He just wakes up fire, doesn't walk on it. When used some spells, the enemy is lit. But I'm thoughts about someone another. Tell me the name of his older brother.
I'm not trying to suggest that Swim is not good at the game, or that he can't possibly make useful predictions. But the suggestion that he can, after a mere eight hours with a single deck, build "the best version" demonstrates a major blind spot in the fundamentals of what a metagame is in a practical sense.
But you've actually inadvertently struck on my biggest gripe with LoR, and I think Swim is tied into it in an interesting way. Specifically, I'm talking about your comment that "by week 4 the meta will be just about set." We know that after week 4, there will be a balance patch. We also know from the preview content in patch 1.8 that 1.10 will feature a major change to Lee Sin, regardless of what other balance changes we might expect to the new cards introduced in 1.8. So, right as a meta starts to reach a stable state, it is thrown back into chaos.
The result is an odd loop. Swim decides which decks he thinks are the best and then proceeds to set the tier list on Mobalytics. Mobalytics presents a veneer of public data, so the tier list seems well-informed and people starting playing those decks. They become the metagame because they are presented as the metagame, so it starts to solidify. In any other card game, this is the point where players would come along and start looking for off-meta decks that can beat the meta. But in LoR, this is the point where a balance patch comes in and resets the whole thing. The result is that Swim can consistently find a sort of "local maxima" in deck-building - that is, a set of decks that are pretty good, even if they're not the best - and just assert that they are the meta, and the meta changes fast enough from Riot's end that he just gets to be right in a de facto way.
And he doesn't always get it right. I can recall at least one time when I saw Kinkou Elusives with a high win rate according to the actual data on Mobalytics, but it was nowhere in sight on Swim's tier list. It took a solid week before he revised that. And when he lost that Twitch Rivals tournament to Dogdog, someone who doesn't play LoR at all, he went on the Progress Day podcast and complained about the random decks that he couldn't predict people playing in the tournament.
I get that you like Swim's content - you regularly reference it in your posts - but while I think he's a good player, I also think he's overrated as a deck-builder, and that the way Riot is handling the game helps to prop him up.
Mind you, my greatest criticism has less to do with Swim and more to do with Riot. They shouldn't tinker as much as they do with the meta, but that tinkering has odd implications for Swim's position as one of the biggest names in LoR streaming.
He's got some blind spots when it comes to understanding how to play against low tier cards because they basically don't exist to him, but if he knows the list that you're playing, he can flat out call probabilities of cards in hand.
So if there's anyone I would trust to make early guesses about the meta it's probably him.
There are other good players too like mogwai, control, and hawktie, but they aren't really the predictive types.
It generally takes a very particular type of personality to look at a card pool and be like this, this, and this is going to be played.
I myself have made some good calls in the past and I would say for a butt pull day 2 list it's fine. By next week it will be pretty solid.
By week 4 the meta will be just about set, with a few surprises along the way.
I'd say keep hold of anything you think is genuinely quite likely to get nerfed (which doesn't always include OP cards if they are central to their class identity), but don't feel too reluctant to dust the rest since most won't be nerfed and being able to craft something you are interested in sooner is worth something.
If it helps make the risk of lost dust feel less bad, you can ask "am I happy trading this extra copy I cannot use for the usual amount of dust?" If the answer is yes then whether or not you would get more dust later doesn't change the question and the answer is still yes.
This adds a lot of perspective. In the grand scheme of things, I'm really only looking at several hundred dust that I would miss out on with the potential nerf targets that have been theorized. I just get paralysis and "buyers remorse" almost every single time I do it and get a legendary and then only play it intermittently. The last two cards I crafted were Activate the Obelisk and Patches the Pirate. Solely because I play a lot of wild, the latter is the only one that sees a lot of play.
I'm in the exact same boat. I held onto nearly all my Scholomance duplicates (only rares and commons, of course) in the hopes that something might get nerfed and I could cash in. I dusted a small handful of them that have seen no play (so far), but am still holding out on the remainder.
I'm beginning to wonder if nerfs are coming at all - the meta seems pretty diverse to me. I don't think there's a class that feels oppressive (maybe rogue at the moment?) in terms of how much I see it in the constructed ladder - and nothing is unbeatable.
I was sitting on about 20,000 dust before Scholomance's release because I have analysis paralysis and and an irrational fear of dusting something that I will regret later. I play wild, so I don't dust at rotations, and I don't dust non-duplicates.
I just don't feel in my gut like nerfs are coming soon - and if they do, the cynic in me bets they'll nerf a legendary or an epic (like Guardian Animals or Secret Passage) where I don't have duplicates.
I am a Wild player as well. Along those lines, the recent decks around Darkglare and Secret Passage really make me wonder if those cards are going to get hit. The fact that with Odd and Kingsbane Rogue, Secret Passage cane help you really vomit out cards so fast that your opponent cannot really do anything about it has me wondering if it will get dinged to (2) mana.
As for Darkglare I have been playing the hell out of it and I can see why people would have an issue with it. I have been able to consistently drop giants on T3-4 along with other threats and most of my wins with the version of the deck I play, there is a buffed Hooked Reaver to "protect" the other minions as well as what little of my health there is left.
28th August update: Duwin's Reno N'Zoth Hunter PART 1: King Krush OP! (Scholomance Academy) (1080p)
Reno N'Zoth Hunter - thanks to Duwin for the deck (https://twitter.com/DuwinHS). Turns out King Krush is great against Reno Priest. Sylvanas is great against Cubelock :-) Oh, and it is a DUWIN deck. That means it is awesome.
We can talk about removing the mana refill part of the card but given how powerful decks became with the targon expansion I don't see anything below +2+2 permanent for 7 mana being worth it. The majority of players haven't see the true broken stuff that is possible now and i give the community 2-3 weeks to find out about it...
There's a lot to unpack in this post. Breaking down what you're talking about a bit, you seem to have points about a lot more than just the Celestial cards:
Is Invoke a healthy mechanic? You seem to think that it's bad because you believe Discover is widely considered OP and too much RNG (note: not "r and g" - it's an acronym)
Are the actual Celestial cards too powerful/is the cost of getting a Celestial card too low? You seem to think that the cost to get one (e.g. playing an understated 3-drop) is too low relative to their powerful, as they are themselves above the power curve for their respective costs
Is Aurelion Sol too powerful? You seem to think he is too powerful because he is almost certainly the most powerful late-game bomb available in Legends of Runeterra.
Is Targon in too many Meta decks? You seem to think that it is, based on Swim's "day 2 meta" analysis
My responses
Is Invoke a healthy mechanic? I think the mechanic is fine in the abstract, but that it's bad to limit a mechanic this big and impactful to one region. Discover is one of the most interesting types of RNG in Hearthstone because the player has to make a choice about which random card they want. Invoke works in much the same way, where players have to make decisions about random cards, and that can be a very skill-testing form of randomness. But Discover was available to all classes, and Invoke is only available to Targon, so that makes Targon unfairly powerful so long as Celestials are better than a lot of the other control strategies in other regions.
Are the actual Celestial cards too powerful/is the cost of getting a Celestial card too low? Some specific cards like Solari Priestess, which pick from a very limited pool of Celestials, are probably a little overtuned. But most of the cards seem decently priced for the power level of the cards, in no small part due to the fact that most Celestial spells are slow, so your opponent has time to react to just about every Celestial card before it snowballs to a win.
Is Aurelion Sol too powerful? Maybe? He's clearly crazy powerful, but he's also a 10-drop, so once the metagame stops being super greedy (which is the most common start for a day 1 or day 2 meta), he might just be too expensive to reasonably play. Only time will tell.
Is Targon in too many Meta decks? What meta decks? It's day 2. That Swim has a video talking about meta decks is silly, and the claim he made that a mere 8 hours of play is all he needs to fully optimize an archetype is also silly, particularly because the meta isn't stable enough to optimize against. Targon is in most of the decks people are playing because it's brand new, and because numerous other regions got next to no new content at all. I certainly think Riot should have released meaningful content for each region, rather than delaying the real content for four of them, but this doesn't really reflect a new meta game.
I think that invoke is not op but simply unfun as a mechanic.
It feels like your opponent is pulling the answers he needs out of his a**, if he finds the answers he needs and if he doesn't well it doesnt feel great to win eigther.
Will we see nerfs for invoke? I doubt it. The best decks that ive seen and building had no trouble beating invoke decks unless these pulled answers in 4 of for 4 invokes (what has almost 0% chance).
Aurelion Sol however feels super opressive to play against if your deck is not top tier and i see how this card, which is kinda Ugin, the spiritdragon from MTG in LoR is frustating to face. If he levels the game is over for your opponent , kinda.
There are other problematic cards and decks that we will soon enough complain about *caught Taric but for now i see where the frustration about celestials and Aurelion Sol comes from
Just 1 Pen Flinger? But they're soooo good in a deck like this aren't they?
Also, have-you-tried/did-you-consider a Wandmaker or two? Maybe instead of the Crimson Sigil Runner. Wandmaker will net you a 1-cost spell from your class anyway. Although, if that battlecry pulled you a Felosophy you could only use is on Spirit Jailer, which kind of stinks.
Very good looking deck.
I am really new to Hearthstone -- so a grain of salt -- but I am not at all new to TCGs. Played PTCGO for a long time.
I'm in the exact same boat. I held onto nearly all my Scholomance duplicates (only rares and commons, of course) in the hopes that something might get nerfed and I could cash in. I dusted a small handful of them that have seen no play (so far), but am still holding out on the remainder.
I'm beginning to wonder if nerfs are coming at all - the meta seems pretty diverse to me. I don't think there's a class that feels oppressive (maybe rogue at the moment?) in terms of how much I see it in the constructed ladder - and nothing is unbeatable.
I was sitting on about 20,000 dust before Scholomance's release because I have analysis paralysis and and an irrational fear of dusting something that I will regret later. I play wild, so I don't dust at rotations, and I don't dust non-duplicates.
I just don't feel in my gut like nerfs are coming soon - and if they do, the cynic in me bets they'll nerf a legendary or an epic (like Guardian Animals or Secret Passage) where I don't have duplicates.
I'd say keep hold of anything you think is genuinely quite likely to get nerfed (which doesn't always include OP cards if they are central to their class identity), but don't feel too reluctant to dust the rest since most won't be nerfed and being able to craft something you are interested in sooner is worth something.
If it helps make the risk of lost dust feel less bad, you can ask "am I happy trading this extra copy I cannot use for the usual amount of dust?" If the answer is yes then whether or not you would get more dust later doesn't change the question and the answer is still yes.
Zenith Blade would be a great addition to this deck, it can win games if played on Vi. If you want to go even more into the Vi route you could add Bastion to protect her. Mechanist Zevi also tends to be powerful in these sorts of decks (especially with Rummage).
I played a lot in this expansion so far: Zenith Blade is... a nice concept of a card but doesn't really work against any strong deck right now.
spending 3 mana for 1/2 stats and overwhelm is... good if you should have a huge hitter and cant run Might. Spending 3 mana early for 1/2 is bad and that the buff is slow leaves a lot room for the opponent to counter you with removal (also he will Hush your unit anyways)
This deck however:
1. has a 4 power minion as the biggest hitter
2. wants to get an empty hand for jinx
3. has the strength to have a lot of burst speed cards that enable open attacks that you really dont want to delay with Zenith Blade
I do not have much trouble with Celestial cards existing in the game. This may be due to me playing Leona Lucian, which handles these grindy decks pretty well. But I still think they are balanced overall. They need to be a bit stronger, because they are granted through weaker units.
I think they are strong but fine overall, my only problem is with cosmic inspiration (one of the celestial cards). Since it buffs all your allies everywhere the first that gets one out without dying next round straight up wins. I already made a thread about it but my hope is that they make it buff only celestials which should make it ok.
So while I love celestials, I think cosmic inspiration is just too good. Not only it affects future celestials but your other allies in deck, hand, play too. My suggestion is simple, make cosmic inspiration buff only celestials. I mostly play expeditions and I feel like the first that gets a cosmic inspiration wins and there's nothing else you can do because +2/2 just allows you much better trades.
UGh! It's that time again when we have to look at our collection and see what we are missing and what we have an abundance of and think to ourselves if a nerf is coming.
Not going to lie. I kept the majority of the cards that I felt would be problematic in the current meta and dusted the rest. The good/bad of this is that I have some dust that I am ready to use and get a couple of the cards that I really really want in both wild and standard formats.
Now this is where I am stuck and wonder what direction I should choose:
1) should I say to hell with it and dust the remaining items I have surpluses of to make some of the cards I want/need?
2) hold out in hopes that Blizz will make their nerf targets known as soon as possible so that we can start planning on what we are going to do?
The nerf you suggested for Secret Passage outright kills the card. It's not conservative at all.
Because The Soularium DRAWS cards (they are ADDED to your previous hand, and you can then calculate the best synergies after that), while Secret Passage REPLACES WITH 5 cards (this means you cannot calculate synergies with your hands, you can only GAMBLE).
SP equalled to draw 5 is just wrong.
Also the soularium a draw engine historically did quite poorly. It works now in Wild because of Discard and Pain synergies - which Passage doesn't have.
Additionally, this is entirely new level of powercreep with Scholomance, comparing with cards from the past will only show part of the truth.
Decks regularly dieing to Sinister Strike says nothing about Secret Passage - it's telling instead of how these decks provide poor counterstrategy to chip damage: sinister strike becomes useful ONLY IF you let the Rogue deal 27 damage to your face before. It's a dead card in hand before that.
Ofc SP is a very good card, but given the powerlevel of the meta, it's actually a pretty fair one.
1) In regards to the stats: many variants of those decks are running well above 60% on HSReplay. The aggregate variants across all ranks is what drops them below 60%. I don't have premium HSReplay so admittedly my analysis is limited. I read the VS report at your suggestion, and while the meta is generally healthy (I wasn't trying to be negative about the state of the game in my OP), I think there are clear issues.
2) Sinister Strike IS a bad card. It's also run in many variants of rogue that are performing above 63% on HSReplay. That's a testament to the power of Secret Passage. It's why it's Viscious Syndicate's metabreaker of the week, and the most played deck at competitive ranks. There are a lot of lethal outs for Rogue - maybe I shouldn't have focused on Sinister Strike. Secret Passage is broken on its face, and there's only one thing really keeping it in check.
3) What does best against Rogue? Even more aggressive Hunter and Demon Hunter decks that are powered by Voracious Reader. If you nerf Secret Passage you can't ignore the even more aggressive decks.
4) Despite the hyper-aggression, Libram Paladin is incredibly versatile and dominant, even if it doesn't quite top the chart at the highest levels of competition. What makes it unfair? I looked at Argent Braggart, First Day of School, and High Abbess Alura, but ultimately the problem is that Libram of Wisdom is over-powered at every stage of the game. I'm open to a different suggestion of how to deal with that, but I couldn't think of a better one.
5) Basically, if you agree that Voracious Reader should be nerfed as a versatile neutral that's pushing zoo/aggro too far over the top, you also have to look at keeping Rogue and Paladin in check. I thought the nerfs I suggested, only three cards in total, were pretty conservative, and don't kill their utility.
Zenith Blade would be a great addition to this deck, it can win games if played on Vi. If you want to go even more into the Vi route you could add Bastion to protect her. Mechanist Zevi also tends to be powerful in these sorts of decks (especially with Rummage).
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
He just wakes up fire, doesn't walk on it.
When used some spells, the enemy is lit.
But I'm thoughts about someone another.
Tell me the name of his older brother.
Celestials - Is It Too Strong?
I'm not trying to suggest that Swim is not good at the game, or that he can't possibly make useful predictions. But the suggestion that he can, after a mere eight hours with a single deck, build "the best version" demonstrates a major blind spot in the fundamentals of what a metagame is in a practical sense.
But you've actually inadvertently struck on my biggest gripe with LoR, and I think Swim is tied into it in an interesting way. Specifically, I'm talking about your comment that "by week 4 the meta will be just about set." We know that after week 4, there will be a balance patch. We also know from the preview content in patch 1.8 that 1.10 will feature a major change to Lee Sin, regardless of what other balance changes we might expect to the new cards introduced in 1.8. So, right as a meta starts to reach a stable state, it is thrown back into chaos.
The result is an odd loop. Swim decides which decks he thinks are the best and then proceeds to set the tier list on Mobalytics. Mobalytics presents a veneer of public data, so the tier list seems well-informed and people starting playing those decks. They become the metagame because they are presented as the metagame, so it starts to solidify. In any other card game, this is the point where players would come along and start looking for off-meta decks that can beat the meta. But in LoR, this is the point where a balance patch comes in and resets the whole thing. The result is that Swim can consistently find a sort of "local maxima" in deck-building - that is, a set of decks that are pretty good, even if they're not the best - and just assert that they are the meta, and the meta changes fast enough from Riot's end that he just gets to be right in a de facto way.
And he doesn't always get it right. I can recall at least one time when I saw Kinkou Elusives with a high win rate according to the actual data on Mobalytics, but it was nowhere in sight on Swim's tier list. It took a solid week before he revised that. And when he lost that Twitch Rivals tournament to Dogdog, someone who doesn't play LoR at all, he went on the Progress Day podcast and complained about the random decks that he couldn't predict people playing in the tournament.
I get that you like Swim's content - you regularly reference it in your posts - but while I think he's a good player, I also think he's overrated as a deck-builder, and that the way Riot is handling the game helps to prop him up.
Mind you, my greatest criticism has less to do with Swim and more to do with Riot. They shouldn't tinker as much as they do with the meta, but that tinkering has odd implications for Swim's position as one of the biggest names in LoR streaming.
Mr. Bigglesworth OTK!
I just saw this on Trollden, that was amazing :D
Should we dust now, or continue to wait?!?!?
Got 1600 dust here so still waiting to disenchant the new stuff. Not in a hurry
Celestials - Is It Too Strong?
Swim's pretty decent from back in the Gwent days.
He's got some blind spots when it comes to understanding how to play against low tier cards because they basically don't exist to him, but if he knows the list that you're playing, he can flat out call probabilities of cards in hand.
So if there's anyone I would trust to make early guesses about the meta it's probably him.
There are other good players too like mogwai, control, and hawktie, but they aren't really the predictive types.
It generally takes a very particular type of personality to look at a card pool and be like this, this, and this is going to be played.
I myself have made some good calls in the past and I would say for a butt pull day 2 list it's fine. By next week it will be pretty solid.
By week 4 the meta will be just about set, with a few surprises along the way.
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020 Season 2 Continues With Week 3
Always a Bunnyhopper and Monsanto fan.
Should we dust now, or continue to wait?!?!?
This adds a lot of perspective. In the grand scheme of things, I'm really only looking at several hundred dust that I would miss out on with the potential nerf targets that have been theorized. I just get paralysis and "buyers remorse" almost every single time I do it and get a legendary and then only play it intermittently. The last two cards I crafted were Activate the Obelisk and Patches the Pirate. Solely because I play a lot of wild, the latter is the only one that sees a lot of play.
Should we dust now, or continue to wait?!?!?
I am a Wild player as well. Along those lines, the recent decks around Darkglare and Secret Passage really make me wonder if those cards are going to get hit. The fact that with Odd and Kingsbane Rogue, Secret Passage cane help you really vomit out cards so fast that your opponent cannot really do anything about it has me wondering if it will get dinged to (2) mana.
As for Darkglare I have been playing the hell out of it and I can see why people would have an issue with it. I have been able to consistently drop giants on T3-4 along with other threats and most of my wins with the version of the deck I play, there is a buffed Hooked Reaver to "protect" the other minions as well as what little of my health there is left.
Darkseeker's channel - 13th November update: KOtsosKOtsos' Reno Evolve Shudderwock Shaman - ft. Archivist Elysiana
28th August update: Duwin's Reno N'Zoth Hunter PART 1: King Krush OP! (Scholomance Academy) (1080p)
Reno N'Zoth Hunter - thanks to Duwin for the deck (https://twitter.com/DuwinHS). Turns out King Krush is great against Reno Priest. Sylvanas is great against Cubelock :-)
Oh, and it is a DUWIN deck. That means it is awesome.
Deck code: AAEBAR8eyQSXCPgIuQ33DfoOwxaFF+CsApbDAtPFAtPNAt/SAobTArbqAsPqAqbwAvLxAoDzArn4AqCAA/KWA6GhA7uhA/yjA6alA5LNA+HOA8HQA+PUAwAA
https://youtu.be/ePFARpiK8tI
Cosmic inspiration too strong
We can talk about removing the mana refill part of the card but given how powerful decks became with the targon expansion I don't see anything below +2+2 permanent for 7 mana being worth it. The majority of players haven't see the true broken stuff that is possible now and i give the community 2-3 weeks to find out about it...
Celestials - Is It Too Strong?
There's a lot to unpack in this post. Breaking down what you're talking about a bit, you seem to have points about a lot more than just the Celestial cards:
My responses
Celestials - Is It Too Strong?
I think that invoke is not op but simply unfun as a mechanic.
It feels like your opponent is pulling the answers he needs out of his a**, if he finds the answers he needs and if he doesn't well it doesnt feel great to win eigther.
Will we see nerfs for invoke? I doubt it. The best decks that ive seen and building had no trouble beating invoke decks unless these pulled answers in 4 of for 4 invokes (what has almost 0% chance).
Aurelion Sol however feels super opressive to play against if your deck is not top tier and i see how this card, which is kinda Ugin, the spiritdragon from MTG in LoR is frustating to face. If he levels the game is over for your opponent , kinda.
There are other problematic cards and decks that we will soon enough complain about *caught Taric but for now i see where the frustration about celestials and Aurelion Sol comes from
Soul Slayer DH
Just 1 Pen Flinger? But they're soooo good in a deck like this aren't they?
Also, have-you-tried/did-you-consider a Wandmaker or two? Maybe instead of the Crimson Sigil Runner. Wandmaker will net you a 1-cost spell from your class anyway. Although, if that battlecry pulled you a Felosophy you could only use is on Spirit Jailer, which kind of stinks.
Very good looking deck.
I am really new to Hearthstone -- so a grain of salt -- but I am not at all new to TCGs. Played PTCGO for a long time.
Should we dust now, or continue to wait?!?!?
I'm in the exact same boat. I held onto nearly all my Scholomance duplicates (only rares and commons, of course) in the hopes that something might get nerfed and I could cash in. I dusted a small handful of them that have seen no play (so far), but am still holding out on the remainder.
I'm beginning to wonder if nerfs are coming at all - the meta seems pretty diverse to me. I don't think there's a class that feels oppressive (maybe rogue at the moment?) in terms of how much I see it in the constructed ladder - and nothing is unbeatable.
I was sitting on about 20,000 dust before Scholomance's release because I have analysis paralysis and and an irrational fear of dusting something that I will regret later. I play wild, so I don't dust at rotations, and I don't dust non-duplicates.
I just don't feel in my gut like nerfs are coming soon - and if they do, the cynic in me bets they'll nerf a legendary or an epic (like Guardian Animals or Secret Passage) where I don't have duplicates.
Should we dust now, or continue to wait?!?!?
I'd say keep hold of anything you think is genuinely quite likely to get nerfed (which doesn't always include OP cards if they are central to their class identity), but don't feel too reluctant to dust the rest since most won't be nerfed and being able to craft something you are interested in sooner is worth something.
If it helps make the risk of lost dust feel less bad, you can ask "am I happy trading this extra copy I cannot use for the usual amount of dust?" If the answer is yes then whether or not you would get more dust later doesn't change the question and the answer is still yes.
I finally made a deck myself that actually works for once! :D
I played a lot in this expansion so far: Zenith Blade is... a nice concept of a card but doesn't really work against any strong deck right now.
spending 3 mana for 1/2 stats and overwhelm is... good if you should have a huge hitter and cant run Might. Spending 3 mana early for 1/2 is bad and that the buff is slow leaves a lot room for the opponent to counter you with removal (also he will Hush your unit anyways)
This deck however:
1. has a 4 power minion as the biggest hitter
2. wants to get an empty hand for jinx
3. has the strength to have a lot of burst speed cards that enable open attacks that you really dont want to delay with Zenith Blade
Celestials - Is It Too Strong?
I do not have much trouble with Celestial cards existing in the game. This may be due to me playing Leona Lucian, which handles these grindy decks pretty well. But I still think they are balanced overall. They need to be a bit stronger, because they are granted through weaker units.
Out of Cards Changelog - 2020-08-26 - Decks Return to the Homepage
Yup! We're actually going to be pushing that out this afternoon along with customization options for the decks widget =D
Celestials - Is It Too Strong?
I think they are strong but fine overall, my only problem is with cosmic inspiration (one of the celestial cards). Since it buffs all your allies everywhere the first that gets one out without dying next round straight up wins. I already made a thread about it but my hope is that they make it buff only celestials which should make it ok.
Out of Cards Changelog - 2020-08-26 - Decks Return to the Homepage
Will the new deck widget becoming to the portal pages? I'd love to be able to use those same filters on the Hearthstone portal.
Cosmic inspiration too strong
So while I love celestials, I think cosmic inspiration is just too good. Not only it affects future celestials but your other allies in deck, hand, play too. My suggestion is simple, make cosmic inspiration buff only celestials. I mostly play expeditions and I feel like the first that gets a cosmic inspiration wins and there's nothing else you can do because +2/2 just allows you much better trades.
Should we dust now, or continue to wait?!?!?
UGh! It's that time again when we have to look at our collection and see what we are missing and what we have an abundance of and think to ourselves if a nerf is coming.
Not going to lie. I kept the majority of the cards that I felt would be problematic in the current meta and dusted the rest. The good/bad of this is that I have some dust that I am ready to use and get a couple of the cards that I really really want in both wild and standard formats.
Now this is where I am stuck and wonder what direction I should choose:
1) should I say to hell with it and dust the remaining items I have surpluses of to make some of the cards I want/need?
2) hold out in hopes that Blizz will make their nerf targets known as soon as possible so that we can start planning on what we are going to do?
What is everyone else doing?
TheoryNerf - 3 Cards With Numbers Changed To 3
The nerf you suggested for Secret Passage outright kills the card. It's not conservative at all.
Because The Soularium DRAWS cards (they are ADDED to your previous hand, and you can then calculate the best synergies after that), while Secret Passage REPLACES WITH 5 cards (this means you cannot calculate synergies with your hands, you can only GAMBLE).
SP equalled to draw 5 is just wrong.
Also the soularium a draw engine historically did quite poorly. It works now in Wild because of Discard and Pain synergies - which Passage doesn't have.
Additionally, this is entirely new level of powercreep with Scholomance, comparing with cards from the past will only show part of the truth.
Decks regularly dieing to Sinister Strike says nothing about Secret Passage - it's telling instead of how these decks provide poor counterstrategy to chip damage: sinister strike becomes useful ONLY IF you let the Rogue deal 27 damage to your face before. It's a dead card in hand before that.
Ofc SP is a very good card, but given the powerlevel of the meta, it's actually a pretty fair one.
TheoryNerf - 3 Cards With Numbers Changed To 3
1) In regards to the stats: many variants of those decks are running well above 60% on HSReplay. The aggregate variants across all ranks is what drops them below 60%. I don't have premium HSReplay so admittedly my analysis is limited. I read the VS report at your suggestion, and while the meta is generally healthy (I wasn't trying to be negative about the state of the game in my OP), I think there are clear issues.
2) Sinister Strike IS a bad card. It's also run in many variants of rogue that are performing above 63% on HSReplay. That's a testament to the power of Secret Passage. It's why it's Viscious Syndicate's metabreaker of the week, and the most played deck at competitive ranks. There are a lot of lethal outs for Rogue - maybe I shouldn't have focused on Sinister Strike. Secret Passage is broken on its face, and there's only one thing really keeping it in check.
3) What does best against Rogue? Even more aggressive Hunter and Demon Hunter decks that are powered by Voracious Reader. If you nerf Secret Passage you can't ignore the even more aggressive decks.
4) Despite the hyper-aggression, Libram Paladin is incredibly versatile and dominant, even if it doesn't quite top the chart at the highest levels of competition. What makes it unfair? I looked at Argent Braggart, First Day of School, and High Abbess Alura, but ultimately the problem is that Libram of Wisdom is over-powered at every stage of the game. I'm open to a different suggestion of how to deal with that, but I couldn't think of a better one.
5) Basically, if you agree that Voracious Reader should be nerfed as a versatile neutral that's pushing zoo/aggro too far over the top, you also have to look at keeping Rogue and Paladin in check. I thought the nerfs I suggested, only three cards in total, were pretty conservative, and don't kill their utility.
I finally made a deck myself that actually works for once! :D
Zenith Blade would be a great addition to this deck, it can win games if played on Vi. If you want to go even more into the Vi route you could add Bastion to protect her. Mechanist Zevi also tends to be powerful in these sorts of decks (especially with Rummage).