up this morning, I want to downgrade it to 2 but too late! It's good value but is a Control Mage good? Probably not, instead Mage archetype will probably be tempo/aggro.

Kalecgos: 2 stars? Slow, control mage is probably not going to be good.

Commander Rhyssa: 5 stars: Secret Paladin looks to be a tier 2 to tier 1 deck and she's good in it. Divine Favor rotating is a big loss for the deck though.

Nozari: My one 1 star!: I don't think Control Paladin will be a thing... although I should probably put this as a 2 star in case Holy Wrath Paladin actually is a thing.

Madame Lazul: 2 stars: Priest probably going resurrect instead of control. I think this card is only good in Control vs. Control matchups and is a mostly dead card against aggro. 3 mana 3/2, see the Leeroy in your opponent's hand does not strike me as a good card.

Catrina Muerte: 3 stars? 4 stars? Good card, obviously good in Resurrect Priest. Is Resurrect Priest good enough? Who knows.

Togwaddle: 5 stars: Seems easy to trigger, good cards. (Upon waking up, probably downgrade to a 3-4, since you'll need to put Lackey generation into your deck and I'm not sure how that's going to fit with the steal your cards Rogue)

Tak: 2 stars: Seems like a win more card and you don't want that dead card in your hand. You're already going to outvalue Control decks.

Scargill: 5 stars: Murloc Shaman looking scary.

Hagatha: 3 stars: Not sure how much exploration of Control Shaman, but she'll probably be good in it.

Rafaam: 2 stars: Fun card, probably won't see play.

Fel Lord Betrug: 2 stars: Again, fun card, probably won't see play... in Standard. Warlock looks more zooish or impish.

Boom Reaver: 2 stars: Great discover off of Boom, probably not one you want in your deck.

Blastmaster Boom: 4 stars: I think Bomb Warrior will be worse than Rush Warrior, but this seems like a good card in a tier 2-3 deck.


Going into the expansion, I'm more of a Spike than anything else, so I'm interested in seeing what the pros figure out. I remember Dog piloting Quest Rogue, back when people didn't think it'd be good, and just crushing people.

[Requizen]

Got both Hunter Legendaries haha. I think Vereesa is fine, but def gonna dust Oblivatron.

[otakuryoga]

meh
140 or so packs

Chef Nomi
Boom Reaver
Heistbaron Togwaggle
Nozari
Rafaam
Keeper Stelladria
Commander Rhyssa
Vereesa Windrunner

meh i say

but i did get most of bomb warrior..just missing one wrench

[Rodin]

I have somehow managed to open 82 packs and not find a single copy of Vendetta. Given that it's probably the most vital card to the #1 deck I want to play this expansion, I have to conclude that Blizzard be trolling. I also managed to only get one of the new bomber dudes and zero Wrenchcaliburs.

In seriousness though, my pack openings were pretty good. I thought I got 4 Legendaries, but when I checked my list I had 5 (plus Vargoth to make 6). After logging back in I got the notification about the free legendary from the bundle.

Legendaries were Lazul, Oblivitron, Khadgar, Kalecgos, and Boom Reaver. Not bad all told, the only one that's an instant dust candidate being Oblivitron.

Managed to build both my new decks and I got a ton of Silence Priest stuff so I think that may be my next stop.

Oh, and Arena is insane. Built an out-and-out Jade Shaman for my first deck with 3 Jade Claws and 3 Jade Lightnings. The power level in Arena is going to be off the charts I think. Big Bad Archmage proved as unstoppable as I thought he'd be.

[Lord Raziere]

I got Commander Rhyssa and Scargil.

so far, I have not won with either of the decks they're supposed to be in. might need some refining, but I doubt the murlocs are gonna get good. might use scargil and such in a killer wild deck though.

[zlefin]

got 47 packs (which is how muhc gold I had lying around); haven't opened em yet. It often takes me a week or two to open 'em all, slowly adding a few more each day, but I look forward to it.

[Gandariel]

Opened around 15, only legend was Vereesa Windrunner. Of course.

[Zevox]

Mildly disappointed that we indeed don't get a free class legendary, just Vargoth. Was hoping the theory that he was the Marin of the set was right. Also, no free 3 login packs either, which is a first since Whispers of the Old Gods IIRC, another mildly disappointing thing.

Opening 40 packs - 30 from gold, 1 from last week's Brawl, and 9 from the cheap promotion. Decided I was willing to support that, I'd like it if they offered cheaper bundles around launch time like this. The $50-$80 pre-orders are crazy to me, but something like this is another story entirely.

Legendaries: Archivist Elysiana
Epics: Whirlwind Tempest, Duel, Magic Carpet, Unidentified Contract, Jumbo Imp (Golden), Omega Devastator, Crystal Stag, Mana Cyclone
Notable Rares: Hagatha's Scheme (Golden), 2x Plot Twist, Sunreaver Warmage, Forbidden Words, Sludge Slurper, Clockwork Goblin, Mysterious Blade, Underbelly Fence.

A bit disappointed to get only one legendary, and have it be a neutral... but of all the neutral legendaries, that one is perhaps the most up my alley (competing for that with Barista Lynchen I'd say), so I guess she's fine. Also a bit disappointed in my rare pulls, there were lots of duplicate Conjurer's Callings and The Forest's Aids that bogged that down. Got what I'm sure is an above-average amount of epics though, including a couple I definitely wanted (Omega Devastator and Mana Cyclone), so that's nice. Still, going to need to spend a lot of dust to put together any of my decks.

Fortunately, between rotation, saving, and newly-opened duplicates, gold cards I didn't want, and Hunter cards, I've got a lot of that to go around, a solid 9k. So, time to begin divvying that up. First up: Control Warrior. :smallbiggrin:

[Tvtyrant]

Opened 15 packs, I got Barista Lynchen and Khadgar for legendaries. Weirdly I got no lackey cards, which are what I was more interested in.

[Seerow]

Opened ~90 more packs after the 130 from preorder. Broke about even on legendaries again, but didn't record which ones I got this time. Never got Tak or Boom, so crafted a Golden boom and a regular Tak. (My bonus preorder legendaries were golden Lerzul and regular Bertrug).


So I got off work a few hours early today, so I've been playing since about 4pm. I've tried 6 different decks so far, here's my results thus far:

Bomb Warrior - Lives up to the hype. It's everywhere on Ladder, and is currently the deck to beat. My variant on it that is more rush/midrangey seems a bit weaker than the 'standard' list, so rush warrior may end up being better without the bomb package. It still needs some refinement, but early results are Bombs are good.

Silence Priest - Also lived up to the hype. I was sitting around mid-rank 7 at the start of the day. I tried a game or two of bomb warrior then built this deck. I proceeded to cruise into rank 5 like I was on easy mode. I really wish there was just 1 more good two drop silence target, but honestly even without it the deck is good and catches people off guard. Won one game against a tempo mage by silencing off his freeze effects and going face. Definitely met my expectations.

Pogo Rogue - Okay, I thought I could sneak this one in by running a thief rogue and subbing out a few weaker cards for a small package of 2 pogos, 2 schemes, 1 tak. It ultimately didn't work too well. But thief rogue in general doesn't seem to be working too well unless you get a megabuffed weapon and academic espionage rolling early. It is probably way better in wild where there's more burgle enablers at lower mana costs. I really just desperately want halucination and swashburgler in standard.

Summoner Mage - This one started out rough, but I did make a discovery: Khadgar will double deathrattle summons as well. So I did a bit of tweaking to put a pair of mechanical whelps in at the top end. So if you have khadgar out, run it into something, get 2 7/7s. Or use the 3 mana spell to destroy it, summon a 7/7 and 2 6-drops. Or if you hit the jackpot and do both you get 2 7/7s and 4 6 drops for an instant board. It's pretty scary. I'm looking forward to it seeing if a refined list makes it in the meta.

Control Shaman - My list for this deck is kind of a mess. I went heavy on the elemental synergies, tossed in the mega-windfury dude and the windfury spell for kicks. Works as a sort of combo deck (at high mana, if a minion sticks for a round you most likely win), it has a surprisingly strong early game, and a lot of value... but my list is definitely sub-par. The archetype as a whole should be solid though, the combination of the two hagathas and healing brew is a really strong sustain package. (side note: apparently if your hagatha creation minion uses healing brew you don't get the echo variant in your hand, lost a game finding that one out for you).

Token Druid - Left this one for last, as it's the most recent one I've been playing, but holy crap I think it may actually be my strongest deck. Against slow decks, it can ramp up quickly and win on turn 5-6. Against fast decks it can compete on the board then outvalue them in the long game. Even against heavy control decks that win the early game, a lot of times you just wear them down. I have taken down multiple control warriors and control shamans just by virtue of forcing out more boards than they can answer.


### Tokens Everywhere
# Class: Druid
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (1) Acornbearer
# 2x (1) Crystal Power
# 2x (1) Mecharoo
# 2x (2) Dreamway Guardians
# 2x (2) Hench-Clan Hogsteed
# 1x (2) Keeper Stalladris
# 2x (2) Power of the Wild
# 2x (2) Wrath
# 2x (3) Blessing of the Ancients
# 2x (3) Landscaping
# 2x (3) Savage Roar
# 2x (4) Hench-Clan Hag
# 2x (4) Soul of the Forest
# 2x (6) Tending Tauren
# 2x (8) The Forest's Aid
# 1x (9) Cenarius
#
AAECAbSKAwIkyZwDDv0C9wPmBcQG3/sC4fsC9v0CuZQDw5QDzpQDv5gDypwD05wDx50DAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

[Zevox]

So, I've been playing entirely the Control Warrior deck I posted the other day (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23830755&postcount=58), and having a lot of success with it. Went up from low rank 7 to rank 5 with only three losses: two to Murloc Shaman, one to another Warrior. The other Warrior was more all-in on Bombs with things like Greenskin and Elekks, but what really did me in was just that he got his Mad Genius Boom early and I got mine just a turn or two before I died, and he got a full-board Blastmaster Boom while I never even drew mine. Yeah, both Booms in the last 7 cards of the deck is a good way to lose that matchup it turns out.

The Murloc Shamans seemed strong, but not overwhelmingly so. Against one of them I drew poorly, getting only one board wipe, and he was heavy on draw with two of the 4 mana Murloc that draws two when it dies, plus of course the new 2 mana Murloc generator. And against the other I made a major error by just armoring up on turn 4 instead of playing Wrenchcalibur because his board was empty - habit from Odd Warrior there to get as much hero power armor as possible, cost me too much tempo. And I also made the mistake of not considering that he'd probably run Bloodlust and calculating whether I'd die to that, so I did. So that matchup is probably not as bad as an 0-2 record so far would make it appear.

Edit: Wait, forgot, I did lose one other match, to a Resurrect Priest. Basically he had a Catrina Muerte resurrect a Witchwood Grizzly, I could only remove one and of course chose Catrina, and then I got hit with double Divine Spirit plus Topsy-Turvy from the Grizzly. And I was actually at over 40 health at the time, too. Rough luck there.

Happily, those Murloc Shamans were the only aggro I saw all day. I only saw one Hunter, and he was weird: the entire match consisted of him playing two Master's Calls, discovering only one card off them each, and then conceding. Not sure if he messed up his deck design or what. And the two Paladins I saw were shockingly not Secret Paladins, but a Dragon Paladin and an Immortal Prelate deck. The former even gave me a serious scare and nearly beat me, as he drew both Dragonspeakers very early and starting dropping ludicrous sized Dragons, and was smart enough to play around Brawls. If I hadn't gotten a 1-in-3 Brawl where my Clockwork Goblin survived and his two big Dragons didn't, I'd have lost. But anyway, if this low level of aggro turns out to be the norm, well, for one thing I'll be incredibly happy and probably play more Hearthstone than I have since year 1 (assuming that combo decks are also fringe, which seems like a safe-ish assumption given the new combo disruption cards), and for two I'll probably be able to ditch the Eternium Rovers in my deck, which would be great.

General thoughts on the deck:
- Blastmaster Boom is nuts with 2+ bombs, and good enough even as traditional Doctor Boom with just one. Even crazier when his Boom Bots get rush from Mad Genius Boom. I wish there was an in-game way to tell how many bombs the enemy's deck has though, it's easy to lose track.
- Wrenchcalibur and Clockwork Goblin seem fine. Wrenchcalibur can be a bit weak and sometimes up against things it can't kill when it wants to come down, but Warrior's survivability makes up for it.
- As much as I already miss Tank Up, it's nice to no longer have to hesitate about when to play Mad Genius Boom. Now his hero power is basically a strict upgrade the vast majority of the time, so you slam him as soon as possible. And oh boy, with the Death Knights gone, he is having a field day. I knew Warrior and Shaman would have a serious advantage in the value Control game due to having Boom and Hagatha when everybody else lost their hero cards (except Zul'jin, but he's more of an immediate burst of power card, so he's not really comparable to those two), but it may not have been quite clear how big that advantage would be until I saw it in action.
- I've had some issues with awkward hands that makes me want to put more card draw in the deck, except that if the meta winds up as control dominated as it currently looks/I hope it may be then you probably don't want too much of that, since it draws you towards fatigue (and bombs).
- I really want to put that second Dragonmaw Scorcher back in, since I've had a lot of problems with Dragon synergy cards being useless waiting for another Dragon to get drawn for a while, but they're so dang good that I don't want to drop the package. Almost makes me want to find another Dragon to throw in too, but I'm not sure what that would be (Twilight Drake? Alexstraza?) or what I would drop for it.
- Vargoth has been a bit iffy. He's solid with Shield Block, I've had him go off with Execute once or twice to decent effect, and the one time I played him with Omega Assembly was crazy good for reloading my hand. But with the lack of aggro I haven't had a use for him plus Weapons Project for armor gain like I thought I might, I haven't needed the emergency Brawl use, and of course he's pointless with Warpath. And he is more awkward to duplicate Omega Assembly with than I realized, since it would often result in overdrawing, which I really don't want to do unless nothing important is left in the deck (i.e. I've drawn both Booms minimum). So he often sits in my hand for a bit before he finds a use. Not totally sure whether I want to keep him or not.
- On the subject of Omega Assembly (and Boom's discover hero power), Warrior has so many class mechs now that I'm rarely seeing neutral mechs out of those. Which is a good thing, because all of those Warrior mechs are pretty good. The worst class mechs are probably Eternium Rover and Vicious Scraphound, and even those work pretty decently as armor gain cards when they've got rush, particularly if you have something to magnetize on them, like Zilliax or a discovered Beryllium Nullifier. And now in addition to Dyn-o-Matic we've added Omega Devastator as a top-tier pull, Clockwork Goblin for extra bombs, and Boomreaver as a solid big threat. Mech discovery in Warrior is just insane right now.
- On the subject of Boomreaver, it feels exactly like I expected: not a card I'd consider putting in the deck outright, no need to weigh it down with a 10-mana minion like that, but damn is it a sweet pull off discover effects once you're already in the late-game.
- Omega Devastator is sick, but it is very tempting to always try to keep it for the battlecry. I practically have to force myself to play it in the mid-game sometimes, for fear of falling behind.
- Speaking of, goddamn does this deck have a lot of "minion whose battlecry kills a minion" cards. Smolderthorn Lancer, Omega Devastator, Crowd Roaster, Dragonmaw Scorcher against small/wounded enough cards. Feels very powerful, but sometimes kind of awkward, especially if I get caught up wanting bigger targets for Crowd Roaster or Omega Devastator than, for instance, a Dyn-o-Matic that an enemy Warrior dropped.

*Realizes how much he typed and how long it just took* So, uh, yeah. To say the least, I have been enjoying this so far. Quite the breath of fresh air after... basically the entirety of last year, honestly. I think the brief period between Boomsday's launch and the Giggling Inventor nerf was about the only time last year where I was having anything approaching this much fun with the game.

I have crafted the cards I needed to try my Control Shaman, too, just haven't wanted to play anything but Control Warrior so far. And I'm still sitting on about half of that dust, so plenty left over for whatever turns out to be good and fun-sounding, or just Dragon Paladin if I feel like that.

[Geno9999]

Only just got home, so no comments on the meta just yet. Did open 53 packs of Rise of Shadows (49 from Gold, 1 from Tavern Brawl, 1 from Quest, 2 from Arena.)

Legendary!: Lucentbark, Scargil, and Jepetto Joybuzz

Epic!: Arcane Fletcher x1 GOLDEN, Lazul's Scheme x3 (2 normal +1 GOLDEN,) Shadowy Figure x2, Unidentified Contract x1, Jumbo Imp x1 GOLDEN, Wrenchcalibur x1, Portal Overfiend x2, Unseen Saboteur x1


3 Legendaries, 11 Epics, not a bad haul so far. I also got 9.6k dust from the Hall of Fame, so I'm pretty set on dust. I'm probably better off holding on to it until the fighting dust settles, but I'm already crafting some cards for Thief Rogue.

[Rynjin]

I bought the $10 pack for $5, bought 40 packs with Gold and ended up with a solid amount of cards. Boom Reaver and commander Rhysa for Legendaries.

I then used my 20k Dust(well, some of it) to craft some decks.

I haven't had much time to test all of them. Murloc Shaman seems...strong. Secret Paladin looked boring so I tried to spice it up with the Prismatic Lens package but I can't get a good test on it; I was playing with a friend who was using nothing but Bomb Warrior.

Interesting, if frustrating, science: if you pull a Bomb with Prismatic Lens, it goes off, draws you an extra card and doesn't swap the costs of the first card, effectively hard countering the deck idea. Given Bomb Warrior's prevalence that means the idea is dead in the water.

Shuffle Rogue Mk. 3 is a WIP. Needs more testing.

Burgle Rogue seems pretty baller. It's a good tempo Rogue shell with Miracle potential. I like it, plays very smooth.

Midrange Beast hunter is Midrange Beast Hunter.

Finally, the spiciest deck I have, is called Huge Quest. I felt obligated to make it after I pulled the Boom Reaver.

I have had a surprising amount of success with this stupid deck.


### Huge Quest
# Class: Warrior
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (1) Eternium Rover
# 1x (1) Shield Slam
# 2x (2) Doomsayer
# 2x (2) Execute
# 2x (2) Galvanizer
# 2x (2) Warpath
# 2x (2) Weapons Project
# 2x (3) Shield Block
# 2x (5) Brawl
# 1x (7) Dr. Boom, Mad Genius
# 2x (8) Deranged Doctor
# 1x (8) Grommash Hellscream
# 2x (8) Mosh'Ogg Enforcer
# 2x (9) Bull Dozer
# 1x (10) Big Bad Archmage
# 1x (10) Deathwing
# 2x (10) Dimensional Ripper
# 1x (10) The Boom Reaver
#
AAECAQcG0gKiBMIGkvgC9pYDxJkDDEuKAZEG/wfA7AKb8wL09QKz/ALX/gKLgAPYiQOWlAMA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone


I should probably craft the Boomship so I have a plan for what happens if I draw all my big dudes. I should also cut the Galvanizers because I hit them with Dimensional Ripper once and it made me sad.

Otherwise it's fun. you basically do nothing for 10 turns but remove your opponent's minions and armor up, then play big ****. I just added more Taunts (read: some Taunts), will report results.

[Hamste]

So this happened. For those who can't see I managed to get 5 omegas in my hand. I just started throwing them down after awhile to get the damage in I needed to win the game. (https://imgur.com/a/fiMnPTZ)

[Gandariel]

Tempo / Miracle rogue has always been one of my favorites, so I'll be happy if that turns out good.

Silence / zoo priest I always loved too, so I'm happy if that works as well.

Other than those.. I don't know.

[otakuryoga]

After logging back in I got the notification about the free legendary from the bundle.



huh..guess i will be seeing that when i next log in
-------------------
edit:
and I got oblivatron 8(
and Gold Swampqueen Hagatha 8)

[Seerow]

Anyone found any Paladin lists they're liking yet? I'm 95 wins away from Gold Pally so I'd like to push it if I can find a fun deck but... Secret Pally seems to run out of steam just as quickly as expected, if it doesn't win by turn 6 it just doesn't win. Dragon Pally seems very awkward and I've crushed every one I ran into, even ones where I ran late game enough for them to drop multiple handbuffed dragons and a Nozari.

Edit: on my way to work decided I want to try a deck with recurring villain, immortal prelate, and da undertaka for an infinite late game value engine. Posting here to remind myself when I get home

[Zevox]

Edit: on my way to work decided I want to try a deck with recurring villain, immortal prelate, and da undertaka for an infinite late game value engine. Posting here to remind myself when I get home
There's no point to the Recurring Villain part. When Da Undertakah copies his deathrattle, he'll respawn without deathrattles, since his battlecry doesn't go off when spawned that way.

Immortal Prelates of course can be infinite late game value, but the one I ran into last night at least wasn't terribly impressive. Loss of Spikeridge Steed hurts them a lot.

[Requizen]

Decks I've been trying:

Silence Priest - Really solid midrange deck. Swapping around some of the support pieces, not sure if I want Pyro/Circle/Northshire draw engine, or just more generic draw/control cards. But the core of Ancient Watcher/Arcane Watcher/Hench-Clan Shadequill/Convincing Infiltrator/etc is just so good that it wins a lot even with subpar testing tools.

Control Shaman - Super good. Trading some things here and there (not sure if I want Elysiana to just play Fatigue or not) but the board control and shut down is just so good. Beaten a lot of Bomb Warriors with it just by full healing up multiple times and having a better board.

Zoo Lock - Feels iffy. Like, same Zoo as normal, either you get board presence or you die... but the support cards just seem ok.

Midrange Mech Hunter - Doing ok, but doesn't quite have the control/sustain to make it great imo. Some games you get a great board, other games you get rushed down and run out of tools fast. Same midrange Hunter problems as always, I guess.

Aggro Druid - Same as Zoolock. Sometimes you flood the board and they run out of clears and you feel great! Sometimes they put out one giant taunt and have 4 board wipes and you just lose. At least the games are fast.


So far the best decks I've seen on ladder have been Control Shaman, Silence Priest, and Bomb Warrior. Paladin seems to be struggling. I think the Lackey/Togwaggle Rogue is a solid deck but I haven't seen or tried it yet. Tempo/Aggro Mage seems alright, it basically exists in every meta because spells are good.

[Psyren]

Opened my preorder packs last night; I cracked Rafaam, Elysiana, Hagatha, Lazul, and of course I got Vargoth for free like everyone else.

Of those I'm most excited for Rafaam and Hagatha, but I think I'm going to build a burgle rogue deck to start with.

I also have a ton of dust now thanks to them hall-of-faming the odd/even stuff; bittersweet moment there.

[Resileaf]

The wild ladder is filled with big priests and handlocks.

Send help.

[Requizen]

The wild ladder is filled with big priests and handlocks.

Send help.

I always think to myself "no, I shouldn't dust Wild cards in case I ever want to play Wild"

And then I play Wild and think "hahaha no".

[Zevox]

The wild ladder is filled with big priests and handlocks.

Send help.
There are reasons to play Wild besides the fact that you can play Handlock? That's about all I do with it. Well, that and the occasional quest where I don't have a standard deck for the class that I like.

[Resileaf]

I play wild to play stuff like deathrattle hunter and burgle rogue with older cards as well as new ones.

[Gandariel]

There are reasons to play Wild besides the fact that you can play Handlock?

"Fun" is always reason enough.

Anyways, the first complaints are coming in, saying Warrior is OP, mainly because it's the only class that got to keep his OP infinite value hero card.

[Tvtyrant]

Murloc Shaman is so freaking fun right now. Turn 5 kills all over the place, at the rank I am playing no one is playing board wipes and the deck is resilient to spot removal so I just roll over opponents. I really hope they don't nerf the core murlocs again over this, my favorite tribal is back!

[Requizen]

"Fun" is always reason enough.

Anyways, the first complaints are coming in, saying Warrior is OP, mainly because it's the only class that got to keep his OP infinite value hero card.

Hagatha laughs silently in the distance. Seriously, Control Shaman is gonna be a thing.

Zul'jin can't quite go infinite, but replaying 4 5/5 Rush Wyverns and putting two more Unleash The Beasts in your hand is pretty good (and especially if you can replay Nine Lives too).

No one else has Hero Cards, but Rogue can go effectively infinite with all the shuffles they get.

But yeah Ladder is a bit of a madhouse right now.

[Zevox]

"Fun" is always reason enough.
Right, that's what I said. Playing Handlock, fun, same thing.


Anyways, the first complaints are coming in, saying Warrior is OP, mainly because it's the only class that got to keep his OP infinite value hero card.
Also Shaman, they just didn't get anything that attracted people as much as the bomb package did in Warrior. Still not sure why people like that so much, outside of Blastmaster Boom meaning that you can play classic Doctor Boom again, but whatever, works for me.

[Thomas Cardew]

Opened 30 packs. Nozari on the 10th pack, Boom Reaver on the 24th. Mildly annoyed as both of those look really week but I haven't really processed the cards or bothered with deck building. Amusingly, I pulled 3 rapid fires total ... all from the same pack. So far, biggest duplicates are Walking Fountain and Heroic Innkeeper at 5 each.

[otakuryoga]

i had a 8 game win streak with Tom Bombadil deck in ladder

6 win in first brawl with it
at 4 wins with it on 2nd brawl atm

all losses in brawl have been to murloc shaman due to not getting warpath

[Joran]

i had a 8 game win streak with Tom Bombadil deck in ladder

6 win in first brawl with it
at 4 wins with it on 2nd brawl atm

all losses in brawl have been to murloc shaman due to not getting warpath

I was wondering what Tom Bombadil meant... I get it!

Also, I feel like Bomb Warrior is going to infuriate people if it's too good. I was at 17 hp, 11 cards in deck, with 3 bombs in the deck, so I'm safe; he has no board.

After roping his turn, Warrior decides RNG is his only way out, equips a Wrench and goes Face. I'm at 14 now with 4 bombs in my deck. If I had lost that game, I'd be really ridiculously salty.

[The Glyphstone]

Opened 100 packs from gold:

Leggos: Kalecgos, Tak Nozzwhisker, Chef Nomi, Fel Lord Bertrug, The Boom Reaver, Vereesa Windrunner, Jepetto Joybuzz, Arch-Villain Rafaam

Epics: Azerite Elemental x2, Jumbo Imp x2, Magic Carpet x3, Wrenchcalibur, Arcane Fletcher, Crystalsong Portal, Batterhead x3, Darkest Hour, Witch's Brew, Crystal Stag x2, Nine Lives.

[Requizen]

I was wondering what Tom Bombadil meant... I get it!

Also, I feel like Bomb Warrior is going to infuriate people if it's too good. I was at 17 hp, 11 cards in deck, with 3 bombs in the deck, so I'm safe; he has no board.

After roping his turn, Warrior decides RNG is his only way out, equips a Wrench and goes Face. I'm at 14 now with 4 bombs in my deck. If I had lost that game, I'd be really ridiculously salty.

I had a game earlier "oh, I think I win as long as I don't draw 3 bombs in a row"

Guess who lost :smallsigh:


I actually won a couple games vs it as Shaman by using Hagatha to fill my hand to 10 and then burning the Bombs (they don't explode if they burn). I can see Elysiana or Rafaam being used to replace them as well.

[Tvtyrant]

i had a 8 game win streak with Tom Bombadil deck in ladder

6 win in first brawl with it
at 4 wins with it on 2nd brawl atm

all losses in brawl have been to murloc shaman due to not getting warpath
How was Murloc matchup on ladder? I won the three times I came up against bombadil but it was very narrow each time. I think they could have won if they had focused more on exchanging creatures, each time they faced and left me a board for bloodthirst.

Small Mage was my only loss of the 10 matches I laddered today, and it beat me quite handily.

[Seerow]

There's no point to the Recurring Villain part. When Da Undertakah copies his deathrattle, he'll respawn without deathrattles, since his battlecry doesn't go off when spawned that way.

Immortal Prelates of course can be infinite late game value, but the one I ran into last night at least wasn't terribly impressive. Loss of Spikeridge Steed hurts them a lot.

Immortal prelate makes undertakah shuffle himself back with all enchants. So first time he dies, he summons a copy of himself and summons one copy of himself. Second time shuffles and summons 2. And so on. It escalates the threat pretty quickly.

I'm not sold on it being good but hoping it ends up at least passable and fun.


Also, I feel like Bomb Warrior is going to infuriate people if it's too good. I was at 17 hp, 11 cards in deck, with 3 bombs in the deck, so I'm safe; he has no board.

After roping his turn, Warrior decides RNG is his only way out, equips a Wrench and goes Face. I'm at 14 now with 4 bombs in my deck. If I had lost that game, I'd be really ridiculously salty.

To share a highlight of the other side, last night I was playing bomb warrior against a plot twist warlock. 6 bombs in deck, 20 cards total, he plays plot twist with 8 cards in hand. Draws 2 healing taunt minions and 3 2/2 rush demons, 0 bombs. Plays it again for 7 cards this time, gets one heal and one 2/2 rush, still 0 bombs. He started on 4 health ended at 16. I was so triggered.

[Rynjin]

Also, no free 3 login packs either, which is a first since Whispers of the Old Gods IIRC, another mildly disappointing thing.

You've probably noticed by now, but it's more like 4-6 free login packs rather than three. Event quests are giving Rise of Shadows plus Witchwood yesterday and Boomsday today. There will probably be another toimorrow with one Rise, one Rastakhan's.

[Resileaf]

I play Bomb warrior... In wild so I can also play Brann and the legendary that puts a 10-damage mine in the enemy deck. I also have cards to bounce bomb setters back in my hand, and cards to force draws on both side.

[Rynjin]

So, Huge Quest officially sucks.

Instead, I made Big Paladin.


### SPICEEEE
# Class: Paladin
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (2) Lightforged Blessing
# 2x (2) Rebuke
# 2x (3) Time Out!
# 2x (4) Consecration
# 2x (4) Equality
# 2x (5) Blessed Champion
# 2x (5) Duel!
# 2x (5) Shrink Ray
# 2x (5) Witchwood Grizzly
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 1x (7) A New Challenger...
# 1x (7) Linecracker
# 1x (8) Batterhead
# 2x (8) Mosh'Ogg Enforcer
# 1x (8) Tirion Fordring
# 2x (9) Bull Dozer
# 1x (9) Burly Shovelfist
# 1x (10) Big Bad Archmage
# 1x (25) Shirvallah, the Tiger
#
AAECAZ8FCPoGoIADvYYD44YD8IkDxJkDoJ4Dg6ADC9wD9AXyC5 3sAvLxAoT8AouAA8+GA9iJA4qaA4acAwA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

It is a surprisingly good counter to Silence Priest.

[Zevox]

Got off to a bad start with my Control Warrior (-2 Eternium Rover, +2nd Dragonmaw Scorcher and Omega Assembly) in the Brawl. Lost to a Zoolock who got a great start while I failed to draw any AoE, and my Weapons Project proved not effective enough when he dropped his 1/3 taunt. Then lost to a Thief/Espionage Rogue who got two major big pieces of luck: stealing her own Mad Genius Boom, and burning my Blastmaster Boom when she bounced things back to fill my hand with Vanish. Probably would've won that had either of those not happened, but put them together with the massive value of Tak + Espionage, and eventually a Tess that came down after she'd turned into Boom, and things did not go my way.

Still, I've managed to win the next three games after that. One was looking close against a Control Mage who ran Elysiana though: he got her to give him Jan'ali and Hex Lord Malacrass, and it turns out his Elysiana was in his opening hand, so Malacrass gave him another of those, too. If he'd drawn the second Malacrass before he dropped the second Elysiana (which I'd hope he was smart enough to do), he surely had another waiting in the wings to boot. But I eventually managed to pressure him enough with dragons and mechs that he conceded, after barely surviving the two Ragnaroses and fretting about that Elysiana/Malacrass chain.

Speaking of, Vargoth is continuing to be kind of awkward in my deck, so I'm considering replacing him with the Elysiana I pulled. Greedy, but I've actually seen enough Elysianas that it feels like the meta is moving that way, at least for the moment.


You've probably noticed by now, but it's more like 4-6 free login packs rather than three. Event quests are giving Rise of Shadows plus Witchwood yesterday and Boomsday today. There will probably be another toimorrow with one Rise, one Rastakhan's.
Indeed, though I thought they were doing special quests at expansion releases the past couple of years anyway?


I play Bomb warrior... In wild so I can also play Brann and the legendary that puts a 10-damage mine in the enemy deck. I also have cards to bounce bomb setters back in my hand, and cards to force draws on both side.
That is exactly the type of "Bomb Warrior" that I really hope never ends up in standard. It's fine as a passive damage bonus/pseudo-win condition for Control Warrior and enabler for Blastmaster Boom, but making it a combo deck like that would be just... ugh. Leave that to Wild only, thanks.

[Lord Raziere]

Got off to a bad start with my Control Warrior (-2 Eternium Rover, +2nd Dragonmaw Scorcher and Omega Assembly) in the Brawl. Lost to a Zoolock who got a great start while I failed to draw any AoE, and my Weapons Project proved not effective enough when he dropped his 1/3 taunt. Then lost to a Thief/Espionage Rogue who got two major big pieces of luck: stealing her own Mad Genius Boom, and burning my Blastmaster Boom when she bounced things back to fill my hand with Vanish. Probably would've won that had either of those not happened, but put them together with the massive value of Tak + Espionage, and eventually a Tess that came down after she'd turned into Boom, and things did not go my way.

Still, I've managed to win the next three games after that. One was looking close against a Control Mage who ran Elysiana though: he got her to give him Jan'ali and Hex Lord Malacrass, and it turns out his Elysiana was in his opening hand, so Malacrass gave him another of those, too. If he'd drawn the second Malacrass before he dropped the second Elysiana (which I'd hope he was smart enough to do), he surely had another waiting in the wings to boot. But I eventually managed to pressure him enough with dragons and mechs that he conceded, after barely surviving the two Ragnaroses and fretting about that Elysiana/Malacrass chain.

Speaking of, Vargoth is continuing to be kind of awkward in my deck, so I'm considering replacing him with the Elysiana I pulled. Greedy, but I've actually seen enough Elysianas that it feels like the meta is moving that way, at least for the moment.


I haven't been so lucky. the most I've won is two games in the brawliseum with my murloc deck. I've got the new expansion blues where no deck I make works, the meta is all mixed up and priests keep beating my paladin and shaman aggro decks because thats all I can build, because the new obsidian statue just screws me over every time, or the heals with Zilliax, or everyone suddenly becomes control and eliminates all my murlocs. ugh.

I just don't know what to do.

[Zevox]

I haven't been so lucky. the most I've won is two games in the brawliseum with my murloc deck. I've got the new expansion blues where no deck I make works, the meta is all mixed up and priests keep beating my paladin and shaman aggro decks because thats all I can build, because the new obsidian statue just screws me over every time, or the heals with Zilliax, or everyone suddenly becomes control and eliminates all my murlocs. ugh.

I just don't know what to do.
Murloc Shaman seems strong. One just ended my Brawl run, and that despite me drawing a Brawl and a Warpath. Once again it was one running two Tastyfins - starting to think those enabling the deck to not run out of steam while it tries to set up Bloodlust boards is important to them. Because what basically did me in was Electra + Bloodlust with 4 1-attack minions on the board (left me with 1 health, in a position I couldn't recover from).

So that ended that at 4-3, sadly. Just 60 gold, some dust, and a pack. But the pack contained my second legendary pull of the set: Catrina Muerte. Not bad, can't complain about that.

Think I'll go start trying Control Shaman in ladder now.

[Lord Raziere]

Murloc Shaman seems strong. One just ended my Brawl run, and that despite me drawing a Brawl and a Warpath. Once again it was one running two Tastyfins - starting to think those enabling the deck to not run out of steam while it tries to set up Bloodlust boards is important to them. Because what basically did me in was Electra + Bloodlust with 4 1-attack minions on the board (left me with 1 health, in a position I couldn't recover from).

So that ended that at 4-3, sadly. Just 60 gold, some dust, and a pack. But the pack contained my second legendary pull of the set: Catrina Muerte. Not bad, can't complain about that.

Think I'll go start trying Control Shaman in ladder now.

....I have an electra and I think enough dust to get a tastyfin...that could work....

[Zevox]

So, my first attempt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23830755&postcount=58) at Control Shaman didn't go so hot. Quickly altered it to drop an Earthen Might, Spirit of the Frogs, and the Proud Defenders (note: those in a class that makes minions with its hero power = not so good) for Doomsayers, Feral Spirits, and a second Sunreaver Warmage. That felt better, but not nearly enough, I still lost to basically everything. The Sunreaver Warmages in particular, while good when they went off, felt like they didn't have enough activators with just two each of Hagatha's Scheme and Rain of Toads.

Eventually, after a loss to a Thief Rogue that convinced me that weapon destruction is now a must (because otherwise their Spectral Cutlass will go all Kingsbane on you and be unbeatable), I overhauled it substantially to switch to using the Dragon package. Have only played that once so far, but it felt much better, and did actually win.

### Control Shaman
# Class: Shaman
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (1) Sludge Slurper
# 1x (2) Acidic Swamp Ooze
# 2x (2) Firetree Witchdoctor
# 1x (2) Likkim
# 2x (2) Menacing Nimbus
# 2x (3) Feral Spirit
# 2x (3) Lightning Storm
# 1x (4) Archmage Vargoth
# 2x (4) Hex
# 2x (4) Twilight Drake
# 2x (5) Dragonmaw Scorcher
# 2x (5) Hagatha's Scheme
# 1x (5) Harrison Jones
# 2x (6) Rain of Toads
# 2x (7) Crowd Roaster
# 1x (7) Swampqueen Hagatha
# 1x (8) Hagatha the Witch
# 1x (8) Walking Fountain
# 1x (9) Shudderwock
#
AAECAaoICIoHkAen7gLv9wL2igOKlAO5mQPWmQML7gH1BP4FjQ iKgAPoiQPsiQPzigOtkQPolAPGmQMA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Some thoughts:
- Swamp Queen Hagatha has actually been disappointing me. There's just so many bad Shaman spells that it's felt frequent that she gets me a pretty weak Horror. Actual combinations I've had included Earthen Might + Voltaic Burst and Beakered Lightning + Far Sight. I've only once pulled Hex, never seen Lightning Storm or Stormbringer, only once pulled even Feral Spirits and haven't seen Rain of Toads, but will repeatedly get options like Totemic Might, Ancestral Healing, Earth Shock, or Frost Shock. It's disheartening.
- Walking Fountain is pretty strong, although I did drop to one of it after adding the Crowd Roasters with the Dragon package. Was just concerned that I had too many 7+ cards, and the Fountains are the lowest-priority of them despite being good I think.
- Sludge Slurper has felt a tad questionable. There's not enough aggro around to feel like the 1-drop is needed, and some of the lackeys just don't have much impact.
- I like Vargoth much better in this deck than the Warrior deck. He's great with Feral Spirits, Rain of Toads, and Lightning Storm. Sadly doesn't play nice with Hagatha's Scheme though, the recast he does of that is at minimum strength.
- Likkim has felt surprisingly not so good, hence me dropping to one of it. And it's not even trouble getting the overload for it, it's just that Shaman does not like using their health to kill things, they don't have enough healing to sustain it over a long game.

[Seerow]

Went into the Brawliseum with Silence Priest and went 5 wins. Went 4-0 easily then ran into decks where I just ran out of steam. The deck really misses that extra purify draw, and shadow visions. I expected to run into more Bomb Warrior which the deck is -really- good against.


Then instead of messing with the Paladin deck as I planned I went into Arena. I had two Arena tickets, one from letting a run expire, and a second from the 10 buck bundle (9 packs + arena ticket for 10 bucks is a great deal. Honestly if I could just buy arena tickets at a similar rate to the cost of preorder packs (1 dollar per run) I'd probably do it).

First deck was nothing special. I picked Warrior and the draft pushed me towards control (picked up 3 bog creepers, 2 warpaths, 2 executes, 2 slams, and a midrangey sort of curve), went around 4 wins just because the early game wasn't strong enough to carry, and I didn't always draw my warpaths when I needed them.

Second deck was far worse in terms of card quality. I think the Hearth Arena score was like a full 10 points lower, but I was playing Priest. And I was offered two legendaries. First pick was between Fuegen, Lady in White, and Kazakus. I already had duplicates so I grabbed Fuegen as a 5 mana 4/7, no big deal.

A few cards later I get offered Stalag next to Lady in White and some other card again. I don't even remember what the other card was because I picked Stalag so quickly. In the end, the deck went 5-3, so better than the higher quality Warrior... but more importantly I had two games where I got to summon both Stalag and Fuegen.

One game was my very first game, against another Priest. I play Stalag, he Holy Waters it and plays it himself. A turn later he plays a Fuegen he got from my deck using Thought Steal. I top deck my own Fuegen a turn later. He then mind controls my Fuegen, so he has both of them after Stalag has died, so both ready to pop off... but then I top deck a Lifedrinker from lethal that turn.

The next game was around game 6 or so, it was the second game I lost. I managed to actually summon Thadius against a Warlock who honestly felt like he was playing a constructed Zoo deck. Like full board flooding from 0 to 5-7 minions 3 times in the course of 4 turns. I just couldn't keep up, but did get to summon Thadius the turn before he killed me.

[Rynjin]

Bomb Warrior is giving me serious flashbacks to how utterly un-fun Dead Man's Hand Warrior was to play against. Except Bomb Warrior has both sustain AND aggression, so you can't just super-hyper-aggro it out of existence, nor can you outvalue or outlast it in the long game. And I never played 6 consecutive games on ladder against DMH Warrior.

[Psyren]

Earth Shock on a horror isn't awful. It's not great but I could see the use there.


I always think to myself "no, I shouldn't dust Wild cards in case I ever want to play Wild"

And then I play Wild and think "hahaha no".

I hang onto some cards for single player purposes, e.g. having an OTK deck per class to deal with things like Arthas.

With that said, there's definitely some I won't mind tossing in the wood chipper like Kingsbane.

[Gandariel]

I am so very tempted to just craft Heistbaron Togwaggle and play the currently #1 legend tempo rogue list, it looks so fun.

AAEBAaIHBLIC7QKKB5KXAw20Ae4GiAfdCIYJx/gC1YwDtJEDj5cDkJcD+5oD/poDiZsDAA==

Handlock also appears to be playable (with the new ancient, sunreaver warmage among others)

[Requizen]

I've gotten bopped a few times now by Malygos Hunter and it looks cool, but I know when I play it Jepetto will be sitting at the bottom of my deck and Maly will be my first draw every single game :smallsigh:

[Rodin]

I've gotten bopped a few times now by Malygos Hunter and it looks cool, but I know when I play it Jepetto will be sitting at the bottom of my deck and Maly will be my first draw every single game :smallsigh:

It looks very neat in that the deck is capable of winning without its Maly combo, since that requires specifically getting Jepetto and then managing to draw Maly. Krip has a game up on Youtube where he removes a Murloc Shamans entire deck before just winning on board.

Unfortunately the deck is extremely expensive to build, requiring 3 niche legendaries (Halazzi, Jepetto, and Vereesa) on top of two more legendaries (Zul'jin and Maly), which makes the deck quite the investment. I don't think I'm prepared to craft 3 legendaries for one deck this early in the expansion, so I'm taking a wait and see approach.

At least the other decks this expansion all seem pretty cheap to build. Relatively, at least.

[Geno9999]

I was having some trouble with Murloc Shaman at first on ladder, but after taking a look at Disguised Toast's deck, I added in Likkim and Zap and Lightning Bolt and it's pretty dang good now. I don't have Sludge Slurper, was hoping to unpack it rather than needing to resort to crafting it, but for now I have Hench-clan Hogsteed instead.

Going 4-0 in the Tavern Brawl with it so far, though don't be like this Warrior and leave an Underbelly Angler and Tidecaller up together. (https://hsreplay.net/replay/8cWjkzNhT9vAPU7QJPXk5T)

[Zevox]

Having a good bit of success with that Dragon variant of Control Shaman I posted last night - I've gone 6-0 with it so far, straight from the bottom of rank 5 into rank 4. It feels much stronger than my previous attempts, especially since I no longer feel like it absolutely needs to draw Hagatha the Witch in most matchups.

Also, I've been very happy with the decision to put in Harrison and one Ooze. Weapon destruction has been so good: destroying Spectral Cutlasses, Waggle Picks, Likkims, and Wrenchcaliburs is absolutely great and can make a big difference in those matches. Especially Waggle Picks, forcing those to bounce something the opponent didn't want bounced can be huge. I might even consider putting Harrison into my Warrior deck, even though I've already got two Weapons Projects that act as a form of weapon removal.


Bomb Warrior is giving me serious flashbacks to how utterly un-fun Dead Man's Hand Warrior was to play against. Except Bomb Warrior has both sustain AND aggression, so you can't just super-hyper-aggro it out of existence, nor can you outvalue or outlast it in the long game. And I never played 6 consecutive games on ladder against DMH Warrior.
Speaking as someone who's been on the receiving end, it's very possibly to aggro down Control Warrior. I've had several Murloc Shamans and a Zoolock do it to me already. Almost had a Silence Priest do it once, even.


Earth Shock on a horror isn't awful. It's not great but I could see the use there.
Unless you're up against someone who's playing Twilight Drakes or big buff spells, it's fairly weak. You really want the Horror's targeted spell to have more impact than that to really justify running a 7 mana 5/5 to get it.


I've gotten bopped a few times now by Malygos Hunter and it looks cool, but I know when I play it Jepetto will be sitting at the bottom of my deck and Maly will be my first draw every single game :smallsigh:
Yeah, Jepetto is sort of a neutral Luna's Pocket Galaxy that way. Sure, he could do crazy combos if you can hit the right things with him, but he's expensive and the things you want to hit are mostly big legendaries, so it's not really possible to build your entire strategy around him and expect it to work out consistently, just because there will be a fair percentage of games where you draw the combo minion before you get to play Jepetto. So glad that's the case, personally.

[Requizen]

Having a good bit of success with that Dragon variant of Control Shaman I posted last night - I've gone 6-0 with it so far, straight from the bottom of rank 5 into rank 4. It feels much stronger than my previous attempts, especially since I no longer feel like it absolutely needs to draw Hagatha the Witch in most matchups.

The neutral Dragon and Mech packages feel really good right now, solid job on making Tribes feel worthwhile by Blizzard. I haven't tried Dragons in control Shaman, I'll take a look, thanks!


Also, I've been very happy with the decision to put in Harrison and one Ooze. Weapon destruction has been so good: destroying Spectral Cutlasses, Waggle Picks, Likkims, and Wrenchcaliburs is absolutely great and can make a big difference in those matches.

Very this. There's enough weapon-focused or weapon-adjacent decks out there that having the removal feels paramount.



Unless you're up against someone who's playing Twilight Drakes or big buff spells, it's fairly weak. You really want the Horror's targeted spell to have more impact than that to really justify running a 7 mana 5/5 to get it.

Eh... "5 mana 5/5 Battlecry: Silence a minion and do X" actually feels pretty worth it to me. Like yeah, it's great when you get a huge swingy Horror, but value is value. There are lots of ongoing effects you might want to shut down (deathrattles, auras, buffed minions, etc) as well.

[Spore]

I came back from MTG to see what the Year of the Dragon has in store.

Is it just me or does the game feel balanced all of a sudden? Dare I say even interactive?

I havent had a 40 Turn Control Mirror, no inevitable combo waltzing my way. It is a combo of fun control decks, decent midrange and some aggro games.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Eh... "5 mana 5/5 Battlecry: Silence a minion and do X" actually feels pretty worth it to me. Like yeah, it's great when you get a huge swingy Horror, but value is value. There are lots of ongoing effects you might want to shut down (deathrattles, auras, buffed minions, etc) as well.
Overpaying 2.5 mana for that effect is a steep price, though. You're basically giving the other player a tempo edge to regain one later, when you could have just played a better 7-drop.

[Rynjin]

I came back from MTG to see what the Year of the Dragon has in store.

Is it just me or does the game feel balanced all of a sudden? Dare I say even interactive?

I havent had a 40 Turn Control Mirror, no inevitable combo waltzing my way. It is a combo of fun control decks, decent midrange and some aggro games.

I've made two dumb meme decks on a whim and haven't felt like I'm being utterly demolished by the opposition, which is a vast improvement over previous expansions.

BTW Spell Damage Hunter has potential for anyone who hasn't tried it. I dunno if ANYONE has, since I fervently avoid netedecking until about a month into the expansion, if even then. I don't even have Vereesa, but the deck feels interesting and very satisfying to play. There are a lot of "big brain plays" you can do that feel nice, like Rapid Firing your own Spellzerker for surprise lethal, and Yogg'Jin is super fun to play when you feel like you're behind and want to shout "CLOWN FIESTA TIME!" at your opponent.

[Requizen]

I came back from MTG to see what the Year of the Dragon has in store.

Is it just me or does the game feel balanced all of a sudden? Dare I say even interactive?

I havent had a 40 Turn Control Mirror, no inevitable combo waltzing my way. It is a combo of fun control decks, decent midrange and some aggro games.

From what I've seen, there are no guaranteed insta-win combos out there, until someone figures out a Mecha'thun deck that survives as well as the previous ones.

I've seen a lot of mixed decks online and I like it. Some crazy long game control decks (Warrior, Handlock[ish]), some hyper aggro gogogogo decks (Druid, Zoolock), some solid midrange decks (Tempo Mage, Rogue, Hunter). Bomb Warrior is the one I'm getting most tired of seeing but even that is not nearly as prevalent as Odd Mage/Odd Paladin/Even Rogue/etc from a week ago. Feels nice.

[Rynjin]

Also, more "science" I don't know if anyone has ever found out before, but Explosive Trap interacts REALLY WEIRDLY with Spell Damage. If you play Explosive Trap while Spell Damage is on board, it inherits the spell damage. So far so sensible.

HOWEVER, playing Explosive Trap and THEN a spell damage card will not buff the spell. This would imply that the damage of Explosive Trap is set when the Secret is cast, right? Nope. Playing a spell damage card, then playing Explosive Trap, and then losing Spell Damage WILL nerf the card back to its original 2 damage.

Consistency, thy name is Hearthstone.

[Anarion]

Hmm. I'm actually not enthused. The new stuff is kind of fun, but it's feeling like the decks are too linear to me and people are figuring out the format really fast. I'll be very curious if everyone is like "wow, the game feels so balanced and fun" in a week or two, or whether it grows stale quickly. I hope it doesn't, but I'm seeing some warning signs already.

[Rynjin]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "too linear"?

[Anarion]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "too linear"?

Too much similar mechanics. Treant druid plays a lot of treants and puts in every treant boosting card and token buffs. Togwaggle rogue puts in every lackey card and then some of the tried and true combo stuff that's in every rogue deck (like eviscerate and Van Cleef). Bomb druid puts in all the bomb and mech cards. Mech hunter practically builds itself if you just search all the mechs and deathrattles. I'm using the term the way that Mark Rosewater defines it. (http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/118631105978/what-is-a-linear-mechanic)

[Lord Raziere]

Too much similar mechanics. Treant druid plays a lot of treants and puts in every treant boosting card and token buffs. Togwaggle rogue puts in every lackey card and then some of the tried and true combo stuff that's in every rogue deck (like eviscerate and Van Cleef). Bomb druid puts in all the bomb and mech cards. Mech hunter practically builds itself if you just search all the mechs and deathrattles. I'm using the term the way that Mark Rosewater defines it. (http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/118631105978/what-is-a-linear-mechanic)

sounds like a good meta for board clears, ooze, and such. I've went up against token druid and they just kept making more tokens endlessly. not sure exactly how to counter bomb warrior other than ooze their wrenchcalibur and kill them before they can get too ridiculous though, some healing perhaps.

but yeah, I think board clears are going to be important. there are a lot of little minions coming out of nowhere.

so board clear and healing, which class is good at both? probably paladin and priest.

[Zevox]

The neutral Dragon and Mech packages feel really good right now, solid job on making Tribes feel worthwhile by Blizzard.
I know, right? It's almost like those Year of the Raven expansions had some pretty good cards that just got run out of the meta by crazy stuff from the Year of the Mammoth.


Eh... "5 mana 5/5 Battlecry: Silence a minion and do X" actually feels pretty worth it to me. Like yeah, it's great when you get a huge swingy Horror, but value is value. There are lots of ongoing effects you might want to shut down (deathrattles, auras, buffed minions, etc) as well.
The issue is that you're running Swamp Queen Hagatha, a 7 mana 5/5, to get that Horror. I expect more to justify that than Kabal Songstealer with an extra upside.


I came back from MTG to see what the Year of the Dragon has in store.

Is it just me or does the game feel balanced all of a sudden? Dare I say even interactive?

I havent had a 40 Turn Control Mirror, no inevitable combo waltzing my way. It is a combo of fun control decks, decent midrange and some aggro games.
Indeed - though I have had long control mirrors, but that's totally fine by me since I love those. So far, I'm pretty darn happy with the effects of the rotation and new set. As long as nobody comes up with some crazy combo deck that starts running all the fun Control decks out of the meta as happened basically all of last year, I'm thinking we'll be in good shape.


so board clear and healing, which class is good at both? probably paladin and priest.
Warrior. Brawl and Warpath give it two strong board wipe spells, and armor gain is even better than healing since you can do it even while at full health.

Also Shaman to an extent. Lightning Storm and Hagatha's Scheme are good board wipe, and they picked up Witch's Brew and Walking Fountain for healing.

Paladin has the problem that the Equality nerf seriously hurt their board wipe potential (and really, Flash of Light is their only good healing, aside from neutrals like Zilliax), and Priest only has Mass Hysteria for good board wipe. Yes, they have Holy Nova too, but that's kind of mediocre and they only tend to run it if they absolutely have to.

Most of the others have one or the other. Mage and Warlock have great board wipe, not so much healing potential. Druid can still gain some good armor with Ferocious Howl and got Crystal Power for good healing, but their board wipe is weak. Rogue and Hunter basically have neither, aside from edge cases like Unleash + Hunter's Mark or Spectral Cutlass (or stolen cards from other classes in Rogue's case, of course).

[Gluteus_Maximus]

When Never Surrender causes your opponent to concede: :smallredface:

When you go infinite with Scargil and Underbelly Angler: :smallbiggrin:

When Whizbang gives you the divine spirit priest deck and you win because your opponent killed your Shadequill when you had Auchenai up: :smallcool:

When you manage to win a game with the Whizbang big warrior deck: :smallconfused:

Having super lots of fun with the Whizbang decks! Haven't spent any money on the expac so far but it looks super cool and looking forward to building a nice lackey rogue or token druid!

[Lord Raziere]

I tried a warrior deck I've titled "Fun Police" and got 4-0 on the ladder, up to rank 20, before being beaten by a hunter, so its 4-1 now

this is because the deck is designed to shut down anything I come across. fittingly enough, the second game was against someone named themselves "Memes" and playing some stupid rogue thing where they immediately play myra and I was having none of it. I didn't name it fun police for nothing and I have to confiscate their memes.

so I think I'm onto something here, because its all about outlasting so many decks that same to have great value but run out of steam quickly. hunter was just really good at dealing damage a lot to wear me down before I can outlast them.

[Rynjin]

I tried a warrior deck I've titled "Fun Police" and got 4-0 on the ladder, up to rank 20, before being beaten by a hunter, so its 4-1 now

this is because the deck is designed to shut down anything I come across. fittingly enough, the second game was against someone named themselves "Memes" and playing some stupid rogue thing where they immediately play myra and I was having none of it. I didn't name it fun police for nothing and I have to confiscate their memes.

so I think I'm onto something here, because its all about outlasting so many decks that same to have great value but run out of steam quickly. hunter was just really good at dealing damage a lot to wear me down before I can outlast them.

I'm curious how it would stack up against my Duel Paladin. It has a pretty good track record against slow decks.

[otakuryoga]

sigh..if not for bad luck i wouldnt have any

new arena run..priest..first card is 5/6 drakkonid..never saw a single dragon in next 29 picks

[Seerow]

sigh..if not for bad luck i wouldnt have any

new arena run..priest..first card is 5/6 drakkonid..never saw a single dragon in next 29 picks

That is disappointing, but a 5 mana 5/6 in Arena is still just pretty decent. The dragon synergy is nice, but it's still a good card if you don't have it. That's part of the card's power.

[zlefin]

about to get my final loss in the tavern brawl run; deck's going 0-3, as I expected, I knew it was a bad deck when I made it, just wanted to try it out. it was a life gain heavy mid-range paladin build. the biggest weakness was that the overall card quality just wasn't high enough; it also didn't have enough self-replacing cards to really hold up to a long term control matchup.

in other play, I've been enjoying a rogue deck, there's lots of high quality self-replacing cards in rogue; can maintain having strong plays basically forever. It's one of those decks which often ends up with more cards than it can afford to play, as it can refill so easily. Really liking the 4/3 discover a spell guy.

[Zevox]

Wow, today's special quest gives us 4 packs - one of each expansion currently in standard - for playing 100 cards. That is nice. Probably the capstone of the new set launch quests.

I drafted the free arena I got from buying the $10 launch bundle, went Priest because I had a Priest quest. Drafted a deck with four Hench-Clan Shadequills, two Power Word: Shields, and a Faceless Rager. Yeah, that's going pretty well, 4-1 so far, only loss was to another Priest who had drafted more late-game than me, and against whom I got a slow start. Hopefully that'll turn a tidy little profit for me.

[Rynjin]

So, if anyone wanted a hyper turbo aggro Hunter deck with a weird twist, I've got a spicy one for you.


# Class: Hunter
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (1) Arcane Shot
# 2x (1) Rapid Fire
# 2x (1) Saronite Taskmaster
# 2x (1) Springpaw
# 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
# 2x (2) Bomb Toss
# 2x (2) Explosive Trap
# 2x (2) Spellzerker
# 2x (3) Arcane Watcher
# 2x (3) Kill Command
# 1x (4) Ancient Mage
# 2x (4) Marked Shot
# 2x (4) Spellbreaker
# 2x (5) Baited Arrow
# 2x (6) Unleash the Beast
# 1x (9) King Krush
# 1x (10) Zul'jin
#
AAECAR8E7QWTB/gIm4UDDagCyQTyBe0G4PUCoIUDo4cDoooD7IwD5pYD7JYD+ZYD rpsDAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone


I've played around 20 games of this over the last couple of days and lost 3 of them. One was to an INSANE high roll Lucentbark deck (he started with Lucentbark and TWO Faceless Manipulators in hand, and then top decked all his healing to keep bringing all three back), which made me salty enough to start running two Spellbreakers instead of just one. One was to a Midrange Hunter which I miscounted lethal on (I thought one of my Rapid Fires was a Twinspell but it was not; I could have won by clearing his board instead but thought I had 10 available damage when I only had 8). The third (well, first, these are out of order) was to Murloc Shaman who after I weathered his first Bloodlust fueled full board was within lethal range for me at the end of my turn...before an Ethereal lackey pulled him a SECOND Bloodlust.

All three losses were pretty close games in other words. I said Spell Damage Hunter has potential and I meant it; I think this deck is legit.

Deck strategy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jenlSf2E8o&list=WL&t=

Only partly a joke. You can pull some big brain lethal plays with this deck and if hey're below 15 you can pretty consistently over the top them late game.

Dream draw: Saronite Taskmaster into Spellzerker into Arcane Watcher into Ancient Mage plus some Burn spells. You can pull 2 Mana deal 8 damage spells out of your ass like they're candy and contest board at the same time, it's disgusting.

[Gandariel]

Feel like there's way too few spell damage cards for a spell damage deck.. I mean arcane watchers? Do you ever activate them?

And also why Zuljin, with so much targeted stuff? Doesn't it backfire often?

[Rynjin]

Feel like there's way too few spell damage cards for a spell damage deck.. I mean arcane watchers? Do you ever activate them?

Almost every game, yeah. In a pinch Spellbreaker works on them too. They also effectively act as Taunt minions, since leaving them up is dangerous for most opponents. I thought about removing them for more generally useful cards but every time I do I drop Thalnos on board for surprise 5-10 extra damage or something.

Also you don't need a whole ton of spell damage cards for burn purposes in general. Spellzerker gives +2, Ancient Mage gives +2. I tried variants with other spell damage cards (even Malygos) but they're really just overkill and dilute your draws. Boosting your Rapid Fires to 3 and Arcane Shots to 4 is plenty enough burst. Kill Command is already fine at 5 damage, the extra 2 is just gravy most times.

It's not an OTK deck, it gets by with long term sustained aggro that can go face or clear however the situation dictates.


And also why Zuljin, with so much targeted stuff? Doesn't it backfire often?

You don't play it every game. You play it either when you're way ahead and you can take some Baited Arrows to the face for the free 5/5s and maybe lethal or you're way behind and feel like Yogging your opponent for potential RNG Fiesta wins.

[Joran]

I haven't figured out what I want to play nor which cards to craft, so I did the best next thing...

Craft Golden Whizbang!

He's been fun and I went 7-3 in the Brawl with him and everything is so shiny...

[Anarion]

I haven't figured out what I want to play nor which cards to craft, so I did the best next thing...

Craft Golden Whizbang!

He's been fun and I went 7-3 in the Brawl with him and everything is so shiny...

Blizz default decks are shockingly good thus far. I had the hunter quest and no new decks and just made the beast one because it showed me having all 30 cards for it. Immediately went 2-0.

[Requizen]

Can I say how happy I am Handlock is back at least for now? It was the deck that first wowed me in the first year of Hearthstone, and while the new version is obviously different, the idea of a control deck that leans on that Hero Power and big bodies is so interesting to me. Having a deck with Jaraxxus again is amazing, and Rafaam is such a solid addition.

[Zevox]

Can I say how happy I am Handlock is back at least for now? It was the deck that first wowed me in the first year of Hearthstone, and while the new version is obviously different, the idea of a control deck that leans on that Hero Power and big bodies is so interesting to me. Having a deck with Jaraxxus again is amazing, and Rafaam is such a solid addition.
It is? *spots Trump's video from today, which is actually about exactly this*

Well, hot damn. I will have to make that. Already have everything but Rafaam, and honestly I'm skeptical as hell about him anyway, so replacing him works for me. And being able to actually play Jaraxxus again sounds fantastic, I've always loved him, but I've thought that the 15 health thing was just going to be too big of an issue for him to ever see standard play again.

[Anarion]

Why are you all so happy about games taking a half hour each? *Woe and despair*

Edit: not to be totally negative, I was completely wrong in my Khadgar prediction and I really love the Mage summoning deck. The 10 mana combo is really great.

[Zevox]

Why are you all so happy about games taking a half hour each? *Woe and despair*
Eh, even the heavy control mirrors don't tend to go beyond 20 minutes. And I like those - I'd rather play three matches like that, where the game goes back and forth for a long time and it feels like a lot of little decisions over time add up the eventual result, than basically any other kind of match in any quantity for that same amount of time. Certainly they're exponentially more fun than any match where someone just gets a crazy opening and the opponent can barely do anything about it before they die on turn 5-6, or a match where one side just draws into an instant-win combo that the opponent can't interact with except by killing them before that happens.

[heronbpv]

@Anarion:
The only solid complain I saw was in a Firebat video, and it bears mention: The problem right now is not so much the ladder, but the current competitive format, in which everybody will play Control Warrior with Elysianna, and then the match will take up to 40 minutes, particularly when you include Baleful Banker to counter the mirror match, and be decided purely by the Elysianna effect. In summary, a clown fiesta instead of an actual display of pure skill.

[Anarion]

Eh, even the heavy control mirrors don't tend to go beyond 20 minutes. And I like those - I'd rather play three matches like that, where the game goes back and forth for a long time and it feels like a lot of little decisions over time add up the eventual result, than basically any other kind of match in any quantity for that same amount of time. Certainly they're exponentially more fun than any match where someone just gets a crazy opening and the opponent can barely do anything about it before they die on turn 5-6, or a match where one side just draws into an instant-win combo that the opponent can't interact with except by killing them before that happens.

Have you run into the Archivist Elysiana mirrors? Where, like, the entire game is decided by who gets a better set of 10 pulls at the end because the two decks are so closely mirrored that it's impossible to win before that? I don't mean to say that every game is bad, but warrior v. warrior can sometimes go super long. Some people are even running baleful banker and the game can run all the way to the 45 turn automatic draw.

edit: Heron posted the thing I wanted to say while I had the post window open. Well done.

[Zevox]

Have you run into the Archivist Elysiana mirrors? Where, like, the entire game is decided by who gets a better set of 10 pulls at the end because the two decks are so closely mirrored that it's impossible to win before that? I don't mean to say that every game is bad, but warrior v. warrior can sometimes go super long. Some people are even running baleful banker and the game can run all the way to the 45 turn automatic draw.

edit: Heron posted the thing I wanted to say while I had the post window open. Well done.
I have not, but sounds fun. Having an mini-arena draft worth of extra cards at the end of the match to delay fatigue is not something that I mind at all. I am in fact running Elysiana in my Warrior decks right now (and using her in place of Rafaam in the Handlock I just put together), I just haven't actually had the occasion to play her.

A short way to summarize my feelings on Control mirrors, no matter how long they run: they actually are legitimately fun and interactive. I can play one of those and be more satisfied than I would be by any number of other matches, even if I lose.

[Lord Raziere]

and control decks going way too long is probably why people design combo decks to counter them in the first place.

personally the three most troublesome decks for me have been Priest, Bomb warrior and Hunter so far. it just feels like Hunter aggro game is too strong while Priest and bomb Warrior are better at the control thing. hopefully as I play more I can get a better handle on things...

[Rynjin]

I have not, but sounds fun. Having an mini-arena draft worth of extra cards at the end of the match to delay fatigue is not something that I mind at all. I am in fact running Elysiana in my Warrior decks right now (and using her in place of Rafaam in the Handlock I just put together), I just haven't actually had the occasion to play her.

A short way to summarize my feelings on Control mirrors, no matter how long they run: they actually are legitimately fun and interactive. I can play one of those and be more satisfied than I would be by any number of other matches, even if I lose.


No match of any non-4X game should run longer than 30 minutes.

[Resileaf]

No match of any non-4X game should run longer than 30 minutes.

Eeeh, it depends. It depends on how fun it is to spend in those games, no matter how long you spend in it.
For example, DotA 2. Matches can last fourty-five minutes to an hour. But it's not fun to lose, because you'll be losing for half an hour before the game ends, you can't understand your teammates because half of them are russians, and there's just one guy on the enemy team who is just ripping through everything and you're just waiting for it to finally be over (I haven't had many good experiences in DotA 2).

Hearthstone is not necessarily that bad. When it's back and forth, when you're trying to outsmart your opponent, guessing what he'll do each time while trying to keep your counters for the moment you will really need it, knowing that he has certain counters ready for you... That's pretty thrilling.
Not that every Hearthstone game is going to be thrilling, of course. "So this priest resurrected an entire board of huge minions for the fifth time, he can do it three more" is not particularly fun, for example.

Wild is terrible right now, you guys.

[Rynjin]

Eeeh, it depends. It depends on how fun it is to spend in those games, no matter how long you spend in it.
For example, DotA 2. Matches can last fourty-five minutes to an hour. But it's not fun to lose, because you'll be losing for half an hour before the game ends, you can't understand your teammates because half of them are russians, and there's just one guy on the enemy team who is just ripping through everything and you're just waiting for it to finally be over (I haven't had many good experiences in DotA 2).

I can't stand playing DotA or LoL for exactly those reasons. It's way worse than a hypothetical 45 minute Hearthstone game because at least I can get up to take a piss or grab a sip of water while playing that or damn near any other game in existence, but MOBAs require your complete and undivided attention for the entire game's run time unless you die (in which case you now have to deal with your whiny manchild teammates berating you for "feeding") and have time to maybe literally sprint across the house to the bathroom.

I play HotS with friends, partly because it's the only MOBA I've played that consistently has 15-20 minute matches, and longer ones are a rarity.


Hearthstone is not necessarily that bad. When it's back and forth, when you're trying to outsmart your opponent, guessing what he'll do each time while trying to keep your counters for the moment you will really need it, knowing that he has certain counters ready for you... That's pretty thrilling.
Not that every Hearthstone game is going to be thrilling, of course. "So this priest resurrected an entire board of huge minions for the fifth time, he can do it three more" is not particularly fun, for example.

Wild is terrible right now, you guys.

Eh. I've always been bored by the Control mirror. Chances are your opponent is running, card for card, the same deck as you so there's no "Aha, well played" moments, you're literally just playing cards to bait out the exact answers you know for a certainty they have so eventually whoever drew the most efficient answers in the right order inevitably wins in fatigue.

[Spore]

As I said either HS has to switch its mechanics up to make control mirrors interesting (and ffs I don't mean RNG effects) or I will just play superior card games where control games are actually interesting. This game is not designed for high level pro play but for casual gamers in which high level pro play is possible.

All while providing card effects and decks that can be featured on YT compilations.

[Zevox]

No match of any non-4X game should run longer than 30 minutes.
I haven't had a match run even that long, much less longer, but I also see no reason why it would bother me if it did. I'd play fewer matches that day as a result, but that doesn't bother me at all, if I'm having more fun in the matches I do play, which I most likely would be.


Eh. I've always been bored by the Control mirror. Chances are your opponent is running, card for card, the same deck as you so there's no "Aha, well played" moments, you're literally just playing cards to bait out the exact answers you know for a certainty they have so eventually whoever drew the most efficient answers in the right order inevitably wins in fatigue.
Knowing what the opponent's deck probably contains is just normal on standard ladder, at least after the first couple of weeks into an expansion. And of course what you draw when will impact things (trust me, I've had Warrior mirrors where my opponent has Mad Genius Boom on 7 and I don't draw mine until much later, it's always sad...) - but your ability to ration out what you need to use when and what needs to be saved for later can make or break control mirrors just as easily as any draw. Maximizing the value you get out of various things can as well: make sure you get 3 cards out of both Omega Assemblies, never pass up the stronger Boom hero powers unless you have no choice, knowing which mechs to grab from Delivery Drones, save your 9+ mana cards for turns when you're stuck with the 1 damage AoE or 3 damage hero power and have no good use for them, don't use Shield Slams on on mid-size minions unless forced to, etc. All of those little things make such matches far more fun to me than any other. Resource management and value over the long term is what it's all about, and that's my favorite single part of the game, personally.

Plus you can get weird moments that don't happen in other matchups, like when you deliberately give your opponent a triple-draw Acolyte of Pain, even though it won't burn anything, because it will accelerate his fatigue. Always fun when a move like that influences a win in the long haul. (Yes, I know Acolytes are not typically used right now, just an example from past matches I've liked.)

[Gandariel]

I really don't see why you're piling on Zevox for liking control mirrors.

Personally I don't like them either, but that's why i dont play Control Warrior.
There are a lot of playstyles that this game supports, and everyone's welcome to use whatever they like.
The only way this would be a valid complaint is if the meta was totally dominated by control decks, and reddit tells me the best decks right now are zoo and tempo rogue.

Plus, when two control decks play each other, it's a win-win: they have a great experience, and everyone else enjoys two less control decks in the queue for 40 minutes :)

Lastly, since we were discussing earlier the use of Echo, here is Mike Donais' opinion.

https://youtu.be/ZX4X7PrqYDc
Time is 34:28

[Requizen]

That's why I like Handlock - it's not particularly hard control past like turn 6, especially if you rip Rafaam early or can get out Jaraxxus on curve. Against Control decks it just becomes "how many 6/6s and Legendaries can you realistically deal with?"

[heronbpv]

@Gandariel:
It's not that Control mirrors are a problem, but the fact that a single card RNG effect is the de-facto decider for the winner, in Warrior vs Warrior mirror in particular. No wonder people are teching Baleful Banker in the competitive format, as that single act decides the winner. There's also Hecklebot, which forces the game to be decided by who can pull the opponent's Elysiana or Baleful Banker. This doesn't make for very compelling competition, just a RNG clownfiesta.
On ladder though, it's just annoying. If Elysiana's effect where somehow more predictable (as in, the discover has a more particular rule, e.g. first choice is a 5 mana minion, second is a 5+ mana spell, etc.), and restricted to only once per game, we could at least take out this exaggerated RNG factor from the outcome of a game. But alas, this may also end, if we find a better control deck (unlikely), or if a counter combo deck arises (probably Malygos Druid).

And I say these, as a CW player, just like Zevox, that wants the game to be decided by my decisions overall. RNG is ok, but not when it's this decisive.

[Rodin]

Lastly, since we were discussing earlier the use of Echo, here is Mike Donais' opinion.

https://youtu.be/ZX4X7PrqYDc
Time is 34:28

I mean, that's the reason they've been giving since the card was previewed. It still doesn't make sense when they release this card simultaneously with a card that gives Mega-Windfury, which is a far more obscure mechanic than Echo and has only been on one card in the past ever (two if you count the single-player weapon that had it). And that card was never played except in meme decks even when it was around!

It's just a really odd decision.

---

I think I've fallen in love with Big/Muck Shaman. Pressuring a Control Warrior from turn 5 thanks to a Farsight + Eureka + Big Bad Archmage + Ancestral Spirit? Priceless. Seems weakest against the token decks, because unless you draw your AoEs early (and particularly Hagatha's Scheme) you just get overrun before you can get your healing engine going.

[Requizen]

@Gandariel:
It's not that Control mirrors are a problem, but the fact that a single card RNG effect is the de-facto decider for the winner, in Warrior vs Warrior mirror in particular. No wonder people are teching Baleful Banker in the competitive format, as that single act decides the winner. There's also Hecklebot, which forces the game to be decided by who can pull the opponent's Elysiana or Baleful Banker. This doesn't make for very compelling competition, just a RNG clownfiesta.
On ladder though, it's just annoying. If Elysiana's effect where somehow more predictable (as in, the discover has a more particular rule, e.g. first choice is a 5 mana minion, second is a 5+ mana spell, etc.), and restricted to only once per game, we could at least take out this exaggerated RNG factor from the outcome of a game. But alas, this may also end, if we find a better control deck (unlikely), or if a counter combo deck arises (probably Malygos Druid).

And I say these, as a CW player, just like Zevox, that wants the game to be decided by my decisions overall. RNG is ok, but not when it's this decisive.

And remember, if you play Control Shaman you can get even another Elysiana effect off Shudderwock!

[Resileaf]

That reminds me, I got a Shudderwock from a pinata as bomb warrior against a deathrattle mech hunter this morning.

[Rynjin]

With every passing day I get saltier and saltier that Equality is 4 mana now.

[Zevox]

With every passing day I get saltier and saltier that Equality is 4 mana now.
Believe me, I feel that. Right up there with Firey War Axe on the list of nerfs I hate the most.

[AmberVael]

@Gandariel:
It's not that Control mirrors are a problem, but the fact that a single card RNG effect is the de-facto decider for the winner, in Warrior vs Warrior mirror in particular. No wonder people are teching Baleful Banker in the competitive format, as that single act decides the winner. There's also Hecklebot, which forces the game to be decided by who can pull the opponent's Elysiana or Baleful Banker. This doesn't make for very compelling competition, just a RNG clownfiesta.
On ladder though, it's just annoying. If Elysiana's effect where somehow more predictable (as in, the discover has a more particular rule, e.g. first choice is a 5 mana minion, second is a 5+ mana spell, etc.), and restricted to only once per game, we could at least take out this exaggerated RNG factor from the outcome of a game. But alas, this may also end, if we find a better control deck (unlikely), or if a counter combo deck arises (probably Malygos Druid).

And I say these, as a CW player, just like Zevox, that wants the game to be decided by my decisions overall. RNG is ok, but not when it's this decisive.

As a control warrior player who just won a mirror match after I had my Elysiana pulled by Hecklebot... nah. There's more going on in these games than just RNG.

[Psyren]

Plus, when two control decks play each other, it's a win-win: they have a great experience, and everyone else enjoys two less control decks in the queue for 40 minutes :)

Too true :smallbiggrin:

Not to mention, when they show up thinking I'm a control deck and I instead win with a big combo, the reaction is quite satisfying :smallamused:

[Requizen]

How to give someone the feel-bads:

Warrior mirror - me Bomb, him Control.

He discovers Piloted Reaper and plays it (Deathrattle, summon a 2 cost or lower minion from your hand).

I kill it, pulls out his Brewmaster, sorry enemy Elysiana!

Game goes late, he plays Elysiana and defuses all my bombs.

I discover 2 more Clockwork Goblins.

I play my Elysiana (not running Brewmaster myself), discover Elysiana.

We both go to fatigue, I play a second Elysiana with a third in my hand.

Opponent quits.


Anyone have a good Rez Priest deck? I really want to try it now that it's not complete insanity like it was last month and crafted Catrena Muerte, but my setup seems mediocre.

[heronbpv]

@Requizen:
You could try this one, taken from the most recent Data Reaper Report. It's actually a variation on the pre-expansion Wall Priest. I do recommend you read their report on the meta, as it's very insightful. Here is the deck code:

### Catrina Wall Priest
# Class: Priest
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (0) Forbidden Words
# 2x (1) Inner Fire
# 2x (1) Northshire Cleric
# 2x (1) Power Word: Shield
# 2x (2) Divine Hymn
# 2x (2) Divine Spirit
# 1x (3) Shadow Word: Death
# 1x (4) Archmage Vargoth
# 2x (4) Hench-Clan Shadequill
# 2x (5) Convincing Infiltrator
# 2x (5) Mass Hysteria
# 2x (5) Witchwood Grizzly
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 2x (6) Damaged Stegotron
# 1x (8) Catrina Muerte
# 2x (8) Mosh'Ogg Enforcer
# 2x (9) Mass Resurrection
#
AAECAa0GBNMKoIAD1pkDk5sDDfgC5QTRCvIM8vECvfMC+/4Cl4cD2IkDgpQDg5QDmJsDmZsDAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
# https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/deck-library/priest-decks/wall-priest/catrina-wall-priest/

[Zevox]

Woohoo, opened two packs today, and got a legendary in each of them! Heistbaron Toggwaggle and Kalecgos. :smallbiggrin:

[Hamste]

Woo! I finally made it to legend. In the end, I played 90 games in a little over a single day with my control warrior and ended with a 70% win rate. I do suggest heckle bot over the saboteur with the current meta. It is only worse against hunter or combo decks (Of which I met 2, both of the times it failed, once from not being drawn and once from me not recognizing a warrior deck as a c'thun deck and not just regular control until it was too late.)


### Custom Warrior3
# Class: Warrior
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (1) Eternium Rover
# 2x (1) Omega Assembly
# 2x (1) Shield Slam
# 2x (1) Town Crier
# 1x (2) Dragon Roar
# 2x (2) Warpath
# 2x (2) Weapons Project
# 1x (2) Youthful Brewmaster
# 2x (3) Shield Block
# 1x (4) Militia Commander
# 2x (4) Omega Devastator
# 2x (5) Brawl
# 1x (5) Darius Crowley
# 2x (5) Dyn-o-matic
# 1x (5) Supercollider
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 1x (6) Unseen Saboteur
# 1x (7) Baron Geddon
# 1x (7) Dr. Boom, Mad Genius
# 1x (8) Archivist Elysiana
#
AAECAQcK0AKfA83vAtH1ApL4Ao77AqCAA6qLA9KYA4adAwpLog T/B53wApvzAvT1AoP7Ap77ArP8ApKfAwA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

[The Glyphstone]

I was so sad in the Brawl I just completed - my Bloom Bot rolled Mimiron's Head with a board full of Boom Bots, and for the first time ever I got to see V-07-TR-0N summoned. My opponent immediately conceded.:smallfrown:

[zlefin]

That's a common problem in hearthstone; many rare but cool comboes never get to be seen, beacuse the opponent concedes first. Like if you could collect all 4 of death knight uther's guys.

[Anarion]

That's a common problem in hearthstone; many rare but cool comboes never get to be seen, beacuse the opponent concedes first. Like if you could collect all 4 of death knight uther's guys.

That used to happen all the time. If people were conceding against control paladin last expansion, it was usually a mistake. Not every deck ran the same amount of bounce and duplicate (some people ran multiple brewmasters, some just Zola and the one panda for example) so there were a number of games where your opponent might or might not be able to win and you could win on the next turn if you just sat there and waited out their bluff or watched them win. Conceding once all 4 hit the board is a moot point, since the animation happens anyway.

[The Glyphstone]

I didnt even know Voltron had a special summon animation till now.

[Rynjin]

My abomination of a Paladin deck keeps getting better as we get deeper into the expansion, which is heartening to me. Things have settled a bit so I can run pure Control for 5-7 turns and not get immediately hyper-nuked out of existence as people tweak their decks to be a bit slower so they don't auto-lose to Control Warrior. Which is kind of a nightmare right now.

I haven't even drawn my Duels until the last few cards in my deck the last couple of games I've won with it and it's been doing all right. I just now need to get a second copy of Batterhead and Baron Geddon and I can replace the Burly Rockfists, which are now sort of my low roll cards (since they're the only ones that are difficult to effectively play from hand).

Current Decklist:

### Biggus Dickus
# Class: Paladin
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (2) Lightforged Blessing
# 2x (3) Time Out!
# 1x (4) Archmage Vargoth
# 2x (4) Consecration
# 2x (4) Equality
# 2x (5) Duel!
# 2x (5) Shrink Ray
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 1x (6) Avenging Wrath
# 1x (7) A New Challenger...
# 2x (7) Amani War Bear
# 2x (7) Rabble Bouncer
# 1x (7) Tunnel Blaster
# 1x (8) Batterhead
# 1x (8) Tirion Fordring
# 2x (9) Burly Shovelfist
# 1x (9) Malygos
# 1x (9) Oondasta
# 1x (9) Ysera
# 1x (10) Big Bad Archmage
# 1x (25) Shirvallah, the Tiger
#
AAECAZ8FDLQD+gaWCaIJoIADvYYD44YDm4oDxJkD1pkDgaADg6 ADCdwD9AWE/ALPhgPbiQPYjAOKmgOGnAOgngMA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone


Absolutely crushes Token Druid, and has a pretty good track record against all Hunters, Big Shaman, and Rogue IF I draw my Duels. Usually loses to Control Warrior from small sample size since A.) they have SO MUCH removal and B.) I'm cursed to draw Duel as my last two card draws and so can NEVER hit their Elysiana.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Whenever my warrior mirror matches come down to the elysiana luck duel, my opponents always get bomb generators and Omega Assemblies which they then get Zilliax out of both, while I get stormpike commando and deathwing

[Seerow]

I have yet to run a deck that includes Elysiana. But I really don't want to do the control warrior grind. Are there any other classes doing well with the fatigue gameplan? I feel like Shaman and Priest are the best candidates but haven't seen much of either.

[Fleeing Coward]

One thing I didn't know abour Voltron until last brawl was that it is actually an entire new minion so freezing everything does nothing.

I've been messing around with Khadgar Dragon Mage lately just for fun. Has some absolutely horrible matchups against the aggro decks but having close to an auto win against most Control Warrior makes it worth it :smallamused:

[heronbpv]

I have yet to run a deck that includes Elysiana. But I really don't want to do the control warrior grind. Are there any other classes doing well with the fatigue gameplan? I feel like Shaman and Priest are the best candidates but haven't seen much of either.

And you are right, at least about Shaman. One advantage they have over Warrior, is that their second Elysiana comes from Shudderwock and not from a bouncing effect, so it's one more useful card slot for the deck.

On the other hand, they have a weaker control shell.

[Requizen]

And you are right, at least about Shaman. One advantage they have over Warrior, is that their second Elysiana comes from Shudderwock and not from a bouncing effect, so it's one more useful card slot for the deck.

On the other hand, they have a weaker control shell.

It's a tad weaker, but not by much. Scheme, Hagatha Hero, and Lightning Storm give solid AoE, while Walking Fountain is pseudo AoE and Hagatha (Legendary) can discover AoE a good portion of the time. Hex is a better hard removal than anything Warrior has since it also bypasses Deathrattles, doesn't require Armor or Damage, and can mess up rez pools as well. And Witch's Brew is a great healing tool that can create massive swing turns.

They play in different ways, but I don't think it's weaker at all.

[heronbpv]

Although I do agree with some of your assessments, @Requizen, regarding the individual tools Shaman has, the reality is that, when put against the current field, Shaman's control shell is just being crushed, while Warrior can still thrive, despite being targeted by the meta (e.g. Hecklebot vs Elysiana Control Warrior). So I do think, objectively, it's correct to say that it's weaker to Warrior's.

Also, while Control Shaman has a marginal presence in the current meta, for now at least, Control Warrior is, once again, disrupting it. For example, the very fact that we are discussing using Elysiana as a tech option in a control deck, is because it got popularized by a Control Warrior variation, so much so that now having some form of bouncing it is pretty much mandatory in said decks, else you lose the mirror. Which also helps illustrate another point: right now, the only really effective Control decks in the meta are variations of Control Warrior, and they're mostly concerned against the mirror when it comes to Control vs Control.

Not that the meta is set in stone, yet, but the reality for now is pretty much that Control Warrior is the better of the two. At least, in regards to the ladder meta.

[Rodin]

At 9-1, I think I can definitely say that Warlock is crazy in Arena right now. Voidcaller is just SUCH a bonkers card, and Warlock also gets one of the better Lackey generators to back it up. They've nabbed a powerful board clear with Felfire Potion, and my one loss was to a Zoolock running a Darkshire Councilman + Lackey package that very quickly ran my more controlling deck over.

Oh, and the Old Gods are available in Arena at the moment, meaning that you can have N'Zoth generate a full board of Voidcallers after you've fought them to a standstill. I think C'thun and his related cards are still banned though.

[The Glyphstone]

This is a boring and unpleasant Brawl for me, because all of the champion decks are Control or Combo oriented, my two least favorite types of decks to run.

[Geno9999]

This is a boring and unpleasant Brawl for me, because all of the champion decks are Control or Combo oriented, my two least favorite types of decks to run.

Eh, there's an Midrange Hunter with Undertaker package and Mana Wyrm Tempo Mage. That being said, I've also seen at least 2 variations of Tempo/Miracle Rogue as well so... yeah, I'd rather at least pick a class and get a deck from that.

Also, I have conflicted feelings about seeing unnerfed Blade Flurry if I want to see it with Kingsbane or not.

[Spore]

Just when I thought we are safe from either extremely basic decks that don't interact like Token Druids nor insanely boring decks that take 40+ turns like control warrior, yet here we are again.

[Joran]

Just when I thought we are safe from either extremely basic decks that don't interact like Token Druids nor insanely boring decks that take 40+ turns like control warrior, yet here we are again.

What do you mean by "interactive"? I think of Interactivity in Hearthstone as "can disrupt my enemy's game plan with counterplay". So Token Druid would be interactive, you can remove their board and they can't burst you from hand with any empty board. Aggro/Midrange is usually interactive; they need to stick minions over multiple turns to kill you and you can interact with removal, healing, minion combat/taunt. Token Druids can be frustrating because if they stick one board for one turn, they can burst you for stupid damage, but you get at least a chance to stop their gameplan.

"Non-interactive" would be decks that are usually described as "solitaire", but are generally combo decks. Things like Mecha'thun Druid/Warlock or Exodia Mage, where their deck is mostly card draw and all they care is about surviving long enough to draw their entire combo and then they win.

And I agree, I hate Control Warrior when it's good and it's really good right now.


This is a boring and unpleasant Brawl for me, because all of the champion decks are Control or Combo oriented, my two least favorite types of decks to run.

Love this brawl. It's good to see the unnerfed cards and historical decks. I remember them and remember how to play them, so it's a nice reminder of past Hearthstone.


I have yet to run a deck that includes Elysiana. But I really don't want to do the control warrior grind. Are there any other classes doing well with the fatigue gameplan? I feel like Shaman and Priest are the best candidates but haven't seen much of either.

One of the interesting decks from the Worlds competition is Killinallday's Nomi Priest. It runs the Miracle package (Auctioneer, Pyro, Acolyte, Northshire and a bunch of 0 cost spells) to draw through the deck by turn 9-10 and then drop Nomi three times (Nomi + Seance) to win. It's not an Elysiana deck, but it does make you go to Fatigue ;)

[Requizen]

The outrage around Token Druid is so hilarious to me. For more than a year, every time it was mentioned it was like "Token Druid sucks, Blizzard please it needs more support because it's mid-tier at best" and now that it has support it's just nothing but "OMG BLIZZARD THIS IS SO BROKEN WHY DID YOU SUPPORT THIS ARCHETYPE?"

On a similar vein, since Token Druid runs both Blessing of the Ancients and The Forest's Aid, it's interesting to see Twinspell be a good effect. So often the Keyword for an expansion is pretty bad or forgettable - how many things with Overkill are actually worth talking about? Or Inspire? There were a couple Recruit cards that were worthwhile but not many. Twinspell is actually super good, and I honestly hope it sticks around.

[Boci]

Was the free pack of Rise of Shadows stacked deliberatly, or did I just get lucky with mine (at least based on density of rares, eipics and legendaries, I don't know if they are actually good cards themselves)?

[Kish]

The outrage around Token Druid is so hilarious to me. For more than a year, every time it was mentioned it was like "Token Druid sucks, Blizzard please it needs more support because it's mid-tier at best" and now that it has support it's just nothing but "OMG BLIZZARD THIS IS SO BROKEN WHY DID YOU SUPPORT THIS ARCHETYPE?"
The problem is that you're treating ThePlayerbase as one person.

Everyone who wanted to play Token Druid was unhappy it was weak; everyone who didn't want to play against it was happy it was weak. Now, everyone who wants to play Token Druid is happy that it's strong, and everyone who doesn't want to play against it is unhappy that it's strong. No inconsistency, nothing to find hilarious unless you find the fact that people in general are more likely to complain loudly than to volunteer that they're happy about something loudly to be amusing.

[Requizen]

The problem is that you're treating ThePlayerbase as one person.

Everyone who wanted to play Token Druid was unhappy it was weak; everyone who didn't want to play against it was happy it was weak. Now, everyone who wants to play Token Druid is happy that it's strong, and everyone who doesn't want to play against it is unhappy that it's strong. No inconsistency, nothing to find hilarious unless you find the fact that people in general are more likely to complain loudly than to volunteer that they're happy about something loudly to be amusing.

I do find that amusing, at least on community sites like Reddit. Obviously the player base is disparate, but the community is kind of a voice of the people, for lack of a better term, and it will always find things to complain about. I find it much easier to point and laugh at most complaints, save the ones that are actually problematic for the health of the game.

[Rynjin]

I get the hate for Control Warrior (no other Control deck even compares right now, and their plays feel extra oppressive because of it) but Token Druid? Token Druid isn't even that good, in the grand scheme. You just need to "tech" board clears into any deck you run.

It runs over heavy Aggro decks right now because they can't clear fast enough, but any midrange or Control deck worth its salt will run right over it. If my abominations of Hunter and Paladin decks can beat Token Druid, so can everyone else.

[Tvtyrant]

What do you mean by "interactive"? I think of Interactivity in Hearthstone as "can disrupt my enemy's game plan with counterplay". So Token Druid would be interactive, you can remove their board and they can't burst you from hand with any empty board. Aggro/Midrange is usually interactive; they need to stick minions over multiple turns to kill you and you can interact with removal, healing, minion combat/taunt. Token Druids can be frustrating because if they stick one board for one turn, they can burst you for stupid damage, but you get at least a chance to stop their gameplan.

"Non-interactive" would be decks that are usually described as "solitaire", but are generally combo decks. Things like Mecha'thun Druid/Warlock or Exodia Mage, where their deck is mostly card draw and all they care is about surviving long enough to draw their entire combo and then they win.

And I agree, I hate Control Warrior when it's good and it's really good right now.



Love this brawl. It's good to see the unnerfed cards and historical decks. I remember them and remember how to play them, so it's a nice reminder of past Hearthstone.



One of the interesting decks from the Worlds competition is Killinallday's Nomi Priest. It runs the Miracle package (Auctioneer, Pyro, Acolyte, Northshire and a bunch of 0 cost spells) to draw through the deck by turn 9-10 and then drop Nomi three times (Nomi + Seance) to win. It's not an Elysiana deck, but it does make you go to Fatigue ;)

That is the one I got. I drew Karakus as my last card, bought a 10 cost potion granting me 3 random demons in hand and reanimate 3. Then one of the demons was Jarathus, so I got to reset my life from 2 to 15 and start making free 6/6s. Slow game against midrange shaman.

[Geno9999]

I get the hate for Control Warrior (no other Control deck even compares right now, and their plays feel extra oppressive because of it) but Token Druid? Token Druid isn't even that good, in the grand scheme. You just need to "tech" board clears into any deck you run.

It runs over heavy Aggro decks right now because they can't clear fast enough, but any midrange or Control deck worth its salt will run right over it. If my abominations of Hunter and Paladin decks can beat Token Druid, so can everyone else.

That's... not quite the case. Token Druid has a lot of board reload: Wispering Woods, Archmage Vargoth into Landscaping, Keeper Stalladris with Power of the Wild or Mark of the Loa, Forest's Aid, and then there's Soul of the Forest to further reinforce that. According to HSreplay, Token Druid is favored against Bomb and Dragon Warrior, and is almost a coin flip against Control Warrior (Druid 48.27% to Warrior 51.72%) When those decks run Warpath, Brawl, and Dynomatic. Often times Druid wins because you can't answer their board turn after turn after turn.

Also according to HSreplay, Token Druid is unfavorable to Zoolock of all things, though I would attribute that one to most Zoolock decks also running Knife Juggler and Magic Carpet for repeatable answers.

That said, Naturalize HOF makes it vulnerable, as Hunter often wins with a Unleash + Scavenging Hyena to turn a wide board to a detriment, Tempo Rogue can make a giant Edwin.

[Anarion]

That's... not quite the case. Token Druid has a lot of board reload: Wispering Woods, Archmage Vargoth into Landscaping, Keeper Stalladris with Power of the Wild or Mark of the Loa, Forest's Aid, and then there's Soul of the Forest to further reinforce that. According to HSreplay, Token Druid is favored against Bomb and Dragon Warrior, and is almost a coin flip against Control Warrior (Druid 48.27% to Warrior 51.72%) When those decks run Warpath, Brawl, and Dynomatic. Often times Druid wins because you can't answer their board turn after turn after turn.

Also according to HSreplay, Token Druid is unfavorable to Zoolock of all things, though I would attribute that one to most Zoolock decks also running Knife Juggler and Magic Carpet for repeatable answers.

That said, Naturalize HOF makes it vulnerable, as Hunter often wins with a Unleash + Scavenging Hyena to turn a wide board to a detriment, Tempo Rogue can make a giant Edwin.

Token druid loses to tempo. Their plays almost all involve them doing a bunch of stuff to put minions on the board and not reducing, preventing, or healing any damage. The decks that beat them are the ones, like tempo rogue and Zoo, that build up their own board while briefly keeping Druid down. You kill the first ~5 treants while dealing a little damage, and then swing face for 20 by the time they put out a board that is completely impossible to remove.

[Rynjin]

^That.

You don't just use a board clear and sit on your hands the next turn, you clear while making sure your own minions stick. In short yeah, Token Druid wins if your deck has absolutely zero aggression, but they have literally nothing that lets them reload and deal damage the same time. They are utterly at the whim of their opponent's draw and how much tempo they have.

Yeah, if you get behind against Token Druid it's hard to retake the lead...but the same is true for Token Druid, Mech Hunter, Murloc Shaman, Big Shaman, Control Warrior, etc. etc. every other deck in the game right now since comeback mechanics are weak for everyone ATM.

I can believe Control/Bomb Warrior (because they're basically the same shell) lose to Token Druid a lot because they essentially spend their entire turn clearing most of the time until way, way late game.

[Zevox]

I wish I could get the Control Warrior matches you guys complain about. Last time I played it was nothing but nonstop aggro - Tempo Rogue, Murloc Shaman, Zoolock, and the occasional Token Druid. Not very fun.


What do you mean by "interactive"? I think of Interactivity in Hearthstone as "can disrupt my enemy's game plan with counterplay". So Token Druid would be interactive, you can remove their board and they can't burst you from hand with any empty board. Aggro/Midrange is usually interactive; they need to stick minions over multiple turns to kill you and you can interact with removal, healing, minion combat/taunt. Token Druids can be frustrating because if they stick one board for one turn, they can burst you for stupid damage, but you get at least a chance to stop their gameplan.

"Non-interactive" would be decks that are usually described as "solitaire", but are generally combo decks. Things like Mecha'thun Druid/Warlock or Exodia Mage, where their deck is mostly card draw and all they care is about surviving long enough to draw their entire combo and then they win.
While objectively "non-interactive" is the wrong way to put it, I do think I can explain why aggro decks can feel that way to some of us (myself included). It's because if their basic gameplan works out, they win too fast, basically. If you don't draw anything that can sufficiently slow them and make the game feel like it actually has some back and forth, they just play their strongest minions on every turn, hit face, maybe throw a spell or two at your face to end things, and you're dead by the mid-game. It winds up giving you the feeling that you didn't even actually get to play the game, in effect, which is a similar feeling to facing a combo deck as a Control deck that lacks a way to disrupt them, even though it feels that way for very different reasons.


Love this brawl. It's good to see the unnerfed cards and historical decks. I remember them and remember how to play them, so it's a nice reminder of past Hearthstone.
I like seeing the unnerfed cards ("Oh right, Blade Flurry used to actually be good!"), but am nonetheless not a big fan of this Brawl. Maybe if you could choose which deck you want it would be another story, but I'm not thrilled with getting a random one that I may not like, or in some cases even know how to play effectively. Like the Oil Rogue I alluded to with the Blade Flurry aside - never played that deck back when it was a thing, so I have no clue how to use it now, but it was the first one I got handed. Bleh.

[Anarion]

I like seeing the unnerfed cards ("Oh right, Blade Flurry used to actually be good!"), but am nonetheless not a big fan of this Brawl. Maybe if you could choose which deck you want it would be another story, but I'm not thrilled with getting a random one that I may not like, or in some cases even know how to play effectively. Like the Oil Rogue I alluded to with the Blade Flurry aside - never played that deck back when it was a thing, so I have no clue how to use it now, but it was the first one I got handed. Bleh.

Nobody knows how to play the Patron Warrior deck and it is giving me so many free wins while I try out other decks. Honestly, getting a chance to figure out complex decks is my favorite part of this brawl. I think I've played most of them at one time or another, but playing somebody's amazing tournament deck and fumbling around with it gives insight into likely mulligan choices and class styles. All of these decks represent archetypes that are still relevant, albeit with different cards, and so offer insight into standard play now.

[Tvtyrant]

The control Druid deck feels completely unfair. I felt like my opponents were playing standard and I was playing wild the differences were so vast.

[Zevox]

Nobody knows how to play the Patron Warrior deck and it is giving me so many free wins while I try out other decks. Honestly, getting a chance to figure out complex decks is my favorite part of this brawl. I think I've played most of them at one time or another, but playing somebody's amazing tournament deck and fumbling around with it gives insight into likely mulligan choices and class styles. All of these decks represent archetypes that are still relevant, albeit with different cards, and so offer insight into standard play now.
The issue is that lack of knowledge of how to play them and lack of interest in playing them usually goes hand in hand. I don't know how to play Oil Rogue because I never played it, which is because I never wanted to play it. I still don't. Same goes for Patron Warrior, for that matter.

Like I said, if I could pick which deck I got, I might play it. Getting a random one? I'll pass, thanks.

[Rodin]

The big problem I have with the Brawl is that you can get the same deck multiple times. I'd be interested in giving the Priest deck a shot for nostalgia's sake, but the game never handed it to me. Even if they just had the "pick a class" option it would work, although I suppose Paladin not existing as a class in the list precludes that.

Actually, that's probably it. That's why it's random. There's multiple from the same class, and no Paladin. This means they would have to design an entire GUI screen for selecting the decks, which isn't worth their time for a mere Tavern Brawl. Disappointing, but I understand why they did it this way.

[Manticoran]

The big problem I have with the Brawl is that you can get the same deck multiple times. I'd be interested in giving the Priest deck a shot for nostalgia's sake, but the game never handed it to me. Even if they just had the "pick a class" option it would work, although I suppose Paladin not existing as a class in the list precludes that.

Actually, that's probably it. That's why it's random. There's multiple from the same class, and no Paladin. This means they would have to design an entire GUI screen for selecting the decks, which isn't worth their time for a mere Tavern Brawl. Disappointing, but I understand why they did it this way.

Obviously they should have stuck old style secret paladin in there for the Christmas trees.

[otakuryoga]

geezus
just got FLATTENED in an arena match
turn 10 he drops his SIXTH Dalaran Crusader (5/4 divine shield)
yeah..coined one out turn 4 and dropped one every single turn after that

[Spore]

The issue is that lack of knowledge of how to play them and lack of interest in playing them usually goes hand in hand.

Yea, but learning is half the part of playing imho. Created a 1/1 Malygos from Barnes and the enemy (also a rogue) didn't see it fit to kill it with a dagger. Honestly, that 17 burst damage to your face seem well placed.

[Joran]

The control Druid deck feels completely unfair. I felt like my opponents were playing standard and I was playing wild the differences were so vast.

Cubelock also felt insane. No weapon destruction, no silences, maybe 2 polymorph effects. Lots of AoE and healing, and then a top-end burst combo against Control.

Firebat's Zoo and Hunter decks felt the weakest. His Druid was fun, mostly because of the old Force of Nature + Savage Roar combo where you just burst someone from nowhere.

[Zevox]

So we have Ragnaros vs Nefarian back once again this week. I'm always happy to see this particular Brawl, it's probably my overall favorite, personally. Just a very fun shift from normal gameplay, and nothing like the RNG-fest Brawls. :smallsmile:

[otakuryoga]

brawl this week:
so you want to work for E.V.I.L.?

bad ones
-----------
Mr Chu--just straight up not very good..few minions which means 2 of the bosses barely help you and Lazul tends to make you overdraw

Russell--gets hard countered if opponent takes Hagatha boss


good ones
----------
Myra and George both work very nicely with Dr Boom

George works well with Lazul

Raeth with Hagatha can get sick because of his reincarnates

[Epinephrine_Syn]

I'm so far of the opinion that the only two good ones are George (for being significantly above the power curve) and Russel, who soft counters George and can potentially hide a questing behind annoy-o-trons before George builds an answer. I've played 8 matches and won 7, and I only feel I lost the one match because I was trying out the different recruiters and picked hagatha (the evolve isn't good at all, even when evolving tokens).

I'd say that dr boom can work, but honestly I'm having way more success with Togwaggle. Drygulch Jailor is (so) good with it, and you have a tutor for the dry gulch. The ability to burst out an extra few mana or 3 1/1s for 0 mana is worth so much when trying to set up your combos to buff a board full of recruits. Divine Favor can reload you in the rare event you run out of cards. And really, all you need is to build a board and maintain it as Divinity is oppressively strong when ahead on board.

[Hamste]

Vex is good if you choose boom and your opponent doesn't. Which has been the case when I did it but I think my opponents just didn't think their choice through.

[Seerow]

I'm so far of the opinion that the only two good ones are George (for being significantly above the power curve) and Russel, who soft counters George and can potentially hide a questing behind annoy-o-trons before George builds an answer. I've played 8 matches and won 7, and I only feel I lost the one match because I was trying out the different recruiters and picked hagatha (the evolve isn't good at all, even when evolving tokens).

I'd say that dr boom can work, but honestly I'm having way more success with Togwaggle. Drygulch Jailor is (so) good with it, and you have a tutor for the dry gulch. The ability to burst out an extra few mana or 3 1/1s for 0 mana is worth so much when trying to set up your combos to buff a board full of recruits. Divine Favor can reload you in the rare event you run out of cards. And really, all you need is to build a board and maintain it as Divinity is oppressively strong when ahead on board.

I went 3-0 really quickly using Candlebeard with Togwaggle. Just curve out and go face, and win by turn 5.

[Zevox]

From my experience so far, I'd say most of the characters can be quite strong. George, Myra, Candlebeard, and Russel (if he ever gets to use his hero power, at least) seem to be the standouts, but Voodoomaster Vex with Boom and Raeth with Hagatha can be strong.

The one that seems by far the weakest to me is Mr. Chu, who is basically Control Warrior without the armor hero power (and with the replacement doing nothing) and with a lot of very bad deck design decisions. He still has some of the good cards (Weapons Project, Warpath, Brawl), but so much of the deck is weighed down by high-cost cards for the "Big Warrior" theme and some just bafflingly bad choices (Doctor Boom's Scheme! Why?!) that he's often got a mostly-useless hand until turn 7+, and is too far behind by then to compete.

Sephira Dusktalon seemed rather iffy to me when I played her too, though perhaps that's because I chose Hagatha as her... buff? Patron? Whatever, I chose Hagatha, and evolving doesn't go great with a deck that turns out to be very heavy on buffs. Also, her hero power is dependant on your opponent playing spells, which will vary wildly depending on who you get and which villain they pick.

Only fought against Ivan, not as him, but he seemed fine. Maybe just because I was playing Chu at the time, but still.

[Anarion]

Togwaggle Candlebeard is pretty broken in this brawl. Not perfect, but significantly advantaged against most of the heroes.

[Zevox]

Togwaggle Candlebeard is pretty broken in this brawl. Not perfect, but significantly advantaged against most of the heroes.
Indeed.

As far as the villain choices go, I think Boom is pretty strong for most of the heroes and an auto-pick when up against or playing as Vex, Togwaggle is a reasonable to good choice for most and auto-pick for Candlebeard, and Hagatha is good with specific ones (Raeth, and I guess Chu if you actually play him) but otherwise iffy to bad. Lazul seems like the worst one since she tends to cause clogged hands with spell-heavy heroes like Chu and Sephira and is probably not as good as the others for most of the more minion-heavy ones, but I think she may be arguably strong with Myra, who doesn't want Boom or Hagatha and has a decent but not very high number of spells to throw around.

[Rodin]

From my experience so far, I'd say most of the characters can be quite strong. George, Myra, Candlebeard, and Russel (if he ever gets to use his hero power, at least) seem to be the standouts, but Voodoomaster Vex with Boom and Raeth with Hagatha can be strong.

The one that seems by far the weakest to me is Mr. Chu, who is basically Control Warrior without the armor hero power (and with the replacement doing nothing) and with a lot of very bad deck design decisions. He still has some of the good cards (Weapons Project, Warpath, Brawl), but so much of the deck is weighed down by high-cost cards for the "Big Warrior" theme and some just bafflingly bad choices (Doctor Boom's Scheme! Why?!) that he's often got a mostly-useless hand until turn 7+, and is too far behind by then to compete.

Sephira Dusktalon seemed rather iffy to me when I played her too, though perhaps that's because I chose Hagatha as her... buff? Patron? Whatever, I chose Hagatha, and evolving doesn't go great with a deck that turns out to be very heavy on buffs. Also, her hero power is dependant on your opponent playing spells, which will vary wildly depending on who you get and which villain they pick.

Only fought against Ivan, not as him, but he seemed fine. Maybe just because I was playing Chu at the time, but still.

I did win against a Lazul George while playing as Boom Mr. Chu. I played Boom on 7 and then just did the Control Warrior thing, which was just as effective against Odd Paladin as always once you're stabilized. Using the micro-bots with the Boom deathrattle proved especially useful at clearing out the Divine shields.

My Raeth game ended in a draw because I kept resurrecting draw minions. I was playing with Boom though, so I killed everything on the board on the final turn. 2 damage to my opponent to kill them, and around 60-70 damage to myself to finish at -55 HP. Hilarious though, and it counted towards the quest.

I was hoping that the special quest and Brawl meant we'd be getting the Adventure soon, but apparently they're going to be doing a preview stream on the 14th and still aren't announcing the date. Which means probably at least another week after that before we see it. Grumble grumble.

[Resileaf]

I was hoping that the special quest and Brawl meant we'd be getting the Adventure soon, but apparently they're going to be doing a preview stream on the 14th and still aren't announcing the date. Which means probably at least another week after that before we see it. Grumble grumble.

Oh my god, release it already, I have 4K gold saved up! I want to spend them on packs already!

[Geno9999]

Oh my god, release it already, I have 4K gold saved up! I want to spend them on packs already!

Good news, it's just going to be released next Thursday. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwoqrKuCImU&) Like the old Adventures, it's going to release with a chapter every week afterward, though from the video it does sound like we start off with 2 (1 Free chapter, Chapter 2 is unlocked when you play through the first chapter.)

[Resileaf]

Okay. You have my interest, Hearthstone. This looks like fun.

[Rodin]

They've FINALLY addressed my biggest problem with the Dungeon Run format! The annoying preset deck you get when you start the game! Always getting the same deck was deeply irritating, as the decks were always pretty crap to start with and you often wound up losing when you drew a very basic card that you were stuck with right from the start. The ability to tune your deck mid-run looks great as well, and the hero power change looks like a refinement of the shrine system from Rumble Run.

All in all, it looks pretty impressive.

[Zevox]

Huh. I legitimately forgot the single-player content was even a thing, honestly. Weird that they're only launching it a good month+ after the set itself.

Anyway, I'll probably just play the free wing. I've liked each iteration of the Dungeon Run concept less and less, to the point where I barely played Rumble Run because I found it so miserable when I did, so I'm not inclined to spend real money or gold on this. If the gold cost was equivalent to what the number of packs it gives you normally cost maybe, but IIRC they announced that the pricing was higher than that back before the set even launched, and that is not good enough for me.

[Seerow]

Huh. I legitimately forgot the single-player content was even a thing, honestly. Weird that they're only launching it a good month+ after the set itself.

Anyway, I'll probably just play the free wing. I've liked each iteration of the Dungeon Run concept less and less, to the point where I barely played Rumble Run because I found it so miserable when I did, so I'm not inclined to spend real money or gold on this. If the gold cost was equivalent to what the number of packs it gives you normally cost maybe, but IIRC they announced that the pricing was higher than that back before the set even launched, and that is not good enough for me.

If you buy with gold the deal is pretty bad (2800g total so compared to 28 packs), but with real money it's actually a pretty good deal ($20.00, comparable to buying 15 packs).

For your 20 bucks you get 12 regular packs, a bonus golden whizbang equivalent, and a golden classic pack.

If the Zale decks are even remotely playable, it's overall a pretty good deal. The golden pack is probably worth about 4 packs in terms of raw dust value, so just from packs alone you get your money's worth, the bonus card puts it over the top.



That said, I am not a fan of the weekly release schedule. Like, you're already making us wait more than a month after set release, now we have to wait 3 more weeks after that for everything to be unlocked? I get they're trying to draw out the high engagement time period for hearthstone, but this is just annoying.

Mostly bitter because I happened to have an entire week off work starting on the 20th, but from the sounds of it I'll only be able to enjoy playing 2-3 wings of the adventure rather than getting to clear the whole thing while I have the free time. Ah well guess I can play some more Pathfinder Kingmaker or WoW instead.

[Zevox]

If you buy with gold the deal is pretty bad (2800g total so compared to 28 packs), but with real money it's actually a pretty good deal ($20.00, comparable to buying 15 packs).
Real money spending is something I keep to a very controlled minimum when it comes Hearthstone. And I already spent more on this expansion than I normally do when I bought the $10 9 packs + an arena run bundle back at launch, mostly because I liked that they were actually offering such a cheap deal instead of just the $50-$80 ones that I'd never touch and wanted to support that, to hopefully give them the message to do more like it. (My usual spending pattern is $20 every second expansion, and Rise of Shadows was going to be a no-spending expansion for me until I saw that bundle.)

So yeah, no chance they're getting that out of me for this.

[Psyren]

For me the preorder is worth it because I get several months of entertainment out of that bundle and the price per pack is at a hefty discount. Add in the fact that I get many more packs for free on top of the bundle thanks to the the various quests and ladder chest with the decks I've built and I'm pretty happy with the results. (And unlike Magic, I'm not stuck with a million basic lands and commons. I hope they come up more gameplay modes though.)

Speaking of Ladder, my preorder packs and dust on hand enabled me to build a couple of contenders:

Control Warrior
Mecha'thun Warrior
Murloc Shaman
Wall Priest
Midrange Hunter
Mech Hunter

I haven't gotten to try the Priest or Mech Hunter yet, but so far Murloc Shaman has been the most fun. Rogues currently feel too commonplace for my Johnny sensibilities.

[Geno9999]

So turns out that with the patch being released 2 days ahead of the adventure, Zayle Shadowcloak (the Legendary you can either craft or get a golden for owning all 5 chapters of the adventure) has been showing up in Rise of Shadows packs.

He, like Whizbang before him, is a deck in a card; put him in a deckslot, and he'll give you 1 of 5 different decks to play at random when you queue with him.

As found on Reddit: (https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/boq8xv/these_are_the_5_new_evil_decks_by_zayle_shadow/)

Inner Fire Silence Priest
https://i.redd.it/61wc9iv8h9y21.png
AAECAZ/HAgTtAfgC0P4C65sDDd0E5QT2B9UIpQnRCtIK8gyDlAOHlQOYm wOumwOCnQMA

Tempo/Battlecry Rogue
https://i.redd.it/p718jkv8h9y21.jpg
AAECAaIHCLICzQPtBef6AqCAA7SGA5KXA9KZAwu0Ae0CmwWIB9 0Ihgmm7wLOjAO0kQOPlwOQlwMA

Control Shaman
https://i.redd.it/skefjhv8h9y21.png
AAECAfWfAwqyBqfuAu/3Apn7AqCAA8GJA9KYA7mZA8WZA4adAwqBBPUE3gX+Ba2RA7SRA 4qUA5WUA7SXA8aZAwA=

Control/Plot Twist Warlock
https://i.redd.it/i72jygv8h9y21.png
AAECAfqUAwrbBvMMwvECnPgCzfwCoIADj4ID0oYDl5cDiZ0DCp IHtgfECMwIxfMCtPYC2pYDwpkD2psDg6ADAA==

Bomb Rush Warrior
https://i.redd.it/03w71dv8h9y21.jpg
AAECAQcKuuwCze8Cm/ACkvgCjvsCoIADmocDm5QDkpgDwJgDCp3wApfzAtH1Ap77ArP8 AvH8AvWAA5eUA5qUA4OgAwA=



Silence Priest is playable, though Silence is hardly Priest's strongest archetype atm. Doubt the tech choice of 1 Auchenai Soulpriest, or Wild Pyromaniac without his roommate Acolyte of Pain makes this deck any better than what's already been made before.

The Tempo Rogue deck doesn't have the Raiding Party + Waggle Pick package, which imho is the biggest reason why Tempo Rogue is so powerful and consistent right now, but the Battlecry/COmbo package that it does have along with Spirit of the Shark does make me think this is a pretty good list, probably the best or second best of the five with Warrior.

Control Shaman is a thing, but I'm surprised that this didn't go for the Muckmorpher/Big Bad Summoner package. Seems good at outlasting any deck that isn't a Control Warrior, but on the other hand this doesn't have any endgame spikes outside of Archivist Elysiana or a questionable Shudderwock.

Plot Twist Warlock is not a good archetype according to HSreplay, and I'm don't think this version is any better. Wants to go all in on the Dollmaster Dorian/Fel Lord Betrug value, but I don't think Soularium is the way to go, especially when most of the deck has such a high mana cost. And who put Shriek in this list?! Most likely to be the worst of the five.

Bomb Rush Warrior, unlike the other decks, I can't seem to find a comparable archetype on HSreplay. While the Bomb Package has seen success, Rush Warrior had been a fringe deck in the previous meta. While Rush Minions in general should help to control the board, there's no Warpath or Brawl for wide boards, and big minions can be difficult to deal with no Executes or Shield Slams. There's also no Omega Assembly, even though Hero Dr. Boom is in the list, which really hurts the late game for this midrange deck. That said, I think it's fighting with Rogue as the best deck of the five. Just realize that you're pretty unfavored in a Warrior mirror.

[Rynjin]

Had a quest to win 3 games as Shaman and was bored of Murlocs, so I threw this together:


### Angry Breeze
# Class: Shaman
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 1x (0) Ancestral Healing
# 1x (2) Acidic Swamp Ooze
# 2x (2) Ancestral Spirit
# 2x (2) Doomsayer
# 2x (2) Rockbiter Weapon
# 2x (2) Windfury
# 2x (3) Far Sight
# 2x (3) Feral Spirit
# 1x (3) Haunting Visions
# 2x (3) Lightning Storm
# 2x (4) Hex
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 2x (6) Eureka!
# 2x (6) Safeguard
# 2x (7) Rabble Bouncer
# 1x (7) Ravenholdt Assassin
# 2x (8) Walking Fountain
# 1x (8) Whirlwind Tempest
#
AAECAaoIBoYBlQGKB6CAA4qFA6adAwwzigHuAe8BlAP1BP4Fsg af/QLbiQOKlAPAmAMA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone


Kind of a meme OTK but pretty satisfying to pull off and has decent matchups against not-Control Warrior. Control Warrior just generates too much armor, since your OTK "only" does max 40 damage unless you somehow stick two minions against Warrior.

[Rodin]

Silence Priest is playable, though Silence is hardly Priest's strongest archetype atm. Doubt the tech choice of 1 Auchenai Soulpriest, or Wild Pyromaniac without his roommate Acolyte of Pain makes this deck any better than what's already been made before.

The Tempo Rogue deck doesn't have the Raiding Party + Waggle Pick package, which imho is the biggest reason why Tempo Rogue is so powerful and consistent right now, but the Battlecry/COmbo package that it does have along with Spirit of the Shark does make me think this is a pretty good list, probably the best or second best of the five with Warrior.

Control Shaman is a thing, but I'm surprised that this didn't go for the Muckmorpher/Big Bad Summoner package. Seems good at outlasting any deck that isn't a Control Warrior, but on the other hand this doesn't have any endgame spikes outside of Archivist Elysiana or a questionable Shudderwock.

Plot Twist Warlock is not a good archetype according to HSreplay, and I'm don't think this version is any better. Wants to go all in on the Dollmaster Dorian/Fel Lord Betrug value, but I don't think Soularium is the way to go, especially when most of the deck has such a high mana cost. And who put Shriek in this list?! Most likely to be the worst of the five.

Bomb Rush Warrior, unlike the other decks, I can't seem to find a comparable archetype on HSreplay. While the Bomb Package has seen success, Rush Warrior had been a fringe deck in the previous meta. While Rush Minions in general should help to control the board, there's no Warpath or Brawl for wide boards, and big minions can be difficult to deal with no Executes or Shield Slams. There's also no Omega Assembly, even though Hero Dr. Boom is in the list, which really hurts the late game for this midrange deck. That said, I think it's fighting with Rogue as the best deck of the five. Just realize that you're pretty unfavored in a Warrior mirror.

The reason the Shaman deck isn't the Muckmorpher one is because that's a deck recipe. Probably the best deck recipe they've ever made, in fact - the version I run is like
2-3 cards different. As such, Muckmorpher Shaman is already getting pulled by Whizzbang, which meant they had to come up with something different for it.

Personally, I would have liked to see them make the strongest possible version of some of the Tier 2 decks rather than watered down versions of Tier 1 decks (and Plot Twist Warlock). Get some Big Duel Paladins and Gepetto Hunters in that list, get people excited about off-beat decks that are still really competitive.

[Yael]

Welp I came back for more card games~

I completely missed the troll and boomsday expansions, so I got really behind on what decks to play. As such, I'm looking for a nice budget deck for ladder play, what would you recommend?

I was thinking mech Hunter, as it is fairly cheap, but so is murloc Shaman. I am actively playing Spell Mage (mana typhoon one), and somewhat play Khadgar Spell Mage (I do not have all the dragons for a propper Khadgar Dragon mage, too many epics and Harrison Fords).

Thoughts? Also, I'm back from the old list, looking for friends :smallwink:

[Joran]

Welp I came back for more card games~

I completely missed the troll and boomsday expansions, so I got really behind on what decks to play. As such, I'm looking for a nice budget deck for ladder play, what would you recommend?

I was thinking mech Hunter, as it is fairly cheap, but so is murloc Shaman. I am actively playing Spell Mage (mana typhoon one), and somewhat play Khadgar Spell Mage (I do not have all the dragons for a propper Khadgar Dragon mage, too many epics and Harrison Fords).

Thoughts? Also, I'm back from the old list, looking for friends :smallwink:

Currently the meta is Rogue, then Warrior (to counter the rogues) and then whatever can beat Warrior (Mech Hunter, Conjurer Mage). If you want a not F2P guide to how the meta is shaking out: https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-129/

Here's a few budget decks:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/bno7rx/i_played_to_legend_without_a_single_epic_or/

In terms of crafts from Boomsday/Rastakhan, the card that sees the most play is Zilliax. It's not the sexiest craft, but it's by far the most versatile. UNITY, PRECISION, PERFECTION.


The reason the Shaman deck isn't the Muckmorpher one is because that's a deck recipe. Probably the best deck recipe they've ever made, in fact - the version I run is like
2-3 cards different. As such, Muckmorpher Shaman is already getting pulled by Whizzbang, which meant they had to come up with something different for it.

Personally, I would have liked to see them make the strongest possible version of some of the Tier 2 decks rather than watered down versions of Tier 1 decks (and Plot Twist Warlock). Get some Big Duel Paladins and Gepetto Hunters in that list, get people excited about off-beat decks that are still really competitive.


Thematically, it has to be 5 classes to match the 5 members of the Evil League of Evil (Warlock, Warrior, Shaman, Rogue, and Priest).

Also, it has to not overlap with Whizbang decks. Finally, it has to not be a tier 1 deck because Blizzard doesn't want to give you decks without you needing to pay for them.

I like the ideas that you mention (Duel Paladin, Gepetto Hunter) since they aren't covered in Whizbang and sound like fun, but alas, they aren't in the EVIL LEAGUE OF EVIL.

[Thomas Cardew]

This week's brawl. Pick a hero, your deck is random legendaries cloned 4 times, every (other?) turn you get a 0 cost spell make the next legendary and all copies cost (3) less. Blergh. It's a RNG fest but at least it completes class quests.

[Rynjin]

I played my one game, started with three Millhouse Manastorms.

3 0 mana 4/4's on turn 1 later, I win.

Balanced.

[The Glyphstone]

Getting Fel Lord Bertrug on-field as Warlock is immense fun though. Value for days.

[Hamste]

Turn 1 Vargoth who then recasts the reduce the cost of a minion by 3 spell is pretty good. At one point I got -9 on the next minion I played because of Varhoths. It is too bad I had nothing good to discount.

[Rodin]

I played my one game, started with three Millhouse Manastorms.

3 0 mana 4/4's on turn 1 later, I win.

Balanced.

I got my one and done by getting Glinda Crowskin and Brann Bronzebeard. Filled my board with Branns on turn 3 and then just went face.

I like almost all the Tavern Brawls that don't require building a deck. Cloneball is the exception, because unlike the other RNG-fests the winner is usually determined on turn 1.

[Joran]

Enemy doesn't play his 0 mana card turn 1.

Turn 2: Loatheb
Turn 3: Loatheb
Turn 4: Loatheb

Fun and interactive.

[Resileaf]

I waited four turns to discount Y'shaarj to 4 mana.

[Requizen]

Random Tavern Brawls Are Stupid: More News at 11 :smalltongue:

I for one, can't wait to try the solo player on my lunch break, only to see the servers crash and then curse Blizzard. As is tradition.

[otakuryoga]

Random Tavern Brawls Are Stupid: More News at 11 :smalltongue:

I for one, can't wait to try the solo player on my lunch break, only to see the servers crash and then curse Blizzard. As is tradition.

not sure about that...
was just playing and checked single player and it said "available in one week"

so..maybe they found some massive bug in the you-tuber pre release event and pushed it back a week?

[The Glyphstone]

Random Tavern Brawls Are Stupid: More News at 11 :smalltongue:

I for one, can't wait to try the solo player on my lunch break, only to see the servers crash and then curse Blizzard. As is tradition.

Pretty much. I don't know why anyone is surprised by this point, the RNG-brawls are...well...RNGfests. The bright side of them is that because they snowball so fast, your time investment in a bad setup is minimal - concede and re-roll, costs you nothing.

Solo servers aren't out for another week though, IIRC.

[Requizen]

Pretty much. I don't know why anyone is surprised by this point, the RNG-brawls are...well...RNGfests. The bright side of them is that because they snowball so fast, your time investment in a bad setup is minimal - concede and re-roll, costs you nothing.

Solo servers aren't out for another week though, IIRC.
I've only seen May 16th anywhere, which is today, though as otakuryoga said they may have pushed it back? We'll see in an hour I guess.

I'm paying for the whole thing, I want to support them for single player content and honestly the rewards are not bad for the price.

[Rodin]

I've only seen May 16th anywhere, which is today, though as otakuryoga said they may have pushed it back? We'll see in an hour I guess.

I'm paying for the whole thing, I want to support them for single player content and honestly the rewards are not bad for the price.

The preview event yesterday was still saying today for it, so I'm pretty sure it'll be out today. Just late in the day as usual, especially for those of us on the other side of the pond.

The event's up on Youtube if you're interested, it's a lot of fun if you enjoy watching Hearthstone and don't mind spoilers. There's a heck of a lot of memeing going on, and there are penalties for the team in the lead like "pop every bubble in this roll of bubble wrap before playing another match." They're constantly skipping around between the streamers so it's not even a problem if you don't like one of the competitors.

[Requizen]

Solo player is up!

[The Glyphstone]

And it genuinely looks awesome.

[Gandariel]

Yup, it was surprisingly fun.

Played it twice, won twice. It was also pretty easy, honestly. At least the normal mode.

It's very certainly the most fun Dungeon Run-esque mode so far. The multiple starting hero powers and decks are a great idea for replayability, the periodic encounters at the bar are very good design.. but to be honest, the custom cards are really inspired this time around.

There's a boost that "Occasionally gives good advice" randomly troughout the games, such as recasting spells, giving you an extra turn, summoning random legendaries, and more.
There's a 1 mana "Discover a quest reward", and a spell that summons an Immune, untargetable 5/5.

In short, very very fun.
I played twice with the first two decks and hero powers, ended up rushing every boss down very fast (first time i had goggles that reduce the cost of your leftmost card by 2. Super broken. Second time I had the hero power, plus "spells cost life").
I wanted to try heroic mode once but it looks like you have to re-unlock everything? That's kinda dumb.

[Rodin]

From what I've gathered from the preview event as well as what I've played myself, it appears the difficulties are as follows:

Normal starts off Chaper 1 at the level of the old Adventures, where you can have your cat play and still win. As it goes up to chapter 5, it begins approaching the difficulty of the regular Dungeon Run where you need a good deck and decent strategy to be able to win.

Heroic starts off at the level of a regular Dungeon Run and ramps up from there. They did Chapter 5 Heroics for the final event, and most of the players were dropped by boss 3 or 4 and only a couple made it to the 5th boss.

I kinda like having both, because you can screw around a lot more on Normal and still be successful where the previous Dungeon Runs would straight up kill you for anything less than utterly broken decks with a perfect curve.

Picking the Hunter quest for my very first bucket, and then pairing it with the "get a random Death Knight hero power" and double battlecries. Can you say Valeera's Shadow to double up on Springpaws to get 6 one mana minions from a single card? Then using the coins to complete the quest turn 4, allowing me to get 4/3 Raptors that draw 2 cards for the rest of the game? Absolutely hilarious.

With that same deck, Galliwix played a Fel Reaver. I had a 10 card hand consisting of 1 mana minions and coins. Do the math. :smallamused:

Easiest Heroic boss ever? The lady that doubles all healing, who used her turn 5 to play the minion that makes all healing into damage for the rest of the turn, played Spirit Lash, then Binding Healed her remaining minion. She didn't survive the resulting 15 damage to her own face.

[Zevox]

Well, that first wing was very easy, for sure. Was kind of worried about the last couple of bosses, since they started with extra mana on you and seemed to be making strong early plays, but their decks overall just turned out not to be very good.

Still, I think I'm taking my three packs and calling it done. I'm not seeing any reason I'd want to play this for anything but the rewards - sure they've added more stuff to it, but it's still Dungeon Run at its core, and the novelty of that wore off long ago for me, and it never had much more than novelty to recommend it as far as I'm concerned. And since the rewards aren't worth the gold cost and I'm definitely not spending real money on it, well, it's done for me.

That's okay though, standard has been so much nicer than it was almost all of last year anyway, I don't really need another mode to play.

[otakuryoga]

beat bank on 2nd run
got rafaam double cursing them before the start which is pretty powerful as it knocks off 8-?? hp and slows em down
unlocked one hero power and 2 decks(hunter)

can absolutely see this being something that occupies some time to go through and unlock everything
beating each stage with all hero/power/deck/twist combinations? no thank you but i can certainly see complete completionists doing so

[Resileaf]

I got wrecked by the paladin guy in the first level because I didn't have any AoE or board clear to get rid of his constantly buffing minions.

[Yael]

Ah, while checking my adventures, I noticed I never defeated Chromaggus and Nefarian. I tried both and gor wrecked, any tips for these two in Heroic difficulty? Like deck archetypes, or strategies for those two? I have beaten every other heroic boss in all wing-based adventures, but those two are like the bane of my existence.

[Resileaf]

Wow, talk about a blast from the past.

Maybe I'll try completing those old challenges on harder difficulties too.

[Geno9999]

I have been considering picking up the old Adventures along with Rise of Shadows adventure.

[Resileaf]

It turns out the artifact that makes you draw two more cards each turn isn't exactly useful if you can't spend all that mana.

[Rodin]

It turns out the artifact that makes you draw two more cards each turn isn't exactly useful if you can't spend all that mana.

I had a different problem with it - I went with Quest Hunter to alleviate the mana problem, and combined it with the "left card in your hand is discounted" artifact. The result is my board was constantly too full to play minions and most of my hand is self replacing - the raptors draw a card, Springpaw draws a Lynx, Shimmerfly gives a spell, etc. So I wound up burning half the deck anyway.

Still won though, so it was effective. I've beaten both wings on Heroic wiith Quest Hunter now. Struggling to do it with the other classes. I may need to lift the ban on the Robes of Gaudiness so I can get the wins.

The artifact I've found least good so far is the one that shuffles in a 1-cost version of any friendly minion that dies. You're just too likely to start replicating 2-drops and then perpetually draw them instead of the better cards in your deck.

[Yael]

I went with the "your cards cost half but you can only play two cards per turn", and did surprisingly good, during the tavern I had my Dr. Boom get to be always in my opening hand, and with the mage hero power that reduces by (2) the cost from a card of your hand, and had him 3 times as a turn 2 play, which was pretty good considering it was a 2 mana Dr. Boom.

During my shaman run I picked the left card costs (2) less, plus minions cost (1) less with choosing a Flamewreathed Faceless for a turn 1 4 mana 9/9, combined with pretty good 2 mana or less draws, I ended up with a solid (strong) turn 1 play. I still lost to the Manastorm lady, her squirrels were too difficult to deal with because of her cog weapon.

[Rodin]

Malificent Manastorm is the hardest boss I've run into so far. Last time I fought her she opened with Galvanizer, then on turn 3 (with the extra mana crystal she gets for free) she played Dynomatic to sweep my board, then immediately Magnetized a big mech onto it the next turn so I couldn't kill it, then put a Beryllium Nullifier onto it so I couldn't even target it.

She's wiped out my last 3 Heroic Shaman runs, and I'm getting sick of the sight of her. She's almost as bad as that Evolve dude from Dungeon Run.

[The Glyphstone]

Are the boss sets fixed for each wing?

[Gandariel]

Welp, after i couple attempts i did the heroic one too, by drafting an absolutely insane combo.

Your leftmost card costs 2 less
+
Random 1 drop + "Has +4/+4 but costs 2 more" + "Always starts in your hand"
+
The Muscle + "Always starts in your hand"
=

Turn 1 6/5, turn 2 4/5 plus three random cards that cost 0.

I even got "your minions have +1/+1" in the end. Absolutely bonkers.
Also, in another run that ended badly, i had gotten "spells cost mana" with Antonidas for lethal.
Pretty fun