Cool article! I love that the hammer looks a little alive as well. The hammer heads have eyeslits and in the middle of it, there's a piece that might be a mouth. So the hammer is present in the shape of the Murloc's head and the Murloc is present in the design of the hammer. So cool! 

The coloring is very impressive, too. Using orange as the complimentary color to the green of the forest is genius!

(side note: I get that this isn't the focus of the article, but that custom card really needs a Murloc tribe)

Quote From Swizard

Is it possible your hunter list is somehow better against them than the standard one or you are playing it better than most people?  Based on vicious syndicate stats secret mage is highly favored but maybe most people misplay in that matchup.  Any specific suggestions for how to play deathrattle hunter in that matchup or any cards you use different than their list?

I'm not really sure what the standard list is, to be honest. While VS has Deathrattle Hunter in their Tier list, they only provide a Secret Hunter decklist at the class section. So let's start with what I'm currently using:

Please note that I don't run Petting Zoo which ruins your Zul'jin turn. If you can provide me with another list I can try to explain any differences between them.

How to play against Secret Mage:

- We are the control deck in this matchup. No exceptions.

- The key to win this is that Secret Mage usually can't kill you with Fireballs and Cloud Princes alone. They need to go face. And we're good at preventing that once we've survived the early game.

- We should avoid procing Duplicate on their Kirin Tor Mage, Kabal Crystal Runner or Cloud Prince at any cost. Same goes for Occult Conjurer, this card is a real problem for us. Just kill smaller stuff first.

- Mulligan for Candleshot, secrets, Quick Shot, Grievous Bite. If you have two solid options, you can keep a value card like Master's Call, Barnes or Flark's Boom-Zooka. You can keep Rinling's Rifle as well, but be careful what you hit it with. If in doubt, go face and try to find an Explosive Trap, a Freezing Trap, a Misdirection or a Pressure Plate.

- Check for Counterspell before playing Nine Lives, Flark's Boom-Zooka or Jewel of N'Zoth. You can do this the turn before you want to play one of those cards. The best way to do this is by playing Carrion Studies, but I'd rather waste a Play Dead, a secret or anything else before running into that massive tempo loss of a Counterspell stopping one of your swing cards.

- Keep track of their secrets in general. Don't slam a low Health Deathrattle minion from Carrion Studies on the board if you suspect there's an Explosive Runes in play. Try to hit face every turn to deny them their Rigged Faire Game. You get the idea.

- There's some general advice in the guide to the deck, but this should get you started in this specific matchup.

All that said, I can't tell if I'm playing it better than most people, but I do have both Hunter and Mage over 1.000 wins and knowing both decks very well certainly helps. If you truly want to understand a certain deck in order to beat it more consistently, it usually pays off to try it out yourself. Good luck!

Good luck to the finalists! No Dragon-Goat though :((

Coinflip with Deathrattle Hunter. If they don't draw like a god, they really have to work for their win. 

All hail to our new overlord, the Dragon-Goat! Hands down 5 stars from me. 

Well, sometimes the game helps you making up your mind. When I saw the news, I decided to make the most of the fact that mobile always gets patched later and played about 10 games of Miracle Rogue. I've won one of them. Bye, Edwin! The Knuckles will have to go, too. I don't enjoy the archetype very much and two free epics is very tempting with the mid-expansion cards around the corner.

Quote From BloodMefist

Sorry I'm coming in late, its been a hectic week x_x

Rusted is a bit of a call back to my entry from the 10-mana spell contest with a slight adjustment.  I'll remember to make it a Mech if I end up submitting it.

Grave Giant is a tad spooky, but damn I want Zoo Priest to be a thing.

While I do like Rusted Fel Reaver very much, there is one major problem with the card. Discard Warlock really needs draw and being able to target Hand of Gul'dan with Expired Merchant and Nightshade Matron is very important. Your 'Discard Giant' would prevent that and I don't think it would see much play because of this.

More feedback. 

Quote From dapperdog

@anchorm4n

Sadly both are on the low power level side. Reminds me a lot of Frizz Kindleroost, which ultimately saw very little play. If you want to boost its power level then the card should present an effect that will persist regardless whether the minion lives or die.

Thanks dapperdog! It's very nice of you to provide us with feedback. Are you going to participate in the competition as well?

I've tried to improve Blazewing based on your feedback. It costs 7 to avoid curving out Blazewing on 6, double Mana Giant and Animated Avalanche on 7 and Grand Finale on 8. Might still be too strong, but then it's a 7 Mana do nothing card. Hm.

(Sidenote, just for the record: I forgot about Fire Plume Harbinger, so there is an Elemental cost reduction card already in the game. Doesn't matter, I like the Phoenix and will stick with it.)

I've made up my mind and will go with cost reduction for Elementals this week. They are one of only two tribes that haven't received such a card yet and since Darkmoon Faire has quite some Elemental synergy, I thought it would be fitting.

I'd appreciate some help with balancing the card. For starters I went with a discount of (2) since your average Elemental is more expensive than a Mech or a Murloc. The problem with that is that you could chain two copies of this to get a huge discount. That got me to the second iteration of the card which goes along with Scargil. Elementals are way stronger than Murlocs of course, so this might be OP. Thoughts?

I'm still struggling to come up with something original so here goes another revamp. I know this would get some serious hate but we're living in a world with Tickatus.

Alright, I'll use the day off tomorrow to think of something less bland. Thanks for your feedback!

Here are some of my thoughts:

Wailor

DavnanKillder

DestroyerR

Pokeniner

doingtheobvious

linkblade

Demon

Quote From Sykomyke

Quote From anchorm4n

. My problem is that Blizzard has not provided us with Hero Power borders for the 1.000 wins portraits and I do like to brag about my 1.000 wins with Mage and Hunter.

I can honestly say that I don't think I've seen such a petulant and entitled post on these forums until now.  

First off, your hero power border goes from plain to gold when you hit 500 wins.  In addition, your hero and hero power becomes an animated "gif" at 500 wins.  Then at 1000 wins you get an alternate hero portrait.  You don't need further benefits.  You don't need a "hero power border" for 1000 wins.   Your reward at 1000 wins is the alternate hero portrait.

Lastly, your wording echoes my first statement:  petulant and entitled.   "Blizzard has not provided us" instead of "It would have been nice if blizzard updated the hero power to reflect 1k wins".   How about you enjoy the game for what it is? And if Blizzard decides to make additional rewards, great.  If not, no skin off your nose.  If you constantly need validation and digital accolades from playing a game then nothing will ever make you happy.

Thanks for your feedback, I'll try and be more careful with my choice of words in the future, maybe look up some stuff before I post. I had thought "to provide" was a fairly neutral verb.

That said, I do think it's a weird or even flat out bad business model that you get a reward at 1.000 wins which is not compatible with stuff you have spent real money on (I'm talking about skins like Lazul or Sylvanas here, not the reward track skins). It almost looks like Blizzard cares about long time players (1.000 wins portraits) and about players that are okay with spending money on the game (purchasable skins), but not about those who fit both of these criteria. And the fact that this is a rather small issue can be an argument for implementing the feature as well: it shouldn't be that much of an effort for the devs. This problem occurs a second time when I have to choose between a 1.000 wins skin and a reward track skin, which makes it a criteria for my personal choice. Having a platin/diamond/whatever Hero Power would solve the issue and is my idea of constructive criticsm.

I won't answer your second paragraph because that's too personal for this discussion. If you're interested about what I enjoy in Hearthstone and where I draw confidence from in life, feel free to send me a PM. OP had asked which skin we have chosen or will choose and why and I've tried to answer both of those questions. That wasn't meant to be petulant and entitled, but then this is the internet. You don't see my face, you don't hear my voice, you don't know my background story. And even if you did, we could still agree to disagree. By the way: Which skin is your favorite and why?

I'm going to have to decide soon-ish, too and haven't really made up my mind either. My problem is that Blizzard has not provided us with Hero Power borders for the 1.000 wins portraits and I do like to brag about my 1.000 wins with Mage and Hunter. So those two are ruled out for me. Demon Hunter, Priest and Shaman just don't look good in my eyes. Warlock and Warrior are nice enough, but for those classes I prefer my N'Zoth and Deathwing skins. Which leaves me with Druid, Rogue and Paladin. I'll probably go with Paladin, because I like the default Druid skin and Blizzard will hopefully provide us with a male Rogue skin with one of the next expansions.

You can find the Hero skins here: click

Silence sounds good to me lol.

Wow, I've seen some really creative ideas already. My favorites are linkblade's Giant Prize and DestroyerR's Elegant Spellmaster so far. Will give proper feedback later today.

I'm afraid inspiration hasn't struck me yet, so my first idea was to give Studies spells to the two classes that didn't receive them in Scholomance. I'm not happy with the art yet, it's hard to find books with a background.

Congrats to BloodMefist! Nice card, much Priest flavor. 

Puns are always tricky if you're no native speaker, but I think I wasn't too far of with Duskbreaker. What about The Darkness then? 

Duskbreaker?

Priest is my favorite matchup right now