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Thanks for the clarification, though I'm a bit bummed I won't get to craft gold copies of all the dragon aspects since those are some of my favorite cards.  Seems a strange distinction since even though HoF doesn't exist in Year of the Gryphon, all "classic" versions of the Dragon Aspects will never (I assume...) rotate into the Core Set again since they've been replaced by completely different versions.  

28th February update: Poison's Renolock ft. Krul / Considering our past deeds with Confessor Paletress!

"Take this time to consider your past deeds"
What a strange series of opponents we faced:
- Confessor Paletress in Big Priest!?
- Quest Taunt Warrior with bombs?!
- Inspire Demon Hunter?!

Thanks to Poison for this awesome Quest Renolock deck ft. Krul the Unshackled.
Lots of fun, and taking me comfortably to diamond rank 3. LOTS of value in this deck with multiple ways to win:
- Cheating out big demons with Krul or Skull
- Bringing back multiple waves of demons (N'Zoth, Guldan, Merchant)
- Prime cards through Rustwix

Other interesting notes:
- We were able to outlast a traditional Big Priest.
- We were able to outlast an Odd Warrior.

The final question to ask: do you dare craft a golden Krul? ;-)
Remember, this is a fun off-meta deck that won games for me. I did not face any Reno Priests, so do keep that in mind! Think carefully before committing to crafting legendaries. When Krul works, he works well - you get a wave of demons onto the board. However, often I find Krul being pulled by Voidcaller or Skull.

Deck code: AAEBAf0GHtwGjg7CD8MWhRfgrALYuwLZvALexALfxALnywLy0AKX0wKL4QLo5wLb6QLD6gLamwProwP8owP9pAO7pQOdqQPrrAPEuQPWuQPuvwPXzgP24wOT5AMAAA==

https://youtu.be/a57FZ6GkM5Y 

Focused will wouldn't be terrible if Innerfire would be in rotation. But silencing a minion only to give it extra health isn't that great - especially since you'd want that extra health on minions with taunt or to have them survive so they can use their effects longer.

Quote From Stile

Will this stop a C'Thun (old and new) after its 3rd ping?

Nope.

C'Thun's battlecry deals 1 dmg many times, but never 3 damage.

Overlord Runthak probably doesn't fit well in this deck. Zoo tends to have an empty hand by turn 5.

You can also try adding Cogmaster and Spider Tank, but Cogmaster might need more mechs to support him.

Shadowed Spirit and some other deathrattle cards can make a strong deck, with Baron Rivendare returning.

DH have tons of really good big minions, the question is: is this enought? DH use to be aggro/tempo class and big resources are not viable.

Quote From dapperdog

When I saw the released list of warrior core cards I found myself surprised at two things; Shield Slam and Brawl were still part of core, and that Shield Block and Battle Rage didn't make it. It still baffles me that shield block was taken away. Is this really a problem card to begin with? Yes it has been played since forever, but what kind of design space is now freed up by its removal?

I don't think it has anything to do with design space in Shield Block's case. Some cards were just removed to help freshen things up a bit, and that can be achieved by removing any card that saw continuous play over the years, not just the most powerful ones.

Like many people I would have been quite happy to see Brawl go too, but that doesn't stop me looking forward to the class using alternatives to Shield Block for a while.

I should wait for expansion card reveals before condemning the class but this doesn't sit well with me at all. Silence Priest sucks and it's losing its biggest pay off card in the rotation (Unsleeping Soul). Also, targeting an enemy minion with that silence card is always going to feel bad.

Tempo Priest doesn't work without better card draw and basic cycle options like Insight and Thrive in the Shadows won't be enough to make it viable. The 1/3 is decent but suffers from similar issues as the Priest Hero Power. In order for it to be able to do anything it needs a friendly target to heal (or be healed in the case of the 1/3). It curves well into Power Word: Feast but that's the kind of dream curve that the archetype already depends on 100% of the time so it doesn't really mean anything. Tempo Priest depends too much on early game snowballs to have any chance of winning. 

Shadowed Spirit is already getting gutted by the rotation before it even arrives. It loses two of its most synergistic cards: Shadowy Figure and Wretched Reclaimer. And i don't see a card like this seeing play in any archetype that's not Aggro or Tempo and i don't have any hope for either. The same applies to all the other Tempo cards. If Tempo Priest fails to make an impact then most of the cards in the class are going to be unplayable. Most of these card require a target in order to make of use of their abilities and maintaining a board is something that Tempo Priest isn't good at. Paladin can dump their buff spells or battlecry effects on their 1/1 tokens but Priest doesn't have such an option. Without anything to buff the cards become completely useless.

Shadowform is still horrible. You can tutor it now and you can get it online on turn 1 if you mulligan for it and started with the coin but that costs two cards, provides no tempo gain and you sacrifice your healing Hero Power. You already start the game behind in Tempo and card advantage. That's far from a winning recipe. Also, since they removed the ability to upgrade the damage to 3, you have to choose between running two copies for drawing consistency and having the second copy be a completely dead card after playing the first or running only a single copy and possibly drawing the card too late or never at all.

And Natalie Seline... Oh my god... I can't believe they kept that card in the set. It's absolute garbage. Paying 8 mana for a single target removal is too slow and the body is completely irrelevant. It's just going to be removed every single time. It's much simpler to just use Shadow Word: Death if you want to remove a big threat. Natalie only has one niche in the game which is dealing with the 4/12 dragons but that niche is incredibly small and 100% dependent on the relevance of such cards. Also, Ysera no longer generates a snowball of infinite value so she isn't big removal priority anymore which makes Natalie's niche even worse. They could have brought Lyra the Sunshard back. Or Archbishop Benedictus. Or Confessor Paletress. Or literally anything else (other than Prophet Velen, i suppose). I'm extremely disappointed with the core set.

arcane watcher is ROS it will rotate so priest will need another silence target on top of everything you want XD.

If you ever have doubts about team5 trying to push tempo priest into the spotlight, then the core set changes will be the most blatant and obvious attempt yet. Basically, if Shadow Word: Death have been nixed as well you could conceivably be fooled into thinking that you've stumbled onto a list of paladin cards. There's literally no other removal option other than the conditional shadow word death, ruin, and the only borderline acceptable Holy Nova. At least we still have Holy Smite, guess christmas came early in 2021.

The consequence of this is that control priest has taken a beating it might never recover until the following year. Cards like Sethekk Veilweaver is now more likely to grant you tempo cards as opposed to reactive cards, so you can't just run veilweaver and Nazmani Bloodweaver along with Rally! because all you're going to end up with are a bunch of tempo cards. I look forward to seeing the priest cards for Barrens, and if I spot anything less than 2 removal options and a board clear I'm calling control priest truly dead and gone.

So what are we stuck with? Midrange priest, with a hard emphasis on getting board as early as possible, because if you lose it you'll never get it back, what with priest's draw potential being somewhere between the ground and the height of an ant. Face priest? That's not even a joke. You go shadowform and then pray your opponent's not warrior. Since priest lost so many of its control options, you can't rely on spiking your opponent's face for long, because now any minion that's not 5 or more attack just gets free reign.

Its not entirely gloom and doom. Silence priest in the form of Humongous Razorleaf and Arcane Watcher might just be enough, what with most classic removal cards being gone. Its literally now or never; silence priest has never really looked better since its height during Ungoro, so if it fails now then it will never be good.

The 30 or more would be if you had any surviving minions going into the turn that broom gives rush to.  That way you could have 8 or more minions attack.  If 8 attack and all trigger two Solos (4 damage) then you get 32 dmg.

And yeah, I know the combo in general seems iffy or straight up bad.  That’s why I summarized in saying he’ll likely be more of a burst finisher and not an OTK play.  I wasn’t posting it to say it would be good, but rather to say it’s technically still possible.  If we get something in the set that helps enable the play with cost reduction, or a cheaper copy, it becomes more playable but maybe still not great!

Personally the Warsong change makes me more excited for the Wild implications.  Patron Warrior could return in some form and might be really fun.

What Vol'jin Mecha'Thun list looks better in your opinion? PainlessSteel's version looks more cycle heavy with the acolytes and loot hoarders while Marck's use some different draw/scry engines. I'm tending to try Steel's version first since it looks cleaner.

ETC only costs 2 mana. What's the point of going through all that just to save 2 mana?

That 30 damage combo seems really iffy. With 2 ETC, you're doing 4 damage per minion. I don't think the math adds up to 30, since even with your combo, you only have 5 mana remaining, which means you're pushing only 7 minions with rush at best, which should add up to max of 28. Im no math expert, so Im fully open to having my math dissected here.

And Brawl continues to torment me for another year.

How come they buff Lightning Storm and remove Spell damage totem because "highrolling bad" but then they leave the most highrolly "if this goes my way I win and there's nothing you can do" spell in the game untouched?

Anyway, I found a better way to support, and became a Premium member lol. The site now loads so much faster, too.

When I saw the released list of warrior core cards I found myself surprised at two things; Shield Slam and Brawl were still part of core, and that Shield Block and Battle Rage didn't make it. It still baffles me that shield block was taken away. Is this really a problem card to begin with? Yes it has been played since forever, but what kind of design space is now freed up by its removal?

I'm a bit skeptical about combo warrior's chances in the next meta. Ancharrr is now gone, and so is Risky Skipper, and the loss of both of those cards also drastically reduces Armorsmith and Shield Slam's relevance. Draw is also harder to come by, with only Cutting Class remaining as the sole card card draw option along with Ringmaster Whatley, both of which are conditional draw effects, and thus may not be entirely suitable for a combo deck.

My guess is that some kind of midrange aggro warrior will come out, with Ringmaster Whatley as a centerpiece. Nitroboost Poison + weapons into Cutting Class is already a decent enough play, and with whatley you'll always be guaranteed to draw your choice of finisher in Alexstrasza the Life-Binder or Ysera the Dreamer. We might actually see Stranglethorn Tiger back in standard unironically. Wouldn't that be a sight?

A small note. Warsong Commander is likely not an aura effect like how Houndmaster Shaw used to be. Its description reads 'give', unlike shaw's 'have'. A minor thing for sure, but it does mean that you can't just vomit stuff on board then play this, it has to be played first before everything will get rush after. I agree that Animated Broomstick is basically the better sweeper here, but if team5 had the audacity of changing warsong commander to what it will be, I will take that as a signal that broomstick's time as a 1 drop may be over.

I said it before on another page, but you could ETC then Maiev your own ETC on turn 8, then use Warsong, Faceless, Broom (to give Warsong and first ETC Rush, as well as any other surviving minions going into the turn), another 1 drop (Elven Archer for an extra ping?), and 2x Tinyfin.  But this presents a few problems.

1) No element of surprise!  If you’re opponent knows what turn ETC awakens they could clear the board right before that, giving your rush minions nothing to attack.

2) Similarly, you may need to trade along the way to clear space on your board.  So even if the opponent doesn’t clear the board, do they leave you enough stats to attack into for your big burst turn?

3) This combo is slow and requires you to hold on to a lot of cards.  But only 2 are legendaries, so you could play some pieces as needed and just draw into the second copies later.

In summary, while possible to still do 30+ dmg of drum solos in a single turn based only on what we already know will be in Standard, it’s very slow, situational, and not likely.  However, I could see ETC being less of an OTK and more of a big burst finisher in the range of 10 to 16 damage.  Warsong just gives another way to give minions Rush to enable these turns.

I wanted to support you by playing the video ads at the right bottom corner, but they don't play for some reason. Maybe they are not supported in my region? The loading circle just keeps spinning.

Yay! So much fun. Love exodia decks once in a while. What average winrate do you get with it? Specially against the more common meta decks. I only see a weakness against a well-timed Illucia or Dirty Rat but they are so rare... Gonna try it, thanks man!

Important reminder: gotta have at least one Target Dummy in hand before Hemet-ing!

0-cost cards usually have good value. Zoo could use Sea Giant as a finisher, but it's gonna rotate. Anyway, nice to see we'll get a refresh on archetypes.

It's good that you can use it's effect immediately if you have the attack token, but a 5 mana landmark that do nothing if you don't have the token looks pretty weak. However judging by it's flavor Azir might have some effect that make this worth using. 

I was thinking Vol'jin with Enslaved Fel Lord. Maybe a control Big Warlock deck?