Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic: MONSTER HUNT

(+) Yeah! (+)

spiteful is in a weird spot because despite how strong the card is, even in the best case right now of Druid its a deck that I think is not good at higher skill levels because of how linear the game plan is. When you compare it to something like mysterious challenger (which spiteful decks are very similar to secret paladin in the way they function) mysterious challenger was just a much stronger card. So strong it still sees play in wild I hear.
---

KokoroAkechi posted...

spiteful is in a weird spot because despite how strong the card is, even in the best case right now of Druid its a deck that I think is not good at higher skill levels because of how linear the game plan is. When you compare it to something like mysterious challenger (which spiteful decks are very similar to secret paladin in the way they function) mysterious challenger was just a much stronger card. So strong it still sees play in wild I hear.

A lot of the old Paladin cards do

Minibot And Muster are still among the best 2 and 3 drops ever printed, Quartermaster is level up with a body
---

I just pulled off perfect RNG

Cubelock pulls off Cube Darkpact on a Doomguard to put me at 2, I have Rhok'delar as my weapon and he's at 17.

So I played Animal Companion twice, got Double Huffer, then Kill Commanded his face for exact lethal.

Yeah baby yeah now I don't have to worry about this game until the next Tavern Brawl
---

Me summon Misha? (Nope!)

Summon Huffer? (Yep!)

Summon Leokk? (Nope!)

Another Huffer? (Yep!)
---

Finally, after 63 bosses, I beat Dungeon Run with Druid.

Quest Druid, of all things. Bag of Stuffing after Barnabus is the real deal.
---

trdl23 posted...

Finally, after 63 bosses, I beat Dungeon Run with Druid.

Quest Druid, of all things. Bag of Stuffing after Barnabus is the real deal.

Congrats

Ill never finish dungeon run with everyone, or monster hunt. Its fun to do for the quests, but I just get tired of it.

I love monster hunt and am only getting tired of it because I can't clear it with Toki >_>
---

Sweet, I can do missions in Arena instead of Constructed today!
*goes 0-3*
---

I only have warrior and priest left in dungeon run. But I haven't cleared monster hunt with any of the four heroes yet. I've reached the final boss with all of them but really only got close to winning with Tess. I'm sure I'll get them all eventually but I prefer to pick rewards that seem fun to play instead of choosing what is optimal
---

The options I found the most fun in Monster Hunt were all the ones I was successful with outside of Houndmaster.
---

Tom Bombadil posted...

Sweet, I can do missions in Arena instead of Constructed today!
*goes 0-3*

https://imgur.com/VnR2JY7
---

Wasn't Innervate two crystals back in the day or am I just nuts?
---

Tom Bombadil posted...

Wasn't Innervate two crystals back in the day or am I just nuts?

It was nerfed
---

They also nerfed War Axe and Hex and punted Ice Block And Coldlight Oracle out of standard
---

LiquidOshawott posted...

punted Ice Block And Coldlight Oracle out of standard

and nothing of value was lost
---

I also dont know how long youve been out for but they also punted Sylv, Rag, Azure Drake, Power Overwhelming, Ice Lance, and Conceal out of standard too
---

LiquidOshawott posted...

Sylv, Rag, Azure Drake

man those are some of my best dudes :\
---

Did you at least get the dust, or does the window "expire" every rotation?

You should have received SOME dust when you came back. If you had any Ice Block, Coldlights, or Molten Giants, you should have gotten full dust for each. And more for those previous cards, I hope.
---

Oh best crafts

Classic: Leeroy, Van Cleef, Alex, Thalnos, either Tirion or Harrison (Probably more Harrison right now)

Mammoth: Tarim, Lich King, Keleseth, DK Guldan/Anduin/Malfurion, Skull/Valanyr/Aluneth, Caverns Below

Raven: Genn and Baku, Godfrey, perhaps Hagatha and Shudderwock once Shaman gets more support?
---

I crafted Hagatha yesterday because i've been having so much fun with different builds in Even Shaman. She is absurd. I'm running her in the murloc even shaman list. Just 1 echo murloc late game its ridiculous value on her. But it makes plays and you have to manage your hand a lot better to not burn anything.
---

I did get a good chunk of dust yeah. Decided for some reason to craft Baku without asking the internet first, but have yet to find a good deck for him.

Is free single-player content like the thing now? Can I get away with spending down my gold or should I keep enough to buy adventure stages still?
---

They don't do adventures any more. It's three regular expansions each year with some sort of single player experience attached to it. Unless they change their mind and bring them back, don't bother saving gold for potential adventures.
---

Upcoming balance changes:

Naga Sea Witch: 8 Mana (up from 5)

In update 9.1, we introduced a rule change to increase the consistency of Hearthstone game mechanics. The change affected precisely when Naga Sea Witchs cost change was applied to cards. This allowed it to be combined with the cost reduction effects on giants, and as a result, it became fairly easy to reduce their mana cost to 0.

We think Hearthstone is better all around when interactions are consistent, and we like the fact that a Naga Sea Witch giants deck archetype exists. That said, we also understand that, with its current functionality, this deck can generate early board states that are unreasonable for most classes to deal with. By increasing the cost of Naga Sea Witch to 8 mana, the decks concept remains intact, but the combo is delayed until later in a match when more decks are likely to have the tools to handle the arrival of so many giants.

Spiteful Summoner: 7 Mana (up from 6)

After set rotation arrived with the Year of the Raven, Spiteful Summoner became more powerful and consistent when used in decks containing 10 mana cost spells. This is because the pool of 10 mana cost minions in Standard is smaller, so players could more reliably count on getting a powerful minion from Spiteful Summoners effect. Even considering the deckbuilding sacrifices that an effective Spiteful Summoner deck requires, we think that increasing the cards mana cost to 7 is more in line with the powerful outcomes that are possible when its used alongside cards like Ultimate Infestation.

Dark Pact: Restores 4 Health (down from 8)

There are two aspects of Dark Pact that make it powerful. At a cost of 1 mana, its easily used alongside cards like Carnivorous Cube, Possessed Lackey, and Spiritsinger Umbra for big combo turns. It also gives Warlocks enough healing potential so that aggressively using Lifetap and playing cards like Kobold Librarian and Hellfire feel less consequential. We left Dark Pacts cost intact so it can still be used as part of interesting combos, but lessened the healing it provides so Warlocks will need to more carefully consider how much damage they take over the course of a match.

Possessed Lackey: 6 Mana (up from 5)

Some of the card combos involving Possessed Lackey present situations that are too difficult to deal with in the early-to-mid stages of the game. Increasing its mana cost to 6 delays some of those powerful card combos to turns that are easier for opposing decks to overcome.

Call to Arms: 5 Mana (up from 4)

Currently, there are three popular Paladin decks: Even Paladin, Murloc Paladin, and Odd Paladin. Among the three decks, Even Paladin and Murloc Paladin have consistently been the most powerful two archetypes over the first few weeks since the release of The Witchwood. Call to Arms moving to 5 mana restricts it from being used in Even decks and reduces its power somewhat when used in Murloc and other Paladin decks.

We expect that players will experiment with Call to Arms at 5 mana in Odd Paladin decks, but we dont expect this card to have much of an impact. This is because Odd Paladin cant access 2 mana minions (meaning Call to Arms could only ever summon three 1 mana minions if played in that deck).

The Caverns Below: Minions will be 4/4 (down from 5/5)

The Quest Rogue deck uses a strategy thats strong against slow, control-heavy and fatigue decks, but struggles against most other deck archetypes. Theres a fine line between being powerful against very slow decks and being powerful versus virtually all non-aggressive strategies. By changing the quest reward to make the resulting minions 4/4 instead of 5/5, Quest Rogue should still be a reasonable option versus slow, extreme late-game decks, but offer a less polarized matchup with more moderate control decks.

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21758133
---

Naga Sea Witch: 8 Mana (up from 5)

Haha fuck I haven't even read anything beyond that yet but jesus they didn't play around.
---

quest rogue buffed against priest pogchamp
---

Holy nerfs YES. This was essentially exactly what I wanted.

Camden posted...

jesus they didn't play around.

---

also lmao even paladin
---

Honestly I don't feel like the Spiteful and Warlock changes are enough. They are a start but I still think they will see just as much play

Think the biggest winners are Spell Hunter and Odd Rogue just from looking at them
---

Spiteful - think the mana increase is actually big, Priest will probably stop using it and I wonder if Druid might try some more midrange esque build

CTA - Murloc is now the strongest Pally, dont think odd Paladin runs it, I would probably rather just hero power and it doesnt need deck thinning tools (it has divine favor). Even Pally might still be decent though it might have to build heavier (cutting jugglers and DWA for Steed and Lich King/Tirion)

Dark Pact/Lackey- Control gets hurt a lot by these two, Cube less so as its still an activator and it has access to Skull. Tempo Mage and Control Priest are going to be a lot tougher to deal with

Quest - Think 4/4 vs 5/5 is huge but its probably still playable? Time will tell
---

I think I would have liked to see Dark Pact go to 2 but overall these nerfs are great.
---

FFDragon posted...

quest rogue buffed against priest pogchamp

Seriously. DK Anduin was one of the best answers to a board of 5/5s.

Priest still has scream to answer, but the DK answer has saved me multiple times against quest rogue and so it sucks to lose that.
---

Nerd to Quest Rogue wasn't enough.
---

Quest: Play 10 minions of the same name
Reward: Your minions are 1/1s for the rest of the game
---

You need a deck like Quest Rogue though, I dont think Blizzard wants a full control meta and the big thing is that 4/4s arent as annoying as 5/5s.

Plus now theres a lot of clears that work (Control Mages, Hero Power and Flurry, we also joke about Priest buff but Auchenai + Circle still exists)
---

Burn mage is a huge winner with these nerfs
---

Wild is free! Long live wild! Who cares about the rest of those changes? Naga Sea Witch is dead!
---

I feel pretty decent about these changes. Dark Pact from 8 to 4 will be significant, for sure. And Lackey costing 1 extra mana will disrupt some of the problematic combos they could pull off by using it as an activator early on.

Keeping in mind that most Warlock matches ended with me having exact lethal or being off by one, giving them 4 less points of healing per DP (8 less points overall, and yes, there have been MANY times when they have BOTH dark pact and use them consecutively... very frustrating when you keep setting them down to 2 health and they keep going back up... but I digress) is likely to have a huge positive influence on my own personal winrate against Warlock.

Or maybe people just stop playing it as much, which is fine too. We've seen them enough for a long enough period of time.
---

Seems like the nerfs are actually good not card destroying like they have been in the past. I think they should of reduced dark pact to 6 instead of 4 though.
---

KokoroAkechi posted...

Burn mage is a huge winner with these nerfs

Disagree, unless Control Warlock is still a big part (Yes it takes advantage of a Pally nerf but I think Hunter and Odd Rogue are bigger winners and both decks do well against Tempo Mage.)

Zoolock also might come back as it struggled mightily against Call to Arms and now has a good chance of beating Control Warlock before a void daddy becomes online
---

I dont think hunter gains enough to be significantly relevant. Also burn mage is favored over odd rogue
---

Apparently I have two Dark Pacts and that's it, I'm not going to be getting a bunch of dust from these.

Blizzard, please nerf something I actually have, doesn't even have to be something good. I need my dust fix.
---

I actually have every card thats getting nerfed
---

I think if Hunter is going to become better it'll depend largely on what the meta looks like.The match against Warlock and Paladin will be a bit better, but there's a chance people stop playing those decks. If that happens, Hunter, which mostly only has mediocre cards, might not have the right tools to deal with whichever tier 1 decks emerge.
---

Most data I can find suggests Odd Rogue is favored but I guess there can be tech against it

Also, Spellstone is great and is probably the best card to build around, whether you are Midrange or Spell

Other decks that burn Mage cant deal with very well: Ramp Druid and Baku Warrior. Well see though! This reminds me a lot of Post Frozen Throne where Tempo Rogue came out of left field to dominate the meta
---

Oh shit nerfs!

They didn't screw around either. It feels like everything that is good got hit, rather than the usual "let's kill this deck and make the decks around it even more powerful".

I'm not really sure what's going to happen at this point. Will we see the same decks because everyone's power level went down, or does something like Mage, which wasn't hit, rise to the top?

Should be interesting. I'm happy with all of them.
---