I agree with most of the other commenters that it shouldn't be in standard. I hate milling like I hate OTK decks. They're not fun to play against and Blizzard shouldnt promote them. (They also need to stop making resurrect cards for priest but that's another topic) Usually once I realize someone is just milling or setting up for some sort of combo I just quit. Sure they get the win but I value my time more and I'm not going to waste it on some BS like Mill or combo/otk.
So you play exclusively control fatigue decks with no win condition? Cause otherwise there's no reason to quit a game like that, any combo deck might be stuck with combo cards in their hand so you can punish them by playing aggresivly
One way to beat Quest Priest is to build a board and DON'T attack right away. Most of the time the Quest Priests don't have any early game other than healing, so if you wait until you can deal a larger amount of damage in a turn you can stall out their plan and rush them down.
ZooLock is one deck that can do this as Invoke effects help build a board quickly. Then you can use things like Grim Rally and other buffs to build attack power up and start beating them down. If you craft the Sea Giants that is another way to quickly build a board with high attack power.
I haven't played Mill for quite a while, but I do enjoy that Archetype, because of that weird win condition it provides.
To let Control-Players choke on their own greedy, value-generating Cards or see how important Combo pieces get burned... just wonderful :)
But I do agree that Mill is frustrating to play against/hard to counter. Mill-Rogue only needed one Card that makes your Opponent draw, and it became one of the most hated Decks of all time. If there is ever gonna be a card like Coldlight Oracle, I doubt the Devs would make it neutral, just so Rogue can't use it.
Maybe they'll print more Cards that counter Mill (Someone mentioned Valdris Felgorge), which would allow for that Strategy to exist.
I also think the Team could experiment more with Cards that fill your Opponents Hand with copies of The Coin. That wouldn't be too oppressive and there's already Stuff like Booty Bay Bookie or Soldier of Fortune, so maybe that could be the way for Mill.
I also think that your Combo-Druid should be pretty good against Quest-Priest, as long as you don't attack Face. These are the Things that I think you should consider against them:
- Try to bait out their board clears or make it very inconvenient for them to use it. Usually, having 2-3 medium sized Minions is enough.
- Use your Minions as Removal. Save the big clears for Mass Resurrection. Make also sure that they can't heal your Minions.
- They are a reactive Deck, so if you can allow it, do Nothing. At some Point, they have to use a Card, even if it is extremly inconvenient.
- This game will go to Fatigue, so don't draw more than your Opponent (Unless you're a Combo-Deck).
- Always remove Catrina Muerte. If you don't take care of her, your Opponent will get out of this with a free win. Archmage Vargoth might also be annoying, but his only purpose in this Deck is to get summoned by Mass Resurrection and cast another one. A few more Minions usually make no Difference when you're clearing the Board anyway.
I can help you with Quest paladin. Its unfavored, but not impossible. You just have to time your eggs and whelps so they can only silence one copy each time. Most quest priest decks play a total of 4 silences, and Mass Dispel will only get rid of the deathrattle, not the minion. Just make it so its always awkward for them to use Mass Dispel and Plague of Death. The match will almost always end in fatigue, so don't draw too many cards if you can help it. Just do it so you can complete the quest. Don't attack face and spam hero power. Eventually they will need to plop minions on board that don't progress their quest. You greatly out value them as long as you dont over extend.
In general against quest priest:-
- If your win condition is combo, never strike their face. Not even when they are not displaying their quest on turn 1. Your combo should kill them from 30 in one turn.
- If youre playing as aggro. Its massively unfavored. Play your cards and pray they don't have answers. Quest priest dont draw easily so hand reading is reasonably easy. If youre playing face hunter, just concede and move on.
- If youre playing mid range, dont strike face until late game but develop a board. Your opponent may make the mistake of playing their heal minions too early. In general you cannot out value your opponent, so you got to play your minions and time attacks. You only need to dodge Mass Hysteria most of the time to get it right.
Quest priest draws very poorly. Hand reading is essential to beat them.
Pharika's Spawn doesn't look to promising. In limited it will probably be super good just for being two okay creatures bundles into one card, but it is far too slow and unimpactful in constructed.
Nessian Board is probably going to end up being bad except for a finisher. The extra stats will probably be irrelevant most of the time, and forcing your opponent's creatures to block isn't good when your opponent gets to refill their hand. The only way this will end up being good is if you need a way to get all of your other creatures past your opponent's blockers. But we already have Prized Unicorn, which is admittedly smaller, but with an effect like this that doesn't really matter.
Nylea's Intervention isn't a good card. Tutoring lands is great except they go into your hand so you can still only play one a turn. Sucking all of the lands out of your library does mean you are going to draw more spells in the future, but it is still far too slow. Being able to destroy flyers is nice but that isn't enough to make the card good.
Drag to the Underworld is exactly the kind of card that I am going to end falling in love with (Murder is probably my favorite Magic card), black, instant, cheap, hard removal. It is not a bad card, amazing for limited. This is better than a lot of other removal spells out there (Such as Consign to the Pit). If you can control one or two black permanents then this is 2 mana destroy anything instant, which is amazing. This will probably end up out-classing Murder, but still be worse than Murderous Rider.
Tectonic Giant is interesting, it can either push extra damage, or give you a little extra steam, this will be a no brainer pick in draft, and it might end up seeing play in red aggro decks in the future. If you can get it to survive attacking more than once then you can get a lot of value from this. The only way I see this not being played is if it simply ends up being too slow. Mono-red aggro decks are amongst the most aggressive decks in standard, they have a super low mana curve, so a 4 mana card that doesn't do anything the turn you play it and won't reliably make it until the turn after will probably end up getting cut for faster, more reliable cards.
Blood Aspirant is interesting, I am always open to aristocrat-type cards, but this probably needs more setup than aggro decks want. You have to have extra mana and an extra creature to make this work. You are sacrificing a potential attacker and tapping a potential attacker to get rid of a single blocker, this better be a big blocker and that better be a small creature you sacrificed. If you are playing a deck that really cares about sacrificing things and getting things into the graveyard and whatnot then you might consider this card, but I don't think any competitive deck wants this.
Arasta of the Endless Webs looks interesting, Mammoth Spider is one of my favorite draft picks. It has prime stats plus reach, this will ward off some attackers. The extra mini-spiders will be useful, they won't be the reason the card is good because they rely on your opponent playing the right kind of deck for them to work, but they are a bonus. This will not be a must-have, but it looks like fun in the right midrange deck.
Polukranos, Unchained looks redonkulous, there is just so much going on with the card. 4 mana 6/6 but then it is a 6 mana 12/12 with escape and it takes a ton of hits to kill but it also gets smaller and it is able to fight other things. For self-mill decks this looks like it will be good, by turn 6 you can probably get this into your graveyard, and a 12/12 on turn 6 is incredible. Made even better by the fact that it can kill any blockers before the attack faze via it's triggered ability and then go face for 9-10 damage. There are other cards that work similarly with the +1/+1 counters and they lose a counter when they get hit such as Ugin's Conjurant or Oathsworn Knight, but they are all burdened with heavy downsides, or simply lack of upsides, btu Polukranos has enough upsides to warrant being played in a deck.*edit* nevermind I just noticed that it lost a +1/+1 counter for each point of damage it took, I thought that it lost a single +1/+1 counter whenever it took damage. This card is bad and I am a little disappointed.
Rebirth for Glory seems interesting, There are plenty of other 5 mana cards that put creatures from the graveyard onto the battlefield and none of them have really seen play. The fact that this can bring back an aura might make the difference, but I just don't know what you would do with this, maybe there is a combo where you make a big creature with haste/flying/a ton of attack/lifelink or something like that. I don't know all of the creatures and auras that you can combine, but there might be something there for johnny players to play around with.
Wavebreak Hippocamp looks like it will end up seeing play somewhere, but I don't see any competitive decks using this. There is such thing as a 'flash' deck where you don't play any cards on your turn and your deck is full of counterspells and flash creatures, maybe that deck needs more draw and this card will be a huge help. The issue is that this doesn't have flash so it can only be played on your turn and you don't want to be spending mana on your turn.
Final Death is just a reprint of Final Reward just with a different name. Final Reward wasn't played, so this won't be. There are better, cheaper ways to remove a creature.
Omen of the Sea looks amazing. It is basically just Opt with an extra scry for an extra mana. But on top of that you get the extra scry later in the game and it is an enchantment for enchantment synergies and it has a mana cost for devotion synergies. The best part is that you can do all of this stuff at instant speed. This is a nice little way to cycle through your hand and deck, there is a deck somewhere that wants this.
Nyx Herald is not going to be played very much. It is synergy with enchantment creatures and auras, and that is nice. But is a small buff on a small creature that requires a lot of build-around. Even if you get this "enchantment" deck to work out you still wouldn't want to play this guy, there are just better cards in the game you can play instead.
Stinging Lionfish, like Wavebreak Hippocamp, looks powerful and like it might help the aforementioned 'flash' deck, but it might not be used for the simple fact that it doesn't have flash. But who knows, maybe the deck will allow some non-instant speed cards in the list if the payoff turns out to be good enough, and so far the payoff looks big enough. Just keep in mind that these effects will only trigger once per round, this is "the first card you play on your opponent's turn" not "each card you play in your opponent's turn".
2: Oh yeah, it will take a LONG time. Like I said I think this is one of the main reasons why Team 5 canned a few years back, BUT that doesn't mean there aren't players who won't play it daily. You can break in between games if you win fast enough, there's also a two minute break if the other player is waiting on you to finish. It's in the wall of text somewhere up there, and it may need to be adjusted to 5-10 minutes but then again that's adding onto total time. I think I should add in a check system if all the players are done making their decks the match can go ahead and start, but that could also cause griefing/trolling. Plus the deck box could help but that would need some more thought than what I put into it, the main reason for deck crafting is so that people can adapt their strategies to what cards are legal. I defaulted to 8 players simply because we know Hearthstone can handle 8 players in a session at once. I want to keep it at 4 decks so players can ban a deck as they see fit. Unless banning is removed then yeah go down to three decks and make it best of 3, BUT that means less games in total which then should reflect on total rewards. Less Games = Fewer rewards.
That isn't what I meant when I said that players wouldn't be able to take breaks. I mean like how when playing arena you can play two games and then the next day play two more games and then three days later finish the run. With tournament mode you would have to be attentive to your game and be at your computer for over an hour all at once. Battlegrounds already takes about half an hour and with what you proposed simply building your decks will take even longer than that.
I like the idea of tournament mode, but I don't think you should have to invest so much time and attention to it. I am sure that if it worked like you suggested than most players wouldn't even bother to use their free run each week simply because there is so much effort involved.
I think it would work better if players only had to build 3 decks, and one of them would get banned so that you only had two decks to play with and you would build these before the tournament mode started. I understand about the limited set thing would make building the decks a bit harder, but you could easily put a "Tournament" filter in the deck building section to only show the sets that are being used. You would only need 2 decks because you wouldn't be fighting the same person more than once (assuming we are doing elimination and not swiss. And even if it is swiss than you shouldn't ever be fighting the same person more than twice). Also I would reduce the number of players so that it won't go on too long, having six players instead of eight wouldn't be the end of the world. Besides you could always just add the option to cue up against six or eight players.
Then maybe the best way to approach it would be allow players to build their decks prior to entering the bracket. I thought about taking Arena's approach of letting players step away whenever they want and cutting down the number of total decks needed, but then at some point it becomes very close to being identical to Arena with just another name and a different reward structure.
At some point the mode will lose steam, I mean every mode does. You're right, some players might not even use their free runs. I mainly put that there because there are dedicated players who save their gold for new packs and simply can't afford to spend money to play a game that they love, so the free ticket is a compromise. I feel like it should be such a commitment is because when you win and get all those rewards, it should feel well deserved. The "I earned this" feeling, as opposed to "I grinded ladder with this deck from rank 5 to legend" each month.
Tournament filter would be a great addition, and have separate deck slots for said decks since they're only temporary. Yes, Elimination, once you've lost your match-up you're out. Options are always good, I agree, having an option for a 6 Player Bracket and 8 Player Bracket would be best. Rewards would have to be restructured as well because of the maximum number of games a player is committing to.
Combo is the best option, Holy Wrath Paladin, or your Maly Druid as EpicHercules already discussed.
You won't be able to smorc them down unless you have god draws. The Quest Priest deck became popular as a direct response to Face Hunter.
What is your Rogue list you are using? Rogue is sitting as the best class to counter Priest according to the stats on hsreplay. Rogue's worst deck vs quest priest is deathrattle, which Priest only wins 47% of the time (as of this writing) Maly OTK Rogue is the hardest Priest counter (32% winrate for Priest).
Update: Having a lot of fun with this list. Nothing like being sad about drawing your Maly, only to get a 0 cost one the next turn from the Dragonqueen. Opponents don't expect what is coming in your late game because they just assume you're a normal Highlander Hunter. I'm at rank 7 with the deck, and feel like I could probably hit rank 5 with this.
Best deck I see in your collection for taking out Quest Priest would probably be the Malygos Quest Druid. Your best bet with that deck is basically to control the board when possible, but try to never leave damaged minions if you can. If you can delay them completing their quest, that'll buy you more time to set up your OTK. Also, don't go face unless you can do a lot of damage at once, and only later in the game. Focus mainly on draw, ramp, and armor gain. If you can hold out until you can complete your OTK, you should be fine.Priest has no Quest Priest runs no armor normally and you can do 44 damage to face from your hand once you get your combo. Only problem is that you're probably gonna be stomped by most of the aggro decks floating around like Face Hunter and Pirate Warrior.
Priest players, can you inform me how you beat Quest decks?
I'm a reasonable new player, but I managed to get rank 13 last season (second season of play). I face multiple tier 1 decks, and I know how to play against them, but Priest is always a problem (I'm currently 3-25 against the control variants with Quest and resurrect shenannigans). I can't seem to beat them by SMOrcing, but outvalueing the late-game is also not possible. These are the decks I have available (standard versions unless mentioned):
I agree with LyraSilvertongue. Especially "The more diverse cards/strats/interactions the more varied and interesting the game will be" and "I am wholeheartedly against the concept of there never being matches that force pure 'stall' control decks from actually trying to kill you with pressure or a finisher".
I also like Combo / OTK / Mill decks. But still, I also think such decks shouldn't be the main part of the meta.
Blizzard can introduce some cards to fight back against Mill decks. It's not impossible to create cards with interactions against Mill. It might be for example interaction with Graveyard in HS... which can also help against Resurrect Priest in the long run :)
I really don't mind drawing others to fatigue as a strategy or win condition, but milling as a win condition is just too polarising. It tends to make certain matches 'unfun' for your opponent, an auto concede when facing a deck that is tailor made to destroy your archetype.
If it must exist in hearthstone there needs to be cards that allow you to access milled cards, or to increase your deck size. Both concepts are cancerous, as with those 2 hours dead man's hand warrior mirrors. Imagine having that on a tournament. Most viewers will rightfully turn off their sets.
I think I read on Reddit some weeks ago, before holidays, Mike Donais or some other dev - that they are coming back at 5. January...
So... I don't expect the fix this week.
The best we can hope for is a compensation in a week or 2, just as it happened during November when there was a Brawliseum problem, and Daily Quest problems...
It is annoying as hell, that we can pretty much feel ignored now. It was easier for them to just flip the "Brawl switch" off...
"What would you 'feed' a knife with?" was me trying to give a hint, no criticism of your guess. I'm sorry for not making that clear. So, what would you "feed" a knife with? I'll give you the fourth line in about 8 hours if there's no real progress by then.
First off: you're conflating the various types of mill. There are cards that directly burn (e.g., Gnomeferatu, Fel Reaver) and there are cards that force your opponent to draw which will result in draw if they have too many cards. "Milling" is a reference to the original MtG card Millstone which mechanically was like the former, its just that in HS the overdraw mechanic is much more prevalent so we've associated it with that term.
Regarding the latter: personally I'm OK with forced-draw strategies becoming flavors-of-the-month every so often just to provide a change up, but I don't think they should ever become evergreen. Since giving your opponent cards is ostensibly a negative side effect, it's very difficult to properly balance those cards (looking at you, Naturalize), plus they create extremely polarizing match-ups. And the games against true overdraw decks really aren't too fun--you feel more like you're fighting HS rules than combating an opponent. I just can't imagine a world were having those decks as a constant threat in standard makes it more enjoyable.
Regarding the former: I could potentially see this in evergreen if it was changed to be part of the class's identify, and only that single class had access. I think a lot of the class identify stuff is very muddy right now, and this is definitely a novel mechanic that they could popularize to make something feel different. That said: if they want to go that route, I think they really need to look at taking away / constraining first before they start adding.
I absolutely LOATHE decks like wild Mill Rogue (especially since I am a combo/OTK 'main'), BUT I still feel it should be kept in the game and lightly supported with future cards in the future (as long as it doesn't get to ridiculous levels).
The more diverse cards/strats/interactions the more varied and interesting the game will be. HS gets boring when you more or less have have just a few playstyles that play, more or less, exactly the same with just a new name/theme/tribe slapped onto it. Plus, I am wholeheartedly against the concept of there never being matches that force pure 'stall' control decks from actually trying to kill you with pressure or a finisher. Mill accomplishes exactly that; control will never win by out valuing mill.
Quest Trading - Play A Friend!
Battletag: LuckyScrub#2745
Region: EU
Trade Only?: Yes, as I'm not letting anyone scam me again. Cheers!
Truth be told, i doubt Embiggen Aggro Druid can be consistent enough with the current cards.
I think the archetype needs its own version of Crystology (cheap and efficient card draw) to be meta-viable.
Should milling be a genuine supported strategy in standard Hearthstone?
So you play exclusively control fatigue decks with no win condition? Cause otherwise there's no reason to quit a game like that, any combo deck might be stuck with combo cards in their hand so you can punish them by playing aggresivly
How to beat Quest Priest
One way to beat Quest Priest is to build a board and DON'T attack right away. Most of the time the Quest Priests don't have any early game other than healing, so if you wait until you can deal a larger amount of damage in a turn you can stall out their plan and rush them down.
ZooLock is one deck that can do this as Invoke effects help build a board quickly. Then you can use things like Grim Rally and other buffs to build attack power up and start beating them down. If you craft the Sea Giants that is another way to quickly build a board with high attack power.
Should milling be a genuine supported strategy in standard Hearthstone?
I haven't played Mill for quite a while, but I do enjoy that Archetype, because of that weird win condition it provides.
To let Control-Players choke on their own greedy, value-generating Cards or see how important Combo pieces get burned... just wonderful :)
But I do agree that Mill is frustrating to play against/hard to counter. Mill-Rogue only needed one Card that makes your Opponent draw, and it became one of the most hated Decks of all time. If there is ever gonna be a card like Coldlight Oracle, I doubt the Devs would make it neutral, just so Rogue can't use it.
Maybe they'll print more Cards that counter Mill (Someone mentioned Valdris Felgorge), which would allow for that Strategy to exist.
I also think the Team could experiment more with Cards that fill your Opponents Hand with copies of The Coin. That wouldn't be too oppressive and there's already Stuff like Booty Bay Bookie or Soldier of Fortune, so maybe that could be the way for Mill.
Should milling be a genuine supported strategy in standard Hearthstone?
No thank you. Id rather play my cards.
How to beat Quest Priest
I also think that your Combo-Druid should be pretty good against Quest-Priest, as long as you don't attack Face. These are the Things that I think you should consider against them:
- Try to bait out their board clears or make it very inconvenient for them to use it. Usually, having 2-3 medium sized Minions is enough.
- Use your Minions as Removal. Save the big clears for Mass Resurrection. Make also sure that they can't heal your Minions.
- They are a reactive Deck, so if you can allow it, do Nothing. At some Point, they have to use a Card, even if it is extremly inconvenient.
- This game will go to Fatigue, so don't draw more than your Opponent (Unless you're a Combo-Deck).
- Always remove Catrina Muerte. If you don't take care of her, your Opponent will get out of this with a free win. Archmage Vargoth might also be annoying, but his only purpose in this Deck is to get summoned by Mass Resurrection and cast another one. A few more Minions usually make no Difference when you're clearing the Board anyway.
- For Highlander-Decks: Try to get Hex from Zephrys the Great and hit Catrina Muerte with it.
Tournament Mode
Excellent work on this post. Sure, its probably not perfect but I really liked a lot of it and enjoyed the read. Props to your work put into this!
How to beat Quest Priest
I can help you with Quest paladin. Its unfavored, but not impossible. You just have to time your eggs and whelps so they can only silence one copy each time. Most quest priest decks play a total of 4 silences, and Mass Dispel will only get rid of the deathrattle, not the minion. Just make it so its always awkward for them to use Mass Dispel and Plague of Death. The match will almost always end in fatigue, so don't draw too many cards if you can help it. Just do it so you can complete the quest. Don't attack face and spam hero power. Eventually they will need to plop minions on board that don't progress their quest. You greatly out value them as long as you dont over extend.
In general against quest priest:-
- If your win condition is combo, never strike their face. Not even when they are not displaying their quest on turn 1. Your combo should kill them from 30 in one turn.
- If youre playing as aggro. Its massively unfavored. Play your cards and pray they don't have answers. Quest priest dont draw easily so hand reading is reasonably easy. If youre playing face hunter, just concede and move on.
- If youre playing mid range, dont strike face until late game but develop a board. Your opponent may make the mistake of playing their heal minions too early. In general you cannot out value your opponent, so you got to play your minions and time attacks. You only need to dodge Mass Hysteria most of the time to get it right.
Quest priest draws very poorly. Hand reading is essential to beat them.
MTG Arena - Theros: Beyond Death Card Spoilers January 2
Pharika's Spawn doesn't look to promising. In limited it will probably be super good just for being two okay creatures bundles into one card, but it is far too slow and unimpactful in constructed.
Nessian Board is probably going to end up being bad except for a finisher. The extra stats will probably be irrelevant most of the time, and forcing your opponent's creatures to block isn't good when your opponent gets to refill their hand. The only way this will end up being good is if you need a way to get all of your other creatures past your opponent's blockers. But we already have Prized Unicorn, which is admittedly smaller, but with an effect like this that doesn't really matter.
Nylea's Intervention isn't a good card. Tutoring lands is great except they go into your hand so you can still only play one a turn. Sucking all of the lands out of your library does mean you are going to draw more spells in the future, but it is still far too slow. Being able to destroy flyers is nice but that isn't enough to make the card good.
Drag to the Underworld is exactly the kind of card that I am going to end falling in love with (Murder is probably my favorite Magic card), black, instant, cheap, hard removal. It is not a bad card, amazing for limited. This is better than a lot of other removal spells out there (Such as Consign to the Pit). If you can control one or two black permanents then this is 2 mana destroy anything instant, which is amazing. This will probably end up out-classing Murder, but still be worse than Murderous Rider.
Tectonic Giant is interesting, it can either push extra damage, or give you a little extra steam, this will be a no brainer pick in draft, and it might end up seeing play in red aggro decks in the future. If you can get it to survive attacking more than once then you can get a lot of value from this. The only way I see this not being played is if it simply ends up being too slow. Mono-red aggro decks are amongst the most aggressive decks in standard, they have a super low mana curve, so a 4 mana card that doesn't do anything the turn you play it and won't reliably make it until the turn after will probably end up getting cut for faster, more reliable cards.
Blood Aspirant is interesting, I am always open to aristocrat-type cards, but this probably needs more setup than aggro decks want. You have to have extra mana and an extra creature to make this work. You are sacrificing a potential attacker and tapping a potential attacker to get rid of a single blocker, this better be a big blocker and that better be a small creature you sacrificed. If you are playing a deck that really cares about sacrificing things and getting things into the graveyard and whatnot then you might consider this card, but I don't think any competitive deck wants this.
Arasta of the Endless Webs looks interesting, Mammoth Spider is one of my favorite draft picks. It has prime stats plus reach, this will ward off some attackers. The extra mini-spiders will be useful, they won't be the reason the card is good because they rely on your opponent playing the right kind of deck for them to work, but they are a bonus. This will not be a must-have, but it looks like fun in the right midrange deck.
Polukranos, Unchained looks redonkulous, there is just so much going on with the card. 4 mana 6/6 but then it is a 6 mana 12/12 with escape and it takes a ton of hits to kill but it also gets smaller and it is able to fight other things. For self-mill decks this looks like it will be good, by turn 6 you can probably get this into your graveyard, and a 12/12 on turn 6 is incredible. Made even better by the fact that it can kill any blockers before the attack faze via it's triggered ability and then go face for 9-10 damage. There are other cards that work similarly with the +1/+1 counters and they lose a counter when they get hit such as Ugin's Conjurant or Oathsworn Knight, but they are all burdened with heavy downsides, or simply lack of upsides, btu Polukranos has enough upsides to warrant being played in a deck. *edit* nevermind I just noticed that it lost a +1/+1 counter for each point of damage it took, I thought that it lost a single +1/+1 counter whenever it took damage. This card is bad and I am a little disappointed.
Rebirth for Glory seems interesting, There are plenty of other 5 mana cards that put creatures from the graveyard onto the battlefield and none of them have really seen play. The fact that this can bring back an aura might make the difference, but I just don't know what you would do with this, maybe there is a combo where you make a big creature with haste/flying/a ton of attack/lifelink or something like that. I don't know all of the creatures and auras that you can combine, but there might be something there for johnny players to play around with.
Wavebreak Hippocamp looks like it will end up seeing play somewhere, but I don't see any competitive decks using this. There is such thing as a 'flash' deck where you don't play any cards on your turn and your deck is full of counterspells and flash creatures, maybe that deck needs more draw and this card will be a huge help. The issue is that this doesn't have flash so it can only be played on your turn and you don't want to be spending mana on your turn.
Final Death is just a reprint of Final Reward just with a different name. Final Reward wasn't played, so this won't be. There are better, cheaper ways to remove a creature.
Omen of the Sea looks amazing. It is basically just Opt with an extra scry for an extra mana. But on top of that you get the extra scry later in the game and it is an enchantment for enchantment synergies and it has a mana cost for devotion synergies. The best part is that you can do all of this stuff at instant speed. This is a nice little way to cycle through your hand and deck, there is a deck somewhere that wants this.
Nyx Herald is not going to be played very much. It is synergy with enchantment creatures and auras, and that is nice. But is a small buff on a small creature that requires a lot of build-around. Even if you get this "enchantment" deck to work out you still wouldn't want to play this guy, there are just better cards in the game you can play instead.
Stinging Lionfish, like Wavebreak Hippocamp, looks powerful and like it might help the aforementioned 'flash' deck, but it might not be used for the simple fact that it doesn't have flash. But who knows, maybe the deck will allow some non-instant speed cards in the list if the payoff turns out to be good enough, and so far the payoff looks big enough. Just keep in mind that these effects will only trigger once per round, this is "the first card you play on your opponent's turn" not "each card you play in your opponent's turn".
Tournament Mode
Then maybe the best way to approach it would be allow players to build their decks prior to entering the bracket. I thought about taking Arena's approach of letting players step away whenever they want and cutting down the number of total decks needed, but then at some point it becomes very close to being identical to Arena with just another name and a different reward structure.
At some point the mode will lose steam, I mean every mode does. You're right, some players might not even use their free runs. I mainly put that there because there are dedicated players who save their gold for new packs and simply can't afford to spend money to play a game that they love, so the free ticket is a compromise. I feel like it should be such a commitment is because when you win and get all those rewards, it should feel well deserved. The "I earned this" feeling, as opposed to "I grinded ladder with this deck from rank 5 to legend" each month.
Tournament filter would be a great addition, and have separate deck slots for said decks since they're only temporary. Yes, Elimination, once you've lost your match-up you're out. Options are always good, I agree, having an option for a 6 Player Bracket and 8 Player Bracket would be best. Rewards would have to be restructured as well because of the maximum number of games a player is committing to.
Tournament Mode
The Reddit post died, and I've sent it to devs and Well known names via Twitter. Only time will tell.
How to beat Quest Priest
Zoolock is favored vs Quest Priest
Most Highlander lists are favored as well
Combo is the best option, Holy Wrath Paladin, or your Maly Druid as EpicHercules already discussed.
You won't be able to smorc them down unless you have god draws. The Quest Priest deck became popular as a direct response to Face Hunter.
What is your Rogue list you are using? Rogue is sitting as the best class to counter Priest according to the stats on hsreplay. Rogue's worst deck vs quest priest is deathrattle, which Priest only wins 47% of the time (as of this writing) Maly OTK Rogue is the hardest Priest counter (32% winrate for Priest).
hsreplay.net quest resurrect priest
Malylander
Update: Having a lot of fun with this list. Nothing like being sad about drawing your Maly, only to get a 0 cost one the next turn from the Dragonqueen. Opponents don't expect what is coming in your late game because they just assume you're a normal Highlander Hunter. I'm at rank 7 with the deck, and feel like I could probably hit rank 5 with this.
How to beat Quest Priest
Best deck I see in your collection for taking out Quest Priest would probably be the Malygos Quest Druid. Your best bet with that deck is basically to control the board when possible, but try to never leave damaged minions if you can. If you can delay them completing their quest, that'll buy you more time to set up your OTK. Also, don't go face unless you can do a lot of damage at once, and only later in the game. Focus mainly on draw, ramp, and armor gain. If you can hold out until you can complete your OTK, you should be fine.Priest has no Quest Priest runs no armor normally and you can do 44 damage to face from your hand once you get your combo. Only problem is that you're probably gonna be stomped by most of the aggro decks floating around like Face Hunter and Pirate Warrior.
How to beat Quest Priest
I've not played much standard and don't know the answer.
But +1 for a constructive polite non salty post asking for guidance.
How to beat Quest Priest
Priest players, can you inform me how you beat Quest decks?
I'm a reasonable new player, but I managed to get rank 13 last season (second season of play). I face multiple tier 1 decks, and I know how to play against them, but Priest is always a problem (I'm currently 3-25 against the control variants with Quest and resurrect shenannigans). I can't seem to beat them by SMOrcing, but outvalueing the late-game is also not possible. These are the decks I have available (standard versions unless mentioned):
- Quest Paladin
- Galakrond ZooLock (without Sea Giants)
- Combo Priest, the Amet Inner Fire version
- SMOrc Hunter
- Quest Malygos Druid (with some cheap replacements like Novice Engineer > Crystal Merchant)
- Budget Galakrond Tempo Rogue (no Flik Skyshiv)
What is a way to beat Priest?
Should milling be a genuine supported strategy in standard Hearthstone?
I agree with LyraSilvertongue. Especially "The more diverse cards/strats/interactions the more varied and interesting the game will be" and "I am wholeheartedly against the concept of there never being matches that force pure 'stall' control decks from actually trying to kill you with pressure or a finisher".
I also like Combo / OTK / Mill decks. But still, I also think such decks shouldn't be the main part of the meta.
Blizzard can introduce some cards to fight back against Mill decks. It's not impossible to create cards with interactions against Mill. It might be for example interaction with Graveyard in HS... which can also help against Resurrect Priest in the long run :)
Should milling be a genuine supported strategy in standard Hearthstone?
I really don't mind drawing others to fatigue as a strategy or win condition, but milling as a win condition is just too polarising. It tends to make certain matches 'unfun' for your opponent, an auto concede when facing a deck that is tailor made to destroy your archetype.
If it must exist in hearthstone there needs to be cards that allow you to access milled cards, or to increase your deck size. Both concepts are cancerous, as with those 2 hours dead man's hand warrior mirrors. Imagine having that on a tournament. Most viewers will rightfully turn off their sets.
Trump's Galakrond Warrior
Anyone missing Kronx, i had to make some substitutions in my deck bc i don't have Town Crier, Bloodsworn Mercenary, Barista Lynchen, or Kronx Dragonhoof.
So for substitutions, i am running 2x Shield Block, Gyrocopter (surprisingly excellent with Spirit), Harrison Jones, & Leeroy Jenkins. just as ways to keep the draw/pressure going. Considering trying maybe Dragon Breeder?
Thoughts?
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
Just brain dead aggro players in tonight or what?
Server down
I think I read on Reddit some weeks ago, before holidays, Mike Donais or some other dev - that they are coming back at 5. January...
So... I don't expect the fix this week.
The best we can hope for is a compensation in a week or 2, just as it happened during November when there was a Brawliseum problem, and Daily Quest problems...
It is annoying as hell, that we can pretty much feel ignored now. It was easier for them to just flip the "Brawl switch" off...
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
"What would you 'feed' a knife with?" was me trying to give a hint, no criticism of your guess. I'm sorry for not making that clear. So, what would you "feed" a knife with? I'll give you the fourth line in about 8 hours if there's no real progress by then.
Should milling be a genuine supported strategy in standard Hearthstone?
First off: you're conflating the various types of mill. There are cards that directly burn (e.g., Gnomeferatu, Fel Reaver) and there are cards that force your opponent to draw which will result in draw if they have too many cards. "Milling" is a reference to the original MtG card Millstone which mechanically was like the former, its just that in HS the overdraw mechanic is much more prevalent so we've associated it with that term.
Regarding the latter: personally I'm OK with forced-draw strategies becoming flavors-of-the-month every so often just to provide a change up, but I don't think they should ever become evergreen. Since giving your opponent cards is ostensibly a negative side effect, it's very difficult to properly balance those cards (looking at you, Naturalize), plus they create extremely polarizing match-ups. And the games against true overdraw decks really aren't too fun--you feel more like you're fighting HS rules than combating an opponent. I just can't imagine a world were having those decks as a constant threat in standard makes it more enjoyable.
Regarding the former: I could potentially see this in evergreen if it was changed to be part of the class's identify, and only that single class had access. I think a lot of the class identify stuff is very muddy right now, and this is definitely a novel mechanic that they could popularize to make something feel different. That said: if they want to go that route, I think they really need to look at taking away / constraining first before they start adding.
Should milling be a genuine supported strategy in standard Hearthstone?
I absolutely LOATHE decks like wild Mill Rogue (especially since I am a combo/OTK 'main'), BUT I still feel it should be kept in the game and lightly supported with future cards in the future (as long as it doesn't get to ridiculous levels).
The more diverse cards/strats/interactions the more varied and interesting the game will be. HS gets boring when you more or less have have just a few playstyles that play, more or less, exactly the same with just a new name/theme/tribe slapped onto it. Plus, I am wholeheartedly against the concept of there never being matches that force pure 'stall' control decks from actually trying to kill you with pressure or a finisher. Mill accomplishes exactly that; control will never win by out valuing mill.