I dont really see it as an issue, there's simply very few greedy classes around that you'll mulligan incorrectly. And since rogue is one of the popular classes, good players will likely take that into account when doing their hand mulligans.
The reason maestra is in the deck at all is to buff Wildpaw Gnoll, nothing else. Its very rare you'll catch your opponent off guard.
Its kinda scary every time they add more mercs, because its getting progressively harder and harder to keep up as a ftp. I haven't even gotten valeera yet, and since there is a finite amount of strangers you can grind, its possible to make it unrealistic to get these new mercs via crafting as time passes.
Let's hope that the new features make mercs more accessible and give me better reasons to actually want to play the game. Its been a while since I last even cared to do more than the dailies for mercs.
good video here by Jack (top 1 wild Legend finisher during Snip-Sn4p times)
Apparently the top 1 Legend on all 3 servers is an ignite mage cheater. Complete disregard for any competitive integrity in wild.
The bigger issue here is the fact that this deck even exist in the first place. There shouldn't be decks that can play out their entire deck in one turn, timer restrictions or not. In nearly every scenario where such a deck exists, it causes rages, talks about animations, timers, skipped turns, etc. Is team5 just looking at the win rates/play rates and washing their hands off this mess?
I dont condone uses of software to gain an advantage over others, but in this case its clear that team5 is having difficulties monitoring the game to remove these guys, so why not save themselves and trouble and change their design philosophy of how those cards work. Like, is there any reason why ignite doesn't just shuffle itself at the end of the turn instead? Would've made quest mage (prenerfed) more bearable; might even make the nerf to the reward unnecessary.
Bottom line for me is that team5 really should avoid designing decks that tests APM skill because every time one such deck appears the whole argument about animation starts raging and people start noticing that the nicely made, very intricate animations which makes the game a joy to watch is actually a hindrance rather than something to be celebrated.
I'd argue the animations are just part of the game's rules, and them being a hindrance doesn't make them problematic. Most game rules can be considered a hindrance, be it summoning sickness, only attacking once per turn, having finite mana etc. in the same way the animations are attributes of the cards, not ones that are stated explicitly on the cards, but valid attributes within the game nonetheless, and relevant in a game which imposes a finite turn timer.
APM is consequently a relevant property of the game, even if you remove animations because of the turn timer and the fact humans take time to perform actions. That doesn't make HS better or worse for having it, just different. Bypassing that is essentially playing a different game, and hence cheating, no matter how one feels about hypothetically having an infinite loop.
Its hard to call this a cheating, because it has much to do with hardware and the fact that the most common 'cheat' is not something that requires a third party software or any coding experience at all. Also, the game clearly allows you to queue more actions than the timer theoretically allows (hence skipping your opponent's turn) so its not even to do with the game timers, its just players exploiting how the game is built, which consequently makes it hellish for their opponents at times.
If team5 wouldn't or couldn't address it because its too deep in the code, then do the next best thing: design your game to do without it. Its not like there's going to be a riot because we're not going to see anymore mozaki mages or test subject bs. I think the game is better off without it.
The end of turn effect can be increased with spell damage and mad summoner allows for the maximum amount of damage done. In fact you can easily do it in 2 games assuming your opponent doesn't pressure your face.
If anyone intends to get those extra xp, they'd better start now. I've tried completing nearly all the neutral achievements in one deck, and its awkward as hell trying to both survive and get these done. Sometimes I swear my opponent thinks Im either crazy or too much a newbie in this game. In that respect, I appreciate that someone's posting a list here to help out.
And paladin achievement bug? Let's hope its fixed before the midset, because there's no guarantee that paladin remains on top. Because if Rustrot Viper is meta again, then this achievement is close to impossible to finish without tearing your head off.
Frantic Hippogryph and Gankster achievement are among the worst ones Ive seen so far. Its not easy to find someone who'd willingly let their minions trade right into a gankster, let alone a value trade. Most of the time they'd either just kill it with AoE or they play a 5 health minion and make me tear part of my scalp out.
Hippogryph is particularly stupid, because it requires you to practically play this card 40 times, since triggering the windfury is hard enough, and no player on earth will let this stick for more than a turn.
The harsh reality is that the animations can really sometimes limit how much can be done in a turn. Hence why top players tend to find workarounds to extend their natural turn timer. The most common method is to simply play as many cards as possible while the animation is playing, restart the game, and skip the animations altogether. But there's one famous chinese player who managed to use some kind of third party software to speed up the animation, since its all actually played out on our side, not server side.
(Using such software is likely illegal, but its kinda a grey area to me because we've been asking for animation skips for ages and I dont necessarily fault anyone for trying to find loopholes past these dreadfully slow animations)
Bottom line for me is that team5 really should avoid designing decks that tests APM skill because every time one such deck appears the whole argument about animation starts raging and people start noticing that the nicely made, very intricate animations which makes the game a joy to watch is actually a hindrance rather than something to be celebrated.
Spiked carapace is indeed very good. Overall, Anubarak is now a decent merc in pve, but in pvp its likely to be on the lower tiers. But that's unavoidable, because of how the game is designed.
Infest works fine. Ironically having low speed is a blessing because then this will nearly always be the last to attack. So Anubarak can either be offensive or defensive depending on treasures.
Roadhog - I believe chain hook should swap something in the field at random with the bench. Otherwise, if you dont kill straight, your opponent now has 4 heroes instead of 3 out.
Reaper - Solid Fighter. Death blossom very weak though. 5 damage AoE is about as weak as it can get.
Genji - Dragonblade will straight out have him killed whenever its played, unless by chance you get immunity up on the first strike. Shuriken throw simply does it better in nearly any scenario. Perhaps he should have immunity by default.
Brigitte - Comparable to Cornelius Roame. Except I kinda think cornelius is better in some respects, because at least it gives out a taunt, and flail strike being an attack means she's taking damage to heal her teammates. Not good, since her role is largely support.
I'll probably update stats of levels 15 and 30 tomorrow and rework Impale a little.
About Locust Swarm, I probably made it worse than it should've been because I feared AoE + healing was too much. Maybe 2-5-8-9-10 (like Samuro's AoE) would be more balanced?
Locust swarm is fine. The healing naturally weakens as there's less board, so there's no insurmountable advantage. Even in pve, its fairly similar to holy nova, and since Anubarak doesn't have taunt he can't just sit and spam against bosses too.
Should have presented it at level 30, so we'd know what its full stats are like maxed out.
But its moveset is pretty standard, except for the infest, which if done right is absolutely game breaking in pve, but probably impossible in pvp without a lot of support. The other abilities are simply weaker compared to other mercs. Impale especially, because its practically grom's shattering slam except much worse.
Looking at how broken bleed is, crypt lord claws is good, but it all depends on the maxed out attack value.
Often enough too many draw options leads to full hands and I cant dump anything. So Ive basically removed some of the many draw options and included some survival tools. Finish all three tiers in 4 games.
Aim for turn 9, 2x To the Front!, 2x Mo'arg Artificer, 1x Guild Trader, 1x Mad Summoner for a massive 168 proct in one go. If you're lucky you can even add one more guild trader and basically destroy 2/3 of the requirements in one sitting.
Best part is mo'arg is currently on full dust refund for the next few days. So get it done before its gone.
The one case for getting a 10 golden pack bundle would be if you had no cards from that expansion. The first legendary pity timer for any expansion is 10 packs (rather than 40), so you'd be guaranteed a golden legendary with a 10 pack bundle. That might be relevant since you could dust it to craft any legendary you want, but after you've picked up your first legendary from an expansion the 45 packs is way more value.
Is that for real? Because I heard that golden packs don't follow the same rules for normals
If youre looking for value, 45 packs is always better than golden packs because there's an average chance to get at least 2 legendaries out of it (20 packs per legendary on average). 10 golden packs doesn't even come close. In terms of dust, assuming no epics or legendaries, they're about 100 dust apart, so there's no reason to buy golden packs for better dust.
But if youre rich or want to experience what's it like to suffer from buyer's remorse, then 10 goldens is definitely, positively, the best choice.
Pretty sure you're looking at the promo right now, so those golden packs promo will get you 1 golden legendary. If you have a target and don't want to chance it, then getting those golden legendaries does guarantee you the dust to craft it. But I still would rather go for 45 packs than 10 goldens.
Just use the salt threads to vent if that's the goal. Use discussion forums to have discussions. If you pour salt all over the forums then don't be too surprised to see everyone tell you off for it. Its not about others taking offense from your personal expressions, its about using the proper channel to do it.
If you want to spark a discussion about netdecking, and how you dont think that's healthy for the game, then say so, leave the excessive sarcasm and apparently funny insults in reddit where it belongs. This is hardly the first time: if you feel the community is not getting your valid points because its coated with shit, then leave the shit behind and bring up the points.
In any case, the only true simple deck you've listed is pirate quest warrior, where turns practically plays itself. The very definition of curvestone in 2021. But netdecking doesn't make anyone a legend player, it merely simplifies the deck building process. With that comes its own risks, because really good players would then know what to play around and ups their chances. That's why pirate warrior winrates decreases as the rank goes higher and higher.
Probably not going to be addressed until at least a few weeks after Dec 2021. Its that time of the year after all, just try losing your internet line during a major holiday and face a week without it because everyone's taken a hike.
Perhaps this is the time we finally have a little talk about putting xp rewards for achievements and how unrealistic it is for the majority of the players to achieve it without going all out of their way to do so. And then for some reason they'd set it so it will only grant xp on the expansion itself, so you cant just let it be and complete it naturally as the game ages, forcing you to purposefully create decks out of cards no one in their right mind would insert into a competitive deck, just for the sake of the xp gain. To be honest, if there's an angry mob outside their offices demanding swift bug fixes to achievements, they have no one to blame but themselves.
I dont really see it as an issue, there's simply very few greedy classes around that you'll mulligan incorrectly. And since rogue is one of the popular classes, good players will likely take that into account when doing their hand mulligans.
The reason maestra is in the deck at all is to buff Wildpaw Gnoll, nothing else. Its very rare you'll catch your opponent off guard.
If you picked horde and horde wins, then you'll only get your vanndar after you've completed the honors track, or you get it off packs.
But if you picked horde and alliance wins, you get your vanndar when team5 announces the winner.
Its kinda scary every time they add more mercs, because its getting progressively harder and harder to keep up as a ftp. I haven't even gotten valeera yet, and since there is a finite amount of strangers you can grind, its possible to make it unrealistic to get these new mercs via crafting as time passes.
Let's hope that the new features make mercs more accessible and give me better reasons to actually want to play the game. Its been a while since I last even cared to do more than the dailies for mercs.
The bigger issue here is the fact that this deck even exist in the first place. There shouldn't be decks that can play out their entire deck in one turn, timer restrictions or not. In nearly every scenario where such a deck exists, it causes rages, talks about animations, timers, skipped turns, etc. Is team5 just looking at the win rates/play rates and washing their hands off this mess?
I dont condone uses of software to gain an advantage over others, but in this case its clear that team5 is having difficulties monitoring the game to remove these guys, so why not save themselves and trouble and change their design philosophy of how those cards work. Like, is there any reason why ignite doesn't just shuffle itself at the end of the turn instead? Would've made quest mage (prenerfed) more bearable; might even make the nerf to the reward unnecessary.
Its hard to call this a cheating, because it has much to do with hardware and the fact that the most common 'cheat' is not something that requires a third party software or any coding experience at all. Also, the game clearly allows you to queue more actions than the timer theoretically allows (hence skipping your opponent's turn) so its not even to do with the game timers, its just players exploiting how the game is built, which consequently makes it hellish for their opponents at times.
If team5 wouldn't or couldn't address it because its too deep in the code, then do the next best thing: design your game to do without it. Its not like there's going to be a riot because we're not going to see anymore mozaki mages or test subject bs. I think the game is better off without it.
For the warrior achievement, finished it in 4 games with this list.
# 2x (1) Shield Slam
# 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
# 2x (2) Iceblood Garrison
# 2x (2) Man the Cannons
# 1x (2) Minefield
# 2x (2) Novice Engineer
# 2x (2) To the Front!
# 2x (2) Warpath
# 2x (3) Acolyte of Pain
# 2x (3) Coldlight Oracle
# 2x (3) Heavy Plate
# 2x (3) Mo'arg Artificer
# 2x (3) Shield Block
# 2x (4) Guild Trader
# 2x (4) Outrider's Axe
# 2x (6) Mad Summoner
The end of turn effect can be increased with spell damage and mad summoner allows for the maximum amount of damage done. In fact you can easily do it in 2 games assuming your opponent doesn't pressure your face.
Its certainly nowhere near as dumb as hippogryph.
If anyone intends to get those extra xp, they'd better start now. I've tried completing nearly all the neutral achievements in one deck, and its awkward as hell trying to both survive and get these done. Sometimes I swear my opponent thinks Im either crazy or too much a newbie in this game. In that respect, I appreciate that someone's posting a list here to help out.
And paladin achievement bug? Let's hope its fixed before the midset, because there's no guarantee that paladin remains on top. Because if Rustrot Viper is meta again, then this achievement is close to impossible to finish without tearing your head off.
For Frostwolf Warmaster, play in wild as rogue with Vanish and potion of Illusions. You can rapidly fork out warmasters so fast its not even funny. Same for Stormpike Marshal
Frantic Hippogryph and Gankster achievement are among the worst ones Ive seen so far. Its not easy to find someone who'd willingly let their minions trade right into a gankster, let alone a value trade. Most of the time they'd either just kill it with AoE or they play a 5 health minion and make me tear part of my scalp out.
Hippogryph is particularly stupid, because it requires you to practically play this card 40 times, since triggering the windfury is hard enough, and no player on earth will let this stick for more than a turn.
The harsh reality is that the animations can really sometimes limit how much can be done in a turn. Hence why top players tend to find workarounds to extend their natural turn timer. The most common method is to simply play as many cards as possible while the animation is playing, restart the game, and skip the animations altogether. But there's one famous chinese player who managed to use some kind of third party software to speed up the animation, since its all actually played out on our side, not server side.
(Using such software is likely illegal, but its kinda a grey area to me because we've been asking for animation skips for ages and I dont necessarily fault anyone for trying to find loopholes past these dreadfully slow animations)
Bottom line for me is that team5 really should avoid designing decks that tests APM skill because every time one such deck appears the whole argument about animation starts raging and people start noticing that the nicely made, very intricate animations which makes the game a joy to watch is actually a hindrance rather than something to be celebrated.
That's one big box for a mug. Guess it is a care package after all.
Spiked carapace is indeed very good. Overall, Anubarak is now a decent merc in pve, but in pvp its likely to be on the lower tiers. But that's unavoidable, because of how the game is designed.
Infest works fine. Ironically having low speed is a blessing because then this will nearly always be the last to attack. So Anubarak can either be offensive or defensive depending on treasures.
Roadhog - I believe chain hook should swap something in the field at random with the bench. Otherwise, if you dont kill straight, your opponent now has 4 heroes instead of 3 out.
Reaper - Solid Fighter. Death blossom very weak though. 5 damage AoE is about as weak as it can get.
Genji - Dragonblade will straight out have him killed whenever its played, unless by chance you get immunity up on the first strike. Shuriken throw simply does it better in nearly any scenario. Perhaps he should have immunity by default.
Brigitte - Comparable to Cornelius Roame. Except I kinda think cornelius is better in some respects, because at least it gives out a taunt, and flail strike being an attack means she's taking damage to heal her teammates. Not good, since her role is largely support.
Locust swarm is fine. The healing naturally weakens as there's less board, so there's no insurmountable advantage. Even in pve, its fairly similar to holy nova, and since Anubarak doesn't have taunt he can't just sit and spam against bosses too.
Should have presented it at level 30, so we'd know what its full stats are like maxed out.
But its moveset is pretty standard, except for the infest, which if done right is absolutely game breaking in pve, but probably impossible in pvp without a lot of support. The other abilities are simply weaker compared to other mercs. Impale especially, because its practically grom's shattering slam except much worse.
Looking at how broken bleed is, crypt lord claws is good, but it all depends on the maxed out attack value.
Probably late Jan or early Feb. Its usually 2 months after the expansion releases.
Ive made some changes to your list for 'my lair, my terms'
# 2x (1) Shield Slam
# 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
# 2x (2) Iceblood Garrison
# 2x (2) Man the Cannons
# 1x (2) Minefield
# 2x (2) Novice Engineer
# 2x (2) To the Front!
# 2x (2) Warpath
# 2x (3) Acolyte of Pain
# 2x (3) Coldlight Oracle
# 2x (3) Heavy Plate
# 2x (3) Mo'arg Artificer
# 2x (3) Shield Block
# 2x (4) Guild Trader
# 2x (4) Outrider's Axe
# 2x (6) Mad Summoner
AAEBAQcCtt4Dl6AEDpwC+Af/B/sMm/MC1p0D6b4Dju0DxfkD+IAEm4EEiaAE/KIEjLYEAA==
Often enough too many draw options leads to full hands and I cant dump anything. So Ive basically removed some of the many draw options and included some survival tools. Finish all three tiers in 4 games.
Aim for turn 9, 2x To the Front!, 2x Mo'arg Artificer, 1x Guild Trader, 1x Mad Summoner for a massive 168 proct in one go. If you're lucky you can even add one more guild trader and basically destroy 2/3 of the requirements in one sitting.
Best part is mo'arg is currently on full dust refund for the next few days. So get it done before its gone.
Is that for real? Because I heard that golden packs don't follow the same rules for normals
If youre looking for value, 45 packs is always better than golden packs because there's an average chance to get at least 2 legendaries out of it (20 packs per legendary on average). 10 golden packs doesn't even come close. In terms of dust, assuming no epics or legendaries, they're about 100 dust apart, so there's no reason to buy golden packs for better dust.
But if youre rich or want to experience what's it like to suffer from buyer's remorse, then 10 goldens is definitely, positively, the best choice.
Pretty sure you're looking at the promo right now, so those golden packs promo will get you 1 golden legendary. If you have a target and don't want to chance it, then getting those golden legendaries does guarantee you the dust to craft it. But I still would rather go for 45 packs than 10 goldens.
Just use the salt threads to vent if that's the goal. Use discussion forums to have discussions. If you pour salt all over the forums then don't be too surprised to see everyone tell you off for it. Its not about others taking offense from your personal expressions, its about using the proper channel to do it.
If you want to spark a discussion about netdecking, and how you dont think that's healthy for the game, then say so, leave the excessive sarcasm and apparently funny insults in reddit where it belongs. This is hardly the first time: if you feel the community is not getting your valid points because its coated with shit, then leave the shit behind and bring up the points.
In any case, the only true simple deck you've listed is pirate quest warrior, where turns practically plays itself. The very definition of curvestone in 2021. But netdecking doesn't make anyone a legend player, it merely simplifies the deck building process. With that comes its own risks, because really good players would then know what to play around and ups their chances. That's why pirate warrior winrates decreases as the rank goes higher and higher.
Probably not going to be addressed until at least a few weeks after Dec 2021. Its that time of the year after all, just try losing your internet line during a major holiday and face a week without it because everyone's taken a hike.
Perhaps this is the time we finally have a little talk about putting xp rewards for achievements and how unrealistic it is for the majority of the players to achieve it without going all out of their way to do so. And then for some reason they'd set it so it will only grant xp on the expansion itself, so you cant just let it be and complete it naturally as the game ages, forcing you to purposefully create decks out of cards no one in their right mind would insert into a competitive deck, just for the sake of the xp gain. To be honest, if there's an angry mob outside their offices demanding swift bug fixes to achievements, they have no one to blame but themselves.