Hearthstone Players!

Argh. The 'plaint of aggro against monolithic control/combo. I almost had one of those moments today. I had Win 2 as Paladin or Warrior, so I pulled out the Call deck for a couple quick games. After dusting the Creepers, I put in another Spellbreaker (If a Silence card screams in the wilderness, does it make a sound?) and another Level Up. I had originally pulled one of the latter as overkill, but my Dudes have been lasting longer than expected, so I figured it was worth trying again. It's probably because a lot of aggro/midrange decks that used to trade favorably with mine have switched to Cubelock to try to be one of the gang.

hsreplay.net/replay/riAD62Z9jgNVx7MYS38qTU

This was Control/Jade Druid. I think he was teching vs Cubelock, too, since he had a lot of stuff that was clearly meant to deal with 5/7 burst (like Ancient of War.) I had what is close to a godlike hand, so I kept it all. I started with Protector because he's on turn 2 and I don't want to give an easy target for Wrath with the Dudes. He can still Wrath, but I still have my 1/1 Taunt to protect other things. He does, of course, Wrath and I play Knife Juggler because he can't get to it without spending the other Wrath, which is fine by me. With both Calls in hand, I Coin into one, knowing there's a good chance I get the other Protector, which I do. With a Jailor in hand along with Lost in the Jungle, I am Swipe-prepared. I drew into Steward and have one of my little (weenie?) combo-fests, tossing six knives, which is enough to reduce the Golem to Draw Me a Card range and I can still do 5 more to him and I'm now basically immune to Swipe, since the only thing that will die is the initial target.

His turn 5 is pretty weak, since he's still one below Spreading Plague (nerfs that work? WTF?) but a 4/6 Fandral is problematic for me to remove efficiently, so I do the Stegodon first, hoping for the +3 attack. I should have gone with the Level Up, removed Fandral for free, and still have been basically immune to Swipe. So I get plants, which has a later positive effect. But he gets mileage off the Fandral which I really should have denied. Getting an opponent to 9 on turn 5 with what is really more of a midrange deck and not having lost a single minion is kinda OK. Out comes the Plague, which I'd been waiting for, hoping my deck would do the Marxist thing (Equality.) No such luck. I start chipping away at the Scarabs and now I am seriously vulnerable to Swipe, but that's the cost of doing business. Having a weenie horde untouched for this long is a bonus. He gets a Fandral Nourish and finally draws into it. Of course, killing my Leveled Up Dudes also means putting 4 Plant Dudes on the board with bubbles. Unfortunately, Plant Dudes don't Level Up (Must be a union thing.)

I decided I'd had enough of Fandral and Spellbreaker him before another Nourish or Wrath comes out. I drop the Jailor in anticipation of another board clear. I've had the other Call sitting in my hand since the start of the game, but I can only get one minion off of it, so it's kinda dead weight (How often will you hear that?) He decides a board full of weenies is fine, since he's going full Jade on me. (Do you ever go full Jade ? Yeah, probably.) So here I'm faced with a decision: Steward or Stegodon? Steward gets me 5 bubbled Dudes. Stegodon potentially gets me something more explosive, but it's random. I know what I'm getting with the Steward. She'll die next turn, but I'll have 5 guys that can trade favorably or resist Swipe. OTOH, if he does have the Swipe, all my bubbles get popped and all my guys die, anyway. So I decided on the dinosaur to see if I could get that "more explosive". It could just end up being bubbles, which means that Stegodon is more durable (3/4, compared to a 3/3; i.e. he'll need two minions and/or face (at 9) to get rid of it if he doesn't have the Swipe.) I get a bunch of 2/2s, which is OK, but just OK. He happily trades and gets the ultimate high roll on the Moonglade. I'm totally on the back foot here.

I put the Jailor down for some recovery, toss away the Call to get my Hoarder with nothing better to do and wait. I see my first Ancient of War in a couple years. Now, Marxism is the only thing that will save me (OK, maybe Tirion.) He decides to start hitting face for the first time, since he assumes (probably correctly) that no aggro deck will have any way to recover from this. But I'm not an aggro deck. With some thought, he trades with the Hoarder just to make sure I can't do more damage than he want to his taunts... and draws me the manifesto. Clearing the taunts leaves me enough mana to put 4 bubbled Dudes on the board with a Tarim in hand. Druid of the Claw might still save him-! Nah. There's Tarim. I thought perhaps going face here might've been the better choice to put him in a more precarious spot. But clearing is fine, since he can't do anything about my 3/3s without the other Wrath and I'm going to make them 5/5s next turn. For the 5000th fucking time, I forget to make a Dude before dropping Tarim, knowing that I have no other plays that turn. Sigh. He goes full Jade on me again, but concedes as soon as Level Up! is played.

I played one more against a Control/Dragon Priest of some kind: hsreplay.net/replay/ZdaSZrSLM6SFPV2cpDkHXe

The only lesson here is that sometimes it's OK to Spellbreaker your opponent's Doomsayer. If they're playing turn 3 DS, it means they have a) nothing else to do and b) nothing to do because they have a bunch of late-game stuff in hand and they're trying to slow you down. DS into three Dudes means exactly that. So I gamble the Coin on Silence and he's backpedaling the whole way. I spent the whole game up to 6 waiting on Dragonfire, but I had so many recovery options in my hand (Maul with 2 Dudes, Vinecleaver, 3 Dudes off the Jailor) that it eventually didn't matter even if he had. When I got the 2nd Maul with bubble, I went in. I was just waiting on Level Up or Tarim by then and eventually decided to just go face with the Vinecleaver, even with a full board. Even GHP wouldn't have been much help.

I do not think it’s correct to run silence in an aggro deck. Midrange maybe. The only card you are running it for is Voiidlord. Ok ok, possessed lackey, maybe a cube. So the only class you are running it for is Warlock. Just beat everything else and call it good.

Firebat made legend with a discard demonlock and I have been playing that with decent results climbed from 10-7. Murloc paladin is everywhere and I have hard time with that. Murlocs give each other buffs more than do demons, they have no downside when you play them, Megasaur can give divine shield, +3 attack, windfury which are all more useful than the demonguy giving +1/+1. Call to arms is one of the most powerful cards in new expansion. I didn’t play any tempo rogue because I have played so much rogue in the past, and same for Murloc Pally.... been there done that. Crabs that eat Murlocs are becoming a thing like Golakka was a month ago.

What I am loving about the new ladder reset is that I use Wild the way I used to use casual. I have a quest to complete and don’t feel confident with any deck for it that will ruin my mojo and lose me ranks on the standard ladder. So I go into wild to experiment and fuckoff. Some months I even get a decent sub 10 rank in wild. With this new system I can try and climb both sides.

But that's the thing. I'm not running an aggro deck. I'm running more of a midrange deck so that when they try to wreck me with Hellfire or Dragonfire, I can almost instantly recover. That's why people are running Call to Arms in Paladin control decks. It's not just a tool to get a bunch of weenies out. It's far more useful than that. I could probably ramp down to one Spellbreaker and replace it with something else, but with Divine/Inner Priest running around in a variety of forms, I think I'd rather have it handy. Despite it being played as an OTK deck, I've been in multiple games where people have just put a 12/12 on the board and basically asked me to deal with it. With Silence (and if I don't have Equality), I can. Jeb's need is even greater than mine, since Hunter has zero way to deal with big creatures unless it's the only thing on the board. I'd much rather run Silence (although, given that it's Hunter, I'd be more tempted by an Owl (Beast) than I would an elf) than try to depend on something like Random Shot.

I've been running into "I hunt alone" hunters with a twist, Barnes and Y'shaarj. Right as I'm trying to finish win 3 with mage quest with no quest Exodia mage

That is the weirdest permutation of Barnes ever. Note: Not permutation of No Minion Hunter, but Barnes, since the deck is almost incidental to exploiting the RNG idiocy that is Barnes. I love playing Big Priest, but Barnes leaving Standard will be a good thing. The whole deck is predicated on drawing what Big Priest calls The Nuts: Turn 3 or 4 Barnes into Y'Shaarj into Y'Shaarj. But if you don't draw Barnes, you have to stay alive until... you either draw him late in the game or play Y'Shaarj from hand when your opponent can easily remove him? Big Priest lets you stay alive. I'm not certain that Hunter will let you do that on a consistent basis once people are prepared to hold on to their single-target removal for the magic moment.

Silence is good against everything, and Beast Hunter is no face deck. I don't think there's a deck that doesn't pack something to Silence these days, especially for Hunter as my dudes need to be able to reach your face or I can't win. There are buffed creatures everywhere. They are probably weakest against Mage, where the best target is Mana Wyrm for the most part. I have Silenced my own Bittertide Hydras too, if the situation called for it. I was just pissy about not drawing them in the matchups where they matter the most.

I haven't played in a couple days on my account. I switched the Dragon Control Priest and that deck is ridiculous. It feels like cheating. Just so many options.

Jackwraith wrote: But if you don't draw Barnes, you have to stay alive until... you either draw him late in the game or play Y'Shaarj from hand when your opponent can easily remove him? Big Priest lets you stay alive. I'm not certain that Hunter will let you do that on a consistent basis once people are prepared to hold on to their single-target removal for the magic moment.

One would think that Barnes Hunter would stumble if you don't draw Barnes in your opening hand, but that's not really how it's played out for me. Honestly, it feels like not drawing the Hunter spellstone early hurts this deck more than coming up blank on Barnes. Hell, I've played Barnes on curve against a Mage only to have big Y'Shaarj Polymorphed the very next turn but I didn't care; I still had a 3/4, 1/1 and 1/1 (with Beast tag!) on the board with a couple turns to get up to some shenanigans before I have to worry about Blizzard. I've even drawn the anti-nuts with Barnes and Y'Shaarj in my opening hand and done okay. If anything, the Barnes/Y'Shaarj deck highlights how robust the spell Hunter archetype is, that it can prop up such a goofy deck.

But I might be misremembering how well it did so I might bust it out again and see how well it does.

Firebat made a video recently noting that the Spell Hunter build breaks Barnes. Blizzard spent so much design/development to make Minionless Hunter good, they actually broke Barnes. He's long been of the opinion that Hunter can't have good ... anything really, because their Hero Power is a decent clock. Anything that speeds the clock is bad for the game. So Hunter has long languished with overcosted minions and theme-intensive builds that need to synergize to win (eg, Beasts, Deathrattle, now minionless). Barnes-into-Yshaarj is gross. No one else can play minionless without taking a MASSIVE hit in deck quality, so no else realy dares try to just Barnes-into-YShaarj. Sure Big Priest can land it, but they can also fetch Lich King, Statues, Drakes, only Hunter has deep enough spells due to the minionless push from Blizzard to power a deck that will ONLY land 3/4 + 1/1 + 10/10 on turn 4. And because the minionles effect only "kicks in" for To My Side or Rhok'delar, you don't need to sweat failing due to minions that much, ie, the chance you won't see Barnes OR YShaarj by turn 10 is very small, and probably doesn't matter, because it's the Spellstones that win you the damn game. Just putting that out there, food for thought.

Jackwraith watched me play a very "thinky" Hunter game around Rank 12 this AM. I am Beast Hunter (list is above I think), heavy Silence, and my opponent is Priest. I have a solid early hand, Animal Companion, Houndmaster, Big Bad Wolf, Dire Mole, Alley Cat all in the mix. I wait a turn and put out Big Bad Wolf. Alley Cat without Crackling Razormaw is weak to Potion of Madness, and my deck can really suffer if they 2-for-1 a few times. Knowing Control Priest, they can 3-4-5-for-1 with later effects, so early 2-for-1s are dire.

Priest's turn 2 is Shadow Visions. Jackwraith puts them on Big Priest from this, but I am unconvinced. He sees it as digging for Spellstone, and I see it as a Control deck waiting for me to commit more and hopefully roll me with AoE they are digging for. So my turn 3, I Hero Power, hit with the Big Bad Wolf, and pass. Jackwraith wanted Animal Companion there. Either hits for 5 (Huffer) and Potion would let it hit for another 4, hits for 1 (Misha) and Potion gets another 4, or lowroll Leokk to hit for 2, then 2, off Potion. (ie, Potion steals Big Bad, pings and kills the Companion next turn in 3/2 form.) Obviously Eaglehorn, Houndmaster and other stuff might change all the math here, but this is the risk I assessed.

Turn 4, I Houndmaster the 1/1, so I have a 4/3 and a 3/3. Safe from Potion now, and Duskrider will lose to the 3/2. They still clear, but I can rebuild quickly with the little ones I have been saving and have drawn DK for the long game. Instead, the Priest Visions again, and so know my concerns move to Dragonfire Potion, which is fine because I can pile a lot of damage in before that. I think I Coin'd out Highmane here and swung for 7? This is a good board. Priest's best move is maybe Greater Healing and wait on Dragonfire, or try some kind of weak Auchenai clear that would leave me Hyenas and the 3/2 Wolf.

Their Turn 5 is Shadow Essence (so it is Big Priest) for The Lich King in 5/5 form. I am packing Silence, so Spellbreaker turns the 5/5 Taunt into an 8/8 vanilla, and most importantly, makes it VERY HARD to be killed. I mean, I'm not killing it. It needs to hit this dumb 3/3 Taunt and I can send the rest of the team in. It's worth way more dead than alive to the Priest, all those rez effects are junk unless he can get it killed somehow. So the team raids face, the Priest has to Dragonfire Potion and run the Lich King into the 3/2, leaving the Hyenas up, and they are enough to finish them off with Eaglehorn backup &c.

He also watched me lose to a Controllock that pitched 4 cards to Doomguard casts and got two VLs silenced, but still won because they gained 25 life and topdecked like a motherfucker. Man, Blizzard, fuck that deck. If I hit them for 43 dmg in 9 turns AND Silence their theme twice AND watch them throw 4 cards away to cast 5/7 dudes, I should win. That deck might be a smidge too robust.

I didn't think he was digging for Spellstone. He was probably charging it because he had one in hand. He was digging for GHP and/or Dragonfire. At that point, all he knew was that you were Hunter of some kind. You clearly weren't minionless, since you dropped first turn Mole. Even so, him Visioning on turn 2 is pointless unless he's Big Priest, since they're the only Priest deck that would be tossing spells around for little reason other than to charge a Spellstone. That's why I suggested Companion on turn 3, because there's only a 1/3 chance of you pulling something that's susceptible to Madness and you want to kill him before he starts pulling Statues out of the air and any of the three results would have allowed you to kill him on turn 5 or 6. His only real outs were Barnes into Statue or GHP that let him live for another turn or 2.

Jeb. Your post kind of supports my statement that Silence isn’t good in aggressive deck. If you have it techd to specifically win that matchup and it still doesn’t help you win then.... The only reason I can see to run it is to get through a taunt or silence doomsayer when your board is frozen. There aren’t that many taunts beside Void daddy and the doomsayer scenario isn’t much of a thing at the moment. If you are against another aggro deck that is budding minions like a mirror or murloc Pally you are likely better off trying to max your synergy than deny their. Silence only stops one buff. Tribal decks have too many ways to buff around your silence.

You quoted Firebat. It is also Firebats perspective that silence is not good. It was quoted a week ago in a video. But watch any of them and see what his build looks like

I hear you. I am not posting the times Silence does win me the games, just the ranty losses. I am at least 60% from 19 to 12 with this deck, it's meta-matching in those Ranks, at least. I have been lucky to dodge Paladins for the most part--one I saw was overly dependent on buffs (BoK) and got wrecked by DK Rexxar's Battlecry. The other rolled me under a tide of Divine Shields. I also lost to a old-fashioned top-heavy Zoo deck that cooked up Bonemares and Cobalt Scalebanes. I feel like I messed that one up somehow.

Jackwraith also thinks the deck lacks focus. I will try out different styles and let you all know the results.

And by "lacks focus", I hope you know I'm not trying to be critical of your building skills. I'm just saying that, as I watched, it seemed like you were packing too many different cards to do too many different things. Some matchups are just going to be poor and diluting the deck with answers to those bad matchups makes it worse in the games where it should be strong. It's kinda what MD is saying about Silence. I'm not wholly in agreement there, but it's the same point.

I totally get it, I am going to try more focused builds and see how things bear(shark) out. I used to play a lot of 5-Color MtG, and my deck was always GR Midrange, which is what Midrange Hunter plays like, for the most part. I should be able to do OK against everything. I don't auto-win against anything, and I shouldn't get blown out by anything. Mostly, I want a game, every time. This is probably not the best way to advance on the HS Ladder. It's better to spend a couple turns figuring out if you insta-lose and concede into the next match rather than drag out to see if your 45% roll hits this round or not.

I am coming to report a couple of new priest decks that have popped up as I know your unquenchable thirst for all things Priest. I don’t have the deck list but you will have more fun trying to make it yourself I would imagine. I am not 100% about the origin of the decks. Just going on what I know/heard.
First is HS Dog OTK healbot. Combo kill by corrupted healbot dying with embrace the shadow in play= 8 damage. Then you play Wild Pyro, double Twilights Call. First one rez one healbot as 1/1 and pyro kills it for 8 more damage. Second Twilight Call pulls two for 16 more damage and the kill. Need 10 mana. Rest of the deck is draw removal auchenai soulpriest and circle of healing. You can use combo pieces vs aggro and live. Saw him beat paladin in fatigue. Someone will come and say Zetalot invented it. Maybe. Dog has 12x the viewers and did it recently at high legend.

The other deck is supposedly of Chinese origin, so it’s probably not even a thing here. It’s steal all your shit priest. Pint sized and twilight acolyte reduce the attack for Cabal shadow priest to steal. Mind control x2. Curious glimmeroot and Operative to look inside your deck. It’s not combo kill with divine/fire. Saw RDU playing against it at high legend Asia and people knew what it was.

Zetalot didn't invent that OTK deck, but he was playing it pre-nerf a few weeks ago. As have I, I think I reported on it back there in the mists. It's fun as hell. He's also been running 2x Mind Control for days and days. Don't act like it's crazy for him to have played a lot of Priest builds, it's all he plays for like 6 hrs a day. He's in the mix when it comes to Priest decks for sure. The oddest one was a loss he took today to Temporus (on purpose in the deck, not just lowrolled from Historian!) They played Temporus, took some damage, had the board cleared, then on THEIR two turns, played a 4/9 Twilight Drake, TalonPriest it, then Divine Spirit/Innerfire and swing for 27 with some spell backups.

I actually took two screenshots of Zetalot decks this AM. One is teching for Eater of Souls and Acidic Swamp Ooze to deal with the scads of Aluneth Mages. the other is more Dragon focused, but has Dirty Rats and Book Wyrm for Warlocks. But both are heavy Control with the 2x Dragonfire Potions, 2x Mind Control, 2x Auchenai + Circle. Super greedy. Everyone is super greedy right now, it's a bit ridiculous. This was ~1000 Legend on EU I think.

If you want the best Mage decks, watch ApxVoid. Best Priests, Kolento or Zetalot. Asmodai originates a lot of decent Hunter builds. Dog is best with Rogue for my money. If Aggro is riding high, Ant is as solid as they come. Kibler is always playing Control of some flavor. I think Firebat or Purple are probably the most skileld players I see routinely streaming. Dog is excellent as well, but his chat is a fucking mess.

// Only six games so far with MoreBeastyBeast Hunter

• 12.1 L TempoMage; had to push when they got HALLAZEAL off Firelands Portal, at 1 life, they topdeck Primordial Glyph into cheap-enough-to-cast Blizzard for 12 life. Yep. An hilariously ironic start.
• 12.0 L Murlocadin, too many buffs, I have to trade and lose too much. Call to Arms finishes me off.
• 13.3 L Jade Druid; this was going fine until they gained 24 life with back to back Branching Paths.
• 13.2 W Control Paladin; I obscenely start with Alley Cat, Coin, Alley Cat into Scavenging Hyena. It was 10/6 by the end.
• 13.3 L Big Spell Priest; curved into Cobalt --> Spiteful Summoner for Free From Amber (Rag Lightlord!) --> Spiteful Summoner --> Free From Amber (Ironbark Protector). Wasn't going to win that one no matter what, I think.
• 13.2 W Big Spell Mage? Control Mage? Not sure, it was weird and bad. Spiteful Summoner was in there, but also Ice Block? I had a huge clear with DK Rexxar at the expense of my clock, but he started making big Bonemare'd things including a 7/5 Poison Taunt I needed to get through. I rolled a 7/5 Stealth and then an Owl the next to punch through. Heh, Silence.

Going to get at least 10 more and then switch back and see how things go.