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- Jackwraith
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- Ninja
- Maim! Kill! Burn!
No quests available, so I figured I might try out Miracle Priest:
Circle of Healing x 2
Holy Smite x 2
Mind Vision x 2
Pint-Size Potion x 2
Power Word: Shield x 2
Psionic Probe x 2
Embrace the Shadow x 2
Mind Blast x 2
Radiant Elemental x 2
Shadow Visions x 2
Shadow Word: Pain
Dragon Soul
Gilded Gargoyle
Shadow Word: Death
Unidentified Elixir x 2
Lyra the Sunshard
Gadgetzan Auctioneer x 2
Prophet Velen
Another version I saw a couple months ago had no Shadow Words and had two Potions of Madness and two Twilight's Call. I think it had another Gargoyle, too. The Calls were solely for the Gargs so you could get more Coins. I get it, but it sucks ass and leaves you wholly dependent on those Gargs to a) be played at a time when they're not throwing away three mana and b) leaves you defenseless against anything that needs to die quickly, since you have no Shadow Words. I think it also had Shadow Ascendant in there, presumably to be used to buff your vanilla dragons, but I figured they were too slow. So I pulled a Garg for something, dropped the two Madness for 1 each of the Shadow Words (I shudder to think what will happen to Priest when Shadow Visions rotates out), dropped the Ascendants for Elixirs, and dropped the Calls for Mind Visions, since the latter will be easier to cast with Dragon Soul and won't be a useless expenditure of 3 mana (since the 1/1 Gargs don't produce Coins when they appear, but have to wait around a turn to die. Seriously, I have no idea how that combo would be effective, even in this slow meta.) The Elixirs aren't the greatest, either, since I only have Radiants, Auctioneers, Lyra, and Velen in the deck, but I will hopefully be producing Vanilla Dragons that can also be targeted with them. (Notice what's missing here? That's right! Any card draw other than PWS (which also needs a minion target, but I can use my opponent's for that) and no way to ensure that Dragon Soul is, y'know, in your hand at the right time.) And, yes, I know they're called "Dragon Spirit" but, look, they're even colored vanilla yellow! They're Vanilla.
hsreplay.net/replay/fZgnuqvqkykqpsLntoEHTC
First game is against Big Priest. My opening hand is awesome: free PWS on turn 2 Radiant and then turn 3 Soul and start casting away. Of course, he topdecks the SWP. OK. Fine. Turn 3 Soul, anyway. I'm imagining that everyone I'm playing against will give the same response to Dragon Soul being played: "Wait... wut?" But they don't know! They don't know the (un)holy terror of the Vanilla Dragons!!! That's right! 5/5s that DON'T die to Dragonfire Potion. The OPness! At this point, I still have no idea what kind of Priest I'm facing, but turn 4 tells me when MV pull a Servitude. Thanks! I'll use that to resurrect some Vanilla Awesomeness! Second MV makes me happier than I've ever been to pull the Coin. I can see my turn 5 shaping up, so I use Visions to pull a Probe. Big Priest often doesn't have anything to do in the early turns without Barnes, but my opponent has spent 4 turns to play an SWP. Not great, Bob.
And there's the typically worst result on Elixir producing a Vanilla 1/1 which will be easily killed only to be revived by my new Servitude... Make that two Servitudes. So there's a 7/7, 1/1, and a 5/5 on turn 5 and I still have 5 cards in hand. It's like playing Druid or something! He's still not getting what he wants, so he drops Mass Dispel on turn 5 to take 2 attack off my 7/7... and add 4 attack to my 1/1. Vanilla Powah! I bet he didn't think that through. Or maybe he just desperately wanted to draw into Dragonfire Po-... Oh, wait. Turn 6 finds me in the same situation as my opponent. I do 15 damage (Cubelock!) but have nothing to cast and waste 6 mana (and tempo!) and pass. Then my opponent Essences out N'Zoth and I'm not really sure what kind of Big Priest I was facing, since he's definitely not among the 5 minions I would play in one. He can't stop the tide of Vanilla and concedes.
hsreplay.net/replay/TCCxdmfLQUN7M2cp4GLSYC
Then I'm up against Frost Mage which, y'know, seems bad, since this is a mostly (vanilla) minion-based deck and Frost Nova ruins my day (Proper vanilla ice cream is served at a temperature above ice so that the intricacies of the vanilla can be experienced.) However, I do have Velen and Mind Blast in the deck, so we'll see where it goes. Opening hand is again great (I wonder if I should just hard mulligan for Soul in every game?) except for Lyra, who gets replaced by an equally lame (at the moment) Gadg. You want to sit on the Visions and Probes in this deck to a point. You obviously want them for Soul activation, but they still serve their original purpose of both intelligence and possible resources. If my opponent starts faster, I can see using them before the weapon comes out but I didn't have to in these games. One card I'd really like to find space for is SWH, precisely for sequences like these early turns. Not sure what to cut for it, though, especially since it's a 4-cost spell. The Soul comes out on turn 3 ("Wait... wut?") and I start the Vanilla Train rolling on 4 with the Coin used for the SWP I just Visioned that removes the Artificer who, again, is far more dangerous than most other Mage creatures, since it lessens my Vanilla Impact.
He's like "Yeah. You're a 5/5. Whatever." and keeps the weenie beatdown coming... after he helps my cause with Coldlight Oracle. Sweet! Thanks! (The latter two word phrase must also be uttered as the Dracula player in Fury of Dracula whenever the Investigators hand you a Dracula card. It's in the rules.) More Vanilla OPness comes out on the next turn as I begin to clean up his board. He's clearly feeling threatened now. (The crowd that cheers for hits on players can clearly be heard beginning to chant "Va! Nill! A! Va! Nill! A!") Then he does Simulacrum and it's my turn to do a "Wait... wut?" Was he Quest Mage who accidentally mulliganned the quest? (I, uh, may have done that before with Shaman...) I Vision an AI, which I don't need, and then Glyph a Free from Amber which is cool as long as it gives me a Faceless Behemoth (10/10 vanilla, yo.) The other Glyph offers a FfA, too, but i figure I'll take SWH in case he's some kind of Freeze Swarm deck and just Simulacrumed a Juggler or something like that. (I'm kidding. Kinda.) With that in mind, I clear his board when I probably should have been going face. This ain't no aggro deck, so I guess I'm playing control (kicks rock.)
He Blizzard-Artificers and now has twice my life total. Yay, him? I use the FfA and pick Ultrasaur. It's one less attack than the Giant, but it takes a helluva lot more to kill (other than Meteor.) He Glyphs his way into Flamestrike but without the mana to cast it, so the Nova comes out. I gladly Smite the second Artificer... and realize I was going to throw away the SWH, anyway, so I should have Smited face. I'm one mana short of a fifth member of the Vanilla Awesomeness brigade, but I heal my guys past the impending Flamestrike. FLJaina arrives and I'm all: "Legendary, huh? OK. Here's Lyra." More Vanillaness and a lot of damage. I didn't get an SWP, but I did get a Silence, which is good enough. I know he's got the Block up, so now's the time to apply pressure. He Glyphs into Frostbolt and even a silenced Elemental heals him, which is fine, since I have total board control. I draw Elixir which, I'll have you note, puts a Va! Nill! A! at 7, meaning I get him down to one health and can pop the Block at that point. Symmetry? Destiny? You be the judge. I fumbled around a bit in my last couple turns, trying to figure out the best way to handle my excess of riches. He plays coy and puts another Secret up, trying to convince me that it's a third Block. I cover my bases first and then take him out. Clearly, this is the deck that will take me to Legend.
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- Jackwraith
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So, yeah, Dragon Soul decks are still DOA. It's interesting that, with the exception of Val'anyr and Skull of the Man'ari, none of the other legendary weapons have really made a splash. For all that people complained about acquiring two class legendaries, it's clear that they made most of them so niche that they're either pointless to attempt (Dragon Soul, Rhok'delar), are severely overpriced for what they do (Runespear, Woecleaver), have severe drawbacks that will bite you about 50% of the time (Aluneth), or are simply less efficient at what they do than other cards (Kingsbane, Twig) or deck designs. Oddly enough, you can say the same about most of the other class legendaries except for Kathrena (kinda) and Rin. Where before epics were the province of niche (read: useless) design, now it seems to have passed on to legendaries. Is this how they're approaching the problem of needing them to play certain decks? By making the converse of the Un'Goro problem (i.e. yes, you need them to play those decks, but why would you want to?)?
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- Matt Thrower
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- Shiny Balls
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Burned through the first seven bosses like shredding tissue paper. Go the Beholder-type boss which was new to me. Stole its entire hand with a spell. So it pulls a Doomguard on me. So I put up a divine shield with a taunt, which it promptly steals. So I blitz the board with minions, and it kills them all with a "damage all minions, kill all damaged minions" combo. Doomguard proceeds to pummel me to death.
Part of the issue with the Dungeon Run is the huge step up from level 7 to the final boss. Most of them seem almost unbeatable - my one victory was an almost total fluke against the card-discard one: the last card it left me was a Wish. It's a tremendous disincentive to put in all that play time when you know that 9 times out of 10, you're going to fall flat trying to beat the final encounter, whatever you do to prepare.
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This one is for you JackWraith. First 15 minutes are Zalae demoing a combo Raza Anduin deck that runs the legendary weapon. It looks like a blast. I think I have everything and haven’t messed with Dragonsoul yet. I will come back in couple of days and let you know how it goes. Right now I am just stuck between 11-14. Just win streak into losing streak. It gets so frustrating when that next plateau is within grasp and you grab for air.
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- Jackwraith
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Anyhow you gotta try it
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It looks like Team 5 learned their lesson from the Freeze Shaman debacle because spell Hunter works really well, in multiple decks. Even without all of the cards - well, he does have DS Rexxar - my son's deck performs well and is a blast to play. It's so easy to bait removal with Alleycat into Razormaw/Hyena before transitioning into secrets and then the fully-upgraded spellstone. It's great to have your opponent play a Bittertide Hydra on an empty board only to counter it with four 3/3's. I've also got some time in with Barnes Hunter and I can say with certainty that I never thought I'd see that deck.
In the same vein, I really like what they've done with Warlock in KnC. I'm not even talking about Cubelock - which is powerful but looks like a kind of boring race-to-the-combo deck - but more about the self-damage synergy that they've decided to explore rather than doubling (tripling?) down on yet more discard nonsense. My son pulled a Jaraxxus recently and I had to search a bit for a current zoo deck that runs Jaraxxus but not Bloodreaver Gul'dan. What's interesting is that it has 2x Fungal Enchanters (Battlecry: Restore 2 Health to all friendly characters) and 2x Happy Ghouls (costs 0 if your Hero was healed this turn). Turn One Kobold Librarian into Turn Two Coin + Fungal Enchanter + Happy Ghoul is pretty good. And even if you don't manage that draw it's not hard to pull off that two-3/3's-for-3 combo at some point in the game. The deck's biggest weakness is it doesn't have any big AOE's so if you lose the board you're pretty much done
The deck also runs a Pit Lord (WHAT) which my son gleefully reminded me he'd just dusted but I subbed in a Hooked Reaver and that seems to work fine. This deck isn't too bad against Dragon Priest as long as you can play around their removal (Kobold Librarian + Vulgar Humunculus is nice for baiting SWP and/or Duskbreaker) before playing the Enchanter + Ghoul. I had a lot of fun coaching him last night - it's his first "good" Warlock deck - and I liked seeing the lightbulb go on when he started to see how to combo things and how to set up his opponent's board to be cleared by Despicable Dreadlord, etc.
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- Jackwraith
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This is why I keep saying on the subReddit that some kind of insight to their approach would not only salve the more irrational aspects of the community (maybe...), but would also lead to a better understanding of why they do things. Why push the Frozen mechanic for Shaman for one set and then ignore it in the next one? Why push the Frozen mechanic with such an underwhelming selection of cards? Why nerf Hex when Shaman has no other deck option but Evolve? Like discard, they've been pushing the Overload aspect with the last couple sets, too, and no one wants to play that without Tunnel Trogg, either. I think their biggest failing is an apparent unwillingness to communicate in the way that the other teams do. Teams 1-4 plus Heroes and OW are constantly elaborating upon why they make decisions as they do, both in general approach and in tuning. What we usually hear from Team 5, barring an epic disaster like Purify, is how any kind of change is confusing for casual players...
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That's the kind of issue I want Team 5 working on. They have such a bug up their ass about keeping things fun, but it's not fun when every good card is Rare or better. Arena can only keep you going so long. I remember playing MtG, and years and years after 1994, Giant Growth was still pretty good and worth including in multiples. It's nothing amazing, it's just pretty good. How many Basic cards still see that kind of use? Checking card usage at HSReplay....
- Northshire Cleric
- Backstab
- Hellfire
- Shadow Word: Death
- Mortal Coil
- Power Word: Shield
- Shadow Word: Pain
- Novice Engineer
- Loot Hoarder
Looking at Basic Class cards for each class, which I can interpret as how well the core design of the class is contributing to its use, considering the Top 10 cards used by that class in Standard...
- Priest: Northshire Cleric, Power Word: Shield, Shadow Word: Pain
- Warrior: Shield Block, Execute, Fiery War Axe
- Mage: Fireball, Frostbolt, Arcane Intellect
- Warlock: Mortal Coil, Hellfire
- Hunter: Animal Companion, Kill Command
- Druid: Wild Growth, Swipe
- Shaman: Flametongue Totem
- Rogue: Backstab
- Paladin: None. (BoK was 12th)
Looks like they nailed it with Warrior. Too well, given two of those cards got nerfed and are still key to the Hero. Those last couple tiers though, that means they missed something in the basic design of the class. Only ONE or NONE of the cards you get for showing up are worth playing once you get settled in this game?
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www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1020359-savjz-weasel-quest-priest
There is another deck called killer priest that tries same strategy with leper gnome.
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- Cranberries
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- D10
- Don't give up.
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*Weasels die and go in their deck.
Cube sends a Weasel and makes more Weasels.
Twilight's Call could make two Weasels!
Mirage Caller makes a Weasel, or better, a Cube that makes TWO Weasels.
Brewmaster that Mirage Caller--time to make more Weasels.
Once they play a Weasel, Potion of Madness makes them get another Weasel.
N'zoth for Weasels.
If they load up on Weasels, and you can't steal them? Psychic Scream the Weasels into their deck (along with more Weasels)
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- Jackwraith
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I like it, but I lack Zola, Elise, and Herald Volazj. Who the fuck keeps Herald Volazj for the past year-and-a-half?
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