Lurker > metroid composite

I got a quest to play hunter, so I played some deathrattle hunter and...lost every game. Granted, I was having connection issues, so I would lag out and not complete a turn every once in a while (like maybe once every 10 turns) but its not like I was drawing poorly; plenty of Keleseth on 2 into Rexxar on 6.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

GANON1025 posted...

After resisting for a while I finally crafted Ziliax. Seems like just a good all-around card that I see pop up in many decks.

I don't think it's an essential craft unless you are building a synergy deck (either corpsetaker or a mech deck). But it's okish in a lot of decks.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

I mean, going second is normally a net downside. Coin doing a little bit extra for Rogue/Mage means that maybe, maybe going second isn't a total downside for them. I'd like all the classes to benefit about that much from the coin, actually.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

SaintAkira7 posted...

Had no idea Tempo Rogue was t4 until I looked. Felt stronker than that.

I mean, hsReplay aggregates lots of results from people as far down as rank 20, so...it might be that tempo rogue is just a higher skill deck that a lot of people seriously misplay.

Like...if you listen to hsReplay, the only playable Druid deck is Spiteful Druid, but the Druid decks people have actually taken to top 25 legend post-nerfs are like...Malygos Druid and Togwaggle Druid.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Odd Quest Warrior is in fact one of...9 decks that hsReplay currently categorizes as "tier 1" (along with Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue, Odd Warrior with dragons instead of quest, Even Paladin, Even Shaman, and three different hunter decks).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

I'm watching these top 100 legend players stream, and...they're facing a decent number of Druids running Wild Growth all things considered. (Despite all the Reddit memes of druid being literally unsalvageable post-nerf).

I mean, it's not the most common class (which based on what I'm watching at high legend is...Rogue). It's not second or third either. But seeing more Druids than Mages/Warriors/Shamans.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

VeryInsane posted...

The thing is the quests and the death knights are the only things preventing a complete odd warrior domination meta

I mean Mech'a'thun and APM priest would still counter Odd Warrior. But yeah, that sounds like a miserable meta, much worse than the one we currently have.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

GANON1025 posted...

But I like my good friend Galvadon

Funny thing is, people make fun of Galvadon, but most of the quest rewards are around that power level. Queen Carnassa? Megafin? Nether Portal? Yeah ok.

It's really just Crystal Core, and to some extent Sulfuras that completely warp the game after they are played. (And I guess kind-of Barnabus as well, he's just never been particularly meta).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Wow, what even is that deck?

At first I was like "oh it's wild Renolock, ok with two molten giants sure."

Then I took a closer look, couldn't find the Mountain giant, got confused, and then started noticing the other cards.

Brann Bronzebeard on turn 3, into Pit Lord/Ancient Shade on turn 4. Wow, that...certainly is a curve.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Climbed through rank 4 with a tempo evolve shudderwock shaman.

I don't have any of the overly cute legendaries like Krag'wa or Zentimo (haven't opened them. Obviously those are great with unstable evolution, but also have the potential to be a dead draw so not sure if they are correct?) It's pretty close to the old list but with Former Champ replacing Giggling Inventor, and a Totemic Smash or two (I experimented between 1-2 copies), and Elise The Trailblaizer and a Fire Elemental which are sketchier includes maybe, but I wanted to outvalue.

Saronite Chain Gang is still in there. Chain Gang on 4 into Thrall on 5 is still a very strong play. It's not amazing with Shudderwock anymore, but being guaranteed to summon a taunt with Shudderwock is still handy.

Former Champ is obviously the bigger money with Shudderwock. It's not quite the same as summoning a bunch of 6/6s, but a 6/6 and a couple 5/5s along with stuff like freezes and MCT is still a pretty nice board swing.

I had tar creepers at first, but switched to a Corpsetaker setup (w/ Al'Akir and Zilliax).

Overall...faced a bunch of hunters and Even Paladins and mostly won actually. I have lightning storm, and my endgame seemed to just be bigger than theirs (Hagatha, Thrall, Unstable Evo, Shudderwock, Al'Akir, Lich King, Elise Pack. Also just......Fungalmancer; none of those decks run Fungalmancer, and I do and the card is kinda good). I did lose to a secret hunter that played double secretkeeper, prompting me to lightning storm on turn 3, double low roll, attack after the lightning storm and trigger a venomstrike trap, and proceed to get blown out by them having all the SmORC. Did also beat an Odd Rogue though, so not thaaat vulnerable to smORC.

Anyway, obviously still changing cards, but this is the state it was in when I stopped last night:

Tempo Evolve
Class: Shaman
Format: Standard
Year of the Raven
1x (1) Earth Shock
2x (1) Fire Fly
1x (1) Glacial Shard
1x (1) Totemic Smash
2x (1) Unstable Evolution
1x (2) Prince Keleseth
2x (3) Lightning Storm
2x (3) Mind Control Tech
2x (4) Corpsetaker
2x (4) Hex
2x (4) Saronite Chain Gang
1x (5) Elise the Trailblazer
2x (5) Former Champ
2x (5) Fungalmancer
1x (5) Thrall, Deathseer
1x (5) Zilliax
1x (6) Fire Elemental
1x (8) Al'Akir the Windlord
1x (8) Hagatha the Witch
1x (8) The Lich King
1x (9) Shudderwock
AAECAaoIDCC9Af8Fl8ECz8cCws4C688CnOICp+
4C7/cCm/8CoIADCfUE3gX+BevCApvLAtHhApboAt/pAquMAwA=

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

LiquidOshawott posted...

Man imagine if they like, did this months ago

Mmm...I can see why most of these are being changed now.

Kingsbane has been around forever, but generally a fringe deck. Suddenly with the expansion it was the third most played deck on ladder, and Kingsbane matches tend to be a bit unfun, so they toned that down.

Shudderwock in the witchwood meta was...frustrating to play against maybe, but also a pretty high skill deck that was required a lot of good decision making during play, so I can see why it wasn't nerfed then. But with the new set, it gained multiple ways to gain armour, which meant that several streamers tried to set up "prison" scenarios where they would extend games for hours. There wasn't a good fix for this without changing multiple cards or breaking the entire combo. They chose to break the combo.

Odd Paladin has been good forever, but not quite this good. By far the highest winrate on ladder.

I dunno about the Druid nerfs. These were the two most polarizing cards, the cards that spike the winrate if they're in your opening hand. But on the other hand, I've thought Druid was pretty easy to beat except for Taunt Druid.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Jakyl25 posted...

Peace___Frog posted...

It's really easy to criticize Israel without being antisemitic about it, as long as one avoids general bigotry! What most people don't realize is that there are more Jews in the US than in Israel, to say nothing of the rest of the world.

Oh I totally get that

I mean its touchy more in the sense that if you do properly criticize Israel, a bunch of bigots will leap at the chance to be on your side, so be careful

I mean, bigots are not exactly known for being pro-Palestinian.

You can easily criticize the Israli government for using snipers to shoot at Palestinian citizens because they came near (but did not touch) a fence. You can easily criticize the Israli government for not allowing palesitinians living in the West Bank to visit other parts of Palestine like the Gaza Strip (or vice versa). Normally a citizen of a country is allowed to travel within their own country, but Palestinians are not treated like citizens; they are treated like prisoners.

See? Not that hard, and I seriously doubt anyone anti-semitic is going to be like "Yeah! you stand up for those Palestinians!" Sure, some Palestinians are Christian, but most of them are Muslim, and Muslims aren't exactly popular among bigots right now.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Post nerfs--we'll see about spell hunter; it was popular just because everyone wanted to try out Zul'jin. Probably good, but probably not unbeatable. It's probably a deck with a lot of 55%-60% winrate matchups.

The best deck in the format was according to Dog APM priest, which is untouched, but only Dog can play it, so that's fine.

The deck I'm kind of worried about is Quest Rogue. All of the people who like doing degenerate stuff were busy with Kingsbane.

According to Tempostorm, the deck with the best winrate against spell hunter (at least among decks that aren't getting nerfed) is OTK DK Paladin. It's also got like a 25% winrate against Quest Rogue.

Also quietly lurking is all versions of Cube Hunter--you know, the strongest deck from last expansion that people have been ignoring because Zul'jin is shiny.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Level Up to 6 mana

I'm genuinely really happy about the Odd Paladin nerf.

Like...yes, I know the deck has counters (including apparently Shudderwock Shaman) but it fucked experimental decks so very hard. Like...nearly every Whizbang deck has a bad matchup against it (when Whizbang decks usually do OK against aggro decks, since most of them are midrange with some anti-aggro tools).

I managed to make a hunter deck with a good winrate against Odd Paladin, but I had to dedicate like...eight cards in my deck primarily to be anti-aggro. It's not enough to clear their board twice, you need to be thinking about clearing their board again on turn 11, cause they might attack with Vinecleaver, hero power, and level up.

I think it'll still be a good deck, but it won't be such a threat on turn 11 anymore. It will still be able to kill on turn 6, but maybe it will be like a normal aggro deck now where if you live till turn 8 and play a primordial drake you've won.

Chain Gang summons copies of Chain Gang

I don't mind the chain gang nerf, and I'll probably be messing around with Shudderwock in decks cause I still think it has potential. But man, I want a dust refund on the Grumble I crafted now, cause I think that card will actively be a bad inclusion in new Shudderwock decks.

I won't be disenchanting my Chain Gangs (well, my excess copies I guess) cause hey, still good in like...most of the Even decks, still good in Zoo. Possibly still good in a no-grumble shudderwock (summoning taunts from giggling inventor was good in no-grumble shudderwock decks before).

It might be time for another instance of Evolve Shaman, now with the introduction of Former Champ (good evolve target, and a way to get Shudderwock to summon 5/5s).

Leeching Poison

Yeah, this is exactly the card I wanted them to target from Kingsbane. Like...I had joked on reddit that this card should cost 6 mana, cause it normally heals as much or more than Reno Jackson. And I've mentioned before that I don't mind playing against the Kingsbane decks that cut Leeching Poison and focus on aggro (they might kill me sometimes, but at least games fucking end).

I think pirate rogue running Raiding Party will still probably run Kingsbane as its weapon of choice (LOL serrated tooth), but it's going to be mostly a pirate deck now with like...not that many weapon buffs (probably deadly poison and one or two pirates).

Wild Growth and Nourish +1 mana

Nourish kind of deserved it based on current statistics, but I feel a little weird about this nerf too, because the rotation of UI is so soon, and as soon as UI rotates, Nourish goes back to being primarily being used for "draw 3 cards", which is a perfectly fair 5 mana spell no different from Sprint or Arcane Intellect.

Wild Growth...oof. They could have made this "gain a mana crystal" instead of "gain an empty mana crystal", but I guess they like to keep nerfs as simple as possible so as to not confuse players. This card looks worse than Greedy Sprite now, a card that's played in 0.2% of decks (mostly spiteful druid). The only upside of new Wild Growth over Greedy Sprite is that you are guaranteed the mana next turn, whereas sprite, maybe they don't kill it. But...well...please name the 5 mana card that you are ramping into from 3 mana. I'll wait. Remember Nourish costs 6 now. So...I think most current Druid decks don't need to get to 5 mana right away, and would rather get the body from Sprite.

Also, I guess every singe wild Druid deck for the rest of time will be running Jade Blossom now.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

KokoroAkechi posted...

There just seems to be less effort put into the single player. I mean like I thought puzzle run was pretty good actually but I think there's a clear downgrade in each other solo content they put out since they got rid of adventures.

Mmm...I mean, I was skeptical at first "they're doing a third version of dungeon run?" But it's actually reasonably interesting, just because there are 27 shrines, and even within the same class each shrine really feels different.

I mean, whenever they repeat a format they've done recently it's going to feel like less effort than coming up with a new mode (and less fresh). But I think Rumble Run is better gameplay than the witchwood. The witchwood probably had the best plot of the three (lol hearthstone plot) but only four classes and two of them were pretty braindead.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

So I've been thinking about this card, Dozing Marksman:

https://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/90278-dozing-marksman

2 mana 0/4, with +4 attack while damaged.

And...honestly, the numbers just feel a little too low. I like the concept, but maybe it should be a 2 mana 0/5. The obvious comparison is Amani Berserker, but Amani is a 5/2 if pinged compared to a 4/3 for Dozing Marksman. And OK sure, 4/3 is arguably better than 5/2, but not so much better that marksman feels worth the effort. (And obviously the Amani having any attack before it's damaged is a big upside, because it can "ping itself" by killing a silver hand recruit).

Like...I find the concept interesting. I think maybe a 0/5 would have been actually interesting enough that I would be tempted to put together an off-meta deck. A 0/5 becomes a potential 4/4, maybe I'd try an Even Mage or something. But 0/4 is just...not...there.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Took me 6 tries or so.

Eventually got the mage hero power shrine, and also the partner that's a 2/2 for 1 and upgrades your hero power and always starts in your opening hand.

That combo should consistently get 8 wins, I think. So...here's the thing--I think tempo is very important; if your opponent gets board control early you lose your shrine and then you're probably fucked. And I think drawing teammates is very important, since they are massively better than regular cards in your deck.

Being guaranteed a 1 drop, guaranteed to draw a synergistic teammate, and having a 0 mana hero power to take board control is a really big deal. On turn 1 you get to ping for 1, play your 2/2, ping for 2 dealing 3 damage to the enemy shrine. Enemy shrine probably dies on turn 2 (unless it's an 8+health shrine).

Admitedly, I didn't have a boss play one of the full board clear teammates. Unbound punisher is kind of bullshit when played by the AI, and might have stopped this run, maybe? But for the most part this shrine felt reasonably strong, but more importantly extremely consistent.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

KokoroAkechi posted...

The special helpers too are like made for certain shrines. The 3 mana 1/1 immune dude is so good with the stealth shrine because every time the shrine dies he gets a buff.

Oh yeah, for sure, the special helpers I was able to find ones spell related (I had one with overkill add 3 spells to my hand). Still needed to draw that though.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

KokoroAkechi posted...

the sheer amount of synergy you can pick for your shrine seems a lot higher than the synergy you get with your powers in witchwood.

I mean...I picked the "spells cost 2 less" shrine and then kept getting offered pools with no spells.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

For once I agree with Ulti, the HotS situation is incredibly shitty. I got somewhat near competitive level in that game, so I know a few of the competitive people in-person. They had no warning this was coming. One of my favourite players just got signed back onto a team and was really excited. There were people who dropped out of college to pursue their esports dream.

If they had winded this down in a reasonable way like...still done an HGC for 2019 but announced it would be the final HGC I think it would be a lot more reasonable. Like yes, sure, I understand they can't be expected to provide a league infrastructure for a game forever--it's not like they're running Warcraft III tournaments in 2019. But the suddenness of this is really awful.

It also still comes as a surprise to me. The heroes of the storm finals at Blizzcon this year had a packed audience, with loads more people than the hearthstone audience, for example.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

UltimaterializerX posted...

Smash Bros Ultimate fixed a major glitch within one week of the games release.

I mean, so did Hearthstone within one week of the release of Rakhastan (Janalai no longer crashes the game with Bran).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

UltimaterializerX posted...

Magic is trash, but at least it gets damage right. Hearthstone cant even get basic things like DAMAGE correct.

If a lord is out, all minions take 1, and the lord dies, the minions all die in Magic because of having 1 damage on them. In hearthstone the game treats it as if every minion still alive gets 1 health, which is so hilariously stupid that ONLY Blizzard would ever have such an oversight.

Honestly, that's pretty unintuitive in both games.

It's very unintuitive in Magic, I have to stop and explain the rule to people when they're like "but my guy survived the damage", "Yeah, but after that the lord died and then your guy is now smaller and thus dead". "But it was alive, you didn't even interact with it, you just killed my other creature".

But like, in Hearthstone it feels like it should be the other way; since damage does not disappear at end of turn, you get scenarios where your minions are damaged, you play stormwind champion, and it literally heals your minions. That also feels weird. (It probably wouldn't feel weird in magic, though, where creatures heal after every turn anyway)

So yeah, I dunno, I don't necessarily think there's a right way of designing health buffs, since they both feel kinda weird to me.

I will give the hearthstone devs some creddit for basically recognizing that this mechanic was confusing and just stop printing it. (Nerfed Murloc Warleader to get rid of the health buff. All buffs they've printed recently have been permanent buffs or only attack buffs).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

So...Kripp has now followed me on twitter. I'm not sure how to feel about this, given that I don't generally watch him (not that into Arena), don't follow him on twitter (I follow Hafu instead for my Arena streamer of choice), and am not particularly a fan of salty streamer personas (Reynad/Kripp etc).

But hey, I guess we bonded over Linecracker. New friends!

UltimaterializerX posted...

Oh and Cube has now been 5 mana for a full year with no nerfs.

Cube is currently being played in like...5% of decks. (Mostly Hadronox Druid, and not even the flavour of the month Hadronox Druid either, which runs Da Undatakah instead).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

So...I made a mediocre reddit shitpost, which apparently inspired Kripp to make a video and respond to me:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/a53g7s/how_to_gain_more_armour_than_armourwock/ebjzzw7/
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

(And since it was mentioned a bunch, the crash bug with Jan'alai and Brann has been fixed.)
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Cyrlous posted...

On a scale of 1-10, how sad will everyone here be when Hillary is arrested for her many crimes?

Why would that make anyone here sad?

Like...she's not particularly popular on the left, being a pro-corporate pro-fracking politician, and I wasn't under the impression that she was popular on the right either.

So it would have to be some seriously weird situation for me to expect people to be sad. Something like...she's innocent but gets arrested anyway for partisan reasons. And even then, I don't think people would be sad about her being arrested so much as sad about an obvious sign of a crumbling American democracy (people being arrested for their political views).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

KokoroAkechi posted...

Wait it doesnt have grumble? Does it have that minion that bounces and makes it bigger at least?

Bog slosher? No, it only has Zola. (I can support a no-bounce shudderwock, though; sometimes just summoning 18/18 worth of stats is enough of a tempo play, and any bouncing in the deck actually counteracts how much tempo you get on the initial play).

But yeah, I do think the whizbang deck could have reasonably justified Bog Sloshers.

I also would much rather they have Fungal Enchanter (the 3/3 AoE heal that zoo uses) rather than Omega Mind. Fungal Enchanter does a lot more before turn 10, gets copied with Shudderwock, and heals off Hagatha's aoe damage so that you don't get stuck with 6/3s Shudderwocks. (Alternatively, instead of Fungal Enchanter or Omega Mind you could use Lifedrinkers, but I'm pretty sure they on-purpose did not include Lifedrinkers).

Buuuut yeah, honestly, looking at HSReplay, it's not really a Shudderwock focused deck. It's like...there's maybe four important cards (Elise the Trailblazer, Hagatha the Witch, Lich King, Shudderwock) and none of them are clearly the finisher in the deck. Hagatha looks like the one that increases the winrate most when drawn. Elise seems to be the best one to have in your opening mulligan. So...I guess it mostly wins off of generating a lot of cards (and Shudderwock will also generate a bunch of cards).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Camden posted...

I haven't even looked at the deck lists, overall is Whizbang better or worse than before?

I mean, I think the decks are slightly stronger, but that's also to be expected with a larger card pool.

The one thing I really like actually is that decks sometimes have 1x tech cards, which is something the old whizbang decks really lacked. Like...1x Acidic Swamp Ooze, something I'd really like to have after a legendary weapon gets played; basically none of the old decklists had those cards. So someone would play like Skull of the Manari, and you'd just be thinking "there is no card in this entire deck that can save me".

KokoroAkechi posted...

1. Shudderwock vs Combo Priest (loss)
-Okay so, the priest was a pretty good player with a not awful deck. I just drew pretty poorly and I don't actually know what cards are in the whizbang version of the deck, which was 100% a problem for me.

I've had this problem too. OK let's see...

Whizbang version of Shudder in terms of battlecries:

Does NOT have:
* Grumble
* Life Drinker
* Or any form of healing battlecry other than Omega Mind (which you could use to heal literally 1 with earth shock, oh boy)
* Electra Stormsurge
* Any form of freeze

Does have:
* Weapon removal (1x Acidic Swamp Ooze)
* 1x Mind Control Tech
* Zola The Gorgon
* 2x Saronite Chain Gang
* Hagatha the Witch
* A bunch of card generation/draw (2x Menacing Nimbus, 1x Storm Chaser which can get Volcano/Rain of Toads, and Elise the Trailblazer)

So...Shudderwock in the Whizbang deck makes a big board state, doesn't do anything for healing you or killing the opponent other than putting some 6/6s onto the board that can attack if the opponent doesn't kill them. You can sometimes replay it if Zola triggers in the right order, but that particular gravy train will have a decent chance of failure, so you'll get to play it maybe 3 times on average in an average game (if you wait for both chain gangs and Zola).

Seems like in the Whizbang deck Shudderwock is just meant to be a big tempo play (which is fine, pretty much what I'd expect from a Whizbang deck with Wock in it). I wouldn't hold onto it for maximum battlecries, shudderwock with all battlecries in the pool isn't really that strong in this deck, so it's not worth stalling for 8 more turns to get a slightly stronger shudderwock, although I would wait for a chain gang (or two) or Hagatha since those are the only real high impact battlecries in the pool.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

So...I've been playing a bunch of whizbang. The deck I've had the most success with is the Surrender to Madness deck, which is baffling to me. I assume I've just been queueing against people who were also messing around, cause that list can't actually be good, can it?
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Wow, someone took discard warlock to the gollegate champs.

And it went 0-3, even losing a game where they got nether portal on 5 and two Bloodreaver Guldans. I am...not impressed.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Watched CMC in the collegate champs with a unique hunter deck.

Basically a pile of tech cards (Black Knight, Mojomaster Zihi, Mossy horror) along with Stitched Tracker to find them.

Watched as they beat a taunt druid by playing two Mojomaster Zihis and never letting the Druid play Hadronox.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

The one thing I will say in defence of the new kingsbane decks is that some people are turning it into an aggro deck, and removing the lifesteal buff from their deck.

And like...maybe that causes them to win on turn 8 a little more often, but at least now there's a clear path to victory. (Just stay alive and go kill them, it's not that different from the old Pirate Warrior deck that also went face super hard).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Of all the cards that could be seeing play at top legend...I didn't expect Hakkar the Soulflayer.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/345145850?t=07h09m16s

First of all, oof, they really need to speed up that animation.

Second...seems like on an empty deck with bloods in it, draw 2 will cause you to draw through the deck and shuffle bloods twice.

So like...with one blood in the deck, Togwaggle, Naturalize, Naturalize is...from fatigue 1+2+3+4+5, and then from blood 3+6+12+24+48. If the opponent uses Time Out, they'll only take 48+5. If you have more than one blood to start with...well, Dog demonstrates 185 damage (completely unnecessary, the Paladin only had 48 HP and Timeout).

...

In other druid combo stuff, I got Gonked for the first time yesterday. (Not even the double Gonk combo, he just cleared my board with one Gonk, UI'd my face, I cleared off all his minions, and then he killed me next turn with Leeroy+Swipe+Claw.

I think I've slightly undersold Gonk for a few reasons. One, it can break Twig from basically any durability if there's any minions on the board. Two, even without mana shenanigans, Gonk + Prince Taldarim is 10 mana, and the new +2 attack spell is 0 mana, so the combo can hypothetically operate without Dreampetal Florist or Twig.

I don't think it can ever become the best Druid deck, but times I normally feel safe against Druid are not safe against this deck.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

MrSmartGuy posted...

I switched over to Wild, figuring Blizzard had to have fixed the Brann-Jan'alai crash by now, since it's been more than two days.

Nope.

There hasn't been a patch or a hotfix, so unless the problem was server-side they haven't changed anything >_>
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Does esports count cause uhh...I was literally in the audience for this, you can see me in one of the crowd shots


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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

azuarc posted...

What's everyone been finding success with, anyway? I haven't had an especially successful first two days of launch.

I have a couple decks hovering around 55% or so, around rank 3-4 so...functional but not meta busting.

1. Deathrattle hunter, and

2. a more aggro-ish Odd Mage with Kirin Tor Mage, secrets, Cinderstorm, and 2x Clockwork Automaton. (I don't have Frost Lich Jaina so I improvised and turned it into a midrange deck with lots of potential for lategame burst to the face). Still actively tuning that deck though. I cut down to one Explosive Runes and went up to two counterspells cause there's too many Spell Hunters running around.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

azuarc posted...

The only death knight I will miss is Valeera, and even she gets annoying when played in a kingsbane deck.

I won't necessarily miss Rexxar, but I will miss building zombeasts. Would be cool if they made like a 2 mana spell "discover a zombeast" next year, cause the mechanic of mixing beasts was quite fun, even if doing it every turn was a bit much.

Jaina can go fuck herself.

Guldan can go fuck himself.

Anduin can go fuck himself.

Thrall...I'll miss Thrall a little bit. Made for interesting deck construction. Playing a fungalmancer and then hero powering your fungalmancer with Thrall felt really good.

Malf I barely notice exists TBH. Although I guess all the people who opened Gonk will miss him. But I barely notice him playing against him. His hero power is on a similar power level to Odd hero powers; I'm so used to fighting against hero powers at about that power level.

Garrosh is cool. AoE weapon, whirlwind hero power. Doesn't go into Odd Warrior. I mean, honestly I might not notice if he's gone, cause he's played so little these days, but I like the concept.

Uther...no, the concept is just bad. Even in decks that plan to bounce minions to hand, you still have to hope you don't RNG a minion you already have in hand. Just...bad design all around.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Wow, what's with all the taunt Hadronox druids lately?

Whenever I get cute and come up with my own midrange deck, if I face that deck it's like "fuck you, I have 7 hadronoxes so my endgame is better than yours". Like...man fuck that deck. Other druid decks are generally ok whatever. Like...did you play around spreading plague? Cool, you pass the test. Maybe you'll take 24 damage from Malygos but if you survive that you win.

But hadronox requires super specific answers that really limit creativity in deckbuilding.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Started out 4-1, but went 4-3 in the tavern brawl. Honestly a little disappointed. One of those was vs Shudderwock where...I made mistakes, there were draws I could have prevented and I got hit by mind control tech. Still a really close game; I know how to pressure Shudderwock, and my opponent was really pressured; forced to wock early with a less than 50% chance of combo success. The other two were just...weird off-meta decks where I didn't know what to play around. Even Shaman with overload synergy and Likkim but also Grumble (what?) Pirate Paladin (where I did not play around Tarim on 6, really should have seen that coming in retrospect). Probably could have won those games with more meta experience, but I'm also pretty sure that's why they're doing the tavern brawl now so that people playing unexpected decks can show them off.

I consistently beat the decks I was metadecking for at least (won every game vs Odd Paladin, Spell Hunter, and actually didn't face any Odd Mages).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

I'd be interested in this list if you have time. I've got both Ysera and Emeriss and have never been able to find much use for the latter in particular.

Sure.

Deck is basically just a control deck, and it's not super amazing or anything, but it goes about 50% winrate at rank 4.

Fair warning I actually haven't updated this list since witchwood, so I'm sure there's additions that should be made to it but....

### Dragons of the Swamp
# Class: Hunter
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Raven
#
# 2x (1) Candleshot
# 2x (1) Hunter's Mark
# 2x (1) Tracking
# 2x (2) Explosive Trap
# 1x (2) Freezing Trap
# 1x (2) Rat Trap
# 2x (2) Wandering Monster
# 2x (3) Stonehill Defender
# 2x (4) Flanking Strike
# 2x (4) Scaleworm
# 2x (5) Cobalt Scalebane
# 2x (5) Lesser Emerald Spellstone
# 1x (6) Deathstalker Rexxar
# 2x (7) Wyrmguard
# 2x (8) Primordial Drake
# 1x (8) The Lich King
# 1x (9) Ysera
# 1x (10) Emeriss
#
AAECAYoWBocEognCzgKG0wLW7AKY8AIMjQHJBJcIm8 (linebreak)
ICyccCyssC3dIC39IC49IC4eMCjO8CifECAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Basically, uses secrets, flanking strike and candleshot to stay alive earlygame, and then switches to dragon synergy cards. Scaleworm, Wyrmguard, and Primordial Drake are generally straight up good cards.

My early iterations would have problems of still running out of cards, though (if I didn't run Rexxar), which is why I put in as much card generation as I could. 2x Stonehill Defender, Lich King, and Ysera.

Emeriss is honestly mostly there to sit in hand and activate dragons, but the doubling effect can be pretty relevant. (If you get a 7/22 taunt from doubling a Wyrmguard, then a taunt druid might be forced to suicide their whole board into that just to survive. And if you have a hand full of Zombeasts it can get pretty good).

Cobalt Scalebane should probably be replaced by one of those shiny new dragons, like the one with the aoe board clear. It's mostly there to be a dragon, although I will say that buffing the attack on Stonehill Defender so that it actually has a real statline is pretty good if it happens.

Some of the other dragon synergy cards should likely be added too; I've heard reports that they're pretty good.

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The deck is...alright. I'm very close to 50% winrate with it on ladder, which unfortunately means it's not great for climbing; think I used it to get back up to rank 5 once, but usually other decks climb faster. Still a fun deck to pull out every once in a while. Don't think it will ever be meta, though, as doing things with Cube just has a much higher ceiling for lategame potential in hunter.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Well you can blame the community's utter hatred of Face Hunter or even more aggressive midrange versions for that. Ever since ONiK and the Call of the Wild nerf that's been the case. Of course when people hate what the class is and you have to build a new identity, you're gonna have to push cards.

I think it would be better, though, if there was a toned down version of Rexxar that was a quest, or had an even/odd restriction and start of game trigger, though. The feast or famine between "draw Rexxar" and "don't draw Rexxar" is kind-of extreme for some decks.

davidponte posted...

I've seen more than zero Kingsbanes on ladder today, which is awful.

I just played against Kingsbane rogue with double Cannon Barrage and double Raiding Party. My guess is that people are playing Kingsbane because of Raiding Party. A lot of the creaturess that buff weapons are pirates, and Raiding Party can draw your Kingsbane. I'm not sure about Cannon Barrage in the deck, though.

(I don't think I've actually lost to Kingsbane yet with my variant of Odd Mage, but my Odd Mage is probably more aggro than the default build).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

MrSmartGuy posted...

Or have Deathstalker Rexxar and never care about what you topdeck again.

Well...yeah. I found that relying on one single card was pretty...unreliable if I was trying to make an actual control deck though (which is why I have a hunter deck with Ysera+Lich King+Emeriss and a bunch of 7-8 mana plays).

Hunter decks that run out of cards but have 1x Rexxar are kind of just frustrating for everyone, though. Either they draw Rexxar and it's frustrating for the opponent ("most of the cards in your deck cost 2 and you'll never run out of cards in hand now") or they don't draw Rexxar and it's frustrating for the player ("Guess I'll topdeck a single Freezing trap and play it. Exciting turn :/" )
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

MrSmartGuy posted...

I think people really slept on Daring Fire-Eater. It's probably been this deck's best card so far. Super helpful in the early-game, super helpful in the late-game too, after becoming Frost Lich. I had a paladin plop a Lich King on a board with just a 3/3 Water Elemental, I guess hoping I didn't have a Voodoo Doll (which I didn't), but Zilliax + Daring Fire-Eater is a hell of a lot of reach.

I mean, people evaluated Daring Fire-Eater were thinking about not-odd decks.

Playing it in an odd deck it's just obviously an extremely good 3 mana play. Shadow Bolt is a 3 mana spell that sometimes gets played in control warlock that deals 4 damage to a minion. Daring Fire Eater is deal 4 damage with no target restriction AND it summons a 1/1. Just...good. (3 damage on the other hand is really weak).

ColZach posted...

I think we can objectively say any game where a hunter plays a fully upgraded spellstone on 5 is not a well played game. Its just some bulls***.

I mean, I think there are problems with hunter right now, but spell stone is manageable. Most 4-5 mana board clears in standard right now are 3 damage AoEs. And even if you have something like Mind Control tech, that comes pretty close to equalizing the board (three 3/3s to two 3/3s).

Don't get me wrong, I think the secret package is quite good, I think the spellstone is a great card, but the secret package does have downsides. Like...I tried putting the deathrattle package and the secret package into the same deck once. The deck was...bad. Like...ok, it could dump its hand real fast, but if the opponent had one board clear then you were like...topdeck a single secret, play it and pass turn :/

In order to run the secret package, you either need to be super aggro and embrace running out of cards, or you need to have a super high end with stuff like Lich King and Ysera and Emeriss, using secrets and spellstone mostly as a way to stall till you can start dropping legendaries.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

You know, the more I play with Clockwork Automaton in odd mage, the more I think it belongs in the deck. (At least in a version that doesn't have Frost Lich Jaina).

Firelands portal was deal 5 damage, summon a 5 drop for 7. Clockwork Automaton is deal 4 damage summon a 5 drop for 7. 4 damage is...noticeably worse than 5, but honestly probably still marginally playable. But automaton also has combos.

Combos with Daring Fire Eater for 8 damage. If an automaton lives a turn, second automaton + Daring Fire Eater is 16 face damage (I've done this twice now, both times against hunter I think).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Wedge Antilles posted...

I'm seeing a crap ton of hunters today, not just that I'm playing against but all the streamers I see keep running into hunters.

People trying out Zul'Jin in spell hunter, or Oondasta in big hunter.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Just faced a Druid who played Stampeeding Roar (which got counterspelled) and then played Oondasta (which died to a 7 damage explosive Runes with spellpower from Black Cat).

Wow that felt dirty.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

First thing I tried was Even Shaman with the following additions:

Belligerent Gnome to protect Flametongue totems and knife jugglers.

Shieldbreaker (2 mana silence OPOP?)

Cheaty Anklebiter (as a 1-of, replacing the 1-of Vicious Scalehide. Anklebiter isn't great, but my gut instinct says Scalehide is even worse soooo...).

I think these additions are probably good if the deck is still viable buuuuuut I also strongly advise against playing Even Shaman on ladder right now. All of your 2/2s like Knife Juggler and Dire Wolf Alpha will just die horrible deaths to Odd Mage which is about 50% of the ladder right now.

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As it happens, I also opened Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk, so I went and played some odd mage. Picked the deck recipe, missing 10 cards including Frost Lich Jaina and Dragon's Breath. OK...added Blackwald Pixie and Clockwork Automaton. Still need 6 more cards. Added Kirin Tor Mage and some secrets. Done! Expected the deck to be trash, queued up some ladder and...to my shock winning most of my games so far.

Decks right now aren't really set up to beat Ragnaros on 7. Daring Fire Eater is 3 mana deal 4 damage summon a 1/1, which is fantastic. Clockwork Automaton is much less impressive, as 7 mana deal 4 damage summon a 4/4; like a shitty firelands portal. But sometimes Clockwork Automaton lives, and then things get funny (second Automaton and Daring Fire Eater is 16 damage to the face).

I'm sure people will figure out how to beat turn 7 Ragnaros in a few days (or maybe everyone will just play deathrattle hunter or odd paladin, cause both of those sound good against it). But for now this seems to be the day 1 expansion deck that people haven't figured out how to beat.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

davidponte posted...

https://twitter.com/firebat/status/1069920278757683201?s=19

See you guys next expansion

Tempo Shuddwock being the deck that plays shudderwock once and never replays it, and just uses Shudderwock as one of their large threats?

Why would that cause you to leave for an expansion?

EDIT--here's Firebat's list. No Zola, no Grumble, no way to use wock more than once. But a lot of unstable Evolution synergy including both new legendaries seemingly mostly for Unstable Evolution synergy. Just run Skulking Geist and you should have an answer to that deck.

https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/firebat-tempo-shudderwok-theorycraft/
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

CybrMonkey posted...

NewerShadow posted...

With scorcher, some of the difference has to come down to 5 mana being more flexible than 8 mana, right? Its a dead card less often in your hand and you have more mana to follow up.

Yeah, that's what they attributed the gap to in the video:

Yeah makes sense.

I suppose arena also has less of the control vs aggro dynamic, and more of just both players fighting for board, so the lack of taunt is probably not as important as it will be in Standard; you still probably want to clear off a 3/6 body in Arena (whereas if you're an aggro deck in constructed, you see a 3/6 without taunt and you go face).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision

Lightforge has made predictions on the best cards from the set (in Arena):

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/a2oq0x/top_10_rastakhan_cards_lightforge_arena_tier_list/

For neutrals they're expecting Dragonmaw Scorcher to be on top (the 3/6 with an attached whirlwind) and claim that it will be better than Primordial Drake. I dunno about better than Primordial Drake (I'm the girl who runs Primordial Drake in like...two different hunter decks in constructed) but...maybe. Even in constructed I have been thinking Scorcher is a card that a lot of decks might slot in to boost their Odd Paladin matchup. Better body for the cost than Drake too, just...Primordial Drake having taunt is a big deal to me.

Hmm...honestly, if the whirlwind effect is worth 1 mana, and the 2 damage whirlwind effect is worth 2 mana, then they're comparable; Scorcher is like a 4 mana 3/6, and Drake is like a 6 mana 4/8 taunt (probably about the right cost for a 6 mana taunt--comparable to the average result for Hungry Ettin without the RNG).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision