I am so sick of playing against these T1 decks over and over again...

As we all know, Shaman is not in a strong spot right now. Thrall simply can't keep up with Illidan's early-game tempo, or Valeera's value. However, I feel like Shaman has the tools to fight for a spot in the meta anyway. Besides Totem Shaman and Evolve Shaman, which already have a small (but unimpressive) role in the meta, I feel like there is room for a third Shaman deck, based around two few specific, very powerful cards: Squallhunter and Serpentshrine Portal. These cards give you so much extra burst to finish out games when combined with each other or with cards like Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst, which your opponents won't see coming.

Spearheaded by a friend of mine, he made this spell-damage focused deck:

Spell Damage Shaman

Wild · Unknown Shaman · by Erodos · 5 years, 10 months ago

• 1 Blazing Battlemage x 1
• 1 Ethereal Augmerchant x 2
• 1 Frost Shock x 1
• 1 Lightning Bolt x 2
• 1 Sludge Slurper x 2
• 1 Surging Tempest x 2
• 2 Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
• 2 Imprisoned Vilefiend x 2
• 2 Rustsworn Initiate x 2
• 3 Arcane Watcher x 2
• 3 Lady Vashj x 1
• 3 Lava Burst x 2
• 3 Marshspawn x 2
• 3 Serpentshrine Portal x 2
• 4 Squallhunter x 2
• 5 Cobalt Spellkin x 2
• 5 Cumulo-Maximus x 2

5,480 Dust 2,491 0 Copy Deck Code

Inspired by that, I took out a lot of the spell damage cards and made it more Dragon focused:

Dragon Tempo Shaman (with Mulligan guide and Budget replacements)

Wild · Midrange Shaman · by Erodos · 5 years, 10 months ago

• 1 Blazing Battlemage x 2
• 1 Lightning Bolt x 2
• 1 Sludge Slurper x 2
• 1 Surging Tempest x 2
• 2 Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
• 2 EVIL Totem x 2
• 2 Faerie Dragon x 2
• 3 Lava Burst x 2
• 3 Lightning Breath x 2
• 3 Scalerider x 2
• 3 Serpentshrine Portal x 2
• 4 Evasive Feywing x 2
• 4 Squallhunter x 2
• 5 Big Ol' Whelp x 2
• 5 Cobalt Spellkin x 2
• 5 Cumulo-Maximus x 1

3,600 Dust 817 0 Copy Deck Code

So, which of these decks do you like more? Do you have another idea to build a tempo shaman build? Or do you think this idea is doomed from the start?

Competition Theme: Legendary Loot

Man, the loot tables for these encounters are crazy, I can't keep up. Could you guys help me out and show me the Legendary drops?

• You must create a Legendary weapon which doesn't depict a traditional weapon
  • Think Sphere of Sapience or Prismatic Jewel Kit - no swords or spears for this competition!

BasilAnguis has been dungeon crawling this week, and wants us all to see the loot they got. Why don't you share your loot too?

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jan 17 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 22 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 22 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 23 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 23 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 24 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

I made a custom cards hearthstone expansion! its called (Forged by the War) and it has 55+ custom cards in it, and i'm constantly adding more!

Hope you Enjoy :D

Link: http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#7772-Forged-by%20the%20War

What do you think will happen?

what do you thing will happen?

A new Legendary Hunter Minion, Wing Commander Ichman, has been revealed!

Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating!

Learn more about Fractured in Alterac Valley

Head on over to our dedicated guide for Fractured in Alterac Valley!

Get Cheaper Card Packs

This section contains affiliate links.

If you want to save money when buying Hearthstone packs, you should check out Amazon Coins! It's an easy way to save up to 25% off Hearthstone packs so you can get into the new expansion without worrying about your wallet too much. We've got a detailed guide on how to Get Started with Amazon Coins, but if you've already dealt with them in the past, you can buy some more by clicking right here.

Is anyone else finding their Filter section becoming stuck on? 

I'm having to save the deck, close it, turn the filter off and then re-open the deck to continue editing it. 

This is something that I wanted to talk about for a while. If you look at some of the recent top tier decks that used Demacia ( Sivir/Akshan, Poppy/Zed, Pantheon) you notice that it is is mostly used as a support region, you basically use Demacia whenever you need the following cards ( Single Combat, Concerted Strike, Golden Aegis, Sharpsight, Brightsteel Protector ).

Barring a few exception Demacia's followers and champions don't seem to make it into competitive decks, the reason for that is, well at least in my opinion, is because Demacia lacks finishers unit's that can ignore chump blocker to deal damage directly to face, most of Demacia champions and followers are good at trading but they struggle with closing the game.

Regions like Shurima, Targon and Ionia tend abuse the above cards because they have access to unit's with overwhelm and elusive. If you opponent use a Cataclysm on Jarvan IV that just mean your going to lose a unit but a Cataclysm on Pantheon usually mean that you will lose the game. 

Taking all of that into account it's no surprise that the Demacian champion who had the most success in the competitive scene is Fiora because she had an alternate win con, that also why Jarvan/Shen could never be as dominant as Fiora/Shen despite sharing 90% of it's card with that deck.

So how do we fix this problem? how do we give Demacia finisher? Well the obvious answer would be just give them unit's with elusive or overwhelm. But that just seem to be a lazy fix to me, plus elusive does not make sense from a lore perceptive ( Demecia is know for it's big mighty army, that is as far from stealthy as it get's ).

The first one is fearsome Cithria the Bold is one the few, good Demacian finisher having seen play in both MF/Quinn and Fiora/Shen and what does she do? she give your board fearsome plus a stat boost, plus it fits from lore perspective big armies are fearsome and let's no forget about the anti-mage secret police that kingdom have.

The other mechanic that comes to mind is the very underused give unit "can't block," Demacia is know for petricite a substance that nullify magic, mageseekers use it to restrain mages preventing them from defending themselves similar to how "can't block " prevent your opponent from using his unit's to defend his nexus.

Anyway this post ended up being longer than expected, so what do you guys think?

Just logged into HS and got a pop-up saying I received 8800 dust. Anyone know why?

Wild Changes

Sorcerer's Apprentice + 2 Mana

Rapid Fire + 1 Mana | +1 damage

Standard Changes

Incanter's Flow + 1 Mana

Cloak of Shadows + 1 Mana

Raid the Docks unknown changes to later parts of the questline

Rokara, the Valorous + 5 Armor

Shadowcrafter Scabbs + 1 Mana

Wildpaw Gnoll now a 6 Mana 3/5

Mercs Content and changes:

Portraits now have their own frame when opening them

Training Grounds:

• passively levels your mercs
• level 1: 1 Mercenary at the same time | 100 gold
• level 2: 2 Mercenaries at the same time | 200 gold

New Mercenaries:

• Sinestra (Dragon) | rare | fighter
• Lokholar (Elemental) | rare | protector
• Wrathion (Human) | epic | fighter
• Galvangar (probably Orc) | epic | unknown
• Belinda (human) | legendary | fighter

New PvE Zone:

• Altarac

Deadmines, the latest miniset will leave the shop on January 24th.

On January 25th we will got a new big patch. 

So, I suppose the new miniset will launch with the big patch on January 25th

Why is no one talking about it? It is only 5 days away. Spoilers, please!

Basically I "only" got 1600 dust from the thingy today and I was wondering who I should make for my freeze sham Bru'kan or Bearon since I can only make one. I figured Bru'kan might be good since he can fit in more decks but I don't really have the best endgame in my freeze deck right now. So what's your guys' takes?

Sorry in advance if this is too silly of a question to ask, kinda new player here, started playing after Arcane though I had tried the game before, mainly a HS player. 

I was playing versus a Shurima deck with my Trundle/Aurelion Sol deck. I didn't want to use my 6 mana daybreak removal (6 damage and silence one) because I knew he can place his Azir in the stasis thingie, Ancient Hourglass I think is the name. So feeling smart I discovered (invoked) the 6 mana obliterate a unit or landmark and expected it to work ... But it didn't. Question is: Why? I know effects work in reverse play order, so Azir should be placed in the stasis first, but being a landmark it should still be destroyed by the spell, no? 

Edit: If this is considered a better fit for General forum and less of a card discussion, please move my thread. Seemed more like a card question to me.

Hey guys!

First of all, I would like to apologize for my grammar. This is my first post and English is not my first language, but well, let's get to the point: The Bard.

I've been working on this class for almost two years since the release of Demon Hunter, and now I want to introduce it to you.
I'd love your honest opinion about the class, but I still don't know how to create a full post on this site, so you can check out the basic ant initiate bard set at this link: http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#7819-Bard

Competition Theme: Keep On Ticking

It's time for a different kind of counting this week, but don't worry - your cards will be keeping track for you this time!

• You must create a card which uses a counter similar to those of the Objective spells or the Sigils
  • That's the little marker above your hero that counts down how long an Objective lasts for, or how long until a Sigil activates. So long as your card is counting something, you're good to go!

AeroJulwin is counting on us to do some counting this week - so make sure your cards are keeping track of it!

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jan 10 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 15 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 15 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 16 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 16 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 17 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

https://youtu.be/dweH2TQ-Vdw

All jokes aside there are certain early indicators that perhaps the excitement for the overall direction of the game is starting to decline.

Bruised By God 3 weeks ago went on a meta rant with reddit and largely hasn't been playing much since (largely saying Champs aren't as flexible as they used to be aka are worse)

Mogwai and Swim typically spend more time not covering the game than they do over the past year. Like Swim used to break Runeterra with his decks like it was a fulltime job.

Generally awareness and excitement for the game among casual players and the community at large is fading.

Like at the end of the day of Champs aren't A) flexible B) win cons C) flashy nobody is going.to play this game over Hearthstone which has literally been on the market for like 20 years.

Am I trolling not really, the more time every one spends with their panties in a bunch the faster the game will die with us too afraid to have legitimate discussions about design and balance.

Case study: In MTG when Tefari Time Raveler was released in Dominaria he basically broke the game...and that was okay he had a good run and he got banned when necessary but God what a good card sold well too.

When Ekko released in Legends he was fun but under-powered in-flexible and under-baked. He remains at a negative winrate in the only deck he's playable something like 6-8 month after release. This is bad people...it's bad for hard-core players its bad for monetization at Riot and it's bad for the casual player base too.

Case study 2: Nautelus the coolest Champ Riot has made remains at a negative winrate 2 years after release...yes this is also bad people. Better to let the card be broken like Oko for 3 months than for him to stay like wet fart in the wind. God I feel bad for deep players they literally only get 1 playable deck and it's bad.

Case study 3: Yassao! Literally a ronin samurai with a katana, and practically one of the faces of League of Legends and he's unplayable...Jinx is too. The reality is that 95% of the Champs in this game are bad, and if they arent bad they were nerfed until they were bad.

I dont want to play a card game where the main selling point of its existence as a video game is being massochistically tortured out of its own design philosophy.

I just recently got back into playing, and I'm definitely having fun.

I think I'm a bit weird in this small community, given that I actually play on ladder, and I don't really get stressed about it. After the recent balance changes, I played a fair bit with Daring Poros, because I will always have a soft spot for those guys. My first ever Masters was accomplished with Poros, back when no one thought they were any good.

Still, I did want to play a bit with some actual champions, so I have also been using Lulu/Ahri and enjoying that as well.

When not competing on the ladder, I've managed to clear Path of Champions with the first 5 champs and got the rewards and all. It was definitely engaging, but I'm not sure how much motivation I'll have to keep playing that. At least not as much as I had for playing the old, original Lab of Legends.

What about the rest of you fine folks? What are you enjoying these days?

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/meta-tier-list

Hey look they did that thing I suggested...hey look spider aggro is in S tier who guessed that....maybe you guys should stop bad mouthing me when my calls and suggestions literally are meta before the meta?

S tier - Spiders, Ahiri, rally, Pantheon

A tier - everything else

Wow they literally even kicked Lee Sin of the tier list entirely not sure who called that? Need I go on guys, money talks bs walks.

Like some of the high minded stuff like the general decline of champ based win cons in favor of over powered followers...we might not really see the ramifications of that for a other year but it will happen if Riot doesn't start changing up its knee jerk champ nerf reactions in favor of buffing other weaker under played Champs.

Like its not enough that a ton of amazing decks have either dropped a tier or have disappeared all together practically overnight? How big and bright does the bat signal need to be till we start taking notice?

A new Epic Mage Minion, Coldarra Drake, has been revealed!

Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating!

Learn more about Core 2021

Head on over to our dedicated guide for Core 2021!

Get Cheaper Card Packs

This section contains affiliate links.

If you want to save money when buying Hearthstone packs, you should check out Amazon Coins! It's an easy way to save up to 25% off Hearthstone packs so you can get into the new expansion without worrying about your wallet too much. We've got a detailed guide on how to Get Started with Amazon Coins, but if you've already dealt with them in the past, you can buy some more by clicking right here.

Does anyone else have problems playing in ranked mode? I'm too nervous when I play it. Also I have a little heart problem (it pricks when I'm beside myself). There is almost no such thing in any other mode. Because of this, I still haven't reached the Legend rank. Every rank game I'm afraid of losing. Even if it's clearly visible that I'm stronger than my opponent. I really want to achieve this cherished goal, but I still can't get over myself... Damn, it's just a game. 

Man the tier list is straight up out the window right now.

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/regions

When you actually examine the up to date win rates for decks the existing tier lists are essentially useless.

We have seen a massive number of decks drop to a barely playable winrate like 51%

So I'll list only the decks that are currently 53% and higher, yes the list is kinda scuffed.

1. Kenin Ahiri 57% combo is doing well into the grindy card piles people are running

2. Spider aggro 57% yeeep good old Elise perhaps the best vanilla champ

3. Pirate aggro 56% never went anywhere always was good always will  be

4. Lurk 55% the most resilient midrange deck in Runeterra will always have a place

5. Pantheon 54% Whiteflame is a good card bro

6. Rally Zed 54% you know the drill

7. Darkness 53% solid control

8. Poros 53% grindy aggro

Everything else has dropped to 0 like a bullet. Plunder midrange get out of here, poppy decks gone, yordle burn gone, Sion never knew yeee, Akshan who? Lee Sin what? 

Honestly it's time for a new mobalytics tier list  because all these nerfs, plus the recent buffs, plus meta defining grindy cards like white flame have absolutely upset the meta.

Competition Theme: Counting On You

Get your calculators out, because we're asking you to do some really intensive counting this week!

• You must create a card which cares about the number of minions on the board
  • Whether an effect that scales based on the number of minions, or a threshold that needs to be hit, your card needs to be counting those minions!

It's time for BloodMefist's competition, and this one is all about keeping track of the board. Make sure you count carefully!

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jan 3 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 8 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 8 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 9 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 9 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 10 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

Does anyone knows if there is a way of de some extra cards that are in classic set?

When I try to de there is warning that doing this will also de its classic version.

I do not want to use mass disenchant button though. 

It is bugged for sure. No sure if it only displays wrong number of cards. I don't want to hurt my classic collection and get some dust ;)

Edit:

Well.. Looks that I have found solution. Ofc its Blizzard way. Changed collection collection filter to CLASSIC cards and then there is no warning and it seems it won't remove the classic cards (tried by disenchanting Faerie Dragon..). However one have to be careful because you can disenchant all copies and there is no warning about having less than 2 left. Undo works but after confirming there is no coming back.

In light of the recent Demon Hunter and Priest revamp news in Hearthstone, and the fact that MTG has never introduced a sixth color to its wheel, I've been thinking about whether or not LoR's regions have clear enough identities. Ultimately, I think the answer is no, they don't have enough identity.

The stated Riot philosophy is that every card should be playable in at least one deck, and I think you see a lot of that reflected in the ways that certain region pairs combine to form themes. Some examples:

• The Shadow Isles and Noxus pair has access to a Spiders deck
• The Freljord and P&Z pair has access to a Poro and/or Elnuk Cloning deck
• The Demacia and P&Z pair has access to a Big Spells deck
• The Freljord and Noxus pair has access to a Crimson Self-harm deck

The result is that a lot of the theming seems to have been done primarily at the "region pair" level, and it makes less obvious combinations of those same regions clumsier. Yes, regions have their some of their own dedicated mechanics (e.g. Demacia has Tough Elites, Freljord has Frostbite, Ionia has hand buffs etc.), but those mechanics don't generally pair in interesting ways across regions. Because so much of the work of theming has been done at the "region pair" level, many of the decisions on how to pair a region feel forced and ultimately deck-building is less interesting and more paint-by-numbers.

By contrast, when you look at a game like MTG (which is probably the best comparison, because you can mix/match colors there like you can regions), you see primary and secondary themes for colors, and players are left to mix and match those colors to get to useful synergies. I can very easily build a Black/White deck that emphasizes token creatures for a more go-wide aggressive strategy, and I can create a Black/White deck that uses hard removal and AoE to control the game. Yes, there are multi-color cards that tend to emphasize shared themes, but even in those you see variety. Taking Blue/White as an example, you see cards that emphasize the shared enchantments and artifact subtheme of those colors, but you also see cards that emphasize the smaller fliers theme that they share. This leaves players with a lot of freedom to decide which colors to run, and how much of any primary or shared themes they want to emphasize in their deck.

Ultimately, I think this problem will only get more muddled in LoR as they introduce more regions. The reason other major CCGs have been so reticent to add new classes, colors, etc., is because you have to divide up the game mechanics pie into smaller pieces, which ultimately makes the archetypes more prescriptive and hinders creative deck-building. LoR seems to have started at a place of fairly prescriptive deck-building already, so cutting that pie up could do a lot of damage.