Yeah it usually depends on what other cards you have to go along with it.
Playing it on curve without having anything in your hand that synergizes with it the following turn is almost never correct.
You want the card to snowball. Hard.
Ideally you play it on turn 4/5 paired with Springpaw or Unleash the Hounds. Trade all your 1/1s into their minions and have a huge threat which wins you the game if the opponent can't clear it.
You shouldn't keep it in your mulligan unless you have a Springpaw or Unleash the Hounds in your starting hand as well AND you're playing against a deck that likes to go wide such as evolve/quest shaman.
Yeah murloc shaman has fallen off quite hard against the evolve shamans.
If you want to give secret paladin another go I'd recommend the highlander build. That one should easily get you to rank 5.
I've been using it myself together with highlander hunter. Currently rank 4 but not sure I'll be playing much more with the League of Legends world championship going on.
My experience in wild with her is just ok. I've been playing it in an Even Shaman, but more focused in big minions like Flamewreathed Faceless and Fireguard Destroyer.
The ideal scenario for her is when played with a swarming kind of deck. But, these decks don't see much play in wild, since small minions don't stick.
I can't tell you about Standard, though. Probably she may be more useful. But I don't know if I would craft her, since Shaman is in the right spot for the next nerf wave...
Actually there are two even shaman builds going around right now. The one that you're running, which is good against slow decks, and a more overload-centered one, which does indeed run Vessina. The overload deck fares a lot better against aggressive decks and is extremely competitive.
So yes, OP, Vessina is a good card in wild as well as standard.
Flamewalker is absolutely disgusting with all the cheap mage spells they have now and also the elemental that gives them a million spells for vomiting out all the spells they already had in their hand.
I took over 30 damage from two flamewalkers on turn 8 the other day. That was in addition to killing off my minions which had a combined health of 21. How is that not absolutley ridiculous?
I can tell you don't play wild, lol.
Imagine the above with even more 0-1 cost spells, Time Warp and at least two Arcane Giant.
If mage got another decent board freeze I reckon most OTK/combo mages would play at least one copy of it. It's a card type that isn't nearly as saturated as priest mass-removal.
I also don't think mass-freeze effects are quite analogous to board clears. It's quite possible that decks would run even more than 6 freeze effects, if they could, in order to lock minion-centric decks out of the game entirely with repeat mass-freezes against a full board.
I'm a bit torn on the issue. On the one hand I think mage's card do an excellent job at outlining the class identity and providing starting players with playable cards, at the same time I think a lot of these cards are so powerful that mage tends to receive rather underwhelming expansion cards year after year. Mage hardly ever gets good burn spells because Fireball and Frostbolt exist. Mage never gets any mass freeze effects because of Frost Nova, Blizzard and Cone of Cold. Mage sometimes gets decent AoE because frankly it doesn't really matter if the class has access to even more board clears, that role is already saturated by the evergreen set.
Yeah freeze effects are a whole different thing than board clears. If we look at the current solitaire mage in wild though, that deck doesn't even run Cone of Cold. It runs Blizzard, Frost Nova and Ray of Frost. Sure that deck can run even more freeze spells, but at that point it will be at the cost of card draw. If those decks decide to go all in on the freezes and thus become a lot slower in executing their OTK then I feel like they basically concede every other OTK matchup at that point. They will never be fast enough against decks that don't have a board. Which is why I, luckily, don't see a hardcore freeze becoming a thing anytime soon.
I never said either was played a lot, but that doesn't mean they both aren't still strong decks. Big Priest has dropped in favor because it loses often to the currently preferred Mage deck, Secret Mage. But both Big Priest and Time Warp Mage with Vargoth and Arcane Giants can still win games. When I play that deck I often win burning my opponent down before I even need to play the Vargoth, Giants, and Quest turn.
And yes, the Wild Priest cards are overloaded with board clears. That was exactly the point I was making and applying to the discussion of Frost Nova and printing more mass freeze cards.
To be clearer on my BP comment, yes, the rez mechanic is what technically allows it to be a thing since you can rez multilpe copies of a single dead minion. However, not every game plays out so perfectly and you can't always get early minions on board. In those cases you often need board clears to survive until you can use the busted rez mechanic to set up a big board that your opponent can't deal with. At least that has been my personal experience playing the deck in the past.
I never said you said either of those decks are played a lot, which they are though. They're ridiculously overplayed. I said they were barely playable. i.e. not strong at all currently. And they never really were to begin with. Both decks never surpassed tier 2 because they're not consistent enough (especially big priest) and get absolutely slammed on by aggro decks.
The point I was trying to make is that big priest doesn't run many board clears, only six in fact. (If you even count Spirit Lash as a board clear.) They have a plethora of good ones, yet only these six make the cut. Which is why I feel that if mage gets more freeze cards for standard, wild won't be affected much. They will still only run 4-6 of the best freeze cards, and leave the rest behind.
Your deck seems to fall a little in between secret and midrange hunter. Which means it's probably not nearly as consistent as it can be.
Three secrets is far too little to be consistent and worth running for hunter.
You can go two routes: either cut the secrets and lesser cards and go more towards a midrange beast build or go all in on the secret package.
If you remove the secrets and go down the midrange route, also remove the Golden Scarab and Pit Crocolisk. Those cards just aren't good. Lastly, remove Hunter's Pack. That card is a lot better in secret mange.
The other route is the secret route. In which case you want to add as many as possible: Pressure Plate, Snake Trap, Freezing Trap, Rat Trap and Explosive Trap are the best traps and should all be two ofs in your deck. You could replace missing ones with Misdirection but it's not as effective. Next, add secret support cards such as Secretkeeper, Sunreaver Spy, Eaglehorn Bow and Hyena Alpha. Cards that should be removed are all the 1 mana and high cost beasts and Master's Call. Subject 9 is obviously a fantastic card to add as well if you have it, might even be a worthwhile craft, but I guess if you want to replace it you can try Hunter's Pack.
The second route is quite a bit more expensive, but also far more competitive. Either way, there's a lot of cheap ways to make your deck more effective and steer it towards a consistent gameplan. Good luck!
One of the things that makes Big Priest possible in Wild is the amount of board clearing effects Priest gets year in and year out. This happens because they don't have a great one in Classic/Basic, so they print one every now and then. But with all they've got now in Wild they can mass clear and/or stall until they cheat our and then resurrect a ton of big dudes to win.
Frost Nova may very well limit their ability to print more mass freezes, but I'm honestly okay with that. Time Warp Mages in Wild are already pretty strong, imagine how much strong they'd get if they had more cheap mass freezes that also came with cool and helpful effects? If they were to do this, the card replacing Frost Nova in Classic woudl have to be the new mass freeze card so that they don't go printing a bunch year after year.
Uh, no. Big priest and quest mage are currently barely playable in wild. The reason big priest is strong is because Blizzard decided to implement a half-assed resurrection mechanic. Wild priest is at a point where the amount of removals it has are extremely bloated. So much so that insane board clears like Lightbomb and Dragonfire Potion see little to no play.
Definitely a good deck, I have been playing it for a while now and the Control Warrior matchup is surprisingly not that oppressive. Siamat usually wins the games on his own, so thats a good card to have. Highlander Warrior is able to consistently build up tempo and clear threats, it mostly dominates the midgame and you will just steamroll your opponents if you can curve decently with Zephrys as a potentialfinisher.
For some changes, my list runs Akali, the Rhino in it and he has saved me multiple times by letting me copy buffed Rush minions. I cut War Axe, Sul’thraze and Raging Worgen because i felt they were just not good enough, replaced them with Grom, Bone Wraith(tentative) and Militia Commander.
Like others may have said, Octosari is carrying the deck on its back, I would not reccomend playing the deck without him!
I hadn't even considered Akali. Man, warrior has a lot of good cards, huh?
Do you usually play Zephrys on curve, unless you hit the late game, or do you hold him regardless to potentially burst down your opponent?
When I saw the thread title I assumed this was about a control highlander deck. I haven't played this version of aggro warrior, but intuitively it seems like you're sacrificing a lot of consistency for potential high-rolls, which sounds like a bad deal for an aggro deck. My instinct is that this deck is a fad that'll gradually get replaced by the non-highlander version. If it isn't, that means that Zephyris is stronger than consistency in an aggro deck, which is a terrifying commentary on that card's power.
Yeah the idea seems a little counter intuitive but its matchup spread does not lie. ViciousSyndicate are also grouping them together so they seem to perform very similarly.
Which is indeed rather scary because that implies Zephrys can then accomodate for 50% of an aggro deck's strongest cards.
On the other hand, it could be that aggro warrior's top build doesn't differ much from lesser builds and that it has a lot of great alternatives for its main 30 cards.
I've played that deck last season and you can reach rank 5 easily.
Your high counters Will be quest shaman, and maybe control warrior, i has a poor win rate against them.
The real MVP of the deck is Octosari, that refill+body wrecks the games.
In addition, Its really frustrating for your oponents when they sees Zephrys and get fireballed or pyroblasted, prepare your ears to listen tons of emotes.
Interesting. How did the control warrior matches go? Did you feel as hopeless as I usually do when playing aggro rogue/warrior where it seems like you will never be able to get enough damage in?
And what is your winrate against the quest shamans? As I recall it shouldn't be an unfavored matchup. Did your opponent have good starts whereas you did not or was that pretty even?
Yeah it usually depends on what other cards you have to go along with it.
Playing it on curve without having anything in your hand that synergizes with it the following turn is almost never correct.
You want the card to snowball. Hard.
Ideally you play it on turn 4/5 paired with Springpaw or Unleash the Hounds. Trade all your 1/1s into their minions and have a huge threat which wins you the game if the opponent can't clear it.
You shouldn't keep it in your mulligan unless you have a Springpaw or Unleash the Hounds in your starting hand as well AND you're playing against a deck that likes to go wide such as evolve/quest shaman.
Yeah murloc shaman has fallen off quite hard against the evolve shamans.
If you want to give secret paladin another go I'd recommend the highlander build. That one should easily get you to rank 5.
I've been using it myself together with highlander hunter. Currently rank 4 but not sure I'll be playing much more with the League of Legends world championship going on.
Actually there are two even shaman builds going around right now. The one that you're running, which is good against slow decks, and a more overload-centered one, which does indeed run Vessina. The overload deck fares a lot better against aggressive decks and is extremely competitive.
So yes, OP, Vessina is a good card in wild as well as standard.
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I can't wait to see their Twitch chat this weekend. It's gonna be something, alright.
I can tell you don't play wild, lol.
Imagine the above with even more 0-1 cost spells, Time Warp and at least two Arcane Giant.
Dark Pharaoh Tekahn is competitive (in zoo warlock). Supreme Archaeology is horrible.
So yeah, that.
Octosari. He gives you some much needed refill in slower games. The others can easily be replaced with Ragnaros the Firelord and something else.
The only reason that deck won any games in the past was because of the stupid Barnes into Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound combo.
Now that that doesn't exist anymore, Renounce warlock is just a meme deck, as it always should have been.
Because they do not have those cards maybe?
Are you sure you're using the event one and not the one from your wild collection?
Sidenote: I haven't opened the game yet so I do not know if there's actually two different copies of Emperor Thaurissan right now.
Ah yes. Because nothing screams tempo like "do nothing on turn one for a reward that comes into play far too late".
Yeah freeze effects are a whole different thing than board clears. If we look at the current solitaire mage in wild though, that deck doesn't even run Cone of Cold. It runs Blizzard, Frost Nova and Ray of Frost. Sure that deck can run even more freeze spells, but at that point it will be at the cost of card draw. If those decks decide to go all in on the freezes and thus become a lot slower in executing their OTK then I feel like they basically concede every other OTK matchup at that point. They will never be fast enough against decks that don't have a board. Which is why I, luckily, don't see a hardcore freeze becoming a thing anytime soon.
I never said you said either of those decks are played a lot, which they are though. They're ridiculously overplayed. I said they were barely playable. i.e. not strong at all currently. And they never really were to begin with. Both decks never surpassed tier 2 because they're not consistent enough (especially big priest) and get absolutely slammed on by aggro decks.
The point I was trying to make is that big priest doesn't run many board clears, only six in fact. (If you even count Spirit Lash as a board clear.) They have a plethora of good ones, yet only these six make the cut. Which is why I feel that if mage gets more freeze cards for standard, wild won't be affected much. They will still only run 4-6 of the best freeze cards, and leave the rest behind.
Your deck seems to fall a little in between secret and midrange hunter. Which means it's probably not nearly as consistent as it can be.
Three secrets is far too little to be consistent and worth running for hunter.
You can go two routes: either cut the secrets and lesser cards and go more towards a midrange beast build or go all in on the secret package.
If you remove the secrets and go down the midrange route, also remove the Golden Scarab and Pit Crocolisk. Those cards just aren't good. Lastly, remove Hunter's Pack. That card is a lot better in secret mange.
Now, cards to consider adding Vicious Scalehide (good matchup into aggro decks and great value from Dire Frenzy), a second Kill Command, a second Master's Call (if you have it), Tracking for additional card draw, Marked Shot for some value, removal and synergy with Zul'jin and lastly replace the Savannah Highmane with Tundra Rhino. Houndmaster is a solid replacement for any of the cards that you might not have. It allows for some early snowballing.
The other route is the secret route. In which case you want to add as many as possible: Pressure Plate, Snake Trap, Freezing Trap, Rat Trap and Explosive Trap are the best traps and should all be two ofs in your deck. You could replace missing ones with Misdirection but it's not as effective. Next, add secret support cards such as Secretkeeper, Sunreaver Spy, Eaglehorn Bow and Hyena Alpha. Cards that should be removed are all the 1 mana and high cost beasts and Master's Call. Subject 9 is obviously a fantastic card to add as well if you have it, might even be a worthwhile craft, but I guess if you want to replace it you can try Hunter's Pack.
The second route is quite a bit more expensive, but also far more competitive. Either way, there's a lot of cheap ways to make your deck more effective and steer it towards a consistent gameplan. Good luck!
I doubt it. They're not part of classic anymore and the ones we will receive to be used in standard will most likely be labeled as 'event' cards.
Uh, no. Big priest and quest mage are currently barely playable in wild. The reason big priest is strong is because Blizzard decided to implement a half-assed resurrection mechanic. Wild priest is at a point where the amount of removals it has are extremely bloated. So much so that insane board clears like Lightbomb and Dragonfire Potion see little to no play.
I hadn't even considered Akali. Man, warrior has a lot of good cards, huh?
Do you usually play Zephrys on curve, unless you hit the late game, or do you hold him regardless to potentially burst down your opponent?
Yeah the idea seems a little counter intuitive but its matchup spread does not lie. ViciousSyndicate are also grouping them together so they seem to perform very similarly.
Which is indeed rather scary because that implies Zephrys can then accomodate for 50% of an aggro deck's strongest cards.
On the other hand, it could be that aggro warrior's top build doesn't differ much from lesser builds and that it has a lot of great alternatives for its main 30 cards.
Interesting. How did the control warrior matches go? Did you feel as hopeless as I usually do when playing aggro rogue/warrior where it seems like you will never be able to get enough damage in?
And what is your winrate against the quest shamans? As I recall it shouldn't be an unfavored matchup. Did your opponent have good starts whereas you did not or was that pretty even?