Hearthstone Players!

Absolutely. It makes things hard because there are so many counter decks right now. I run something like Water Rogue and I hit a ton of Dragon Priests. I switched to Dragon Priest and then I queue up a bunch of Pirate Warriors. It would probably be best to stick with one deck, but I get bored of them so quick and just want to switch things up.

I like that ceiling at 15 thing. I bumped that a few times trying to figure stuff out when I hit on a Beast Hunter that ran me up to Rank 11 with just a couple losses. Stalled there, losing to a Pirate Warrior (others I have raced to the finish, believe it or not) and another Hunter! Who had Highmane, Highmane turns 6 and 7 to my Secretkeeper, Hunter's Mark on those turns. I put him at 3 to my 21, and had Call of the Wild in hand for the win turn 9, but his turn 8 was hit me for 12 with Highmanes, Kill Command Kill Command for the last 9.

Frigging HEARTHSTONE, man.


One loss I had on the way up was to a Control Shaman, who, by turn 8 (when I conceded) had done the following:

• Rolled a Taunt Totem
• Played both 5/5 Taunt Things From Below
• Gained 14 life from Healing Wave
• Played 5/5 Taunt White Eyes
• Got 5/5 Taunt White Eyes BACK with Ancestral Spirit
• Lightning Storm'd me
• Shot a 4/3 with Jade Lightning
• Madame Goya'd a Totem of Air into 7/8 Taunt Earth Elemental.

..That's when I quit. Things were manageable until then.

I'm more than a little annoyed at the crap legendary they just revealed for Paladin:

Sunkeeper Tarim: Cost 6, Attack 3, Health 7: Taunt, Battlecry: Set all other minions' Attack and Health to 3. So Blizzard basically made a slightly less shitty Eadric the Pure (AKA Eadric the Card No One Plays) with a goofy battlecry that, at first glance, requires a herculean amount of setup (or luck) to get value out of it. Stand Against Darkness costs 5 ("Summon 5 Silver Hand Recruits"), so forget playing Dustmaker Tarim and SaD as a tempo swing on turn 10, and good luck playing SaD and keeping your dudes alive until the next turn. Also, I can't see why you would tech him in against pirates or jade since he makes pirate weenies worse (assuming you're still alive at Turn 6), and why would you make a bunch of golems 3/3's when Equality/Consec. or Pyro/Equality wipes the board? Knowing my luck, there's some murloc strat I'm overlooking but seriously, Blizzard, enough with the fucking murlocs already (see also: Primalfin Lookout, Unite the Murlocs and Megafin, AKA Neptulon 2.0).

Compare Sunkeeper Dust'im to the new Shaman legendary, Kalimos, Primal Lord: Cost 8, Attack 7, Health 7: Battlecry: If you played an Elemental last turn, cast an Elemental Invocation. The invocations are: Air - Deal 3 damage to all enemy minions, Earth - Fill your board with 1/1 Elementals, Water - Restore 12 health to your hero, and Fire - Deal 6 damage to the enemy hero. Conditional? Sure, but at least the setup isn't bad at all, especially if you put Fire Fly in your deck (Cost 1, 1/2 Elemental, Battlecry: add a 1/2 Elemental to your hand) and hold onto the Elemental it procs. So not only do you get a decent pile of stats, but you also gain access to four spells, each of which can swing the game.

Eh, maybe the rest of the Paladin cards will make Sunkeeper better, but after the medicore-to-bad legendaries Paladin got last time I'm not expecting much.

Eh. I don't reviewing cards before the whole set can be perused. These cards could be trash on face or amazing on face and we know if they bear this out until we see what's up. Maybe some Big Game Hunter effect comes back and makes being an 8-mana 7/7 shitty. Too early to tell.

I really don't like Finja Paladin. That deck is fucking obnoxious. I was never a fan of Murloc Paladin to begin with, and this just dials up its worst features for me. Just reaction after reaction after reaction until they finally DO something and you lose. It's like Freeze Mage except the game takes three times longer.

Gotta counter those last two posts That Paladin Legendary would be sweet in my Anyfin small time Paladin deck. It doesn't make long games Jeb. It's over one way or the other turn 11. It goes through the whole deck by then.

But that Paladin card isn't horrible at all. Works with muster for battle. Works with small time recruits. If you are behind on board or facing down a huge minion it has taunt. Will take three of his 3 attack guys to bust it unless he has a spell to clear it. Egg Paladin might become a thing. There has to be a dino egg in this expansion somewhere......

The new Elise looks like fun. I like the idea of elementals as new tribal synergy cards. They are adding some more Murloc shenanigans. Lots look forward to. But I am still concerned about the near future of Rogue. That legendary Rogue Sheridan the corpse plant. 5/3 for 4 mana It goes dormant and stays on the board. You can revive it if you play 4 cards on a turn. So easy to kill the turn after it's played. Then you need a miracle Rogue turn to revive it. A card that likely is only good if you are winning already. How many turns you play 4 cards without some crazy card draw and cheap cards? It just looks unplayable except by Toast doing a meme stream.

MacDirk Diggler wrote: Gotta counter those last two posts That Paladin Legendary would be sweet in my Anyfin small time Paladin deck. It doesn't make long games Jeb. It's over one way or the other turn 11. It goes through the whole deck by then.

But that Paladin card isn't horrible at all. Works with muster for battle. Works with small time recruits. If you are behind on board or facing down a huge minion it has taunt. Will take three of his 3 attack guys to bust it unless he has a spell to clear it. Egg Paladin might become a thing. There has to be a dino egg in this expansion somewhere......

The new Elise looks like fun. I like the idea of elementals as new tribal synergy cards. They are adding some more Murloc shenanigans. Lots look forward to. But I am still concerned about the near future of Rogue. That legendary Rogue Sheridan the corpse plant. 5/3 for 4 mana It goes dormant and stays on the board. You can revive it if you play 4 cards on a turn. So easy to kill the turn after it's played. Then you need a miracle Rogue turn to revive it. A card that likely is only good if you are winning already. How many turns you play 4 cards without some crazy card draw and cheap cards? It just looks unplayable except by Toast doing a meme stream.

Well, someone tell my Fish Paladin opponents then. They are playing super-greedy versions that just stallllllllllll. Yeah, they drew cards with Lay On Hands and 2x Solmen Vigil, but it was mostly them Aldor'ing, Lightlording, Doomsaying, and Equality++. I probably built 6 or 7 decent boards. Doesn't matter if I have to deal 80.

I think Elise looks fun, but she's too slow. At 4-mana, she was a really good drop, and the Golden Monkey effect is amazing. At 5-mana? For a pack of cards? I'm not overwhelmed.

I think Murlocs will be a pain in the ass, and we'll see Warleaders "graduate" to the Hall of Fame with the next set.

Just had the stupidest game. It was mid-range Shaman vs mid-Range Shaman - we were both playing very similar (but not quite the same) deck. Tight game, lots of fun, and was starting to look like it might go toward fatigue.

Then I countered three of his mid-power minions with a Devolve. Two of the resulting creatures I traded for, but the remaining one was an Unlicensed Apothecary, a Warlock card that does you five damage each time you summon something. I left it alone on purpose, and didn't summon anything he could trade it for.

He didn't notice.

So he pulls out a Totem Golem - takes 5 damage. You can see him pause, wonder what's going on, check the Apothecary. Surely, he thinks, it doesn't apply to hero powers? He decided to find out anyway, takes another 5 damage.

On my turn I tank the Golem with direct damage and, again, don't give him anything to trade. So he forgets about the Apothecary, summons something else, takes five damage. Then, on my turn, I pull out my hand of direct damage and a Flametongue Totem and use my weenies to finish him off

MattDP wrote: Then I countered three of his mid-power minions with a Devolve. Two of the resulting creatures I traded for, but the remaining one was an Unlicensed Apothecary, a Warlock card that does you five damage each time you summon something. I left it alone on purpose, and didn't summon anything he could trade it for.

He didn't notice.

I repeat: Card text. It's important.

clips.twitch.tv/GenerousEndearingLyrebirdStrawBeary

I bet he noticed once he took 5, he could just do fuck all about it. Smart to leave it on the board if you can take 5 or 10 or just chump it. That's one the winners off Devolve. See also: Doomsayer, the 1/1 or 2/3 for 6, that guy who jumps back into their hand when they Hero Power, &c.

jeb wrote: I bet he noticed once he took 5, he could just do fuck all about it.

He definitely didn't notice at first. That's what made it so funny: first time he triggered you could almost see his thought process on the screen. Sudden stop, wait, then the highlight on the minion, then another pause while he digested it, then gingerly testing the hero power.

MattDP wrote:

jeb wrote: I bet he noticed once he took 5, he could just do fuck all about it.

He definitely didn't notice at first. That's what made it so funny: first time he triggered you could almost see his thought process on the screen. Sudden stop, wait, then the highlight on the minion, then another pause while he digested it, then gingerly testing the hero power.

If only he'd hovered over his hero power he would have seen that it summons a minion in the form of a totem, saving himself 5 damage.

But sometimes your brain doesn't work right in the heat of battle, and I say that as someone who figured out a not-very-complicated Sylvanas play last night...and then ran her into the wrong minion.

I won't pretend I never fucked up Unlicensed Apothecary. It's like that time when I was a kid and picked up my grandma's inferno hot soldering iron by the business end. You don't do that twice.

Right now I'm tripping out on how many cards I thought were classic but are actually from TGT. Like Bash. There are a fair number of cards I'm so used to that are rotating out. I guess I opened more packs of that than I realised...

Got a friend to jump into HS. He is enjoying it and is just couple of days on ladder. A good time to get in with the rotation coming. Soon you can play standard and not feel like you will never get all the cards. I was suggesting cheap deck ideas like beast Druid tempo Mage, Zoolock and was about to tell him to make some flamewakers. Which, as we all know, can own the board comboed w cheap spells. But wankers are about to rotate, being from TGT. I heard Firebat tell a story on Valuetown podcast. His dad wanted to relate to him and bought $50 worth of cards to learn HS. Firebat went over to visit and tried to craft a deck for his pop that could ladder past 20. Couldn't be done.... with Firebat at the helm. Just sayin. Getting into this game ain't easy.

But as i mentioned earlier in the month. I stumbled into Maly rogue, the epiphany being Jade lightning gave more opportunity to push spell damage into face. I made 10 pretty quickly and breathed a big sigh of relief as I could afford to screw around. My Maly deck had some trouble there and I was getting ready for 11 day vacation in Costa Rica with minimal HS time afforded. I made some adjustments to the deck which was set up for max Barnes value. Took out Barnes, counterfeit coins, a sap and shadow strike. In went 5 Pirates and Edwin. Edwin is his own win condition and some people resign if I get out a big Ed early.
Holy Shit. I am on a tear down to mid rank 4. Probably my highest percent win rate over a week of play. Maly is so good right now. The game plan is early game Pirates and removal to really just minimize damage to me. Not looking to go face as much as trade. I have had many games where someone has couple of medium jades out turn 7 and I can afford to ignore them. Maly goes over all the late game taunts Jade Druid and Shaman can put up. My only bad matchup seems to be Pirate Warrior. But unless you are Pirate Warrior or maybe Dragon Priest you are losing to Pirate Warrior anyway. It's easy to overdraw or miss lethal with this deck, so it takes a fair amount of focus to pilot. I could have won 4 more games at least had I been a bit more dialed in.

Overheard from HCT Bahamas broadcast... Kibler mentions lots of people from "the community" hanging out in the hot tub last night.... playing Wereeolf. Frodan had to remind him what happens in the hot tub stays in the hot tub. Haha. Can you imagine topless Kiblet, Toast, and Pavel rubbing elbows in the hot tub accusing each other of being a Werewolf? Maybe better you didn't.

Long rambling post. Sorry

Hex Sinister wrote: Right now I'm tripping out on how many cards I thought were classic but are actually from TGT. Like Bash. There are a fair number of cards I'm so used to that are rotating out. I guess I opened more packs of that than I realised...

I started playing my favorite noncompetitive deck, Resurrect N'Zoth Priest, after Onyx Bishop came out of Karazhan and after reading your comment I checked out Resurrect to see how close it was to rotating out. I was hoping it was Old Gods or newer but nope, it's Blackrock Mountain. Holy crap, the Standard rotation is going to be a bloodbath.

A bunch of new cards revealed today:

Gluttonous Ooze: Neutral epic, 3/3 for 3, Battlecry: destroy your opponents weapon and gain armor equal to its attack. This is straight up anti-pirate Warrior tech, especially Arcanite Reaper, and I hope I pull two of them.

Mirage Caller: Priest rare, 2/3 for 3, Battlecry: Choose a friendly minion. Summon a 1/1 copy of it. I think this is supposed to be used to copy a deathrattle minion for the Priest quest, otherwise I don't know what you'd use it for.

Lost in the Jungle: 1 mana Paladin Common spell: Summon two 1/1 Silver Hand Recruits. OMG SUNKEEPER COMBO!, AKA Muster for Not-Quite-as-Much-Battle.

Living Mana: 5 mana Druid Epic spell: Transform your Mana Crystals into 2/2 minions. Recover the mana when they die. Shouldn't this cost 2-4 mana so it can act as a lead-in to Pilfered Power (3 mana Druid spell, gain an empty mana crystal for each friendly minion)?

Molten Blade: Warrior Rare weapon, 1/1 for 1, Each turn this is in your hand, transform it into a new weapon. So it's Shifter Zerus, Weapon Edition. Lots of RNG effects for Warrior this expansion so far (see also: Explore Un'Goro).

Vilespine Slayer: Rogue epic, 3/4 for 5, Combo: Destroy a minion. They're really doubling down on the plant theme for Rogues but this seems too slow, regardless.

Volcanosaur: Neutral rare Beast, 5/6 for 7, Battlecry: Adapt, then Adapt. This is going in my mid-range/control decks.

The Marsh Queen: Legendary Hunter quest: Play seven 1-cost minions. Reward: Queen Carnassa. Queen Carnassa: Hunter Legendary Beast, 8/8 for 5, Battlecry: Shuffle 15 Raptors into your deck. Carnassa's Brood: Hunter Beast, 3/2 for 1, Battlecry: Draw a card. Not quite sure if I know what to make of this, it seems kind of similar to that Warlock portal that spits out Flame Imps. Tol'vir Warden (Battlecry: Draw two 1-cost minions from your deck) looks like a must-include in Carnassa decks.