Hearthstone Players!

Bubbles beat Poison, Poison beats HugeDudes, HugeDudes beat bubbles. Murlocs can break this with the dreaded HugePoisonDudes comp. And they can make things interesting with the HugeDudesInBubbles. HugePoisonBubbleDudes is a problem, yes.

MacDirk Diggler wrote: The DH nerfs may lead to another DH archetype to rise that you will find equally dismaying. It’s the new Barnes. You play Magtheradon on 4 and if opponent doesn’t have access to single target removal for that it’s game over. Because Mag will also clear the board when he pops. The slang for losing thusly is “getting slapped by the Magtheradong”.

Yep. Seen it. There are enough control tools in DH that I've seen a few versions of this running around. FFS, it's a brand new class and they can make a better control deck than Paladin and they don't even need Wild Pyromancer.

@Matt: Usually when they pluck cards out of what is seemingly "the blue" like that, it's because of win rates based on that card's play AND what they anticipate is going to be a change based on other nerfs. They just nerfed DH, which means it's going to be weaker and, thus, Pirate Warrior could go on a Rampage (little joke there.) Similarly, one of the things containing Spell Druid is DH because they can't get going fast enough. With a lesser DH, they need to slow Druid's ramp capability or we're back where we were with Jadeworld.

Of course, as I explained earlier, I think the root cause of the DH domination runs deeper than a couple key cards. Just like the failure to contain Odd Paladin caused them to retire Genn and Baku a year early, I think they're going to have to make a more basic alteration to Demon Hunter before things will really change.

I agree with Jackwraith here—Spell Druid is not killing everyone because it's too slow and liable to be burst down once they finally have enough to get going. Once DH actually plays slower, there's all the more reason to think they will explode. Also, purely from a cost perspective, three cards for 2 is pretty nuts. Folks get mad when Warrior gets crazy Battle Rage value and that actually needs setup. Spell Druid can just get that for free before the nerf.

DH is still chugging along just fine, they just have access to so many cool effects. Wrathscale Naga is cool with the little Illidari they make, Altruis is still cool with Twin Slice, the best Silence, the best Battlecries, Demon synergies, &c &c. It's been what, like six nerfs, and they are still probably the best class in Standard. That's crazy.

And Naga is considered one of the niche, "non-competitive" cards...

So, thought I'd check in here. I mentioned to Jeb last month that I'd pretty much had enough of HS. The swingy nature of the game bugs me and I find that I really don't enjoy playing, except very rarely. But I had a ton of gold left over, so I bought packs of Scholomance (the dungeon in WoW is one of my all-time faves) and I've put together a couple decks with what I got.

One of the things I haven't been playing is Pure Paladin. Despite an influx of ridiculously powerful cards, there's something that irritates me about the class right now. I've thought briefly about just scrapping it and sticking to Warlock and Shaman, but it might just be my current disaffection with the game as a whole.

I've tried a couple different versions of Warlock: Pain and Handlock. Both of them use the new Soul Fragment mechanic and both of them, in turn, try to exploit Flesh Giant. I've won decently with both. Pain is much more inclined to self-harm (how weird is that phrase...?) with Darkglare and Vulture (You know... the two excellent cards that were rendered null and void by Demon Hunter?) and is more of a midrange/almost-Zoo approach. Handlock, instead, uses the normal board clears, along with Soulciologist Malicia and Void Drinkers. Earth Elemental without Overload is some good.

Speaking of which.... sigh. Totem Shaman was supposed to be a thing in Ashes because of how good Reflection is. But the problem with totems has nothing to do with what cards can be played on them. The problem is that they're too slow, largely because the overwhelming majority of them have no attack capability. When your opponent clears, he normally pays two costs: not damaging you and taking damage to his minions. With totems, he only pays one cost. 3/4 of hero power results, EVIL Totem, Trick Totem, Mana Tide, etc. can all be removed at almost no cost to the opponent. His first turn Battlemage can sit there clearing your hero power for the entire game, barring Searing appearances. That means it's tougher to gain board advantage for Shaman, which is a condition that a deck like Totem is trying to achieve to be successful. You can't compete with other minion decks determined to clear your board and you can't create enough threat against control decks because you can't do early chip damage that stacks up by the mid- to later game. The only thing that generally changes that is Reflection, which means you need to draw into it as one of the classes with the worst access to draw.

On top of that, the "big" card for Totem in this set, Totem Goliath, doesn't address that problem and adds another one. It's basically a vanilla 4/5 that costs 5. In other words, tempo-wise, it's worse than Chillwind Yeti. To not engage its deathrattle, your opponent can just ignore it. On top of that, you're paying TWO more mana for it next turn, which is yet another tempo loss for no appreciable gain when it's first played. If I have one fervent wish to convey to the dev team, it's that Overload cards need to be borderline broken to be genuinely viable. You know why Totem Golem was an insane card? Because it was so fast. 3/4 on turn 2 or coined out on turn 1. Yes, you were still paying for it next turn, but you got the jump on your opponent. That's an Overload card. Goliath is not that.

I've tried a couple variations on burn/spell damage Shaman, as well. It's OK. But it doesn't really compare to the current ability of Druid or Paladin to just romp across the board. It'd be great if Totem could be a genuine aggro deck since you now have to win by turn 7 (i.e. the Guardian Animals turn) but, again, without attack power, it's still too slow. One upside is that I think Devolving Missiles has become a prerequisite for all Shaman decks because of those two dominant classes and Aggro/Secret Passage Rogue with the everpresent Edwin. I was unimpressed when I first saw the card, but it's been quite handy the couple times I've used it.

I'm back in! Sort of. It's better than it was! High praise indeed.

Battlegrounds
Wins with 19 characters, and a 6100 rating. Proudest of my Galakrond win, as that Hero is terrible. Huge Murlocs still finish most games, but huge Pirates can give them a run for their money. The best plan is to knock those players out before they get absolutely nuts.

Recent changes include Amalgadon at Tier 6, a 6/6 Amalgam (all types) who gets 1 Adapt per different minion type you have. So if you take Mixed Minions into Tier 5/6, you can score a Taunted Bubbled Poison 7/7 or so that can be buffed by everything or it's a 12/12 that makes plants. Alas. Pretty good, and less demanding than Holy Mackerel. They also swapped out Menagerie Magician and Zoobot for new minions that do the same buffs but apply them to any three types instead of just Dragon/Murloc/Beast. More flexible.

Some new Heroes too, I haven't had time with these as yet, they both seem a little bad: King Mukla Hero power gives you two +1/+1 Bananas and your opponents 1 Banana, and Mr. Bigglesworth lets you Discover a minion from a dead Hero's war band AND keep any buffs on it. Could get nuts, but does nothing in the early game. Solid addition to Heroes is Brann, who refreshes the Tavern with only Battlecry minions. You can do some cool stuff with this guy, score some early triples, and the temptation to hang out at Tier 2 and just roll Pogo-Hopper every turn is real.

Standard
Obviously, huge turnover on the Ladder. Priest is totally in the mix now, and might be even MORE annoying to players that hate Priest already. Cabal Acolyte (2/6 Taunt for 4) let's you Spellburst steal a minion à la Cabal Shadow Priest. Pretty effective with Lazul's Scheme. I stole a 16/16 Ysera from a Druid using this trick, it's for real. AoE has moved to Tempo as well, because you can swap out Breaths/Dragons for Wretched Tutor (2/5 for 4) who can Spellburst deal 2 to every other minion. This card is Neutral and likely makes some other decks viable, like a Controlly Hunter or some kind of Mage bullshit. Priest also got Raise Dead (Spell for 0) that deals 3 damage to you to put two minions that died this game into your hand. So those Spellbursts, Invokes, and Sethek Spellweavers come back for more. Following Zetalot gets you ahead of the Priest curve and he's running the package above with Hecklebots and Ogremancer (3/7 for 5, Whenever your opponent casts a spell, summon a 2/2 Skeleton with Taunt). Things are weird.

Highlander is largely on hiatus. It's out there, but like, Demon Hunters are using it. Terrible.

I've seen some fragile Combo decks in Mage, praying to not draw their second Potion of Illusion (Spell for 1, Add 1/1 copies of your minions to your hand, they cost 1,) so they can keep cycling their Tortollan Pilgrim and other minions turn over turn, ideally making a big… something. Frostbolt off Mozaki maybe? It's not great. Tempo Mage seems workable, they can make all kinds of spells and guys and accomplish things. Not sure it's enough to hang though. Mage stock seems down.

Warrior's are still out there trying. They are missing something in the midgame though, especially with the nerf to that big Rush fella last set. They are either going pure Pirate/Bombs or trying to go Control and play huge stuff off Dimensional Ripper. Eh.

Hunter is still good. Demon Hunters have access to Skull of Gul'dan upon request if they play Lorekeeper Pokelt. Druids are still cheating out stuff. Warlocks and Paladins explained above by Jackwraith.

Shaman. Hmm. Not much change there, for the most part. Spell Damage aggro would probably still work, gaining Lightning Bloom (Spell for 0, Gain 2 Mana Crystals this turn only. Overload: 2). Quest is largely unchanged, maybe adding Cult Neophyte (3/2 for 2, Battlecry: Your opponent's spells cost 1 more next turn.) Totems didn't actually gain much. That 4/5 Totem that makes the Totems is a little wonky, as noted by Jackwraith. Runic Carvings (Spell for 6, Choose: Summon 4 four 2/2 Treant Totems or Overload (2) to summon them with Rush) is too expensive. Trick Totem (0/3 for 2, At the end of your turn cast a random spell that costs (3) or less) is good; but I worry about it screwing me, and not recovering. That card is better in Mage.

Trick Totem is the ultimate Team 5 HS card. It can be totally amazing (Reflection, Frostbolt something of your opponent's, etc.) Or it can be totally useless (Frostbolt itself, etc.) I was using it in my totem deck largely because it was an 0/3, which means it was mildly more difficult for opponents to kill so that I'd actually have something on the board to apply Reflection/Surge to in order to try getting something out of the board. But the randomness is something that neither Mage nor Shaman (or any class trying to be competitive) would want.

You're right that Runic Carvings is too expensive for what it does. But it's also the only thing that even vaguely resembles a reload or a finisher in totem.dec. I was trying it out, but it seems to be standard for a tier 4 deck, since Vicious Syndicate is running it in their list.

Raise Dead is also brilliant for that Warlock Pain deck I mentioned. Since they want to kill your Vultures and Darkglares ASAP, it's a great way to play them right back on the next turn.

So, I've barely played since my last post, but I've been having a conversation in the last couple days on Reddit over the problems with Shaman. Vicious Syndicate's latest meta report came out and basically condemned the class to irrelevance, where it has been for the past three expansions. Then, the NoPros report about the tournament scene was posted and, of course, there are decks from all 9 classes actually in the game (albeit few from Hunter, Paladin, and Warlock), but none from Shaman. I made a joke about it and the OP argued that Control Shaman is the second-highest win rate deck in their analysis. I said that seems to be a case of sample size. Another guy I was talking with in the VS thread said that he'd made legend with a control list, but was often frustrated with it because the smallest of mistakes would cost him games. Now, that can be said about most high-level play and I'm willing to accept that it's possible for Shaman to get there. It just seems, similar to Warrior and especially Priest at various times over the past few years, it takes a lot more thinking and niche scenarios to make it genuinely viable. Not wanting to talk without trying, I put his list together and tried a couple games:

### Control
# Class: Shaman
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Phoenix
#
# 2x (1) Devolving Missiles
# 2x (2) Diligent Notetaker
# 2x (2) Wandmaker
# 2x (2) Witch's Brew
# 1x (3) Instructor Fireheart
# 2x (3) Lightning Storm
# 1x (3) Plague of Murlocs
# 2x (3) Serpentshrine Portal
# 2x (4) Groundskeeper
# 2x (4) Hex
# 1x (4) The Fist of Ra-den
# 2x (4) Torrent
# 2x (5) Hagatha's Scheme
# 1x (5) Kobold Stickyfinger
# 1x (6) The Lurker Below
# 2x (7) Earthquake
# 1x (8) Tidal Wave
# 2x (8) Walking Fountain
#
AAECAaoIBuGlA4ixA+a3A5PCA5zOA67SAwz1BP4FrZEDipQDxZkDkKcD27gDk7kD4MwD4cwDodED/tEDAA==

I'm playing a Plague of Murlocs where he had a Gidra, because I don't have the latter. He said she was a recent addition, anyway.

hsreplay.net/replay/eiZLSeRwXo3Vi4UYCnPB8a

So, here's a game against Pure Paladin; a deck that's a frequent inhabitant of the ladder, but also not top tier. I mulligan the Groundskeeper and Fireheart because I want more active cards early on against Paladin, even as control. And the Tidal Wave, obvsly. But I keep the Portal because it's a great card for those early buffed minions that also leaves a pretty decent one behind. Most 3-drops these days are pretty solid. And, in fact, I Coin out a Portal on turn 2 because the last thing I want is a Priestess constantly buffing things like Goody Two-Shields...

Who shows up on cue. We do some trading and I use the other Portal. On turn 5, I'm thinking that I made a mistake. I could've let the Shotbot live instead of using a weapon charge and, instead, got yet another useful thing from it when I cast one of my multiple spells. Once he put down the Apt Pupil alongside the 2nd Goody, I was not at all interested trying to hammer through all of that, so I Plagued. It got me an Ace Hunter, which would've been kind of brilliant, but it also gave him Murlocs that were just as good, if not better, than mine. He cleared with the Skipper.

On turn 7, another mistake, as I could've just hit the Mage with Murmy and gotten full effect on my Lurker, rather than wasting another weapon charge. But I also get the best possible 4 result off the Hex of Turalyon and play a Groundskeeper, too; completely assuming control from this point forward. Turn 9 is debatable. I could have Devolved the frog and taken a Libram from him, but I assumed he had Liadrin, anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered much in the late game, which is where we were headed. Plus, I wanted the missiles for the next play, which was Libram of Hope. Once I dealt with that, look at my hand. There was basically nothing that was going to survive.

Turn 10 is also debatable. I could've used Nozdormu to clear the taunt and kept the Fountain available for next turn as a 4/4, forcing him to either take 8 or 12. But I was kind of determined to press the issue before Liadrin arrived. With Instructor, my choices were based on building up board position and keeping the effect going for as long as possible (value.) I had zero worries about the 12/2. Drawing into the Notetaker just meant it was over before he could cast another Hope.

Keeping in mind my two mistakes, this also wasn't an optimal challenge, since he was playing Turalyon, which is an awful card, and because too many Pure Paladin players tend to get tempted into overplaying into something huge, which is exactly what Devolving Missiles is for. But it's a demo of what the deck can do.

New set, new game mode, new progression system, new everything(ish).


New set
Darkmoon Faire, themes include Corruption (cards in hand with the Corrupt keyword get a bonus if you play a card that costs more than it) and Old Gods are back.

For and example of Corrupt:
Strongman 6/6 Common for (7) Taunt Corrupt: This costs (0).
So if you play an 8- or higher cost card while Strongman is in your hand, its art updates and its cost changes to (0).

The Old Gods: N'Zoth, C'thun, Y'shaarj, and Yogg-Saron are Lovecraftian big bads that have very swingy effects on the game. They have high costs,, so getting a chance to play them can be challenging in some metas.

The most intriguing one to me is Y'Shaarj. Last time we saw Y'Shaarj it was a 10/10 for (10) that put a random minion from your deck into play at the end of the turn.* It's still a 10/10 for (10), but now:
Y'Shaarj, the Defiler 10/10 Legendary for (10) Battlecry: Add a copy of each Corrupted card you've played this game to your hand. They cost (0) this turn.
"Created By" has become a theme in HEARTHSTONE all by itself. There are a lot of decks that count on using cards in the deck to make other cards or copies of cards and hopefully cheating the mana costs down, which Blizzard thinks needed if you get a card "randomly." In early experiments I am trying to exploit Y'Shaarj in Quest Shaman (shh), especially the Dunk Tank card.
Dunk Tank Shaman Rare for (4) Deal 4 damage. Corrupt: Then deal 2 damage to all enemy minions.
If I manage to play two of these before Y'shaarj, I get a 10/10 and deal 8. Maybe more if I "Created By" myself into more copies. Good times.

Duels
The new mode is Duels. Which is basically competitive Dungeon Run, except you can bring a little of your own deck-building into it. You are offered four Heroes, which are tweaks to existing archetypes, but are familiar if you've done Dungeon Runs/Monster Hunts. You can build a 16-card 1-copy-of-each card deck and get a special Power that adds some effect to the game, like your enemy's first minion each turn takes 1 damage, or you start the game with two random secrets. As you win or lose (you get three "lives"), you add powerful Treasures, more Powers, and packs of themed cards, hopefully ending up with some crazy combo for huge effects. But of course, so has the opponent, and you might be challenged.

I thought I had a solid Warlock build, given that I could make 30/30+ Lifegain Rush Demons, but I lost consecutive matches to someone that had Deathrattles go off automatically (Sylvanas stole my huge Demon) or a weapon that silenced minions as it attacked them (my 30/30 was a 3/3). Oh well. It's very low stakes. I can't imagine anyone getting really excited for this, but it's a nice diversion.

Progression
Blizzard has tried to make the free-to-play experience of HEARTHSTONE as fun and interesting as it can be for the folks that pay big money. Money gets you cosmetic advantages and (by brute force) earlier access to all the cards (in that you bought more packs). The F2P experience was gathering "gold" by completing "Quests" like playing cards or games and a generic 10-gold-every-three-wins for just being around. The accumulation was slow, but it was steady. You could earn about 150 gold per day if you played about ten games. Once a set releases, packs cost 100 gold apiece, so if you spend everything and then accumulate until the next expansion, you'd have between 4k and 7k gold for 40-70 packs, which is a good chunk of the expansion.

They threw all that away. Now you have a little Adventure log that has experience points in it, which if you check a little map, turns into gold, or packs, or tickets or something. It's very confusing, and very BEJEWELEDesque. Per a Reddit thread, it's a raw deal for real diehards, but I haven't noticed as yet. I still get gold, and some of the log items are interesting, like "control a minion bigger than 25/25" or "win a game with your deck empty." The little map "reloads" every expansion, as do some log entries.

_{*It was abused by Barnes** (Barnes put a 1/1 copy of a minion from your deck into play). He only cost (4), so the idea was to play two minions, draw Barnes, have Barnes make a mini-Y'shaarj that would fetch the real one. Turn 4 10/10s are disruptive.}

**no relation

I see the Rewards system as a bait-and-switch. They put in a new system, claiming it was better than the much-criticized quest system from before, and then when people did the math and figured out that it's actually worse in terms of gold accumulation/ability to play for free, they made a statement today indicating that they just didn't communicate well enough about how great it's actually going to be. So, they're going to upgrade the worse-than-before system and a lot of people are going to walk away happy, thinking that they've gotten an improvement, when in fact it will probably still be worse than before. It's a system set up to instill little dopamine rushes that just getting 10g for 3 wins didn't create. That means you'll be spending more money than before, which is what they want.

They did this because even regular streamers (Dekkster, Regis, Solem) had started to talk about how they couldn't recommend the game to their friends because it was too expensive. This was pointed out in the backlash to the new system, where more than one person emphasized the fact that even after paying $120(US) for TWO pre-releases, they're still expecting another $20 for the Tavern Pass that makes the new system "better". This is on top of the fact that, out of the 120 packs for said two pre-releases, most people are still only getting 4 or 5 legendaries which, with the reintroduction of the Old Gods, are more crucial than ever to playing the decks that everyone wants to play. That means spending MORE money to get random cards that are worth 1/4th the dust needed to craft those legendaries in the best case scenario (i.e. scrapping legendaries that you don't want.) It's just not worth it. I can spend $180/year and $50 every three years and get the complete game experience playing a game like WoW. The only barrier is the time that I put in. I can spend over a grand every year playing Hearthstone and still not get all of the cards (i.e. the full game experience) that I want to play. Again, time could be the barrier, since if I play 8 hours/day, I'll probably accumulate enough gold to buy enough packs to hopefully get the cards I want. But probably not.

As for the cards, I really haven't looked that closely at any classes but the three I was playing regularly before I quit. They dumped face value stuff on Shaman, which makes everyone think that there will be something good about the class. But they also dumped what is a random selection of cards (one totem, one Murloc, one weapon (no Overload!)) on the class that lacks any obvious coherent theme like you see in Warlock (control theme and a Demon theme) or Paladin (control theme and a Dude theme) or other classes (Mage has Elementals and Secrets, for example.) And they gave Demon Hunter two of the best cards in the set, because they needed that! Ey'Sor is the perfect example of the half-assed approach they've taken to Shaman.

The long-memed legendary totem! Except... it's a card that does nothing when it hits the board, which makes it a minion that HAS to generate value of some kind. There are only three or four totem cards that are currently playable in the game: EVIL, Tide, Goliath and Flametongue, and the latter two are questionable. Thus, there are only six or eight cards in your deck that you'll be hitting with said legendary that make any difference, unlike Prince Whatshisname who boosted everything, and adding a +1/+1 to Goliath is a win-more effect. And this is, of course, assuming that you a) draw it in the early part of the game and b) play it on turn 3. It won't affect the totems that come from Goliath. It won't affect the totems that you produce with your hero power. Yes, it could be brilliant if you hit it with Reflection on turn 4, but that's a Timmy trap. It's an 0/4, so it can't affect the board (i.e. no attack value) and it's removed far more easily than it should be. If it were an 0/5, maybe. But it's also contrary to most totem decks that depend on tempo and aggro. Who's going to want to play an 0/4 that does nothing to the board on the turn it's played in those decks? Even if you have a totem in play, it makes your Healing Stream totem a 1/3 at the END of the turn. Your opponent removes one or both and the effect is basically gone. Are they building into a Control Totem deck in April? Good luck. When even Kibler looks at the collection of cards released and struggles to say he's excited about any of them, you know there's a problem.

Paladin got some cool Dude stuff and a couple menagerie and control tools. Warlock got some cool demons that probably still won't amount to a tribe deck of any worth. Deck of Chaos is pretty cool IF you can draw and play it without first drawing all of the massive stuff you're trying to mana cheat later in the game. That stuff looks interesting... but then I look at the four Old God legendaries and just recoil. Nope. No more. Too expensive and just not the game for me.