Ras Frostwhisper with spell damage = kill aggro. If there is a way to protect that guy once he hits the board, it's goodbye Shaman or any other aggro deck. The only time I have seen this NOT work is when the evolve high rolls into something with a fat but and taunt. But other than that, it's a straight up board clear every turn which is what the Evolve Shaman deck cannot deal with effectively.
I've been using Secret Mage to climb up through Diamond for the past year. Honestly, it's not my favorite deck to play, but it is efficient and relatively easy to create. I also love to play my Even Warlock and Highlander Priest decks, but I cannot plow through games as quickly with those since they are control decks and thus the games take a lot longer to play.
One thing I will say is that there was an article put out about an Anti-Secret Mage deck that just destroys it. It is meh against other decks, but just beats the hell out of Secret Mage. Like it isn't even funny how fast I conceded against that much hate.
Realistically, this deck is still MUCH slower than it used to be when it had Mana Wyrm. Granted, it now has the Occult Conjurer and Cloud Prince, the efficiency of the 1 mana drop 1/3 that just got bigger and bigger cannot be compared easily.
With all that being said... I have changed up my build substantially and my play style since I encounter a lot of Eater of Secrets and other secret hate... mostly coming from Rogue Shadowstepping Flik Skyshiv and just leaving me with limited burn.
I personally am shocked that the nerf to Boggspine Knuckles hurt as much as it did. I didn't think that it would have had an impact so much that it would have reduced the number of those deck floating around, but I too have not encountered nearly as many.
I've been sticking to my Pure Paladin and Guardian Druid decks and having a lot of fun with the Standard ladder with them.
Shockingly though, I am seeing more Rogue decks than I did before. I don't know if it is because people are just trying out how much of an impact Edwin VanCleef's nerf is having, or what but I am seeing a lot of Aggro, Galakrond, and Secret Rogue wandering around the ladder AND I am still seeing VanCleef being used.
MY biggest fear about this is that they do what MTG did back in the day and create more environments to play. With MTG, they had Type 1, Type 2, Extended, and Type 1.5. It worked with physical play because you could have as many decks as you had cards to play. However, with the online format, we are restricted in the number of decks that we have and doing this, while it would allow more versatility with players, would make it difficult to play ALL the environments. I have no doubt that whatever Blizzard decides to do, a lot of griping will happen and people will threaten to leave the game. It happens with every change to every game. You have loyalists that want it to stay the same forever. Then you have people that get so bored with the monotony that they fade out and then the game has to find new blood to play or risk fading out as well.
I like the concept, but the basis of this deck seems completely contingent upon having Archmage Vargoth on deck. He's a priority to be removed in nearly every deck. So what happens when he gets an [Hearthstone Card (exploding runes) Not Found] to the face or Polymorphed?
I'm just going to be happy to see Highlander decks go back to Wild where they belong. I hate having all these highlander builds in standard. I even play Highlander Priest in Wild, so I'm not complaining about their power or restrictions... I'm just so tired of having similar decks played in Standard AND Wild all the time.
I would like to see them deviate from the Defias Brotherhood. This was Classic, and what I played in WoW, and is a great bit of nostalgia. However, since Blizzard is revamping the class a bit, having it be someone not associated with Edwin VanCleef or the Defias whatsoever would be more appropriate.
Doing this shows that they aren't just taking away a power card, but they are "adjusting the class identity" like they did with Priest. When they HoF'd Prophet Velen, they didn't put in a card that acted like him... they went in a different direction. It is for that reason, I'd like to see either Garona or members of the Shado-Pan. It's unfortunate that they put Infiltrator Lilian into an expansion because that card alone has Rogue identity written all over it.
I don't know how much impact the Boggspine Knuckles nerf will have solely because the efficiency of Shaman to get the weapon out of their deck and re-equip it once it breaks. It will totally reduce the ability for Shaman to blow through moderate taunt/threat minions on the board while transforming their board into a more aggressive standing.
The nerf to Edwin VanCleef is completely necessary. The fact that it is entirely possible to have a really explosive T2 and drop a scary VC that not many decks can deal with is all too common. It can still happen when Foxy Fraud drops and you have a Shadowstep, albeit that will be more rare as it would require having all three of those in your first hand and couple of draws.
I played warlock and just died. No reason to use your hero power in a game where you get tons of cards each turn. Went with Mage I was able to get an apprentice out first turn and that helped a lot
The qualm with this ideology is that you need to continually save to get more. Like others, I would spend my gold on the initial month of an expansion's release and then save up to get packs of the new one that came out. I would usually bank up around 5500 for the release on top of what I bought as a bundle and it helped me not spend much cash on the game. I am wondering how much I will be able to save up now though as changes could still come into play AND the current track has a limited amount of XP that you can get with weekly and daily quests.
This is awesome!! I've always liked to have 1-3 serious meta decks set up for both Standard and Wild, but I like weird and goofy decks to play mostly because it's just fun to watch something dumb get pulled off in a match. Thanks for this write up, keep it up and I look forward to seeing anything else that gets posted.
I love budget decks that come out of no where to beat up the current meta. My hat's off to you and I hope to see it beat up some stuff that is going around right now.
You mention incidentally nerfing other decks that aren't the problem... If they are using similar cards then it would impact them. With the change to Raiding Party, that hurt more decks than what was intended. It is part of the change in nerfs. are Boggspine Knuckles a problem, sure. There are a number of wild decks that are floating around using them. With that in mind, if you nerf that card, those other decks get impacted as well. No matter which way you look at it, there is always going to be collateral damage.
Off meta decks aren't necessarily good for laddering, that is what the main meta is. What I did was try to find a way to break down the Evolve Shaman issue... which was board control. If there aren't many things to evolve, then it's power becomes extremely limited. With that in mind, I just started putting in some anti-weapon cards that help my decks perform, or bring more control into the game and killing the board multiple times... Warlock is great at that right now.
I'm reading so much hate for Evolve in general and people are kinda missing the mark on this. I've been playing an off meta deck that is focused on controlling the board and I have NO problems with Evolve Shaman. I get annihilated by pretty much everything else, but that is where the power lies.
For Boggspine Knuckles, there are a number of things out there that deal with this,:
Being able to tutor it out of the deck early and then bring it back is where the issue lies. If Cagematch Custodian has it's cost increased and Hoard Pillager does the same thing as Rummaging Kobold, that would substantially slow the deck since it would then have to pay to re-equip it, effectively slowing the deck.
Ras Frostwhisper with spell damage = kill aggro. If there is a way to protect that guy once he hits the board, it's goodbye Shaman or any other aggro deck. The only time I have seen this NOT work is when the evolve high rolls into something with a fat but and taunt. But other than that, it's a straight up board clear every turn which is what the Evolve Shaman deck cannot deal with effectively.
I've been using Secret Mage to climb up through Diamond for the past year. Honestly, it's not my favorite deck to play, but it is efficient and relatively easy to create. I also love to play my Even Warlock and Highlander Priest decks, but I cannot plow through games as quickly with those since they are control decks and thus the games take a lot longer to play.
One thing I will say is that there was an article put out about an Anti-Secret Mage deck that just destroys it. It is meh against other decks, but just beats the hell out of Secret Mage. Like it isn't even funny how fast I conceded against that much hate.
Realistically, this deck is still MUCH slower than it used to be when it had Mana Wyrm. Granted, it now has the Occult Conjurer and Cloud Prince, the efficiency of the 1 mana drop 1/3 that just got bigger and bigger cannot be compared easily.
With all that being said... I have changed up my build substantially and my play style since I encounter a lot of Eater of Secrets and other secret hate... mostly coming from Rogue Shadowstepping Flik Skyshiv and just leaving me with limited burn.
I personally am shocked that the nerf to Boggspine Knuckles hurt as much as it did. I didn't think that it would have had an impact so much that it would have reduced the number of those deck floating around, but I too have not encountered nearly as many.
I've been sticking to my Pure Paladin and Guardian Druid decks and having a lot of fun with the Standard ladder with them.
Shockingly though, I am seeing more Rogue decks than I did before. I don't know if it is because people are just trying out how much of an impact Edwin VanCleef's nerf is having, or what but I am seeing a lot of Aggro, Galakrond, and Secret Rogue wandering around the ladder AND I am still seeing VanCleef being used.
Wow... this is quite, expansive.
MY biggest fear about this is that they do what MTG did back in the day and create more environments to play. With MTG, they had Type 1, Type 2, Extended, and Type 1.5. It worked with physical play because you could have as many decks as you had cards to play. However, with the online format, we are restricted in the number of decks that we have and doing this, while it would allow more versatility with players, would make it difficult to play ALL the environments. I have no doubt that whatever Blizzard decides to do, a lot of griping will happen and people will threaten to leave the game. It happens with every change to every game. You have loyalists that want it to stay the same forever. Then you have people that get so bored with the monotony that they fade out and then the game has to find new blood to play or risk fading out as well.
It is decks like this that make me want to invest more in my Warrior collection. This looks super fun.
I like the concept, but the basis of this deck seems completely contingent upon having Archmage Vargoth on deck. He's a priority to be removed in nearly every deck. So what happens when he gets an [Hearthstone Card (exploding runes) Not Found] to the face or Polymorphed?
10/10 would rage quit every game played against this with Secret Mage. Nice deck.
I'm just going to be happy to see Highlander decks go back to Wild where they belong. I hate having all these highlander builds in standard. I even play Highlander Priest in Wild, so I'm not complaining about their power or restrictions... I'm just so tired of having similar decks played in Standard AND Wild all the time.
I would like to see them deviate from the Defias Brotherhood. This was Classic, and what I played in WoW, and is a great bit of nostalgia. However, since Blizzard is revamping the class a bit, having it be someone not associated with Edwin VanCleef or the Defias whatsoever would be more appropriate.
Doing this shows that they aren't just taking away a power card, but they are "adjusting the class identity" like they did with Priest. When they HoF'd Prophet Velen, they didn't put in a card that acted like him... they went in a different direction. It is for that reason, I'd like to see either Garona or members of the Shado-Pan. It's unfortunate that they put Infiltrator Lilian into an expansion because that card alone has Rogue identity written all over it.
... but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I don't know how much impact the Boggspine Knuckles nerf will have solely because the efficiency of Shaman to get the weapon out of their deck and re-equip it once it breaks. It will totally reduce the ability for Shaman to blow through moderate taunt/threat minions on the board while transforming their board into a more aggressive standing.
The nerf to Edwin VanCleef is completely necessary. The fact that it is entirely possible to have a really explosive T2 and drop a scary VC that not many decks can deal with is all too common. It can still happen when Foxy Fraud drops and you have a Shadowstep, albeit that will be more rare as it would require having all three of those in your first hand and couple of draws.
I played warlock and just died. No reason to use your hero power in a game where you get tons of cards each turn. Went with Mage I was able to get an apprentice out first turn and that helped a lot
The qualm with this ideology is that you need to continually save to get more. Like others, I would spend my gold on the initial month of an expansion's release and then save up to get packs of the new one that came out. I would usually bank up around 5500 for the release on top of what I bought as a bundle and it helped me not spend much cash on the game. I am wondering how much I will be able to save up now though as changes could still come into play AND the current track has a limited amount of XP that you can get with weekly and daily quests.
This is awesome!! I've always liked to have 1-3 serious meta decks set up for both Standard and Wild, but I like weird and goofy decks to play mostly because it's just fun to watch something dumb get pulled off in a match. Thanks for this write up, keep it up and I look forward to seeing anything else that gets posted.
Huzzah for free stuff!!!
I love budget decks that come out of no where to beat up the current meta. My hat's off to you and I hope to see it beat up some stuff that is going around right now.
I like this idea. I'd like to see how it would do against some Tier 2-1 decks as well since it's totally off-meta
You mention incidentally nerfing other decks that aren't the problem... If they are using similar cards then it would impact them. With the change to Raiding Party, that hurt more decks than what was intended. It is part of the change in nerfs. are Boggspine Knuckles a problem, sure. There are a number of wild decks that are floating around using them. With that in mind, if you nerf that card, those other decks get impacted as well. No matter which way you look at it, there is always going to be collateral damage.
Off meta decks aren't necessarily good for laddering, that is what the main meta is. What I did was try to find a way to break down the Evolve Shaman issue... which was board control. If there aren't many things to evolve, then it's power becomes extremely limited. With that in mind, I just started putting in some anti-weapon cards that help my decks perform, or bring more control into the game and killing the board multiple times... Warlock is great at that right now.
I'm reading so much hate for Evolve in general and people are kinda missing the mark on this. I've been playing an off meta deck that is focused on controlling the board and I have NO problems with Evolve Shaman. I get annihilated by pretty much everything else, but that is where the power lies.
For Boggspine Knuckles, there are a number of things out there that deal with this,:
1) Acidic Swamp Ooze
2) Harrison Jones
3) Kobold Stickyfinger
4) even Bloodsail Corsair can help
The issue is that the current meta is able to keep getting the weapon with Hoard Pillager and Cagematch Custodian.
Being able to tutor it out of the deck early and then bring it back is where the issue lies. If Cagematch Custodian has it's cost increased and Hoard Pillager does the same thing as Rummaging Kobold, that would substantially slow the deck since it would then have to pay to re-equip it, effectively slowing the deck.