Hearthstone Players!

Yeah, I agree that Warsong is a bit of a warping effect on the design space (compare to MtG's Dark Ritual, which shaped that game for years.) I think Hearthstone could solve some of these kinds of problems by introducing more kinds of play--only expansions, and so forth, but that's still gotta be a ways off.

I also like how Jexik points out that Grim Patron Warrior is still a good deck. It was an amazing wrecking ball. Now it's a good deck. At that tip tip top top end, it's gone, this killed it. But for everyone else, it's now a cool, fun thing to play. If you look at other decks that got nerfed by card changes (Miracle Rogue and Deathrattle SMOrc), those just evaporated. I think Grim Patron Warrior can poke along for a little bit.

The saddest part about this is that my RazorHobo deck died too. That one really needed that hasty Frothing Berserker to work. Oh well.

This Brawl is either feast or famine with the abundance of ridiculous RNG flying around. My very first match was my best when I was able to play a Turn 2 Tirion into a Turn 3 Mysterious Challenger, but other than that it's been a slog. If you don't get to play a lot of big, fun minions while your opponent does, then playing this Brawl feels like opening present after present on Christmas that's nothing but dress socks while your cousin gets $100 Lego sets, video games, RC cars...

I'm still plugging away with my Shaman deck to see if I can learn how to play it well enough to make it as consistent as it can be. I've stopped being so greedy with Totemcarver such that once I started thinking of her as being a better Yeti and playing her as a 5/5 - instead of holding out for another turn and trying to reach for 6/6 or 7/7 - I've had better luck.

I just started playing this game and I love it. I have no idea what any of you are talking about

1) turning some bruiser into a sheep is so satisfying

2) Some guy had a zillion healing cards and came from near death to crush me. Did he buy those or is that just part of the standard deck?

I thank you in advance.

craniac wrote: I just started playing this game and I love it. I have no idea what any of you are talking about

You'll figure it out in short order. The biggest hurdle for me, after learning the cards, has been trying to identify what type of deck someone's playing based on the first few minions they play. I'm still figuring it out.

craniac wrote: Some guy had a zillion healing cards and came from near death to crush me. Did he buy those or is that just part of the standard deck?

If the card doesn't have a jewel beneath the portrait it's a standard card, if it has a white jewel it's a common, blue is rare, purple is epic and gold is legendary. Cards can be gotten from packs - either bought with cash or gold, the in-game currency - or crafted with dust. You get dust by disenchanting (i.e., destroying) cards for a fraction of their crafting cost. You can only have 2x of each card in a deck so you want to dust your duplicates and cards with a gold border don't do anything special other than give more dust. They're not worth holding onto unless they're an epic or legendary you need.

craniac wrote: I just started playing this game and I love it. I have no idea what any of you are talking about

1) turning some bruiser into a sheep is so satisfying

2) Some guy had a zillion healing cards and came from near death to crush me. Did he buy those or is that just part of the standard deck?

I thank you in advance.

1. It is immensely satisfying. Shaman turns bruisers into Frogs. Good times had by all. Except maybe for the new frog owner.
2. You can't buy cards in this game, which is weird if you are coming from something like Magic. You can buy packs, packs have random cards and more than half the time it's 4 Commons and 1 Rare. There's no gain from having more than two of any card in your collection, so it will nudge you to disenchant those into "Dust." Dust can be used to craft cards. 40 dust to make a Common, 100 to make a Rare, 400 to make an Epic, and 1600 to make a Legendary card. Playing gets you gold, gold gets you packs of cards (and dust), dust gets you cards, which go into decks and you play. The cycle.

That healing guy could be a couple of different things. Probably Priest, but Shaman, Paladin and Druid can also heal up for days. Just keep plugging away through the Solo Adventures, unlock all your heros to level 10 to get all the Basic cards and by then a lot more of this thread will make sense. Welcome aboard, man, the game is amazing.

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I just inventoried my collection using a spreadsheet on Google Docs. I am missing 142 unique cards (300 if I want to get 2x of the non-Legendaries). I have 98.57% of the commons, but only 33.33% of the Legendaries. It would take me just over 152,000 dust to craft those 300 cards! The best packs for me to buy are Classic packs, as they have the best chance of getting me new cards and having the biggest "dust" impact on missing parts of my collection.

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Interesting Tavern Brawl this week. It's a Build-Your-Own-Deck, so favors established players, but the theme is a new Boss Hero Power every time you use it. These powers are pretty cool. You might get 3 1/1s. You might get a 7/7 that hits for 2 whenever someone plays a card, you might deal 1 damage to all enemies and get a 2/2 slime for each that died. And the late game turns into a power-into-power-into-power fest. I have a Warlock Quest, so I just brought Danksteed in because its internal synergies are so strong it doesn't matter what my Hero Power is. I think decks heavy on Inspire will do well generically, so if you have some of those cards, go for it.

I built a pretty standard midrange Paladin deck but I made sure to include my one copy of Garrison Commander (can use your hero power twice per turn). I drew him on turn 3 or 4 so I just waited until after Turn 6 and shit rapidly got dire for my opponent. I got Maexxna's power twice in 3 hero powers (Return a random enemy minion to your opponent's hand) and that proved to be decisive.

I like this Brawl from the perspective that, yes, there's the hero power RNG but there's still room for skilled play. Of course, we'll see if I'm still singing that tune after I'm the one getting hosed by Maexxna's hero power in the next few days.

Broke the Tavern Brawl with Astral Communion.

2x Innervate
2x Dalaran Aspirant
2x Savage Roar
2x Saboteur (for the Mirror!)
2x Astral Communion
2x Hungry Dragon (in case you get that "Kill a Minion" power and they have no minions)
2x Maiden of the Lake
16x Whatever else you want, really.

It's insane.

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I put some "weights" on my collection, indicating how much I want to actually get the cards I am missing. I.e., I don't have any Ogre Warmauls (I disenchant them instantly) and I don't want any Ogre Warmauls. So that scores a 0% for the first one, and 0% for the second copy. Ancient of War, I 100% want the first copy, and I 50% want the other. With this in mind, I need about 71,000 dust to get the cards I want. I still get more value from Classic packs than anything else, but if you factor weights, I want TGT packs more than GVG packs. It's pretty cool if you are patient enough to fill it out. Google link . It's explained on this Reddit thread .

I like numbers, so I filled out the spreadsheet. Not too bad if you filter on "classic", "gvg" and "tgt" in order.

I'm missing 136 uniques, and 306 total playables. There are apparently 3 commons I don't have any copies of, and 17 commons I'm missing in total (97.56%)

My Legendaries are 27.59% (including some that should probably just be dusted), and things range pretty normally in there.

The biggest thing that stands out is how shitty my Priest and Druid collection is (~75% uniques) and how stupidly flush with Shaman cards I am (93.33% of uniques, 83.91% of playables).

I'd have to spend 121620 dust to get all the uniques, but only 161680 for a full set. I haven't fooled with weightings yet.

Oh, and TGT decks are apparently what I should be buying, followed by Classic. I didn't do the 50-pack pre-order, so there are still some holes there.

I have fleshed out a lot of my collection with this tool. I still should be buying Classic packs, but only just barely. TGT is making its case and I'll probably switch over in five or so packs.

Had some tough games on the ladder yesterday. My Dragon Priest took a Handlock into fatigue but couldn't hold on against the piles of Giants. My kingdom for a Lightbomb in the endgame there, jeez. I switch to Dragon Mage and have a long fight against a Freeze Mage who was out of burn, or so I thought when a Pyroblast took me out. I bet they had a second Ice Block, so it probably wouldn't have mattered--they should have been able to find something. But still, I had weathered the two Ice Barriers, an Ice Block, and a Healbot. I hit them for 60 or so. That's usually enough for the win.

I was romping with Astral Communion in that Tavern Brawl, but it was getting tired. I had Rogue quests so I tuned up a Mill Rogue and it was awesome. All those Hero Powers either make a zillion dudes that Vanish obliterates or have tiny butts that Fan of Knives wrecks. With no weapon, I played without Deadly Poisons and Blade Flurries, but it was fine because of how crazy the Hero Powers were. Never faced an Astral Communion, but I took out Paladins, Rogues, a Warrior, a Mage and a Warlock.

Back to the grind.

I finally have a decent Priest deck for dailies and I felt bad playing it yesterday, it's such a troll class. I was doing the Priest bullshit I hate playing against: Northshire Cleric, Injured Blademaster, heal Injured Blademaster, doubling health, adding health to draw, all that shit. It was fun Light Bombing to flip the game against a Warlock, though, that was awesome.

I also set a personal best for damage dealt. I was playing against a Shaman and they got Healing Wave to go off twice, as well as an Antique Healbot for a total of 66 HP I was finally able to burn through with my midrange Hunter deck.

Lightbomb is sick. Minions either have a high attack/small butt, making them aggressive and vulnerable to Lightbomb; or are used for board control with low attack/big butt, meaning the opponent will damage them against your minions, making them vulnerable to Lightbomb. It's one of the best answers to Dr. Boom, it can set up good clears against sticky minions like Highmane and Haunted Creeper. Only thing it's not good against is the 4/12 Dragons, and that's what Shrinkmeister+Cabal Shadow Priest is for. It's a must-have Epic.

Another game, another loss to lategame Pyroblast. What the shit. I haven't seen that card in months and I lose to it twice in three games?

Played a couple of rounds tonight, since the end of the month is coming.

On one, I gave some FaceHunter a FacePaladin beatdown.

On T3 I hit a Haunted Creeper with a Shielded Minibot, then play Muster. He responds with 4 hounds, and sends them all to my face. I respond with an Armored warhorse, and send a bunch of now 2/1s to his face, and start picking off hounds with the 1/4 hammer.

Sure, I could have used a Consecration, but it was so much fun watching him panic and start trying to manage the board after T5 when I dropped a Silver Hand Regent and summoned for two more 2/1 dudes. That was the end of his face shenanigans, and he wasn't prepared for a mid-range fight.

Getting some things back on track here. Switched out Dragon Warlock for Danksteed. And it is daaaaaank. I don't have Mal'Ganis, so my finisher is... Raid Leader. I know, I know. I just have so many weenies between Imps and Dreadsteeds. I crafted up my second Dreadsteed to pull this off. Took out Zoo like a sucka. They can't handle the Sacrificial Pacts on their big damage dealers. Also beat a Hunter who seemed confused.

This deck starts like Zoo with small efficient minions, Nerubian Eggs, a Mistress of Pain, Imp Gang Boss and keeps things relatively tidy until turn 8 when you want Dreadsteed, Baron Rivendare, and a Sacrificial Pact for 5 life, two Steeds and the Baron. Try to get more Steeds, but you need two because Silence will make you cry. After that it's just poke away with your immortal weenies.

I was trying out Dragon Mage, and messed with it a little to push to Giants. It plays like Tempo Mage-lite for a while (sans Apprentice and other stuff) and then starts dropping fatties protected by Effigy. Beat a Tempo Mage with it and some funky Deathwing Druid. It's a mess right now, build wise, but it's a good time.

I haven't logged on at all this season, as I've been playing a ton of Heroes and the current environment just doesn't inspire me. Maybe I'll make an end-of-season stab at it, but considering all of the posts I see on Reddit or from sources like Kripp talking about the incredible wave of aggro that was unleashed by the nerfing of the Patron deck, I'm not sure it's where I really want to spend my time. Kripp had a hilarious clip the other day of him playing Demon Handlock against an aggro Druid. Druid went turn 1 Leper Gnome; turn 2 Roots, Roots (Kripp at 28, plays Ancient Watcher); turn 3 Savage Roar (takes Kripp to 15 and kills the Watcher, Kripp plays Voidcaller); turn 4 Savage Roar, game. A turn 4 kill and he didn't even use the Coin. Granted, that's a god draw, but Kripp was playing a control deck that had literally zero chance of surviving and turn 4 is only a couple turns earlier than the average kill for aggro these days. It's crazy.

I like Dreadsteed. You can do some hilarious things with it. Mal'Ganis does seem to be a key card, though.

I was interested to see the class distribution of the decks for Blizzcon . 12 Druids, 8 Hunters, 7 Paladins, 7 Mages, 4 Warriors, 4 Warlocks, 3 Rogues. Oh, and 2 Shamans and a Priest. The fact that 2 of my 3 favorite classes are at the bottom may be part of my disenchantment. It's not to say that choices of pros determine everything about the game. Far from it. I just thought it was a good glimpse into which classes qualify as "competitive." The one Priest player is Dutch and it looks like Thijs is trying to throw people a curve, since he's a long-time Druid player. The two Shamans are both from China. I've seen Pinpingho's Totem deck and it's solid enough, but has no draw except a single Azure Drake. He's also running double Valiant, which I find borderline incredible, but the meta is probably quite different in China, so...

Aggro reigns in the high legend ranks on the Asian-Pacific region I am led to believe. The so-called "Chinese Priest" came from there and that was just weenies and Lightbomb to clear the way. I think they were the first to embrace what we all now call Aggro Druid and it's ridiculous turn 4 wins off Living Roots and luck. Not surprise to see a Totem Druid from there, it will probably be nuts. The American and EU servers' top ranks are all super-controlly by comparison. "Who can deck each other most reliably" seems to be the watchword.

I am still enjoying the game, though. Some recent last turn losses have been tough, but that's because I am just not willing to push push push to ranks higher than 15 or so. I could play my Midrange Hunter and make it to 10+ with confidence season over season I am sure. But it would get stale. I'd rather goof around with jank from 13-17 and have a good time, making every game a puzzle. I have been playing challenges with hellahazen87--I don't actually remember if this is a FATtie or a rando, but s/he's always fired up and trying hard. Not the best decision-maker, but playing great decks, so the games are usually close. That's a good reality check, the enthusiasm is infectious. Crashes my iPad 2 so hard though.

I think I am going to storm the Ladder with Holy Wrath now. We'll see what the Tavern Brawl brings...