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I'm trying to make Overload Shaman work since I already had Vessina and have gotten 2 Cumulo-Maximus from packs. It really lacks strong synergistic early minions (Surging Tempest isn't BAD, it's just basically the only option and not all that difficult to clear without a stronger curve). However, I'm also playing basically the same deck in Wild but swapped in Tunnel Trogg and Totem Golem and having *considerably* better results.

I'm also trying to make Cyclone Mage 2.0 work since I got Chenvaala and, while not at all bad, it's super inconsistent. There have been games where I've totally steamrolled getting multiple 5/5s off Chenvaala + the 6/6 dragons from Learn Draconic to win handily. And then others where i get absolutely bodied when my draws haven't come in correctly. Feels a lot like Standard Pirate Warrior - if your mulligan and first say 3-4 turns highroll correctly, you ware unstoppable, BUT  if that doesn't happen you have virtually no mid/late game staying power.

DestroyerR got it. Your turn.

Why are people playing the super OP Shaman decks on casual right now???  They are going to be nerfed this week, if you are going to use an OP deck at least let those of us who don't want to play with or against that deck enjoy some fun times in Casual!!!!!

Galakrond Control Warlock has been surprisingly not bad.

Talking from Wild here.

1. After adjusting Even Hunter and Quest Mage with new cards that substantially improved their viability, i am currently toying around with various Druid decks.
2. From Ramp Even Druid, to Highlander Dragon Druid.
3. I also tried Treant Druid, but it feels sadly underpowered compared to other Aggro decks in Wild: once you lose initiative, it's game over.

-> Currently playing with Embiggen Pirate Druid and having a blast with it (when you actually draw embiggen).

In the midst of the current Shaman-dominated meta, what other decks have you been experimenting with and which ones do you think could shine after nerfs?

Since opening Zephrys the Great, I've been having fun with making Highlander versions of Galakrond decks, specifically Highlander Warlock and Highlander Priest.

With the few games I played, Highlander Warlock seems to win against Pirate Warrior, but is absolutely decimated by Deathrattle Rogue. I also played one game with a hybrid of Quest/Highlander/Galakrond Priest and it was fun.

Admittedly, I'm one of the players who uses Galakrond Shaman to ladder, but I've been using an Overload version of it that looks like it might survive the nerf.

Post-nerf Edit: The nerfs surprisingly stifled Galakrond Shaman a bit, though it's still strong. I've been running into Deathrattle Rogue more often though.

I haven't expierimented with any of my Thief decks yet so I might give Control Thief Priest a try, but it might be too slow in this meta

Even improving the pity timer, say from 40 to 30, we have so many legendariesper release that your chances to drop a card you couldn't care less about would still be pretty high.

I actually think the dust income from commons and rares should be adjusted to 1/4 of their crafting cost. At that point buying packs is more rewarding, and you end up with more dust to craft that fancy legendary card you really wanted.

The new event starts this Friday in TESL. Here are the details.

Take a chance this weekend with the newest event in The Elder Scrolls: Legends: the Lucky Gauntlet!

Lucky Gauntlet: December 20 - 23

In the Lucky Gauntlet, the usual Field and Shadow Lanes are swapped out for a larger, five-creature Field Lane and a special three-creature Lucky Lane. Creatures summoned into the Lucky Lane gain a random keyword, which could lead to all kinds of serendipitous plays!

Will that last-minute Guard or Charge creature come to save the day? Only one way to find out! Entry in the Lucky Gauntlet costs three (3) Event Tickets or 500 Gold, with up to three runs allowed.

The Lucky Gauntlet begins Friday, December 20 at 12pm ET and closes at 12pm ET on Monday, December 23. Events in The Elder Scrolls: Legends change regularly, so check in often to see what new challenges await!

aggregated statistics sites over such a short time frame where the meta is all over don't mean pretty much anything. Yes, hsreplay is not the holy bible bro.

Much like a lot of people in this thread already, I heavily disagree with the OP. Aggressive decks have, if anything, been on the weak side for some considerable time now. They are, as iWatchUSleep correctly notes, favoured on ladder because faster games means faster ranking. Despite that, we're only really seeing an aggressive meta now, after several late-game-centric expansions, because Galakrond Shaman (which I personally would class a midrange deck) is eating the Control players. 

And realistically, that's all aggressive decks are doing right now - countering Shaman. They're not really any stronger now than they were last expansion (relative to their competition), they're just in a more favourable position in the metagame. 

A further note, though, on the few people who have posted saying they 'hate aggro'. I don't want to be mean here, but I think it needs to be said - you are wrong. Yes, I'm aware it's an opinion. It's still wrong. Aggressive decks exist to keep players honest. As soon as they're not a part of the meta, the game becomes a dull, irritating stalemate of value generation after value generation, wherein both players spend 20 turns playing cards but don't actually progress the gamestate at all (see: Dr Boom meta recently). 

If you're playing control and regularly losing to aggro, you're either building or playing control badly. Under normal conditions, aggro decks are a gift to Control - your entire deck revolves around shutting down boardstates, and that's where aggressive decks in Hearthstone get their damage from (notwithstanding rare exceptions like the Pirate Warrior days). There's an article series on here (I forget the name) looking at various deck archetypes and, while a simplification, it does note the general tendency for deck winrates - Aggro > Midrange > Control > Aggro.  Control loses to tempo, not aggression.

[ Generalisation]People who say they hate aggro are the same people who complain about netdecking. People who don't actually understand, or care about, a strong or healthy meta. They want to be left alone to play solitaire to do whatever weird thing they decided to make a deck to do, and are upset that they can't do so because hey, their opponent is trying to actually win. And while I have no issue with people wanting to build weird decks and have fun with them, I do take issue when those people complain that they can't do that in high-level ranked ladder. [ /Generalisation]

Sorry for the rant, but yeah. It's one of those comments that gets sprayed a lot by people who don't really know what they're asking for, and who'd complain a lot if they ever actually got their wish.

Aggro decks are defined by their speed not by being all about the face... In the last meta rogue and rush warrior were definetly aggro decks as well as any zoo deck they are aggro.. 

The fact that people associate aggro as going face all the time is misleading. 

I agree that the meta is very Aggro-focused now, but we've had impactful Control decks like Control Warrior and Highlander Mage and Combo decks like Murlocadin and Holy Wrath Paladin just this year.

Before nerfs and rotation, we had broken Control and Combo Odd and Even decks, Druidstone with Mecha'thun Druid, Taunt Druid, and Ramp Druid, and even a surprise surge of Kingsbane Rogue and old Quest Rogue.

After nerfs, Midrange Hunter was a top deck.

The meta evolves with what cards are introduced and which ones are nerfed. I've been playing since the start of Kobolds and Catacombs and Control and Combo decks like Cubelock and Razakus Priest were as oppresive as Shaman is today. Because of the grindy nature of laddering, people might want to rank up as fast as they can and Aggro decks are the best way to do that. Hopefully the 35 cards they're releasing with the solo adventures will give Control and Combo decks a spotlight in the current meta as well.

Even though the winrate is low, that 30% is full of laughter and good times. I approve this!

aggro hasn't even been a thing for the last few expansions. Sure, we got some tempo decks that tried to outpace you and shut you down before you got going, but true aggro? no.

Right now we actually have a resurgence with Face Hunter, which is an actual old school aggro deck that avoids trading as much as possible and just punches you in the face repeatedly.

Control has actually been pretty damn good in the last year. Control Warrior dominated an entire meta and stuff like Highlander Mage and Quest Druid (which is at least a slow deck) were also present.

In fact, I'd say the past meta was way too slow and is only now picking up the pace (as seen by the fact that Quest Druid is almost unplayable now).

If you're a competitive player, or if you just want to see what the pros are using, be sure and take a look at the Top 16 Decks for the recent Promises by Firelight Qualifier.

You can also catch the full replay below!

Carrion Grub? The cousin being Corridor Creeper 

Got it, thanks. Looking forward to trying out your deck (I started the expansion with Galakrond/Hack the System Warrior, but I’m not the best deck builder lol)

Well, historically only few classes are actually capable of building solid Control decks.

So you can't expect Hunter or Rogue to build Control decks: it's going to be Midrange at best.

Other classes have Control builds on cyclical terms, like Mage and Warlock.

So, if you are not playing them, you are bound to build Tempo decks that attempt to fight toe-to-toe against Aggro, without expecting to sit on a big hand while clearing the board every turn.

But it's always been this way (or worse, with unnerfed PW and Face Hunter). On the other hand, the nerf to CW is pretty recent still.

Finally, Control decks are the hardest to refine after an expansion release. Even moreso if given expansion includes broken stuff to be nerfed 1 week from release...

Quote From AliRadicali

Quote From ArngrimUndying

So that's exactly the average of 1:20 (7 legendaries in 140 packs). But have to tell you those two times I got over 30 packs between legendaries had me bummed, especially since they were back-to-back. I guess that's kind of the crux - lowering the timer would make people "feel better" since it really sucks when you hit the pity timer (or come very close) more than once in a short period.

 

To the anecdote from phiL up there - if I ever bought an expansion bundle and only opened for this example say 3 legendaries that would absolutely be enough to make me never spend another dollar on this game, if not quit it outright. That's the fine line any product - let alone a "loot boxy" game - has to walk: balancing getting the most money from your customers without alienating them when the odds bank against them and losing them as customer entirely. I obviously don't have any of Blizzard's data, but I can't imagine they'd lose that much money by lowering the pity time to 30 or 35 packs, which would lower the average to around 15-18 packs. Not a big swing, and would quell at least some of the bad feelings about the general lopsided value of the dusting system/duplicate epics/etc.

Now if we want to get really crazy, my thought was: Conditionally lowering the pity timer. For example, if you open 30/35/40 packs without a legendary, your next pity time is lowered to just 20/25/30 packs (pick whichever numbers you like). That way you wouldn't run into my situation where I had multiple 30+ pack opens in a row and would again lower the overall average by a little without "giving away something for free" since the majority of players rarely experience that kind of thing.

" lowering the timer would make people "feel better" since it really sucks when you hit the pity timer (or come very close) more than once in a short period."

I'm not sure it would, though. Suppose the pity timer were at 35 in the example above: Would it have been a better experience to actually hit the pity timer for legendary #5? Or would that have made opening that legend even more bittersweet? That's the problem with a pity timer: if you know about it and especially if you keep track of it, it lessens the joy of getting a legend to know it was guaranteed by the pity system. To give a more extreme example to illustrate the point: suppose instead of randomness you were guaranteed a legend every 20ieth pack, but only every 20ieth pack. It'd completely ruin the experience of opening packs because you know with certainty that the 19 packs in between are guaranteed filler, and you also know no luck was involved in opening any legendaries.

 

I absolutely understand that a long streak of not opening legends is a real bummer, but I don't think drastically reducing the pity timer would be a satisfying fix. I think increasing the drop rate for legendaries would similarly reduce the occurrence of long dry spells while at the same time increasing the number of very positive player experiences, like getting back-to-back legendaries.

Yes I agree increasing the drop rate would be great, but I also think that's probably the least likely thing to happen.

And to your question (and broader point) - yes that definitely a fair point: knowing about the pity timer does impact how people feel about pack openings. On my pack openings, once I get to 20 packs without a legendary I start thinking "okay I'm on the downslope of the bell curve; any pack now." And then it doesn't come and doesn't come and doesn't come and by the time I'm at pack 35 it "feels" just as bad as if it were pack 40 itself. 

But I would then argue that's even MORE of a reason to lower it at least a little - saying "hey we increased the drop rate, so boy if you hit the pity time now you must be REALLY unlucky" would feel even worse. Fundamentally there's no "right" answer here because everyone gets more upset by different things (i.e. I find the duplicate Epics somewhat annoying given the dust value, but for others that seems to be their #1 issue) and ActBlizz is still a public company trying to keep shareholders happy so profit profit profit. This is why I'm really waiting for more news on their new orb/rune currencies - it seems like maybe they're planning some sort of true overhaul of the game's economy, so this discussion may well be moot in a month idk.

Right, I did see somewhere it was a poker term, but I didn't know what it was exactly.

Anyway,

A simple creature, living alone

To novice adventurers a danger unknown

But heroes today look for monsters cheaper

Like his dungeon cousin, once a real keeper

Next, a Legendary minion. Other than that, go nuts!