Quest Hunter seems fun, but I don't own the Quest...or Halazzi. Or Veranus. Or Leeroy Jenkins. The investment required is just too great, and while I have the resources I can't justify spending it all on a single class.
I managed with that list without Halazzi, Veranus and Leeroy. Out of this three, only Leeroy Jenkins seemed to me to be important.
Replace these with Ursatron (mostly to draw SN1P SN4P), Cult Master (surprised this wasn't in the list), and Boommaster Flark (in my opinion, a better card than Shuma, but not as funny)
or try adding Blackwald Pixie for that unleash OTK against an unsuspecting shaman and laugh
At some point I think we should start to realize that its not possible to build a decent deck from scratch without having a good chunk of it being similar to a listed deck somewhere in some popular site.
In this case, when will we call it a netdecking experience, as opposed to one build up on our own?
A few other decks not mentioned by this brilliant article, but played by me because hearthstone is more fun that way;
Quest paladin I genuinely think people are sleeping on this variant. I've been climbing ladder around rank 10 with this deck and have been doing somewhat successfully with it, much to my surprise. This deck only does poorly against shaman and quest priest and amazingly well against warrior. Hsreplay shows this deck is at a 40% win rate at the moment, but I think its only because it attempts to include too many dragons into the deck. Go with the mech build, with double Prismatic Lens, to complete the quest as soon as possible. Once active, its just a matter of time before you out value your opponents.
Plot twist warlock Again, another meme deck that is a little inconsistent, but I've been getting wins with. The 7 mana tempo swing with Dollmaster Dorian puts so many taunts in the field that warrior cannot reliably get rid of all of it plus the dollmaster. Its backbreaking even to rogue, having trouble only with aggro strategies and lots of bad luck. Play the Kibler version, with double Augmented Elekk to out value quest priest. Unfortunately, I found that playing DoD cards in this deck weakens it a little too much for my liking, but I remain optimistic in experimenting with Nether Breath and malygos at some point.
Cyclone mage Mentioned in this article, and I can attest that its not very good, but better than its made out to look like. Tried Pro player Apxvoid's list with double Novice Engineer and Research Project for fast draws. The key is not always to get that sweet cyclone value, but to mobilize giants as quickly as possible. The meta currently doesn't run too many counter to giants. If you can get one to stick on turn 4, there's a good chance you can stabilize to the late game where the cyclones do a lot of heavy lifting. There's 5 giants (Apxvoid drops one Mountain Giant but I prefer this over the Mana Giant) so there's plenty of giants to go around.
As far as I'm concerned it's been the Rogue and Shaman stone for a while now all last year Rogue and shaman stone with a little warrior and mage mixed into it. And if you aren't interested and it finally being nerfed so we can get something new you are the problem.
'little warrior and mage mixed into it'?
warrior was here all year in 2019 and still here in 2020, and mage at least for the full 5 months.
It's nice to see they are trying to balance the game harder now than in the past. Before we were happy if they balanced the OP, broken, meta-dominant deck 1 month in to the expansion and we weren't even dreaming of getting another balance patch before the next expansion and the next op deck. Now, it seems they are looking to tweak the game all the time and not just from expansion to expansion. A really nice feeling, in my humble opinion, and I hope they continue to pursue this road of balancing this game.
Two balance patches and nary a month's past since DoD. My god do things change. Its a little worrying for me, to be honest.
I was hoping for the masters tour to conclude before seeing another balance patch. Outside of global games, there hasn't been a lot of pro vs pro games so a better picture of how the meta at its best really look like can be seen. I've been seeing some pros giving reno mage a thumbs up , despite mage being at the lowest tier accordingly to hsreplay, so perhaps theres more to it than what we're seeing.
In all honestly, I really hope that this awful Hunter cancer can be resolved. It's ridiculous to the point of what Shaman was pre-nerf
There is nothing to resolve other than your unreasonable hatred towards the class. The deck gets hard countered by paladins, priests and warriors. It's not even tier 1 at this point.
Unfortunately it also hard counters anything that doesn't have many taunts and healing i.e. rogue, mage, warlock, and other hunters
At this point I don't think it needs any nerfs, but nothing spoils my day more than having my consecutive wins deleted by a cheese. I just hope other decks balance it out so face hunter is only a rare annoyance.
Probably get rid of the 5 damage weapon you get from full Galakrond. Always though that it was weird that it granted you a 10 damage weapon over two turns when its plainly obviously that 2 out of the 4 Galakrond plays for value and not aggro.
- Reducing the buff from Anubisath Warbringer from 3/3 to 2/2 (My favorite card from SoU. If you get hit, know that it wasn't your fault sniff*)
- Skybarge getting a mana cost increase OR reduce health from 5 to 4 (kinda stupid that this has 5 health. What does team5 think other aggro decks can do to this thing?)
- increase mana cost by 1 to Dragon's Pack (dont hold your breath. This is probably the longest shot)
My personal wishlist:
- Nerf to Ramming Speed (I have a whooping 4 of this thing. Bummer)
- Nerf to Chromatic Egg (when theres SO MANY other epics cards, yeah I have 4 of this as well)
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 managed with that list without Halazzi, Veranus and Leeroy. Out of this three, only Leeroy Jenkins seemed to me to be important.
Replace these with Ursatron (mostly to draw SN1P SN4P), Cult Master (surprised this wasn't in the list), and Boommaster Flark (in my opinion, a better card than Shuma, but not as funny)
or try adding Blackwald Pixie for that unleash OTK against an unsuspecting shaman and laugh
All you need now, is just to craft Unseal the Vault
At some point I think we should start to realize that its not possible to build a decent deck from scratch without having a good chunk of it being similar to a listed deck somewhere in some popular site.
In this case, when will we call it a netdecking experience, as opposed to one build up on our own?
Not for the weak of hearth :)
A few other decks not mentioned by this brilliant article, but played by me because hearthstone is more fun that way;
Quest paladin
I genuinely think people are sleeping on this variant. I've been climbing ladder around rank 10 with this deck and have been doing somewhat successfully with it, much to my surprise. This deck only does poorly against shaman and quest priest and amazingly well against warrior. Hsreplay shows this deck is at a 40% win rate at the moment, but I think its only because it attempts to include too many dragons into the deck. Go with the mech build, with double Prismatic Lens, to complete the quest as soon as possible. Once active, its just a matter of time before you out value your opponents.
Plot twist warlock
Again, another meme deck that is a little inconsistent, but I've been getting wins with. The 7 mana tempo swing with Dollmaster Dorian puts so many taunts in the field that warrior cannot reliably get rid of all of it plus the dollmaster. Its backbreaking even to rogue, having trouble only with aggro strategies and lots of bad luck. Play the Kibler version, with double Augmented Elekk to out value quest priest. Unfortunately, I found that playing DoD cards in this deck weakens it a little too much for my liking, but I remain optimistic in experimenting with Nether Breath and malygos at some point.
Cyclone mage
Mentioned in this article, and I can attest that its not very good, but better than its made out to look like. Tried Pro player Apxvoid's list with double Novice Engineer and Research Project for fast draws. The key is not always to get that sweet cyclone value, but to mobilize giants as quickly as possible. The meta currently doesn't run too many counter to giants. If you can get one to stick on turn 4, there's a good chance you can stabilize to the late game where the cyclones do a lot of heavy lifting. There's 5 giants (Apxvoid drops one Mountain Giant but I prefer this over the Mana Giant) so there's plenty of giants to go around.
'little warrior and mage mixed into it'?
warrior was here all year in 2019 and still here in 2020, and mage at least for the full 5 months.
At least we know its gonna be here in 3 weeks time (according to the notification when you scroll on 'Galakrond's awakening in the solo adventure tab)
lol
Two balance patches and nary a month's past since DoD. My god do things change. Its a little worrying for me, to be honest.
I was hoping for the masters tour to conclude before seeing another balance patch. Outside of global games, there hasn't been a lot of pro vs pro games so a better picture of how the meta at its best really look like can be seen. I've been seeing some pros giving reno mage a thumbs up , despite mage being at the lowest tier accordingly to hsreplay, so perhaps theres more to it than what we're seeing.
Unfortunately it also hard counters anything that doesn't have many taunts and healing i.e. rogue, mage, warlock, and other hunters
At this point I don't think it needs any nerfs, but nothing spoils my day more than having my consecutive wins deleted by a cheese. I just hope other decks balance it out so face hunter is only a rare annoyance.
Why, just why? Its a broken card that should consider itself lucky it doesn't get nuked to oblivion.
Probably get rid of the 5 damage weapon you get from full Galakrond. Always though that it was weird that it granted you a 10 damage weapon over two turns when its plainly obviously that 2 out of the 4 Galakrond plays for value and not aggro.
Other predictions;
- Increase mana cost of Necrium Apothecary from 4 to 5
- Reducing the buff from Anubisath Warbringer from 3/3 to 2/2 (My favorite card from SoU. If you get hit, know that it wasn't your fault sniff*)
- Skybarge getting a mana cost increase OR reduce health from 5 to 4 (kinda stupid that this has 5 health. What does team5 think other aggro decks can do to this thing?)
- increase mana cost by 1 to Dragon's Pack (dont hold your breath. This is probably the longest shot)
My personal wishlist:
- Nerf to Ramming Speed (I have a whooping 4 of this thing. Bummer)
- Nerf to Chromatic Egg (when theres SO MANY other epics cards, yeah I have 4 of this as well)
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.