I had double rare cards as reward, but since I already had all the blue cards, it didn't matter, but it looked a bit odd, getting the same cards over and over again.
Same here - 3 of my 5 rares for Plat 10 were Pint-Sized Summoner which looked weird.
*Opponent* Draws perfect opening hand, plays optimum cards for first 5 turns, draws like a fucking god, gets perfect RnG.
*Me* Draws nothing below 6 mana for opening hand, can barely play anything for first 5 turns, draws like I shat in Mike Donais cereal, gets worst RnG possible.
Seriously WTF did I do to whom to deserve this crap on a daily fucking basis.
DID YOU, in fact, shit in Mike Donais' cereal? If so, it was probably that.
But I feel this - I have been at Platinum 6 for 3 days because each time I get one win away from hitting that rank floor on Plat 5 I have the exact game you describe. I'm SO CLOSE and I hate it.
Because ladder is inherently a grind, and it can be stressful at times.
Going for a cheese in Casual feels relaxing for many.
Afterall, what do you care if you're playing memes? You shouldn't care of winning in the first place. Just add some survival tools if you want to meme out before losing.
But part of the reason the ladder is such a grind is because everyone is playing those hyper-refined T1 decks - every match is a real fight. It's inherently contradictory and hypocritical to say "I don't want to have to play against these tough decks right now, so I'll just take my tough deck where it will probably do better & I have a lower chance of running into similarity strong decks" i.e. Casual
And on your second point: it's hard to meme when you're dead on turn 4. Even with "survival tools" you're not lasting more than a few turns against Ramp Druid with Stealth Rogue.
I agree with AngryShuckie - Take the gold rewards away from Casual. You want to "relax", "practice", "complete quests", etc? Well there's nothing more relaxing than a game with no stakes. And if you want to do those things but also get gold, you can get to any one of the now EIGHT rank floors and do your thing there with no consequence to losing.
Another interesting thing about Maiev, she doesn't work well with Charge. One time I played Leeroy Jenkins, punched my opponent for 6 damage, then put him asleep to guarantee another attack. But lo and behold two turns later Leeroy awoke and couldn't attack. I am not sure if it is suppose to work like this, but it shouldn't.
Show Spoiler
But conversely she does work with Charge - hence the Raging Worgen OTK I got hit with yesterday. For some reason the code interprets that spell as "wake up without any sleeping sickness" so it can hit face immediately regardless of the actual spell text.
I also tried to use her to keep a dormant minion asleep for another 2 turns to delay its wake-up, but alas that does not work.
Show Spoiler
I just built an OTK deck featuring Raging Worgen, Maiev Shadowsong, and Charge alongside some buffs and Bloodsworn Mercenary. I played the Worgen, gave it Charge, then put it to sleep. When he woke up he kept the buff and still had Charge, and he could go face. But the copies I summoned with the Mercenary couldn't go face. Weird.
Seems pretty normal actually. You played Worgen on a previous turn, gave it Charge, and put it to sleep.
Charge has two features.
-Give a friendly minion Charge.
-Minion can't attack face this turn. Keyword here is THIS TURN.
Worgen Goes to sleep.
Wakes up 2 turns later Still has charge. But it was played 2 turns ago so code says "good to go buddy, you go face all day!"
You play bloodsworn merc. Copies were just summoned this turn. Due to the way charge (the buff card) is coded, they can immediately attack, but they can't go face because the copies haven't waited a turn.
As an addendum: While I applaud ya'lls creativity. Gonna be completely frank for a second...
Why are you trying to abuse charge into OTKs? You do realize that blizzard is trying to kill charge (the mechanic, not the card)...right? It's a mechanic that has created way too many problems, the cards it's been associated with have either gotten nerfed into oblivion or been hall of famed. It's clear as daylight that rush is the replacement to charge, the younger balanced brother of charge.
If by some chance this Charge OTK stuff becomes even SLIGHTLY relevant, the only thing you're going to succeed in doing is either getting those associated cards either nerfed, HoF'd or outright reworked.
It reminds me of the saying "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus" (i.e. Blizzard)
Yeah I don't see it taking off in any real way given that it looses hard to other decks prevalent in the meta (Ramp Druid & Res Priest and their walls of big taunts) - I lost to it as I was playing Spell-Only Mage. It just didn't make much sense as a card interaction to me but your explanation is a little clearer.
However, I 100% believe they should just change that card to "give a minion Rush" and be done with it.
Another interesting thing about Maiev, she doesn't work well with Charge. One time I played Leeroy Jenkins, punched my opponent for 6 damage, then put him asleep to guarantee another attack. But lo and behold two turns later Leeroy awoke and couldn't attack. I am not sure if it is suppose to work like this, but it shouldn't.
But conversely she does work with Charge - hence the Raging Worgen OTK I got hit with yesterday. For some reason the code interprets that spell as "wake up without any sleeping sickness" so it can hit face immediately regardless of the actual spell text.
I also tried to use her to keep a dormant minion asleep for another 2 turns to delay its wake-up, but alas that does not work.
Welp today was one of the worst I've ever had - wanted to take a break from laddering by fooling around in Casual with some more fun decks I've not had much chance to use since launch: Spell-Only Mage, "Sneaky" Rogue (secrets + stealth), Big Spells Shaman, "Enrage" Warrior etc.
But alas I forgot the Golden Rule of Hearthstone: Casual on a weekend is reserved for tier-1 decks to gold farm. I seriously went 3-21. Of those, the one and only non-tier 1 deck I saw was one guy running that Raging Worgen OTK Warrior deck.
I'm so seriously tired of making the same complaint over and over: make Casual a place for fun and memery. PLEASE take the gold rewards away for any wins earned in Casual so that people will stop using it to farm (or "train" or play "without the stress of the ladder" or whatever self-justificatory bullshit they want to tell themselves). I just want to get a chance to use my garbage legendaries and try to treat this like a fun game and not a fucking grind.
That's fair - what they probably should have done was just rework Jaraxxus to be a hero card and thus it would lose the "demon minion" tags and not be targetable by SacPact. I get that hero cards didn't exist when it Jaraxxus was printed, but they do now so who knows why they chose to to it this way...
I feel like Blizz is so focused on the "mana cost increase" as the go-to nerf in 99% of cases when what's really needed is an actual re-work of a card. It just further exacerbates the problem (most pronounced in Wild) of stratifying everyone into either busted OTKs V.S. Super-Duper-Hyper-Aggro-Kill-Opponent-By-Turn-5-Or-Concede decks. And - to me at least - neither of those archetypes are fun to play or to play against...
On SacPact it's because it renders a Classic Legendary worthless for at least the next full year in Standard and literally forever in Wild i.e. "cheaper" to nerf that than to retool Lord Jaraxxus, which right now simply cannot be played given the number of decks that run Zephrys the Great - including a large number of NON-Highlander decks that just hold Zephrys/nu-Alex until the end of the game when their deck "becomes" highlander by draw.
I don't necessarily disagree with you on Albatross though - it's a strong neutral that gets played in a lot of decks. It's just Blizz's Consistently Inconsistent (TM) policy in regards to those cards: certain very strong/versatile neutrals that see play in a lot of decks like Zilliax & Tar Creeper run their whole 2 years with no nerfs; others get nerfed/HoF'ed. My general take is it seems to come back to their statements about "design space" i.e. BLIZZ knows what the next 2-3 expansions look like already so they're getting ahead of a problem they know (or assume) is coming down the pike.
Since they're looking at the below per Ayala, what does everyone think the nerfs will look like?
Skull of Gul'dan - My guess is rather than hit cost, they'll lower the discount on Outcast to 2. Though honestly even if they lowered it to 1 it would still be run in every single DH deck
Imprisoned Antaen - this one is tricky. Best option would be to lower the dmg when it wakes up to maybe 6 or 7. Alternatively they should cut the attack to 6 so that it's main value is the burst and not ALSO have a giant minion on the board. Again like the Skull, they could do both of those things and the card would still be very playable in virtually any deck.
Eye Beam - Either drop it to 2 dmg or lower (raise?) the Outcast discount to 1 mana
Leoroxx & Bulwark were the only ones on my "to craft" list but still pretty happy given the 16-pack average on Legendaries (plus Leoroxx was in pack 50 so getting another Legendary soon given the pity timer is only 10 packs away).
Killed Lorewalker Cho with a free Vendetta. Cho copies spell but opponent plays it for free? 0% chance that he meets the condition for it to be free though.
Never knew Cho copied discounts, how is this a thing wtf
Maybe I'm wrong with how it works, but I would assume since Vendetta is still a Rogue card, it's checking for non-Rogue cards, not "different from the class you're playing." I don't know that for sure but would be my guess to explain that interaction?
My experience on point 3) is the exact opposite. I'm a meme player who stubbornly refuses to use decks I know are strong, so used to keep myself at the low-mid ranks (15-10) to better my odds of encountering non-meta decks. Like you this was about variety rather than preying on the weak.
The issue now is that my MMR is actually quite solid, getting 8x multiplier in both Wild and Standard, so I have only encountered the folks who traditionally made their way to rank 5 with meta decks. The frustrating part is that I cannot manipulate it by staying at low ranks any more. Now the system tells me I'm a good player and forces me to play against people who care about climbing the ladder, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I appreciate the additional end of month rewards I get with very little effort because the 8x multiplier makes is easy to reach Platinum 5 with a 30% win rate, but I play HS for the fun of variety not the rewards. So sadly, the new system is even more likely to push me into casual than the old one.
That's interesting as I did the same in the old system (never climbed past rank 15) but also have a fairly high MMR (7x multiple for both standard and wild) - perhaps a difference in local meta?
I do think though you'll see a trend in the new system akin to the old: the first week or so the bronzes/silvers/lower golds will be the climbers jumping up, and by the end of week 2 most of the people bumming around the low ranks will be people like us: memers and the generally non-competitives with high MMRs. Everyone who puts in any effort at all will find themselves as you said in platinum/diamond/legend without much stress, so they'll "self-select" out of the pool for the majority of a given month.
I can say I'll be crafting Akama and Shadowjeweler Hanar if I don't pull them from packs - this "Sneaky" Rogue archetype with Stealth/Secrets looks like it will be super fun, even if not overly competitive. I'm on the fence about maybe also crafting Beastmaster Leoroxx and/or Zixor, Apex Predator - Midrange Beast Hunter worked very well for me in the current year. Not sure how good it will be without the guaranteed, solid healing from Vicious Scalehide + Dire Frenzy + Master's Call combo, so maybe those are "Day 30" crafts?
I can say I will NOT be crafting either Paladin legendary. I Day 1 crafted both Sir Finley of the Sands since I was so sure Highlander Paladin was going to be OP, and then did the same with Dragonrider Talritha because obviously Dragon Paladin was going to be unbeatable... :/ So despite my thinking Pure Paladin might be good this expansion, I'll leave it RNGesus if I get Lady Liadrin or not.
I am loving the new system - because 1) it's making the climb less of a grind, 2) the rewards are actually now rewarding enough to make the effort mean something, and 3) most importantly (to me) since it's "more forgiving" I'm seeing so many different, not hyper-refined-tier-1 decks throughout the climb.
The main reason I never played the ladder on the old system was I get so tired of facing the exact same 2 or 3 decks over and over and over, so Casual (GENERALLY) had greater variety and people willing to play fun or interesting decks. At least in the first week I'm not seeing that anymore, even as I get to the "more serious" leagues i.e. played a person yesterday on Gold 2 with a funky High Priestess Jeklik disco/buff deck featuring Deathwing. That's what I like to see and I am here for it.
In no way is Raza priest that oppressive. That deck shouldn't get any hate. Give the hate to the Quest Mage and Secret Mage players, thanks
This isn't a salt thread it is an "asking people who played against the deck before what worked" thread. And if you read my post I state 6 out of 7 matches were that one deck - to me that's oppressive but you may have a different opinion.
That's wild for you. Its horribly unbalanced, and therefore despite the many, many variety of decks that could exist in wild its all completely outclassed by the few tier 1 decks around.
If you're looking to have some fun, just stick around the lower tiers.
To counter raza priest, there's no many ways to tech against it since they can easily remove bombs and albatrosses from their decks with Wyrmrest Purifier. The best way is to simply aggro them hard before they can get their ball rolling. OTK and aggro decks tend to do very well against Raza priest.
Another novel strategy is to allow them to assemble their combo, then remove their hero power with Grizzled Wizard+Sir Finley. At that point, all they have is a bunch of useless cards, Mind Blast and Kazakus. Survive that and youre in.
Thanks for these suggestions - I hadn't thought of Grizzled Wizard!
But on the "just stick around lower tiers" that's not really possible anymore since the ladder is now based on MMR (unless I'm misunderstanding something)? As i said all of those matches were at Bronze 10 i.e. literally the lowest tier.
I started playing HS after the nerf to Raza so never had to deal with this deck in a big way before.
I played 7 games on the wild ladder today at Bronze 10 and 6 of those games were this deck and I lost every game. Granted I was playing non-tier 1 decks like Spell Hunter & Quest Burgle Rogue, but still every game played out the same and I got completely destroyed.
For those who played it prenerf what worked? My only thought was bring back Bomb Warrior and just shuffle bombs like mad but aside from that (which is obviously inconsistent based on draws) I’m kind of at a loss. Any help would be appreciated - as much as I love the new ladder system quite frankly this was the single least fun day I’ve ever had with this game so if this is what Wild looks like now then I’ll just dust my Wild cards and jump back to standard.
I'm kind of surprised we didn't see any new anti-secret tech to come out with all the new ones given that Chief Inspector is rotating. So at this point Hunters have Flare (a good card in many respects) & everyone else only has SI:7 Infiltrator (not very good at all since it only hits one secret). Unless I'm forgetting something it's going to be a rough thing to play around.
Same here - 3 of my 5 rares for Plat 10 were Pint-Sized Summoner which looked weird.
DID YOU, in fact, shit in Mike Donais' cereal? If so, it was probably that.
But I feel this - I have been at Platinum 6 for 3 days because each time I get one win away from hitting that rank floor on Plat 5 I have the exact game you describe. I'm SO CLOSE and I hate it.
But part of the reason the ladder is such a grind is because everyone is playing those hyper-refined T1 decks - every match is a real fight. It's inherently contradictory and hypocritical to say "I don't want to have to play against these tough decks right now, so I'll just take my tough deck where it will probably do better & I have a lower chance of running into similarity strong decks" i.e. Casual
And on your second point: it's hard to meme when you're dead on turn 4. Even with "survival tools" you're not lasting more than a few turns against Ramp Druid with Stealth Rogue.
I agree with AngryShuckie - Take the gold rewards away from Casual. You want to "relax", "practice", "complete quests", etc? Well there's nothing more relaxing than a game with no stakes. And if you want to do those things but also get gold, you can get to any one of the now EIGHT rank floors and do your thing there with no consequence to losing.
Yeah I don't see it taking off in any real way given that it looses hard to other decks prevalent in the meta (Ramp Druid & Res Priest and their walls of big taunts) - I lost to it as I was playing Spell-Only Mage. It just didn't make much sense as a card interaction to me but your explanation is a little clearer.
However, I 100% believe they should just change that card to "give a minion Rush" and be done with it.
But conversely she does work with Charge - hence the Raging Worgen OTK I got hit with yesterday. For some reason the code interprets that spell as "wake up without any sleeping sickness" so it can hit face immediately regardless of the actual spell text.
I also tried to use her to keep a dormant minion asleep for another 2 turns to delay its wake-up, but alas that does not work.
Welp today was one of the worst I've ever had - wanted to take a break from laddering by fooling around in Casual with some more fun decks I've not had much chance to use since launch: Spell-Only Mage, "Sneaky" Rogue (secrets + stealth), Big Spells Shaman, "Enrage" Warrior etc.
But alas I forgot the Golden Rule of Hearthstone: Casual on a weekend is reserved for tier-1 decks to gold farm. I seriously went 3-21. Of those, the one and only non-tier 1 deck I saw was one guy running that Raging Worgen OTK Warrior deck.
I'm so seriously tired of making the same complaint over and over: make Casual a place for fun and memery. PLEASE take the gold rewards away for any wins earned in Casual so that people will stop using it to farm (or "train" or play "without the stress of the ladder" or whatever self-justificatory bullshit they want to tell themselves). I just want to get a chance to use my garbage legendaries and try to treat this like a fun game and not a fucking grind.
That's fair - what they probably should have done was just rework Jaraxxus to be a hero card and thus it would lose the "demon minion" tags and not be targetable by SacPact. I get that hero cards didn't exist when it Jaraxxus was printed, but they do now so who knows why they chose to to it this way...
Totally agreed.
I feel like Blizz is so focused on the "mana cost increase" as the go-to nerf in 99% of cases when what's really needed is an actual re-work of a card. It just further exacerbates the problem (most pronounced in Wild) of stratifying everyone into either busted OTKs V.S. Super-Duper-Hyper-Aggro-Kill-Opponent-By-Turn-5-Or-Concede decks. And - to me at least - neither of those archetypes are fun to play or to play against...
On SacPact it's because it renders a Classic Legendary worthless for at least the next full year in Standard and literally forever in Wild i.e. "cheaper" to nerf that than to retool Lord Jaraxxus, which right now simply cannot be played given the number of decks that run Zephrys the Great - including a large number of NON-Highlander decks that just hold Zephrys/nu-Alex until the end of the game when their deck "becomes" highlander by draw.
I don't necessarily disagree with you on Albatross though - it's a strong neutral that gets played in a lot of decks. It's just Blizz's Consistently Inconsistent (TM) policy in regards to those cards: certain very strong/versatile neutrals that see play in a lot of decks like Zilliax & Tar Creeper run their whole 2 years with no nerfs; others get nerfed/HoF'ed. My general take is it seems to come back to their statements about "design space" i.e. BLIZZ knows what the next 2-3 expansions look like already so they're getting ahead of a problem they know (or assume) is coming down the pike.
Praise Yogg!
Since they're looking at the below per Ayala, what does everyone think the nerfs will look like?
Skull of Gul'dan - My guess is rather than hit cost, they'll lower the discount on Outcast to 2. Though honestly even if they lowered it to 1 it would still be run in every single DH deck
Imprisoned Antaen - this one is tricky. Best option would be to lower the dmg when it wakes up to maybe 6 or 7. Alternatively they should cut the attack to 6 so that it's main value is the burst and not ALSO have a giant minion on the board. Again like the Skull, they could do both of those things and the card would still be very playable in virtually any deck.
Eye Beam - Either drop it to 2 dmg or lower (raise?) the Outcast discount to 1 mana
Aldrachi Warblades - will probably cut the durability to 2
I'm pleased with the haul - opened 80 packs and got 5 Legendaries + 17 Epics
Bulwark of Azzinoth - preorder
Kanrethad Ebonlocke
Astromancer Solarian
Ysiel Windsinger
Reliquary of Souls
Beastmaster Leoroxx
Leoroxx & Bulwark were the only ones on my "to craft" list but still pretty happy given the 16-pack average on Legendaries (plus Leoroxx was in pack 50 so getting another Legendary soon given the pity timer is only 10 packs away).
Maybe I'm wrong with how it works, but I would assume since Vendetta is still a Rogue card, it's checking for non-Rogue cards, not "different from the class you're playing." I don't know that for sure but would be my guess to explain that interaction?
That's interesting as I did the same in the old system (never climbed past rank 15) but also have a fairly high MMR (7x multiple for both standard and wild) - perhaps a difference in local meta?
I do think though you'll see a trend in the new system akin to the old: the first week or so the bronzes/silvers/lower golds will be the climbers jumping up, and by the end of week 2 most of the people bumming around the low ranks will be people like us: memers and the generally non-competitives with high MMRs. Everyone who puts in any effort at all will find themselves as you said in platinum/diamond/legend without much stress, so they'll "self-select" out of the pool for the majority of a given month.
I can say I'll be crafting Akama and Shadowjeweler Hanar if I don't pull them from packs - this "Sneaky" Rogue archetype with Stealth/Secrets looks like it will be super fun, even if not overly competitive. I'm on the fence about maybe also crafting Beastmaster Leoroxx and/or Zixor, Apex Predator - Midrange Beast Hunter worked very well for me in the current year. Not sure how good it will be without the guaranteed, solid healing from Vicious Scalehide + Dire Frenzy + Master's Call combo, so maybe those are "Day 30" crafts?
I can say I will NOT be crafting either Paladin legendary. I Day 1 crafted both Sir Finley of the Sands since I was so sure Highlander Paladin was going to be OP, and then did the same with Dragonrider Talritha because obviously Dragon Paladin was going to be unbeatable... :/ So despite my thinking Pure Paladin might be good this expansion, I'll leave it RNGesus if I get Lady Liadrin or not.
I am loving the new system - because 1) it's making the climb less of a grind, 2) the rewards are actually now rewarding enough to make the effort mean something, and 3) most importantly (to me) since it's "more forgiving" I'm seeing so many different, not hyper-refined-tier-1 decks throughout the climb.
The main reason I never played the ladder on the old system was I get so tired of facing the exact same 2 or 3 decks over and over and over, so Casual (GENERALLY) had greater variety and people willing to play fun or interesting decks. At least in the first week I'm not seeing that anymore, even as I get to the "more serious" leagues i.e. played a person yesterday on Gold 2 with a funky High Priestess Jeklik disco/buff deck featuring Deathwing. That's what I like to see and I am here for it.
This isn't a salt thread it is an "asking people who played against the deck before what worked" thread. And if you read my post I state 6 out of 7 matches were that one deck - to me that's oppressive but you may have a different opinion.
Yeah I can see hyper aggro being effective, which is a shame as I personally don't like that playstyle but if it gets really bad I might give it whirl
Thanks for these suggestions - I hadn't thought of Grizzled Wizard!
But on the "just stick around lower tiers" that's not really possible anymore since the ladder is now based on MMR (unless I'm misunderstanding something)? As i said all of those matches were at Bronze 10 i.e. literally the lowest tier.
I started playing HS after the nerf to Raza so never had to deal with this deck in a big way before.
I played 7 games on the wild ladder today at Bronze 10 and 6 of those games were this deck and I lost every game. Granted I was playing non-tier 1 decks like Spell Hunter & Quest Burgle Rogue, but still every game played out the same and I got completely destroyed.
For those who played it prenerf what worked? My only thought was bring back Bomb Warrior and just shuffle bombs like mad but aside from that (which is obviously inconsistent based on draws) I’m kind of at a loss. Any help would be appreciated - as much as I love the new ladder system quite frankly this was the single least fun day I’ve ever had with this game so if this is what Wild looks like now then I’ll just dust my Wild cards and jump back to standard.
I'm kind of surprised we didn't see any new anti-secret tech to come out with all the new ones given that Chief Inspector is rotating. So at this point Hunters have Flare (a good card in many respects) & everyone else only has SI:7 Infiltrator (not very good at all since it only hits one secret). Unless I'm forgetting something it's going to be a rough thing to play around.