Hearthstone
Unsolicited ramblings on the quests
Here are a few breakdowns on the new quests:
There are three quests that allow for zero flexibility in building:
Paladin: great reward, good deck, fun deck, but there's only one way to use this quest. Play all of the reborns and add mech deathrattles. There are really no other versions out there. And since they rarely re-use keywords, we might not get other reborns in the future to make the options more interesting.
Warlock: this deck was already built the moment the quest was printed. Plot twist is the only way. Unlike Paladin, though, this one doesn't really work. Also unlike Paladin, however, there is room for future development.
Druid: quest Druid is strong and may be fun, but there is no room for variety. Every quest Druid game plays out the same way. Leave mana for 4 turns, start playing the same bunch of choose ones. Even with more choose one options in the future, this deck is more or less set in stone. There's no way to aggro it, since you have to float mana early.
The other decks work/don't work to varying degree, but they all allow some flexibility in style. You can aim for aggro, midrange, or control with most of them. Priest can only be control, but there are various approaches. Shaman is the ultimate example of flexibility. There are 1,000 battlecry minions in the game, so you have nearly infinitely many combos to play around with.
There are 4 quests that can regularly, easily be completed very early in the game: Shaman, Druid, Paladin, and Rogue. Warrior can sometimes be completed early. Warlock, Hunter, Mage, and Priest all necessarily take a while.
There are 3 quests that are in meta decks - Shaman, Paladin, and Druid.
Shaman in the only quest that is flexible, easy to complete, and good. Some of the other quests check of 2 of the 3 boxes.
What quests have the most potential in future expansions?
Shaman will always be good.
Warlock needs more plot twist synergies.
Hunter has an amazing collection of cards right now and still can't get the quest to work. It's probably not ever happening.
Rogue can complete easily with quality cards, but the reward is weird. The immunity doesn't matter much for aggro, and the damage is too low for control. Rogue would need more weapon synergy cards for this to work.
Mage has tons of cheap spells already. Maybe the reward just isn't worth it.
Warrior...who knows? It's a fine reward, but there aren't ways to build weapon centered Warrior decks right now. It's not fast enough for aggro, and for control, you'd rather have Dr Boom's hero power.
Paladin will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add some variety in reborn minions.
Priest has plenty of potential to improve. Any control support will help this quest.
Druid will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add something ridiculous in the choose one options.
Leave a Comment
You must be signed in to leave a comment. Sign in here.
Here are a few breakdowns on the new quests:
There are three quests that allow for zero flexibility in building:
Paladin: great reward, good deck, fun deck, but there's only one way to use this quest. Play all of the reborns and add mech deathrattles. There are really no other versions out there. And since they rarely re-use keywords, we might not get other reborns in the future to make the options more interesting.
Warlock: this deck was already built the moment the quest was printed. Plot twist is the only way. Unlike Paladin, though, this one doesn't really work. Also unlike Paladin, however, there is room for future development.
Druid: quest Druid is strong and may be fun, but there is no room for variety. Every quest Druid game plays out the same way. Leave mana for 4 turns, start playing the same bunch of choose ones. Even with more choose one options in the future, this deck is more or less set in stone. There's no way to aggro it, since you have to float mana early.
The other decks work/don't work to varying degree, but they all allow some flexibility in style. You can aim for aggro, midrange, or control with most of them. Priest can only be control, but there are various approaches. Shaman is the ultimate example of flexibility. There are 1,000 battlecry minions in the game, so you have nearly infinitely many combos to play around with.
There are 4 quests that can regularly, easily be completed very early in the game: Shaman, Druid, Paladin, and Rogue. Warrior can sometimes be completed early. Warlock, Hunter, Mage, and Priest all necessarily take a while.
There are 3 quests that are in meta decks - Shaman, Paladin, and Druid.
Shaman in the only quest that is flexible, easy to complete, and good. Some of the other quests check of 2 of the 3 boxes.
What quests have the most potential in future expansions?
Shaman will always be good.
Warlock needs more plot twist synergies.
Hunter has an amazing collection of cards right now and still can't get the quest to work. It's probably not ever happening.
Rogue can complete easily with quality cards, but the reward is weird. The immunity doesn't matter much for aggro, and the damage is too low for control. Rogue would need more weapon synergy cards for this to work.
Mage has tons of cheap spells already. Maybe the reward just isn't worth it.
Warrior...who knows? It's a fine reward, but there aren't ways to build weapon centered Warrior decks right now. It's not fast enough for aggro, and for control, you'd rather have Dr Boom's hero power.
Paladin will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add some variety in reborn minions.
Priest has plenty of potential to improve. Any control support will help this quest.
Druid will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add something ridiculous in the choose one options.
The Druid quest is basically just another form of ramp. So yes, the first few turns are the same, but they were the same when you were hard mulliganing for Wild Growth, etc. I think the deck can end up going different directions though, depending on cards released. Right now, b/c of the limited card pool, it's just jam most of the good choose 1's. But, over time, there may be token variants, etc. You're right, It'll never be aggro. But Ramp isn't aggro anyway.
You're probably right about paladin, but I think there is wiggle room here, too. More interesting reborn minions or death rattles could push it in some different directions. Interesting buffs could too. For example, one of my favorite things to do in Quest Paladin is to keep copying Blessing of Wisdom buffs.
The Hunter one is fine, and works. But it's just not as good as Highlander or Mech hunter. I'd wager it's better than Midrange Hunter, though.
I agree, the mage quest probably isn't worth it.
Warlock does need plot twist...but other than that, the deck is really wide open. I think there's a lot of room here.
I agree with most of your points.
Definitely some similarities. The main difference is the quest is more reliable since you don't need to mulligan for anything, but ramp allowed for more power when it worked.
Top 2 Quests are Druid and Shaman.
Druid completes the quest (and gets a strong reward) by doing nothing (others need to put crap in their decks, you just nothing), which isn't a particular drawback, because you immediately get tools to exactly destroy whatever was pressuring you and even go forward. Druid got better Tyrant and UI + Reno (all broken, mana cheating cards), people will cry in several months.
Shaman Quest is similar. One completes it by playing what one is suppose to play, valuable, synergistic, "your win-condition" cards. I got 3 X King Krush from evolves in my last 6-7 games. Ok, ok, I got Hir'eek, the Bat, too. :(
Paladin Quest is polarizing, they say, haven't play it much, but I enjoy this Quest.
I like the flavor of Hunter Quest. Summon billions of small minions, open that vault for savage roars... for your numerous, weak, but restless army.
Rogue Quest is fun, too, especially with Tess Greymane (+scheme) vs. Warrior. Really hope it gets better. Deck's problem is it needs to carry inconsistent, crappy cards (while Druid and Shaman don't)
Priest Quest is a cool take on the class, but as long as Brawl is tier1 card, this Quest will fall short.
Mage Quest seems the worst, but you never know.
No reason to talk about Warrior Quest before the rotation.
Warlock seems weak; the deck is better without it. Warlock needs more healing or a win-condition, actually.
My comment deleted?
I think the quests have a very polarizing affect on the game. For Priest, Paladin, Shaman and Druid: 95% of the encounters atm use the quest. So that means that you have to face a quest deck about 50% of the time at least. Also for these classes, as soon as their quest is on-line, the win-rate increases drastically since they have enormous rewards, especially Shaman and Druid, their mana value is almost doubled (shaman deducts 2 for HP). So this is basically a later game permanent mana cheat. Druid is weaker initially since it has to float mana, but Shaman does not and in my view Shaman is therfore OP at the moment. This quest should be nerfed.
I feel a bit sorry for mage and warlock. Warlock is forced into zoo since their other decks are unplayable. Plot Twist can be fun but is too dependent on RNG and good draws. Mage got the galaxy nerf and has the weakest quest. There are still viable decks though like reno, conjurer's mage and maybe secret mage? Although secret mage got a lot of interesting cards, it still lacks the power of the old tempo mage that had Mana Wyrm into [Hearthstone Card (Arcanalogist) Not Found] into [Hearthstone Card (Kirin Tor Mage[Hearthstone Card (and then a free Explosive Runes. Now you can do Secretkeeper into Ancient Mysteries but your are still behind one minion compared to the earlier tempo mage deck. Secret mage needs a stronger turn 2 play to make it really work.
) Not Found]) Not Found]Very good comments so far. Have to agree to all that was said.
I really hope they print even more support for the rogue quest. It's not far from being able to compete with the other top decks. Discover would help a lot. But I think Blizzard is afraid to overextend and make it broken. Anyway, it will fuel my wild steal rogue which already works really well.
As for paladin, idk. Didn't they say already they wouldn't be printing any more mechanics from one expansion like magnetic oder reborn?
So there won't ever be any more ways to activate the quest, which makes it not only boring but also weak.
Also, I don't like the concept of deathrattle paladin very much.
The druid quest makes it a combo deck already with Nomi. Just like in the year of the raven. You have sort of a ramp and a strong shell of op midrange cards to compensate for the tempo loss. To fend of aggro, stay alive and draw until you have your winconditon(s) in the late game. They even printed Elize for it as it appears.
I think the shaman quest is too strong and the mage and warlock quests are too weak.
Really only because of lackeys and Sandstorm Elemental. The fact that there are two cheap lackey battlecry creators, and then each lackey is a 1-mana battlecry, it makes achieving the quest by turn 5-6 super easy, and then gives you insane value for nearly nothing after its complete.
Communism is just a red herring
The only real dangerous (in perspective) Quest is Shaman, for two reasons:
1) completing it, implies no downside whatsoever, and the count requirement is pretty low.
2) the hero power being basically uncounterable, it allows for something that *can* easily lead to over-the-top powerlevels, especially in a class with already Shudderwock (which is a dangerous anomaly itself) in it.
Dunno, maybe it's just a feeling of mine, and it's not like i have never beaten it even with homebrews, but the matchup against it feels like an oppressive race, unless you are playing a t1 Tempo yourself.
All the other Quests fail to comply both #1 and 2# together.
Shaman quest is alright. It looks strong coz other quests are weak.
What happened to shaman isnt supposed to have resource generation btw?
I find it awesome that players are closing in on a competitive quest hunter. Still a lot of iteration to be done, but who would have guessed
I mean, you can throw 30 random hunter cards together right now and have a fairly competitive deck. I think the quest hunter is strong because Hunter is strong. Take the quest out of that deck, and it's still decent
Although shaman quest is ruling the ladder I managed to find a reno mage deck that counters it hard.Thx to BossWalrus! See his deck in the deck section. I love the way Hex Lord Malacrass shines in that deck. It makes your mulligan much more exiting. And it really can punish the quest decks by having a super powerful late game. I might even add a card to shuffle Malacrass back in the deck (or back in my hand).
I don't think that's true at all. There's not very much overlap between the cards in Quest and the cards in something like Midrange or Secret.
Quest Shaman should have been nerfed before, and now more than ever, it needs to be nerfed to high hell. Not because its hard to beat or because I have a bad win rate against it (I don't), but because:
It's really just not fun at all to play against, and made way worse by it being 1/5 games.
I'll go back to my original suggestion in my last thread... make it 1 mana, and only affect the next battelcry.
Communism is just a red herring
Quest Shaman is probably one of the more overrated decks in the game right now. It is certainly good, but, as VS pointed out, it's not as good as its representation suggests it would be.
this
Carrion, my wayward grub.
a few things:
Druid is very flexible actuallly as the quest itself is more of a shell (similar to the ramp package of the past). All you really need are the few enablers + Oasis Surger and Hidden Oasis and you have the perfect defensive shell to fit a win condition into. Right now we have value, Malygos and Nomi builds and it's not too hard to imagine any new win condition fit into this style of deck easily.
Shaman will, in fact, not ALWAYS be good, because they depend heavily on battlecry win conditions. If they don't have another win condition by next year the rotation will destroy them. How does Quest Shaman win without Lifedrinker, Shudderwock, Former Champ, Giggling Inventor. How are they going to win without those? Just spam Lackeys to win?
Warlock isn't as limited as you might think either...it's just that there's currently not a lot of good healing defensive options to justify committing to a Plot twist deck (also the fact that Warrior basically cancels anything you might want to do anyways, but that's not Warlock's fault). The quest is actually pretty neat in the endgame, although it would be nice to have better shuffle options available. THat being said, the ability to shuffle and draw a specific card has potential
Rogue is in a funny spot where the reward is amazing and enables a lot of cool cards (especially Blade Flurry), but the activation is just so hard to pull off consistently (without having to mutilate your deck)
also Warrior is just redundant because it's not good enough to outclass control and not aggressive enough to replace straightforward aggro
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Quest shaman presents a problem for future expansions though. Every time they release a new Shaman battlecry card or a neutral battlecry card, they have to consider how it can be abused in this deck. I foresee significant problems in this regard in the future.
I don't think you actually read my post
Communism is just a red herring
I did. My response doesn't change. Good deck. Overplayed because it's fun (which is a perfectly legitimate reason to overplay a deck).
First let me say.... I LOATHE HUNTER. I hate playing it. I hate playing against it. I really really hate Hunter. With that being said, Unseal the Vault is ridiculous card and is really easy to pull of by turn 6 or 7 consistently. I remiss in that I spent my lat 1600 dust on it. But since I did, I did an autocomplete deck with that being the only card I added directly, and have been on an awesome win streak. I hate that I like. I hate that it is solid. I hate that it can only be consistently killed by combo priest. But it is actually really solid quest.
I don't think it's AS good as you seem to think, but I agree that it's a strong competitive deck. I think it may be the best deck not seeing widespread play right now. I wouldn't be surprised that, after a little more iteration, it's better than Highlander Hunter.
It actually looks fun to play. I'm thinking of dusting my golden Making Mummies to craft this, since the Paladin quest just bores the hell out of me.
Hilarious avatar, btw. Found myself singing the song in my head.
Got to agree with you here.
I am not that competitive in the game and mostly play casual. (Don't even use a tracker so this image is all I have to show) Played my Quest Hunter for a while when it came out thinking it would be a meme, but ended up going into ranked to try it out in a more harsh enviroment.
I dont think the deck is op, and I know my results don't look the same as a more reliable source. But it is actually quite underated.
And the best part is... The deck is actually lots of fun!
Lemushki - The one and only since the 2006 rebranding.