Swapping costs of the two minions would help mitigate the use of it to make two early 12/12s with Rush and still allow it to be used as a draw engine in other decks. In Wild, making the 20/20 charging Boars cost 4 would give people a chance to do something rather than getting hit with 2 chargers with 20 attack on turn 4.
That would help with the Boar situation, but would open up new opportunities for abuse. Swapping stats and costs means cards that are expensive because of their Battlecry or Deathrattle would become good targets.
This early, Mecha-Shark and Switcheroo feels like potential nerf targes. Also, discover is super strong with this limited card pool, I think I discovered 4 new The Leviathan in the same game. But I haven't played a lot tbh.
I had a game recently where I played 4 Gaia, the Techtonic and I don't really think a single one of the four was from my deck
And that is one of the most annoying things with mech mage now. It's bad enough to deal with a t6 or t7 Gaia, but to deal with another one at t8... Now I'm not playing a T1 deck by far, but this feels like impossible to beat... Even when I get 2 7/7s online by t4/5 Vs an empty board I still get swarmed the turn after and get completely destroyed
Yeah, I have been playing a bunch of different stuff to try new things and to also hit some early achievements. But Mech Mage is definitely one of the stronger decks. Switcheroo shenanigans with Deathwing and the surfing murloc that copies are also just annoying. But so far the good news is that there are a lot of decks that seem to at least be viable. And while Mech Mage is by no means unbeatable, the match up against the deck you are playing may very well be highly unfavored for you. I feel like there is a trend where when a lot of archetypes are viable we tend to see higher numbers of polarized match ups. The biggest issue is when the meta starts to settle if those polarized match ups stick around or disappear, or if certain decks hold others back from existing at all.
It might take another week or so, but I can already imagine seeing some nerfs hit Mech Mage, maybe Pirate Warrior, and potentially Switcheroo to avoid too many crazy shenanigans in both Standard and Wild. I could see them increasing the cost of the spell, or maybe adding card costs as part of the swap. Swapping costs of the two minions would help mitigate the use of it to make two early 12/12s with Rush and still allow it to be used as a draw engine in other decks. In Wild, making the 20/20 charging Boars cost 4 would give people a chance to do something rather than getting hit with 2 chargers with 20 attack on turn 4.
As with any expansion there are unfortunately some issues that the team either didn't foresee or just didn't think would be so bad. But the good news is they have been a lot faster in recent years to respond, as opposed to the old way of waiting 2 months and then making one or two minor changes that either do nothing or completely kill cards.
This early, Mecha-Shark and Switcheroo feels like potential nerf targes. Also, discover is super strong with this limited card pool, I think I discovered 4 new The Leviathan in the same game. But I haven't played a lot tbh.
I had a game recently where I played 4 Gaia, the Techtonic and I don't really think a single one of the four was from my deck
And that is one of the most annoying things with mech mage now. It's bad enough to deal with a t6 or t7 Gaia, but to deal with another one at t8... Now I'm not playing a T1 deck by far, but this feels like impossible to beat... Even when I get 2 7/7s online by t4/5 Vs an empty board I still get swarmed the turn after and get completely destroyed
Sir Finley, Sea Guide does not curve into Amalgam of the Deep, as Finely shuffles the amalgam back into the deck after getting played. There is some synergy between the two, as Finely allows you to replace the discovered card with one from your deck, but a turn 3 play does not fit in the list of T1 + T2 plays.
I climbed from Gold to Legend with the fastest and highest winrate pace I've ever done thanks to that token demon hunter deck. It just does great against all the mechs and pirates. Freeze shaman is instant loss but thankfully they're quite rare atm.
Zeddy explanation why aggro is so relevant based on Blizzard communication (important start is at 4:56)
In the video he describes why he feels aggro are favored by design and then proceeds to show and describe the top decks currently (and in boomsday) being non-aggro decks.
And then he continues his argument as though as that doesn't mean anything.
In truth, I think he was trying to use the article as proof of how blizz is intrinsically designing their games to be short, so they'd be more 'mobile friendly'. But somehow, he either forgets about or confuses the message to be something about how aggro cards are favored by design.
But if Ive got to be honest, I can't find any support that aggro is being favored above other archetypes. The best decks in the past year are nearly all non-aggro decks, and the last time I can remember that aggro was a consistent threat was the MSoG era when Small-Time Buccaneer and patches were tearing everything to pieces...and then buccaneer got nerfed, and from there on its mostly just variants of zoolock and face hunter.
There's always good aggro or face decks around; odd rogue, face hunter, healock (some of the weirdest shit in history), aggro shadow priest, aggro druid, secret pally, etc. But for all those, there's always plenty other decks like giants mage, shirvallah pally, raza priest, control odd warrior, quest druid, quest mage, spell mage, etc. More often than not, an aggro deck is simply never the best deck for a skilled player looking to rise up the top.
We're nearly a week past the expansion/rotation. Mech mage has suddenly fallen down the cards, murlock is nowhere to be seen, token dhunter cannot and will not beat any control deck, and the much hated quest warrior is nearly 100% reliant on Mr. Smite somewhere somehow to win (sadly because of the smaller pool, this is fairly consistent)
I have to agree with suchti here; I think in this instance, zeddy is reading way too much into that specific response in the article.
Edit: There was one era more recent than MSoG that an aggro deck was the top tier. AoO featured a massively overpowered tempo dhunter that basically took the entire meta for ransom. But the story ends the same way; it got nerfed (three times) and we haven't heard or seen it since the start of scholomance.
Getting quite sick of Druids having 11+ mana to play with. Not only is it broken AF, it takes ages while the gormless moron takes a whole turn to decide what to spend their never ending mana on.
Nerfs are required for Ramp Druid and Pirate Warrior (which has a more broken win-rate than Demon Hunter when it launched).
The point is that they never claimed to make aggro decks too strong (compared to other decks) on purpose. That's also backed up by the fact that there were and are a bunch of non-aggro decks which are perfectly viable for climbing.
All he said was that they try to make the game appealing to all kinds of players and that aggro decks are so popular because most people enjoy shorter matches, while also saying that they want other deck types to be viable as well. Nowhere was it stated that they want aggro specifically to be stronger than other decks. Or in other words: Even if the game was 100% balanced, you would still play against aggro decks in the majority of your games.
There is no problem for aggro strategies to be popular, problem is that they are extremely powerful. Just look at pirate warrior, it was the best deck last months and now it only improved. This leads to extremely repetitive games, where you encounter the same cards, same strategies all the time.
I think he's reading too much into what was actually said in the article.
Q: Speaking of the meta, will we see more Control themed decks in Sunken City? If not, do you think Control still has a place in Hearthstone?
A: We try to cater to different player types as much as we can, that can be challenging depending on if it’s a faster or slower meta. With the rotation we’ve added a lot of big cards with the Colossal minions, so we want the game to slow down a little bit and see how that goes. We want players to have fun and a great experience.
The reason aggro decks rise to the top is because a lot of our players want short games, especially if they’re on mobile. A 30 minute control game during a commute or a break at work is just not the experience many players are looking for. Not to say those experiences are invalid, because we obviously want them available as well.
All he said was that they try to make the game appealing to all kinds of players and that aggro decks are so popular because most people enjoy shorter matches, while also saying that they want other deck types to be viable as well. Nowhere was it stated that they want aggro specifically to be stronger than other decks. Or in other words: Even if the game was 100% balanced, you would still play against aggro decks in the majority of your games.
Welcome to Team Moonspark's first big card set, The Halls of Brawl. This set is themed around the wide variety of fighters, spectators, and workers of the Brawler's Guild, both in Alliance's Brawlpub and the Horde's Brawl'gar Arena. Build a deck of rough and tumble contestants and wrest control of the arena from your opponent before they can do the same to you!
This set exists within the Year of the Hydra and is balanced around it.
Want a promo card? Here, have a card that lets you draw your entire deck. Just try not to go overboard, okay?
Keywords
That's right, I said KeywordS. With an S. It's plural. This set has not one, but two major keywords!
Signature Move is the first keyword, meant to represent the finesse and coordination of the fighters who prefer to show their prowess through technique and practiced flourished. This is a like a Start of Game effect—if you have at least one Signature Move card in your starting deck, you get to Discover a 1-Cost spell from your class and make it your Signature Move.
All Out is the second keyword, for the brawlers out there who like to win through sheer might and force of will, because at the end of the day, hitting something hard enough usually gets the job done. As long as you have enough Mana to pay for the card, as well as the minimum All Out cost, you can use All Out, spending ALL your remaining Mana in the process, for a bonus effect.
The Cards
Shaman (New!)
Show Spoiler
Shaman has a strong focus on using their hero to attack. They also have a decent amount of Overload synergy.
I can't seem to find any of the dual-class cards inside the deck builder. I have even imported a deck and the builder says I have too few cards and the cards that were missing were dual-class cards.
I've also always kind of like Curse of Rafaam, even if it was underpowered, so I took to the Curse archetype pretty quick after launch. It just seemed like "cursing" your opponent was a cool concept. I did my own version of it in a custom card competition, I think it was based around building a "pure" archetype card for classes other than Paladin.
Flavor-wise I still like my idea a lot. It was like you were getting taxed for not returning the book, but the evil Librarian also wouldn't let you return it unless you paid him a ransom of the extra 3 mana. So you get him out of the way and then can return it for a lower late fee.
Obviously though, the Abyssal Curses are much better.
All of these spam aggro decks are absurd and pretty terrible to play against, but I'm guessing that they consider this a good thing within the Blizz team, since they went out of their way to make a few more, and boosted a couple that were already there. I just auto-concede against mages and warriors for now, and i'm ready to go on Paladins and Warlocks too, depending on how the early turns go. Matches that don't involve those decks have been fun, in general :)
This early, Mecha-Shark and Switcheroo feels like potential nerf targes. Also, discover is super strong with this limited card pool, I think I discovered 4 new The Leviathan in the same game. But I haven't played a lot tbh.
I had a game recently where I played 4 Gaia, the Techtonic and I don't really think a single one of the four was from my deck
Standout Standard Hearthstone Decks for Every Class in Voyage to the Sunken City
Salt ?! At the bottom of the Ocean? Not sure what else to expect ^^
Solve Our "Sunny Side Up" Word Search Puzzle
Happy Easter everyone!
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
That would help with the Boar situation, but would open up new opportunities for abuse. Swapping stats and costs means cards that are expensive because of their Battlecry or Deathrattle would become good targets.
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
Yeah, I have been playing a bunch of different stuff to try new things and to also hit some early achievements. But Mech Mage is definitely one of the stronger decks. Switcheroo shenanigans with Deathwing and the surfing murloc that copies are also just annoying. But so far the good news is that there are a lot of decks that seem to at least be viable. And while Mech Mage is by no means unbeatable, the match up against the deck you are playing may very well be highly unfavored for you. I feel like there is a trend where when a lot of archetypes are viable we tend to see higher numbers of polarized match ups. The biggest issue is when the meta starts to settle if those polarized match ups stick around or disappear, or if certain decks hold others back from existing at all.
It might take another week or so, but I can already imagine seeing some nerfs hit Mech Mage, maybe Pirate Warrior, and potentially Switcheroo to avoid too many crazy shenanigans in both Standard and Wild. I could see them increasing the cost of the spell, or maybe adding card costs as part of the swap. Swapping costs of the two minions would help mitigate the use of it to make two early 12/12s with Rush and still allow it to be used as a draw engine in other decks. In Wild, making the 20/20 charging Boars cost 4 would give people a chance to do something rather than getting hit with 2 chargers with 20 attack on turn 4.
As with any expansion there are unfortunately some issues that the team either didn't foresee or just didn't think would be so bad. But the good news is they have been a lot faster in recent years to respond, as opposed to the old way of waiting 2 months and then making one or two minor changes that either do nothing or completely kill cards.
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
And that is one of the most annoying things with mech mage now. It's bad enough to deal with a t6 or t7 Gaia, but to deal with another one at t8... Now I'm not playing a T1 deck by far, but this feels like impossible to beat... Even when I get 2 7/7s online by t4/5 Vs an empty board I still get swarmed the turn after and get completely destroyed
Murlock in Voyage to the Sunken City - Celebrate Wild Week With Our Full Deck & Guide
You’re right - edited
Murlock in Voyage to the Sunken City - Celebrate Wild Week With Our Full Deck & Guide
This is a really cool deck - I'm tempted to rejoin Hearthstone just to play it. About the guide itself, I noticed a possible typo / error:
Sir Finley, Sea Guide does not curve into Amalgam of the Deep, as Finely shuffles the amalgam back into the deck after getting played. There is some synergy between the two, as Finely allows you to replace the discovered card with one from your deck, but a turn 3 play does not fit in the list of T1 + T2 plays.
Standout Standard Hearthstone Decks for Every Class in Voyage to the Sunken City
I climbed from Gold to Legend with the fastest and highest winrate pace I've ever done thanks to that token demon hunter deck. It just does great against all the mechs and pirates. Freeze shaman is instant loss but thankfully they're quite rare atm.
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
In the video he describes why he feels aggro are favored by design and then proceeds to show and describe the top decks currently (and in boomsday) being non-aggro decks.
And then he continues his argument as though as that doesn't mean anything.
In truth, I think he was trying to use the article as proof of how blizz is intrinsically designing their games to be short, so they'd be more 'mobile friendly'. But somehow, he either forgets about or confuses the message to be something about how aggro cards are favored by design.
But if Ive got to be honest, I can't find any support that aggro is being favored above other archetypes. The best decks in the past year are nearly all non-aggro decks, and the last time I can remember that aggro was a consistent threat was the MSoG era when Small-Time Buccaneer and patches were tearing everything to pieces...and then buccaneer got nerfed, and from there on its mostly just variants of zoolock and face hunter.
There's always good aggro or face decks around; odd rogue, face hunter, healock (some of the weirdest shit in history), aggro shadow priest, aggro druid, secret pally, etc. But for all those, there's always plenty other decks like giants mage, shirvallah pally, raza priest, control odd warrior, quest druid, quest mage, spell mage, etc. More often than not, an aggro deck is simply never the best deck for a skilled player looking to rise up the top.
And then there's cards. He references Swordfish and Pufferfist in his video as evidence of aggro being favored. But a look at the core cards will show differently: Tar Creeper, Doomsayer, Mistress of Mixtures, Wild Pyromancer, unnerfed Equality, Candleshot, Living Roots, Wrath, etc. If team5 really wanted aggro to be the best deck, all they needed to do is to bring back patches and unnerfed buccaneer.
We're nearly a week past the expansion/rotation. Mech mage has suddenly fallen down the cards, murlock is nowhere to be seen, token dhunter cannot and will not beat any control deck, and the much hated quest warrior is nearly 100% reliant on Mr. Smite somewhere somehow to win (sadly because of the smaller pool, this is fairly consistent)
I have to agree with suchti here; I think in this instance, zeddy is reading way too much into that specific response in the article.
Edit: There was one era more recent than MSoG that an aggro deck was the top tier. AoO featured a massively overpowered tempo dhunter that basically took the entire meta for ransom. But the story ends the same way; it got nerfed (three times) and we haven't heard or seen it since the start of scholomance.
Selfish Shellfish Mill Priest!
Can
Awaken the Makers
work in this deck?
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
Getting quite sick of Druids having 11+ mana to play with. Not only is it broken AF, it takes ages while the gormless moron takes a whole turn to decide what to spend their never ending mana on.
Nerfs are required for Ramp Druid and Pirate Warrior (which has a more broken win-rate than Demon Hunter when it launched).
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
The point is that they never claimed to make aggro decks too strong (compared to other decks) on purpose. That's also backed up by the fact that there were and are a bunch of non-aggro decks which are perfectly viable for climbing.
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
There is no problem for aggro strategies to be popular, problem is that they are extremely powerful. Just look at pirate warrior, it was the best deck last months and now it only improved. This leads to extremely repetitive games, where you encounter the same cards, same strategies all the time.
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
I think he's reading too much into what was actually said in the article.
All he said was that they try to make the game appealing to all kinds of players and that aggro decks are so popular because most people enjoy shorter matches, while also saying that they want other deck types to be viable as well. Nowhere was it stated that they want aggro specifically to be stronger than other decks. Or in other words: Even if the game was 100% balanced, you would still play against aggro decks in the majority of your games.
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
Zeddy explanation why aggro is so relevant based on Blizzard communication (important start is at 4:56)
The Halls of Brawl — A Brawler's Guild fan expansion
Introduction
Welcome to Team Moonspark's first big card set, The Halls of Brawl. This set is themed around the wide variety of fighters, spectators, and workers of the Brawler's Guild, both in Alliance's Brawlpub and the Horde's Brawl'gar Arena. Build a deck of rough and tumble contestants and wrest control of the arena from your opponent before they can do the same to you!
This set exists within the Year of the Hydra and is balanced around it.
Want a promo card? Here, have a card that lets you draw your entire deck. Just try not to go overboard, okay?
Keywords
That's right, I said KeywordS. With an S. It's plural. This set has not one, but two major keywords!
Signature Move is the first keyword, meant to represent the finesse and coordination of the fighters who prefer to show their prowess through technique and practiced flourished. This is a like a Start of Game effect—if you have at least one Signature Move card in your starting deck, you get to Discover a 1-Cost spell from your class and make it your Signature Move.
All Out is the second keyword, for the brawlers out there who like to win through sheer might and force of will, because at the end of the day, hitting something hard enough usually gets the job done. As long as you have enough Mana to pay for the card, as well as the minimum All Out cost, you can use All Out, spending ALL your remaining Mana in the process, for a bonus effect.
The Cards
Shaman (New!)
Shaman has a strong focus on using their hero to attack. They also have a decent amount of Overload synergy.
Neutral Commons (1 New Card!)
Neutral Rares (1 New Card!)
Neutral Legendaries (1 New Card!)
Deckbuilder Not Displaying Dual-Class Cards
I can't seem to find any of the dual-class cards inside the deck builder. I have even imported a deck and the builder says I have too few cards and the cards that were missing were dual-class cards.
Cursed Fragments of the Abyssal Depths
I've also always kind of like Curse of Rafaam, even if it was underpowered, so I took to the Curse archetype pretty quick after launch. It just seemed like "cursing" your opponent was a cool concept. I did my own version of it in a custom card competition, I think it was based around building a "pure" archetype card for classes other than Paladin.
Flavor-wise I still like my idea a lot. It was like you were getting taxed for not returning the book, but the evil Librarian also wouldn't let you return it unless you paid him a ransom of the extra 3 mana. So you get him out of the way and then can return it for a lower late fee.
Obviously though, the Abyssal Curses are much better.
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
All of these spam aggro decks are absurd and pretty terrible to play against, but I'm guessing that they consider this a good thing within the Blizz team, since they went out of their way to make a few more, and boosted a couple that were already there. I just auto-concede against mages and warriors for now, and i'm ready to go on Paladins and Warlocks too, depending on how the early turns go. Matches that don't involve those decks have been fun, in general :)
Standout Standard Hearthstone Decks for Every Class in Voyage to the Sunken City
So these decks are good right now, yet the Priest and Warlock decks got downvotes… Someone is just a little salty, huh?
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
I had a game recently where I played 4 Gaia, the Techtonic and I don't really think a single one of the four was from my deck
even mech paladin
Am I blind or this deck lacks 1 card? :)
Odd Demon Hunter in Voyage to the Sunken City - Celebrate Wild Week With Our Full Deck & Guide
Thank you very much Swizard!
New Neutral Minion - Ambassador Faelin
Colossal Battlecry Shaman?
The Most Balanced Meta Ever?
Percentages are just so healthy across the board, and increasingly even old archetypes and new are re-surfacing for proper evaluation.
Everyone knows scouts are great but pirate aggro is back at 58% possible never having left.
For everyone complaining that YOI is overpowered they are only 55% making them a strong but not thaaaaat strong midrange deck.
Sejuani gangplank, still 53% super healthy for the Oldman plunder archetype.
The only complaint you can have is that certain Champs are very bad picks right now.
Value midrange/control stuff, like Swain, Ashe, Heimer, Jayce, Lux, Karma, TF
There seems to be much better alternatives at the moment.
But the actual archetype balancing is phenomenal with more decks then we've ever seen being playable.
Region wise, Frijord needs the most help outside its ramp identity. With shadow being almost as bad outside its removal pkg.
But otherwise perfect.