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Interesting! I wonder what the driver is for some of these decisions. Conditional cards like Bolster are garbage. OK, got that. Awesome cards at low cost go too? ut wouldn't that mean Muster for Battle would have to go? Here's my guesses....

SebastianBludd wrote: FWIW, Blizzard just released a list of cards for each class that they're removing from Arena:

Mage
Forgotten Torch awesome
Snowchugger awesome, enables Mech
Faceless Summoner awesome

Rogue
Goblin Auto Barber awesome, enables Mech
Undercity Valiant awesome

Paladin
- No changes

Shaman
Vitality Totem garbage rare
Dust Devil garbage garbage
Totemic Might garbaaaaaaage
Ancestral Healing I detect a theme. A theme that Shaman rares are garbage.
Dunemaul Shaman Intergarbagesting rare
Windspeaker UH curious about this one. 3/3 for 3 with a juice are pretty common. Too much with Rockbiter for the big finish?

Warlock
Anima Golem conditional
Sacrificial Pact conditional
Curse of Rafaam garbage
Sense Demons conditional
Void Crusher garbage, jeez
Reliquary Seeker awesome
Succubus Not sure here either. garbage, but better with Karazhan?

Druid
Savagery garbage rare
Poison Seeds garbage
Soul of the Forest garbage
Mark of Nature garbage
Tree of Life conditional epic
Astral Communion conditional epic

Warrior
Warsong Commander hot garbage, it will burn you be careful
Bolster FINE CARD SHOULD BE DRAFTED EVERY TIME
Charge conditional
Bouncing Blade garbage epic
Axe Flinger garbage
Rampage conditional garbage
Ogre Warmaul garbage to the garbage power squared

Hunter
Starving Buzzard conditional rare
Call Pet conditional rare
Timber Wolf conditional ...rare? Is this Rare? I don't know because it should never be drafted or played or looked at
Cobra Shot garbage
Lock and Load conditional epic
Dart Trap garbage rare
Snipe Huh. I thought this was fine. Sort of.

Priest
Mind Blast Bad no.
Shadowbomber garbage epic
Lightwell garbage rare
Power Word: Glory garbage rare
Confuse Yeah, this is Shaman round 2. Garbage epic.
Convert garbage rare
Inner Fire condtional garbage

I put together a "Prince Renolock" deck -- so far have gone from Level 22 to 16 with 2 losses.

EDIT: I think that it is just surprising people -- they don't expect the Reno. I try to mulligan into small dudes to make it look like a regular Zoo deck, then the bigger creatures just overwhelms. The 5 additional heroes from the Prince helps me from taking fatigue in longer games. So far, feels a little unorthodox, but is working.

Here is the decklist

Mortal Coil
Possessed Villager
Acidic Swamp Ooze
Dark Peddler
Doomsayer
Sunfury Protector
Demonwrath
Earthen Ring Farseer
Imp Gang Boss
Shadow Bolt
Spawn of N'Zoth
Defender of Argus
Hellfire
Infested Tauren
Refreshment Vendor
Shadowflame
Spellbreaker
Twilight Drake
Prince Malchezaar
Cairne Bloodhoof
Hogger
Reno Jackson
Siphon Soul
Sylvanas Windrunner
The Black Knight
Ragnaros the Firelord
Twisting Nether
Lord Jaraxxus
N'Zoth, the Corrupter
Mountain Giant

Space Ghost wrote: Here is the decklist
Mortal Coil
Possessed Villager
Acidic Swamp Ooze
Dark Peddler
Doomsayer
Sunfury Protector
Demonwrath
Earthen Ring Farseer
Imp Gang Boss
Shadow Bolt
Spawn of N'Zoth
Defender of Argus
Hellfire
Infested Tauren
Refreshment Vendor
Shadowflame
Spellbreaker
Twilight Drake
Prince Malchezaar
Cairne Bloodhoof
Hogger
Reno Jackson
Siphon Soul
Sylvanas Windrunner
The Black Knight
Ragnaros the Firelord
Twisting Nether
Lord Jaraxxus
N'Zoth, the Corrupter
Mountain Giant

Wallet Warlock! Seriously, though, really cool deck.

If you put all the bad Legendaries in it, then Prince Malchezaar will just get you the good ones!

I think my tryhard laddering is over this season. I made it to 11.2. I was playing Discardlock that whole time largely and it's not a lot of fun. Sometimes crazy shit happens and you win. I never really felt like it was a good time during wins or losses. I do like drawing cards though--Warlock draws a lot of cards. Back to 50:50 at best decks, and I will fade away....

In Wild, I have been goofing off with Blessed Champion and dealing crazy damage to folks that are bad. But there are Mech Mages in Wild and I have terrible feelings about people that play that deck. If you have the urge to play Mech Mage, GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT IT'S NOT FUN FOR ANYONE AND IT MAKE HEARTHSTONE DUMB AND BAD.

That said, there is some weird stuff in there. I've seen odd Zoo builds, Priests doing their thing, Druid n00bs, C'Thun Warlocks (guessing Reno here), all kinds of things. It probably smooths out just real decks higher up, but in the high teens you never know what you'll see.

After a bad run of games I'm back on track with my Beast Druid and I might use this deck for a ladder push, I haven't decided. I also like playing Resurrect Priest but don't have a lot of experience with it yet. I'm bored with Deathrattle Hunter and haven't played that in a while but Thief Rogue is fun as hell and worth it for the griefing possibilities alone.

Also, sometime soon Blizzard is going to sell a "Welcome Pack" of 10 Classic packs and a random, (non-gold) Class Legendary for $4.99. The rumors are that it might be tomorrow and that it will be a limited time offer, so if you're interested it might be worth your while to log in daily for the next few days just in case. Knowing my luck I'll probably pull another Tirion or Jaraxxus, but I'm secretly hoping for Edwin or Grommash. I also hope the Legendary doesn't reset my pity timer because I'm about 15 packs in and I'll be pissed if I lose my progress.

Who would I want there... Cenarius, Velen, Al-Akir.

I have Antonidas, Grommash, VanCleef, Krush, Jaraxxus, Tirion. Dang, I am doing OK! I need Ancients of War though, going to rip and dust those babies. I heard the Welcome Pack will be a thing, but only can be bought once per account.

I had two Shaman 60 gold quests, so I put together a new totems deck (called "New Totems" in a burst of inspiration): www.hearthpwn.com/decks/631868-new-totems

I won 8 straight. As with most of my decks, I wanted to try to max out a concept, so Wicked Witchdoctor is in there. which is really kind of a "meh" card but makes Maelstrom Portal almost decent. OTOH, Spirit Claws is fucking insane. It's not like Shaman decks needed any help and, yet, there they are. With a couple Wrath totems and Thalnos on the board, Maelstrom Portal becomes, uh, pretty decent. I have a ridiculous hit ratio on Argent Squire/Blood Imp/Worgen Infiltrator being summoned from it, too. Totemic Might? Yeah, I know. But it actually kinda works, especially when you get to the Valiant and turn your whole board into 2/5 things for the cost of 2 mana and a card. And you know how you can tell that Shaman is out of control right now? The ridiculously low number of non-class cards in all the decks. It has all the answers. I mean, I bitched for 2 years about how bad Shaman was and they finally fixed it in Whispers, but now it might be kinda sorta just a bit out of control. The other deck I've been spending time with is my Evolve deck, which isn't nearly as competitive but is still decent.

I have several hundred gold and a Paladin Arena deck that's been sitting with 1 game played (a win) for 3 or 4 months. Big patch for Heroes today, so I'm probably done for the season on HS again.

And, as I say that, I see Trump playing an interesting Paladin control deck and decide to try it out because it's a) Paladin and b) control: www.hearthpwn.com/decks/634528-dragons

In kind of a converse observation, only about half the deck are class cards, largely because the theme of the deck (dragons) are mostly neutral. In fact, there's only one pair of cards in the deck that are both dragon and Paladin, the long-neglected Consort. Remember when BRM first came out and everyone saw that card and was like "Yeah! Dragadin decks are gonna be the shit!"? I remember trying one about halfway through the adventure when Consort hit. It was an abject failure. So, I was like: "Maybe it just needs the other neutrals!" And, yeah, not so much. So a year-and-a-half gone from BRM., I'm back to trying Dragadin. Played two games and it seems OK. It's a VERY slow starter, which means you're going to be reliant on two things: Equality and Ivory Knight; the former to clear boards with either/both Consec or Wild Pyro and the latter to heal you when you're inevitably down to the last third of your life total.

Aldor is still amazing. I'm less sanguine about Nightbane Templar simply because the whelps don't feel that impactful without any kind of buffing mechanism. Yes, you're getting a 4/5 for 3, which is nice, but when I continually have to clear my board to remove something menacing of my opponent's (whether through suiciding the Templar and whelps or doing the Pyro thing), the concept of control deck card advantage kind of falls by the wayside. Ivory Knight, OTOH, is brilliant, especially with Brann and especially because mine never seem to discover anything with less than a 5 mana cost. Getting healed for 13 while also playing a 4/4 is... not bad. I really like Netherspite Historian, but Book Wyrm is still overpriced. Yes, the combo with Aldor is excellent, but that's a 9-mana, two card combo to get rid of one target. Do not like. I'll try a few more games with it at some point, though.

Just you wait, man. You'll get the three 1-cost Discover from Ivory Knight right when you least need it. I think I had Repentence, Redemption, and Blessing of Wisdom. And those didn't do a lot to that mob on the other side of the board. Humility would have been nice!

Dragondin was never a thing for a couple of reasons: Paladin's best dragon is Tirion Fordring, and he's not a Dragon. Also, because Mysterious Challenger came not long after and that deck was ridiculous. Dragon decks had no middle that was worth playing. At 3 and 4 you had the situational Technician, Guardian, and Dragondin. Outside of the Guardian, those are borderline playable. Compare to Priest having access to Whelp, Wyrmrest, and a Hero Power that makes those big butts better and you can see how Priest ends up better for Dragon theme than Paladin. At the high end, you would see BGH kill all your totally awesome non-Ysera Dragons, so there was no driver. You need to play a lot of dragons to make the theme work (Corrupter FTW), but it means you squeeze out the good hero-specific cards and risk blowing things if you "miss" the theme at somepoint.

/edit
Topdeck'd Corrupter was a sad 4-drop when Piloted Shredder was around, too.

So, with BGH bad, Shredder gone, and folks re-assessing the early game as something to avoid given Aggro's dominance, you are seeing a return to Dragon decks that can deal with the board early and then late-game you to death with fatties.

But that's just the thing: the cards that made Dragon decks of any type actually work didn't appear until TGT. BRM was supposed to be the launch of the Dragon meta and it couldn't compete with the Mech meta until TGT dropped a couple cards (Twilight Guardian) that made it halfway decent. I don't expect this deck to be a meta dominator, either. I just thought it was interesting. I don't think Totem Shaman will crush my way to legendary (not that I'd play that long, anyway) but I think it's more interesting than stripping faces off with aggro (Incidentally, the first game I played with this Dragadin deck was against aggro Pallie: he Divine Favored literally half his deck; first for 8, then again for 7. I drew neither of my Consecs.) And I know Ivory Knight isn't a sure thing. I saw Trump get a couple all-Secret discovers. Where would Hearthstone be without its RNG?

I actually won the second game (against Zoo) on a topdecked Corruptor. Gave me lethal in a game I was probably going to win, anyway, since I'd Netherspited my way into Deathwing and he'd already used his Siphon Soul on The Man.

That welcome pack would be a good thing for my son who's just started playing again. He's lamenting his overall lack of cards.

I sat down to help him build some stuff, and I was like "damn, you really *don't* have anything you need". I sent him off to grind dailies with a halfway functional Mage and Hunter.

I'd buy it just because I've always been so short on class Legendaries. From memory, I have Van Cleef, Cenarius, Al-Akir, and I think that's it. No Antonidas, no Tirion. no Jaraxxus, etc...

My last pity timer on Classic coughed up Millhouse Manastorm. I boggled.

I tried that Witch out in my Evolve deck, and it was OK. Spirit Claws wasn't out at the time, so maybe it's gotten better.

This week's Brawl is "Top 3," your deck is 10 copies of three singletons.

Hunter: Metaltooth Leaper, Mechwarper, Arcane Nullifier is pretty strong. You could do Annoy-o-tron, but the Mages might get ya.
Rogue: Ship's Cannon, Buccaneer, Swashburgler is solid.
Mage: Saw one rolling with Babbling Book, Sorcerer's Apprentice, and Forgotten Torch. Eh. Seems slow. Lost to my cannon fodder.
Priest: Saw one with Museum Curator, Embrace the Shadow, Circle of Healing. It was bad. Don't do that.
Druid: Innervate, Coldlight Oracle, Naturalize is a combo.

I won one with Druid: Innervate, Beckoner, C'thun. Unlikely to work past the first few hours of the brawl, but briefly fun.

I have a Priest quest, so I tried Ancient Watcher, Silence, Light of the Naaru. Workable, but not great.

A good Lock deck I saw was: Maclcheezar, Darkshire Librarian, Silverware Golem. The mill druid would eat that up, though.

edit:
Here's what I put together to deal with the Mill Druid, and then haven't had a chance to test it. The meta lasts minutes, it seems. But a decent deck on its own, with mostly wins so far:

Priest: Light of the Naaru, Mind Blast, Holy Nova. Heal and blast, pick up some minions on the way, who get stronger as you heal. 2-point clear is just right for Coldlight Oracle, but it turns out it's pretty good for most of what people are running.