Wish they would show the average number of games and the number of hours spent by each player on each rank spread. I am of the opinion that many players from 15 up have decent decks that can easily get them to legend, but none has the sheer patience and time to make that push
Well every match is different I suppose (except he ALWAYS has Rakanishu on turn 2, wtf). Ultimately he just has way too much board presence through 4/4 lackeys, too much damage with C'Thun, and too much sustainability with Khartut Defenders and Obsidian Statues (and resurrecting those bastards over and over).
Finley's bubble blower hp is more than enough to constantly fill your board with stuff so cthun doesnt just one shot you. I dont actually remember shudderwork being in the mix but I never did get my weapon to the very end of the battle. If I'm not mistaken so long as you dodge the first 2 phases, the last phase is pretty simple so the lance being destroyed mid phase 2 isn't really any issue. Its only truly powerful in the first phase.
Its not easy but I can attest that if you got a fully loaded finley, theres more than enough room to make a few errors and still get it right to the end. Just remember to always transform cthun. The rest are not really relevant. Bubble blower more than makes up for anything short of the worst starting hand ever.
I think the plague of death at heroic is probably more to your liking. That was genuinely the only boss where I had to think ahead of my plays. This was the case for tekhan as well, but I gave myself a handicap by resorting to only using finley so that doesn't count for me.
But more to the argument, I think the 300hp boss is the step in the right direction, although I will agree with you that easy runs tend to take the fun of the experience. I think the proper balance here would be to allow the boss to heal back to the 100s of their health with each run, so its not a cheap shot or an inevitable.
Its a long shot, but one thing I'd like to see is an expansion of the tavern brawl, so it has multiple play modes with its own ladder to boot. Heres a few ideas;
- We all know the classic set is kinda busted, but with so many expansion per year theres enough material here to create a play mode where all the classic sets are banned. This will allow newer players to manage some deck instead of starting with this massive disadvantage in legendaries
- Similar to the one class only tournament, all decks must come with some sideboards. While we're on it, why not allow banning one card from the deck of your opponent, to be replaced with one card from the sideboard.
- No epics & legendaries allowed. Again, this is for all the newbies out there (wish this was in place when I first joined). And it forces team5 to rethink their rarity settings
Most of this has already been done in tavern brawl before, but it has always been a weekly event. Why not make some a permanent feature. If nothing else, it will at least make some filler cards more valuable.
Finley with the lifesteal weapon and discover a minion hero power. IIRC i got him down on the first try.
And yea, the 300hp bosses thing really killed my enthusiasm for it. The replay value is so low. I played Dalaran Heist for a few months, but this one felt like an unfun chore.
Don't really know why so many people hated the 300hp bosses. At least your progress is saved, and having those one-run kills has been genuinely fun for me.
In K&C the 7-final bosses were so disgustingly unfair till this day I still get PTSD from it having grinded all the classes to get that fantastic card back. There's nothing like wasting 45 min to get to the final only to get your toosh handed to you by some of the most unfair bosses designed specifically to induce rage quitting
If you leveled up sir finley to the max, bait out weapon destruction (theres a max of 2 I think but I kinda remember him only oozing once) then equip the lance with the bubble blower hero power. That will be more than enough to get you to the final phase where you will only die out of fatigue.
If I'm not mistaken around phase 2-3 theres a massive cthun that you need to use the scales of justice to transform so he can't be shuffled back into the deck. Once that is dealt with, you pretty much win the game. AI will drop cthun whenever he can, so theres no shenanigans of him holding for a one shot. Always remember to transform cthun, never kill it.
Did it with only fully maxed Finley both on normal and heroic, because why would anyone grind this mode with all the other explorers.
Plot twist warlock with Dollmaster Dorian has been pushed hard this year, only getting no love from DoD. Its just not that popular or too inconsistent. I think there's plenty of potential here, but since the dollmaster himself will be leaving standard this April, it needs alot of support to get anywhere in the next expansion. That aside, having played both this and questlock, I can say with confidence both are good enough for standard, that 7 mana dollmaster tempo swing is particularly good, but it really suffers hard from warlock's lack of healing.
Its not like team5 doesnt have a vision for warlock, it just havent work out to be anything more than a meme deck.
I can help you with Quest paladin. Its unfavored, but not impossible. You just have to time your eggs and whelps so they can only silence one copy each time. Most quest priest decks play a total of 4 silences, and Mass Dispel will only get rid of the deathrattle, not the minion. Just make it so its always awkward for them to use Mass Dispel and Plague of Death. The match will almost always end in fatigue, so don't draw too many cards if you can help it. Just do it so you can complete the quest. Don't attack face and spam hero power. Eventually they will need to plop minions on board that don't progress their quest. You greatly out value them as long as you dont over extend.
In general against quest priest:-
- If your win condition is combo, never strike their face. Not even when they are not displaying their quest on turn 1. Your combo should kill them from 30 in one turn.
- If youre playing as aggro. Its massively unfavored. Play your cards and pray they don't have answers. Quest priest dont draw easily so hand reading is reasonably easy. If youre playing face hunter, just concede and move on.
- If youre playing mid range, dont strike face until late game but develop a board. Your opponent may make the mistake of playing their heal minions too early. In general you cannot out value your opponent, so you got to play your minions and time attacks. You only need to dodge Mass Hysteria most of the time to get it right.
Quest priest draws very poorly. Hand reading is essential to beat them.
I really don't mind drawing others to fatigue as a strategy or win condition, but milling as a win condition is just too polarising. It tends to make certain matches 'unfun' for your opponent, an auto concede when facing a deck that is tailor made to destroy your archetype.
If it must exist in hearthstone there needs to be cards that allow you to access milled cards, or to increase your deck size. Both concepts are cancerous, as with those 2 hours dead man's hand warrior mirrors. Imagine having that on a tournament. Most viewers will rightfully turn off their sets.
Not only: I've also seen Zentimo + Hex multiple times, which was cool when it was a meme, but now that it's meta it's really gross lol.
To be honest, most of Galakrond Shaman's problems will go away once Shudderwock rotates (once you clear the two 8/8s you won't have to play around the second wave), but I'd still like to see some changes to Dragon's Pack: I really hate that spell, even more now that Shaman has Electra Stormsurge. Not being able to kill the wolves with Kronx Dragonhoof is tragic and 10/12 worth of stats for 5 mana with taunt and no overload doesn't make much sense (we can argue that Scion of Ruin is on the same page though) but, to be honest, nerfing Pack may be excessive now. It really depends on how much love Shaman will receive with the upcoming adventure and with the new expansion in April.
For what concerns class popularity and winrate, I prefer to rely on Vicious Syndicate more than on HS Replay, since the former's Meta Reports are pure gold if you want to know about the meta.
For what its worth, I would probably agree with you on VS but hsreplay is just the more readable of the two.
As for Dragon's Pack, its a problem but mostly because of how easy it is for shaman to invoke twice. I'd expect some form of nerf around mid-expansion, or for this to go away by itself when the set rotates.
I think the greatest insult to anybody with even the slightest glimmer of self-respect is when every one has to walk around eggshells when youre around.
The change to the card art is simply to skirt by ratings so the games legal for a mass audience. Or alternatively its, as you suggested, to make female players feel more 'comfortable' playing hearthstone.
With the exception of deadly shot, the old card art is hardly astonishing or provoking. Is it too much to suggest that even a cursory look out of a window in a shopping complex will more or less render most of the changes moot, and I didn't even notice the blood from Eviscerate until they put to a 1-1 comparison.
But enough of old news. Happy new year everyone.
The skirting of rating only apply when the art changes are from a new expansion though. The arts that were changed are from the Basic / Classic serlt except one.
Word on the street is that its being done to appease a certain country. If this is true, then blizzard doing this pre-emptively is entirely plausible.
The official reason provided was that they wanted to bring old art up to standard (while tacitly ignoring artworks like kill command), so what I'm doing is obviously speculating.
And no, I think if the reason is due to ratings must apply, then it would be retroactive on the old art as well. It wouldn't do to censor excessive violence and sexuality (as though real life doesn't present any of this) and let artwork like old deadly shot around.
Aggro decks going tall and wide is usually how they play. Without this, then its a face deck, trying to outlast your enemy instead of gaining tempo.
I don't think there's an influx of cards that gives more tools to aggro decks while giving control the cold shoulder. Its a pretty mixed bag, that really depends on how you build your deck against certain archetypes and in some cases, specific decks.
Control is not being poorly represented in the meta right now. Quest priest is in the 1-2 tiers right now, and its a control deck through and through. Control warrior still beats most aggro decks (but losses to highlanders, and thats high up the meta currently). The problem is that not every class can play control, so it gives an illusion that not enough cards are printed to support control decks.
I think the greatest insult to anybody with even the slightest glimmer of self-respect is when every one has to walk around eggshells when youre around.
The change to the card art is simply to skirt by ratings so the games legal for a mass audience. Or alternatively its, as you suggested, to make female players feel more 'comfortable' playing hearthstone.
With the exception of deadly shot, the old card art is hardly astonishing or provoking. Is it too much to suggest that even a cursory look out of a window in a shopping complex will more or less render most of the changes moot, and I didn't even notice the blood from Eviscerate until they put to a 1-1 comparison.
Unless you happen to have a subscription with hsreplay you won't be able to see the data post nerf since its intertwined with the data from the start of DoD. Will take another two weeks for people like me to see it.
But on short note, shaman is no longer in the top three best class according to hsreplay, that belongs to warrior, hunter, and surprisingly warlock.
On my experience, G Shaman is still very very good, its just a bit slower now. There's now decks that play Zentimo + Invocation of Frost, which is a little game breaking at times. Full powered Galakrond with Shudderwock tends to wreck games more often than not. Its only true weakness is that it draws poorly and forced to play lots of inefficient draw cards in the early game, and there's no healing.
- If youre aiming for pure handlock, then [Hearthstone Card (barrista lychen) Not Found] + Omega Agent as a finisher is worth considering. You only need two cards, and it out values priest with their many many AoEs. I would probably consider taking out Transmogrifier (seriously why is this in the deck?) and 1 Defender of Argus for this
- Defender of Argus has never really been key to me when playing handlock. If you need to add taunt to a minion sunfury protector is still the better choice for handlock. But I'd ditch both for a silence (mech pally) and for omega agent + barrista.
- Its my opinion, but playing sense demons and double elekk for the infinite arnasi broodmothers produces a problem where all your late game draws are not good enough since you can only play one minion per turn (broodmother costs 6) and the healing isn't fast enough to beat face hunters or galakrond warrior.
- For the reason above, I'd try the dragon package with Crazed Netherwing and Nether Breath. Contrary to other classes theres no need for warlock to include many dragons for Nether Breath, they draw very well.
I've played both pure handlock, plot twist with dorian, and quest lock. Its not terribly good right now because of face damage is just too much in this meta. For that reason plot twist with dorian for that sweet turn 7 massive tempo swing might be a better deck archetype if you have a thing for handlock decks.
Excepting highlander decks, the dust cost haven't actually been ramping up. Its just the cards being more specialized , which means you need more cards to play more decks, more so than in the past.
In the previous set rotation there wasn't any highlander decks, which is already one of the most expensive archetypes in hearthstone presently, and I think its commonly accepted the previous year's expansion (Witchwood - Rastakhan) has minimal impact on the previous meta (Ungoro - Rastakhan), so you pretty much only had to craft the few deathknight hero cards and a couple more legendaries/epics from Ungoro - Kobolds expansion to play most decks.
From RoS to DoD, the meta is more diverse and legendaries/epics kinda got more specialized. Plus, team5 have been going on each expansion trying to introduce more deck types instead of powering previous ones so more resources are needed if you're gonna be playing even half the list from tier 1-2.
In a way, its healthy for the game, but its undoubtedly makes it more expensive to enjoy it, provided you want to play most of the decks.
Just waiting for that news on the supposed 35 additional cards which was going to be introduced along with the adventure come 2020. On my wish list is some form of deathrattle taunt similar to [Hearthstone Card (sludge bleacher) Not Found] at a lower cost so there's some hope for mage against aggro decks.
I do have to say that nerfing Mogu Flesh-shaper to 9 mana makes it harder to get it on the board, but it also drastically improves the Mutate options. The 9-slot has only 1-2 duds in it in standard, and those are a 5/5 and a 6/6. Everything else is better than that, including many 8/8, a 9/9 rush, and King Krush. Sooo yeah. "Nerfed" ... but the combo with Mutate is now waaaay more consistent than the 7-slot was.
Just to be clear; Mutate transform the minion into another minion 1 cost higher.
So mogu + mutate = 10 cost minion. No rush, no charge, and definitely no divine shield, taunt, charge
And no, from my own experience mogu not coming out in turn 3-4 into grommash is a massive nerf indeed. In fact, I rarely get to see it out costing 0 so yeah the nerf definitely works.
If you want to go pure dragon with warrior probably the best is to do highlander with [Hearthstone Card (Dragonqueen Alexstrasza) Not Found] + War Master Voone as your value finisher.
I like Scion of Ruin, its obviously one of the best cards this expansion, but if youre going to play Galakrond warrior, then its not value youre wanting to play, its smack to face all day everyday.
Wish they would show the average number of games and the number of hours spent by each player on each rank spread. I am of the opinion that many players from 15 up have decent decks that can easily get them to legend, but none has the sheer patience and time to make that push
Finley's bubble blower hp is more than enough to constantly fill your board with stuff so cthun doesnt just one shot you. I dont actually remember shudderwork being in the mix but I never did get my weapon to the very end of the battle. If I'm not mistaken so long as you dodge the first 2 phases, the last phase is pretty simple so the lance being destroyed mid phase 2 isn't really any issue. Its only truly powerful in the first phase.
Its not easy but I can attest that if you got a fully loaded finley, theres more than enough room to make a few errors and still get it right to the end. Just remember to always transform cthun. The rest are not really relevant. Bubble blower more than makes up for anything short of the worst starting hand ever.
I think the plague of death at heroic is probably more to your liking. That was genuinely the only boss where I had to think ahead of my plays. This was the case for tekhan as well, but I gave myself a handicap by resorting to only using finley so that doesn't count for me.
But more to the argument, I think the 300hp boss is the step in the right direction, although I will agree with you that easy runs tend to take the fun of the experience. I think the proper balance here would be to allow the boss to heal back to the 100s of their health with each run, so its not a cheap shot or an inevitable.
Its a long shot, but one thing I'd like to see is an expansion of the tavern brawl, so it has multiple play modes with its own ladder to boot. Heres a few ideas;
- We all know the classic set is kinda busted, but with so many expansion per year theres enough material here to create a play mode where all the classic sets are banned. This will allow newer players to manage some deck instead of starting with this massive disadvantage in legendaries
- Similar to the one class only tournament, all decks must come with some sideboards. While we're on it, why not allow banning one card from the deck of your opponent, to be replaced with one card from the sideboard.
- No epics & legendaries allowed. Again, this is for all the newbies out there (wish this was in place when I first joined). And it forces team5 to rethink their rarity settings
Most of this has already been done in tavern brawl before, but it has always been a weekly event. Why not make some a permanent feature. If nothing else, it will at least make some filler cards more valuable.
Don't really know why so many people hated the 300hp bosses. At least your progress is saved, and having those one-run kills has been genuinely fun for me.
In K&C the 7-final bosses were so disgustingly unfair till this day I still get PTSD from it having grinded all the classes to get that fantastic card back. There's nothing like wasting 45 min to get to the final only to get your toosh handed to you by some of the most unfair bosses designed specifically to induce rage quitting
If you leveled up sir finley to the max, bait out weapon destruction (theres a max of 2 I think but I kinda remember him only oozing once) then equip the lance with the bubble blower hero power. That will be more than enough to get you to the final phase where you will only die out of fatigue.
If I'm not mistaken around phase 2-3 theres a massive cthun that you need to use the scales of justice to transform so he can't be shuffled back into the deck. Once that is dealt with, you pretty much win the game. AI will drop cthun whenever he can, so theres no shenanigans of him holding for a one shot. Always remember to transform cthun, never kill it.
Did it with only fully maxed Finley both on normal and heroic, because why would anyone grind this mode with all the other explorers.
after what happened in 2018, can't say I feel the same way.
Plot twist warlock with Dollmaster Dorian has been pushed hard this year, only getting no love from DoD. Its just not that popular or too inconsistent. I think there's plenty of potential here, but since the dollmaster himself will be leaving standard this April, it needs alot of support to get anywhere in the next expansion. That aside, having played both this and questlock, I can say with confidence both are good enough for standard, that 7 mana dollmaster tempo swing is particularly good, but it really suffers hard from warlock's lack of healing.
Its not like team5 doesnt have a vision for warlock, it just havent work out to be anything more than a meme deck.
I can help you with Quest paladin. Its unfavored, but not impossible. You just have to time your eggs and whelps so they can only silence one copy each time. Most quest priest decks play a total of 4 silences, and Mass Dispel will only get rid of the deathrattle, not the minion. Just make it so its always awkward for them to use Mass Dispel and Plague of Death. The match will almost always end in fatigue, so don't draw too many cards if you can help it. Just do it so you can complete the quest. Don't attack face and spam hero power. Eventually they will need to plop minions on board that don't progress their quest. You greatly out value them as long as you dont over extend.
In general against quest priest:-
- If your win condition is combo, never strike their face. Not even when they are not displaying their quest on turn 1. Your combo should kill them from 30 in one turn.
- If youre playing as aggro. Its massively unfavored. Play your cards and pray they don't have answers. Quest priest dont draw easily so hand reading is reasonably easy. If youre playing face hunter, just concede and move on.
- If youre playing mid range, dont strike face until late game but develop a board. Your opponent may make the mistake of playing their heal minions too early. In general you cannot out value your opponent, so you got to play your minions and time attacks. You only need to dodge Mass Hysteria most of the time to get it right.
Quest priest draws very poorly. Hand reading is essential to beat them.
I really don't mind drawing others to fatigue as a strategy or win condition, but milling as a win condition is just too polarising. It tends to make certain matches 'unfun' for your opponent, an auto concede when facing a deck that is tailor made to destroy your archetype.
If it must exist in hearthstone there needs to be cards that allow you to access milled cards, or to increase your deck size. Both concepts are cancerous, as with those 2 hours dead man's hand warrior mirrors. Imagine having that on a tournament. Most viewers will rightfully turn off their sets.
For what its worth, I would probably agree with you on VS but hsreplay is just the more readable of the two.
As for Dragon's Pack, its a problem but mostly because of how easy it is for shaman to invoke twice. I'd expect some form of nerf around mid-expansion, or for this to go away by itself when the set rotates.
Word on the street is that its being done to appease a certain country. If this is true, then blizzard doing this pre-emptively is entirely plausible.
The official reason provided was that they wanted to bring old art up to standard (while tacitly ignoring artworks like kill command), so what I'm doing is obviously speculating.
And no, I think if the reason is due to ratings must apply, then it would be retroactive on the old art as well. It wouldn't do to censor excessive violence and sexuality (as though real life doesn't present any of this) and let artwork like old deadly shot around.
Aggro decks going tall and wide is usually how they play. Without this, then its a face deck, trying to outlast your enemy instead of gaining tempo.
I don't think there's an influx of cards that gives more tools to aggro decks while giving control the cold shoulder. Its a pretty mixed bag, that really depends on how you build your deck against certain archetypes and in some cases, specific decks.
Control is not being poorly represented in the meta right now. Quest priest is in the 1-2 tiers right now, and its a control deck through and through. Control warrior still beats most aggro decks (but losses to highlanders, and thats high up the meta currently). The problem is that not every class can play control, so it gives an illusion that not enough cards are printed to support control decks.
I think the greatest insult to anybody with even the slightest glimmer of self-respect is when every one has to walk around eggshells when youre around.
The change to the card art is simply to skirt by ratings so the games legal for a mass audience. Or alternatively its, as you suggested, to make female players feel more 'comfortable' playing hearthstone.
With the exception of deadly shot, the old card art is hardly astonishing or provoking. Is it too much to suggest that even a cursory look out of a window in a shopping complex will more or less render most of the changes moot, and I didn't even notice the blood from Eviscerate until they put to a 1-1 comparison.
But enough of old news. Happy new year everyone.
Unless you happen to have a subscription with hsreplay you won't be able to see the data post nerf since its intertwined with the data from the start of DoD. Will take another two weeks for people like me to see it.
But on short note, shaman is no longer in the top three best class according to hsreplay, that belongs to warrior, hunter, and surprisingly warlock.
On my experience, G Shaman is still very very good, its just a bit slower now. There's now decks that play Zentimo + Invocation of Frost, which is a little game breaking at times. Full powered Galakrond with Shudderwock tends to wreck games more often than not. Its only true weakness is that it draws poorly and forced to play lots of inefficient draw cards in the early game, and there's no healing.
Just a few observations;
- If youre aiming for pure handlock, then [Hearthstone Card (barrista lychen) Not Found] + Omega Agent as a finisher is worth considering. You only need two cards, and it out values priest with their many many AoEs. I would probably consider taking out Transmogrifier (seriously why is this in the deck?) and 1 Defender of Argus for this
- Defender of Argus has never really been key to me when playing handlock. If you need to add taunt to a minion sunfury protector is still the better choice for handlock. But I'd ditch both for a silence (mech pally) and for omega agent + barrista.
- Its my opinion, but playing sense demons and double elekk for the infinite arnasi broodmothers produces a problem where all your late game draws are not good enough since you can only play one minion per turn (broodmother costs 6) and the healing isn't fast enough to beat face hunters or galakrond warrior.
- For the reason above, I'd try the dragon package with Crazed Netherwing and Nether Breath. Contrary to other classes theres no need for warlock to include many dragons for Nether Breath, they draw very well.
- Add Zilliax. Theres no reason not to.
- Your midrange is wonderful with Twilight Drake and giant. Faceless Rager is probably too inconsistent. I'd drop 1 copy for Zilliax.
I've played both pure handlock, plot twist with dorian, and quest lock. Its not terribly good right now because of face damage is just too much in this meta. For that reason plot twist with dorian for that sweet turn 7 massive tempo swing might be a better deck archetype if you have a thing for handlock decks.
Excepting highlander decks, the dust cost haven't actually been ramping up. Its just the cards being more specialized , which means you need more cards to play more decks, more so than in the past.
In the previous set rotation there wasn't any highlander decks, which is already one of the most expensive archetypes in hearthstone presently, and I think its commonly accepted the previous year's expansion (Witchwood - Rastakhan) has minimal impact on the previous meta (Ungoro - Rastakhan), so you pretty much only had to craft the few deathknight hero cards and a couple more legendaries/epics from Ungoro - Kobolds expansion to play most decks.
From RoS to DoD, the meta is more diverse and legendaries/epics kinda got more specialized. Plus, team5 have been going on each expansion trying to introduce more deck types instead of powering previous ones so more resources are needed if you're gonna be playing even half the list from tier 1-2.
In a way, its healthy for the game, but its undoubtedly makes it more expensive to enjoy it, provided you want to play most of the decks.
Just waiting for that news on the supposed 35 additional cards which was going to be introduced along with the adventure come 2020. On my wish list is some form of deathrattle taunt similar to [Hearthstone Card (sludge bleacher) Not Found] at a lower cost so there's some hope for mage against aggro decks.
Just to be clear; Mutate transform the minion into another minion 1 cost higher.
So mogu + mutate = 10 cost minion. No rush, no charge, and definitely no divine shield, taunt, charge
And no, from my own experience mogu not coming out in turn 3-4 into grommash is a massive nerf indeed. In fact, I rarely get to see it out costing 0 so yeah the nerf definitely works.
If you want to go pure dragon with warrior probably the best is to do highlander with [Hearthstone Card (Dragonqueen Alexstrasza) Not Found] + War Master Voone as your value finisher.
I like Scion of Ruin, its obviously one of the best cards this expansion, but if youre going to play Galakrond warrior, then its not value youre wanting to play, its smack to face all day everyday.