Hearthstone
Hunter and Warrior Quests are Total Nerf Targets
So I cracked all my new United in Stormwind packs that I was able to amass from the gold I've been saving over the past month and crafted a few of the decks for the quests and I gotta say this... Hunter and Warrior are not only ridiculously easy to do, but probably NEED to be nerfed.
I took the garden variety Dwarven Defense deck for Hunter with no changes and just ROFL stomped every single player I came across. This works even more viciously in Wild with Baku. I was able to accomplish it as soon as turn 6 and just destroy my opponent.
The Warrior quest was nearly almost as easy to complete. Once The Juggernaut hits the board, it's kinda GG for your opponent. I didn't even try to make a competitive deck, I just threw in some Pirates and Coerce into a deck and destroyed my opponents.
I've tried the Druid quest and it was lack luster to say the least but that was expected in the card reveal. I got 2-4 of the other quests that I need to try as well, but honestly, I was shocked at how easy it was to just beat your opponent with the quest rewards of those two so far, so even though the Hunter quest is the ONE thing that has got me liking that class finally after the passed 7 years of playing this game, it really needs to be nerfed as it is waaaaaaaaaaaay too easy to complete. Thoughts on this and your experiences so far?
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So I cracked all my new United in Stormwind packs that I was able to amass from the gold I've been saving over the past month and crafted a few of the decks for the quests and I gotta say this... Hunter and Warrior are not only ridiculously easy to do, but probably NEED to be nerfed.
I took the garden variety Dwarven Defense deck for Hunter with no changes and just ROFL stomped every single player I came across. This works even more viciously in Wild with Baku. I was able to accomplish it as soon as turn 6 and just destroy my opponent.
The Warrior quest was nearly almost as easy to complete. Once The Juggernaut hits the board, it's kinda GG for your opponent. I didn't even try to make a competitive deck, I just threw in some Pirates and Coerce into a deck and destroyed my opponents.
I've tried the Druid quest and it was lack luster to say the least but that was expected in the card reveal. I got 2-4 of the other quests that I need to try as well, but honestly, I was shocked at how easy it was to just beat your opponent with the quest rewards of those two so far, so even though the Hunter quest is the ONE thing that has got me liking that class finally after the passed 7 years of playing this game, it really needs to be nerfed as it is waaaaaaaaaaaay too easy to complete. Thoughts on this and your experiences so far?
I'm pretty sure Mage will get some sort of nerf bat too and I hope it's Incanter's Flow for good this time.
Also Priest is, as expected, probably the worst Quest of them all. It's actually quite bizarre how unplayably slow it is (although you can absolutely dumpster some slower decks). Thankfully too because not only does it feel awful to play but also awful to play against. It's just a really unpleasant deck.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Warlock feels pretty strong too, at least in Wild. Probably comparable to Darkglare lists but easier to pilot. I've given a Questline Hunter in a Secret shell two or three games, that one feels okay but not tier 1 stuff. Is the Odd version really that good?
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
After playing the Hunter Quest for a bit, I don't think it needs nerfs. It's still very slow and will enter topdeck mode pretty fast. Any deck that puts on pressure early can shove it out of the game fast. Hell, even Quest Paladin can do it, and that deck probably gets shafted by non-Quest tempo decks.
Not to say it won't be a playable deck but I strongly suspect regular Face Hunter will just be better unless there's a very slow and grindy deck taking top spot.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Warrior is way way way to slow. They get completely curbstomped by the Mage and Warlock quest
That Warlock quest is pretty gross if they draw the early stuff quickly. Flame Imp, Darkglare, Raise Dead, and that neutral hyena that damages you. . . you just roll thru those steps like it's nothing. Haha, all of these quests seem like they could get kind of annoying, I really hope none of them become too powerful, it will make the ladder awful. I'm already kinda dreading Turn 1 in a lot of games, lol
So far it seems like mages are the top dog. I think Incanter's Flow is the best nerf candidate. We have already established that it can be busted in the right deck, and since it's not a new card blizzard won't be taking away any of the excitement from the new set. Plus, the card is just super annoying. It's fine for mages to have a strong deck, but Incanter's Flow is beyond just strong, it feels more like cheating.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
I played against Quest Warrior a few times. It is slow. It can beat both slow and fast strategies when the deck is built correctly but the Juggernaut is inconsistent. It doesn't activate on the turn Cap'n Rokara is dropped and that gives the opponent one extra turn to finish them off. Even if it goes off, you don't get any consistent damage because Warrior weapons have a wide range of attack values, the cannon shots land on minions often and the current pirates in standard provide little to no initiative. The Warrior quest is fine and doesn't feel bad to play against.
I played against a few other quests but no Quest Hunter. Here are my impressions:
That's it. I played against most of them using Handlock (i opened Anetheron so i crafted a few other cards for it). I beat Quest DH with Libram Paladin with no cards from the new expansion.
When it comes to Handlock, it felt worse than i expected. I used a Soul Fragment package and the support cards that were introduced (except for Goldshire Gnoll). It seemed too fair. I dropped Anetheron a few times on turn 3 and the minion was removed every single time. Dark Alley Pact and Flesh Giant were a lot better but the deck still depends a lot on minions to deal damage and the big vanilla stats weren't enough. There were a lot of problems when it comes to enemy taunts, enemy removal and enemy healing. Entitled Customer and Spice Bread Baker are definitely great but they don't seem enough to carry the archetype into viability.
"True mastery takes dedication."
Y'all are gonna call me insane, but I think DH questline will be target for early nerf. I made my own deck and I was able finish the questline consistently around turn 4-6 and win immediately after playing kurtus.
I eat your fast food spare changes when you sleep.
I played against someone with the Priest quest while I tried the Warlock one... needless to say I'm not impressed
That is awesome. I haven't tried it in Wild yet, I kinda want to see what the meta does first before I jump into that yet
Okay, first impressions;
- Hunter quest is slow, and I really feel that there needs to be more taunts in this deck.
- Druid quest is not optimized. At the moment, lots of guys are moving towards finishing the quest as soon as possible so they play it in the spell druid package without a top end. The result is that a singular taunt ruins your day. Oh, and Wickerclaw is not good.
- Shaman quest is amazing. There's an actual reason to push the quest completion as soon as possible because once it finishes the game is over. I've beaten elemental shaman fairly convincingly, and that's practically the most aggressive deck currently available. But Im still certain that Doomhammer on 5 will beat this quest to kingdom come.
- Mage doesn't need the quest to win. Spell mage all the way, because with cards like Ignite there's simply so much firepower it may be permissible to just skip the Fireballs too. Game seems to end right before or right after this quest is complete, and Im fairly convinced the 1st and 2nd tier rewards are the real attraction here. Incanter's Flow is way too overpowered and will in my opinion be in contention for nerfs.
- Paladin quest is funny. There are games where I finish it all on turn 5 and proceed to win. Or I dont finish by turn 5 because I got screwed by my draws and as a result I lose. Will be playing more of this to see exactly how consistent it can get. Mulligan for First Day of School or bust.
- Didnt get to try warrior, priest or faced any. My impression is that spell mage destroys it so we dont see much of it.
- Warlock can finish quest fairly reliably, and with spell mage being so popular there's an argument to play Runed Mithril Rod because without oozes this is just OP. Havent met or tried handlock yet, that's likely to be next on my list.
- Dhunter quest can be finished easily and quickly, but the payoff is a little hard to see. Often enough the game is simply over before they get to do much of anything except draw their deck out. Its a bit like lifesteal OTK dhunter but immensely weaker. In fact, just play OTK dhunter if combo is your thing.
- Havent tried rogue yet. But excited to do so later.
Edit: Some obvious typos
First impressions: Use Malygos the Spellweaver in your Quest Hunter decks. 10/10 Satisfaction. Get Tavish, Master Marksman at 8 mana by playing 2 spells for 3 mana and play it for avoiding Mutanus the Devourer with almost no cards in hand, then play Malygos the Spellweaver at 9. You will end game probably at 10.
Unpopular Opinion Incarnate
Played with Quest Warlock for a while and the deck seems VERY solid. It absolutely demolished any minion-based strategies and can very easily win most matchups. It only really struggles against Mage which has the capability to burst Warlock down while not having any minions to leech off/cycle cards.
And of course, the quest I hate is Mage :) just throw down spells and complete it by turn 6. After that, just take everything and point it face. I don’t know, maybe aggro is really good against it?
This ain't no place for a hero
Gotta disagree with the OP here. Raid the Docks feels really weak right now. I tried building a control shell with it and a somewhat midrange one, and I didn't win a game in 6 tries. Maybe my builds just suck, but it feels really slow compared to the burn meta we're having right now. A better list might emerge, but I don't think it's gonna be a nerf candidate at all.
Defend the Dwarven District seems to be Tier 2 at best for now. I haven't played it, but from my observations while facing this deck, it struggles against board-centric decks and loses gas fast, which was expected. Its ideal game plan is to just direct every damage to face, but with its lack of card draw options that's just not a reliable plan. An interesting strategy would be to go the control route and basically set up for an OTK turn in the late game, but Hunter just doesn't have many defensive tools. I've beaten all Tavish Hunters I've faced with my Quest Warlock, which sounds insane.
Speaking of Quest Warlock, it feels really good to play, and pretty solid too. Warlock's defensive toolkit is really strong right now so surviving into the late game against aggro isn't impossible now. Touch of the Nathrezim and Demonic Assault(one of the underrated cards of the set) make this deck viable. I'm still not sure about this deck's viability once some refined aggro decks come out, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
And once again, Mage is a huge pain in the ass at the start of the expansion. It just sucks when your opponent doesn't play any minions and just burns your face again and again, especially when your gameplan is dependent on interacting with opponents' minions. The Mage quest looks like bait though; a more straightforward Spell Mage seems like the better option.
The nerf targets I'm seeing are Incanter's Flow (should've been nerfed last expansion, honestly) and Ignite. The latter will just murder any control deck with its infinite value. Why did they print that?
I agree with this bolden part of the statement, but would say the same thing applies to Warlock, it too is a very uninteractive deck to play against for similar reasons. There is no real way to interact with how it tries to kill you.
To be fair, that applies to just about all the quest that was introduced and obviously that's what everyone is playing at the moment. All the quest decks are practically single player; just complete the quest and load up the win condition. The only interactive part of it is that your opponent can screw you over by playing no minions, and even then its not a guarantee.
That's not to say that its a bad thing. Its good to have a variety of decks that isn't just loading up the board, but its quite another thing entirely when most of the games you're playing is basically just a single player fest. I can only hope that a week later the meta would form somewhat and we start seeing more board focused decks.
100% agreed.
Based on my impression so far (WILD perspective):
English is not my native language, so please excuse occasional mistakes
I'm genuinely worried that we might enter a Aggro vs. Quest meta with 0 control or value strategies.
Currently no slow deck can outlast the Quest decks (at least not the playable ones). The only way to beat those (outside of a lucky Mutanus) is by abusing the fact that they are slow as balls and just rushing them down. Even that is not a guaranteed strategy because most of the effective quests can be completed around turn 8 or 9.
I don't think any game with a long term plan that isn't a Quest deck can survive the onslaught and I fear we might need a bunch of nerfs to the quests just to make sure that Control remains a viable strategy.
Kind feels like Un'goro, except every Quest class is Rogue.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Well so far i think the Warrior Quest is Fine as it is - Hunter on the Other hand looks a little too strong but maybe that only appeared to me because i play slower / kinda meme decks when i encountered those.
Haven't met a Mage, Paladin, Demon Hunter or Priest Quest yet so can't realy say anything about those. Druid seems ok but a little to inconsistent. Warlock looks decent but i ony met one and i won that Game.
Rogue is pretty decent but also only met 1 so far.
But Warrior Questline does not - at least in my oppinion need a nerf ! Hunter - maybe ...
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
So yeah, MAge Quest is completely busted unless you're playing full aggro. I have no idea how this shit got through playtesting but it absolutely needs to be nerfed into oblivion or else the game becomes unironically more unplayable than Day 1 Barrens.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Probably still too early to call for nerfs, though Im very partial to seeing Incanter's Flow burning in hell.
Quest decks are slow and will get slower as they adapt their game towards faster decks. The only decks that currently have a near guaranteed win against a traditional control deck would be questlock, mage, and priest. Nearly everyone else runs out of stuff at some point.
Also, everyone is playing quest at the moment because its a shiny new toy. I'd imagine that in a week of two and we'll be seeing old midrange pally everywhere like we used to again. Then we can start dreaming of slower decks.
Yeah except Quest Mage wins by turn 8 without even having to jump through hoops. It can't run out of cards, it can't run out of damage and it gets 16 extra health.
Questlock is the same but at least it has the decency to damage itself so you can try to race it.
Quest Hunter is the "balanced" version which still kills you once the complete their quest but is more likely to actually run out of steam.
Rogue is weaker but once Scabbs comes down you#re basically on a clock too unless you have removal for days (which is fine on paper, but once again enforces that you have to race it)
Incanter's Flow isn't even the main problem anymore, Mage wins just as easily without it. Permanent +3 spell damage is broken in every scenario. It has to go down to +2 at the very least
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
I still dont get why people even bother with the quest in mage. The deck has to run stuff like Cone of Cold, Flurry (Rank 1), and Ice Barriers. They're even dropping Font of Power and Devolving Missiles these days. Once the meta turns outside of quests and minions start dropping on curve I doubt quest mage will still be able to do the same without dying.
I'd much rather have a better chance at getting Incanter's Flow on 2 and just use the sheer power of cheap spells, Ignite, Fireball and Apexis Blast to win the game.
Its too early to call for nerfs. Everyone is playing either quest or trying to cheat a few wins with the old meta face hunter and elemental shaman. I'd say give it a couple of weeks, and it'll be clearer what should be on top and what needs a little trimming.
Ok I have a few new opinions, but I think that The Demon Seed may get hit because it is incredibly reliable and almost spells doom in Wild. I've been playing around with a "speed" deck that was posted and I went nearly 80% up to Diamond levels in about an hour of play.
It isn't unbeatable because you have to put SO much of your life on the line, but I can see the community complaining about it pretty hard. Not as hard as the Stealer of Souls level, but it is pretty ridiculous.
As for Raid the Docks, I've been having so much fun with it in both Standard and Wild, but I think I may need to retract the statement of nerfing it because The Juggernaut can make it random enough to not break the game.
On Defend the Dwarven District I threw in a few Voracious Readers and after I dropped Tavish, Master Marksman, I have enough spells in hand to keep it going until they are dead. When I used my tracker I was sitting at 75% with it. The only thing that has been able to control that onslaught against them is my opponent nailed the reader immediately and/or had a TON of healing.
I'm amazed by the impact the questlines have in wild. Warlock is strong but can be countered by Odd (Questline) Druid (!). Paladin is very solid as well, Hunter works well with Baku, Warrior has yet to decide if Aggro Pirate wants it but Odd is happy enough about some more infinite value. What I don't see at all is Mage, Rogue, Demon Hunter and Shaman. None of them feels oppressive in Wild levels of crazyness, even if Warlock comes close, but Odd Questline Druid gets an auto win against them. They basically erased the whole pre Stormwind meta with 3 or 4 legendaries :D
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
It appears Garrote Rogue has entered the competition to beat Mage for position of best single player deck.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we get a hotfix nerf for both of those decks within a week. I don't think we've ever had a meta were combo decks are faster at killing you than the actual aggro decks.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
At least garrote may actually be a bug because the bleeds for some reason works with spell damage.
Well, it is technically a spell..
Here are my first impressions - similar to what some have already said. For what it's worth, I have ONLY played a super janky home-brew rogue list that is built with the sole purpose of completing achievements (mainly the unfun grind ones in the neutral cards section). As I complete an achievement, I swap out the relevant cards and replace them with "good" rogue cards. It's probably 3-40 so far since launch.
The Mage quest seems REALLY strong. Before launch everyone was wondering in forums/streams "what kind of a deck wants to play fire/frost/arcane?". I guess we have the answer. I have seen the quest completed on curve, and then you get smacked in the face with their 9 damage Ignite and a couple of reduced cost fireballs on Turn 8 for the game.
The Warlock quest also seems strong. The deck has ample healing and board clears (unless you have big SI:7 minions in stealth in my rare case).
I have not seen the Paladin quest yet. Actually, only a couple paladins out there, period.
The Hunter quest seems strong. There's a ton of burn in that deck, and upgrading the HP is pretty nuts.
Priest quest - I saw someone play High Abbess Alura on 9 or 10 after dropping the quest reward (they completed on curve). And then they played the 0 mana heal both heroes spell to proc Alura and the Shard was cast from deck. I was impressed!
Warrior quest - I played the VS list for the quest for 3 games right after the expansion. Seemed slow (in Standard).
Have not played wild yet. It's hard to gauge what's the strongest thing out there given that I have been playing total garbage (and losing to pretty much everything), but so far it feels like Mage and Warlock are toughest. Honorable mention to the Garrote rogue list that runs Gadgetzan Auctioneer and can kill you on turn 8 as it draws through the entire deck.
The only two other examples I can think of thats damage done with the 'cast when drawn' mechanic, bombs and Iron Juggernauts burrowing mine, and those doesn't work with spell damage.
Pure speculation, but it could be because the bleeds come from drawing from your deck on your turn, whereas the bombs/mines come from your opponent's deck on your opponent's turn (generally speaking). Might be a coding quirk.
I think so too because I read on reddit that JAlexander said that the bleeds don't work with Spell Damage since that interaction had been removed back when Hakkar came out...but apparently Rogue doesn't care about the rules.
Either way, I suspect that even without the bonus spell damage that deck still remains a festering cancer. It's just gonna draw through it's entire deck regardless and the spell damage shenanigans will help the burn spells in hand while Cloak of Shadows makes you practically invulnerable. Maybe Auctioneer should have been yeeted from the Core set altogether...
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
The issue there is that it is drawn out of their deck. Since the bleeds from Garrote are drawn from your deck, it seems that any spell damage you have on deck will enhance those.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've not seen any of the Garrote/Miracle Rogue decks in my plays. I"ve encountered innumerable Mage, Warlock, Warrior, and Hunter quest decks, a few Priest, Druid, and Shaman, and not even a hint at the Demon Hunter or Paladin build in the slightest... which is kinda sad because I liked the idea of Paladin getting Silver Hand Recruit bonuses.
How awesome would it be if the dev team left it that way for class identity reasons? lol
Mage & Warlock quest are the two that seem really awful. Lock has too much built in healing. Mage has too much burn for the combination of +3 spell damage AND cost reduction (yet again we see how bad Incanter's Flow is) to be healthy.
Hunter's quest seems good but not totally busted but it's still early. Rogue's quest is really fun and quite solid, but also not broken. I've been playing Rogue in standard and love it. Thankfully it's good there, since I tried it in Duels and it was terrible.
I'm surprised I have not come across tons of token druid. I thought that would be a real pain in the ass with the tools that were added.
Now you kids are probably saying to yourselves, "Hey Matt, how can we get back on the right track?"
Deathrattle rogue rips quest mage apart. I played against mages 5 times and it was 5 win. Try it out.
Unpopular Opinion Incarnate
Do you have a link for the deck?
Are you still that opinion, OP?
I'm using a hybrid version that has both Quest and Deathrattle package.
First version that I wrote 5 wins against Quest mage had more deathrattles without SI:7 Package but I had to change it into this because of other decks that has more taunts and big minions.
SI:7 Infiltrator is like a must have against Mage for Quest Rogue and I guess it will stay as long as Mage's hold those secrets. Really helps so much.
Unpopular Opinion Incarnate
I just went head on with Odd Hunter in Wild and they used [Hearthstone Card (Auctioneer Beardo) Not Found] until they finished the quest... and yeah. 2 damaging spells per level is WAAAAAAAAAAAAY easy to do.
Then with Warrior, I seriously have not seen it under perform. In standard, I can get it triggered within the first 6 turns. In wild, I usually have Rokara in hand before I have enough mana to play her. And as long as I can do what I can to control the board, The Juggernaut does the work for me.
I've been playing a lot of the warrior quest since I have gotten it in golden. I have no idea what you are talking about- if anything, it needs to be buffed!
The payoff is often slightly better than [Hearthstone Card (lakarri sacrifice) Not Found] putting on board a 2/2, giving you a 1 attack weapon and dealing 4 damage randomly.
There is no clever way to cheat out pirates like the requirements of other quests have. Another issue is you want to run weapons since the first reward is to draw one, however once you have the Jugg in effect the weapon is more or less a dead card in hand (Gorehowl is an exception but not a great card).
Almost every game with QL Warrior is playing catch-up. It's so bad that often when you finally get Rokara you can't even play her because you need to address the board.
The Only Constructed Deck Worth Playing:
https://outof.cards/hearthstone/decks/43506-the-only-constructed-deck-worth-playing
Ladder seems to be a bit better now. I've been playing a lot of Quest Warrior (a high-tempo version) and it's killing it. It's not really an aggro deck but a faster midrange one, and it beats the Quest Warlocks and Quest Mages pretty consistently. Raid the Docks still doesn't warrant a nerf though, contrary to the OP's point.
There are a wide variety of decks being played, and that makes this meta a little more fun. Some Elemental Shamans (Whack-A-Gnoll Hammer and Doomhammer variants), Quest Shaman, Aggro Shadow Priest(!), Quest Paladins, Quest Rogues...it's pretty nice! I even tried a Big Warrior list and it's working well too.
The devs might still nerf some Warlock cards to save Wild, if they actually care about that mode. But from my ladder experience, the meta's looking pretty balanced.
Right, so what have we, once again, learned about these extremely premature nerf takes everyone?
Questline hunter is one of the most overrated decks in standard, aka gigabad and warrior is barely playable. Vastly overshadowed by other quests such as mage (overplayed), warlock (quest nerf candidate #1) and rogue (quest nerf candidate #2).
I agree - it was pretty cool on day one but right now it is mostly to slow - even if you get the nut draw and have the Juggernaut early on - most of the time he comes down to late and even if it is early on the impact is most of the time not enough - at least right now! So i would agree to buff this Quest not only because i kinda like it because it realy isn't that powerful against the most played decks right now.
Hunter i would say isn't weak - sure not as strong as anticipated but still playable and strong enough to compete against others.
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
That is a gross misrepresentation of what the quest actually does. You're taking like 25 % of the questline and comparing that in isolation to Lakkari Sacrifice.
First off, the requirements. Lakkari Sacrifice requires you to tear your own hand to shreds. Sure, there are cards that give you a payoff for doing so. And there are a lot of cards that don't. You're at the mercy of RNG as to which ones you end up discarding to determine whether you're actively two-for-oneing yourself or getting an advantage. Meanwhile, the Warrior Quest requires you to develop your board, something you already want to be doing. I.e. there is essentially no requirement other than you have to play a Pirate deck.
Secondly, the payoff. Lakkari Sacrifice: pay 5 mana to subtract one slot from your board. You then get two 3/2s every turn. It's a massive tempo loss that brings a steady benefit in the long run...assuming we consider two easy-to-kill minions a benefit. You can easily just lose the board to a control deck since those are stuffed with minor AoE that will just wipe your quest reward every turn, while they build a board of their own. The Warrior Quest: draw a weapon for free, deal 2x2 damage for free, then get a 7/7 for 5 mana that subtracts one board slot to get you a weapon (inevitable damage), a pirate (potential damage similar to Lakkari Sacrifice) and shoots 2x2 damage (inevitable damage) every turn. Those things are not on par with each other at all.
Even ignoring the sub-rewards along the way the Warrior Questline way outshines Lakkari Sacrifice and not just because you get a 5 mana 7/7 along with it. You can't keep the Warrior Questline contained because the reward isn't two slow minions that might do something next turn. It's one slow minion and then two immediately impactful rewards that the opponent can do nothing about. Also the rewards trigger at the start of your turn so if the minion happens to have rush or charge, your opponent has no opportunity to respond to its presence.
The questline is definitely not in need of a buff. It may be the case that in standard, the deck you have to build around the questline may not be great, but that might be due to a lack of support, not due to flaws with the questline. I wouldn't know, since I don't play standard. But I can tell you that in Wild the questline is doing quite well. It's not the top dog, but at least a solid tier 2 deck that seems to be actually better than the non-quest Pirate Warriors used to be, or is at least on par with them. That's not something you'd get out of a weak questline.
Very ironic that you would call out others for premature nerf takes when Rogue and Warlock aren't even that powerful either, especially compared to what Mage is still doing.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Raid the Docks is straight up consistent. I've not had many issues with it sucking I'll say that. Against many of the other decks out there, it provides longevity with taunt pirates a Ship's Cannon effect in the long haul, and continual board presence. Do I still think it needs a nerf, not necessarily given that the meta is far from evening out, but it certainly maintains a top deck in my plays
Speaking as someone who mainlines Mage (in standard), I can see the calls for nerfs to Incanter's Flow, but, to be honest, dropping it early doesn't win as many games as you might think. Its real payoff is in the late game when you can draw a helluva lot of cards off of Cram Session. Nerf it to 3 mana, or even 4, and it'll still pay those late game dividends, and might even fit nicely with mid-game Arcane spell curve. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see it nerfed because this is the first time in forever I've felt like mage was competitive.
The only times that Incanter's Flow seems to make or break the game is in the mirror match. But in that case it's also who can drop a Primordial Studies followed by Brain Freeze fastest.
Nobody:
Me: Why yes, that is a medieval drawing of a cat licking its own butt
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. You mentioned in your OP that it'll need a nerf, I'm saying it won't because it's simply a solid and fun card whose infinite value in the end game isn't that oppressive.
I saw Roffle play this Odd Quest Warrior deck, which looks incredibly fun. Just tank up, then play Brann Bronzebeard + Cap'n Rokara to get two Juggernauts. Definitely gonna try that out.
OP here, and I am still holding fast that Raid the Docks may need to be looked at for the Wild element. Much like Stealer of Souls created an environment that was not only flooded with Warlock builds, but made them really dominant. I would be hesitant to say that I have an encounter rate of 3-5 opponents that are playing pirate warrior with that card.
Yes, it does require you to set up your board and maintain it. Yes it plays differently than previous versions of Pirate Warrior. Yes it is still dominating. The one saving grace against Pirate Warrior was that you eventually ran out of gas. With The Juggernaut, you are ensured 2x2 damage every turn, a random pirate on the board, and some kind of hero swing on top of what you draw and play that turn.
I've been able to once in a while control my way out of it or out aggro them. Suffice it to say that it is still really dominating.