- Mech Hunter; This meta is full of control and Ctrl Warrior in particular is even stronger. Mech Hunter (thankfully) has mostly died a death now.
Do you mean the aggressive version built around Goblin Bombs? I prefer playing the slower deathrattle deck using Mechanical Whelp instead and that used to be very good versus Control Warrior. I haven't played it since the expansion release though.
- Any Highkeeper Ra deck; As yet I've still to see this work for any deck consistently. There's a couple of really meme-y versions out there, but they struggle
I never expected this to be anything more than a meme. It's actually easier to summon Ra than I thought, but versus aggro it's too slow of a process and versus control it's not a guaranteed win.
The package I'm using is Glinda Crowskin, Grim Rally, Witchwood Piper and Sense Demons. You have to draw Glinda naturally, but the Piper draws the cultist and can itself be tutored as a demon. Plus having that extra draw thins your deck, making it more likely to draw Glinda. You do have to stick Glinda to the board, but with a taunt on the board that wasn't all that hard in practice.
This was at rank 15 Wild shortly after the expansion launched, which is not the most competitive meta; sticking Glinda might be trickier versus try-hard decks. In that case there is still the option to use Expired Merchant and Soulwarden to get more copies of Glinda.
I'm thinking of reskinning the SoU Quest, Legend of the Obelisks, into The Eternity Chamber.
In addition to the fact that Priest already has an obelisk related Quest in terms of the expansion's storyline, I feel like this fits the flavor better, and I want to have a chance to use this artwork for something. The artwork still doesn't fit with every Quest as they have their class's respective Explorer or Villain in their artwork, which is not possible with my SoU Quest.
I don't know if they will move Whizbang the Wonderful to Classic, but I would love it if they did and it would be a really nice thing to do (especially for new players/players with smaller collections).
I'm a game designer! I've halfway through my Master's in Game Design and I'm launching a Kickstarter for a social deception card game (hopefully) within the next few months. :D
I've played Midrange Hunter for the last 4 months as main deck and with solid results, so I know very well what you mean: yeah, if your opponent doesn't highroll with bombs, you should get the upper hand with the insane burst that Dire Frenzy can generate.
However, if played well it's still a 70/30 or so matchup (if you consider the Bomb archetype too; on the other hand, I agree with you that against a deck that doesn't create lots of pressure like Control Warrior building a fat Zul'jin is not a huge deal); moreover, having a bad matchup doesn't indicate that the card is ok: that's just looking at data and arriving at conclusion solely through them, and we don't want to do that. Right?
In fact, the biggest concern about Boom is how it feels to play against it and what it allows: yeah you can win, but at what cost? It usually feels like if you don't have a good play every turn you're gonna lose all your chances to win the game; it feels like that it doesn't matter what you do, your opponent will deny it and take control of the board at the same time. Always. That's what Control decks usually want to do, but this is on another level given the current situation in Standard. You can either flood the board every turn (Mage, partially Quest Druid) or burst them down (Mid Hunter). In the end, it feels like playing against Rexxar or Jaina: bad.
For the regards of Conjurer's Calling, this is what I repeat (every time the exact same words) when people ask me what I think about the card: "3 mana Conjurer's Calling is just a stupid card and shouldn't exist." I'm all in for classes to have powerful cards that allow powerful turns, because that's what define them, but the current situation of that card is just stupid: you can generate an (almost) invincible board by turn 6, creating a wall of big drops with little effort (Naga Sea Witch PTSD here). Again, it feels really bad to play against CC: if you don't have removal for every single threat, you're doomed, and sometimes it isn't even enough given that they can do that dumb shit in the same turn (thanks Luna's Pocket Galaxy, thanks Mana Cyclone, thanks Elemental Evocation a.k.a. pre nerf Innervate for Elementals).
I could go on with this, and I'd be glad if you wanted to continue the conversation, but I don't want to make this post too long since we are in a forum.
I end my reply answering you final question: both Boom and CC are both beyond broken, each one for its reason (with CC gameplan logic checks out, with Boom you can't expect to be leading the game anymore unless you're that far ahead that it doesn't almost matter what your opponent does).
I wanna underline this concept: having overpowered cards is ok (otherwise we would just play with vanilla minions), having stupid cards is not.
My wild secret aggro mage is a blast. I haven’t played wild in a while and went from 18 to 8 in 2 days.
Standard I think the most fun is highlander mage, but I think the puzzle box RNG is a big reason why. I’m also loving quest shaman, which for me is actually like 4 decks with different strats.
I’m probably going to craft some mogushan cultists soon. I love pulling off crazy combos. Was hoping to get lucky and pull at least one but I think I’m going to have to suck it up and craft
Having more alternatives can be useful for a highlander deck. Bouncing Zephrys the Great might be too greedy, but at least greed is thematic for a burgle deck.
I'm a wild player so I have more deck to think about.....
My all time favourite was secret "perfect curve" paladin, a secret paladin deck based on the idea to play the perfect curve, the most powerfull card for every mana slot. Another one was highlander quest value priest, an highlander priest played before Raza nerf, based on the quest to survive and the inspire synergy to get value and close the match.
I haven't tried it and i probably won't in this particular deck. The only reason i am playing reborn minions at all in this deck is to complete the quest, so i don't really want to have any that i won't be able to play until at least turn 7.
Totally agree and that's what I meant, even with Restless Mummy it's just removal with removal. Being able to remove every single board is insane, and adding a body, with or without rush (with rush it just get's crazier), is an overkill combo.
It's not necessary nor game changing, but it surprisingly helps a lot because the opponent get's really scared and wants to clear it asap. More than once I was saved by a 7-6 Zilliax or froze the enemy with a wall of buffed up Tomb Warden.
I'm only missing the armagedillo for the control one, is it necessary? can i replace it with something else? haven't played warrior in a while cause I hated the bombs.
it's a bad card. owl is just better. one extra mana is worth the flexibility even in aggro decks. freeze is super popular so not being able to silence your own minions out of a freeze is a flaw. you also can't silence buffed minions in aggro mirrors or value minions against control. There are better ways to kill zilliax than this thing. yeah, the card is good in the dream scenario where you have exact lethal with this because it's 2 mana, but there are normal games that will happen all the time where this is a dead card or a 2 mana 2/1 where you lose tempo and lower your chance of winning that game. If it was a good card, people would play it.
If you want cheaper than owl, you're better off with earth shock or the poison murloc.. you aren't really interested in paying an extra mana for a 0 synergy 2/1.
do you think them is worth inclusion in zoo/aggro warrior/murloc pally?
I think you're playing in a very different meta than I am.
Aggro warrior is a very real deck. not tier 1 or super popular but it's legit. someone won a masters qualifier with it the other day.
The freeze silence is very convincing tbh being able to unfreeze a minion or silence a doomsayer could be a game winner, will try the shieldbreaker for a bit more if them doesn't seem to be the right tech then I will consider a spellbreaker instead I know the current list doesn't run silence but the deck isn't in it's final form and taunt is my main obstacle will see anyway btw...
Aggro warrior is engrage/rush variant of warrior it's a tier 2 deck according to HS replay started playing that deck and it's the most fun variant of warrior as much as I am concerned.
IMO Uldum was just the first example of the class identity memo negatively impacting HS card design, with more to follow. I've heard that Plague of Madness was a last-minute change from an actual board clear because the devs belatedly realised that rogue's not allowed to have mass removal.
Publishing the class identity document was a totally unforced error on Blizzard's part: they could have just not posted the damn thing in a transparent attempt to rationalise their hall of fame decisions, but instead they gave everyone unlimited ammo to criticise any and all future choices by the developers, either for following the memo too strictly or for straying from it.
to be fair, if any of the other plagues are an indication, then Rogue having an AoE in any comparable form would be bad for the game in the long run...or it would just end up being useless because Rogue still doesn't get taunt or heals and needs to maintain board presence to beat aggression.
Also the dev team has been much more communicative lately so maybe they just wanted to get it out there to get some feedback...which should lead them to dropping this whole class identity BS and just design cards that give classes different option for building specific decks (like card draw in Hunter via Master'S Call and Subject 9 or card draw for Shaman via Spirit of the Frog)
I disagree. For one, it seems to me one of the main benefits of having evergreen and rotating sets is that you can have deviant cards in the latter because they rotate out anyway, EG Conjurer's Calling for mage or Hagatha the Witch for shaman. What's more, it's not as if all of the remaining plagues are equally powerful, for example the warlock plague is pretty weak and situational. They could have made a similar card for rogue that returns all friendly minions to hand and bounces a random enemy minion for each friendly returned in this way; I doubt that would have been much of a balance concern and it would have at least lived up to the idea of a board clear cycle for all of the villain classes.
I understand team 5 wanting to be more responsive and open, and I think that's a good idea in general, but to me the class identity document seemed more like an ass-pull to explain away the rather abrupt and arbitrary HoF-ing of Vanish and Mind Blast. If you just take it as a loose guideline then it doesn't explain the urgency in removing those cards, whereas if you take it as a hard set of rules then they've already broken their promise in the very next set they released after explaining their policy. I think they were open, but less than honest with the memo, and now they're stuck in their contradictions and frantically altering design decisions after-the-fact rather than just admitting that maybe the class identity thing was a poor choice, or at least poorly communicated.
It is definitely an interesting recap, but these cards are not used for a reason. There is enough of actual, reliable burgle cards and there is plenty of other cards you want to put in your deck too to survive etc., so while interesting, none of these (except for the Cat maybe) would make the cut.
Budget decks could definitely use them tho, but then again, if you dont have Quest, Tess or both, then it is kinda pointless to go for the sub-par generators anyway.
Until I craft Spiritsinger Umbra, would Baron Rivendare be a decent substitute? It's the same cost, and I would imagine stays out just as long once your opponent realizes what's coming.
Yeah, that could work alright. Tweaking the deck a bit to include Carnivorous Cube may be a good idea as well.
Will they move Whizbang to the Classic set?
No, they will reprint and resell it instead.
Surprisingly bad decks?
Do you mean the aggressive version built around Goblin Bombs? I prefer playing the slower deathrattle deck using Mechanical Whelp instead and that used to be very good versus Control Warrior. I haven't played it since the expansion release though.
I never expected this to be anything more than a meme. It's actually easier to summon Ra than I thought, but versus aggro it's too slow of a process and versus control it's not a guaranteed win.
The package I'm using is Glinda Crowskin, Grim Rally, Witchwood Piper and Sense Demons. You have to draw Glinda naturally, but the Piper draws the cultist and can itself be tutored as a demon. Plus having that extra draw thins your deck, making it more likely to draw Glinda. You do have to stick Glinda to the board, but with a taunt on the board that wasn't all that hard in practice.
This was at rank 15 Wild shortly after the expansion launched, which is not the most competitive meta; sticking Glinda might be trickier versus try-hard decks. In that case there is still the option to use Expired Merchant and Soulwarden to get more copies of Glinda.
Rock, Paper, Scissors - 3 Competitive Standard Decks
I'm sure that Mage deck is fun to play - but I can confirm it's not fun to play against :)
Custom Class - Time Traveler (Updated February 17th - Return to Naxxramas added!)
I'm thinking of reskinning the SoU Quest, Legend of the Obelisks, into The Eternity Chamber.
In addition to the fact that Priest already has an obelisk related Quest in terms of the expansion's storyline, I feel like this fits the flavor better, and I want to have a chance to use this artwork for something. The artwork still doesn't fit with every Quest as they have their class's respective Explorer or Villain in their artwork, which is not possible with my SoU Quest.
So what do you guys think, is this better?
Will they move Whizbang to the Classic set?
I don't know if they will move Whizbang the Wonderful to Classic, but I would love it if they did and it would be a really nice thing to do (especially for new players/players with smaller collections).
What is your favourite deck so far?
I'm seriously having a blast with Highlander Rogue + DK Valeera now: it feels DK Valeera was made for this.
Granted, been playing in Casual only, but beating a Renowock and an Odd QTaunt Warrior is not something a regular Rogue can easily do.
And i surely misplayed a lot more than i'm aware of too!
It's basically the first time i don't simply enjoy trying to refine a homebrew to viability, but also the refinement of my own skills at piloting it.
All this prompted by Zephrys the Great, and enhanced by Valeera the Hollow.
I'll never become a real Control player, but i'm enjoying this new level of complexity, beyond my usual Tempo style.
Pleasant Surprises from Uldum
I was expecting that Sir Finley of the Sands/"highlander" Paladin would happen, but I wasn't expecting it to be built around Tip the Scales and Chef Nomi.
Quest Trading - Play A Friend!
Battletag: GhostDragon#2708
Region: EU
Trade Only?: Yes, you go first
How many actual Game Designers visit this forum?
I'm a game designer! I've halfway through my Master's in Game Design and I'm launching a Kickstarter for a social deception card game (hopefully) within the next few months. :D
Rock, Paper, Scissors - 3 Competitive Standard Decks
I've played Midrange Hunter for the last 4 months as main deck and with solid results, so I know very well what you mean: yeah, if your opponent doesn't highroll with bombs, you should get the upper hand with the insane burst that Dire Frenzy can generate.
However, if played well it's still a 70/30 or so matchup (if you consider the Bomb archetype too; on the other hand, I agree with you that against a deck that doesn't create lots of pressure like Control Warrior building a fat Zul'jin is not a huge deal); moreover, having a bad matchup doesn't indicate that the card is ok: that's just looking at data and arriving at conclusion solely through them, and we don't want to do that. Right?
In fact, the biggest concern about Boom is how it feels to play against it and what it allows: yeah you can win, but at what cost? It usually feels like if you don't have a good play every turn you're gonna lose all your chances to win the game; it feels like that it doesn't matter what you do, your opponent will deny it and take control of the board at the same time. Always. That's what Control decks usually want to do, but this is on another level given the current situation in Standard. You can either flood the board every turn (Mage, partially Quest Druid) or burst them down (Mid Hunter). In the end, it feels like playing against Rexxar or Jaina: bad.
For the regards of Conjurer's Calling, this is what I repeat (every time the exact same words) when people ask me what I think about the card: "3 mana Conjurer's Calling is just a stupid card and shouldn't exist." I'm all in for classes to have powerful cards that allow powerful turns, because that's what define them, but the current situation of that card is just stupid: you can generate an (almost) invincible board by turn 6, creating a wall of big drops with little effort (Naga Sea Witch PTSD here). Again, it feels really bad to play against CC: if you don't have removal for every single threat, you're doomed, and sometimes it isn't even enough given that they can do that dumb shit in the same turn (thanks Luna's Pocket Galaxy, thanks Mana Cyclone, thanks Elemental Evocation a.k.a. pre nerf Innervate for Elementals).
I could go on with this, and I'd be glad if you wanted to continue the conversation, but I don't want to make this post too long since we are in a forum.
I end my reply answering you final question: both Boom and CC are both beyond broken, each one for its reason (with CC gameplan logic checks out, with Boom you can't expect to be leading the game anymore unless you're that far ahead that it doesn't almost matter what your opponent does).
I wanna underline this concept: having overpowered cards is ok (otherwise we would just play with vanilla minions), having stupid cards is not.
What is your favourite deck so far?
My wild secret aggro mage is a blast. I haven’t played wild in a while and went from 18 to 8 in 2 days.
Standard I think the most fun is highlander mage, but I think the puzzle box RNG is a big reason why. I’m also loving quest shaman, which for me is actually like 4 decks with different strats.
I’m probably going to craft some mogushan cultists soon. I love pulling off crazy combos. Was hoping to get lucky and pull at least one but I think I’m going to have to suck it up and craft
Burgle Math
Having more alternatives can be useful for a highlander deck. Bouncing Zephrys the Great might be too greedy, but at least greed is thematic for a burgle deck.
What is your favourite deck so far?
I'm a wild player so I have more deck to think about.....
My all time favourite was secret "perfect curve" paladin, a secret paladin deck based on the idea to play the perfect curve, the most powerfull card for every mana slot. Another one was highlander quest value priest, an highlander priest played before Raza nerf, based on the quest to survive and the inspire synergy to get value and close the match.
Rock, Paper, Scissors - 3 Competitive Standard Decks
Great article with background, definitions and guide. Thanks!
Why nobody plays shieldbreaker?
the cards is actualy staple in some decks in wild like pirate warrior and zoolock duo to existence of Obsidian Statue and Voidlord
because this 2 giant taunts can cheated out as soon as turn 4
so u need a cheap silence on early turns
in standard big taunt minions are pretty uncommon and cannot get cheated out consistently so Spellbreaker do the job much better
Da Mumdatakah Quest Paladin
I haven't tried it and i probably won't in this particular deck. The only reason i am playing reborn minions at all in this deck is to complete the quest, so i don't really want to have any that i won't be able to play until at least turn 7.
Rock, Paper, Scissors - 3 Competitive Standard Decks
Totally agree and that's what I meant, even with Restless Mummy it's just removal with removal. Being able to remove every single board is insane, and adding a body, with or without rush (with rush it just get's crazier), is an overkill combo.
Rock, Paper, Scissors - 3 Competitive Standard Decks
It's not necessary nor game changing, but it surprisingly helps a lot because the opponent get's really scared and wants to clear it asap. More than once I was saved by a 7-6 Zilliax or froze the enemy with a wall of buffed up Tomb Warden.
You could put Into the Fray but I personally don't like it, or you could run another Plague of Wrath maybe.
Rock, Paper, Scissors - 3 Competitive Standard Decks
"Midrange" is a hybrid deck, not one of the three main archetypes.
magikman's Reno Mage
Funny you should say that!
magikman's Nevada OTK Mage
Rock, Paper, Scissors - 3 Competitive Standard Decks
I'm only missing the armagedillo for the control one, is it necessary? can i replace it with something else? haven't played warrior in a while cause I hated the bombs.
Why nobody plays shieldbreaker?
The freeze silence is very convincing tbh being able to unfreeze a minion or silence a doomsayer could be a game winner, will try the shieldbreaker for a bit more if them doesn't seem to be the right tech then I will consider a spellbreaker instead I know the current list doesn't run silence but the deck isn't in it's final form and taunt is my main obstacle will see anyway btw...
Aggro warrior is engrage/rush variant of warrior it's a tier 2 deck according to HS replay started playing that deck and it's the most fun variant of warrior as much as I am concerned.
Saviours of Uldum and class identity.
I disagree. For one, it seems to me one of the main benefits of having evergreen and rotating sets is that you can have deviant cards in the latter because they rotate out anyway, EG Conjurer's Calling for mage or Hagatha the Witch for shaman. What's more, it's not as if all of the remaining plagues are equally powerful, for example the warlock plague is pretty weak and situational. They could have made a similar card for rogue that returns all friendly minions to hand and bounces a random enemy minion for each friendly returned in this way; I doubt that would have been much of a balance concern and it would have at least lived up to the idea of a board clear cycle for all of the villain classes.
I understand team 5 wanting to be more responsive and open, and I think that's a good idea in general, but to me the class identity document seemed more like an ass-pull to explain away the rather abrupt and arbitrary HoF-ing of Vanish and Mind Blast. If you just take it as a loose guideline then it doesn't explain the urgency in removing those cards, whereas if you take it as a hard set of rules then they've already broken their promise in the very next set they released after explaining their policy. I think they were open, but less than honest with the memo, and now they're stuck in their contradictions and frantically altering design decisions after-the-fact rather than just admitting that maybe the class identity thing was a poor choice, or at least poorly communicated.
Burgle Math
It is definitely an interesting recap, but these cards are not used for a reason. There is enough of actual, reliable burgle cards and there is plenty of other cards you want to put in your deck too to survive etc., so while interesting, none of these (except for the Cat maybe) would make the cut.
Budget decks could definitely use them tho, but then again, if you dont have Quest, Tess or both, then it is kinda pointless to go for the sub-par generators anyway.
The Greatest Dinomancers (aka. 5/5 Dreadsteed Warlock)
Yeah, that could work alright. Tweaking the deck a bit to include Carnivorous Cube may be a good idea as well.