Hearthstone Players!

I have more Paladin and Shaman decks built than I do Rogue and Demon Hunter, just saying. Right now I have Highlander Quest, Murloc Quest, and Spell Damage Shaman decks that are all fun. Paladin. Well. I have a Paladin deck. They really pinched that guy, yikes.

Anyway, they just don't use any of those cards. And looking at them, I can't see why I would switch. Hitting minions for 8 is not a thing Shaman needs to do unless it's Hagatha killing everything. And dealing 2 damage to all minions is bad when 2/3 of Shaman's minions are probably Lackeys, Totems, or 2/1s with Rush. Your points here are all valid. If they got rid of those entirely and said Lava Shock was Standard Legal you would see people jumping into the class.

Save me, jeebus. I just played three games of HS. All three were against Demon Hunter. All three of my opponents played the exact same deck. All three games proceeded in exactly the same way. Remember the Baku/Grenn year, where all the decks became identical because there was simply no denying the power of super hero powers if you played all-even or all-odd? We are there again.

All three started with contesting of the early board, with the cheap hero power and Warglaives enabling them while I steadily drained cards from my hand to try to keep up. All three proceeded into the midgame where I was at an enormous card disadvantage because of Skull, Chaos Strike, and Spectral Sight. All three ended in the midgame (one made it to turn 9!) with them dropping Altruis and destroying my board. Seriously, all three basically ended when they played Altruis, and not because I conceded in frustration. I even managed to kill him once.

Granted, I was playing Shaman, which is still awful and will continue to be so after Tuesday. But you look at the meta and there are two dominant decks: Demon Hunter and Enrage Warrior. The latter is dominant because it can combo out the control decks that everyone has to play because of DH and because Skipper and Armorsmith completely neutralize the other dominant deck. I don't even have to label the DH deck(s) because THEY'RE ALL THE SAME THING. Oh, and none of them played Priestess and only one of them played a Runner. So... enjoy!

Side note: The hilariously ironical thing is that almost all of them could be "pure" DH decks (generally carrying only Blazing Battlemage and Frozen Shadoweaver) because, with five years of knowledge about how bad a lot of the Basic/Classic sets are, they avoided all of the problems such that most DH cards are usable. Of course, DH doesn't need any "bonus" for doing so (RIP Paladin), since with all good cards in the set, they already have a bonus.

There's something extra disheartening about back-to-back DH games on Ladder. You feel like you're just some lump in the way as they stroll off to higher tiers where they can all 50:50 each other for hours.

Whether or not they play the Priestess doesn't matter, because her existence skews the game for knowledgeable opponents. They MIGHT play her, so I need to hang on to this Shadow Word: Death and find some other bad way to kill this 6/4, because I won't have a board that can kill a 6/7 when she hacks them all to death regardless.

Sidepoint: Priestess of Fury art is relatively racy. I'd assumed with the changes to Jaina and Succubus they weren't doing lowcut blouse/highcut waist anymore for the international market.

jeb wrote: There's something extra disheartening about back-to-back DH games on Ladder. You feel like you're just some lump in the way as they stroll off to higher tiers where they can all 50:50 each other for hours.

This is totally it. Other than the one game that went to turn 9, they played quickly, on curve, and directly; as if all of the answers to any questions were right there in front of them and it was as simple as operating a machine. The deck (and Altruis) did the work for them. Any thought was inconsequential. ("When Face plays taunt, we still go face!")

On the card art thing: I'm relatively ambivalent about artwork. Part of that is because I have less concern about the Helen Lovejoy aspects of life ("Won't someone PLEASE think of the children?!"), but the other part is because I often don't slow down to enjoy some of the aesthetics of things around me. HS puts me into such a competitive mindset that I don't notice artwork or taglines or pretty much anything other than stats and what the card does. It's one of the things I've noticed in contrast to games like Heroes, where I take a few moments before games to change up skins, banners, mounts, and whatnot. They have no effect on the game whatsoever, but I can stop and appreciate them because they look cool. I find myself unable to do that with games like HS and I think that's detrimental. It's probably part of why I struggle to take an interest in the game that isn't comprised of a critique.

Jackwraith and I tangled a few times trying to make a decent Paladin deck for mid-tier Laddering, and it's a challenge. Ain't a lot of meat on them bones! As he's noted, Paladin's Basic/Classic cards are saddled with some real duds with all the 1-cost Secrets. They have to have the same number of cards as every other class because... uh, anyway, they do, and a non-zero number of them are 1-cost spells. If you don't want to play those (you shouldn't!), you have less to work with just by math.

The themes Paladin has in Standard are basically:

• Pure Paladin, rewarding you for playing only Paladin cards in your deck
• Librams, rewarding you for playing certain spells
• Dragons, because they have some I guess
• Murlocs, because they have some I guess

They have themes set over set like Lifegain, Divine Shields, reducing Attack/Health of minions, &c. But those are the ideas we need to weigh when building a deck. If they opt for Highlander, they can access great neutral cards like Zephrys and Alexstrasza, Dragonqueen, but at the expense of the Pure Paladin option.

Pure Paladin was laughably bad when Bad Luck Albatross* was still everywhere, but that one has abated somewhat, so it's a possibility. The issue faced here is Paladin struggles in the early game against rushdown decks like Demon Hunter, Zoo, and Face Hunter. Against DH, it can match minion for minion, but doesn't even come close to the card drawing power of that deck. A similar fate awaits against Zoo, and Face Hunter's minions are better in that they make you die so dang fast their poor quality doesn't matter. Time was, Divine Favor would have worked wonders, but those days are gone. So the temptation to break Pure Paladin is hard to resist if you'll be seeing these decks, and mid-tier Ladder is rife with them.

I'll dismiss Murlocs here too, because they just aren't fun to play. Why Blizzard thinks the fish men belong here is a mystery. Some WoW lore joke I don't get, I am sure.

So, you'll be looking at Librams and Dragons, and looking for early game relief in Neutral minions. Wild Pyromancer should show up. He's just too good to ignore with access to Lightforged Blessing for huge swings against weenies and Hand of A'dal to keep the pain coming. Paladin also gets access to the Augmerchants than can ping with a tempo body, or buff your bigger minions with cool effects for just 1 mana. They have 1 Health as well, so can be summoned via Salhet's Pride. This can hopefully get you to midgame, where tides can turn with some bigger effects like Khartut's Defender, Libram of Justice, and Amber Watcher. Lategame should see drastically reduced cost Libram of Wisdom and the game should close out with a Sn1P-Sn4P like Libram-bomb off Liadrin.

Seems like a narrow path to walk to get to maybe 50% WR, but if you are a committed Paladin, I think this is the way to go at this time.

^{*At launch, the Albatrosses it added to decks didn't count against Pure Paladin, but they patched this as a bug and made it break the Lightforged bonuses}

Got my gold Hunter last night, making four golden heroes in total.

I feel kind of freed by this as I have no other classes close to the milestone so I can just craft and play whatever I want now.

Will wait and see what dust settles from the balance patch before I get crafting for some new decks.

So, here's a little insight into immediate results:

hsreplay.net/replay/NpRviqaj7xn46bDXU9Uk3f

This is the Demon Hunter deck in all its mild insanity. Not all of them play the Felscreamer, but it's not totally unusual. On turn 2, you see what wasn't possible before. I use 2 mana, but I put a 2/4 on the board instead of a 2/3 and get the discount to my deck. I saw Regis do a Coin-Attendant-Attendant-Wisdom play yesterday, putting a 2/4 and a 1/3 down on turn 1, which is, um, some good.

I'm running the Angling Rod because it fills two of Paladin's notable weaknesses: card generation and early removal. (Why does the class that makes dudes as a hero power have trouble with early removal? Well, that's a question, isn't it?) A 3/2 weapon for 3 is still a useful thing, no matter what the Warriors tell you. The fact that it occasionally generates a Murgur Murgurgle or a 4/4 is what makes it Epic, I guess. The Peacekeeper is... interesting. I knew what was following the Felscreamer was a Priestess, since it was right on curve and he'd been drawing at the usual DH rate. But if I didn't take out the 4/4, I'd be taking 6 from the Priestess twice, rather than her having to spend some energy on minions. The fact that what was once considered one of the best cards in the game (Peacekeeper) is now a quite possibly questionable choice is a measure of where we are, I guess.

I ran him down to 2 cards twice and he refilled both his hand and the board with ease both times. I healed 36(!) damage and it still took a topdecked Hope and Liadrin to save me, with the Hopes never being cast for less than 7. He had no cards in hand, topdecked Warglaives and removed my entire board and hit me for 8. He had 2 cards left in his deck at the end of the game. I had 15 + Murgur Prime. Is there something wrong with this picture?

Incidentally, he played that game in rapid motion, like they all do. His turns took seconds, whereas I had to think about some of mine. Seriously, that deck is like a machine. It just draws and attacks and wins (most of the time) by itself. No thought required. You thought Face Hunter back in the day was mindless? This is way, way beyond that.

BTW, Jeb, I took out the Augmerchants. They're cool and I love them in Zoo, but they're just not working here. The deck just needs more in the middle and I found cards that were worth more. Strangely, one of them is quite similar: Argent Protector. He costs more, but he's also a 2/2 who become a 3/3 with Wisdom and he doesn't damage my guys to shield them. I've dropped one and created a very unpalatable choice for a DH, since he wants to get rid of the 2 attack thing that can kill his Battlefiend. But he also wants to get rid of the bubble. If it were an Augmerchant, he could do it (1 Health.) Since APs have two Health, he's a bit more stymied. We'll see if it keeps working.

I'm having a good time in HEARTHSTONE right now. The nerfs to Demon Hunter have made them far more reasonable opponents, and I feel like I have a shot against pretty much every metadeck on Ladder (Gold 3 atm) with a variety of choices now. My go-to's currently are Highlander Hunter, which has become the best deck in the game, I see. I am playing my own build from a few weeks ago that is more controlly for a few reasons: I think the 2/2 for 1 is a bad card in a deck that would like to play Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, and I don't have a few of the "key card" for the quicker more mid-range build that is everywhere now (e.g., Veranus, Dragonbane, and Zixor). I'm also playing various Priest builds (Maly, Reckless Rocketeer OTK, Highlander) that tend to rely on Fate Weaver making stuff cheap and setting up gamebreaking turns. Shaman rounds things out of late with a couple Quest builds. I have a Mage deck too, but that's largely solitaire setting up Puzzle Box memes.

In Battlegrounds, my MMR is 5600+, and I've gotten #1s with 13 different heroes. My best performing hero is Alexstrasza with six wins (one as Sir Finley). That's inordinately high, as Alex is largely considered Tier 3 quality, so it's been a lot of luck power-leveling and rolling Razorgores.

jeb wrote: I'm having a good time in HEARTHSTONE right now.

Glad to hear that but personally, I'm not. It's more because I'm struggling to get on with any of the high tier decks right now than any significant issue with the meta.

Demon Hunter keeps changing too regularly to be any fun. I like to settle into a groove, learn a deck. I've been playing Odd Demon Hunter in Wild which is more stable but it's a really horrible, mean deck and I feel a really horrible, mean person for playing it. Now they've nerfed Second Slice I might actually run it in that deck instead of Mana Burn: still very powerful but a bit more fun for the opponent.

I won't play Highlander decks on principle because it's a shit mechanic and I wish they'd ban every card that uses it.

Spell Druid is really boring.

I was having fun with a version of the original Galakrond Rogue deck, but the current one has too many cards in it that I'm not willing to craft. Although in truth it's only really Togwaggle: I don't have Flik either but that card is going to be around for a while so perhaps I should make the investment.

That leaves Enrage Warrior which is what I've been playing. But I just can't get it to perform reliably which is entirely my fault, not the decks. It's known to have a high skill cap, and I can pilot it okay but I can't get the last pieces of the strategy to fall into place. Playing with a deck where you have a fair loss rate despite a decent draw isn't all that appealing.

I've mostly just been keeping up with dailies, but I decided to push on with what is still one of my favorite decks of all time (over six years of playing): Lackey Zoo. Someone posted a list on the Reddits and I realized that he'd made a couple choices that I hadn't.

# 2x (1) Fiendish Servant
# 2x (1) Guardian Augmerchant
# 2x (1) Rocket Augmerchant
# 2x (1) Sinister Deal
# 2x (1) Voidwalker
# 1x (1) Voodoo Doctor
# 2x (2) EVIL Genius
# 2x (2) Expired Merchant
# 2x (2) Imprisoned Scrap Imp
# 1x (2) Kanrethad Ebonlocke
# 2x (2) Serpent Egg
# 2x (3) EVIL Recruiter
# 2x (3) Magic Carpet
# 1x (4) Grand Lackey Erkh
# 2x (4) Nightshade Matron
# 1x (5) Dark Pharaoh Tekahn
# 2x (6) Hand of Gul'dan
#
AAECAf0GBIQBgqUDx7YD1rkDDTCInQO1nwP6pAP8pAP9pAO9pgOwtgO1uQO2uQPHuQPevgPfvgMA

The major one is that Flame Imps are simply too dangerous to play with Demon Hunter in the game. The devs always say that Basic/Classic cards should be present, but not omnipresent. There's almost never been a Zoo deck made without Flame Imp because a turn one 3/2 is just too good a thing. But now you can't do too much damage to yourself or you die. (Incidentally, that means you have to ignore the best hero power in the game in about half your games these days, too. Sure hope they take that into account in the next set.) The Imps get replaced with Rocket Augmerchants. I was using the Guardian Augmerchants already, since they're Carpet targets who can also protect the Carpet. The Rockets can also get some good use out of that 3/3 Scrap Imp who's just sitting there doing nothing on the turn he wakes up; among other things. It's not quite Goblin Lackey, but it's a 3/1 rusher instead of just a 2/1 and is also another source of ping damage when you're trying to get past that big taunt. I went on a 10-1 run yesterday (8-0 while SebastianBludd was watching) to end the month, which was pretty cool. I beat Mages, Hunters, Rogues, and Demon Hunters.

Incidentally, Demon Hunters also eliminated the possibility of two other cards that I was really looking forward to using more often: Diseased Vulture and Darkglare. Both of them require you to take damage to get full value, which you simply can't do for very long (especially with "nerfed" Twin Slice) and likely not during the midgame where both of them would be played. Here's hoping for significant cards in the expansion next month or DHs are going to continue to shape the meta.