Hearthstone Players!

Warlock Zoo in Wild is pretty strong. I am on 9-2 on a 7 game streak. That's no big deal. What's a big deal is beating this series from Paladin:
T1: Nuthin
T2: Dude. (cleared)
T3: Shielded Minibot (cleared)
T4: Piloted Shredder (put at 1 health. Voidwalker played to block it)
T5: Piloted Shredder (cleared this and the 2/3 drop from the other, drop lived)
T6: Mysterious Challenger (4 secrets, cleared)
T7: Mysterious Challenger + Secretkeeper (MC cleared, wounded SK and let it live to clear Competitive Spirit)
T8: Dr. Boom
(dead from board and a 1/5 juggle). I was at 23.

Jeb your last post begs the question... What, exactly, is the secret sauce of Wild Zoolock, that makes it taste different than Standard Zoolock?

This season started me at 18. I imagine I was swimming in a pool with the other top tir finishers last seasonI must have had a Bernie Sanders sign pinned on my back, because I was subsequently plunger raped by the five percenters. I have realized that I was not lucky to go on that insane streak that took me to rank 7. I was unlucky that I squandered my once in a lifetime favor of the gods moment in freaking Hearthstone and not at a Blackjack table or on a 9 digit lotto ticket. Man, everything needs to go right with Mage to win. I have a much better understanding of what is coming in most of the other meta of the moment decks. But if you miss one Tirion into a sheep on N Zoth paladin or haven't drawn a flame strike when you absolutely need to clear the board at 7 mana... You are done. But it is kinda boring playing the better decks out there... Because so many are the same. I can't beat the Control stall Priest or Warrior... If you press with minions they combo/ clear. If you press with spells they recover and kill you with minions. If you wait for some endgame strategy... They out wait you and giggle as you bleed out with an empty deck.

I have seen some Pirate/Weapon warriors and Fandral/ Beast Druid. I can beat those. At lest the ones I saw.

I made me a token Druid. I include Sir Finley and hope I get Warlock draw. I miss echoing ooze, nerubian egg, and Jeeves from wild though. So far the deck is so-so in casual. It either a turn Seven beat down or I am top decking with an empty board. It's so susceptible to a spell that wipes the board. Draw is the problem. May have to include the cheapo minions that draw.

MacDirk Diggler wrote: Jeb your last post begs the question... What, exactly, is the secret sauce of Wild Zoolock, that makes it taste different than Standard Zoolock?

For the most part, it's worse players. I am no pro at Zoo, that's for sure. Zoo is always a solid choice--there will always be efficient creatures and Warlocks will be able to draw them. But that Secret Paladin is one of few really solid decks I have run into. And at least one player I have faced made bald-faced errors.

My deck is missing Gormok and/or Leeroy Jenkins. But I do have access to Darkbomb and Imp-losion, so my board control is impeccable. Darkshire Councilman + Imp-losion is a very strong interaction. Making the Wild/Standard split for this kind of thing alone makes sense, it is swingy.

MacDirk Diggler wrote: This season started me at 18.

Yeah. I would wait out the Ladder a little bit. It's going to be 50:50 at best for a couple of days as the Legends clear out. Remember, even #1 Legend starts the season at Rank 17, and they are going 50:50 with other sharks for a bit, so you are in some dangerous waters.

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Warrior/Paladin Quest. Both of which I like the least/. Tilt of the day: Aggro Warrior with Pirates and all that stuff. Get opponent to 6 with Gorehowl in hand and some minions on the board. Turn 8: Chillmaw (with Dragon backup to blowup the board). Turn 9: Tirion Fordring. Turn 10: N'Zoth. Fuck you Hearthstone.

jeb wrote: Warrior/Paladin Quest. Both of which I like the least/. Tilt of the day: Aggro Warrior with Pirates and all that stuff. Get opponent to 6 with Gorehowl in hand and some minions on the board. Turn 8: Chillmaw (with Dragon backup to blowup the board). Turn 9: Tirion Fordring. Turn 10: N'Zoth. Fuck you Hearthstone.

Sing with me: RNGesus hates me, yes he does...

jeb wrote: Going to track Ladder play this month (June 2016). My metagame/deck choices are determined by my Quests, so don't be shocked if you see me playing less-than-ideal heroes/decks. Today was Hunter/Druid, so I used Beast Hunter and Moonkin to go 50:50, and then Token Druid to get the last two wins for the 60 gold.

At the beginning of the season, around Rank 20, I have more success with Aggro than anything else. This seems off, as everyone is Aggro, but maybe I run more decent point removal or have a better collection? I switch to different stuff around Rank 17 to get to 12 or so. That's where I top out, by and large--I think you need to play serious decks from then on to advance.

I think I will spend time in Wild this month though--it's a frigging wasteland. Some weird shit going on over there.

Plugging away at the Ladder (linked above). I'll be camping for a couple of weeks, so I'll miss most of this month, but I made it to Rank 16, and that's where the Ladder slows down a little in terms of deck archetypes. I have a suboptimal C'Thun Rogue (only one Blade of C'Thun), and of course Moonkin Druid (back to Justicar from a singleton Mire Keeper for me). 4-3 with the Rogue, and 4-1 with the Druid over the last couple of days. Fun decks, but make for close games, unless I am blown out. Had a "Praise Yogg" today against an aggressively built Midrange Hunter, who got me to seven life and had a board of a Hyena and three Snakes. Yogg—His Endless Mouths Consume Us All—decided to kill all but a Snake, set me up with three Secrets and Mirror Images, and bump me up to 12 life, 12 Armor, and 4 Attack.

Next game was a game against a Beast Hunter, and again, I was being pounded down, but he took a long time to deal with a turn 2 Elise Starseeker and my removal was keeping things tidy as he chipped away. I was down to 8 or so, but able to armor up by 2 (Justicar), so kiiiind of stable. They are holding a card that I figure is Kill Command. I had the chance to Yogg, but opted to Golden Monkey instead, as the Taunt would be a Good Idea®. An even better idea appeared then: Bolf Ramshield. That was enough to hold them off until Baron Geddon delivered a coup-de-grace that could have come from my attack, or the hasty Pirate legend, &c.

Lately I've been fooling around with Deathrattle Rogue decks with the shiny new N'Zoth I crafted a few weeks ago. I haven't had much luck with an N'Zoth-only deck, nor a N'Zoth Reno variant, so tonight I put together Kripparian's Deathrattle Rogue deck from Season 26 after I realized that it runs 2 Blades of C'thun, the second of which I opened a week ago. I don't have the Twin Emperor or Bloodmage Thalnos so I subbed in Cairne (who I also crafted recently to go in my N'Zoth decks) and Kobold Geomancer, respectively.

I went 5-1 with it tonight and I was surprised at how well it worked. The most interesting thing about the deck is that there isn't any Combo in it at all; no Eviscerates and no SI:7 Agents. That fact, coupled with the card draw in the deck, means that if you make smart value plays then you're not as likely to deplete your hand as quickly as most Rogue decks. But what it comes down to with this deck is that, as fun as dropping an N'Zoth bomb on the board is on turn 10, it turns out it's not nearly as fun as ruining someone's day with the ridiculous tempo swing of Blade of C'thun. It's a Timmy/Spike card through and through and the best part about it is that even if it's the only C'thun-buffing card you play it can be enough to make your C'thun big enough to count.

In one of my games I played a mid-range Shaman who dropped a Turn 4 Faceless, so I Sapped it and played Brann. It came back out a couple turns later and I Shadowstriked it and finished it off with Brann. On Turn 9 he dropped his other Faceless and I immediately killed it with Blade, making my C'thun 13/13. C'thun came out a couple turns later, it killed two out of his three minions (leaving a 0/1 Stoneclaw Totem as the lone survivor) and it was GG shortly after. I also wrecked a Divine Paladin (MVP's = Fan of Knives and Disciple of C'thun) and a Zoo Warlock (MVP's = Disciple of C'thun and Blade of C'thun that destroyed an Imp Gang Boss), but my most satisfying game of the night was against a Hunter.

I was able to keep her board clear up until about Turn 5 but I was at about 19 health and I really couldn't afford to lose much more. At this point I had board control with my Brann being the only minion out and my opponent played a Secret and Eaglehorn bow. I played Xaril, got Bloodthistle Toxin (basically a 1 mana Shadowstep) and something else, so I Bloodthistled Xaril and played him again to get two more toxins. I attacked with Brann and no Secret popped; no Freeze, Explosive or Bear Trap, so I figured it was Snake Trap. Unfortunately for my opponent I had adequate removal in hand and was just going to go face the rest of the game (she was in the low 20's for health). My opponent responded with Sylvanas so I played Cult Apothecary to heal 4 and Sapped Sylvanas. I thought Sylvanas was coming right back out but instead it was Call of the Wild and she killed Brann with Hogger. I then killed Misha with Blade of C'thun and went face. On her next turn she played her other CotW and I responded with my other Blade of C'thun. She was at 7 health and she conceded before I could play my C'thun or N'Zoth.

Yes, I had a few lucky top-decks tonight but this deck also has a lot of good answers to keep you alive when you have sub-par mulligans, like when I was stuck with two Blades of C'thun and mostly spells for a few turns against that Hunter. The lack of Combo also means it's a more noob-friendly Rogue deck which is right up my alley since Rogue is one my least-played classes. I hate the Miracle Rogue playstyle of stalling until a game-winning combo can be initiated, and it always seems like combo cards in general are my bane where I combo at the wrong time or inefficiently and end up way behind in card advantage.

Chiming in: I had THREE Mage quests today, so I figured I'd throw a Mage C'Thun deck together and run it through Casual. Jeebus, was that a mistake. C'Thun still sucks. I got one win in 5 tries before I gave up because it was getting too late and just put together a board-sweeping Summoning Stone deck. 3 wins in a row; 140 gold. I'm still not fond of Mage and I detest C'Thun, mostly for the same reasons you're citing, Sebastian: I hate combo and it veers just way too close to combo for me, in addition to the fact that everyone is ready for it as soon as the first buff happens so they save their one big removal spell (Hex, Poly, Assassinate, whatever) for when he comes down and almost inevitably doesn't kill them. Then they just take control of the board again and you're screwed. Ugh. No more.

Unfortunately, this will also signal the retirement of the Druid Beast deck. It just can't finish fast enough to get past control and can't compete with more efficient creature decks like Zoo or Shaman. I enjoy it, but I don't enjoy losing 2 out of 3. I think I'm going to stick with my Shaman totem deck and see how far I can take it. Or I'll switch back to disgusting Priest or Pallie aggro.

This might be the worst Brawl yet. Are you able to draw two of those "Reduce the Cost of your next Legend by 3" and a 9-mana Legendary? YOU WIN!

jeb wrote: This might be the worst Brawl yet. Are you able to draw two of those "Reduce the Cost of your next Legend by 3" and a 9-mana Legendary? YOU WIN!

I was trampled my first couple games and insta-conceded the next 6-8 because I kept pulling dogshit like Cho, Reno Jackson (really?!?!?!), Ilidian, etc. And what do my opponents invariably get? Multiple Sylvanas, multiple Ragnaros, multiple Loathebs... Seriously, I played against someone who played four Loathebs in a row, whereas when I played a discounted Sylvanas I never saw another one. Bad beats aside - and this Brawl seems like it's nothing but a "bad beat generator" - the wins aren't satisfying and it takes much too long for such a crap-ass RNG-fest. Blech.

Hogger in the initial hand is basically a win.

I've played about five or six, and had maybe one really interesting one.

Most of them are total shit. It's not often you can see someone GG with 30 health on T2.

However, me being dealt three King Muklas and playing them all for zero mana on T1 (six bananas to the other guy's hand) was one such.

Had a friend describe it to me and instantly said: "No, thanks." I get enough RNG in the regular game, thanks. Going through that kind of coin flipping trauma to get one pack is just not worth the time. Got the new computer up and rolling, so I'm headed back to Heroes on the regular, I think.

I used Lorewalker Cho to lock up a win, actually. I played out two of them and stuff my opponents hand with Offensive Play. He played them out, topping up my hand and getting a cheap Deathwing Dragonlord and three Harrison Joneses. I played them out to stuff his hand again (everything was free already, they have no impact anymore), get Chromaggus to free and Deathwing--plain old--to free. Board explodes, he can play out all the Renos, Dragonlords, and Harrisons he wants. He's taking 12 next turn and I draw lots of real cards once Chromaggus hops into hand.

I'll play it to clear Warrior quests I suppose. It's a garbage game.

Totem Shaman is really strong in the mid-teens on the Ladder. Has enough aggro to "whoops" into wins with a Bloodlust and enough staying power to grind out a win against tougher stuff. Thing From Below is pretty unfair. My board will get cleared by Flamestrike and the next turn I am back with a 3/2 Totemic, a Mana Tide or something, Master of Evolution maybe, and a 5/5 Taunt. That's recovery. No tricks either--it's playing Fire Elemental. It's just Midrange Shaman, except now it's a good deck.

Not sure what to do with Priest. Control Priest is pretty dead--no Lightbomb means late game contests are really tough. You can get the early game with Wild Pyro tricks and Auchenai Circle clears, but anything 6+ mana is probably going to destroy you unless you have three SW:Death's in hand. I think you need to go Dragon, N'Zoth, or C'thun to have a shot. RIP Concede Priest.

www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4n...ext_warrior_edition/

This guy's Actual Card Text posts are righteously funny. I think my favorite is The Coin for Rogue: Give your VanCleef +2/+2 (wherever it is.) Draw a card.

Yeah, totem Shaman is fun. I'm actually not running Fire Elemental, though, which feels weird. I have, however, won more than one game with Bloodlust. Did it last night, in fact. Felt so strange that I immediately played a game of Heroes with Rehgar and also took Bloodlust. My team yelled at me, but we kicked ass on a couple altar fights (Towers of Doom) and won the game. The dev team constantly marvels at the community ignoring that heroic but as long as the role of Support = healbot, no one will ever seriously pick anything but Ancestral. There've been a couple statements from very prominent Korean teams bemoaning the "stale" state of Supports in the game right now, especially compared to how fun they can be in Dota2 and League, but it's going to take a patch on the order of the scaling changes to shift the focus away from healing. League did it, though, so maybe it's possible. /HotS tangent.

I've actually been playing a Priest deck that's reminiscent of Draw-Go, way back in the day (Draw. Play an Island. "Go.") I'm using Nova, Entomb, Pain, Death, 1 EE and 1 Horror, plus Auchenai, Circle, and Pyromaster. I frequently have turns when the board is clear, my hand is full of removal, and I just heal myself and pass. Shadow Word: Horror just wrecks so many aggro decks, it's hilarious. It's sad that I'm compelled to play a card as subpar as that, but that's the state of the "slower" meta, I guess. I have no problem with big things, really. Entomb almost always insures that they'll be playing for me if I don't SWD them first. Plus Auchenai and Flash Heal or Alchemist can usually solve the problem of many midrange things. I do have Yogg as a finisher because of the ridiculous number of spells (17) in it and I have one Cabal to steal, say, a midgame Bloodhoof Brave. Priest is one of the best classes to play Yogg in, anyway, since you can hedge against him killing you with fatigue by healing. I only have 1 Taunt, too (and I bet you can guess who he is...) It's far from guaranteed and I haven't played it enough to declare it "ladder-worthy" but it's OK if you like that kind of lockdown control. I wish I could find a way to include Thoughtsteal or Shade, though.

Oh. and I tried JackieCh4n's token deck. It's simply not feasible in the lower reaches where aggro rules the day. It's just way, way too slow. I got completely run over by Hunter, aggro Pallie, and Zoo. There's simply not enough board clear and you don't get tokens fast enough to deal with anything. I guarantee you that he played something aggro to jump in the rankings like everyone does and then started playing Token where everyone was playing control or midrange. There's no way he could get through all that crap with just 2 Swipes.

I finally got some dust together and crafted me an N Zoth Then of course I had to build a rattle rogue. Here is the combo. Twilight Summoner the 1/1 that rattles into a 5/5 guy. Nobody goes out of their way to kill him and give you a 5/5 on your turn unless they are ready to kill the 5/5 when they release him. So the 1/1 is there on your turn and you throw the unearthed raptor on him and get two 5/5s pretty quick.

And another thing. Got my first doomsayer about a week ago. It's the best two drop in the game imo. It flips the board and you get to cast out onto empty pasture and take control on your turn. Even if they kill it... It's 7 damage that would have gone to your face and you likely made them dump a key spell. Unless you are into some face hunting aggro build, doomsayer is good in most any deck.

And while I am at it. Yogg is not the best card in the game. Not at all. Because if we are being honest N Zoth is better 75% of the time you would cast one or the other. Yogg is better if you are casting on a board of impending doom where you could die next turn, otherwise N Zoth. I don't even have Sylvanis or Carne Bloodhoof or Chillmaw and I would rather cast N Zoth with my paltry death rattlers. My Mage deck "Yogg is my copilot" miraculously took me to 7, but not because of Yogg at all. And it's bullshit to say that you don't lose games because of Yogg. I have cast Yogg as much as any one of you and I am prepared to debate Yoggs reliability.

If anyone cares, I have only gotten as high as 14 so far this season with Yogg as my copilot Mage. I know it was just an incredible improbable run that took me to 7 last season. If you have won two games in a row it is kind of imperative you win a third if you want to get any traction on the ladder.