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- Jackwraith
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1st game was against a Warlock playing something akin to Renolock ( hsreplay.net/replay/oWa8y5WrTTdmnZEJ8XrKgk ) I started with Outfitter and Rallying, tossed a Commander to get an Equality, and drew Dopplegangster. I had the Coin. He passed and I drew a Loot Hoarder, so pitched the Coin to get Outfitter on the board with the prospect of playing a 3/2 Loot Hoarder next turn. He Coiled the Outfitter and I drew the other Loot Hoarder and played the 3/2 version. He played Brann solo, which isn't a horrible play, since the Hoarder couldn't kill him and would die in the attempt, so I drew the other Equality and played Blade and sacrificed the Hoarder. getting a Consec. He played Dirty Rat, getting the 3/3 gangster, which was really annoying, and Tapped. I drew the other Outfitter and played it to make another 3/2 Hoarder (probably should have held it), smacked the Rat and then hit it with the Gangster and made a Dude. I had 3/1, 1/1, and 1/1 to his empty. He played Demonwrath to clear my board and Tapped. I played the other 3/2 Hoarder and made a Dude. He Tapped and then played Mountain Giant, which my deck would normally be a little challenged by without some shields in play. But, yeah, I have two Equalities in hand, so the Dude takes down the Giant and I hit him with the 3/1 Hoarder and make another Dude. He's at 21. He taps again and has 10 in hand and plays a 4/10 Twilight. I play a Psych-o-Tron and go face, bringing him to 15. He takes the shield off with the Drake and then Shadow Bolts the Tron, He plays Farseer to heal himself (18) and follows with a Dark Peddler. I'm at 8 mana, so I play The Man and use one Dude to take the Drake to 4/6, figuring that he's going to have to use his whole board to get rid of him. Then I go face with the Hoarder and the other Dude. He uses the Peddler to pop the bubble and then Felfire Potions the board and Coils Tirion, leaving my side empty and the Twilight on 4/1. He hits me for 4, bringing me to 17. He's on 9 and drops a Doomsayer. But I have Ashbringer loaded and both Consec and Argent Horserider in hand. That was game.
I figured that was a good example of the deck succeeding without much in the way of actual buffs. I was able to outlast a control deck without much offense, but he also didn't draw into any real threats other than the Giant and never found Reno, either, even though he was Tapping furiously for just that.
Then I ran into three straight Dragon Priests (two Tyrandes and an Anduin.) The first game ( hsreplay.net/replay/TyZdt9vMCpTKXWhcbfHybg ) I started with dual Outfitter and dual Argent, plus Coin. I kept. I then drew into Acolyte. That was an easy Coin, Outfitter. He dropped Wyrmrest and I responded with the other Outfitter. I now had two 4/3 Argents, a 3/5 Acolyte, and a 3/3 Gangster. This is how this deck is supposed to work. He killed the 2/2 Outfitter and healed the Agent. That was an easy Argent and an Outfitter to face. I also drew into Priestbane (Grimestreet Enforcer.) He Thoughtstole at least an Acolyte and I dropped my own and went face with the other two, bringing him to 24. I also drew the other Enforcer. Now we're reaching dangerous territory, as next turn enables Priest board clears, as well as things like Drakonid OP. But I had total control of the board and a strong hand. He Pained my Acolyte and played the one he stole. I drew Aldor, smacked the Acolyte, hit him with the Outfitter (23), and played the Enforcer. He played Shifting Shade and healed himself (25) and probably knew this game was getting out of hand, since the Enforcer had buffed my entire hand. I drew a Hoarder, played the 5/4 Argent and killed the Shade, went face with the rest, bringing him to 16. He had 8 cards in hand and I couldn't imagine that there was nothing able to answer my board in some way. He topdecked a Twilight and played it as a 4/9 and then Deathed the Argent. I drew Smuggler's, played it, and then dropped 3 6/6 Gangsters. I just went face, knowing if he killed one Enforcer, I'd just play the other one (an 8/8 at this point.) It was 30-6 and he conceded with 8 cards in hand. Maybe it was RenoPriest? But they don't normally play Wyrmrest Agent.
That was an example of the deck working like a machine, albeit against an opponent that clearly had trouble drawing anything useful (or was tilting.)
Next Priest isn't really worth talking about since I had a bunch of weenies in play (Outfitter, 2/4 Acolyte, Dudes) and dropped an Enforcer to match his Feast, knowing that he could kill it with a Nova that would also largely wreck me, but also having Wickerflame, Gangster, and an Aldor in hand. He proceeded to drop an Auchenai and play Coin, Flash Heal, Flash Heal to kill the Enforcer and the Acolyte, taking himself from 21 to 12. I Equalitied, cleared his board, and then dropped a 4/4 Wickerflame. He Entombed it, but then I followed with 3 4/4 Gangsters and that was it.
The last game, though, was interesting: hsreplay.net/replay/YpgBsBhoZUQmXekthAK8bB I tossed a Commander for an Acolyte and started with Acolyte, Outfitter, and Smuggler's in hand. The curve. His hand was also loaded, with Coin, Agent, Talonpriest, Azure, and Drakonid OP. I drew the other Acolyte and played Smuggler's. (Seriously, the number of times I drop those guys as 3/5s is insane. It's like auto-Brainstorm or something.) He draws Twilight Guardian and does Priest Turn 1 (pass.) I draw a Gangster and play my 2/2 Outfitter. He drops the Agent and then I draw Rallying Blade. So, here I could Blade and kill the Agent with the Outfitter, but I kind of wanted to save the Blade, develop the Acolyte, and get some draw, so I figured I'd just let him kill the Outfitter on his turn, rather than setting up the heal automatically, and played my 3/5(!) Acolyte. I figured I'd let him make the choice of what to hit. If I forced him into the heal on turn 3, maybe he takes it, or maybe he plays something else that I could kill with the Blade. He Talonpriest's the Agent (2/7) and kills the Outfitter. I draw Loot Hoarder and with no other really good play, I do the Blade, wasting one mana and killing the Agent, getting Enforcer from the Acolyte. He can still kill the Acolyte for free with the Talonpriest, but I'm fine getting two cards off any Acolyte I play, regardless of health. He kills it and I get the other Hoarder off the draw and then he plays Historian, getting OP, and heals the Talonpriest. He has 3/3 and 1/3, my board is clear. He has two OPs, two Guardians, Azure, Corruptor, and Coin in hand. I have 3/5 Acolyte, 3/3 Gangster, 2 Loot Hoarders, and Enforcer in hand and one charge of Rallying left. He has board advantage and card advantage in both number and quality. This is where Dragon Priest normally starts to kill me.
I draw the other Enforcer and play it. It's turn 5, it's the most efficient play, and I can kill the Talonpriest with the Blade to keep the Enforcer alive. I do so (25-30) and the Enforcer buffs my whole hand. He draws PWS, Corruptors the Enforcer, and kills it with Historian. I draw Keeper and play my 4/6 Acolyte and a 3/2 Hoarder. He can kill the Hoarder for free, but if he does, he's obligated to heal the Corruptor or I can remove it with a Dude or another Blade. He can't kill the Acolyte and it can't be targeted by Shadow Words. He draws something, plays one of his OPs, and gets Truesilver. He does PWS on the Corruptor, drawing Historian, and kills the Hoarder. I get a Tron and then draw Consec. My 4/6 Acolyte kills the Corruptor and I draw Aldor. I don't have a really significant play here, but I want to set something up that won't be immediately wiped out by the OP, so I Aldor him, reasoning that most Dragon Priest decks don't play that much that's going to be a larger threat. Then I play a 3/2 Hoarder that he can't kill and make a Dude. He draws Whelp (9 cards in hand, including Coin), kills the Acolyte (again, two cards) with the 1/6 OP, drawing me The Man. He plays Historian, getting something, and drops a Guardian and the Whelp. He has a 3/6 Taunt, 1/2, 1/3, and 2/3 in play and OP, Azure, Guardian, Coin, Truesilver, and 2 other cards in hand. I have a 3/2 Hoarder, 3/3, and 1/1 in play and a 4/4 Gangster, 5/5 Enforcer, Keeper, Tron, Consec, and Tirion in hand. 25-30.
I draw Equality and decide this is a decent enough board to clear out. Equality/Consec, and proceed to face, taking him to 21. I make a Dude. I could have waited for something juicier, but I figured it was more useful at this point to maximize my board presence while eliminating his, such that he had to work to get rid of my random stuff, rather than me wasting most of it on Guardian and then being confronted with three other guys that a Consec still wouldn't remove after he healed the 1/2 OP and end up being the one playing from behind. My hand was strong even though he had card advantage. He drew Corruptor and played his other OP, getting Wickerflame, which he promptly played. I draw Outfitter. pop the bubble with the Dude and kill Wickerflame with the 3/1 Aldor, healing him back to 25. I play the Outfitter (too early) and then I play my 4/5 Keeper on the OP and kill it with the Hoarder, drawing Aldor, ping him with the Dude (24), and make another Dude. He draws Brann, plays Brann, and double Corruptors the Keeper. I draw Truesilver, play Truesilver, and take out Brann. I then play my 4/5 Tron and go face with my 3 weenies (25-21.) He draws Feast.
Here's where he makes a mistake. He still has Truesilver in hand and plays it, but then he pops the bubble by killing the Corruptor, leaving a 4/5 taunt in play with a 4 damage weapon. Sad trombone. He hits it, anyway, drops a Guardian, and heals himself (21.) It's turn 11. I draw the other Truesilver, use my equipped one and two weenies to kill the Guardian, hit him with the 4/1 Tron and the other Dude (16) and then play 3 5/5 Gangsters and a 6/6 Enforcer. He draws something, plays the Azure, draws Cleric, plays Feast, spends the Coin to take him back to 19. and concedes in the face of 26 damage on the board.
Again, that's the way the deck is supposed to work: midrange, with ever building threats, kinda like Jade. The problem is that the Jade cards function independently, It doesn't matter what's in your hand. They're still going to drop a golem of increasing size. I have to time my plays to affect my hand, holding back cards that I would otherwise play. The difference is that my plays can affect my entire hand. But Jade doesn't interrupt tempo. The Goons do.
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Your last point is what undercuts the whole handbuff theme, as you note. You don't want to play the handbuff guys unless they work, because if they don't work, they are shitty at their cost. 1/1s for 2. 4/4s for 5. Jade, by contrast, is only that inefficient at very low Jade count. A 2/3 for 4 is terrible. Even a 2/3 plus a 2/2 is arguably bad at 4-mana. A 2/3 and a 3/3 for 4? That seems fair to good. A 2/3 and an 8/8 is a solid late game topdeck, and it still costs 4. Over the course of the game, Jade gets better and better, and handbuff gets worse and worse.
I like handbuff, but it can't compete when options like Jade get printed along side of it.
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- Jackwraith
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As expected, Ragnaros and Azure Drake are gone. As a mild surprise, Sylvanus, Conceal, and PO go with them. And then as a WTF moment, we have Ice Lance. Ice Lance? WTF? The keys to Freeze Mage are Frost Nova and the Secrets, not Ice Lance. Unless they're introducing a host of new player freezing mechanics in the new expansions, the removal of that card is baffling. And missing from this list: Innervate, Swipe, FWA. There's gotta be a few more. Those three will still be included in every single Druid and Warrior deck, respectively. But you can only do so much at any one point.
Three consistently-sized expansions will be nice for the regular players. It will put less pressure on the design team to include "Gotta have!" cards in the Adventures to make their $20 price tag worthwhile and which ultimately end up distorting the meta in ridiculous ways (Undertaker, Thaurissan, Patron, Trogg, Reno, etc.)
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Two quick nerfs, coming up this month:
- Small-time Buccaneer gets a little smaller. Goes to 1 Health. It needed to be easier to trade with, and this helps both Druid, Mage, and Rogue get a better handle on things before they are in the Red Zone on turn 3. Sorry Priest! Well, it trades with Northshire now, I guess. Dies to Pyro + Coin? That's nice.
- Spirit Claws goes to +1 Attack when you have a Spell Damage minion. The whole Better-Than-War-Axe-for-1 thing was a bit much. With Bloodmage Thalnos, you could get SO far ahead on the board in the early game, and keep it rolling with Azure Drakes, &c. Invest in Jade I guess, aggro is taking some lumps.
Also hitting end of this month: A New Way To Play, which is tiers like Legend, but set at 15, 10, and 5 as well as Legend. Once you get to a Tier in a Season, you won't "fall out of it" with losses. This is a boon to folks like me, that want to get to the 15+ range, and then play goofy shit. Too often the goofy shit can tumble you back down into the lower ranks where you pound on newer folks and their Gurubashis and feel bad about it. It also helps Laddering in general, alleviating the sting when you lose Ranks.
Year of the Mammoth was announced. This is the next rotation for Standard/Wild (this is the Year of the Kraken). This occurs when the next expansion gets released, expected this spring. Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers will rotate to Wild. I'll discuss this aspect of things in another post. Meanwhile, they announced some cards are going to rotate to Wild Only status from the Classic set (akin to Old Murk-Eye).
- Azure Drake
- Sylvanas Windrunner
- Ragnaros the Firelord
- Conceal
- Ice Lance
- Power Overwhelming
So, if you have these cards in Common and Golden--disenchant the Commons. If you have 3+ copies, disenchant the extras, you won't get full price for them. USE THAT DUST TO MAKE THESE CARDS--all that Dust comes back. So, you should make 2x Azure Drake. You'll get the Dust back. Hell, you should make 2x GOLD Azure Drakes, you'll get the Dust back, and then if you don't play Wild, you can dust THOSE after the rotation to get more Dust. This is confusing, but it's like this. If you have 100 Dust right now, and no Azure Drakes, you can
- Craft a Drake (-100).
- The rotation hits (+100).
- Dust the Drake (+40).
100 Dust becomes 140 Dust. Ta-dah! A Golden Legendary like Ragnaros handled like this turns 3200 Dust into 4800 Dust (+50%). Great news for you Standard-only obsessives.
New Rogue Hero announced, coming with the new set. You just need to win 10 games to get her. That's nice.
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Ice Lance enables OTK. They obviously want to keep Frostbolt, its utility is unquestioned, but Ice Lance was only ever used to OTK players. If anyone here has not seen the Freeze Mage OTK in action (understandable given the current state of the game), it used a Thaurissan tick to lower costs on a juicy hand, and then played a turn of:Jackwraith wrote: As expected, Ragnaros and Azure Drake are gone. As a mild surprise, Sylvanas, Conceal, and PO go with them. And then as a WTF moment, we have Ice Lance. Ice Lance? WTF? The keys to Freeze Mage are Frost Nova and the Secrets, not Ice Lance. Unless they're introducing a host of new player freezing mechanics in the new expansions, the removal of that card is baffling. And missing from this list: Innervate, Swipe, FWA. There's gotta be a few more. Those three will still be included in every single Druid and Warrior deck, respectively. But you can only do so much at any one point.
- Bloodmage Thalnos (1)
- Frostbolt (1) deals 4.
- Ice Lance (0) deals 5.
- Ice Lance (0) deals 5.
- and then some combinations of
- Fireballs (3) dealing 7.
- Forgotten Torches (2) dealing 7.
Frankly, I am surprised Sylvanas rotates ahead of Gadgetzan. That card is trouble. Sylvanas is slow and makes the game interesting.
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Yeah, I would've preferred GA would die. Sylvanas can be a nuisance but GA makes me grit my teeth in annoyance. Azure Drake I'm a little mixed about. Yeah, it's boring seeing it every day but now I'm short one of my best dragons (and better cards in general). I hope they have something reasonable to replace it with.
Is there even a point to include Buc and Spirit Claw now?
Overall, I'm excited about the changes and the rotation and glad to see some incentives as well.
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In their explanation for Sylvanas they also mentioned something about new Deathrattle minions being one of the reasons she's being rotated out, so I'm hopeful that N'Zoth has some new toys to play with in the next expansion.
Azure Drake is expected but I'm surprised by the Conceal-instead-of-Auctioneer switcharoo. I kind of like it, even though I hate GA. It's a more subtle nerf than Blizzard typically makes and it's turned GA into a "better kill me if you can!" card rather than a "I hope you have Flare or a board wipe or you're screwed!" card when it's played and immediately Concealed.
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- Jackwraith
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Anyone care about any of the drama in competitive scene? The gossip from past week? Amnesia ripping Pavel after his HCT Europe win. The threatened boycott of global games by some top euro players if P4wnyhof plays for Germany? It's like a soap opera out there.
This is my worst season ever laddering. I just suck. Trying Amnesia number one legend aggro Shaman and getting beat down all the way back to 19 at the moment. I have just been playing all kinds of decks screwing around but then if I try to get serious I get crushed. When Reno rotates out Priest is by far going to be in the best spot to play one-of highlander style deck with all the access to heal. I see me playing a lot of that after the rotation, but for this season I don't have a deck I want to try hard with. I like what Jeb says about getting past 15 each season and then messing around. That's how I enjoy my Hearthstone. I play 2-3 different decks on any given day. Watch a stream and see someone doing something fresh and try and make the deck and see if it's as fun as it looked.
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I'm with the rest of the world going "Innervate? WTF?" I guess they figure it's just critical to the druid experience. I feel that way about Swipe. Taking that out would just make Druid auto-concede against any kind of rush. However, I am still plenty tired of Innervate shenanigans.
I'll miss Azure Drake, but obviously everyone will. One of the things it hurts is Curator, since often the Drake was the only dragon in a non-themed deck.
Conceal is a hard one to swallow, as it feels like it's really messing with the Rogue play as well. Nerfing GA might have been better, but maybe the new stuff would have made Conceal even worse. Whatever.
A while ago I bought a Ragnaros (to play Secret Hunter with), and the RNG gods of irony gifted me a golden Rag very shortly after that. I've been expecting the nerf, (and not in need of the dust) so I've held both. Now I can dust the common and still get 3200 from the gold aging out. Woop. Time to buy a Sylvanus for the rebate as well.
I've been barely covering my dailies, and doing most of those in Tavern Brawl each week because I'm so annoyed with the decks right now. Hopefully the balance gets better as some of the broken shit rotates out. To be honest, I doubt it.
It would be interesting to see some things get promoted to the base set, since as Jack notes, some classes have it worse than others. Right now, some classes just lose toys, like Power Overwhelming.
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Amnesiac's Rogue - HCT Americas Winter Playoffs 2017
Rogue. Neutral
2 x Backstab 2 x Argent Squire
2 x Shadowstep 1 x Patches the Pirate
2 x Cold Blood 2 x Small-time Buccaneer
2 x Swashburglar 2 x Southsea Deckhand
2 x Eviscerate. 2 x Argent Horserider
1 x Undercity Huckster 2 x Azure Drake
1 x Edwin VanCleef 1 x Leeroy Jenkins
1 x Shaku, the Collector
2 x SI:7 Agent
2 x Tomb Pillager
1 x Xaril, Poisoned Mind
He has to be one of the top 5 or so players right now. He knows how to play aggro decks like no other. I saw Dogs lineup for HCT has Druid in it. I know Amnesiac feels his lineup can rape any Druid build. He criticized Pavel for banning Druid and not Rogue in the finals of Europe HCT.
But ya, conceal is a bad mechanic that makes it next to impossible to stop a buffed Questing over 6 health from killing you.
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Amnesiasc caught a lot of hell for his Tweets about Pavel, but I totally get it. He got robbed by Pavel at Blizzcon, and it would seem Pavel made some strategic errors at HCT and wasn't "punished." It's frustrating for any elite player to see lesser skilled players reaping rewards. Back when I was watching football, I marveled at all the praise heaped on Eli Manning for his Super Bowl win--which came down to a shitty throw caught on top of the helmet of the secondary. He got the MVP for that! If I drop my gun and it misfires and kills the enemy commander--should I be praised unto the heavens? This is Amnesiasc's beef--Pavel is winning everything, but he just doesn't seem as skillful a player as others in the hunt.
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Brewmiester wrote: Just had a funny moment I wanted to share. I'm playing my secret hunter for my daily against what I assume is a Reno lock. It's late game and I've got him down to 4. His turn he draws, then he taps but didn't count his cards before and Reno gets discarded because his hand is too full.
There are few things more satisfying in HS than your opponent milling one of their linchpin cards. A while ago I was on the other side where I was the one who made the dumb play to lose. I was playing as Hunter against a Rogue who was under 10 health, and I was at 3. He'd stolen a secret and he had an Azure Drake on the board. I had lethal on board if I ignored the Drake, so I went face to pop the secret. Turns out it was an Explosive Trap that, with the Drake's spell damage, hit me for 3 damage, killing me. If I'd taken a little longer to consider my turn I could have won so I try to keep that in mind whenever I start to play too fast.
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2@ everything that gets their hero's spells into my hand (Burgle, Lorewaker Cho(!), Undercity Huckster, Nefarian, Prince Malchezaar, Swashburgler) Not Lotus Agent though, fuck that dumb card.
2@ Ethereal Peddler
Random Rogue stuff
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