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[Venmar]

Holy fuck this thread is a thing.

So, I have been playing Hearthstone on/off since late closed beta.

Sup?

[Venmar]

Venmar #1434

I mainly play Druid, Paladin, Shaman, and Mage, in that order I think. I used to play Hunter a lot, like, more than Druid, but then UTH got nerfed and I got bummed and dropped the entire class.

[Venmar]

Level 25-20 is a joke anyways.

[Venmar]

I beat Heroic Anub with my ranked Druid deck. Basically Yetis, Ancients, Druids, and Sunwalkers rolled over Anub. I beat Heroic Widow with a zoo deck, it was close but zoo does pretty well since it minimizes how good her hero ability is and that's the only reason she's hard. Heroic Maexxna is ridiculous, but I managed to beat it with a really weird warrior deck i put together, centered around healing with voodoo doctors and farseers, armouring up with shieldblock and hero ability, while taking turns hitting her in the face with weapons and charges, and warrior damage spells.

A freeze mage deck that uses Leeroy I think is also good against heoric Maexxna.

[Venmar]

Theres card backs for beating all heroes on heroic I think, but that's for ALL bosses I think.

[Venmar]

BRM is so exepensive ;(

[Venmar]

I'd craft Voljin, he's probably the best legendary of those three, unless you play Shaman Murloc, in which Neptulon would be great. If you play rush decks, then Leeroy is a good craft.

As a side note, anybody here play Dragon Pally? I've found it to be a pretty enjoyable deck.

[Venmar]

Nope

[Venmar]

HOW THE BLOODY FUCKING HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO BEAT THE PALADIN CLASS CHALLENGE GODDAMMIT I WANT THE AVENGES BUT THE DECK IS SHIT AND KT JUST MURDERS ALL MY GUYS EVERY TURN HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO WIN A GAME WHEN I CAN'T PLAY ANY FUCKING CARDS

First try, ez

Spoiler:

[Venmar]

Execute x2
Whirlwind x2
Fiery War Axe x2
Slam x2
Cruel Taskmaster x2
Unstable Ghoul x2
Shield Block x2
Acolyte of Pain x2
Raging Worgen x1
Warsong Commander x2
Death's Bite x2
Dread Corsair x2
Gnomish Inventor x2
Hungry Dragon x2
Grim Patron x2
Emperor Thaurissan x1

I feel like Axe Flinger doesn't get enough love. That card can be incredibly powerful if its ability is abused enough, which is not that hard at all in warrior, where every 2nd card can dish out 1 AoE dmg. That being said, you're running a Patron Warrior deck (I call it simply Pain Warrior, because the deck I use isn't reliant on solely Patron and has other synergy cards), and you're going to have your minions constantly hurt if you're trying to play it right. This means you're missing a vital card called Frothing Berserker, who can get insanely huge in a few simple Death's Bite, Ghoul, or Whirlwind procs. Armorsmith can build your hero to a huge armour status, and Battle Rage can get you very good card draw.

This is the current deck I use which is resemblent of Patron Warrior but with my style of play. It's not perfect, but neither is any other deck, and it has done valiantly for me so far. It's got a pretty weak 4/5 Mana Curve, but as it is this hasn't been a huge problem. The deck is meant to be aggressive, and many 4 drops are pretty slow anyways, so I move on with my life.

Spoiler:

[Venmar]

@Venmar - I still don't have Cairne but can play your deck otherwise. Suggested replacement for Cairne? I have most of the playable legendaries.

Cairne isn't exactly central to the deck, he's just kind of one of my favorite legendaries in the game. Any solid 6 drop is good. If you have her, Sylvanas Windrunner is a very solid replacement.

[Venmar]

Although if you want to help the deck curve better, go ahead and get a low mana card.

[Venmar]

This is what I like to call an insta-lose hand against face hunter.

[Venmar]

But I gained my revenge the very next game!

[Venmar]

This game is pure skill, no luck involved.

[Venmar]

So tired or Face Hunter and Zoolock.

Guys, please play something else.

Like Pirates.

Pirates are cool.

[Venmar]

F-Fl-Flame Leviathan isn't that good. If the dust that you will get from him gets you a better legendary (i don't know how much dust you have) then do it. I have disenchanted Flame Leviathan, King Mukla, King Krush, Al'akir, and Deathwing (this one was an accident) in my career because they just suck. If they getting disenchanted lets you get closer to getting a better legendary, then do itttt.

But don't disenchant it for an epic, that's a waste.

[Venmar]

Yeah no offense but Rank 25-20 is a joke.

[Venmar]

Gonna play in a Fireside Gathering on Saturday, Conquest format.

Trying to decide which decks I want to bring still, got it narrowed down to my Handlock, Control Warrior, Midrange Paladin (the three I'm currently leaning towards), Mech Shaman, and Fast Druid.

I'd be interested in knowing your Paladin deck :3, I have one myself but i've had mixed success with it. I love Paladin and Druid but they're not competitive as my Warrior or Warlock atm.

[Venmar]

I am pretty hyped for Savage Combatant, Aviana, Warhorse Trainer, Darnassus Aspirant, and Tuskarr Jouster.

[Venmar]

King Wrynn though. Control Warrior just got wetter.

I got 1600 Dust saved up. The choice between Wrynn and Aviana is very tough now...

[Venmar]

Very interesting deck AP, I might give it a try later today. I mainly play midrange pally (+control warrior and ramp druid) and have been trying to expand into some funner paladin decks for now.

Also, give that deck a name pls, its killing me.

[Venmar]

@venmar: Ive tried quite a few pally variants over the last few months. It's been hard to find a list that holds up. Also I don't own any lay on hands which is pretty common.

I really hope token pally is viable after the TGT release. The card that is 3 for 3/3 with inspire to summon a dude seems decent. Also the new secret that gives all minions +1/+1. Might try for full tokens with creeper, muster, violet teacher, argus.

Definitely. I am 100% going to make a token/silver hand recruit deck when TGT rolls around. Silver Hand Regent, Competitive Spirit, and Warhorse Trainer (3 mana 2/4, give all Silver Hand Recruits +1) all make me very optimistic about a silver hand/token aggro deck. Knife Jugglers, Muster, Quartermasters, Warhorses, etc. Seal of Champions (3 mana spell, give a minion +3 attack + Divine Shield) also seems like a solid aggro card, similar to Kings.

[Venmar]

I have felt a decrease in performance as well, though nowhere as bad as what you got Glork. I get some sharp lag/frame drop in the first seconds of like every game and sometimes in it, and it's quite annoying.

[Venmar]

In other news, i'm hoping that stuff like Dragon Priest and Dragon Mage will become quite viable with the addition of Chillmaw, Twilight Guardian, and that Priest dragon card. I'm also hoping that the control-styled, Beast-orientated cards for hunter will make a slower, midrange-ish Beast Hunter viable as well.

[Venmar]

"Wow, that guys deck was "UNREAL"!"

[Venmar]

Varian Wrynn in a nutshell

[Venmar]

So I have been messing around with this deck a bit, which is *kind of* my personal take on an Oil Rogue/Midrange hybrid sort of Rogue deck? I found out that I personally love a lot of the Rogue's spells, cards, and combo playstyle, so I decided to first try out Oil Rogue. Oil ended up being a bit out of my comfort zone, it's a bit confusing to play and very awkward due to the lack of minions and dependability on a game winning combo. So I dropped a number of cards and added in a couple of midrange(y) cards to help build a board presence, while retaining Rogue's awesome kill potential and board control.

They deck has been doing fairly well but i'm not much of a Rogue expert. It's notably missing iconic Rogue cards like Preparation (thinking of adding it but I can't find the room), Shiv and Fan of Knives (Had x1 of both in earlier versions of the deck, but I just didn't find much of a place for them, though they were quite effective with Thalnos on the board) and Shadowstep (Which I don't think has a place in the deck), and in general I feel like it could be much better than it currently is. I'm thinking of dropping a Farseer, maybe a Barber or Thalnos, for something better? I notably really like Assassin's Blade, and baring a Harrison's or an Ooze, dropping an Oil and/or a Deadly Poison on it applies insane amounts of pressure, and puts the opponent on a clock. I also like the Parditions blade I think, it's a solid weapon that gives immediate impact.

Any opinions? I don't think a slower version of Oil Rogue like this is very common, if anyone's got deck tips that'd be swag.

[Venmar]

MILLLLLHOUUUSEEEE MANAASTORMMM

[Venmar]

Nobody commented on my build ;_;

[Venmar]

The option that spawns the least Troggs is dropping the Deckhand, running it into the Earthinator, and then eviscerating it.

[Venmar]

That's not really a bad hand imo but ok?

[Venmar]

So here's an updated decklist:


The biggest problem I'm having is getting board control early; in theory, I should be able to remove my opponent's threats, but in reality, I often just get flooded. It seems to be impossible to get Execute, War Axe, or Brawl before turn 10 for some weird reason.

This is a pretty standard list imo. You're bound to have bad matchups, certain aggro decks like Pally are said bad matchups, but you already have the good removals so its a matter of playing them right really. I personally don't think Chillmaw is THAT good in this kind of a Control deck since you only have like 1 other dragon, making Chillmaw a trash 7 drop 90% of the time. It ain't going to be consistent. If you go for it then you're probably making a new deck anyways, a Dragon Warrior deck, which i'm sure has potential and proven capability, but -shrug-. I used to run 2 brawls and haven't ever really been punished for doing so, people don't really expect it and its a good card for aggro matchups, which are still pretty common. I would drop an Acolyte of Pain (In a control deck, I have found 2 acolytes to be an overkill) for an Emperor Thaurissan, and a Bash (I don't actually think this card is going enoughf or a slot here, its role is filled by execute/shield slam shield block/etc) for either a Loatheb (If you're facing a lot of Rogues or Mages mainly) or a Harrison Jones (Very good against Rogue, Warrior, Hunter, and even Pally matchups).

If you want to drop a Brawl, replace it with a Baron Geddon if you have him. Baron is easily one of my favourite cards in Control Warrior tbh, and he'll fill a control, board clear sort of a role like that second brawl. I also have no real experience with the Justicar, I imagine it's actually a good card so I would definitely recommend to keep running it and seeing how it goes. Ellibereth also suggested replacing Alexstrasa with Ysera which I personally disagree with as a personal preference. Ysera is a slower card imo that doesn't fit the massive impact caused on play by the other fatties in the deck, and I think Ysera is much better in more midrange(y) decks like Paladin or Priest. Its up to you in the end, but I think Alex adds more kill pressure and an extra way to win. While Ysera can do this if it gives you 2-3 dream cards, it just feels slower for a control deck so -shrug-

[Venmar]

It does nothing proactive in a matchup where I'm most certainly the aggro.

A Blade Flurry makes it good if you were against an aggro pally.

Rogue (especially Oil Rogue) is a class that has these kinds of hands and draws, a deck with more emphasis on combos and huge, single power swing turns rather than stable board building and tempo plays. It's a different playstyle from most other classes that takes getting used to.

[Venmar]

No, you should play face hunter or aggro paladin. Those two decks are incredibly good yet being incredibly cheap and easy to build due to its being largely basic and common cards, a handful of rares, thats it.

[Venmar]

Speaking of, I'm beginning to think that Kezan Mystic may be a necessary tech card now. Secret Paladin, Face Hunter, and most Mages now depend on secrets.

I feel this way as well, though it has been pretty obvious for the past few week(s) that secret paladin is one of the best decks right now (Tempo Storm put it in Tier 1 of their meta snapchat i think, so that might make people jump the wagon and play the deck.) It actually might be enough to make me want to switch out Harrison in some of my decks to counter secrets, even though that would weaken said deck(s) matchup against Patron and Control Warrior, Oil Rogue, and I guess Midrange Pally. It all depends on what is being played at each ELO, and right now it seems that secret pally and most mage decks are just running rampant with secrets.

[Venmar]

4? I'm assuming you mean Lights Justice from Muster, which is true but not exactly a huge threat to warrant solely running Harrison. I mainly run Harrison to break Oil Rogue weapons, Deaths Bites, War Axes, and Truesilvers.

Thought you are right, there could be other Tech cards warranting replacement instead. The overall point though is that i'd rather steal a crucial Competitive Spirit/Aveneg/Ressurect rather than deal with a Lights Justice.

(Also if you meant that smaller 3-mana weapon that gives taunt and divine shield, then yes, it'd be a side-grade, though most decks only run x1 I think?)

[Venmar]

I agree, his inclusion in decks is usually aimed at Warrior (and Rogue) matchups rather than Pally, though being able to get rid of a Truesilver (or godforbid an Ashbringer) is always nice.

[Venmar]

Okay, first of all

1) How did you get paired against someone two ranks below you, and
2) Can't the poultryizer turn the skeletal knight into a chicken as well? Isn't his concede very premature?

[Venmar]

"paladin sucks"

[Venmar]

They'll nerf Warsong Commander to say "Give Charge Minions +1 Attack".

RIP Patron Warrior, 2015-2015

[Venmar]

This is what I call a "I lost the game" mulligan of a hand.

[Venmar]

Freeze Mage is so stupid to play against, probably the most toxic deck to play against since there's no interaction with the enemy.

[Venmar]

Sure, because there's interaction with Facehunter and Secret Paladin.

Ah yes, the "I will bring up other examples to invalidate the original" logic.

[Venmar]

I'm not saying your statement is invalid, but what you are implying is that we need to do away with a whole array of deck archetypes. There are a number of non-interactive decks out there right now, and that's one of the reasons I can only stand to play a dozen or so games of ranked in any given month.

Fair Enough. I personally think Freeze is quite a bit more non-interactive than the two you mentioned. I don't see much Face Hunter anymore, at least not in my ELO. Secret Pally has been manageable. I'm not trying to say we need to do away with a whole archetype, i'm just frustrated that playing against Freeze Mage is you watching your board get frozen while your opponent watches porn until they draw their stupid combo. At least with rush decks you can try to control them and interact via killing their minions and applying pressure, but with Freeze Mage you sit there and take it up the bum win or lose since those matches take forever.

That being said, I found that Midrange Pally is pretty good at controlling aggro decks. I have a pretty good record against Secret Pally's, Zoolocks, and a handful of Aggro Shamans with it.

[Venmar]

Could say that about every deck and matchup honestly.

It's not a fun experience win/lose, that's why it's the one deck I actually hate.

[Venmar]

Every deck building trading card game does this. Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic the Gathering aren't exceptions and both have archetypes and specific decks that rotatate as Tier 1 decks most top level players either copy or imitate. Nobody will build a shitter deck with magma ragers or shitty basics and commons, people will build good decks. If that means people copy top level decks from sites then so be it, but people like me will always tweak them to preference if needed. If u can't accept that people will use what is objectively considered good and consistent, or think that is boring, maybe you shouldn't be playing a tcg.

[Venmar]

Hearthstone has always been against using cards that activate on your opponents turn and cards that affect your opponents hand or draw, so I guess interactivity as you guys described will be an issue for a while.

[Venmar]

Ive been kind of experimenting with a more full-blown Demon deck at the moment.

Spoiler:

It's been doing okay, though the winrate is only a bit above 50% at the moment. It's a bit weird since it feels forced with additions like Demonheart and Demonwrath and Mistress of Pain, all of whom can be lackluster plays at times, though i've been having fun with the deck. Voidcaller pulling out cards is the main tempo swing of the deck, with mid-rangy elements instead of handlock or zoo as the main playstyle.

[Venmar]

Maybe Control Warrior teched with Juggernaut + Brann for Reno decks.

Pro's make it happen

[Venmar]

This is my current Mid-rangey Beast Hunter list:

Spoiler:

I love the Beast theme and have been thinking of making a Mid-range styled deck of them work to some success. This deck originally had a lot more beasts (I liked the new Huge Toad, a webspinner, and a stranglethorn tiger just as a few examples) but I cut a bunch in favour or making the deck a bit more competitive and better in general. I'm personally not sold Sir Finley, the idea is that I might value a value power like Warrior or Priest or a ping ability (Mage/Druid/Rogue) more than the face since this is a deck more focused on board control than going face, but I think I might want an Owl instead. I also like Freezing and Bear Trap more than Explosives, I might drop a bear trap for explosive for the aggro matchup though. Kodo is really good in my experience.

[Venmar]

Have they confirmed that the extra 9 deck slots will only be for "Wild" decks and the other for "Standard"? Because if that's the case they really didn't do much and there's no reason why they shouldn't add an extra 9 for Adventures as well.

[Venmar]

Make Savage Roar 4 mana, make FON 7 mana, you fix Druid

Good job you killed the combo, you can't even cast it on turn 10 now without innervate.

Killing the combo is not the way imo. It's one of the only reasons Druid is good honestly.

[Venmar]

And you can still Thaurissan it.

There's a problem if Thaurissan is the one card making certain archetypes viable. It's pretty bland design.

PEdit: Druid is a good class, I don't deny it, it has one of the best curves and midgames of any class in the game. But the FoN combo is the way a Druid closes out games, it's their main win condition. Most non-Midrange Druids still have the combo because its druids best win con. Your nerf will probably kill any reason to use Savage Roar; limiting your targets to minions is a bigger nerf than you might think. Making cards "Fair" doesn't work when you got so many OP staple cards to begin with that making a card fair still dumps it in favour of better cards.

[Venmar]

Druid is my favorite class so I guess i'm just defending my favorite combo. But i've personally never found the combo to be that OP anyways; it's frustrating to play against since it's a 14+ burst from an empty board, but there

is

counterplay for it in the form of expecting it, using taunts and Loatheb, not trading your hero down to ~14hp, and so on. It's infinitely less annoying to play against, at least for me, than say Freeze Mage which makes me want to kill myself.

[Venmar]

Meh? I mean I get it, I get your point, I just don't think improving Druid diversity and design has come at the expense of destroying an existing archetype. Destroying Warsong Commander for example hasn't really improved Warrior design; Control Warrior is still around, Math Warrior is still a thing, and that's it really. The disappearance of Warsong commander hasn't made Taunt Warrior viable. Instead, well-designed cards like Reno Jackson, Sir Finley, and so on, have brought new archetypes and design choices. That's what should can be done with Druid; they keep getting "fair" cards but not cards that give birth to a new way to play Druid. Beast Druid will remain shit if FoN goes away for example.

That's my stance, if you don't agree we'll have to just agree to disagree.

[Venmar]

Nerfing the combo is... also... a balance change..? It totally is comparable to what happened to Commander, whether or not nerfing FoN enables new design or not it's still a balance change at its heart.

PEdit: I think I agree with that, Sudo. It's the way Druid is designed right now that it has really strong auto-include cards. Instead of making them bad, Blizzard just needs to make better designed new cards that provide alternative ways, archetypes, and strategies to Druid should and will work better. Make Beast Druid cards that are actually good and enable running such an archetype or have a win con built into them, and so on.

[Venmar]

I think making cards cost more is also the most boring and lazy approach to nerfing and designing a card.

If I were to nerf the combo, I would change Savage Roar (and only SR) to read this: "All of your minion gain +2 Attack until the end of you turn. Your Hero and Minions with Charge receive only +1 attack until the end of the turn". That way you don't just straight up kill the combo, it still remains a fairly viable win condition, you encourage the Druid to actually have a board to K.O. you and increasing counterplay, it doesn't kill other OK Druid archetypes that rely on Savage Roar (like board flooding decks), and so on.

[Venmar]

What? Every single class has a card that's run in almost every single deck archetype, it's not fair to single out Innervate.

[Venmar]

The difference is that innervate is wayyyyyyyy better than Fireball.

Also that's kind of unfair to Shaman and Hunter because both only really have 1 archtype.

1. Fireball isn't even the most obvious staple for mage, I've seen certain decks that only run x1 or none at all(certain types of Dragon Mage for example). It's Frostbolt that is the even bigger staple for mage. Can you really say though that cards like Fiery War Axe for Warrior, Northshire cleric and the other 50 auto-include priest cards, Eviscerate for Rogue, etc, are fundamentally any different from innervate?
2. Shaman is universally considered the most poorly designed class in the game (thanks overload). Hunter is predisposed to be a class with an aggressive archetype thanks to its hero power. These two classes have bigger issues than staple cards.

I'd just like to see the staples rebalanced so that you don't start every deck by putting in the 10-16 basic/classic cards that you play in every deck.

The key strength of the auto-includes being basic cards is that new players start with strong cards they can build their early decks around. It should remain like this, the strongest cards shouldn't always be the ones a new player has to spend a lot of money or days of grinding to collect. The main game developer, Ben Brode, said this is the biggest reason why basic cards are as strong as they are and I agree with him that it's a good idea for newbies.

[Venmar]

Haven't played in a long time, considering coming back due to the new formats and expansions. Is it worth it?

[Venmar]

I'm not a fan of the nerfs they're rolling out. They might as well call them "making these cards garbage" rather than "nerfs".

Like, why call it a nerf when you completely change how the card works or make it completely not worth putting in ANY deck? FFs

[Venmar]

C'thun decks have been OK, I'd recommend trying them out before committing dust to Emperor.

N'Zoth Pally is fuckin nuts though. It's one of the most punishing decks to play against due to its potential to just reset the game every few turns with bonker heals and delays.