Hearthstone Players!

Not Sure wrote: Alright, I'll play theory and disagree.

"Optimal" is a tricky thing. Many cards are included into a deck because they have synergy with the other cards. So running two is to help the chances you'll get the real one that you need, not just "a card that's worth more than it costs".

I mean, if we could run 30 Piloted Shredders, would it win?

This is right. Deckbuilding is about finding cards that work together, not just good cards. On paper, Abusive Sargent is an average card. In a deck like Zoo, it's a key card and that's why two of it are played in almost all Zoo decks (and most aggro decks (Hunter, Paladin, etc.)) But then "optimal" can have varying meanings, right? Sargent can be considered optimal for a weenie deck needing to break through taunts or get the kill. Meanwhile, Dr. Boom was considered "optimal" for every deck in the game because it was the best card in the game on the 7 drop (although less than optimal for aggro if you had it sitting dead in your hand for six turns.)

As I argued when League was released, Reno is a dodge. The meta was insanely fast and counter to both control decks, in general, and new players entering the game. Reno made a bridge for both of those problems, because if you can just stall until turn 6, you reset the game and the aggro player has 1 or 2 cards left (assuming that you draw Reno, of course.) Furthermore, it encouraged new players to get in because you only needed 1 of each "optimal" card, rather than 2. They solved that problem for good by finally getting into set rotation so that Standard play is more easily accomplished for new players just needing the more recent cards. Plus, getting rid of the OP cards in GvG and Naxx means that the other problem is solved: the game can actually last more than 5 turns on a regular basis. So, yeah, Reno was a trick when he was first created to solve problems and he's just a different kind of trick now, just like C'Thun, which is also intended to both slow down the meta (encouraging slower control decks based on vanilla minions that lead to a kind of combo goal) and give new people an easy way to jump into viable decks. It's not a bad approach. You're just not going to ladder yourself to legendary with it. I doubt that doing so with Reno is possible anymore, either, since many of the one-off power ("optimal") cards that made those decks competitive are now gone.

A Battlecry canceling effect would be interesting, especially given that Battlecries are still the only things that avoid the targeting rules (i.e. you can kill a Faerie Dragon with Disciple of C'Thun, but you can't Smite it or Fireblast it or whatever.) Sounds more like a Paladin Secret, though (Follow the rules!)

My thinking is that enough cards will be made that are functionally equivalent, but literally distinct, that the need to play two of the same card for optimal play will go down, as Reno's value stays the same. I.e., you can play an extremely effective Control deck with 15 2-ofs or you could play an almost-as-exactly-as-good Control deck that has "60 life." Just spitballing here. I think a decent counter argument, honestly, is Mill.

Anyway. The talk lately is how "the metagame has slowed," i.e., the kinds of decks of decks people are playing are lumbering long-play decks because we all want our N'Zoth/C'Thun/Malygos late-game effect to "go off." So, if you want to get some wins on the Ladder, you should seriously consider Aggro. I.e., decks with low curves, lots of offensive minions to try and end the game fast. Most of the lumbering decks out there are not running a lot of actual Taunts until north of 5/6 mana, and you might have things wrapped up by then with a low Aggro curve. I used some crummy Paladin cards to do this (recharging with Divine Favor). You might find success with FaceShaman or Zoo as well. Just a thought. I killed someone from 20 life on turn 8 or so with my biggest minion a 2/3. Honestly--I think the opponent was on auto-pilot, as she killed a 3/1 Dude when she could have killed a 2/2 Knife Juggler. They both represent 3 damage per turn, given Juggling, but the Juggler is WAY more dangerous and explosive.

I agree synergistic beats good any day. That's why renounce darkness doesn't work well. You get a bunch of cheap random cards from another class and then may as well have been playing in the arena for all the synergy you are randomly going to pull from those cheap cards. A good ladder deck should take it down 9 out of 10 games.

I agree with your latest sentiments about a Paladin deck. My weenie Druid doesn't fly in standard. But I like the idea of playing weenie Paladin and using Paladin buff spells to pump Minions as well as the minions that buff minions. I really like minions with deathrattle summon another minion. That way you almost always have material in play to buff into something better. I like to buff before I attack and they are readied... I hate to buff a guy I just cast... Usually... I learned this trick with the weenie Druid. They will overlook a 2/2 and go face.. Then you can divine shield and or BOK your weenie and take him by surprise. I tried messing with a Murloc heavy deck as I have all the murlocs. They are easily wiped though with their small butts... Straight zoo is where I am headed next. I like that control paladin into Anyfin with the good Murlocs, but lack the Doomsayers and some other key control combos that Paladin runs.

I have tons of Yogg experience now. Still liking it for some decks.... Good in warrior! The key is to play him under the right circumstances... It helps if there are 3-4 other minions on the board for spells to target... It helps if your hand isn't full or your deck is almost empty.. You optimally want to have played 6-10 spells befor you drop him..... Don't get greedy and Brann him or play lots of spells! What should happen is you will wipe the board, take a little damage, draw a few cards, gain a couple of secrets. I keep getting my hero flipped to shadow priest. I haven't been Yogged by others too much but one time was hilarious. Guy was Warlock and renounced into rogue very early. Mid game we were fairly even.,. He drops Yogg and it casts Astal Communion and pitches seven cards.... Cue sardonic game show trombone...

Ya. Twin emporer Vek lor.... If he shows up and I don't see an answer in my hand I quit and start another game. That is a solid card.

Moonkin Druid is my thing at the moment. I crafted Fandral Staghelm (4 mana 3/5, your "Choose" cards have both effects) and was having trouble getting it be effective. Watched Hotform (Canadian Pro with a Timmy bent) play this and bit the bullet on Bloodmage Thalnos to finish it off:
2x Innervate
2x Moonfire (trust me)
2x Living Roots (Fandral!)
2x Raven Idol (Fandral!!!)
1x Darnassas Aspirant
2x Wild Growth
2x Wrath (Fandral!)
2x Swipe (Fandral!)
Lx Fandral Staghelm
2x Jungle Moonkin (aw yeaaah, Moonfire for 3, Swipe for .... like a billion)
2x Nourish (F A N D R A L)
2x Starfall (I feel bad when I use this on some big Taunt they just summoned to protecHAHA PSYCH Fandral)

Lx Bloodmage Thalnos
Lx Elise Starseeker
2x Azure Drake
Lx Emperor Thaurissan
2x Gadgetzan Auctioneer
Lx Yogg-Saron, Hope's End

You start slow, but who cares--everyone starts slow these days. Then, man, your removal just takes over the game. Moonkin is pretty cheap and then Swipe for 6 then 3? Starfall for 7, or Flamestrike? It's awesome. You draw a LOT of cards too--the opponent sometimes leaves Auctioneer out because they need to deal with Thaurissan or the Moonkin or whatever fresh hell you got from Raven Idol. It's wild. Yogg is a fallback plan--I used it today at 5 life to clear out a Deathwing and attack with Bite (again!) and my Huffer for the win.

//Just played a game where I had a 4/1 Azure Drake, a 4/3 Jungle Moonkin and my topdecking Shaman opponent gets Hex and has to cast it on my Emperor Thaurissan. The Spell Damage carried the day, as I was able to Starfall the first Flamewreathed Faceless for 7 and Starfire (off Raven Idol) the next as well.

@Jeb I am currently on a mission to move up the ladder with a weenie divine shield Paladin . Where do you guys reprint those deck lists you post here? Anyhoo... This deck is Steward of Darkshire based. with rallying blade.. the merlocs that spawn a second 1/1 merloc and such. Blood knight has not done much for me so far, but another Paladin played one against me and got 15/15 out of it. May need to cut Blood Knight, but if I don't use him here, where can I use him? Doing well enough with this deck that I think its a keeper that can take me a few rungs. I am running with the idea that synergy is where it is at and that you need the draw to see your combos and get them played. Paladin divine favor is one way, Warlock is the other. The other classes struggle to keep up draw-wise so I reckon they are more reliant on getting the right cards thru turn 5 or Warlock/ Paladin <should> eat them alive. Like warrior, for example if he isn't going to live to drop his twin Veklor because he can't brawl out a stacked board turn 5, it's game over.

However, I ran into the exact deck you described this am. Was rushing him down, he had 11 life turn 5 or 6, then he Fandraled my ass without lube. He drops Fandral, innervate and Starfall and wipes my board. This was turn 6 for me and I had a hammer of wrath and a consecration, so it would take me two turns to clear Fandral. NO GOOD. if you are playing a druid, you better have a one turn clear for that bastard. His next turn he plays two raven idols and two power of wild, thus buffing his Fandral beyond the reach of consecration. Then he just doubled up and kept wiping minions as fast as I could cast them and killed me.

However, he only turned it around because he drew his Fandral early enough -and- because Paladin doesn't have a 5 life killshot. The only other game I saw that guy I was mage and blasted Fandral right away. Was probably the only game against druid I have won this season. Is Fandral deck a one trick pony? Can you win if you don't see him or he gets blasted and you only use him once? However, Druid is bad ass, at least the ones i see, right now. My opinion they have the best C'thun cards.

Yeah, weenie Paladin is really effective right now. BTW, your 5-damage killshot is your shitty guys + Equality. It's not awesome or anything, and wouldn't have worked here given the board clears, but that's what I pack for games where they make big Taunts. It was even better with Muster For Battle. (sniff) The site I use to post decks is HearthPwn.com. It's a Curse site, so it is just LADEN with bullshit loading in the background. I must recommend a rigorously defended Ghostery if you plan to head over that way with regularity. Whitelist F:AT and other decent site please. I even Whitelist a small section of non-horrible ad servers like The Deck.

The new Druid C'thun decks can be a pain in the ass, for sure: the 5/7 Taunt for 6 (Dark Arakkoa) and the 4/5 for 4 that becomes a 4/10 if your C'thun has 10 Attack (Klaxxi Amber-Weaver) are a pain to deal with, but I've also come to hate seeing the neutral C'thun buffing cards as well, like C'thun's Disciple (2/1 for 3, Battlecry: Deal 2 damage.) and Twilight Elder (3/4 for 3, Give your C'thun +1/+1 at the end of your turn). I think the one I hate most is the 4/2 for 4 with Divine Shield (C'thun's Chosen). It's very awkward to deal with if you don't have a cheap way to pop the shield.

That being said, I hate playing against new Mages most of all. Everyone's running multiple removals whether it's to stall for C'thun or Yogg. Yesterday when I faced a Mage in one of my games I saw 2x Blizzzard, 2x Frostbolt, 2x Polymorph and 2x Flamestrike. It's kind of hard to play around all that when they're willing to Blizzard only 2 minions because they know their deck is full of spells.

I'm still tinkering with my Hunter deck. I crafted Call of the Wild and have even started running Gladiator's Longbow which is so far an OK replacement for a second Call of the Wild, especially when I need to handle some large health taunts. I added 2x Tomb Spider and 1x Jeweled Scarab for card draw, and the fact that Tomb Spider can discover Princess Huhuran and Scarab can discover Forlorn Stalker is a bonus. I did that with Scarab yesterday and was able to hit a Highmane three times with Stalkers before it hit the board as a 9/8. But my favorite moment from yesterday was in a game against a C'thun Druid who cleared my board for the second time and I followed that up with Sylvanas on an empty board. He then played Vek'lor and it twinned, so I played Huhuran on Sylvanas to steal one of the twins before Deadly Shotting the other. Edit: I've also teched in a Stampeding Kodo as a one-of to deal with various annoying minions (Brann, Mirror Images, etc.). His underwhelming vanilla stats can be mitigated by his big butt and the Beast tag, especially with a Houndmaster follow-up.

I wish I had Herald Volajz because I was thinking that I'd like to try it as an additional trigger in my Naga Sea Witch/Faceless Manipulator/Blood of the Ancient One deck. Priest is better suited for stalling and control than Rogue so I think a Priest BotAO deck has a better chance of surviving to the late game.

And I'm still sad that I opened 2x Giant Sandworm and still can't figure out how to make it do anything except give me 200 dust.

I've still been playing my aggro Pirate Warrior. I'm down to one Arathi Weaponsmith. I've got 1 Ravaging Ghoul as tech against the Warlocks, Hunters, and some Paladins. I run 2x Bash, 2x Heroic Strike, and 1x Mortal Strike to help get me there. With no healbot around, it's mostly Paladins and Mages that mess with the math. Mirror Image is super annoying.

SebastianBludd wrote: The new Druid C'thun decks can be a pain in the ass, for sure: the 5/7 Taunt for 6 (Dark Arakkoa) and the 4/5 for 4 that becomes a 4/10 if your C'thun has 10 Attack (Klaxxi Amber-Weaver) are a pain to deal with, but I've also come to hate seeing the neutral C'thun buffing cards as well, like C'thun's Disciple (2/1 for 3, Battlecry: Deal 2 damage.) and Twilight Elder (3/4 for 3, Give your C'thun +1/+1 at the end of your turn). I think the one I hate most is the 4/2 for 4 with Divine Shield (C'thun's Chosen). It's very awkward to deal with if you don't have a cheap way to pop the shield.(

Klaxxi Amber-Weavers and C'thun's Chosen were killing me as Priest today. Priests really struggle against 4/* minions, as they can be Shadow Worded. I actually have to play minions and contest the board. Blech. I think Control Priest is done. There's no way to clear a board of decent midgame minions anymore. It was nice to have a Paladin look at my board of 3/1 Auchenai Soulpriest and 6/2 Corrupted Healbot and decide to Truesilver the Healbot. Felt real good.

Great game right now. All kinds of cool stuff. Things will settle as decks get optimized, but nothing jumps out at me as really powerful and limiting. Control Warrior is still good. Freeze Mage is SUPER OBNOXIOUS, but Eater of Secrets will hem it in if/when it gets more prevalent. Druid's C'Thun build is really tough for some decks. Probably unwinnable. I still need to spend time with Shaman Aggro and Hunter Midrange/Control.

Actually got to play Anyfin Can Happen today. It actually made the last 20+ games where it didn't come out or wasn't playable worthwhile. Other player conceded on the spot.

I'm closing in on enough wins for a golden Mage running classic and a Yog deck. Some heartbreak (when the 5 drop random spell guy throws Astral communion and Yog is already in your hand) but mostly been good for me.

Pro priest tip: don't play both of your Northrend Clerics early if you are facing a priest

Brewmiester wrote: Pro priest tip: don't play both of your Northrend Clerics early if you are facing a priest

This is knows as "Going full Northshire." The wise advice is "Never go full Northshire." I had an opponent steal my Northshire with Cabal Shadow Priest when there were like three minions on each side of the board, including her own Northshire! I look at my hand of Wild Pyromancer, Circle of Healing, Injured Blademaster and Flash Heal and do some math: Wild Pyro, Blademaster, Flash Heal on Blademaster, it's healed (Draw 2), everything is injured. Circle of Healing heals 8 creatures (Draw 16), everything is injured, Hero Power Wild Pyro (Draw 2). Didn't make it through the Draw 16 part though, the opponent slipped and hit Esc -> Concede.

Praise Yogg! Saved again when at 1 life! This was with Moonkin Druid vs Some Wonky Paladin. I got Mirror Image to hold them off, Healing Touch on my beautiful face, My deck was empty, so I was worried about fatigue obviously, but motherfucking GANG UP took care of that, Shadow Madness, sure! Oops, now I have Shaman Hero Power thanks to Renounce Darkness (made a Taunt totem!), dang my cards fly away to Astral Communion, nevermind, they're back thanks Raven Idol, Power Overwhelming on Yogg, OK, ooh three Animal Companions, yeah holy shit how crazy is this game.

jeb wrote: It was nice to have a Paladin look at my board of 3/1 Auchenai Soulpriest and 6/2 Corrupted Healbot and decide to Truesilver the Healbot. Felt real good.

PSA to all Paladin players: Don't do that. Unless you feel like healing 2 and taking 14 to the face. What part of "restore Health now deal damage instead" is lost on you? But, no, I can see the slip up. You get excited about getting the big guy off the table "and I'll get healed!" Oh. Wait. Too funny.

I haven't been playing as much in the last couple days because I got distracted by a new season in D3 and the Shado-Pan skin for Li Li in Heroes. Plus, 1st season starts shortly in Heroes (big secret announcement that everyone already expects due tomorrow), plus 2 new Heroes, one of which may be Onxyia. Or Nefarian. Or Ysera. Or Kalecgos. People can't decide what the ominous shadow really looks like. Pretty sure it's not Deathwing, though.

I'll get back into the cards, though. I still want to play more Paladin of the bubble aggro and crushing control (LIVE, INSECT!) variety.

I have 10k gold in HotS.. I'll ask about that in the other thread.

Had a Shaman quest today, so tried a couple of games with Totem/Battlecry/Evolve type things. It was bad. I was always behind and needed Evolve miracles. I actually got one once, but that's not a good way to play. I switched out for a more strictly control deck and got two solid wins over a Cthun Control Mage and a Midrange Shaman. I went with a Dragon build because as long as I can survive to turns 6,7,8, I should be able to turn almost any game with nice Blackwing Corrupter/Flame Elemental tempo plays. I am backing those up with Master of Evolution, who's either amazing if converting a pretty-much-dead guy into a healthy buffed one or solid as a Yeti (4/5 for 4). Late game sees Ragnaros the Firelord or Ysera come in as mop-up detail.

There's a lot of room for improvements in the build--it could go bursty with Bloodlust for example, as closing the game is slooooow; or even more controllish with Healing Wave, Elise Starseeker and other snoozy stuff.

Seems like you're at cross purposes there, depending on 4 dragons to activate your Corruptors but no do much else until you hit turn 9 with half of them. The reason that Dragon Priest works so well is because even if you draw the Whelp late, he's better as an activator in your hand than out of it, so he's not the dead card that he would be in other decks. And Hallazeal... I don't know, man. Your experience may differ from mine, but I just don't see the worth of that card, especially since you have HAVE to make tempo plays with your spells because of their nature (Rockbiter) or Overload (everything else but Hex.) And, of course, neither of those mentioned will activate Hallazeal, anyway. I think he's a trap card. You're just depending on too many factors to make him worth the cost unless you are going full-on control and have the time to sit on your hand.