I have this issue, as well. Glad you posted b/c I thought I was crazy. I had one of each and was excited to have 2 golden copies but my Recurring Villain disappeared. I built a deck (wild shaman) to mess around with the twin golden Villains and then when I went to play a game it said the deck was not valid for the format. Then when I went back into the deck there were only 29 cards in it. No second golden villain. I don't think it's a visual bug... but I suppose I could be wrong that I didn't have a golden one prior to the event.
I am playing it b/c it's fun. I've beat it with all 4 and am currently taking the win-con-less priest deck in again as a challenge since the deck & HP are weak to start.
How are people beating this with the warrior deck? I lose every single time to the 7th boss because he burns every single damn bomb. He's at 9 cards, draws 2. First isn't a bomb, 2nd (once his hand is full) is always one of my bombs.
That is a really tough match b/c the bombs get burned. It takes some luck and a good early board. That's the only matchup I DON'T use the HP for bombs on T1. I mulligan for 1 drops and try to get minions on the board to reduce hand size and then can smorc pretty easily. Again, The Hand of Rafaam plays a huge role if you can get it.
BEEEES!!! - 1 - In classes with decent removal it'd probably be a 2 but Druid's lack of removal makes this a 1. The comparison to shadow bolt makes is a good one but there's upside to using this on smaller minions (pending "Blizz-Coding" realities) so it looks like a really strong addition.
Weaponized Wasp - 3 - I doubt we'll see a big influx of lackey generators for Thrall, so this is likely to be a 3/3 for 3. Those who enjoy the blessings of RNGesus should have fun with stacked lackey decks, though.
I think the archetype for this card largely depends on the lackey production (something Thrall is supposed to be bad at?). A true aggro deck isn't running EVIL Totem. Ever. Sludge Slurper on T1 to get a lackey leaves you overloaded so T2 can't be a 2 drop. If you drop the lackey it's unlikely to live. Anything else you play there (assuming it's not a lackey) means you have to wait until T4 to play this. Seems much more likely to be part of a quest and/or wock and/or control build. It's an incredible value but not in an aggro way.
Some things make it look like it isn’t completely thought through, like they had not enough time to finish it before going live. Just my experience from a quick try out with all classes:
1) Warrior is way to easy
2) It took me 3 tries to beat the first boss with priest. It was so awkward, I just didn’t seem to find a win condition. After that, it was (too?) easy again.
3) It happened several times that I threatened lethal with my minions and instead of clearing them, the boss went face with his minions (while I was completely out of range for him to kill me).
What do you think?
All good points but I'm not sure the conclusion that it wasn't "thought through" is right. AI has always been tremendously stupid in HS solo content.
The general consensus for winning seems to be "playing small" when it comes to bucket choices. Take lower cost minions/spells so you have more options (especially vs. Garr!) and the ability to consistently start fast. None of the bosses have much in the way of recovery options, so taking the role of beatdown and running away with the game tends to work well.
The Hand of Rafaam is very good. It doesn't seem exciting but if you can get multiple copies your run will be insanely easy (and fast for those golden cards!) so take it every time you see it.
I have had great results with Hagatha's Embrace (passive +1/+1 to a minion in hand each turn), especially in Dr. Boom runs because you want to tap the HP and add bombs so the minions sit in your hand and get buffed. Wondrous Wand is (and always has been) awesome, as well.
Don't pick priest. Shaman and rogue are on the easy side and warrior is a cakewalk
The priest starter list looks okay but those buckets are absolute trash. The deck seems to get progressively worse and worse no matter what you do. Making a fast deck with those buckets is next to impossible and without a fast deck you're going to struggle against Ragnaros, Gar and Valestraz
And on that note, I'll add a follow up to OP's question : "What's a consistent way to beat the brawl with priest?"
Priest is definitely the toughest. HP is irrelevant more often than not. I used the same strategy - pick smaller buckets & Hand of Rafaam - whenever possible. Amulet of Domination on a Flamewaker was a huge bonus, as was Wondrous Wand.
The bosses are incorrect on this page. I never encountered Onyxia in two full runs, instead there is another dragon-like boss, whose name I forgot, who has the hero power for 1 mana to equip a weapon that gains +1 attack whenever your opponent (you) plays a card.
Thanks! Will get that fixed.
Definitely a lot of fun. I haven't beat it with priest yet. That starter deck looks like a fun build-around but can easily get rekt early in runs.
Try to pick card sets that are lower cost. The opponents tend to have weak starts and cannot recover if you start fast. Hand of Rafaam is a very strong treasure, especially when combined with smaller minions. This strategy also helps with Garr in game 3, allowing you to hard mulligan for small minions to play right away and ping at the Rocks.
It's a classic RNG reliant mode, though. Don't get discouraged if you get some terrible luck in mulligans and/or draws. There will be times you get steamrolled no matter what you do.
Stealing stuff has never been more fun. It was a bit RNG though, cause I almost died on boss 7/8 due to bad draws at first. I kept drawing expensive stuff and discarding my cheap, good stuff.
OMG that bag of coins is so good. That's a crazy turn 1. Nice
Garr is definitely the toughest stage for me. If you don't have enough early game drops that can survive his whirlwind (or if you get unlucky at mulligan) you will get smashed. I beat him with warrior a few times and won the run on my 3rd or 4th attempt but I was picking all cards based solely on mana cost. Get cheap cards b/c you're playing off-curve intentionally to stuff bombs. When you get to Garr you have to hard mulligan for anything that will be playable right away. I had decent success with T1 HP followed by T2 Town Crier + HP then T3 (something) + HP, rinse and repeat. 2x [Hearthstone Card (Hand of Rafaam) Not Found] is outrageous, though, and made every match super easy. 25:18 without being a speed freak with all clicks and decisions.
Impbalming - 2 - Removal is always useful in arena. Hard removal even more so, and this is a wipeout for 4 mana. The downside is mitigated by Life Tap and plenty of sacrifice and/or demon synergy so this looks quite strong.
Earthquake - 1 - Suck it, Flamestrike! Shaman needs so much more to be viable in arena, though. Let's see some strong tempo cards and then we'll talk about maybe, just maybe thinking about choosing Thrall to start a run.
Still no real news about the solo content. Not really happy about that. I kinda wanna know what I'm getting into before deciding to buy it.
The next PvE Adventure content will be like the Dalaran Heist, but "we have some twists in store".
It's going to be the same as Dalaran Heist but they'll add a few pieces, likely in the form of new twists, treasures, decks, HPs, etc. They've effectively bulked up the solo content 1 time, made it a paid game mode, and now will coast for a while with only minimal changes to it but still collect $20 per purchase.
Keep 2 old quests (if you have them - they announced with little notice to hold a few) so you can re-roll them over the next 2 days to get legendary quests.
** EDIT ** I think you get an extra quest tomorrow, too. Don't quote me on this but I do believe last year I got a quest at the reset time (12 AM Pacific) and then later in the day when the Fire Festival launched another new quest dropped.
A wide range of opinions on the topic here, and it's great to read.
I have pre-ordered most sets (generally skipping the end-of-year expac b/c money goes to xmas gifts) and I did an $80 bundle for one (Mecha-JAX).
The game has not really kept my interest over the last 6 months. RoS brought mechs with a very heavy hand and did not feel fresh and new to me. Too much throw-back to GvG now SoU promises to revisit the LoE crew? It's just too much being piled up with a definite feeling of "re-skinned" content. The Dalaran Heist only added to that feeling, as a mashup of Dungeon Run & Monster Hunt.
At this point, my wallet stays closed until a truly new game mode is launched. I'm sitting on 8k gold and 8k dust after using 700 gold on wing 2 recently, so I'll be able to buy plenty of packs/arena runs.
I definitely agree that the dev team is doing great in terms of nerfs, buffs (BUFFS??!!!), communication, and working towards goals that are clearly community driven. I hope that turns towards some new game mode entry soon, though. And I definitely don't mean soonTM. :D
I have this issue, as well. Glad you posted b/c I thought I was crazy. I had one of each and was excited to have 2 golden copies but my Recurring Villain disappeared. I built a deck (wild shaman) to mess around with the twin golden Villains and then when I went to play a game it said the deck was not valid for the format. Then when I went back into the deck there were only 29 cards in it. No second golden villain. I don't think it's a visual bug... but I suppose I could be wrong that I didn't have a golden one prior to the event.
I am playing it b/c it's fun. I've beat it with all 4 and am currently taking the win-con-less priest deck in again as a challenge since the deck & HP are weak to start.
That is a really tough match b/c the bombs get burned. It takes some luck and a good early board. That's the only matchup I DON'T use the HP for bombs on T1. I mulligan for 1 drops and try to get minions on the board to reduce hand size and then can smorc pretty easily. Again, The Hand of Rafaam plays a huge role if you can get it.
BEEEES!!! - 1 - In classes with decent removal it'd probably be a 2 but Druid's lack of removal makes this a 1. The comparison to shadow bolt makes is a good one but there's upside to using this on smaller minions (pending "Blizz-Coding" realities) so it looks like a really strong addition.
Weaponized Wasp - 3 - I doubt we'll see a big influx of lackey generators for Thrall, so this is likely to be a 3/3 for 3. Those who enjoy the blessings of RNGesus should have fun with stacked lackey decks, though.
I think the archetype for this card largely depends on the lackey production (something Thrall is supposed to be bad at?). A true aggro deck isn't running EVIL Totem. Ever. Sludge Slurper on T1 to get a lackey leaves you overloaded so T2 can't be a 2 drop. If you drop the lackey it's unlikely to live. Anything else you play there (assuming it's not a lackey) means you have to wait until T4 to play this. Seems much more likely to be part of a quest and/or wock and/or control build. It's an incredible value but not in an aggro way.
All good points but I'm not sure the conclusion that it wasn't "thought through" is right. AI has always been tremendously stupid in HS solo content.
The general consensus for winning seems to be "playing small" when it comes to bucket choices. Take lower cost minions/spells so you have more options (especially vs. Garr!) and the ability to consistently start fast. None of the bosses have much in the way of recovery options, so taking the role of beatdown and running away with the game tends to work well.
The Hand of Rafaam is very good. It doesn't seem exciting but if you can get multiple copies your run will be insanely easy (and fast for those golden cards!) so take it every time you see it.
I have had great results with Hagatha's Embrace (passive +1/+1 to a minion in hand each turn), especially in Dr. Boom runs because you want to tap the HP and add bombs so the minions sit in your hand and get buffed. Wondrous Wand is (and always has been) awesome, as well.
Priest is definitely the toughest. HP is irrelevant more often than not. I used the same strategy - pick smaller buckets & Hand of Rafaam - whenever possible. Amulet of Domination on a Flamewaker was a huge bonus, as was Wondrous Wand.
Shieldbearer buff! :D
Cool card. Definitely one you shout when played.
Thanks! Will get that fixed.
Definitely a lot of fun. I haven't beat it with priest yet. That starter deck looks like a fun build-around but can easily get rekt early in runs.
Try to pick card sets that are lower cost. The opponents tend to have weak starts and cannot recover if you start fast. Hand of Rafaam is a very strong treasure, especially when combined with smaller minions. This strategy also helps with Garr in game 3, allowing you to hard mulligan for small minions to play right away and ping at the Rocks.
It's a classic RNG reliant mode, though. Don't get discouraged if you get some terrible luck in mulligans and/or draws. There will be times you get steamrolled no matter what you do.
OMG that bag of coins is so good. That's a crazy turn 1. Nice
Garr is definitely the toughest stage for me. If you don't have enough early game drops that can survive his whirlwind (or if you get unlucky at mulligan) you will get smashed. I beat him with warrior a few times and won the run on my 3rd or 4th attempt but I was picking all cards based solely on mana cost. Get cheap cards b/c you're playing off-curve intentionally to stuff bombs. When you get to Garr you have to hard mulligan for anything that will be playable right away. I had decent success with T1 HP followed by T2 Town Crier + HP then T3 (something) + HP, rinse and repeat. 2x [Hearthstone Card (Hand of Rafaam) Not Found] is outrageous, though, and made every match super easy. 25:18 without being a speed freak with all clicks and decisions.
Impbalming - 2 - Removal is always useful in arena. Hard removal even more so, and this is a wipeout for 4 mana. The downside is mitigated by Life Tap and plenty of sacrifice and/or demon synergy so this looks quite strong.
Earthquake - 1 - Suck it, Flamestrike! Shaman needs so much more to be viable in arena, though. Let's see some strong tempo cards and then we'll talk about maybe, just maybe thinking about choosing Thrall to start a run.
Attempt 2, went rogue for fun RNG. 39:34. Just under that 40 for 2 goldens. :D
First try!
By which I mean Garr smoked me on my first try when I got all 3+ cost cards and couldn't touch those stupid minions in time to prevent the otk.
Solid removal. If control shaman can survive it's got some bonkers removal with this and Hagatha's Scheme.
It's going to be the same as Dalaran Heist but they'll add a few pieces, likely in the form of new twists, treasures, decks, HPs, etc. They've effectively bulked up the solo content 1 time, made it a paid game mode, and now will coast for a while with only minimal changes to it but still collect $20 per purchase.
Extra loot incoming! Awesome.
Keep 2 old quests (if you have them - they announced with little notice to hold a few) so you can re-roll them over the next 2 days to get legendary quests.
** EDIT ** I think you get an extra quest tomorrow, too. Don't quote me on this but I do believe last year I got a quest at the reset time (12 AM Pacific) and then later in the day when the Fire Festival launched another new quest dropped.
A wide range of opinions on the topic here, and it's great to read.
I have pre-ordered most sets (generally skipping the end-of-year expac b/c money goes to xmas gifts) and I did an $80 bundle for one (Mecha-JAX).
The game has not really kept my interest over the last 6 months. RoS brought mechs with a very heavy hand and did not feel fresh and new to me. Too much throw-back to GvG now SoU promises to revisit the LoE crew? It's just too much being piled up with a definite feeling of "re-skinned" content. The Dalaran Heist only added to that feeling, as a mashup of Dungeon Run & Monster Hunt.
At this point, my wallet stays closed until a truly new game mode is launched. I'm sitting on 8k gold and 8k dust after using 700 gold on wing 2 recently, so I'll be able to buy plenty of packs/arena runs.
I definitely agree that the dev team is doing great in terms of nerfs, buffs (BUFFS??!!!), communication, and working towards goals that are clearly community driven. I hope that turns towards some new game mode entry soon, though. And I definitely don't mean soonTM. :D