I wouldn't call it intimidation, but I do acknowledge 1.000 win portraits in some kind of "okay, you're dealing with an expert here, be careful" kind of way. They are usually very skilled with their class and less likely to make mistakes so my own error margin also shrinks. That's probably BS with the amount of RNG involved, but you can't deny that scoring 1.000 wins with a class comes with a lot of experience.
I rarely post here, but the Tiller decks really get to my nerves. It's not so much the combo itself but the fact that your turn is skipped if you manage to survive it. Can't stand this bullshit and the nerve of some people who have to BM on top of that.
Would it be possible to add mentions to the site? I'd like people to get notified when I write out their username, like when I post a deck of theirs or when I'm referring to several people's suggestions and don't want to quote them all.
The Ender's Shadow series by Orson Scott Card was a great read, thank you for your suggestion, linkblade! For everyone interested, linkblade's summary of "political sci-fi thrillers" fits like a glove.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Paolini is one monster of a book. I'm grateful they didn't decide to split it up in several volumes, even though the 900+ pages were hard to handle sometimes. I've very much enjoyed the book, it's of similar quality as Eragon was back in the day but with a Sci-Fi setting. There's at least one direct crossover gem included and several patterns Paolini revisits in a different style.
I'm currently about 200 pages deep into the First Law trilogy by Abercrombie which I like very much. Thanks for the recommendation, Alfi!
The newest additons to my wishlist are The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, a classic by Robert A. Heinlein and The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins which sounds a bit crazy.
Any news from your side? What was your last book? Did you like it? Is there anything coming up you're looking forward to?
With the arrival of Darkmoon Races, we might have gotten the final pieces to revive the old Freeze Mage archetype!
Erodos' Imprisoned Phoenix OTK deck was the first list I've come across. The goal of this deck is to stall and draw until you've got your combo pieces together, a task Mage is really good at. The major difference between this deck and older lists is that you can't play around the Imprisoned Phoenixs. A really cool side effect is that you're able to mill unsuspecting opponents. In my own experience, you usually have to go to turn 10 to pull off the combo. It's certainly possible to do it earlier if you gamble to draw missing combo pieces during the 2 turns the Phoenixes need to prepare.
RavenSunHS uses a more flexible combo, built around Mozaki, Master Duelist. This deck also makes good use of two new cards from Darkmoon Races: Imprisoned Phoenix again and Conjure Mana Biscuit. This list looks to finish earlier, but I haven't tried it yet.
All in all, I have high hopes for a return of the Freeze Mage archetype. Both of them don't look like Tier 1 decks to me, but Tier 2 or 3 seems possible (Secret Mage is a bad matchup and Odd Warrior is insta-concede). Have you tried those decks yet? Do you think they will end up being permanently viable? And if so, is that a good thing?
Yeah, that one is hilarious. Only had one game, but that was a 20 minutes monster of a match against a Control Priest that went deep into fatigue. I've played 14 Primes although my opponent Plague of Deathed at least 3 Rustwixes. Wasn't even bad to lose lol.
This is such a cool deck, thanks a lot for sharing! I just went from Diamond 8 to 5 with this with only one loss where I lost my nerves and played a single Imprisoned Phoenix because I thought I was running out of time (turned out I wasn't). If it wasn't for the technical issue that leads to skipping your turn, this would easily beat the Tiller decks. I think this might actually end up T2 or so. Secret Mage is tough but then that deck has almost no weaknesses.
The one change I am considering is swapping one copy of Novice Engineer or Sorcerer's Apprentice out for a Fireball. Games against Warlocks tend to lead to them having 30 Health and 5 Armor from Bloodreaver and then the reach of the combo is not enough.
Finally made it to 50 yesterday and took a long look at the portraits. Long story short, I took Paladin because I intend to play lots of Pure Paladin for the rest of the season and the portrait features Uther's book quite prominently which makes for nice flavor with the librams. I know that's a stupid reason to pick the portrait but I couldn't come up with a better one.
So, so happy to make faster progress with the rewards now. I'll consider buying the pass next season.
1 - A royal son is a Prince, the only Hearthstone Prince card "with his head in the sky" is Cloud Prince.
2 - Leeroy Jenkins is known to be a Fireball on a stick and got HoFed = banned from standard.
3 - Explosive Runes should be tested with a high Health minion if you don't want to get caught with a snap.
All of them deal 6 damage. This effect has its most iconic iteration in Fireball. "The King of the Sun" was meant to point at it being the most famous burn card.
Thanks JFK, I'm happy you were able to solve it after all. Don't worry, I won't do something like this again.
Alright, I'm sorry. If this isn't solved or very close to solved by 8 pm CET (which is in about 11 hours from now), I'll give you the solution and the next riddle is up for grabs.
1 - Correct, but your looking for a card. Which of the HS Prince cards might have "his head in the sky"?
2 - It's HS phrasing... It describes an effect that is attached to a minion, like Coldlight Oracle would be Arcane Intellect on a stick (if it would draw only for you). I can't give you more details without giving away the solution, sorry.
3 - Good guess, but it's not a Hunter secret. There's another, very similar card.
Final guess is also incorrect, but I think we're getting there.
I don't want this thread to die because I'm not capable of presenting a good riddle, so here are some heavy hints for the three parts of the riddle and the final solution.
Part 1:
Show Spoiler
What do you call a "royal son"? That's half of the first card's name.
Part 2:
Show Spoiler
I hope everyone has figured out by now that "banned" references to the Hall of Fame. Which HoF card is oftentimes called *another card* on astick? That's number 2.
Part 3:
Show Spoiler
Probably the hardest one with only a loose connection to the final solution. The "trap" indicates what card type it is. Which one would you test with a scout? Now you've got number 3.
Final solution:
Show Spoiler
Those three cards are linked by their effect, but they all do it in a somewhat roundabout way. There's one iconic HS card that shares this trait in a more direct style. This is the solution.
Honestly, I'm pretty happy with what we have right now. One page displaying class level and total wins serves me fine.
If anything, I'd love to see Griffior's idea of Full Art cards implemented, which is somewhat related to player's profiles (quick example: deal lethal with Leeroy Jenkins 1.000 times to unlock his full art which will be used in game (only) for you). Griffior is the most creative guy I know in this area and this my favorite idea of his :)
One issue with all of this kind of stuff is avoiding to disappoint the longterm players. They either have to implement stuff based on data they're collecting anyway (which we don't know about, but certainly limits the possibilities) or focus on recent stuff like they did with achievements. Quite a challenge I think.
I wouldn't call it intimidation, but I do acknowledge 1.000 win portraits in some kind of "okay, you're dealing with an expert here, be careful" kind of way. They are usually very skilled with their class and less likely to make mistakes so my own error margin also shrinks. That's probably BS with the amount of RNG involved, but you can't deny that scoring 1.000 wins with a class comes with a lot of experience.
What DestroyerR says.
I've sent them a DM and asked to provide a riddle within the next 24 hours. After that, I suggest the next one's up for grab.
I rarely post here, but the Tiller decks really get to my nerves. It's not so much the combo itself but the fact that your turn is skipped if you manage to survive it. Can't stand this bullshit and the nerve of some people who have to BM on top of that.
Would it be possible to add mentions to the site? I'd like people to get notified when I write out their username, like when I post a deck of theirs or when I'm referring to several people's suggestions and don't want to quote them all.
Short update:
The Ender's Shadow series by Orson Scott Card was a great read, thank you for your suggestion, linkblade! For everyone interested, linkblade's summary of "political sci-fi thrillers" fits like a glove.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Paolini is one monster of a book. I'm grateful they didn't decide to split it up in several volumes, even though the 900+ pages were hard to handle sometimes. I've very much enjoyed the book, it's of similar quality as Eragon was back in the day but with a Sci-Fi setting. There's at least one direct crossover gem included and several patterns Paolini revisits in a different style.
I'm currently about 200 pages deep into the First Law trilogy by Abercrombie which I like very much. Thanks for the recommendation, Alfi!
The newest additons to my wishlist are The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, a classic by Robert A. Heinlein and The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins which sounds a bit crazy.
Any news from your side? What was your last book? Did you like it? Is there anything coming up you're looking forward to?
With the arrival of Darkmoon Races, we might have gotten the final pieces to revive the old Freeze Mage archetype!
Erodos' Imprisoned Phoenix OTK deck was the first list I've come across. The goal of this deck is to stall and draw until you've got your combo pieces together, a task Mage is really good at. The major difference between this deck and older lists is that you can't play around the Imprisoned Phoenixs. A really cool side effect is that you're able to mill unsuspecting opponents. In my own experience, you usually have to go to turn 10 to pull off the combo. It's certainly possible to do it earlier if you gamble to draw missing combo pieces during the 2 turns the Phoenixes need to prepare.
Bonus tip: Don't play Doomsayer the turn before your Imprisoned Phoenixes wake up :D
RavenSunHS uses a more flexible combo, built around Mozaki, Master Duelist. This deck also makes good use of two new cards from Darkmoon Races: Imprisoned Phoenix again and Conjure Mana Biscuit. This list looks to finish earlier, but I haven't tried it yet.
All in all, I have high hopes for a return of the Freeze Mage archetype. Both of them don't look like Tier 1 decks to me, but Tier 2 or 3 seems possible (Secret Mage is a bad matchup and Odd Warrior is insta-concede). Have you tried those decks yet? Do you think they will end up being permanently viable? And if so, is that a good thing?
The Fireball suggestion would probably also be relevant for Raza Priest games.
Yeah, that one is hilarious. Only had one game, but that was a 20 minutes monster of a match against a Control Priest that went deep into fatigue. I've played 14 Primes although my opponent Plague of Deathed at least 3 Rustwixes. Wasn't even bad to lose lol.
Thanks for sharing that Freeze Mage list, it really is super cool!
This is such a cool deck, thanks a lot for sharing! I just went from Diamond 8 to 5 with this with only one loss where I lost my nerves and played a single Imprisoned Phoenix because I thought I was running out of time (turned out I wasn't). If it wasn't for the technical issue that leads to skipping your turn, this would easily beat the Tiller decks. I think this might actually end up T2 or so. Secret Mage is tough but then that deck has almost no weaknesses.
The one change I am considering is swapping one copy of Novice Engineer or Sorcerer's Apprentice out for a Fireball. Games against Warlocks tend to lead to them having 30 Health and 5 Armor from Bloodreaver and then the reach of the combo is not enough.
Finally made it to 50 yesterday and took a long look at the portraits. Long story short, I took Paladin because I intend to play lots of Pure Paladin for the rest of the season and the portrait features Uther's book quite prominently which makes for nice flavor with the librams. I know that's a stupid reason to pick the portrait but I couldn't come up with a better one.
So, so happy to make faster progress with the rewards now. I'll consider buying the pass next season.
That's 100% correct.
1 - A royal son is a Prince, the only Hearthstone Prince card "with his head in the sky" is Cloud Prince.
2 - Leeroy Jenkins is known to be a Fireball on a stick and got HoFed = banned from standard.
3 - Explosive Runes should be tested with a high Health minion if you don't want to get caught with a snap.
All of them deal 6 damage. This effect has its most iconic iteration in Fireball. "The King of the Sun" was meant to point at it being the most famous burn card.
Thanks JFK, I'm happy you were able to solve it after all. Don't worry, I won't do something like this again.
Alright, I'm sorry. If this isn't solved or very close to solved by 8 pm CET (which is in about 11 hours from now), I'll give you the solution and the next riddle is up for grabs.
1 - Correct, but your looking for a card. Which of the HS Prince cards might have "his head in the sky"?
2 - It's HS phrasing... It describes an effect that is attached to a minion, like Coldlight Oracle would be Arcane Intellect on a stick (if it would draw only for you). I can't give you more details without giving away the solution, sorry.
3 - Good guess, but it's not a Hunter secret. There's another, very similar card.
Final guess is also incorrect, but I think we're getting there.
I don't want this thread to die because I'm not capable of presenting a good riddle, so here are some heavy hints for the three parts of the riddle and the final solution.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Final solution:
Honestly, I'm pretty happy with what we have right now. One page displaying class level and total wins serves me fine.
If anything, I'd love to see Griffior's idea of Full Art cards implemented, which is somewhat related to player's profiles (quick example: deal lethal with Leeroy Jenkins 1.000 times to unlock his full art which will be used in game (only) for you). Griffior is the most creative guy I know in this area and this my favorite idea of his :)
One issue with all of this kind of stuff is avoiding to disappoint the longterm players. They either have to implement stuff based on data they're collecting anyway (which we don't know about, but certainly limits the possibilities) or focus on recent stuff like they did with achievements. Quite a challenge I think.
I haven't played DH in a while, but that Felsteel list looks cool. Will try it out tonight. Thanks for the article!
Feels like Hunter got the worst package by far. :/
Woah, those Rogue cards look strong!