Hearthstone Players!

Jackwraith wrote: I'm still not that sold on Totemcarver simply because it doesn't do much to the board state when it arrives and is utterly dependent on that board state to make it worthwhile. Would you pay 6 mana for a vanilla 5/5 normally? No. I don't want to be forced to push the slot machine button on turn 6 solely to make my 4/4 worth more, y'know?

Paying 6 mana for a totem and a 5/5 would be a worst-case scenario where I'm either very behind on the board or I'm in top-deck mode. I don't play it early when I can be playing Piloted Shredder and Fire Elemental, and the way people (usually) ignore totems it's not that hard to get it to come out at 6/6 or 7/7. Totem Golem + DT with a totem already on the board on Turn 6 is a fun play.

Jackwraith wrote: But if it's working for you, then it's working for you.

It's working in my very small sample size, yes. I'll probably toy with it some more in Casual to see if it can handle top tier decks, but it probably can't. I have no idea how I'd try to tackle Patron, Handlock, or Druid; but it's at least a really fun deck when it's clicking.

I never liked the Totemcarver--my kids swear by it though. It seems too "Frostwolf Warlord" to me. I want it to be huge, but then they'll kill it, and it blows in top-deck mode. I think I'd rather have Valiant just to avoid a (more) ruinous Lightbomb.

Here's some math to think about: If you have three Totems out, a Totemcarver gets you 7 damage the next turn for four mana. This isn't going to happen on turn 4, practically ever, as you'd have to have a pretty cooperative opponent to just yield the board to your totem pile. But you can surge up a whole bunch later, admittedly. In contrast, at seven mana, with those same three Totems, a Thunderbluff Valiant gets you 11 damage the next turn, and maybe 6 this turn assuming they weren't just played.

Anyway, stick with Shaman. I think playing Shaman makes you better at Hearthstone.

I think that playing Shaman makes you better too. I have been playing Warlock (just got my 500th win), trying to climb the ladder. I went on a 5 game win streak and just lost to Warrior because I couldn't draw a taunt card or hellfire.

I got it to work... a little. It's crawling. And I had two games poop out. And there's an echo on all sounds. But, hey, I finished a couple of Hunter quests! On that note, Mid-range Hunter is pretty sick when it curves out if you need to win a Tavern Brawl. On THAT note, I got all salty against a couple of perfectly curved MechMage decks on the ladder. I thought I was "over" that deck, but no, it's still the most annoying deck to me. I would rather face SMOrc than watch some Mage roll Chugger into Tinkertown Technician into Goblin Blastmage. Fuck those guys.

Control Warrior is my most feared matchup. I don't know if I play a deck that can beat those guys. Just too much lifegain. If I can get my board into shape enough to start making a dent, they Brawl it away. It's lucky it's so expensive and boring or it would be everywhere.

jeb wrote: Control Warrior is my most feared matchup. I don't know if I play a deck that can beat those guys. Just too much lifegain. If I can get my board into shape enough to start making a dent, they Brawl it away. It's lucky it's so expensive and boring or it would be everywhere.

I've beaten an excessively armored up Control Warrior only once. Hell, it may have even been my recent Shaman deck. Anyway, I had board control with Dr. Boom and some other guys, he Brawled it, but he was never able to swing the game. I got some more big guys out and by the time I was swinging with 7/8 damage at a time with two minions he was at about 11 HP and 26 Armor. Beating him down from 37 total health felt so good.

A nearly impossible to beat Druid build for this tavern brawl....
1. Shieldbearer 0/4 taunt
2. Annoy O TRON 1/2 divine shield, taunt
They protect alarm o bot so he can do his thang.

3. Alarm O Bot
4. Astral Communion- you pitch your hand and gain ten crystals

The rest of your deck is filled with huge Legendaries and the biggest nastiest cards in your collection.

That might be better than the one I was playing!

1. Dragon Egg
2. Mark of the Wild
3. Acolyte of Pain
4. Astral Communion

I had the Win 5 Brawls Quest. Won five brawls.

Alastair MacDirk wrote: A nearly impossible to beat Druid build for this tavern brawl....
1. Shieldbearer 0/4 taunt
2. Annoy O TRON 1/2 divine shield, taunt
They protect alarm o bot so he can do his thang.

3. Alarm O Bot
4. Astral Communion- you pitch your hand and gain ten crystals

The rest of your deck is filled with huge Legendaries and the biggest nastiest cards in your collection.

As far as I can tell this loses hard to mech mage when it goes second. At least that's what's happened to me.

Ok I admit that build can fail if you go second. You fall behind too much unless you draw huge taunt.

AI just beat an ancestral knowledge built Druid with mill rogue. I am all about mill rogue these days. It so much fun to play to survive until someone runs out of cards instead of playing to kill them with regular damage.

You can Mill the fuck out of people in this TB because the only Achilles to playing mill rogue is not drawing Coldlight Oracle in the first twelve or so cards. You just make sure the only 3 cost card in your deck is Coldlight and voila! Make sure you mulligan for shadow step or gang up.

I am like 12-2 with Mill Rogue so far.

Warsong Commander {3}
2/3
Your Charge minions have +1 Attack.

Mind you:
Raid Leader {3}
2/2
Your minions have +1 Attack.

Warsong wasn't nerfed--it was obliterated.

Yeah, that is a little harsh. The commentary that accompanied it specifically cited "future design" considerations, which means that more Charge minions will be coming, but right now the card is essentially unplayable. There's a running opinion thinking that Emperor Thaurissan will also be getting a hit from the nerf hammer sometime in the future for the same reason.

At its root, the main problem is combo. Without interrupts/instants/some way to do something on your opponent's turn, it's too easy to get those combos off and then your opponent is helpless (aka non-interactive cards/strategies.) In that same commentary, Blizzard mentioned that the "heart of the game" is minion combat/board control, which combo specifically avoids, so combos will regularly get nerfed, which reduces the deck archetypes to three: Aggro, Midrange, Control, which I don't mind since I've never been a combo fan, from my MTG days on up. But I'm surprised that they hammered the card that hard. Patron decks will still be playable to some degree. They just won't be OTK decks. With that in mind, there's almost no way Warsong could have remained in its current form without being ridiculously expensive for a 2/3, in the same way that Starving Buzzard is now the blatant outlier for a 3/2 (and is also basically unplayable.)

I don't mind there being combo decks out there, but Blizzard's "solutions" for them are weak from a development perspective. In other CCGs, combos are normally held in check by "discard," which is anathema to Blizzard. So they hem themselves in by not tolerating discard or "instant" speed effects barring secrets, and then trash cards to avoid the damage. I am not super-impressed. I noted this before, the problem with "Grim Patron Warrior" isn't Grim Patrons or Warsong Commanders or Frothing Berserkers. Like all the other combo decks they have had to nerf (Starving Buzzard Hunter, Miracle Rogue) the problem has been cheap card draw. And GPW has the amazing Battle Rage.

Everyone talks about Tempo, Value, and Board Advantage in Hearthstone. But with evenly matched decks and players; the game will come down to card advantage. Did I see more of my deck than you saw of yours? All those videos of GPW killing folks with two Sludge Belchers up and 40 armor or whatever--look at the GPWs deck. It is either empty or nearly so. They will get ten or more cards deeper than the opponent. Well NO SHIT they won the game. They have their whole deck in hand--the answers are in there somewhere.

As combos go, I didn't mind GPW that much. It was well-telegraphed (Gnomish Inventor, Unstable Ghoul, a long-held final charge on Death's Bite). And it couldn't do it's thing until turn 7 at the earliest, and only then with a fortunate Emperor activation or the Coin. It usually wasn't an OTK at that point either.

I feel like they fixed the wrong part of this.

But, honestly, now that I think about it, I can see what they're aiming at here. The problem isn't Grim Patron; it's just enabled by Warsong. The problem isn't Frothing; it's just enabled by Warsong. The problem isn't Battle Rage, either, since it requires a specific set of conditions to maximize its use and those conditions are often to the detriment of the player (i.e. damaging your own minions, which remains a theme for the class.) The problem is the universal application of Warsong. Think about it: Every time they made a 3 attack or less minion and especially one that could be boosted over that, they'd have to consider its application with Warsong and whether they were breaking the game again. It's just like the Undertaker nerf. They nerfed him not just because he was omnipresent but because they could never make another Deathrattle minion without making him even more powerful. Same thing with Warsong. Remember that she got nerfed once before because she used to apply her ability to EVERY minion, such that Warrior decks would just sit back until they could drop Warsong, a Mountain, and two Moltens and OTK you. Same thing was happening here.

If you nerf Battle Rage, you not only encourage Warriors to not engage in one of their themes but you also reduce the effectiveness of cards like Whirlwind and Death's Bite that are staples in Warrior decks. It's also the ONLY class draw card that Warrior has available to them at the moment and we all know how badly that lack afflicts Shaman (unless you'd like to not be able to cast the cards you drew with Ancestral Knowledge...) Also, Patron is endemic in the upper part of the ladder and every pro in the game brings it to tournaments. Every pro. There's actually some variety among other class selections in a Conquest format, but every pro not only brings Patron but tunes their other decks to deal with it. That's a bad environment. Patron decks can still be played. They just won't be OTK Patron decks. That OTK condition was applied solely by Warsong, which makes her the problem.

This week's Brawl is Randomonium and it's pretty bad. Pick a class, get a random deck, and then the costs of cards are randomized (lower) as well. Basically, it's a value race (i.e., you want more for your mana than the opponent gets), and most of the value comes from the Brawl format's RNG. I conceded on Turn 2 to a Mage who went:

• T1: Kirin Tor Mage (+3), Coin, Old Murk Eye (+3). No free Secret though, at least. Could have been even worse.
• T2: Archmage Antonidas (+5).

I think I played a Cutpurse for 1, so +1 for me. She was TEN MANA UP by Turn 2. No thanks. This is a 1-win week for me. In there and out of there.

Warsong was really good, but I think there's still a lot of strong things happening in the Grim Patron warrior deck. Yes, it's crazy to swing with a 20 attack Frothing Berserker that just got played, or to attack into 2/X's with the patrons and immediately attack with a fresh one, but I've won games without Warsong, especially once I stopped waiting for it. You can get 4 patrons on turn 5 or 6 with Inner Rage, Whirlwind/Death's Bite no problem. They're gonna be 5/1, 3/2, and two 3/3's. That's a strong turn 5 board, especially if you just cleared their 4 or 5-drop with your Death's Bite. And as jeb pointed out, the card draw engine is still intact. Battle Rage is so good, and so are both of the weapons used. Execute is such a good card with all of those whirlwind effects around. I'm not sure what will replace Warsong... maybe something that just creates value and protects your guys, like a belcher. Or maybe Axe Flinger, lol.

I did a search for Charge effects, and there really aren't very many! The commander should be a 2-drop with the new ability.