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.
That Highlander Rogue got me to Legend this season. Very fun yet incredibly consistent, even though it condenses so many different packages (Highlander, Galakrond, Lackey, Burgle, Deathrattle and OG Tempo).
I highly recommend it if you have most of the cards.
Are two invoke cards really enough to run the Galakrond package?
I think most highlander G rogue runs 4 invoke cards, including the 2 neutral ones. You can also play Spirit of the Shark for double invokes. But from my own experience, you rarely need Galakrond at max for it to make an impact. Most of the time drawing two cards from Galakrond is good enough, if the match isn't already over by then.
And since you may be wondering: Galakrond Shaman is still the best that the class has to offer, although it's far from the beast it used to be. Those seemingly small nerfs turned out to have an impact after all.
I am far from convinced. Let's talk again next weekend, after the new season starts and all the people who were dominating ladder pre-patch have incentive to try again. My theory is that this archetype just needs a little refinement to survive this new meta's newfound love of aggro, and then we're off to races again. Let's face it: between heals, AoEs, and Hex, Shaman has a TON of tech options at their disposal that they've barely begun to scratch.
Shamans always had alot of tech cards at their disposal, but as most tech cards tend to do, it drops your consistency.
One of the reasons why Galakrond shaman (no quest) was as good as it is was because it played virtually no tech cards but was able to overrun almost all decks on curve.
Add in removal, AoEs, and heals and thats some cards drawn that does nothing for some matches. With Shaman's draw being as shit as it is, that's why the highest win rate deck for Shaman has no Hex in it.
Have to agree for the most part. Playing Toxic Reinforcements on 1 really swings most mid range matches in your favor.
The deck only suffers to priests and warrior, and only because they can match hunter's hero power. Rogues and warlock have to draw like insane hands to beat this.
And its really cheap to play, both deck cost and how cheesy it is sometimes.
I’d say one of the bigger problems Priest has is the fact that so many of their healing cards can’t match up to what other classes have in terms of healing/armor. If you want to play a control deck you’d often have better survivability just by choosing another class.
I’d argue that it’s Auchenai that’s causing a lot of Priest’s problems these days, since it means Priest’s healing cards are always being made with that in mind. If Auchenai didn’t exist, then Priest probably would’ve gotten Forbidden Healing and a bunch of other nice healing cards. Priest’s thing is supposed to be healing, but you almost never really see that
Galakrond not helping the class just shows another case of Priest having problems rooted deeply into the class itself.
I see where you're coming from WRT Auchenai being a constant design constraint, but regarding self-heals we've already seen numerous cards that can only heal friendly characters in priest specifically so they could print bigger heals that can't be used to kill an enemy with Auchenai. CF: Greater Healing Potion, Radiance & Divine Hymn. Priest can heal itself for a ton if it wants, but a lot of the newer healing cards don't play nice with the Soulpriest, which leads to the question why she's even in classic.
To be clear, I can definitely see the argument for HOFing Auchenai, but it's a bit more complicated than that they can't print powerful healing effects.
Unfortunately, as long as Auchenai exists in its current state, there's no way to prevent it from restricting the design of new targeted healing cards. Even a HoF doesn't do much because they can't ignore balance in wild. Priest is a real mess of a class. They need to rework its basic and classic set to prevent stuff like this from happening (and to stop the need for printing insane cards for the class every expansion).
Just make the healing only affect your own minions and yourself. We already had that card in Greater Healing Potion in the past and that saw play in the raza priest of old precisely for the same reason why priest is struggling now.
Theres no need for a nerf or HoF to Auchenai Soulpriest, so long as the heal effects cant affect the opponent's face. Besides, its the last vestige of direct damage for priest and with the classic cards for priest being as shit as it is, I don't think this will do any good to the class as a whole.
The problem is not with Galakrond's hero power, its just that priest's invoke cards aren't up to snuff against aggro and there's not many ways priest can heal a ton right now. The tempo loss from playing invoke cards currently for priest is similar to rogue, except rogue has more tempo cards in its arsenal so it plays much better than priest.
Also, its meta dependent. We are currently facing a surge of face hunters now and it would probably take a while before warrior or druid comes back into force to balance it out and maybe that's where priest can shine a little brighter.
There's probably not many ways you can change the hero power so priest becomes too weak or too OP. By design priest cards are very situational, so unless this is drastically changed I just can't see team5 doing anything about it.
probably because its fun to pull out bs combos. Some cards does it better, some others with more toxic sprinkles. Mogu Fleshshaper with those bs grommash-al akir evolves on 3 was probably of the more toxic variety.
Don't know about you, but when I first managed that Khadgar-giant + frost nova combo for the win I was pretty happy and couldn't stop playing cyclone mage for quite some time.
Its mostly on perceived fairness of decks, from my own observations.
On that note, getting your tush handed to you from multiple 1 mana 7/7 charge minion is not likely to be fun for anyone. Its the crystal caverns issue again; where a low win rate deck is creating mountains of problems for certain archetype and the community being hell bent on neutering it.
Still, those high rolls don't happen that often and deathrattle rogue still needs to first draw those cards, I don't really see the problem with it. More to point, its not anywhere near the levels of idiocy from crystal caverns where control decks might as well auto concede on turn 1.
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.
Rogue being one of the more popular classes with highlander Galakrond would probably make this less so
I think most highlander G rogue runs 4 invoke cards, including the 2 neutral ones. You can also play Spirit of the Shark for double invokes. But from my own experience, you rarely need Galakrond at max for it to make an impact. Most of the time drawing two cards from Galakrond is good enough, if the match isn't already over by then.
Shamans always had alot of tech cards at their disposal, but as most tech cards tend to do, it drops your consistency.
One of the reasons why Galakrond shaman (no quest) was as good as it is was because it played virtually no tech cards but was able to overrun almost all decks on curve.
Add in removal, AoEs, and heals and thats some cards drawn that does nothing for some matches. With Shaman's draw being as shit as it is, that's why the highest win rate deck for Shaman has no Hex in it.
Have to agree for the most part. Playing Toxic Reinforcements on 1 really swings most mid range matches in your favor.
The deck only suffers to priests and warrior, and only because they can match hunter's hero power. Rogues and warlock have to draw like insane hands to beat this.
And its really cheap to play, both deck cost and how cheesy it is sometimes.
Just make the healing only affect your own minions and yourself. We already had that card in Greater Healing Potion in the past and that saw play in the raza priest of old precisely for the same reason why priest is struggling now.
Theres no need for a nerf or HoF to Auchenai Soulpriest, so long as the heal effects cant affect the opponent's face. Besides, its the last vestige of direct damage for priest and with the classic cards for priest being as shit as it is, I don't think this will do any good to the class as a whole.
her flavor text should have been: "She can actually shapeshift you know."
The problem is not with Galakrond's hero power, its just that priest's invoke cards aren't up to snuff against aggro and there's not many ways priest can heal a ton right now. The tempo loss from playing invoke cards currently for priest is similar to rogue, except rogue has more tempo cards in its arsenal so it plays much better than priest.
Also, its meta dependent. We are currently facing a surge of face hunters now and it would probably take a while before warrior or druid comes back into force to balance it out and maybe that's where priest can shine a little brighter.
There's probably not many ways you can change the hero power so priest becomes too weak or too OP. By design priest cards are very situational, so unless this is drastically changed I just can't see team5 doing anything about it.
probably because its fun to pull out bs combos. Some cards does it better, some others with more toxic sprinkles. Mogu Fleshshaper with those bs grommash-al akir evolves on 3 was probably of the more toxic variety.
Don't know about you, but when I first managed that Khadgar-giant + frost nova combo for the win I was pretty happy and couldn't stop playing cyclone mage for quite some time.
Its mostly on perceived fairness of decks, from my own observations.
On that note, getting your tush handed to you from multiple 1 mana 7/7 charge minion is not likely to be fun for anyone. Its the crystal caverns issue again; where a low win rate deck is creating mountains of problems for certain archetype and the community being hell bent on neutering it.
Still, those high rolls don't happen that often and deathrattle rogue still needs to first draw those cards, I don't really see the problem with it. More to point, its not anywhere near the levels of idiocy from crystal caverns where control decks might as well auto concede on turn 1.