Or you can play N'Zoth's First Mate on turn 1 and, you know, wait to swing the weapon until you play the quest on turn 2, possibly alongside Upgrade!. A turn 2, 2/4 weapon is not better than a 2/2 weapon at all (nor does it complete the quest entirely on its own). But you do whatever you like. If I open a copy of the quest, I'll be dropping a Rabid Worgen that is not a pirate and has no weapon synergy, in favor of another N'Zoth's First Mate which is a pirate and creates a weapon out of thin air.
I've been playing it in wild with Zephrys, both Renos, and Kazakus. Don't have Solia. Lots of fun. Winning inconsistently. Lots of fun though. Zephrys might be my new favorite card.
Tracking is a big risk/reward card that demands you know what you're looking for and what you're giving up once your options appear. It has won and lost me games, and not one of them was because it was a bad card.
Since hunter with draw is extremely powerful, this is a good solution. Find the one card you need at the cost of two others you may need as well.
I know it's a joke in the community (especially during card reveal season) that saying "the art is awesome" is a backhanded way of saying "nothing else on this card is awesome," but I love seeing the wide variety of characters, framing choices, and tones from card to card, set to set. Concept art like this is fascinating to me.
His play voice line is "You were made to be ruled, his Attack voice line is "KNEEL!" and his death voice line is "Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Here are the two copies he summons:
The idea behind (secret until triggered) is that neither player knows which one is which until the deathrattle goes off, which gets around deathrattle trigger effects. Also, and I couldn't find a way to put this on the card and keep it short, if you silence the silence Loki, or kill the summon Loki, the silence Loki moves to a different Loki, sort of like a shell game, so that unless an AOE silence is played, or all the Lokis are killed, there will always be exactly one silence Loki. The Taunt is there mostly to force your opponent to play the shell game. Also, the death voice line for summon Loki is the same as the original, but the death voice line for the silence Loki is "You will never be a god."
Edit: (alternate/additional explanation) if either player kills a summon Loki, or silences a silence Loki, the silence effect will switch places with one of the other summon effects. Neither player knows which is which until the deathrattles actually go off. If you get lucky, you eventually have six Loki's that will keep reviving themselves and one Loki that will destroy all the others if it's killed, but every time you hit a Summon Loki, the Silence effect moves to a different one.
I've always loved really slow Priest decks with resurrect mechanics. Been playing around with the quest and finding a good combination of cards to complete it in a timely manner and take best advantage of it. Seems like playing a bunch of valuable taunt minions and resurrecting them works pretty well, particularly Khartut Defender. Plague of Death is such a strong card.
Yeah i feel like it's very unnecessary in this deck. It's not worth using unless you are playing a ton of magnetic minions and as you mentioned having Micro Mummy in the deck makes it super inconsistent because you are guaranteed to have at least one or two of the reborn copies dying. Da Undatakah serves this purpose much better. Skip summoning the eggs and get straight to the Robosaurs.
I chose not to play the Whelp because i was trying to minimize the amount of high-cost cards i might draw early that won't get me enough value. Mechano-Egg is much better and i feel like the two copies are just enough since i don't want to get stuck with a bunch of deathrattles before i can copy them.
As for Murmy i didn't want to run it at first either. Ultimately though having 12 reborn minions in your deck helps with getting the quest completed more consistently and also to compliment Crystology better. I want to have a good amount of 1-Attack minions to draw something if i draw it later in the game so it's not just a dead card, and i also wanted to have more reborn minions with 1-Attack than not to give a better chance for drawing them when i use it earlier.
I tried Questing Explorer for a while but i didn't like that after the quest is complete it has no real value compared to other cards.
Hey, it's a highlander deck I might actually be able to make! I have a golden Brann, and I've been wanting to try him out, but don't have enough dust to craft both Zephrys AND Subject 9. But just Zephrys - that I could get behind. I have everything else in this list (mostly). I think I'll try this out! (P.S. - do you think Shieldbreaker is better than Whirliglider? I've been severely unimpressed with Whirliglider as a 2-drop; feels like there are much better options than her, and as a smorc deck, you really want a way to get thru taunts.)
I understand that against warrior, if one is reaching the point of playing Zul'jin, the game is lost nonetheless :
Wait, what? You're completely off the track mate: if you can't SMOrc Warriors down then you just have to switch to Control mode Zul'jin is what allows you to do so. Dire Frenzy into shuffling 12 overstated beasts into your deck is something even Boom struggles to deal with.
I wonder if quest druid would be better if people did not expect their quests to be done right on turn 5. if maybe you tried harder to secure a board in the early turns, then completed the quest on turn 7-9 and started winning the game using value from your hero power from there. You could focus less on shoving all their choose one cards in their deck, and run a more control package with the quest for some smaller plays. you would focus more on small value plays like Nourish, or Ancient of Lore, and less on giant swing plays like Druid of the Claw, or Oasis Surger.
The main problem with quest druid is that people are playing it like a big tempo deck where they can make big swim turns, but you are not doing much with your first 4 turns. I think playing a slower deck would be better,
As an aside, why are we still calling Master's Call Hunter a "midrange" deck?
What would you call it then? It's too slow for aggro and too fast for control and it doesn't have an OTK or massive combo.
I think I would consider it closer to control at this point. It's basically all removal, card draw, life gain, and value generation. (A lot of the removal just happens to be on a 1/1 body. ) I don't think it's that fast, outside of an early Hyena stealing games.
I agree: I either outheal aggro or OTK with Tundra Rhino Control deck, which is not how a proper Midrange deck would act
Just curious if there are any decks in SoU that you thought were going to be good (or maybe just playable?) before launch that you've experimented with and they were just trash?
Quest Warlock. I knew it was never going to be good because it has such a weak early game, and I knew it was never going to be popular because its so dependent on otherwise-useless legendaries (Supreme Archaeology, Dollmaster Dorian, Arch-Villain Rafaam, and Fel Lord Betrug), however I figured it could compete against slower decks. Drawing an extra card every turn is pretty good, reducing a card to 0 mana is great, and after you play Rafaam, you're usually dropping 2-3 mid-sized legendaries every turn. On paper, that sounds fantastic! In practice, this archetype has miserable statistics against every pretty much everything.
It is still fun to play, though, so at least there's that. :-)
Quest priest was surprisingly bad in the early days, but I think good lists are being figured out, so it's going to be a viable deck going forward, in some form.
This was one of the Theorycrafted concepts I anticipated most with the expansion and having lost to it once and beaten it twice on the ladder, I have to say I'm surprised by it's effectiveness at rank 5 and up. This is a solid deck list though I swapped a few cards to tech against Quest/Secret Mage because they are overabundant and annoying.
I have no Emperor Thaurissan, but managed to pull of the OctoMill with 2x Helpless Hatchling and Power Overwhelming instead. Milled the Big out of a Big priest. My deck was also control but not a Reno deck. Good to see someone else using this rather unfortunate card.
Or you can play N'Zoth's First Mate on turn 1 and, you know, wait to swing the weapon until you play the quest on turn 2, possibly alongside Upgrade!. A turn 2, 2/4 weapon is not better than a 2/2 weapon at all (nor does it complete the quest entirely on its own). But you do whatever you like. If I open a copy of the quest, I'll be dropping a Rabid Worgen that is not a pirate and has no weapon synergy, in favor of another N'Zoth's First Mate which is a pirate and creates a weapon out of thin air.
Raiding the Sky Temple with Reno and Friends
Glad to see Reno Mage is nice and cheap! I'm only missing, like 5 out of the 9 legendaries!
Do Nothing Priest
An even better option!
Uldum Essentials - Concept Art Spotlight
Mogu Cultist is one of those rare obscure WoW bits. "Oh yeah, there are female mogu."
Bit disappointed Budd Nedreck didn't reappear as a neutral legendary, or Harrison Jones' Horde counterpart, Belloc Brightblade.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Budd_Nedreck
https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Belloc_Brightblade
Gathering Highlander Mage Opinions
I've been playing it in wild with Zephrys, both Renos, and Kazakus. Don't have Solia. Lots of fun. Winning inconsistently. Lots of fun though. Zephrys might be my new favorite card.
Uldum Essentials - Concept Art Spotlight
I agree. Art is one of the reasons I play this game. I have the art book son my amazon wish list for my next birthday.
Uldum Essentials - Concept Art Spotlight
Damn... I was expecting to find Murmy and Questing Explorer concept arts here... :( :( :( By far, the cutest cards of the set!!! :) :) :)
Tracking - is it worth it?
Tracking is a big risk/reward card that demands you know what you're looking for and what you're giving up once your options appear. It has won and lost me games, and not one of them was because it was a bad card.
Since hunter with draw is extremely powerful, this is a good solution. Find the one card you need at the cost of two others you may need as well.
That looks fun, If only I had the quest
Uldum Essentials - Concept Art Spotlight
I know it's a joke in the community (especially during card reveal season) that saying "the art is awesome" is a backhanded way of saying "nothing else on this card is awesome," but I love seeing the wide variety of characters, framing choices, and tones from card to card, set to set. Concept art like this is fascinating to me.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Tracking - is it worth it?
My bad, I never played the dire frenzy list!
Fan Creations Tutorial - How to Use HearthCards #1: The Basics
His play voice line is "You were made to be ruled, his Attack voice line is "KNEEL!" and his death voice line is "Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Here are the two copies he summons:
The idea behind (secret until triggered) is that neither player knows which one is which until the deathrattle goes off, which gets around deathrattle trigger effects. Also, and I couldn't find a way to put this on the card and keep it short, if you silence the silence Loki, or kill the summon Loki, the silence Loki moves to a different Loki, sort of like a shell game, so that unless an AOE silence is played, or all the Lokis are killed, there will always be exactly one silence Loki. The Taunt is there mostly to force your opponent to play the shell game. Also, the death voice line for summon Loki is the same as the original, but the death voice line for the silence Loki is "You will never be a god."
Edit: (alternate/additional explanation) if either player kills a summon Loki, or silences a silence Loki, the silence effect will switch places with one of the other summon effects. Neither player knows which is which until the deathrattles actually go off. If you get lucky, you eventually have six Loki's that will keep reviving themselves and one Loki that will destroy all the others if it's killed, but every time you hit a Summon Loki, the Silence effect moves to a different one.
What is your favourite deck so far?
I've always loved really slow Priest decks with resurrect mechanics. Been playing around with the quest and finding a good combination of cards to complete it in a timely manner and take best advantage of it. Seems like playing a bunch of valuable taunt minions and resurrecting them works pretty well, particularly Khartut Defender. Plague of Death is such a strong card.
Deck ID Not Found
Da Mumdatakah Quest Paladin
Yeah i feel like it's very unnecessary in this deck. It's not worth using unless you are playing a ton of magnetic minions and as you mentioned having Micro Mummy in the deck makes it super inconsistent because you are guaranteed to have at least one or two of the reborn copies dying. Da Undatakah serves this purpose much better. Skip summoning the eggs and get straight to the Robosaurs.
Da Mumdatakah Quest Paladin
I chose not to play the Whelp because i was trying to minimize the amount of high-cost cards i might draw early that won't get me enough value. Mechano-Egg is much better and i feel like the two copies are just enough since i don't want to get stuck with a bunch of deathrattles before i can copy them.
As for Murmy i didn't want to run it at first either. Ultimately though having 12 reborn minions in your deck helps with getting the quest completed more consistently and also to compliment Crystology better. I want to have a good amount of 1-Attack minions to draw something if i draw it later in the game so it's not just a dead card, and i also wanted to have more reborn minions with 1-Attack than not to give a better chance for drawing them when i use it earlier.
I tried Questing Explorer for a while but i didn't like that after the quest is complete it has no real value compared to other cards.
Highlander Face Hunter
Hey, it's a highlander deck I might actually be able to make! I have a golden Brann, and I've been wanting to try him out, but don't have enough dust to craft both Zephrys AND Subject 9. But just Zephrys - that I could get behind. I have everything else in this list (mostly). I think I'll try this out! (P.S. - do you think Shieldbreaker is better than Whirliglider? I've been severely unimpressed with Whirliglider as a 2-drop; feels like there are much better options than her, and as a smorc deck, you really want a way to get thru taunts.)
Fan Creations Tutorial - How to Use HearthCards #1: The Basics
Hey, just a note. You should probably make your images a bit shorter for the convenience of the other readers.
EDIT: Thank you.
Tracking - is it worth it?
Wait, what? You're completely off the track mate: if you can't SMOrc Warriors down then you just have to switch to Control mode Zul'jin is what allows you to do so. Dire Frenzy into shuffling 12 overstated beasts into your deck is something even Boom struggles to deal with.
The gameplay is really similar to the Deathstalker Rexxar Midrange Hunter with Dire Mole and Crackling Razormaw, but instead of generating huge Zombeasts you slowly build a favorable Yogg.
Surprisingly bad decks?
I wonder if quest druid would be better if people did not expect their quests to be done right on turn 5. if maybe you tried harder to secure a board in the early turns, then completed the quest on turn 7-9 and started winning the game using value from your hero power from there. You could focus less on shoving all their choose one cards in their deck, and run a more control package with the quest for some smaller plays. you would focus more on small value plays like Nourish, or Ancient of Lore, and less on giant swing plays like Druid of the Claw, or Oasis Surger.
The main problem with quest druid is that people are playing it like a big tempo deck where they can make big swim turns, but you are not doing much with your first 4 turns. I think playing a slower deck would be better,
Tracking - is it worth it?
I agree: I either outheal aggro or OTK with Tundra Rhino Control deck, which is not how a proper Midrange deck would act
Surprisingly bad decks?
Quest Warlock. I knew it was never going to be good because it has such a weak early game, and I knew it was never going to be popular because its so dependent on otherwise-useless legendaries (Supreme Archaeology, Dollmaster Dorian, Arch-Villain Rafaam, and Fel Lord Betrug), however I figured it could compete against slower decks. Drawing an extra card every turn is pretty good, reducing a card to 0 mana is great, and after you play Rafaam, you're usually dropping 2-3 mid-sized legendaries every turn. On paper, that sounds fantastic! In practice, this archetype has miserable statistics against every pretty much everything.
It is still fun to play, though, so at least there's that. :-)
Surprisingly bad decks?
Quest priest was surprisingly bad in the early days, but I think good lists are being figured out, so it's going to be a viable deck going forward, in some form.
The Greatest Dinomancers (aka. 5/5 Dreadsteed Warlock)
This was one of the Theorycrafted concepts I anticipated most with the expansion and having lost to it once and beaten it twice on the ladder, I have to say I'm surprised by it's effectiveness at rank 5 and up. This is a solid deck list though I swapped a few cards to tech against Quest/Secret Mage because they are overabundant and annoying.
[SoU] Mill Warlock
I have no Emperor Thaurissan, but managed to pull of the OctoMill with 2x Helpless Hatchling and Power Overwhelming instead. Milled the Big out of a Big priest. My deck was also control but not a Reno deck. Good to see someone else using this rather unfortunate card.
Fan Creations Tutorial - How to Use HearthCards #1: The Basics
Very nice article. I have used Hearthcards a lot, but didn't know about the P button.
Thanks, Demon!