Not sure if pushing back on the midset is a good idea, because that means the midset has an effective 1 month range to do anything useful before it gets completely taken over by the next expansion, unless the idea is to push that back too.
Its obvious what is going on, they want us to try out mercs and not let the mid set steal its thunder. Well, fair play I suppose, but wouldn't it be easier just to release mercs earlier? I mean I assume its playable now, since there's early access videos surfacing in reddit.
I think team5 made the right decision because the Mindrender Illucia design has always been a problem ever since its been printed. Some strats just straight up cant exist because of it, like how it basically solo most rogue decks.
This change retains some of the useful bits of illucia, like getting clears and lethals with good handreading skill. There's no perfect redesign for illucia because the card should never be printed in the first place, but this change I can get behind with, though I prefer it to go back to 2 mana.
Im talking about standard obviously. But what they need is early game tempo against aggro decks. Bloodsail Deckhand is fine as a 2/2 but more is needed, and I'd trade a 2/2 bloodsail on 1 for a 2/3 harbor scamp buff any day.
- Irebound brute needed a nerf, but this one is so small Im not so sure what it hopes to accomplish. I think the idea is that team5 doesn't want turn 4 brute shenanigans, which is completely doable by the way on 7 mana.
- Demon seed nerf is huge but all it will do is to push back on the current fatigue variant of questlock. Handlock would probably need to switch back to Anetherons or drop the quest altogether if the meta is too fast. In other news, rod is dead. As 3 mana its awkward enough, as 4 its straight up dead.
- Mindrender illucia is not dead. What team5 have done is to ensure that shes strictly useful in value decks, and is no longer able to cheese opponents, especially rogue. While I dont think this is the end, we wont be seeing her until the next expansion in my opinion.
- Command the elements will still be played because the real power turn is the first tier quest reward, which means this deck will still beat all aggro and control decks easily. But against other quest decks, its just never going to make it. Mage can easily beat it now, by virtue of its quest being faster, where it wasn't before. Not sure what team5 hopes of accomplishing here.
- Perpetual flame is still broken as a 2 drop because essentially the downside - the overload - isn't really a downside in the right deck. I have hoped team5 would nerf the damage from 3 to 2, and am left scratching my head. I can only trust they have done some testing and didn't want to kill the card so opted for a nerf that essentially only removes it from the wandmaker pool.
Buffs:
- Mordresh Fire Eye at 8 and Wildfire at 1. These are really interesting changes, at least for wildfire because its now significantly easier to play - assuming you can actually draw that thing. Modresh maybe faster now, but will still remain unplayable because most 8 drops are unplayable, and this one only works assuming you are able to draw that wildfire and remain alive by then. Ironically quest mage will destroy this deck, in my opinion, and will remain the cancerous piece of trash that it is because I'd rather Sorcerer's Gambit be nerfed than receive these buffs. But the nerfs may just slow down the meta enough and assuming quest mage don't make a resurgence, there's some bit of hope for hp mage to surface.
- Leatherworking Kit is something only team5 can explain. Im not sure what this buff actually does aside from making it less shitty when played. Hunters dont like losing tempo and even a 1 mana loss that doesn't do anything for a while is not going to win any awards. Selective Breeder, however, I can complete agree with. That 2 extra health may not look important but there's plenty of times you just want to play this on 2 and not lose tempo, and 2 extra health accomplishes that.
- Buffs to pirates. Not a fan. Warrior in standard is unplayable because the other quest decks are faster than its quest and aggro decks just destroy it. The changes to the pirates will help a bit, but I feel like the pirates that needed a buff here is Harbor Scamp and Cargo Guard. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the meta is slow enough for warrior to make a comeback after two months of irrelevance. Still getting quashed by quest mage though.
All in all, I can only hope team5 have made these changes after extensive testing because quest mage isn't nerfed, while the other combo/quest decks are, while the buffs are made to tempo oriented decks. On paper its decent, but assuredly no one wants a quest mage meta. See you guys tomorrow when the changes are out.
Im not mad about the stormwind quests to be honest.
But really, fuck that bs quest that is Sorcerer's Gambit. Just delete this from the game. I dont care what the win rate is, because this deck is unbeatable if you have no burn, and if you are even for a second depending on your minions to do damage.
That's mostly why its never the product, but marketing that truly sells. Hence why company marketing and advert budgets often go way above what is used to make the products in the first place.
Mythgard is an unfortunate case where it really didn't get a chance to shine at all. I wouldn't even know it existed had I not occasionally see articles of it in this website. And the de rigueur of big companies is to shove as much meat and grind in their products with the aim of not creating good games but to prolong engagement as much as possible. The result is that having played hearthstone for so long, it's hard to want to switch to another tcg, especially since doing so will inevitably require me to keep up with not one but two card games.
If there were separate lines for Q&A it wouldn't be a problem. I can't prove it, but there's likely a horde of questions about other stuff, like hints of the balancing due in Tuesday, or overrated and underrated decks in standard etc. What we have here is probably 50% of questions about anime, his family, and one curious question of what to have for dinner this evening. Either way, shuckie is probably right in suggesting that there's some kind of limit to how many questions Dean would get to, and its clear that the playerbase would like more hearthstone and less stuff most of us probably dont give much shit about.
Besides which, how many times are we getting the same fluff anyway? Its like every week I'll see someone asking Dean what his fav anime, and his recommendations. We should be lucky his answer isn't one piece or he'll be discussing episodes every week until hearthstone 2 comes out.
I actually forgotten to comment on this myself, but for the large part Im with you for a rotating wild mode. Just as an alternative to standard (which as we have seen can get old really fast) and because there's a good amount of decks I really just miss. Plus, there's the added twist of mixing different expansions to create new metas, which is an interesting prospect in of itself.
Just do it, team5. We've already have battlegrounds, mercs, classic, duels, so why cant we have this one too? As he said himself, its really not hard to implement something like this.
Handlock can easily win without ever completing the quest, and frequently do. The quest can be said to only be truly useful in the mirror, and against anything that can take down the giants easily, which in this meta is fairly difficult to do. In nearly every other circumstance, the quest only really contributes 6 healing and reducing the giants by 2, which was really why Flesh Giant got nerfed in the first place.
So many anime questions that keeps creeping into a hearthstone Q&A. At this point every time I see the words anime in his twitter, the usual fullmetal alchemist, naruto, and death note just appear no matter what the question is. He should just create a FAQ to cater to these repetitive questions.
Anyway, moving on to commenting on actual hearthstone hearthstone.
Quote From Dean
In Un'goro we tried making the rewards so powerful that if you completed the quest you generally won that game.
Honestly, outside of rogue, warrior, mage and warlock, none of the quests from ungoro ever felt that way. Hunter and shaman's quests fills the board, priest's just stall, paladin's is literally a joke, and the best part is that only quest rogue ever ended the game before turn 9-10. Warrior's a slow death, and can completely be played around with anything as simple as a token, quest mage's combo takes at least 8 mana and isn't as consistent as it looks, and warlock's is completely unplayable.
Compared to stormwind, ungoro's quests are largely weak but interesting. Stormwind's powerlevel is leagues ahead, as well as being much more consistent. Quest mage and hunter are so consistent its not even a joke how tempo decks completely fold over to it. Questlock is so powerful it completely shaped wild and will likely get a ban soon. Quest shaman will outvalue everything bar none. And the only thing stopping quest pally, warrior, and rogue taking over standard is because they're slower than the other quest decks (on top of just dying to aggro).
Quote From Dean
The big downside of quests as a whole is that we ask you to build your deck a very specific way to get this big piece of power. The reward has to feel epic to motivate you to build a sub-optimal deck.
Let us be clear. The current quest mage, hunter, shaman and warlock are not sub-optimal decks even without the quests being this powerful. Hell, we've just been through 2 rounds of nerf (third coming next week) in the space of 2 months. And they still dont feel like suboptimal decks.
Quote From Dean
That reward has to be powerful enough to win the game in most cases, otherwise why build an entirely new deck in order to get it?
It has to be powerful, but it doesn't need to end games by turn 8 consistently. And the main problem here is consistency. Shudderwock is one of the most powerful cards ever printed, but because its a 9 mana card, and shaman cant draw to save its life, its not going to come out in all games whether you win or lose. Deathstalker Rexxar, like all the DKs, can completely shift the tide. But youre not guaranteed to draw it, and your opponent has his own DKs to even the odds. Plus, DKs dont end the match the following turn its played.
Point Im trying to make is that the quest decks in stormwind are too consistent in what they do, and what they do ends games the moment the reward is played.
I agree that you need the card to be powerful or else no one will build around it. But as we've seen with Jace Darkweaver, you can absolutely do that without turning the game one sided. Like what kind of tempo deck can ever beat quest mage? The very foundations of hearthstone - playing for tempo - is completely invalidated by this one deck.
I really like the Jaina skin, but its likely not going to be individually purchasable. Which is a shame, because Id probably spend some cash on one skin as opposed to none for all.
For some reason having that one fat frog in one of thrall's hand makes it all the more desirable as a skin.
Does flesh giant not get discounted when you damage yourself while having armor? Im not sure, but I dont recall this being a thing, either by personal experience or through discussions in forums.
You dont get a stormwind quest for free this time. Ever since the tavern pass, all we get is a predetermined legendary for free (Mankrik in barrens, Lady Prestor in stormwind). I didnt get a single quest from my 80 packs, so I dont think its a guaranteed.
Besides which, as we have seen with the Stealer of Souls, if its banned, it will be available for a full dust refund, which means theoretically you should be able to pivot to another deck.
We have to look at the conditions to gaining it first. Because if its a specific code gained from purchasing something, whats stopping anyone from just buying the item via net? And if its region specific, this can be overcome with a vpn, I think.
Of course, at the end of the day its just a card back. So while it certainly sucks, I'm sure its far from the top of anyone's priority list. Team5 will likely make it available at some point to everyone.
I doubt they'd be buffing quest hunter in any way. Mostly because the damage spells in hunter are already good in of themselves and dont need buffs.
Another reason is because quest hunter is much like quest mage, and the only thing preventing it from taking over face hunter as the most hated deck is that quest hunter isn't really good in standard. I don't think team5 would want to open this can of worms ever.
Command the Elements, Charged Call - Probably change the first quest reward. Lightning Bloom in the early game basically cheeses games. Im not too sure about charged call, but wouldn't be surprised if this got nerfed as well. Guess team5 really dont like how quest shaman can both fill the board and burn the opponent down at any time.
Irebound Brute - Cheesing out brutes probably not team5's idea of balanced
The one redesign is probably Seek Guidance. Because of all the quest this one is not only redundant as a win condition, its also the weakest of all the quests. Dont be too surprised if suddenly we start seeing Purified Shard on turn 7-8. Or illucia gets the Warsong Commander treatment.
The ban will be to The Demon Seed in wild. Team5's way of not nerfing Crystallizer and giving me 1600 dust.
7 buffs. My guess: Rats of Extraordinary Size (buff to 5), Stormwind Piper (have rush), Sanctum Chandler (buff to 4), Cowardly Grunt (buff to 5). Probably a few more from previous expansions. And my prediction would be that spell mage will continue to be the best and only archetype for mage, because if team5 hasn't noticed, quest mage is everywhere despite its win rate and it wins by turn 8.
Edit: Forgot about Perpetual Flame, and that's likely going to get nerfed instead of charged call. This one card solos every aggro deck right now. Taunt druid and shadow priest are actually playing crappy divine shield minions just to play around this. Probably change the damage from 3 to 2, which will make it dependent on spell damage to clear.
Paladin actually has a good time against most warlock builds simply because most of them can't handle divine shielded minions too well. Handbuff and secret pally is good, the former because of buffs (+3+3 no joke, if Moonfang got buffed its almost an easy win) and the latter because of disruption and aggro pressure.
Ive tried libram pally and am quite impressed with it...when it draws well. The problem with libram pally is that it has all the tools to win, but you can absolutely be screwed by your hand (like not getting city taxes + libram of justice, not getting your libram of hope early, etc.) and from my experience you get screwed fairly often.
We're in a polarized meta right now. There's no deck that can beat everything, and every deck has some kind of hard counter that you just cant escape the odd miserable matchup.
Oh, and a small word of advice. If ranking up is your game, avoid warriors like the plague. Maybe the midset would be kinder to it, or team5 just wakes up and nerfs all the quests in some way shape or form.
It gets better than that. For each low roll dailies you get a chance at a reroll to the top tier 1500xp quests of which cannot be done with the 1000xp quests, which is guaranteed to be a 900xp quest on reroll. So being able to reroll those 900xp quests is absolutely worth the trouble.
Of course, that assumes you're trying to maximize gains, because 100xp is about 2 games or about 30 mins, not an insignificant amount.
I tried something similar back in barrens with sinister strikes, and after trying this latest build I can confidently say that team5 will never nerf it. Its too dependent on its core cards, and any tempo deck can easily beat it unless they draw really really well. I agree with your assessment that mastering it may be borderline impossible, because misplays are all too common, and there's just too many key cards needed, plus the essential problem of when to pull the trigger, added to the one problem that even pros cant escape from: just not enough time to do everything.
Team5 have always been skittish about nerfing stuff with low win rates. I expect it'll take multiple metas before we see anyone even talk about nerfing this deck.
Not sure if pushing back on the midset is a good idea, because that means the midset has an effective 1 month range to do anything useful before it gets completely taken over by the next expansion, unless the idea is to push that back too.
Its obvious what is going on, they want us to try out mercs and not let the mid set steal its thunder. Well, fair play I suppose, but wouldn't it be easier just to release mercs earlier? I mean I assume its playable now, since there's early access videos surfacing in reddit.
I think team5 made the right decision because the Mindrender Illucia design has always been a problem ever since its been printed. Some strats just straight up cant exist because of it, like how it basically solo most rogue decks.
This change retains some of the useful bits of illucia, like getting clears and lethals with good handreading skill. There's no perfect redesign for illucia because the card should never be printed in the first place, but this change I can get behind with, though I prefer it to go back to 2 mana.
Im talking about standard obviously. But what they need is early game tempo against aggro decks. Bloodsail Deckhand is fine as a 2/2 but more is needed, and I'd trade a 2/2 bloodsail on 1 for a 2/3 harbor scamp buff any day.
Still, we'll see once its out.
Here's my take:
Good nerfs for obvious reasons: Irebound Brute, The Demon Seed, Runed Mithril Rod, Mindrender Illucia. More baffling is the shaman nerfs.
- Irebound brute needed a nerf, but this one is so small Im not so sure what it hopes to accomplish. I think the idea is that team5 doesn't want turn 4 brute shenanigans, which is completely doable by the way on 7 mana.
- Demon seed nerf is huge but all it will do is to push back on the current fatigue variant of questlock. Handlock would probably need to switch back to Anetherons or drop the quest altogether if the meta is too fast. In other news, rod is dead. As 3 mana its awkward enough, as 4 its straight up dead.
- Mindrender illucia is not dead. What team5 have done is to ensure that shes strictly useful in value decks, and is no longer able to cheese opponents, especially rogue. While I dont think this is the end, we wont be seeing her until the next expansion in my opinion.
- Command the elements will still be played because the real power turn is the first tier quest reward, which means this deck will still beat all aggro and control decks easily. But against other quest decks, its just never going to make it. Mage can easily beat it now, by virtue of its quest being faster, where it wasn't before. Not sure what team5 hopes of accomplishing here.
- Perpetual flame is still broken as a 2 drop because essentially the downside - the overload - isn't really a downside in the right deck. I have hoped team5 would nerf the damage from 3 to 2, and am left scratching my head. I can only trust they have done some testing and didn't want to kill the card so opted for a nerf that essentially only removes it from the wandmaker pool.
Buffs:
- Mordresh Fire Eye at 8 and Wildfire at 1. These are really interesting changes, at least for wildfire because its now significantly easier to play - assuming you can actually draw that thing. Modresh maybe faster now, but will still remain unplayable because most 8 drops are unplayable, and this one only works assuming you are able to draw that wildfire and remain alive by then. Ironically quest mage will destroy this deck, in my opinion, and will remain the cancerous piece of trash that it is because I'd rather Sorcerer's Gambit be nerfed than receive these buffs. But the nerfs may just slow down the meta enough and assuming quest mage don't make a resurgence, there's some bit of hope for hp mage to surface.
- Leatherworking Kit is something only team5 can explain. Im not sure what this buff actually does aside from making it less shitty when played. Hunters dont like losing tempo and even a 1 mana loss that doesn't do anything for a while is not going to win any awards. Selective Breeder, however, I can complete agree with. That 2 extra health may not look important but there's plenty of times you just want to play this on 2 and not lose tempo, and 2 extra health accomplishes that.
- Buffs to pirates. Not a fan. Warrior in standard is unplayable because the other quest decks are faster than its quest and aggro decks just destroy it. The changes to the pirates will help a bit, but I feel like the pirates that needed a buff here is Harbor Scamp and Cargo Guard. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the meta is slow enough for warrior to make a comeback after two months of irrelevance. Still getting quashed by quest mage though.
All in all, I can only hope team5 have made these changes after extensive testing because quest mage isn't nerfed, while the other combo/quest decks are, while the buffs are made to tempo oriented decks. On paper its decent, but assuredly no one wants a quest mage meta. See you guys tomorrow when the changes are out.
Im not mad about the stormwind quests to be honest.
But really, fuck that bs quest that is Sorcerer's Gambit. Just delete this from the game. I dont care what the win rate is, because this deck is unbeatable if you have no burn, and if you are even for a second depending on your minions to do damage.
Mage deserves better than this crap design.
That's mostly why its never the product, but marketing that truly sells. Hence why company marketing and advert budgets often go way above what is used to make the products in the first place.
Mythgard is an unfortunate case where it really didn't get a chance to shine at all. I wouldn't even know it existed had I not occasionally see articles of it in this website. And the de rigueur of big companies is to shove as much meat and grind in their products with the aim of not creating good games but to prolong engagement as much as possible. The result is that having played hearthstone for so long, it's hard to want to switch to another tcg, especially since doing so will inevitably require me to keep up with not one but two card games.
If there were separate lines for Q&A it wouldn't be a problem. I can't prove it, but there's likely a horde of questions about other stuff, like hints of the balancing due in Tuesday, or overrated and underrated decks in standard etc. What we have here is probably 50% of questions about anime, his family, and one curious question of what to have for dinner this evening. Either way, shuckie is probably right in suggesting that there's some kind of limit to how many questions Dean would get to, and its clear that the playerbase would like more hearthstone and less stuff most of us probably dont give much shit about.
Besides which, how many times are we getting the same fluff anyway? Its like every week I'll see someone asking Dean what his fav anime, and his recommendations. We should be lucky his answer isn't one piece or he'll be discussing episodes every week until hearthstone 2 comes out.
I actually forgotten to comment on this myself, but for the large part Im with you for a rotating wild mode. Just as an alternative to standard (which as we have seen can get old really fast) and because there's a good amount of decks I really just miss. Plus, there's the added twist of mixing different expansions to create new metas, which is an interesting prospect in of itself.
Just do it, team5. We've already have battlegrounds, mercs, classic, duels, so why cant we have this one too? As he said himself, its really not hard to implement something like this.
Handlock can easily win without ever completing the quest, and frequently do. The quest can be said to only be truly useful in the mirror, and against anything that can take down the giants easily, which in this meta is fairly difficult to do. In nearly every other circumstance, the quest only really contributes 6 healing and reducing the giants by 2, which was really why Flesh Giant got nerfed in the first place.
So many anime questions that keeps creeping into a hearthstone Q&A. At this point every time I see the words anime in his twitter, the usual fullmetal alchemist, naruto, and death note just appear no matter what the question is. He should just create a FAQ to cater to these repetitive questions.
Anyway, moving on to commenting on actual hearthstone hearthstone.
Honestly, outside of rogue, warrior, mage and warlock, none of the quests from ungoro ever felt that way. Hunter and shaman's quests fills the board, priest's just stall, paladin's is literally a joke, and the best part is that only quest rogue ever ended the game before turn 9-10. Warrior's a slow death, and can completely be played around with anything as simple as a token, quest mage's combo takes at least 8 mana and isn't as consistent as it looks, and warlock's is completely unplayable.
Compared to stormwind, ungoro's quests are largely weak but interesting. Stormwind's powerlevel is leagues ahead, as well as being much more consistent. Quest mage and hunter are so consistent its not even a joke how tempo decks completely fold over to it. Questlock is so powerful it completely shaped wild and will likely get a ban soon. Quest shaman will outvalue everything bar none. And the only thing stopping quest pally, warrior, and rogue taking over standard is because they're slower than the other quest decks (on top of just dying to aggro).
Let us be clear. The current quest mage, hunter, shaman and warlock are not sub-optimal decks even without the quests being this powerful. Hell, we've just been through 2 rounds of nerf (third coming next week) in the space of 2 months. And they still dont feel like suboptimal decks.
It has to be powerful, but it doesn't need to end games by turn 8 consistently. And the main problem here is consistency. Shudderwock is one of the most powerful cards ever printed, but because its a 9 mana card, and shaman cant draw to save its life, its not going to come out in all games whether you win or lose. Deathstalker Rexxar, like all the DKs, can completely shift the tide. But youre not guaranteed to draw it, and your opponent has his own DKs to even the odds. Plus, DKs dont end the match the following turn its played.
Point Im trying to make is that the quest decks in stormwind are too consistent in what they do, and what they do ends games the moment the reward is played.
I agree that you need the card to be powerful or else no one will build around it. But as we've seen with Jace Darkweaver, you can absolutely do that without turning the game one sided. Like what kind of tempo deck can ever beat quest mage? The very foundations of hearthstone - playing for tempo - is completely invalidated by this one deck.
I really like the Jaina skin, but its likely not going to be individually purchasable. Which is a shame, because Id probably spend some cash on one skin as opposed to none for all.
For some reason having that one fat frog in one of thrall's hand makes it all the more desirable as a skin.
Does flesh giant not get discounted when you damage yourself while having armor? Im not sure, but I dont recall this being a thing, either by personal experience or through discussions in forums.
You dont get a stormwind quest for free this time. Ever since the tavern pass, all we get is a predetermined legendary for free (Mankrik in barrens, Lady Prestor in stormwind). I didnt get a single quest from my 80 packs, so I dont think its a guaranteed.
Besides which, as we have seen with the Stealer of Souls, if its banned, it will be available for a full dust refund, which means theoretically you should be able to pivot to another deck.
We have to look at the conditions to gaining it first. Because if its a specific code gained from purchasing something, whats stopping anyone from just buying the item via net? And if its region specific, this can be overcome with a vpn, I think.
Of course, at the end of the day its just a card back. So while it certainly sucks, I'm sure its far from the top of anyone's priority list. Team5 will likely make it available at some point to everyone.
I doubt they'd be buffing quest hunter in any way. Mostly because the damage spells in hunter are already good in of themselves and dont need buffs.
Another reason is because quest hunter is much like quest mage, and the only thing preventing it from taking over face hunter as the most hated deck is that quest hunter isn't really good in standard. I don't think team5 would want to open this can of worms ever.
Well, we can probably guess there's 2 nerfs for warlock, two for shaman, and one for dhunter.
Runed Mithril Rod, The Demon Seed - Rod on 3, backfire on 4 = easy win. Im not entirely sure about the quest, but there's really no other card they would change other than Blood Shard Bristleback
Command the Elements, Charged Call - Probably change the first quest reward. Lightning Bloom in the early game basically cheeses games. Im not too sure about charged call, but wouldn't be surprised if this got nerfed as well. Guess team5 really dont like how quest shaman can both fill the board and burn the opponent down at any time.
Irebound Brute - Cheesing out brutes probably not team5's idea of balanced
The one redesign is probably Seek Guidance. Because of all the quest this one is not only redundant as a win condition, its also the weakest of all the quests. Dont be too surprised if suddenly we start seeing Purified Shard on turn 7-8. Or illucia gets the Warsong Commander treatment.
The ban will be to The Demon Seed in wild. Team5's way of not nerfing Crystallizer and giving me 1600 dust.
7 buffs. My guess: Rats of Extraordinary Size (buff to 5), Stormwind Piper (have rush), Sanctum Chandler (buff to 4), Cowardly Grunt (buff to 5). Probably a few more from previous expansions. And my prediction would be that spell mage will continue to be the best and only archetype for mage, because if team5 hasn't noticed, quest mage is everywhere despite its win rate and it wins by turn 8.
Edit: Forgot about Perpetual Flame, and that's likely going to get nerfed instead of charged call. This one card solos every aggro deck right now. Taunt druid and shadow priest are actually playing crappy divine shield minions just to play around this. Probably change the damage from 3 to 2, which will make it dependent on spell damage to clear.
Assuming the warlock youre facing is handlock.
Best decks: garrote rogue, poison rogue, quest dhunter, fatigue warlock, quest mage
Paladin actually has a good time against most warlock builds simply because most of them can't handle divine shielded minions too well. Handbuff and secret pally is good, the former because of buffs (+3+3 no joke, if Moonfang got buffed its almost an easy win) and the latter because of disruption and aggro pressure.
Ive tried libram pally and am quite impressed with it...when it draws well. The problem with libram pally is that it has all the tools to win, but you can absolutely be screwed by your hand (like not getting city taxes + libram of justice, not getting your libram of hope early, etc.) and from my experience you get screwed fairly often.
We're in a polarized meta right now. There's no deck that can beat everything, and every deck has some kind of hard counter that you just cant escape the odd miserable matchup.
Oh, and a small word of advice. If ranking up is your game, avoid warriors like the plague. Maybe the midset would be kinder to it, or team5 just wakes up and nerfs all the quests in some way shape or form.
It gets better than that. For each low roll dailies you get a chance at a reroll to the top tier 1500xp quests of which cannot be done with the 1000xp quests, which is guaranteed to be a 900xp quest on reroll. So being able to reroll those 900xp quests is absolutely worth the trouble.
Of course, that assumes you're trying to maximize gains, because 100xp is about 2 games or about 30 mins, not an insignificant amount.
I tried something similar back in barrens with sinister strikes, and after trying this latest build I can confidently say that team5 will never nerf it. Its too dependent on its core cards, and any tempo deck can easily beat it unless they draw really really well. I agree with your assessment that mastering it may be borderline impossible, because misplays are all too common, and there's just too many key cards needed, plus the essential problem of when to pull the trigger, added to the one problem that even pros cant escape from: just not enough time to do everything.
Team5 have always been skittish about nerfing stuff with low win rates. I expect it'll take multiple metas before we see anyone even talk about nerfing this deck.
The one positive thing about Noz day is we dont get low roll dailies that might just prevent you from playing today.