There's a few more tricks though that I was able to make use of (and wanted to tell you beforehand but just never found the time to do so)
Archmage Vargoth and Queen Azshara are fantastic for both Druid and DH (and Priest to some extent). The DH achievement got done almost twice as fast thanks to these two.
Regarding Paladin there'S actually a cute little turbo strategy. Put Brann, Zola, both Lawyers and Order in the Court into your deck and fill it with only class 1-mana cards. This way you can basically tutor your entire combo and get up to 9 procs per game (although it's mostly just going to be around 4-5). Significantly speeds up the process if playing Pure Paladin isn't your thing.
Finally, regarding Hunter. Fuck this thing and whoever came up with it. I wish genuine misery upon them just for being this much of a dickhead. It's the antithesis of what an achievement should be. You have basically no agency and if your opponent decides to surrender all your work was for nothing.
Wanna know how I did it? Once by accident with Tavish before I even knew the achievement was a thing. The 2nd one in Wild (!) with Aggro Shadow Priest where I just threw in Sketchy Stranger until I eventually got lucky. Third one was in Secret/Quest Rogue in Standard. Once again, Stranger to the rescue (seriously that card is an MVP for these achievements).
My genuine advice is to not force the Hunter one and just play Secret related decks with Stranger until you get it by chance. It's much less frustrating than getting the perfect set-up only for your opponent to concede because they already know what you're doing and can't be bothered to be nice about it.
Yes it is. Many decks don't even run the guy anymore. NOw he becomes even less appealing for a majority of decks that previously just ran him basically for fun.
Trust me, you're gonna see him a lot less now (although he's probably still core in Shaman and Priest or something)
The patch also makes note that the team has "something fun" planned for the next minor update, patch 24.6, and because of this, they aren't changing Prince Renathal yet.
I don't know why but this carries so much threatening energy
Seems reasonable although I'm very concerned about Imp Warlock just being ignored here. That deck is only waiting to just take over the meta after Hunter.
Then again, with Hunter out of the picture maybe there's room to actually counter Implock either with aggro or just old-fashioned control.
Framester just sounds like meme, but I hate that it has decent stats. I don't wanna see Shamans win just because they put this fucker in for the lolz and then he just randomly ruins a crucial turn.
Custodian just looks too awkward, but I guess that's good because "Control" Shaman is already getting on my nerves
This might actually make Secret Mage viable for Standard. Having 2 Secrets up isn't easy, but it's far from impossible, especially since you can set it up for turn 3 with the neutral that makes the enxt Secret cost nothing or the other neutral that can discover you a paladin Secret to combo with your Mage one on turn 4.
Also makes Orion a lot better.
The only question is, what is Secret Mage's gameplan in Standard? It's definitely not an aggro deck, but it doesn't really have a ton of lategame or exceptional card draw (Multicaster will have to do I guess). Do we just slam the Wildfire package into it like we do with everything else? Or do we run Skeletons?
For some reason my tiny monkey brain read it as (2) mana. With (3) it's actually good now because you can discover a Paladin secret with the Mysterious neutral or set up a double secret turn with the other Secret support neutral.
Conjurer is probably difficult to reduce to (0), but even for 2-mana he should be decent. There's some secrets that won't be triggered right away, but for the most part they're all pretty immediate. Will have to see it in practice to judge.
Objection is a great Secret. It's better than Counterspell because it denies tempo more often than removal and Secret Maage is currently a relatively slow deck.
Life Sentence is just a strange card. It's basically Polymorph plus, but it currently doesn't really go anywhere. Unless you're losing to just Mountain Bear or you really want to target Naga Priest it's probably just to awkward to put into an actual deck.
Weak card. Just think about what you're doing. You're paying 2-mana for an effect that only really pays for itself after 3 triggers, while also giving that same effect to your opponent for free.
In a ramp deck you give your opponent more gas to pressure you, in an aggro deck you help them find their answers faster.
This is always better for your opponent than it is for you and that is not a good premise for any card.
I guess Silence is a callback to Keeper of the Grove, but making things immune? That's not even good. Druid only runs disposable minions anyways, they don't care about value trading and incremental gains (not even Aggro Druid). Silence tech is also not needed since Starfish is still the best choice in any case.
Then you have Incarceration, which is just galaxies away from Druid in terms of flavour and design. Like..that should be a DH card at best. I also don't think Druid really requires single target (temporary) removal at this point in time. Maiev was hyped to the moon and she was completely useless and this doesn't even come with a body.
At best you use it to set up some gimmicky combo, but that requires you to spend an entire turn doing nothing and then having to wait another 3 turns before you can pull it off so that's just very unlikely.
Magistrate is good for the aggro build. Helps with redundancy for when you just don't draw GLaive.
The infuse spell is beyond useless at this point.
There are no demons worth rezzing currently being played (and even if you just ran Inquisitor fr a double turn it's still slow and awkward). Xhilaag ruins the pool by hismelf so he certainly isn't going to work, and moreover you actually need Demons to die for this to work in the first place.
I don't think I've ever seen a card that has this much anti-synergy with itself.
Any other class would love this but it's so bad for Paladin. In Pure Paladin you can only play this around turn 6 to get Cariel and then Countess or Leviathan. In the other decks it's even worse because you're probably running some 10-mana win condition.
Great write-up.
There's a few more tricks though that I was able to make use of (and wanted to tell you beforehand but just never found the time to do so)
Archmage Vargoth and Queen Azshara are fantastic for both Druid and DH (and Priest to some extent). The DH achievement got done almost twice as fast thanks to these two.
Regarding Paladin there'S actually a cute little turbo strategy. Put Brann, Zola, both Lawyers and Order in the Court into your deck and fill it with only class 1-mana cards. This way you can basically tutor your entire combo and get up to 9 procs per game (although it's mostly just going to be around 4-5). Significantly speeds up the process if playing Pure Paladin isn't your thing.
Finally, regarding Hunter. Fuck this thing and whoever came up with it. I wish genuine misery upon them just for being this much of a dickhead. It's the antithesis of what an achievement should be. You have basically no agency and if your opponent decides to surrender all your work was for nothing.
Wanna know how I did it? Once by accident with Tavish before I even knew the achievement was a thing. The 2nd one in Wild (!) with Aggro Shadow Priest where I just threw in Sketchy Stranger until I eventually got lucky. Third one was in Secret/Quest Rogue in Standard. Once again, Stranger to the rescue (seriously that card is an MVP for these achievements).
My genuine advice is to not force the Hunter one and just play Secret related decks with Stranger until you get it by chance. It's much less frustrating than getting the perfect set-up only for your opponent to concede because they already know what you're doing and can't be bothered to be nice about it.
Yes it is. Many decks don't even run the guy anymore. NOw he becomes even less appealing for a majority of decks that previously just ran him basically for fun.
Trust me, you're gonna see him a lot less now (although he's probably still core in Shaman and Priest or something)
I don't know why but this carries so much threatening energy
Seems reasonable although I'm very concerned about Imp Warlock just being ignored here. That deck is only waiting to just take over the meta after Hunter.
Then again, with Hunter out of the picture maybe there's room to actually counter Implock either with aggro or just old-fashioned control.
Framester just sounds like meme, but I hate that it has decent stats. I don't wanna see Shamans win just because they put this fucker in for the lolz and then he just randomly ruins a crucial turn.
Custodian just looks too awkward, but I guess that's good because "Control" Shaman is already getting on my nerves
Gigantotem makes me consider this, but the condition is hard to activate and Totem decks still suck because without Stonewright they just do nothing
This might actually make Secret Mage viable for Standard. Having 2 Secrets up isn't easy, but it's far from impossible, especially since you can set it up for turn 3 with the neutral that makes the enxt Secret cost nothing or the other neutral that can discover you a paladin Secret to combo with your Mage one on turn 4.
Also makes Orion a lot better.
The only question is, what is Secret Mage's gameplan in Standard? It's definitely not an aggro deck, but it doesn't really have a ton of lategame or exceptional card draw (Multicaster will have to do I guess). Do we just slam the Wildfire package into it like we do with everything else? Or do we run Skeletons?
Great removal but we live in a time where removal is just not worth the cost if it isn't incredibly cheap.
I wouldn't run it, but maybe if appears in times of need from discovery.
Great Priest hate card for Wild though
Better than counterspell for the current vision of Secret Mage (which appears to be relatively defensive)
Also a great way to delay enemy power turns, especially since so many decks nowadays telegraph their plays.
For some reason my tiny monkey brain read it as (2) mana. With (3) it's actually good now because you can discover a Paladin secret with the Mysterious neutral or set up a double secret turn with the other Secret support neutral.
Actually a good card, holy shit.
Wow, these are actually pretty neat.
Conjurer is probably difficult to reduce to (0), but even for 2-mana he should be decent. There's some secrets that won't be triggered right away, but for the most part they're all pretty immediate. Will have to see it in practice to judge.
Objection is a great Secret. It's better than Counterspell because it denies tempo more often than removal and Secret Maage is currently a relatively slow deck.
Life Sentence is just a strange card. It's basically Polymorph plus, but it currently doesn't really go anywhere. Unless you're losing to just Mountain Bear or you really want to target Naga Priest it's probably just to awkward to put into an actual deck.
Weak card. Just think about what you're doing. You're paying 2-mana for an effect that only really pays for itself after 3 triggers, while also giving that same effect to your opponent for free.
In a ramp deck you give your opponent more gas to pressure you, in an aggro deck you help them find their answers faster.
This is always better for your opponent than it is for you and that is not a good premise for any card.
That's a very weird pair of Druid cards.
I guess Silence is a callback to Keeper of the Grove, but making things immune? That's not even good. Druid only runs disposable minions anyways, they don't care about value trading and incremental gains (not even Aggro Druid). Silence tech is also not needed since Starfish is still the best choice in any case.
Then you have Incarceration, which is just galaxies away from Druid in terms of flavour and design. Like..that should be a DH card at best. I also don't think Druid really requires single target (temporary) removal at this point in time. Maiev was hyped to the moon and she was completely useless and this doesn't even come with a body.
At best you use it to set up some gimmicky combo, but that requires you to spend an entire turn doing nothing and then having to wait another 3 turns before you can pull it off so that's just very unlikely.
Magistrate is good for the aggro build. Helps with redundancy for when you just don't draw GLaive.
The infuse spell is beyond useless at this point.
There are no demons worth rezzing currently being played (and even if you just ran Inquisitor fr a double turn it's still slow and awkward). Xhilaag ruins the pool by hismelf so he certainly isn't going to work, and moreover you actually need Demons to die for this to work in the first place.
I don't think I've ever seen a card that has this much anti-synergy with itself.
Better than Priest of An'she, but not by much. What's the point of this exactly?
Maybe it helps Enrage Warrior find the Axe more consistently (which is probably it's strongest card) so perhaps on that merit it ends up successful.
However, at 3-mana it's pretty slow. Should have been a 2-mana 2/2 tbh
I think this makes Control Warrior viable again.
Previously it just lost to win conditions and opponent's Theotars. Now it has it's own extra distruption which probably helps it achieve...something.
If you're gonn make it cost 3 have it affect all minions, if it has to be Silver Hand only then make it 2. Now it's just trash
Any other class would love this but it's so bad for Paladin. In Pure Paladin you can only play this around turn 6 to get Cariel and then Countess or Leviathan. In the other decks it's even worse because you're probably running some 10-mana win condition.
In any other circumstance this wouuld be nuts, but man, right now it just doesn't do anything worthwhile.
All of Paladin's actual win conditions are Neutral at this point, so Pure Paladin just doesn't have the ability to compete