Get off your soap box. Jesus. As he said, you're entitled to your opinion, but it's a game website for christ sake. Relax. Also, a deck doesn't need to run Leeroy to be aggro FWIW.
You say Venomizer requires a mech on board and Deadly poison requires a weapon. Well, this combination requires to have Northshire cleric on board. So there goes that. It's not that Norththire Cleric at turn 1 and Extra arms at turn 2 is a given. You have to be lucky to get that combo going. (1)
The game is not just about having to deal with a minion on the same turn it is summoned or buffed. Even if this combination is made at turn 2, it doesn't mean that removing it at turn 3 or 4 will be terrible. (2)
I did read what you typed and I don't agree with you at all. And if I read the general feeling of people about Extra Arms on these comments, I see everyone agrees about putting it back to 3 mana is a big mistake. (3)
(1) No you don't actually.
Your chances of getting a lightwarden/cleric in your mulligan while going first would be : 24.6%
Your chances of getting a lightwarden/cleric in your mulligan while going 2nd would be: 32.8%
This is assuming you don't initially draw it, that's just purely the mulligan statistic. Consequently your chances of drawing a copy of Extra Arms in the same hand would be 13.6%.
So essentially what we consider the "perfect draw" where you have cleric or lightwarden PLUS Extra arms boils down to about a 1 in 7 chance. This isn't counting OTHER just as decent buff cards like power word shield.
(2) The game isn't about having to deal with minions the turn they are summoned? Uh yes it is. Since the inception of hearthstone, if you don't clear Archmage Antonidas the TURN HE IS SUMMONED. You lose. If you don't clear any card with a progressive power each turn, you lose. Some similar examples that come to mind are Ysera, Armegedillo, Hench Clan Thug, etc etc. These are all minions that if you dont remove them the turn they are summoned, they snowball out of control. A buffed cleric or lightwarden is no different.
(3) You're allowed to disagree with me, but the only thing you've done so far from what I've seen is try to provide the notion that silence, and cards that can remove, but not immediately remove something are considered "hard removal". They aren't. Why do you think noone runs Emperor Cobra in decks? The only reason venomizer is run in mech hunters is because it has MAGNETIZE and can be stuck onto an existing mech for "immediate value".
(3A) As for the possible nerf to extra arms. Where did I say I agreed with moving it back to 3 mana? Please quote me. I said that I think it's problematic with the current scenario of lightwarden/cleric into turn 2 Extra Arms. That means any one of those cards could be the problem. Probably Cleric. But Cleric is a classic card, extra arms isn't. They are hesitant to nerf a core classic card, where nerfing an existing set card that will rotate out in 6 months is a more viable option. Also, everyone? Really. I've reviewed the thread and not everyone in the thread agrees that the card isn't a problem. As for the out of cards community? Microsms don't count. Blizzard has statistics, better than any stat site we publicly have available. I'm not necessarily advocating for an outright nerf to extra arms, but SOMETHING with the combo as I said is a problem. And *something* needs to be done otherwise aggro priest is going to be just as bad as Conj Mage, or Control Warrior for the next 6 months.
Yes, but almost none of those are immediate turn 2 non pre-requisite answers.
Venomizer requires a mech on board to be used immediately. Deadly poison requires a weapon already equipped. Toxfin requires a murloc already on board. Cobra is 3 mana, and takes a turn to actually be used (so it wont actually attack until turn 4). Plaguebringer requries a minion on board, AND is 4 mana.
Hex, Poly are also 4 mana. Shield slam on 2 is impossible unless the warrior is going 2nd, and even then that's impossible to gain 5 armor on turn 2 with cards in the current set. Execute requires damage to be on the minion.
Again, if you read what I typed. There are VERY FEW classes that can answer a turn 2 3/5 buffed cleric immediately. Except priest itself with shadow word pain.
That *used* to be the point of tech cards. In the power-creep economy of Hearthstone currently, in order for a tech card to be even considered viable, it needs to pretty much be a full swing card in your favor. I mean, hell cards like BGH, EMP operative, and the such are actually decent swing cards and they aren't even run. And those cards just FLAT OUT DESTROY a minion under specific circumstances.
What makes you thing a 2/1 body that doesn't even 1:1 trade with the card it silences is going to be viable? Or , even under better circumstances, what makes you think you won't still lose to tempo with a silence from spellbreaker.
I know what tech cards are for. I know what the point is. Do you care to actually contribute intelligently to the conversation or are you just here to stroke your ego and think you are god's gift to card games and YOU are the only one who knows what tech cards are used for?
Edit: noticed you downvoted me without any sort of reply. So I guess the answer is "stroke my ego". Thanks! Cannot wait for OOC to have block/mute feature for trolls like you.
Turn 1 Northshire Cleric into turn 2 Extra Arms is a really good start against any deck. Having a 3/5 on board on turn 2 is hard to kill for almost every deck in the meta. But I have to say that I liked Extra Arms as a viable card in a combo priest and I'd rather not nerf it.
Tech options do exist though. Ironbeak Owl and Spellbreaker can put a damper on any combo priests day.
Most decks just aren't built to deal with combo priest well since its a recent deck.
Ah the good ole "just run silence" option. As others have said, there's very few decks that can answer a 3/5 on turn 3. Actually hardly any decks can. Oh wait, there is ONE class that can quite efficiently remove a 3/5 on turn 2. IT'S PRIEST (Shadow word pain).
Silence against a buff priest deck doesn't do a whole lot of anything. And your suggestion of using ironbeak owl is just dumb. A 2/1 silence, that the priest trades with easily with the silenced cleric?
The spellbreaker is a more viable option, but at turn 4 you're most likely going to be dealing with a 3/5 cleric and/or a 3/4 lightwarden. In either instance, silencing only stalls you and gives you a turn to possibly even the playing field, but by no means is it going to just "win you the matchup"
While I'm certainly not a fan of warriors ability to just have Dr Boom as this "catch-all" win condition in the form of a hero power and strong passive...
The issue with priest/extra arms doesn't inherently come from it's ability to "win" but how it wins.
Extra arms is arguably more popular in the aggro priest variant, and the idea with this is that all the cards together, Cleric, Lightwarden, ExtraArms, Amet, DS, IF, combine into this super strong, super resilient aggro deck.
The reason we are most likely not seeing nerf to the murloc paladin even though it's aggro is because it's reliant on RNG (drawing primsatic, and using it), and by the time murloc paladin swarms out, you generally have a way to stall, clear the board or have an answer.
In contrast to that, there are very few classes that can deal with a turn 1 cleric, much less a turn 2 cleric buffed to 3/5 with extra arms. That's just a snowballing nightmare.
Really, care to show your replay history? I'm sure your the type of person who keeps statistics with deck tracker, since you so very "kindly" gave stars/minute statistics below in a different post.
The reason I question the validity of your claim is that in order to take a typical corporate lunch break (~ 1 hour) and play 18 matches, your matches would have to last on average 3.33 minutes per match. That is assuming the game immediately loaded into each game.
The typical hearthstone match takes 20 seconds to search for a new opponent and I'll generously say 40 seconds for both players to load in and complete the mulligan. So we'll say a 1 minute "time tax" per match. Sound fair?
So according to your statistic, that would be 18 minutes of buffer time for purely just LOADING and mulligan phase. That leaves us 42 minutes to play 18 games. So in actuality your matches would have to be 2.33 minutes long each to make 18 matches.
Considering that even the old school odd paladin and even hunter decks generally struggled to get their matches UNDER 5 minutes consistently, I have a hard time believing that you've revolutionized the meta with your specific play of aggro/priest by running matches with under 2.33 minutes.
Next time you want to bullshit someone and "pretend" like you're attempting to be unbiased, but in actuality you are biased (and lying through your teeth with falsified claims of statistics to boot) at least come up with some realistic "statistics" that are at least plausible.
I'm a person that tries to deal with managable variables, so to me, including a variable (the quest in this instance) that improves your winrate better in some matchups, seems like an acceptable compromise to me. As I have said THREE times now. If the matchup looks to be aggro, you mulligan the quest away, if the matchup looks to be control, you hold onto it.
The ability for aggro priest to win with quest in hand is still fairly high.
Statistics for drawing either Lightwarden or Cleric in your opening hand BEFORE mulligan:
Going first: 23.9%. Going 2nd: 32%
(for reference, the statistical difference if you didn't run the quest would be 39% going 2nd, and 32% going first).
If your complaint is that Mulligan it away means you have a harder time completing it, I don't understand what you're getting at: because quest priest will generally win before they draw even 10 cards from the deck.
But let's assume you did mulligan 2 cards away going first, and 3 cards going 2nd (while keeping quest)
Your chances of getting a lightwarden/cleric in your mulligan while going first would be : 24.6%
Your chances of getting a lightwarden/cleric in your mulligan while going 2nd would be: 32.8%
As for this trite debate. I'm done. You can believe what you want. But there's a reason control warrior has a higher winrate than aggro priest. Because it is far more adaptable to decks. It can handle aggro decks, combo decks, and control decks relatively fine. It doesn't mean it will win them all, but the reason it does well is it has a reasonable ability to combat them all. Aggro priest, when it gets the RNG, it can knock down any deck. But the problem is that, like you said: it wants to close the match out before turn 6 if possible. When it goes past that turn, it's winrate declines. Hard.
You either want more tempo or more draw in hand, not something that doesn't do anything for the next 5 turns.
1 Turn. It doesn't do anything for 1 turn. Not 5. The mana loss is 1, the turn loss is 1. After that it's a passive effect on the game, that upon completion drastically improves the ability for a priest's minions to stick to the board.
I'm not negating that in some matchups the skipped 1st turn isn't desirable, but there's also nothing that said you can't mulligan the quest away.
You very clearly mentioned that exact dilemma in your post. "it's harder to complete if you mulligan". Yes, so in aggro matchups where you cannot under any circumstance have a tempo loss, you mulligan the quest away. In control matchups (i.e. control warrior) hold onto it.
You, like the other poster, are acting like including a quest in your deck means you HAVE to play it EVERY turn 1 for EVERY matchup. As if some proverbial gun is to your head. It's not, but the fact that the deck runs EVERY card a quest priest would likely include in his deck, makes it asinine to not include as a possible alternative win-condition. Which, frankly speaking: a 1 mana alternate win-condition is pretty damn good in the grand scheme of things.
But like I said above, I can't force you, or anyone else to think critically, independently, or dynamically.
You're super wrong on the quest in priest. Combo priest wins or loses games way before the effect is relevant. You would rather have a CHANCE at a cleric on one than ever have that quest in your opening hand. Calling it a streamer thing is silly, these things have been tested over thousands of games and statistics show you don't run the quest in combo priest. Combo priest is one of the highest winrate decks in the meta, if the quest made it better people would be aware.
I do think Leeroy is not a good card in combo priest but this deck runs the 3 mana 3/3 so there is some synergy i've never personally tested and I could see it being a finisher for the games where you don't get a huge combo off and you need to close the game. It's basically Leeroy + shadowstep except it's a 3/3 that has synergy with your other cards.
I disagree with a lot of your opinions on quest shaman but that deck is not refined and I think you can build it a lot of ways so no way is really right or wrong. But I think the wasp and totem are good.
Quest in opening hand doesn't preclude a cleric. You're using a a false dilemma in order to make some sort of "you either have quest in opening hand and no cleric, or you mulligan it away for an increased chance at cleric". I AM calling it a streamer thing, because a streamer did popularize it. At it's core, the non-quest aggro priest variant is a few things:
1) Hyper aggro. It hopes to achieve early big hits with lightwarden snowballing very fast.
2) Utilizes the oldest, possibly boring archetype of priest. DS/IF combo. (on the topic of that, I wouldn't back on that combo surviving either. They already mentioned they are closely monitoring Divine Spirit's efficacy, which in practical terms is the death-knell of that card being Hall of Famed)
3) Unable to adapt to an evolving game due to a polarized win-condition. (unlike the variants that use topsy-turvy or the 2/14 taunt minion which can be both defensive or offensive)
Lastly, I have to make a point of a lack of critical thinking on your part. Yes, if you are up against a paladin or hunter, you probably want to mulligan away the quest if it were run in the deck. This would help you create a solid opening hand. BUT, running the quest doesn't mean you can't mulligan it away.
Plenty of people would mulligan the quest away in matchups during Ungoro, if the quest being utilized was unfavorable, or they needed immediate tempo. But imagine this scenario: You mulligan the quest away in appropriate scenarios to improve your win condition, and you keep it in other matchups to improve those control matchup win conditions. There's nothing saying you CANNOT mulligan the quest away if you need that immediate tempo. The simple fact these decks don't think about that is what is mind boggling.
But hey, you do you. I can't force people to think independently, critically, or outside the box. So keep on CTRL-C+CTRL-V'ing.
A few things about this meta feel...well to speak frankly idiotic.
To start, the Aggro Priest variant:
It utilizes practically all the cards a Quest priest variant would want. To not run quest in this version of the deck seems to speak to the "lemming problem". (i.e. A popular streamer/pro player showcases a deck, despite it being flawed or perhaps unrefined the "masses" start to play it even though it practically makes no sense.)
I get it, Lightwarden makes the deck aggro oriented, and you want to play lightwarden on 1 so you can buff it/heal and get out of control fast. I get it. However, when the deck loses, it loses hard....except if it had the quest it wouldn't lose hard. All the deck has to do is swap 1 minion out for the quest, and you will get MUCH more value.
IMO the deck doesn't need Leeroy Jenkins, between Lightwardens, Inner Fire combos, and possibly including the quest, the deck wouldn't need Leeroy in the first place. And even if you DID run leeroy, You'd want to run it with the quest so you could 8 mana combo for 9 damage.
Everything about this deck, and the people proliferating it's popularity makes ZERO sense. I implore you. If you're running aggro priest, just run the quest with it. Swap out one card that you don't have, or feel like you don't need as much (cough cough 1x Inner fire is enough to combo with...cough cough) And enjoy a much more robust deck. It would be similar to running a ton of battlecry minions in shaman, and not running the quest because you want to play a turn 1 minion. It's dumb NOT to include the quest in those instances.
Quest Shaman:
I've found weaponized wasp to be highly inconsistent, and often when you play Shudderwock you're playing it on an empty board so you won't be triggering the wasps battlecry effect with the Wock himself. Running 2x Questing Explorer and 2x Novice Engineer feels redundant. Both are only used to create hand size early on pre-quest completion. After quest completion you often don't find yourself running out of resources.
Evil Totem is great if it goes off and survives for more than 1 round, but often it's 2 mana for 1 lackey which is horrible. I know it makes wasp more consistent to use, but again...I feel like running Youthful Brewmasters or Bog Sloshers and just bouncing your existing lackey generators would be actually better, and in the case of the 2 latter; they progress the quest forward immediately, where Evil Totem does not.
Mogu Fleshshaper isn't horrible, but I find that if you're gonna run that card, you probably want to run mutute. Yes, it's technically card disadvantage, and sometimes you won't be able to combo them, but the times it high rolls and gives you an 8 drop on turn 3-4, it will pay for itself.
Personally I'm actually running a different decklist with Quest Shaman utilizing Siamat to buff up Shudderwock, and giggling inventors to stall. It's proved fun, if not somewhat inconsistent. I guess I'm on the "control" side of Quest Shaman, and there's no right answer, but the deck provided above feels very unrefined.
Aggro Warrior:
Haven't actually seen this that much. But it's a one trick pony. Either it goes off cause you have no answer, or it stalls out. Any decent midrange/control deck is able to fend it off fairly easily, even with quest completion. Only other aggro decks will have a hard time from what I've seen.
Archivist is great vs Control Warrior matchups, I agree with that, but tends to be dead in any other matchup barring maybe long mirror games or Quest Paladin games if you get lucky.
Siamat is great. It's saved my ass countless times. 8 board clears seems unnecessary though, and honestly I felt that even running 4 board clears (2x Earthquake, 2x Sandstorm Elemental) was too rigid. I swapped my Earthquakes for Haunting Visions to allow better flexibility.
I'm currently using my own homebrew version using cards I haven't seen anyone else use and I've been able to increase my winrate to just around 51%. Not great, but honestly I think thats fine. There's room for refining though, and I like to think that this early on in the expansion a lot of decklists are still largely unrefined.
Chimera, you tried the 7 cost Reborn guy in the deck yet? I've seen a few variants on ladder using it and it's definitely the "best" reborn minion by far. Thoughts?
MTG >>>>>> HS because of many reasons: no RNG, multitude of archetypes, better art, more adult feel etc
On the ftp side, as people above said very well, you can slowly build your collection for free, but it's gonna take a looong time to build really good decks, except the hyper aggro ones, which you use to grind. Anyway, it's a very satisfying game, with more than 20 years of successful history. Really, what are you waiting for??
Literally you're first reason is "NO RNG"? Your leading argument out of the gates, and you're already stumbling...I'm laughing out loud as much as JJJ here. If you believe that, not only are you a naive fool; but I've got a statue in Booty Bay to sell you.
Not running Kangors, I'm running 2x Eggs, but not 2x whelps. (2x whelps, while good value, is often too slow versus other decks, eggs come out a turn sooner, and produce bigger minions.)
And Yes I'm running undatakah.
Also, you might want to refrain from making statements like "bad decklists". It's been less than a week since the release officially came out, even "good" (by comparison) decklists are still unrefined.
The main reason you include Scargil is to reduce the cost of Ghost Light Angler. Of which you didn't include, so I can see a reason you wouldn't include him, even if you owned him.
Anyone playing previous meta decks, especially decks from FOUR MONTHS AGO on the day of the new expansion is a mindless troglodyte incapable of thinking for themselves or playing anything FOR FUN.
Here's a concept to anyone still playing the following decks:
Mech Warrior
Secret Hunter
Conj Mage
You can have fun AND play new decks AND win. I know it's a fucking hard concept to grasp but it's entirely possible!
How about you (you know who you are) stop playing the same fucking boring brain dead deck from the last four months AND TRYING SOMETHING NEW GOD DAMNIT!
I find it funny that the year of the dragon has been woefully lacking in Dragons. The only one of notable importance has been Brightwing, and that was just a Classic addition re-fill for old Hall of Famed cards.
I'm conflicted. My all-time highest played class is shaman, and while I did craft Corrupt the Waters, I was really hoping to play Quest Priest or Quest Paladin this expansion a bit more (the only other quests I ended up getting from packs).
Quest Mech Paladin:
I tried quest paladin, and won a few, lost a few. Trying to squeeze in reborn, mechs, and "value" minions to copy with the quest hero power felt awkward. It feels like the deck has problems with card draw, even running 2x Crystology it felt lacking. The deck also lacks late game. TBH the reborn minions feel actually quite underpowered. None of my opponents ever had any problems clearing any of my minions. The games I won were due to my opponent not being able to clear key minions, or me not getting enough reborn in time to get my quest done before my opponent. Overall the deck feels like it's lacking card draw severely, and lacks a clear late game finish. Very strong early game though, if the opponent has no early game it can snowball very easily.
Quest Heal Priest:
Had a hard time getting the quest completed in a number of games. Going with the new priest legendary minion feels awkward, and feels like other people are playing Divine Spirit/Inner fire boring shennanigans just because of his health equalization effect. The hero power is bonkers, but often times it comes just a tad too late. Also, smart players can actually avoiding giving you free hero power heals by just ignoring going face unless it's impactful enough. Obviously the key weakness with Quest Priest is having a minion to buff or heal. Trying to run the "injured" cards like Blademaster or Tol'vir resulted in awkward turns where I ended up floating mana.
Quest Shaman:
Still vulnerable to RNG, and not drawing shudderwock in time, the deck feels like it's the "swiss army knife" of the expansion. It has great early game, great late game, tons of value immediate effect battlecries. Tons of lackeys to give you utility. Board clears galore. The deck feels like it's the "go-to" deck of the expansion if you're falling behind, but it's also heavily reliant on Evil Totem early game, as well as specific legendaries. I haven't tried the singleton version, but I imagine that is still fairly strong, but less consistent.
Overall, the expansion feels like it's a race to whomever finishes their quest first. Barring specific RNG scenarios, whoever does that, usually wins. I have a feeling this will make "easy" quests like Shaman, Paladin, and Rogue "float to the top" of the meta, while other decks that require more effort (Warrior, Warlock, Mage) are stuck playing other style decks. Druid is in a unique scenario where their quest is easy to complete relatively speaking, but the requirement is floating mana each turn which can put you too far behind to comeback, even with super-choose both cards.
Get off your soap box. Jesus. As he said, you're entitled to your opinion, but it's a game website for christ sake. Relax. Also, a deck doesn't need to run Leeroy to be aggro FWIW.
For once I actually agree with you.
(1) No you don't actually.
This is assuming you don't initially draw it, that's just purely the mulligan statistic. Consequently your chances of drawing a copy of Extra Arms in the same hand would be 13.6%.
So essentially what we consider the "perfect draw" where you have cleric or lightwarden PLUS Extra arms boils down to about a 1 in 7 chance. This isn't counting OTHER just as decent buff cards like power word shield.
(2) The game isn't about having to deal with minions the turn they are summoned? Uh yes it is. Since the inception of hearthstone, if you don't clear Archmage Antonidas the TURN HE IS SUMMONED. You lose. If you don't clear any card with a progressive power each turn, you lose. Some similar examples that come to mind are Ysera, Armegedillo, Hench Clan Thug, etc etc. These are all minions that if you dont remove them the turn they are summoned, they snowball out of control. A buffed cleric or lightwarden is no different.
(3) You're allowed to disagree with me, but the only thing you've done so far from what I've seen is try to provide the notion that silence, and cards that can remove, but not immediately remove something are considered "hard removal". They aren't. Why do you think noone runs Emperor Cobra in decks? The only reason venomizer is run in mech hunters is because it has MAGNETIZE and can be stuck onto an existing mech for "immediate value".
(3A) As for the possible nerf to extra arms. Where did I say I agreed with moving it back to 3 mana? Please quote me. I said that I think it's problematic with the current scenario of lightwarden/cleric into turn 2 Extra Arms. That means any one of those cards could be the problem. Probably Cleric. But Cleric is a classic card, extra arms isn't. They are hesitant to nerf a core classic card, where nerfing an existing set card that will rotate out in 6 months is a more viable option. Also, everyone? Really. I've reviewed the thread and not everyone in the thread agrees that the card isn't a problem. As for the out of cards community? Microsms don't count. Blizzard has statistics, better than any stat site we publicly have available. I'm not necessarily advocating for an outright nerf to extra arms, but SOMETHING with the combo as I said is a problem. And *something* needs to be done otherwise aggro priest is going to be just as bad as Conj Mage, or Control Warrior for the next 6 months.
Yes, but almost none of those are immediate turn 2 non pre-requisite answers.
Venomizer requires a mech on board to be used immediately. Deadly poison requires a weapon already equipped. Toxfin requires a murloc already on board. Cobra is 3 mana, and takes a turn to actually be used (so it wont actually attack until turn 4). Plaguebringer requries a minion on board, AND is 4 mana.
Hex, Poly are also 4 mana. Shield slam on 2 is impossible unless the warrior is going 2nd, and even then that's impossible to gain 5 armor on turn 2 with cards in the current set. Execute requires damage to be on the minion.
Again, if you read what I typed. There are VERY FEW classes that can answer a turn 2 3/5 buffed cleric immediately. Except priest itself with shadow word pain.
That *used* to be the point of tech cards. In the power-creep economy of Hearthstone currently, in order for a tech card to be even considered viable, it needs to pretty much be a full swing card in your favor. I mean, hell cards like BGH, EMP operative, and the such are actually decent swing cards and they aren't even run. And those cards just FLAT OUT DESTROY a minion under specific circumstances.
What makes you thing a 2/1 body that doesn't even 1:1 trade with the card it silences is going to be viable? Or , even under better circumstances, what makes you think you won't still lose to tempo with a silence from spellbreaker.
I know what tech cards are for. I know what the point is. Do you care to actually contribute intelligently to the conversation or are you just here to stroke your ego and think you are god's gift to card games and YOU are the only one who knows what tech cards are used for?
Edit: noticed you downvoted me without any sort of reply. So I guess the answer is "stroke my ego". Thanks! Cannot wait for OOC to have block/mute feature for trolls like you.
Ah the good ole "just run silence" option. As others have said, there's very few decks that can answer a 3/5 on turn 3. Actually hardly any decks can. Oh wait, there is ONE class that can quite efficiently remove a 3/5 on turn 2. IT'S PRIEST (Shadow word pain).
Silence against a buff priest deck doesn't do a whole lot of anything. And your suggestion of using ironbeak owl is just dumb. A 2/1 silence, that the priest trades with easily with the silenced cleric?
The spellbreaker is a more viable option, but at turn 4 you're most likely going to be dealing with a 3/5 cleric and/or a 3/4 lightwarden. In either instance, silencing only stalls you and gives you a turn to possibly even the playing field, but by no means is it going to just "win you the matchup"
While I'm certainly not a fan of warriors ability to just have Dr Boom as this "catch-all" win condition in the form of a hero power and strong passive...
The issue with priest/extra arms doesn't inherently come from it's ability to "win" but how it wins.
Extra arms is arguably more popular in the aggro priest variant, and the idea with this is that all the cards together, Cleric, Lightwarden, ExtraArms, Amet, DS, IF, combine into this super strong, super resilient aggro deck.
The reason we are most likely not seeing nerf to the murloc paladin even though it's aggro is because it's reliant on RNG (drawing primsatic, and using it), and by the time murloc paladin swarms out, you generally have a way to stall, clear the board or have an answer.
In contrast to that, there are very few classes that can deal with a turn 1 cleric, much less a turn 2 cleric buffed to 3/5 with extra arms. That's just a snowballing nightmare.
Really, care to show your replay history? I'm sure your the type of person who keeps statistics with deck tracker, since you so very "kindly" gave stars/minute statistics below in a different post.
The reason I question the validity of your claim is that in order to take a typical corporate lunch break (~ 1 hour) and play 18 matches, your matches would have to last on average 3.33 minutes per match. That is assuming the game immediately loaded into each game.
The typical hearthstone match takes 20 seconds to search for a new opponent and I'll generously say 40 seconds for both players to load in and complete the mulligan. So we'll say a 1 minute "time tax" per match. Sound fair?
So according to your statistic, that would be 18 minutes of buffer time for purely just LOADING and mulligan phase. That leaves us 42 minutes to play 18 games. So in actuality your matches would have to be 2.33 minutes long each to make 18 matches.
Considering that even the old school odd paladin and even hunter decks generally struggled to get their matches UNDER 5 minutes consistently, I have a hard time believing that you've revolutionized the meta with your specific play of aggro/priest by running matches with under 2.33 minutes.
Next time you want to bullshit someone and "pretend" like you're attempting to be unbiased, but in actuality you are biased (and lying through your teeth with falsified claims of statistics to boot) at least come up with some realistic "statistics" that are at least plausible.
I'm a person that tries to deal with managable variables, so to me, including a variable (the quest in this instance) that improves your winrate better in some matchups, seems like an acceptable compromise to me. As I have said THREE times now. If the matchup looks to be aggro, you mulligan the quest away, if the matchup looks to be control, you hold onto it.
The ability for aggro priest to win with quest in hand is still fairly high.
Statistics for drawing either Lightwarden or Cleric in your opening hand BEFORE mulligan:
Going first: 23.9%. Going 2nd: 32%
(for reference, the statistical difference if you didn't run the quest would be 39% going 2nd, and 32% going first).
If your complaint is that Mulligan it away means you have a harder time completing it, I don't understand what you're getting at: because quest priest will generally win before they draw even 10 cards from the deck.
But let's assume you did mulligan 2 cards away going first, and 3 cards going 2nd (while keeping quest)
Your chances of getting a lightwarden/cleric in your mulligan while going first would be : 24.6%
Your chances of getting a lightwarden/cleric in your mulligan while going 2nd would be: 32.8%
As for this trite debate. I'm done. You can believe what you want. But there's a reason control warrior has a higher winrate than aggro priest. Because it is far more adaptable to decks. It can handle aggro decks, combo decks, and control decks relatively fine. It doesn't mean it will win them all, but the reason it does well is it has a reasonable ability to combat them all. Aggro priest, when it gets the RNG, it can knock down any deck. But the problem is that, like you said: it wants to close the match out before turn 6 if possible. When it goes past that turn, it's winrate declines. Hard.
You either want more tempo or more draw in hand, not something that doesn't do anything for the next 5 turns.
1 Turn. It doesn't do anything for 1 turn. Not 5. The mana loss is 1, the turn loss is 1. After that it's a passive effect on the game, that upon completion drastically improves the ability for a priest's minions to stick to the board.
I'm not negating that in some matchups the skipped 1st turn isn't desirable, but there's also nothing that said you can't mulligan the quest away.
You very clearly mentioned that exact dilemma in your post. "it's harder to complete if you mulligan". Yes, so in aggro matchups where you cannot under any circumstance have a tempo loss, you mulligan the quest away. In control matchups (i.e. control warrior) hold onto it.
You, like the other poster, are acting like including a quest in your deck means you HAVE to play it EVERY turn 1 for EVERY matchup. As if some proverbial gun is to your head. It's not, but the fact that the deck runs EVERY card a quest priest would likely include in his deck, makes it asinine to not include as a possible alternative win-condition. Which, frankly speaking: a 1 mana alternate win-condition is pretty damn good in the grand scheme of things.
But like I said above, I can't force you, or anyone else to think critically, independently, or dynamically.
Quest in opening hand doesn't preclude a cleric. You're using a a false dilemma in order to make some sort of "you either have quest in opening hand and no cleric, or you mulligan it away for an increased chance at cleric". I AM calling it a streamer thing, because a streamer did popularize it. At it's core, the non-quest aggro priest variant is a few things:
1) Hyper aggro. It hopes to achieve early big hits with lightwarden snowballing very fast.
2) Utilizes the oldest, possibly boring archetype of priest. DS/IF combo. (on the topic of that, I wouldn't back on that combo surviving either. They already mentioned they are closely monitoring Divine Spirit's efficacy, which in practical terms is the death-knell of that card being Hall of Famed)
3) Unable to adapt to an evolving game due to a polarized win-condition. (unlike the variants that use topsy-turvy or the 2/14 taunt minion which can be both defensive or offensive)
Lastly, I have to make a point of a lack of critical thinking on your part. Yes, if you are up against a paladin or hunter, you probably want to mulligan away the quest if it were run in the deck. This would help you create a solid opening hand. BUT, running the quest doesn't mean you can't mulligan it away.
Plenty of people would mulligan the quest away in matchups during Ungoro, if the quest being utilized was unfavorable, or they needed immediate tempo. But imagine this scenario: You mulligan the quest away in appropriate scenarios to improve your win condition, and you keep it in other matchups to improve those control matchup win conditions. There's nothing saying you CANNOT mulligan the quest away if you need that immediate tempo. The simple fact these decks don't think about that is what is mind boggling.
But hey, you do you. I can't force people to think independently, critically, or outside the box. So keep on CTRL-C+CTRL-V'ing.
A few things about this meta feel...well to speak frankly idiotic.
To start, the Aggro Priest variant:
It utilizes practically all the cards a Quest priest variant would want. To not run quest in this version of the deck seems to speak to the "lemming problem". (i.e. A popular streamer/pro player showcases a deck, despite it being flawed or perhaps unrefined the "masses" start to play it even though it practically makes no sense.)
I get it, Lightwarden makes the deck aggro oriented, and you want to play lightwarden on 1 so you can buff it/heal and get out of control fast. I get it. However, when the deck loses, it loses hard....except if it had the quest it wouldn't lose hard. All the deck has to do is swap 1 minion out for the quest, and you will get MUCH more value.
IMO the deck doesn't need Leeroy Jenkins, between Lightwardens, Inner Fire combos, and possibly including the quest, the deck wouldn't need Leeroy in the first place. And even if you DID run leeroy, You'd want to run it with the quest so you could 8 mana combo for 9 damage.
Everything about this deck, and the people proliferating it's popularity makes ZERO sense. I implore you. If you're running aggro priest, just run the quest with it. Swap out one card that you don't have, or feel like you don't need as much (cough cough 1x Inner fire is enough to combo with...cough cough) And enjoy a much more robust deck. It would be similar to running a ton of battlecry minions in shaman, and not running the quest because you want to play a turn 1 minion. It's dumb NOT to include the quest in those instances.
Quest Shaman:
I've found weaponized wasp to be highly inconsistent, and often when you play Shudderwock you're playing it on an empty board so you won't be triggering the wasps battlecry effect with the Wock himself. Running 2x Questing Explorer and 2x Novice Engineer feels redundant. Both are only used to create hand size early on pre-quest completion. After quest completion you often don't find yourself running out of resources.
Evil Totem is great if it goes off and survives for more than 1 round, but often it's 2 mana for 1 lackey which is horrible. I know it makes wasp more consistent to use, but again...I feel like running Youthful Brewmasters or Bog Sloshers and just bouncing your existing lackey generators would be actually better, and in the case of the 2 latter; they progress the quest forward immediately, where Evil Totem does not.
Mogu Fleshshaper isn't horrible, but I find that if you're gonna run that card, you probably want to run mutute. Yes, it's technically card disadvantage, and sometimes you won't be able to combo them, but the times it high rolls and gives you an 8 drop on turn 3-4, it will pay for itself.
Personally I'm actually running a different decklist with Quest Shaman utilizing Siamat to buff up Shudderwock, and giggling inventors to stall. It's proved fun, if not somewhat inconsistent. I guess I'm on the "control" side of Quest Shaman, and there's no right answer, but the deck provided above feels very unrefined.
Aggro Warrior:
Haven't actually seen this that much. But it's a one trick pony. Either it goes off cause you have no answer, or it stalls out. Any decent midrange/control deck is able to fend it off fairly easily, even with quest completion. Only other aggro decks will have a hard time from what I've seen.
Archivist is great vs Control Warrior matchups, I agree with that, but tends to be dead in any other matchup barring maybe long mirror games or Quest Paladin games if you get lucky.
Siamat is great. It's saved my ass countless times. 8 board clears seems unnecessary though, and honestly I felt that even running 4 board clears (2x Earthquake, 2x Sandstorm Elemental) was too rigid. I swapped my Earthquakes for Haunting Visions to allow better flexibility.
I'm currently using my own homebrew version using cards I haven't seen anyone else use and I've been able to increase my winrate to just around 51%. Not great, but honestly I think thats fine. There's room for refining though, and I like to think that this early on in the expansion a lot of decklists are still largely unrefined.
Chimera, you tried the 7 cost Reborn guy in the deck yet? I've seen a few variants on ladder using it and it's definitely the "best" reborn minion by far. Thoughts?
Literally you're first reason is "NO RNG"? Your leading argument out of the gates, and you're already stumbling...I'm laughing out loud as much as JJJ here. If you believe that, not only are you a naive fool; but I've got a statue in Booty Bay to sell you.
Not running Kangors, I'm running 2x Eggs, but not 2x whelps. (2x whelps, while good value, is often too slow versus other decks, eggs come out a turn sooner, and produce bigger minions.)
And Yes I'm running undatakah.
Also, you might want to refrain from making statements like "bad decklists". It's been less than a week since the release officially came out, even "good" (by comparison) decklists are still unrefined.
Posts like these should be in the salty thread, not this thread
The main reason you include Scargil is to reduce the cost of Ghost Light Angler. Of which you didn't include, so I can see a reason you wouldn't include him, even if you owned him.
Anyone playing previous meta decks, especially decks from FOUR MONTHS AGO on the day of the new expansion is a mindless troglodyte incapable of thinking for themselves or playing anything FOR FUN.
Here's a concept to anyone still playing the following decks:
You can have fun AND play new decks AND win. I know it's a fucking hard concept to grasp but it's entirely possible!
How about you (you know who you are) stop playing the same fucking boring brain dead deck from the last four months AND TRYING SOMETHING NEW GOD DAMNIT!
I find it funny that the year of the dragon has been woefully lacking in Dragons. The only one of notable importance has been Brightwing, and that was just a Classic addition re-fill for old Hall of Famed cards.
I'm conflicted. My all-time highest played class is shaman, and while I did craft Corrupt the Waters, I was really hoping to play Quest Priest or Quest Paladin this expansion a bit more (the only other quests I ended up getting from packs).
Quest Mech Paladin:
I tried quest paladin, and won a few, lost a few. Trying to squeeze in reborn, mechs, and "value" minions to copy with the quest hero power felt awkward. It feels like the deck has problems with card draw, even running 2x Crystology it felt lacking. The deck also lacks late game. TBH the reborn minions feel actually quite underpowered. None of my opponents ever had any problems clearing any of my minions. The games I won were due to my opponent not being able to clear key minions, or me not getting enough reborn in time to get my quest done before my opponent. Overall the deck feels like it's lacking card draw severely, and lacks a clear late game finish. Very strong early game though, if the opponent has no early game it can snowball very easily.
Quest Heal Priest:
Had a hard time getting the quest completed in a number of games. Going with the new priest legendary minion feels awkward, and feels like other people are playing Divine Spirit/Inner fire boring shennanigans just because of his health equalization effect. The hero power is bonkers, but often times it comes just a tad too late. Also, smart players can actually avoiding giving you free hero power heals by just ignoring going face unless it's impactful enough. Obviously the key weakness with Quest Priest is having a minion to buff or heal. Trying to run the "injured" cards like Blademaster or Tol'vir resulted in awkward turns where I ended up floating mana.
Quest Shaman:
Still vulnerable to RNG, and not drawing shudderwock in time, the deck feels like it's the "swiss army knife" of the expansion. It has great early game, great late game, tons of value immediate effect battlecries. Tons of lackeys to give you utility. Board clears galore. The deck feels like it's the "go-to" deck of the expansion if you're falling behind, but it's also heavily reliant on Evil Totem early game, as well as specific legendaries. I haven't tried the singleton version, but I imagine that is still fairly strong, but less consistent.
Overall, the expansion feels like it's a race to whomever finishes their quest first. Barring specific RNG scenarios, whoever does that, usually wins. I have a feeling this will make "easy" quests like Shaman, Paladin, and Rogue "float to the top" of the meta, while other decks that require more effort (Warrior, Warlock, Mage) are stuck playing other style decks. Druid is in a unique scenario where their quest is easy to complete relatively speaking, but the requirement is floating mana each turn which can put you too far behind to comeback, even with super-choose both cards.