Biggest Disappointment: No (Good) Dragon Decks in DOD

Am I the only so, so disappointed by the lack of a viable mid-range or even tempo based Dragon Deck in DOD?

I was expecting to see Dragon Paladin, Dragon Hunter, and maybe even Dragon Druid be at least moderately competitive.

Instead we have Face Hunter, Deathrattle Rogue, and maybe Galakrond Shaman (post-nerf; unclear.)

I barely see any dragons being played most of my games on the ladder.

I do see the occasional Highlander Deck use the new 9 mana dragon. Still, so disappointing. 

mid range deck. handlock dragon exist. pay more attention

Handlock is a dragon deck at its core and it's very playable (although difficult and very easily blown out)

Embiggen Druid is playable as well, as is Highlander Mage.

I play a Jade druid in wild with some dragon synergy, and dragon warrior in wild is also fun, but I didn't see many dragons on either ladder as well. It's honestly disapointing that there isn't more viable dragon decks than handlock, but you really can't do much about it.

I guess people can disagree on what's "viable", but just this morning I beat 2 separate Face Hunters (NATURALLY we were in Casual since where else would those useless degenerates have to play that Tier 1 deck?) with my mid-range Dragon Hunter deck. I also got completely beat out by Paladin playing Nozdormu the Timeless Big Dragon deck. And I've seen quite a few Dragon (mostly Highlander but a few non) Mages in the last week.

Just because they aren't the most popular or maybe even strongest decks in the meta doesn't mean they're not "viable" in a lot of contexts.

I disagree, there are many tier 2 and 3 dragon decks and decks using dragons, both warlock and druid are commonly running dragons also mage has a quite solid highlander dragon list. 

So although the top decks aren't tribal dragon decks there are viable dragon lists. 

Also as a side note, galakrond is a dragon. 

There are no 'dragon' decks meaning just cramming a load of dragons into a deck (i.e. old Dragon Priest) because Hearthstone has evolved past that point. You'd need to have a huge amount of power gated behind the 'hold a dragon' tag, even more so than already exists given the power level of the expansion. It's also worth noting that doing so would significantly detract from other potential decks in the meta - if you're not playing a dragon deck, you get (say) 50% fewer cards from the expansion because half are gated behind dragon synergy.

We have a lot of powerful dragons, most (if not all) top-tier decks contain a dragon of some description or other, arena is largely dragon-dominated. Really not sure what more you want. It's not like we had Kraken, Mammoth or Raven decks previously (although now I come to think of it... why didn't we get Kraken tribals? That'd be way more interesting than dragons...).

Quote From Bystekhilcar

It's not like we had Kraken, Mammoth or Raven decks previously (although now I come to think of it... why didn't we get Kraken tribals? That'd be way more interesting than dragons...).

I agree with literally anything except this: every time I've seen this argument I got really annoyed cause it doesn't make any sense at all.

"Kraken" and "Raven" are not tribal tags, whereas "Dragon" is and, to be honest, it's one of the community's favorites too. It was legitimate for us to think about lots of minions with that tribe coming in this year, exactly for this reason.

Quote From Avalon

Quote From Bystekhilcar

It's not like we had Kraken, Mammoth or Raven decks previously (although now I come to think of it... why didn't we get Kraken tribals? That'd be way more interesting than dragons...).

I agree with literally anything except this: every time I've seen this argument I got really annoyed cause it doesn't make any sense at all.

"Kraken" and "Raven" are not tribal tags, whereas "Dragon" is and, to be honest, it's one of the community's favorites too. It was legitimate for us to think about lots of minions with that tribe coming in this year, exactly for this reason.

 

I mean, obviously it's a tongue-in-cheek comment. The point is simply that just because a year has a name doesn't mean that's going to have any significant influence on the actual cards released. It's just an indicator of the overall theme, nothing more.

But again... Kraken, Raven and Mammoth would all produce some pretty interesting card sets. What if they were tribals? Seriously, they'd be far more interesting and unique than dragons, which are in literally everything fantasy-based.

Quote From Bystekhilcar

Quote From Avalon

Quote From Bystekhilcar

It's not like we had Kraken, Mammoth or Raven decks previously (although now I come to think of it... why didn't we get Kraken tribals? That'd be way more interesting than dragons...).

I agree with literally anything except this: every time I've seen this argument I got really annoyed cause it doesn't make any sense at all.

"Kraken" and "Raven" are not tribal tags, whereas "Dragon" is and, to be honest, it's one of the community's favorites too. It was legitimate for us to think about lots of minions with that tribe coming in this year, exactly for this reason.

 

I mean, obviously it's a tongue-in-cheek comment. The point is simply that just because a year has a name doesn't mean that's going to have any significant influence on the actual cards released. It's just an indicator of the overall theme, nothing more.

But again... Kraken, Raven and Mammoth would all produce some pretty interesting card sets. What if they were tribals? Seriously, they'd be far more interesting and unique than dragons, which are in literally everything fantasy-based.

It't not because it's the Year of the Dragon, it's because Descent of DRAGONS is an expansion with really MANY DRAGONS. So I'd also expect dragon decks to be more dominant in the meta

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Quote From Bystekhilcar

-snip-

 I mean, obviously it's a tongue-in-cheek comment. The point is simply that just because a year has a name doesn't mean that's going to have any significant influence on the actual cards released. It's just an indicator of the overall theme, nothing more.

But again... Kraken, Raven and Mammoth would all produce some pretty interesting card sets. What if they were tribals? Seriously, they'd be far more interesting and unique than dragons, which are in literally everything fantasy-based.

It't not because it's the Year of the Dragon, it's because Descent of DRAGONS is an expansion with really MANY DRAGONS. So I'd also expect dragon decks to be more dominant in the meta

As noted in the flesh of my original comment, the game simply doesn't work that way anymore. Hell, it's not like there were really many mech decks around during the mech expansion, at least ones worth talking about. Just Warrior, Hunter and a sprinkling of cheesy Paladin - of which Warrior is the only one with any real sticking power in Standard, and THAT mostly on the strength of Dr Boom.

For a simple tribal synergy to be the dominant force in a metagame requires far too much of the expansion's power to be gated behind arbitrary tribal doors. If you don't properly lock those doors (by including 'holding a dragon' requirements, for example) you won't see tribals as the dominant archetype because you'll typically see a more flexible toolkit if you include the non-gated tools alongside others - which is what we have here. And - and this is the important part - that is good for the metagame because it allows for a much broader pool of viable decks. The alternative is to have a meta which is 'Dragon X' and then everything else in the lower tiers.

For me, it is not so important to see them in the ladder;

I can flnally play with dragons in every class, only that matters for me. Themes are not for ladder or something. It is just flavor and how you take it.

If you are a typical ladder climber player, you might not be so happy with what you face tho because Dragons are a tribe that has bigger threats mechanically; so it is just normal that they are tend to be a part of highlander/control/combo decks rather than aggro/tempo/midrange ones.

Well, you can still play with dragons in midrange/aggro/tempo decks but they are not as effective as other decks. I could understand the whine if there were not enough dragons but hey, Dragons are everywhere ! :)

I will repeat again, I'm happy to play with them in every class without caring ladder. Flavor + Theme are great for me at least.

Dragons can work pretty well as a side note in midrange, have a few for the synergy cards in hunter and it makes for a pretty aggressive deck, given how dragons usually work.

I kind of gets the complaints about it not working for a tempo deck though, because there were two expansions where that’s the exact deck type they were made for, continuously playing above average minions on curve and all. It’s just that they’ve only released a few more dragon synergy cards that work like that, so there’s better stuff you could be playing at this point

We only got like 8 new neutral dragons. I really did not expect a good dragon deck to appear. The closest contenders were Paladin and Hunter, as their Dragon cards were pretty strong, but ultimately fell flat against other decks.

I’m disappointed as well that we got so few dragons to be honest, and the fact that they were really trying to push the evasive keyword onto the dragons, so one or two got wasted as pack fillers.

Dragon Highlander Hunter is a pretty good deck. Not super top-teir, but it is working. You win enough games to feel like it's adequate and not just some meme.