Hearthstone Players!

D'oh! Sorry, Matt. I've seen or heard of a number of misplays in recent days, many of them centered around grabbing or targeting a card faster than the game could respond. For example, grabbing a card in your hand after you'd play another card but before the cards in your hand shifted or targeting a card on the board before the board had shifted because a minion had died or been introduced. I know that's not what happened in your case, but it was a similar result in that the wrong card was played or the wrong minion targeted. That sucks. I guess you could call it a lesson in playing at the same pace, regardless of situation, but it doesn't make it feel any better.

Jeb and I have been extolling everyone with our initial thoughts in the thread. I'm sure they'll change with actual gameplay. The closer I get, the more dread I'm having about a couple cards, but we'll see how it plays out.

Had a bunch of gold saved up. Unfortunately, I got the Rogue weapon (dust) and Lynessa (dust) for my auto-legendary. Never lucky. A later pack I opened gave me the Dragon Soul which... OK. But I got a lot of the epics that I wanted (I'm short a Twilight Acolyte) but like with Knights, I figured I'd start with Warlock and see where things go, because it's always easier to sort out a (non-Paladin) midrange or Zoo deck, rather than a control thing. I hacked into my demon-heavy Zoo without a lot of concern for balance and dropped in the Homonculi, the spellstones, the Reavers, and the LIbrarians. It's ridiculously loaded on the front end but has some game savers at the back.

hsreplay.net/replay/Mgd3h7wKu9kdeRceTZRTWj

The first Hunter I faced (they're everywhere and Candleshot is with them) was a "damn the torpedoes" type. As you'll notice, I had, uh, quite the curve going and by my turn 2, I had the spellstone fully-upgraded. Somehow, I hadn't factored Flame Imps into my thinking about it and had only focused on the new cards. He does Always Huffer to get through the Homonculus and keeps coming, loading up another Candleshot because he assumes I'm not packing weapon removal because who does that? He Always Huffer's again and clears the Voidwalker and I've drawn the Hooked Reaver. I'm at 22 so if I Tap and he hits me again, I'm at the magic #15. Is he going to be able to get through a 4-mana 7/7(!) with only two cards left? Maybe if he wants to toss a sKill Command at it. But I tap into the other Homonculus and figure I'll make him work a little harder before I totally demoralize him, since the demon, Steady Shot, and another plink from Candleshot will get me there, anyway. Things go completely according to plan, but he plays a Secret.

Now, given this guy's behavior, I'm betting that it's Explosive, but I figure I'll toss the Crystalweaver out even if it's Freezing, because if the Reaver gets bounced, I'll still have a 5/4 in play that can clean up anything he produces. If not, I'm hitting for 8, rather than 7, and I'm on the clock. It's Freezing and he makes smart use of Flanking Strike to clear the 'weaver. But I'm on 7 mana, so Mr. Only 4 Mana comes back and I draw a Librarian. Now, playing the Librarian means that I'm vulnerable to double sKill Command, but given the way he's been playing, I'm betting at least one of them would have come out earlier if he had that in hand and I don't want my lone minion taken out by Deadly Shot. So I go to 9 and draw into what's going to be my killshot. Even if he removes the Reaver, I still have the fully-upgraded Spellstone in hand that I can use to buy time until I can get to Gul'dan. Random Shot hits the Librarian (always lucky...) and he's unwilling to risk his wolf. More fool him, since that just means I'm doubling my life total. Bloodfire takes away a third of his life, I decide not to risk my other 'weaver on Freezing, but it doesn't matter. Rexxar makes an appearance and I even get cocky and Tap down to the danger zone but I think I've got this one. He does actually manage to clear the Reaver but, yeah, it's over, with the second Soulfire discarding Gul'dan as insult to injury.

I had Malchezzar's Imps in the deck in that game and then, concerned about how front-loaded the deck is and how I only had 4 cards that discard in the first place, I decided to swap them out for Vicious Fledglings. It put two more cards in the 3 slot and provides another early threat which has to be dealt with. Plus, Bloodfiring one with Windfury would be pretty exciting. I'm hedging a bit on the Crystalweavers, but more on them later. The next Hunter was a gold Hunter, so I figured he'd be a bit more cautious about dumping everything on the board:

hsreplay.net/replay/cuVzh42H8PNScEkNkpJafX

He starts more traditionally, while I draw into both Voidwalkers and do the first upgrade on both spellstones with one Imp. Some good. On turn 3, I'm dying for a Mortal Coil after he clears both VWs but I draw the Librarian, who proceeds to upgrade both spellstones again and still draws me a card, which turns out to be the Reaver I may want on turn 4 if he does something explosive like Always Huffer. I Tap to help him on his way and he wisely holds on to his Candleshots. My Coil arrives and doesn't really help, but I also figure that I can't let that Hyena get any bigger, so I put myself way out of Reaver range and look up to see him facing the Hunter problem since the last Buzzard nerf (aka video game time immemorial): card draw. He has a Bat, one card, and a weapon. I have 5 cards of decent power and am missing only 3 life. He goes all in and the Bearshark is a bit of a concern, but putting a 4/3 and 5/4 on the board means that he'll have to blow almost everything to clear, unless he gets the 1 in 3 shot from the Bat. He does not. So he figures: "I'm going all in for real and taking him to 13!!!" Sad trombone. One Bonemare plus Soulfire later and it's over.

The Crystalweavers are weird. I inherently don't like them because they're 5/4s for 4, which for those of us who played in the beta and early on in the game, became the scarlet letter of stats, since Shadow Bolts and Truesilvers were in every, single Warlock and Paladin deck in those days. The hallmark of efficiency, the Yeti, took two cards to remove. Anything 5/4 usually only took 1. They were also vulnerable to SWD. Times, of course, have changed. Truesilvers are still everywhere but 5/4s have become better, by and large. I don't know that the Crystalweaver is "better" enough to be playing, but in most of my games, it has been effective in establishing and building board presence. Even with the Fledglings, the Librarians, and the Cobalts, the deck is still mostly demons, so it's almost always going to have some impact. And it's a midrange minion that's strong enough to kill Cobalts and remove Tar Creepers in one shot. So it does have its upsides. I'm just wondering if there's enough of them.

Short read: New cards are great. Hunter early game is better. Late game still sucks.

I just need to get there! Whoo hoo! Encouraged by the Hunter games. I see Matt is doing Dungeon Runs online. How's all that? I am excited! Not, like pre-order excited, I passed on that, but I have about 33 packs coming my way.

The Dungeon Runs are very cool. I can see myself playing a lot of them. I ran my initial one with Shaman and got up to boss 4, when the Kobold Barbarian guy just SMOKED me with huge creatures that he kept recruiting (including the Hunter worm that attacks again if it kills anything.) I'm in the middle of one right now with Paladin that has me using my beloved Coghammer again for the first time since GvG rotated out.

Oh and... you're not going to believe this... but I opened two Level Ups so I'm trying the Dude deck. But only because J4ckie had one! His Warlock deck at the start of Knights was amazing until everyone outpaced it with the DKs. The deck looks awful, but I put it together (I didn't dust the Crystal Lions as soon as I got them...)

I'm 1/1. Got stuffed by Frost Lich Jaina but then won against regular Jaina who probably drew a dozen spells that didn't start in her deck but somehow never came up with either a Flamestrike or a Blizzard. Crazy.

Apropos of nothing, the streamer Zetalot showed his followers his win counts with various Heroes. I believe this is EU account:

• Shaman: 8
• Warrior: 39
• Rogue: 17
• Hunter: 0
• Paladin: 88
• Mage: 494 (he made Legend with Mage once; he said he had Illuminators and had better lifegain than Priest.)
• Druid: 82
• Warlock: 40
• Priest: a little under 24,000.

Got home from work and did my first dungeon run:



CTHUN! CTHUN! COSTS 5 MANA!
The last boss milled 2 cards off the top of my deck every turn and I got saved by a N'Zoth that completely refilled my board.

I went 7/8 for my first Dungeon Run. I lost to Xol the Unscathed with my Resurrect/Deathrattle deck. Not sure if this is how it's supposed to work, but Xol cast a 3-mana "beam" spell that takes control of a random minion of mine from turns 3 to 6. I think the beams are random, but maybe not? That was the only one I saw (four times). It's tough to rez things when they never die on your side of the board. This mode is awesome. This is my thing.

I've played three more games with the Dude deck... and it's working. I keep thinking to myself: "This needs Equality and/or Dinosize." but then I'm able to power through.

First game is aggro Druid: hsreplay.net/replay/gQXyQBEknWCHibFVzrh2Hf

I look at my open and I'm like "Fine. Start with Jungle. If I don't draw into anything, we do what the deck is supposed to do: Make a Dude." His open is, of course, perfectly suited to wrecking Dudes, so I'm wondering how I'm going to make progress before I get Roared. The Jailor is the perfect draw because then it's a reload. I'm suspecting that the real problem of this deck isn't the fact that it can constantly be wiped out. It's that it's not an aggro deck. It's a midrange, at best, which means you have to finish before you get comboed out. That's where I'm thinking the Dinosize might factor in. Anyway, I gladly sac the Jailor and pick The Man from Stonehill. (How do I know it's midrange? Because Stonehill seems crucial to making it work.) He makes a smart play with the Wolf and clears my board. This isn't exactly how Aggro Drood is supposed to work, so I wonder if he's playing more of a Zoo variant. Or, like most players, he's just really paranoid about leaving Dudes in play. He clears and sets up for the perfect topdeck. Skillz. Wickerflame does what he's supposed to and leaves 1 guy open for Steed, but I draw Jungle and decide to Level Up instead, since if one survives, I can always Steed that one.

He gets off the Wild Chain Gang and clears again. Turn 7, I drop a Dude and Steed him. That's in every way a better play than playing the Lion, which is why I'm thinking the deck might be better without them. He goes all out to clear again and I'm thinking the greatest topdeck in the world would be the other Consec right here. Instead, I just play The Man, knowing that he can power through it, but it will reduce his board and give me the big knife that can remove anything he plays. Bird into Mark of Y'shaarj into Mark of the Lotus is the best thing he could have asked for outside of a Roar. But his hand is empty and I have Tarim. The Lion sits in my hand.

Then I run into (surprise!) Razakus: hsreplay.net/replay/jjT6Nrnh8XmoYVzSq9B8cC

I don't have much hope for this game, as I'm pretty sure by now that I just can't race it without some amazing luck on my part. I clear the Cleric to keep him from getting too much advantage and I was kinda surprised to see the Gargoyle. Do you clear it there? You're trying to do as much damage as possible, but the last thing you want to give him is a Coin for when Anduin shows up. I take Repentance in case I have to clear something with a fat ass. A Pyromancer is, obviously, horrible for this deck, but I'm fine with the Secret going off on that, since he'll only be able to use it once. I play the Lion(!); again, I'm wanting as much threat as possible. Of course, this is an Anduin turn and that's a reason to play it if he has it. I figured I might have one more turn to play Level Up and I could load up to try to push for a kill over a couple turns. However, I missed getting one guy leveled but, in the end, it didn't matter because he topdecked the only answer he had: Psychic Scream.

It's hard to predict a meta. You have to project and you're not sure how decks might shake out (Hey, everyone! Get in here!) That said, with the power of control and combo currently, given all the cards that have been poured into them since Un'Goro, you kinda wonder why Scream still made it through. That card is going to be a menace. This game was in hand. His only out was a dragon in hand and Duskbreaker. Or Psychic Scream. The turn after even Duskbreaker doesn't save him. Just Psychic Scream. So, there it is.

Last game was against the new Recruit/Taunt Druid: hsreplay.net/replay/soSUA8PsRkaDJAnAQUAny7

That deck would seem to be almost uniquely suited to wreck this one, since battering through a bunch of 3/6s with a bunch of 1/1s should be problematic. This is when I kept thinking that Equality would be ideal. But like the Warrior Taunt decks, the problem is that there isn't a great deal of threat involved. It's just about figuring out how to pick the lock that the Taunts represent.

My opening play was wrong. He went first, which meant he had the opportunity to Shapeshift and wipe out a Dude. Of course, you're often hoping that the opponent does nothing but Hero Power on turn 2, but he could have done that to less effect against the Protector. Repentance is a substitute for Equality and would have been great against this deck... if he hadn't played a Guild Recruiter. Dropping the 2/4 down to a 2/1 is all well and good, but it would have been better to reduce the 3/5 Taunt. On turn 6, I decided to just clear all the Taunts, because I could deal with what was left with regular Dudes whenever I played them. I'd been kind of questioning the Stegadons because the RNG of adaptation is often subpar. Getting everyone Taunt or +3 Health when I'm trying to run things over isn't exactly helpful and then it's just a 3/4 for 4. But this is one of those times where it turned out spectacularly, since the opportunity to poison 4 Taunts is a little brilliant. (Lightfused?) But, of course, I fucked up by attacking with the Poison Dude before I killed the Vanguard, which left Arthas in play for a turn that he shouldn't have been.

The trick with the Cube and the Tiger was nice. But at this point, the tables were turned. He was going to have trouble getting through MY Taunts and I decided to go aggro and just start beating face, hoping to topdeck Tarim or Level Up or something that would apply real pressure. And, suddenly, there were no more creatures to Recruit and I was just grinding him down. A last ditch N'Zoth was nice, but when you have so many Deathrattle creatures, you're often going to phase out the ones you really want. Sprites don't do shit on turn 14, which is part of why I don't like them.

You might notice that one card spends a lot of time sitting in my hand without being cast and that's Stand Against Darkness. Believe me, I rolled my eyes when I saw it in the list, too. But this deck needs reloads and many of them and that's the best one there is. Imagine the very plausible (i.e. not Johnny) scenario of turn 10 SAD and the world's most sorrowful Level Up. That's a board of 15. These are the Sorrowful Men and they are so sorry. (Not really.) I'm going to keep playing with it, because even though I haven't gotten that much use out of it, I'm not tempted to dump it just yet. The Lions are much higher on my list.

I have been playing my Warlock Mill Deck to pretty good effect. At first, I messed it up and dropped all the way down to 20. Now, I am back to 17 with the only real hindrance being the minionless Hunter decks -- deck is fast and a bit absurd; however, on the upside, it is the type of deck that appeals to me, so I might try it.

Rin, the First Disciple is not nearly as bad as one thinks. Its effectiveness by class so far:

Mages -- I destroy about 11-14 cards, which is ridiculous because that is almost 50% of their deck.
Shamans/Warriors -- 5-8 cards
Warlocks -- 2-3 cards
Rogues -- so far, I have killed them before I could get all the demons out
Priest/Paladins -- I haven't seen any yet
Druid -- only seen one so far, but I beat him with fatigue death without casting Azari
Hunters -- So far, I am only winning about 25% against hunters. Need to think more about my mulligan and playing

Besides hunters, I haven't lost to anything else, which is probably just luck so far. Twice, I saw a cute Warlock deck that uses cataclysm to trigger the quest on turn 4. I used treachery on a howlfiend and then made him discard the quest in one game. The other game, I just outlasted hordes of Imps.

Most absurd game, is I fatigued a Warrior with 30 life and 49 armor. At the end, he was drawing cards with a -14 penalty.

Also, I was wrong about the spellstone. When I first read it, I didn't realize that it had lifesteal -- with that extra information, I am running 2 of them.

Unstable Evolution is as hilarious as you might expect. I figured since the Dude deck worked, I might try the Totem deck, too. I'm only running one Primal Talismans and I think it's probably unnecessary, overall, but I need to play more Mages and see how multiple clears add up. But being able to spend the bulk of your mana evolving a totem up to something like Soggoth is awesome. You're presented with so many cool choices and you can always switch off to another minion if you land on something good. (Or if you get forced off because you evolve something like The Darkness; it's not targetable.)

Also, Kobold Hermit: Should be a staple of Shaman control decks for the foreseeable future.

jeb wrote: I just need to get there! Whoo hoo! Encouraged by the Hunter games. I see Matt is doing Dungeon Runs online. How's all that? I am excited! Not, like pre-order excited, I passed on that, but I have about 33 packs coming my way.

For the most part, they're ace. I've run four so far and they've all been hugely entertaining up until battle #7, which I reached 3 times. In each case I couldn't see any way I could have possibly beaten the boss. On one occasion I got the Trogg boss against my spell-heavy "freeze" mage which was obviously a very fast loss. The other two, with Warrior and Paladin, were against a time-warping boss who can take double turns and summon legendary minions for 1 mana. That's ... theoretically possible, but very hard without a tailored deck.

Maybe there's a consistent way past them: I'll leave that to a cleverer player than me to figure out. But it does feed in to one criticism which that it would be nice if you could see your random path through the dungeon when you start, so you've got a chance of tailoring your deck accordingly. Would add a bit more strategy.

Aside from that, I've been having a great time. Some of the treasures are so much fun to play with: I particularly like the one that gives all your minions permanent stealth - as in it lasts after you attack. They let you do all sorts of cool new combos. The gradual building of your deck on the fly is challenging and really exciting as you wait to see what you've won each round. It's just too bad play here doesn't count for quests, otherwise I could see myself spending a lot of time in the dungeon.

Except for the lava-filled room boss which kills all your minions as soon as you play them. That's as bad design and dull as all hell. I beat it twice, on fatigue.

Opened about 70 packs and got three legendaries: the paladin and rogue weapons and the shaman class legendary. They all look pretty good to me, although only time will tell if they're worth it in the meta.

NIce plays. I hope Paladin finds a place. I like Paladins, well, at least the non-Murloc ones. Paladin largely strikes me as "fair." When I play and win, I feel its because a slow accumulation of asymmetries. My guy has 1 more toughness than yours. I had a bubble one time. I healed for 2 and you didn't. All those little things add up to me winning at some point.

I had awesome pulls across 40 packs:
Legendary
Kathrena Winterwisp !!
The Runespear (boo)
Golden Skull of the Manari (soon to be a non-Golden Woecleaver)
Master Oakheart !!!!!

Seriously. This is nuts.

Epic
Mage: Dragon's Fury !
Priest: Psychic Scream !!
Rogue: Evasion !!
Shaman: Weather Stormcaller. Come on man.
Warlock: 2@ Catalysm and a third Golden one. Weird. That one will be a Carnivorous Cube. Came up dry there.
Warrior: Golden Reckless Flurry !! Animation is sick.
Neutral: Arcane Tyrant, Spiteful Summoner, and 2@ Grand Archivist!

Felt amazing. Need some Cubes though. Only Legendaries I am sad about are Twig of the World Tree, Kingsbane, and the Woecleaver.

Nice pulls. Oh, and if you're not convinced about minionless Hunter from playing against it yet, witness:

I watched Asmo 50:50 with minionless Hunter at Rank 40 Legend last night. I get it. It's just packed with bad cards though. It makes bad cards OK. Does that make it good? I don't think so. This is going to fade. I think Hunter has better options Midrange and the meta will get there. These are legit Hunter builds now:
Midrange Beasts, Deathrattle, Secrets (maybe Minionless here?)
Aggro Beasts
Control Deathrattle, Secrets, Minionless

That's awesome, given they are coming from this list of viable builds:

.

There's a lot of suboptimal decks out there right now as folks feel out their collections and try new stuff. I wouldn't settle on anything being legit for another few weeks.