When you're tuning a quest deck and finally get it working, there is that moment when you wonder "wouldn't this deck be better without the quest?" And too often, the answer is "yes".
Personally, I'm running a "combo priest" with the quest, and it's definitely above 50% winrate. Not sure yet if it would better without the quest, but the quest DEFINITELY gives better endgame, and MUCH better options for playing around hunter secrets. Basically, without the quest, the combo priest is just a combo with no other way to win. With the quest, it has an alternate wincon.
I added an Earthquake to my Muckmorpher Shaman deck and I've been quite happy with it. That is a very top-heavy deck though, so having an additional board clear on top of two Hagatha's Schemes is useful there.
I'm not playing at high ranks though; I imagine that if the meta you're facing is mostly Control Warrior and Conjurer Mage, Earthquake is not so useful. So its poor performance in the stats might say more about the meta than about the card itself.
I haven't watched the video yet but I still am doubtful over the whole premise of new metas being more expensive than old metas debate. The amount of epics & legendaries do not really increase and there is no guarantee that any legendary or epic is going to actually stick for long in a given 'top tier deck'.
Comparing the end of a meta would be more representative than the start. But I remember a time when expensive decks were 10k dust, while currently half the meta decks are over 10k dust, with Highlander Mage even close to 20k.
Although, in a slightly digressing tone, I will say that again this goes to show why standard is much more expensive and flawed in this aspect than wild will ever be. If you bite the initial short term bullet and craft more cards for only a few decks in wild (or just kept your cards & never mass dusted them in the first place) then new expansions are less likely to completely overhaul/overthrow the decks you already have that are viable in wild. This means that new expansions do not pressure you into that whole proverbial carrot-on-a-stick situation that is always present in standard. Standard players 'have to' dust their entire collections AND spend more money just to stay competitive every 3-6ish months while in wild the costs of new metas is often times able to be ignored because you don't have to chase new shinies every single expansion.
I think the root cause is the 1:4 disenchant/craft dust ratio. Dusting rotating cards only gives players a 25% discount on new crafts, so it doesn't do much to make Standard more affordable. Giving up Wild for such a small return doesn't look like a good deal to me.
Anyone else noticing that Reno seems to target specific minions until they're dead and not just do random targets across the board? That's very different than other effects with similar wording.
Very interesting to see how different the stats are to an individual's experience. I've won a lot with quest druid, priest and rogue. Haven't seen many warriors. This is ranks 14-10, by the way.
a lot could be said about it. I tried some variations, giggling inventor works better (because conjures calling works well on the 7-cost) than flamestrike.
As for Blizzard addressing the cost issue, what I'd really like to see is a no-triplicate rule for epics, like the no-duplicate rule for legendaries. I always feel really bad when I open the third copy of an epic, since it's worth only 100 dust while crafting an epic that I didn't get will cost 400. It also means I'm very reluctant to craft epics early on, since I might get them from a pack later.
I don't know about that. I got a lot of epic extras on opening day for Saviors and it gave me enough dust to almost have the Highlander Mage deck (I don't have SIamat; I traded in the golden Hunter Quest for Zephrys).
You'd still have the option to disenchant epics you don't want to use: it's never worse to get a new epic over an extra copy.
I'm surprised Siamat is getting a lot of play. I've subbed in a number of cards for it (getting some play for the golden High Inquisitor Whitemane I opened for Quest Control Priest and Highlander Warrior; I use the Ragnaros summoning card for mage).
Siamat is a decent card in many decks, but he's not essential to any archetype. He's also not so strong that you'd want him in decks even when there is no significant synergy, unlike Zilliax. I did craft Siamat, not for any particular deck but because it's a good neutral filler for the 7-mana slot and likely useful for elemental synergy in Wild.
But at this stage I've already spent the dust I got from my packs. Can't check out Quest Paladin. It was two months or so that I spent the dust I earned from the last expansion's opening day.
I still have quite a bit of dust left, but my wish list is longer than the number of cards I can afford to craft. One of the reasons is that there are a lot of playable cards in Uldum, which is actually a good thing. But it does make it more difficult to decide what is worth crafting and what is not.
While Quest Paladin looks like fun, since it's specific to reborn minions, a significant part of the deck is effectively fixed. I don't expect we'll see the reborn keyword used for new cards any time soon, so it might not age as well as the other quests.
Congrats! I'm going to continue beating my head against my desk trying to grind my remaining 7 classes. Congrats on 7K wins too! I'm not too far behind at 6853.
"but the stats seem to suggest a 4% increase in winrate in games where the happy armadillo got played compared to those where it didn't. Tomb Warden, the only non-legendary of top 5 also enjoys the existence of Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, but causes a 2.5% bump in winrate when played regardless."
I feel like this is less that the cards are performing really well and more the fact control decks have a high win rate for pretty much all cards played. This is because typically the longer the game goes on the more cards you play and with things like Tomb Warden in particular, it's just a large wall that can act as a nail in the coffin for some other types of decks. You can probably replace it with some other big taunt or big mech have a similar result occur.
That being said, I do think the cards are good, but their strength doesn't come from them being strong on their own and instead of slotting into an already tried and true deck that is shaping the meta.
I haven't watched the video yet but I still am doubtful over the whole premise of new metas being more expensive than old metas debate. The amount of epics & legendaries do not really increase and there is no guarantee that any legendary or epic is going to actually stick for long in a given 'top tier deck'.
Although, in a slightly digressing tone, I will say that again this goes to show why standard is much more expensive and flawed in this aspect than wild will ever be. If you bite the initial short term bullet and craft more cards for only a few decks in wild (or just kept your cards & never mass dusted them in the first place) then new expansions are less likely to completely overhaul/overthrow the decks you already have that are viable in wild. This means that new expansions do not pressure you into that whole proverbial carrot-on-a-stick situation that is always present in standard. Standard players 'have to' dust their entire collections AND spend more money just to stay competitive every 3-6ish months while in wild the costs of new metas is often times able to be ignored because you don't have to chase new shinies every single expansion.
Armagedillo was my only legendary craft so far. It is really fun to play and it is even more fun when you pull it from Frightened Flunky. I know there is a lot of hate on warrior but it is a fun deck to play even when you don't pull the Dr. (I have had several games where I won mirror matches despite not pulling the Dr. but my opponents do).
I might have to craft Brann though as I really enjoy Hunter and have a good set of cards to support that deck.
I also thought the Quest Rogue was better. Maybe not top tier but viable.
Tbh, the meta includes so much insane power for Midrange and Control, that it may be just a contextual weakness. Maybe one extra Thief synergy card could fix it... But that's it for now.
If anything, it triggered more support to Thief Rogue in the form of Bazaar Mugger and Clever Disguise. Those cards are pretty cool in any Thief package, independently of the Quest.
You either want more tempo or more draw in hand, not something that doesn't do anything for the next 5 turns.
1 Turn. It doesn't do anything for 1 turn. Not 5. The mana loss is 1, the turn loss is 1. After that it's a passive effect on the game, that upon completion drastically improves the ability for a priest's minions to stick to the board.
I'm not negating that in some matchups the skipped 1st turn isn't desirable, but there's also nothing that said you can't mulligan the quest away.
You very clearly mentioned that exact dilemma in your post. "it's harder to complete if you mulligan". Yes, so in aggro matchups where you cannot under any circumstance have a tempo loss, you mulligan the quest away. In control matchups (i.e. control warrior) hold onto it.
You, like the other poster, are acting like including a quest in your deck means you HAVE to play it EVERY turn 1 for EVERY matchup. As if some proverbial gun is to your head. It's not, but the fact that the deck runs EVERY card a quest priest would likely include in his deck, makes it asinine to not include as a possible alternative win-condition. Which, frankly speaking: a 1 mana alternate win-condition is pretty damn good in the grand scheme of things.
But like I said above, I can't force you, or anyone else to think critically, independently, or dynamically.
You're super wrong on the quest in priest. Combo priest wins or loses games way before the effect is relevant. You would rather have a CHANCE at a cleric on one than ever have that quest in your opening hand. Calling it a streamer thing is silly, these things have been tested over thousands of games and statistics show you don't run the quest in combo priest. Combo priest is one of the highest winrate decks in the meta, if the quest made it better people would be aware.
I do think Leeroy is not a good card in combo priest but this deck runs the 3 mana 3/3 so there is some synergy i've never personally tested and I could see it being a finisher for the games where you don't get a huge combo off and you need to close the game. It's basically Leeroy + shadowstep except it's a 3/3 that has synergy with your other cards.
I disagree with a lot of your opinions on quest shaman but that deck is not refined and I think you can build it a lot of ways so no way is really right or wrong. But I think the wasp and totem are good.
Quest in opening hand doesn't preclude a cleric. You're using a a false dilemma in order to make some sort of "you either have quest in opening hand and no cleric, or you mulligan it away for an increased chance at cleric". I AM calling it a streamer thing, because a streamer did popularize it. At it's core, the non-quest aggro priest variant is a few things:
1) Hyper aggro. It hopes to achieve early big hits with lightwarden snowballing very fast.
2) Utilizes the oldest, possibly boring archetype of priest. DS/IF combo. (on the topic of that, I wouldn't back on that combo surviving either. They already mentioned they are closely monitoring Divine Spirit's efficacy, which in practical terms is the death-knell of that card being Hall of Famed)
3) Unable to adapt to an evolving game due to a polarized win-condition. (unlike the variants that use topsy-turvy or the 2/14 taunt minion which can be both defensive or offensive)
Lastly, I have to make a point of a lack of critical thinking on your part. Yes, if you are up against a paladin or hunter, you probably want to mulligan away the quest if it were run in the deck. This would help you create a solid opening hand. BUT, running the quest doesn't mean you can't mulligan it away.
Plenty of people would mulligan the quest away in matchups during Ungoro, if the quest being utilized was unfavorable, or they needed immediate tempo. But imagine this scenario: You mulligan the quest away in appropriate scenarios to improve your win condition, and you keep it in other matchups to improve those control matchup win conditions. There's nothing saying you CANNOT mulligan the quest away if you need that immediate tempo. The simple fact these decks don't think about that is what is mind boggling.
But hey, you do you. I can't force people to think independently, critically, or outside the box. So keep on CTRL-C+CTRL-V'ing.
dont think Armagedillo is a save craft yet, IF they nerf warrior heavily. this might not see play anymore.
i think reno suprised me : everyone was like THAT reno is so bad compared to the older one... but in this format its like flame strike for 6 mana sometimes
As for Blizzard addressing the cost issue, what I'd really like to see is a no-triplicate rule for epics, like the no-duplicate rule for legendaries. I always feel really bad when I open the third copy of an epic, since it's worth only 100 dust while crafting an epic that I didn't get will cost 400. It also means I'm very reluctant to craft epics early on, since I might get them from a pack later.
I don't know about that. I got a lot of epic extras on opening day for Saviors and it gave me enough dust to almost have the Highlander Mage deck (I don't have SIamat; I traded in the golden Hunter Quest for Zephrys).
I'm surprised Siamat is getting a lot of play. I've subbed in a number of cards for it (getting some play for the golden High Inquisitor Whitemane I opened for Quest Control Priest and Highlander Warrior; I use the Ragnaros summoning card for mage).
But at this stage I've already spent the dust I got from my packs. Can't check out Quest Paladin. It was two months or so that I spent the dust I earned from the last expansion's opening day.
Hearthstone does a great job of showcasing characters, abilities, and weapons from Azeroth, but one thing I would like to see included are the amazing locations. I've been trying to come up with how to turn this concept into a card type, but I need some help. I call them "Strongholds" and they would be spells that would pop up on your secrets "frame" around your hero like quests do, giving some kind of defensive or offensive bonus, and requiring some kind of special action from your opponent to bypass or destroy. The issue is that they can't have too hard of requirements to bypass or they will automatically win against any deck that doesn't have the cards to meet requirements. On the other hand, they have to be powerful enough to be worth playing in the first place. I'd love to hear some ideas out there. I want to capture the fantasy of taking refuge behind a wall or in a magical temple that will help you in a battle.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
Ironic that Making Mummies turned out to be the only viable quest when many expected it to be the worst during reveal season.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
When you're tuning a quest deck and finally get it working, there is that moment when you wonder "wouldn't this deck be better without the quest?" And too often, the answer is "yes".
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
Personally, I'm running a "combo priest" with the quest, and it's definitely above 50% winrate. Not sure yet if it would better without the quest, but the quest DEFINITELY gives better endgame, and MUCH better options for playing around hunter secrets. Basically, without the quest, the combo priest is just a combo with no other way to win. With the quest, it has an alternate wincon.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
I added an Earthquake to my Muckmorpher Shaman deck and I've been quite happy with it. That is a very top-heavy deck though, so having an additional board clear on top of two Hagatha's Schemes is useful there.
I'm not playing at high ranks though; I imagine that if the meta you're facing is mostly Control Warrior and Conjurer Mage, Earthquake is not so useful. So its poor performance in the stats might say more about the meta than about the card itself.
One sub I used: Arcane Dynamo for Divine Hymn.
That extra Plague of Death or Mass Rez card can make a game, especially against Control Warrior or Conjurer's Mages.
And props for mentioning High Inquisitor Highmane; I have a gold one that's soo pretty to use ... but has a hard time finding a home.
Interesting video: Just how expensive in dust is the meta compared to previous?
Comparing the end of a meta would be more representative than the start. But I remember a time when expensive decks were 10k dust, while currently half the meta decks are over 10k dust, with Highlander Mage even close to 20k.
I think the root cause is the 1:4 disenchant/craft dust ratio. Dusting rotating cards only gives players a 25% discount on new crafts, so it doesn't do much to make Standard more affordable. Giving up Wild for such a small return doesn't look like a good deal to me.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
Anyone else noticing that Reno seems to target specific minions until they're dead and not just do random targets across the board? That's very different than other effects with similar wording.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
Very interesting to see how different the stats are to an individual's experience. I've won a lot with quest druid, priest and rogue. Haven't seen many warriors. This is ranks 14-10, by the way.
Value mage can beat everything
a lot could be said about it. I tried some variations, giggling inventor works better (because conjures calling works well on the 7-cost) than flamestrike.
Wild · Cyclone Mage · by zznq · 7 years, 1 month ago
Interesting video: Just how expensive in dust is the meta compared to previous?
You'd still have the option to disenchant epics you don't want to use: it's never worse to get a new epic over an extra copy.
Siamat is a decent card in many decks, but he's not essential to any archetype. He's also not so strong that you'd want him in decks even when there is no significant synergy, unlike Zilliax. I did craft Siamat, not for any particular deck but because it's a good neutral filler for the 7-mana slot and likely useful for elemental synergy in Wild.
I still have quite a bit of dust left, but my wish list is longer than the number of cards I can afford to craft. One of the reasons is that there are a lot of playable cards in Uldum, which is actually a good thing. But it does make it more difficult to decide what is worth crafting and what is not.
While Quest Paladin looks like fun, since it's specific to reborn minions, a significant part of the deck is effectively fixed. I don't expect we'll see the reborn keyword used for new cards any time soon, so it might not age as well as the other quests.
Nine Golden Portraits Celebration
Congrats! I'm going to continue beating my head against my desk trying to grind my remaining 7 classes. Congrats on 7K wins too! I'm not too far behind at 6853.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
The statistics don't even mean that they are in the deck. They could just be discovered, so crafting might not be a great idea.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
"but the stats seem to suggest a 4% increase in winrate in games where the happy armadillo got played compared to those where it didn't. Tomb Warden, the only non-legendary of top 5 also enjoys the existence of Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, but causes a 2.5% bump in winrate when played regardless."
I feel like this is less that the cards are performing really well and more the fact control decks have a high win rate for pretty much all cards played. This is because typically the longer the game goes on the more cards you play and with things like Tomb Warden in particular, it's just a large wall that can act as a nail in the coffin for some other types of decks. You can probably replace it with some other big taunt or big mech have a similar result occur.
That being said, I do think the cards are good, but their strength doesn't come from them being strong on their own and instead of slotting into an already tried and true deck that is shaping the meta.
Interesting video: Just how expensive in dust is the meta compared to previous?
I haven't watched the video yet but I still am doubtful over the whole premise of new metas being more expensive than old metas debate. The amount of epics & legendaries do not really increase and there is no guarantee that any legendary or epic is going to actually stick for long in a given 'top tier deck'.
Although, in a slightly digressing tone, I will say that again this goes to show why standard is much more expensive and flawed in this aspect than wild will ever be. If you bite the initial short term bullet and craft more cards for only a few decks in wild (or just kept your cards & never mass dusted them in the first place) then new expansions are less likely to completely overhaul/overthrow the decks you already have that are viable in wild. This means that new expansions do not pressure you into that whole proverbial carrot-on-a-stick situation that is always present in standard. Standard players 'have to' dust their entire collections AND spend more money just to stay competitive every 3-6ish months while in wild the costs of new metas is often times able to be ignored because you don't have to chase new shinies every single expansion.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
I'm confused that Zeph isn't on the list.
Maybe because he requires some skill and knowledge about what card you want in which situation and what is available at which amount of mana.
Armagedillo
This is turning out to be a darn powerful card. Even if it only lasts for one turn it has a huge impact for only 6 mana.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
Armagedillo was my only legendary craft so far. It is really fun to play and it is even more fun when you pull it from Frightened Flunky. I know there is a lot of hate on warrior but it is a fun deck to play even when you don't pull the Dr. (I have had several games where I won mirror matches despite not pulling the Dr. but my opponents do).
I might have to craft Brann though as I really enjoy Hunter and have a good set of cards to support that deck.
Standard Meta Report #1 - August 11, 2019 - August 18, 2019
What do you remove from the standard Combo Priest list to fit the Quest? I'd love to try your version out.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
I also thought the Quest Rogue was better. Maybe not top tier but viable.
Tbh, the meta includes so much insane power for Midrange and Control, that it may be just a contextual weakness. Maybe one extra Thief synergy card could fix it... But that's it for now.
If anything, it triggered more support to Thief Rogue in the form of Bazaar Mugger and Clever Disguise. Those cards are pretty cool in any Thief package, independently of the Quest.
Standard Meta Report #1 - August 11, 2019 - August 18, 2019
You either want more tempo or more draw in hand, not something that doesn't do anything for the next 5 turns.
1 Turn. It doesn't do anything for 1 turn. Not 5. The mana loss is 1, the turn loss is 1. After that it's a passive effect on the game, that upon completion drastically improves the ability for a priest's minions to stick to the board.
I'm not negating that in some matchups the skipped 1st turn isn't desirable, but there's also nothing that said you can't mulligan the quest away.
You very clearly mentioned that exact dilemma in your post. "it's harder to complete if you mulligan". Yes, so in aggro matchups where you cannot under any circumstance have a tempo loss, you mulligan the quest away. In control matchups (i.e. control warrior) hold onto it.
You, like the other poster, are acting like including a quest in your deck means you HAVE to play it EVERY turn 1 for EVERY matchup. As if some proverbial gun is to your head. It's not, but the fact that the deck runs EVERY card a quest priest would likely include in his deck, makes it asinine to not include as a possible alternative win-condition. Which, frankly speaking: a 1 mana alternate win-condition is pretty damn good in the grand scheme of things.
But like I said above, I can't force you, or anyone else to think critically, independently, or dynamically.
Standard Meta Report #1 - August 11, 2019 - August 18, 2019
Quest in opening hand doesn't preclude a cleric. You're using a a false dilemma in order to make some sort of "you either have quest in opening hand and no cleric, or you mulligan it away for an increased chance at cleric". I AM calling it a streamer thing, because a streamer did popularize it. At it's core, the non-quest aggro priest variant is a few things:
1) Hyper aggro. It hopes to achieve early big hits with lightwarden snowballing very fast.
2) Utilizes the oldest, possibly boring archetype of priest. DS/IF combo. (on the topic of that, I wouldn't back on that combo surviving either. They already mentioned they are closely monitoring Divine Spirit's efficacy, which in practical terms is the death-knell of that card being Hall of Famed)
3) Unable to adapt to an evolving game due to a polarized win-condition. (unlike the variants that use topsy-turvy or the 2/14 taunt minion which can be both defensive or offensive)
Lastly, I have to make a point of a lack of critical thinking on your part. Yes, if you are up against a paladin or hunter, you probably want to mulligan away the quest if it were run in the deck. This would help you create a solid opening hand. BUT, running the quest doesn't mean you can't mulligan it away.
Plenty of people would mulligan the quest away in matchups during Ungoro, if the quest being utilized was unfavorable, or they needed immediate tempo. But imagine this scenario: You mulligan the quest away in appropriate scenarios to improve your win condition, and you keep it in other matchups to improve those control matchup win conditions. There's nothing saying you CANNOT mulligan the quest away if you need that immediate tempo. The simple fact these decks don't think about that is what is mind boggling.
But hey, you do you. I can't force people to think independently, critically, or outside the box. So keep on CTRL-C+CTRL-V'ing.
Top Saviors of Uldum Cards That Pack a Punch or Fell Flat
dont think Armagedillo is a save craft yet, IF they nerf warrior heavily. this might not see play anymore.
i think reno suprised me : everyone was like THAT reno is so bad compared to the older one... but in this format its like flame strike for 6 mana sometimes
Interesting video: Just how expensive in dust is the meta compared to previous?
I don't know about that. I got a lot of epic extras on opening day for Saviors and it gave me enough dust to almost have the Highlander Mage deck (I don't have SIamat; I traded in the golden Hunter Quest for Zephrys).
I'm surprised Siamat is getting a lot of play. I've subbed in a number of cards for it (getting some play for the golden High Inquisitor Whitemane I opened for Quest Control Priest and Highlander Warrior; I use the Ragnaros summoning card for mage).
But at this stage I've already spent the dust I got from my packs. Can't check out Quest Paladin. It was two months or so that I spent the dust I earned from the last expansion's opening day.
Nine Golden Portraits Celebration
Congrats dude! I hit this same milestone pretty recently, so I know that good feeling. Now you can play whatever you want!
Help me refine a Strongholds concept
Hearthstone does a great job of showcasing characters, abilities, and weapons from Azeroth, but one thing I would like to see included are the amazing locations. I've been trying to come up with how to turn this concept into a card type, but I need some help. I call them "Strongholds" and they would be spells that would pop up on your secrets "frame" around your hero like quests do, giving some kind of defensive or offensive bonus, and requiring some kind of special action from your opponent to bypass or destroy. The issue is that they can't have too hard of requirements to bypass or they will automatically win against any deck that doesn't have the cards to meet requirements. On the other hand, they have to be powerful enough to be worth playing in the first place. I'd love to hear some ideas out there. I want to capture the fantasy of taking refuge behind a wall or in a magical temple that will help you in a battle.