Hearthstone Players!

Bonemare goes to 8 mana from 7.

I like this a lot. Seven mana for 9/9 stats and a big hasty Taunt (usually) was undercosted. I am frankly a little surprised this made it through the Dev cycle like this. I bet is was a Beast and Druid/Hunter were murdering everyone with it, so they took that off and called it a day. I like that they kept the effect as big as it is though, Control is not viable without it outside of Warlock.

Raza now puts your hero power at 1 instead of 0.

Huh. Did not see this coming. This seems bad now. The Raza effect is the key to the "combo-style" version of the deck that sets up for a massive kill-you-from-24 burst built on Velen and Mind Blast (poke 2, Velen, Mind Blast 10, Poke 4, Holy Smite 4, Poke 4 = 24). Now The Raza player needs to duke it out more traditionally, which leads to a more Controlly game, which leads one away from the bad cards required for Raza uniqueness. It also makes ME want to play Raza decks again, which tells you it's officially not top tier.

Patches loses Charge (Apparently, they're changing the voice line, too. To what? "I'm... just kind of here now.")

Good. Patches makes for shitty short games. It would be nice to not have to think about Golakka Crawler every time I build a deck.

Corridor Creeper's attack will be 2(!) I mean, sure, a 2/5 for free isn't horrible, but that card will just immediately disappear from every deck that it's currently in.

This card becomes Hunter-only as a natural play and Shaman Evolve will probably play it once Jade rotates away, as "free" 7 cost minions are still good for them. Huge blow on the current metagame though.


Going to see a lot of Cubelock, though, damn. Invest in Silence/Polymorph effects.

Everyone knew a Corridor Creeper nerf was coming, but 2/5 seems harsh. 3/5 might have been better. I was expecting the stats to stay the same but the cost to go up, personally. Anyway, the new version will still likely see play in Hunter, Druid and Shaman so, that's fine.

Bonemare also fine. It's common and neutral so the only "problem" is the sheer number of decks it was in. Just needs a bit more careful consideration now before including it in a deck.

Patches is, also fine, I think.. He's been fun to run but I was just thinking today how dumb it is that I run a Warlock deck with pirates in just to use him. So it's probably time for his last charge. That said it might still run in Warrior and Rogue decks just for the synergy and the card thinning and that's probably where he belongs. Unsure as to whether to keep mine since he rotates out in a while.

Raza I didn't see coming. I'm delighted because I loathe Highlander with a passion, it's a shit mechanic that results in shit decks and shit games. But from a more objective standpoint it feels a bit unfair. The deck is Tier 1 but it's not OP in the sense that almost nothing can beat it.

But although I like all the changes, I fear this patch may be terrible for the game. All the top decks take a hit here except Cubelock, which is now at the top of the tree, unchallenged. I'm astonished they left that one alone and I suspect they'll come to regret it and the deck will dominate for months. I guess that answers my question about whether it's worth crafting the cards: I'll get to it.

I agree that the proper nerf for Creeper was probably cost. I thought briefly about a 3/5, too, and realized it still would have been dominant in aggro decks because it could kill Voidwalkers in one shot. I thought Bonemare was fine. Everyone anticipated it on turn 7 and you just had to prepare for it. But pushing its cost to 8 won't see it diminish in any significant way; turn 10 Bonemare, Hero Power is still fine in most control decks. I'm more than fine with the Raza change. As noted, I didn't like the deck, but the upper tiers are positively glutted with that and Cubelock. The Raza combo embodied the other side of my disdain for cards like Ice Block. If I'm in a dominant position in the late game, which means I've been in a dominant position for most of the game, you shouldn't be able to completely reverse it with one card. Ice Block gives that opportunity and so does Raza. Burning someone down from full life is simply ridiculous. It's even worse when you can do so to Druids, Mages, and Warriors, all of whom have turned to big armor decktypes solely because of Razakus. Patches... meh. He's far less consequential now than he was last year. It's really just a value thing, at this point.

But despite it being all the rage at the moment, I don't think Cubelock is going to be the terror that everyone perceives. With less viability of Raza, there are aggro decks that can come through a little more powerfully, since their small guys can't be machined-gunned down as effectively. Believe it or not, Cubelock is quite difficult to play well, and the omnipresence of things like Cube and Voidlord may encourage the increase in Silence effects. I've been surprised that Hunter and aggro decks haven't re-adopted Owl since Kobolds. Yes, it's a 2/1 for three, but it's also a Beast and an incredibly useful minion in this meta. I was thinking about replacing Spellbreakers with Owls in my Paladin decks, simply I have cards that take advantage of 1 health minions and they're easier to play with buffing effects.

Speaking of dominant decks:

His editor (again) hits a high point starting at around 3:10. Too funny.

Ultimate. Timmy. Moment.

hsreplay.net/replay/iqvAgik5kq2cRw8madZTje

Had the Play 15 Overload cards quest, so I brought out the Oversuck deck. This was the 1 game in 100 where Overload and the Spellstone actually paid off. I was fine leaving a Sapphire in my opening hand, since it has to be there to be used and there are few convenient ways to activate them, unlike a couple other classes. But then I ended up with both in my hand. But I was just playing to finish the quest, so it's just about playing cards. I wasn't entirely sure of the focus of my opponent's deck other than ramp and armor. He was playing Medivh, which would imply playing big spells to activate Atiesh, but I didn't see any. So, I'm assuming Druid Control of some sort.

We spent the first few turns doing absolutely nothing of consequence, until he played the Sprite and I Portaled it, just to be able to do something. Plus, I'm always hoping that the Portal pulls something like Dire Mole or Wax Elemental. No such luck this time. On turn 4, I Coin out EE, because I have Healing Stream in play so I can try to repair him from any poke damage until I can play a Sapphire. But he ramps into Malfurion... and for some reason summons beetles. WTF? Now he's backpedaling against a 7/8. Maybe he assumed that I had Lightning Storm in hand? But since the Druid Spellstone is much better than Shaman's, he builds a board and clears the EE with basically no trouble at all two turns after I summon it.

But if he thought I had a board clear in hand, why would he waste two charges of Atiesh on Swipe and Jade Blossom to clear crap? He ends up with a board full of crap that I completely sweep with Volcano. I then toss the Lightning Bolt just to fully charge the Spellstone for the impending Timmy plays (and because I'm trying to finish my quest and get off this stupid deck, Jayne!) Crushing Hand is played a turn later for similar reason and to remove an annoying 3/6. And then... the moment arrives. Turn 10, overloaded by 3. EE comes down, followed by Eternal Sentinel to free up the 3 overloaded this turn and next turn. Ancestral on the EE. Can you feel the orchestra arcing toward the crescendo? He Plagues and Oakens a Tar Creeper. Ha!, he thinks. Spend 3 or 4 turns getting through that with your 7/8! But, unfortunately for him, not only did the Timmy-God set up the perfect Sapphire Spellstone. It also allowed Far Sight to draw into something useful for once. That's 4 Ancestral Recalled 7/8s, followed by clearing your whole board and hitting your for 10. Lethal is, uh, on the board. I was going to cast the other Spellstone for a little BM at the end, but he wisely moved on to another game.

Shaman gets a hard time but it can make the best boards. 5 or 6 Kelthuzads, Earth Elementals that poop out Earth Elementals, 10/10 Taunts, whatever. This is how the game should be played.

Jackwraith wrote: But despite it being all the rage at the moment, I don't think Cubelock is going to be the terror that everyone perceives. With less viability of Raza, there are aggro decks that can come through a little more powerfully, since their small guys can't be machined-gunned down as effectively. Believe it or not, Cubelock is quite difficult to play well, and the omnipresence of things like Cube and Voidlord may encourage the increase in Silence effects.

Sure Cubelock is tough to play, but it's not that vulnerable to either Silence or aggro. To leverage the latter, you need a lot: not just to silence Voidlords but also the Cubes that spawn Doomguards. And it's got a lot of defence against aggro: Defile is extremely powerful at clearing boards of small creatures, as is Hellfire, and the Lifesteal spellstone isn't to be sneezed at either.

I guess we'll see. Meta prediction is fun, but it's hard to call correctly.

I would have been fine with making Patches Warrior-only, but stripping him of Charge is nice. I'm also okay with the Raza and Bonemare nerfs, and I'm glad they're nerfing Bonemare now instead of just leaving it until the rotation.

As for poor Corridor Creeper, this image I made says it all:




Hardly anyone's going to run CC anymore. The Beast tag means that Hunters might want to run them, except that they often find themselves top-decking due to their lack of draw and a 2/5 for 7 in the late game is awful.

I've been playing Hunter lately (Spell and Recruit) but mostly I've watched my sons trying to hit Rank 15 for the first time. The older hit it a couple days ago but the younger is struggling around 16-17 where he wins a game, drops a game, etc. Both of them are getting a lot better at seeing lines of play but I keep trying to get them to play less greedily because they're constantly wanting to hold on to Secrets because they don't have the spellstone in hand or they don't want to tempo out a minion (Razormaw, Duskbreaker) because they can't proc the Battlecry.

SebastianBludd wrote: I've been playing Hunter lately (Spell and Recruit) but mostly I've watched my sons trying to hit Rank 15 for the first time. The older hit it a couple days ago but the younger is struggling around 16-17 where he wins a game, drops a game, etc. Both of them are getting a lot better at seeing lines of play but I keep trying to get them to play less greedily because they're constantly wanting to hold on to Secrets because they don't have the spellstone in hand or they don't want to tempo out a minion (Razormaw, Duskbreaker) because they can't proc the Battlecry.

YES. Tell them I also struggle with this. But here is the solution: look at the cards' stats. If it had no abilities, would you play it for these stats on this turn? Ie, does playing a 3/2 for 2 make sense here? If it does, play the card. I dealt with this a lot with SI:7 Agent and Aldor Peacekeeper. It sucks to not get maaaaximuuum vaaaalluuuue but losing sucks more. Sometimes you just need a body on the board.

And the Hunter Spellstone is good enough stats to always be playable (6/6 for 5).

OK, so I've spent a while running Cubelock now and I better eat a slice of my own humble pie. It's a powerful deck, but it's very dependent on getting the right cards out in the right order. If you can't get a Voidlord out early and you've exhausted all your mass damage spells, you're toast no matter how well you play the deck.

It's especially vulnerable to aggro Paladin, because it can put out so many minions, so fast, and then use your full hand against you to redraw.

My experience was similar. I finally forged Skull and ran through a few games with it and discovered that it's just this side of a combo deck. You CAN try to hit other minions with the Cube, but if you want to win, those minions really need to be DGs, as even putting out successive Voidlords only delays your opponent. It rarely stops them (especially if they happen to also be playing Warlock.) I think the deck is very cool, but I also think that people are, like most humans, remembering the bad beats over the average games or wins. Very few top tier, unstoppable decks from the past had multiple cards that you wanted to sit on (Cube, DG) for multiple turns in order to execute the deck's win condition.

Regarding Cubelock. I am of the opinion that it has no bad matchups and no good ones. It's entirely draw dependent which is a lot more than you can say about most decks. I was mid rank 3 and watching Cifka try to make legend in 24 hrs NA server. He was stuck at 3 too trying all kinds of aggro to ladder quickly. He switched to Cubelock and did better. So I decided to switch off Spiteful Priest which matches up OK w Razakus and Cubelock. I ran Cubelock and went on one of those amazing win streaks to rank 2 five stars. I was thinking Cubelock was going to take me to legend finally, I was making all the plays and drawing all the cards.

Then I lost 7 in a row.

VS paladin I mulligan anything for defile and hellfire including the weapon. If you can't clear by turn 5 you are dead turn 5.

MacDirk Diggler wrote: I was thinking Cubelock was going to take me to legend finally, I was making all the plays and drawing all the cards.

Then I lost 7 in a row.

I hear you. I started running my deck on Monday and now, maybe 20 matches later, I'm still at exactly the same star count as when I started. Not had a single win streak, and I've lost exactly as many as I've won. The number of times I've drawn Possessed Lackey after every single demon is astonishing.

I suppose a 50% win rate par for the course when learning the ropes with a powerful deck. Doesn't help that everyone else had the same idea at the same time and a shocking number of those games were mirrors.

Thing is, though, that reliance on card draw makes is surprisingly addictive. It's got that "next time", feeling in droves. As in "next time I'll draw a Lackey before the demons". That helps make it fun, so I guess I'll keep as a staple while the rest of the meta settles.

Excited to see what pathetic rank I can get and retain under the new ladder system.

New season, same old shit? Maybe. I had 2 wins remaining on a Dominance with Priest or Paladin quest (I had been smoking people with Big Priest until I was too sick with the flu/norovirus/food poisoning (a dozen people sick with something from a party on Sunday, but all at different times and all with different symptoms and durations; weird) to continue) and a 30 Paladin cards quest, so I decided to pull out my Handbuff deck. I lost the first game before I noticed that it has relatively few Paladin cards, compared to my other Paladin decks, so I switched to Call. In the course of three more games with that, I've encountered Control Shaman, Razakus, Control Warlock, and Something-or-other Paladin.

The Shaman was Stonehill Defender and then every Shaman card you'll ever see in every Shaman deck (Devolve, Flametongue, Thing from Below, Mana Tide, Fire Fly, Lightning Storm, Jade Lightning.) If that's not an absolute condemnation of the last two sets for Shaman, I don't know what is. Of course, when you use 60% of the cards on a useless theme for the class (Freeze) that will never see the light of day and then do absolutely ZERO follow-up on it in the next set... yeah, you're probably not going to see anything original for a while. I still lost the game because I drew Patches and Handbuff in Paladin still kinda sucks and also got jack-shit from Kobolds. I'm including Val'anyr in the jack-shit, mind you. Despite my yearning for the card and my expenditure of 1600 dust for it, my buyer's remorse continues. It along with all of the weapons except the Skull remains a fine example in meme cards, to date. The only common points between Handbuff and Call are the weapon, Righteous Protector, Rallying Blade, and the two Big Ts (Tirion, Tarim) and the only one that still sticks out as an "I could have played a lot of better things than this" is Val'anyr. Serious doubts, engaged.

Example : In the win over Razakus, the pressure was on and I was probably taking the game, Kazakus potion or no, but I could've either a) dropped a Stegodon and maybe finished him right there with a good result or b) dropped the Stegodon and gotten a way to resist his ability to clear with a good potion. Instead, I played Val'anyr which let me clear his totally superfluous Raza. He got a 5/5-draw 2 potion and I just hit him in the face and equipped my TOTALLY USEFUL UNIDENTIFIED MAUL, JEB to give my peeps +1 attack and killed him, anyway.

The loss against Control Warlock was a pretty good game. I probably should have won, even though his opening Coin-Gnomeferatu got one of my Equalities, which would have been handy. But I should have won because he was playing Bane of Doom. Attention, Warlock players! That card sucks ass. It occupies the spot once inhabited by meme Epics and now occupied by the weapons of Kobolds and Catacombs (aka meme Legendaries.) There are so many genuinely bad and often inconsequential demons you can get from it that it's simply not worth 5 mana to do 2 damage and is often outright detrimental to your gameplay. Hellooooo. Howlfiend! He didn't have that awful luck. Instead, only getting a Street Trickster, which did jack-all for improving his position in terms of executing his Lackeys or removing my weenies. Bad card is bad (aka RNG.) The thing that finally ended the game for me was a Lich King I couldn't remove. Also, I ended up losing the Val'anyr when I had no creatures in hand (and precious few cards.)

Pretty sure the Paladin deck was a bubble deck, because he went 1st turn Kodo Secret, 2nd turn Tainted Zealot. Someone should tell him that if you are going to stoop so low as to use Paladin Secrets, the one you want for a bubble deck is Redemption. Most bubble minions don't have Battlecries, so you want your minions returning to the board with bubble, not your hand. Not much else to say about this one except that I played turn 3 Coin-Call to Arms to his turn 3 Zealot and he played turn 6 Crystal Lion to my turn 6 Tarim with 5 other minions in play. Yeah.

I finished both quests with that game which, according to the Reddits, means I'm not doing it right if I want to win 3000 packs, since I've potentially spoiled my 1/day entry. What they don't seem to realize is that if you finish any amount of quests, you'll get a new one each day, so if you finish that one, you'll still enter once per day... just as they intended. I'm surrounded.

Ooh, I would love to hear more about minmaxing my chances at 3,000 pazzzZZZZzzz ..zZzz..z.z.z......zzzzzzz
Complete Quests, earn chances. Got it.

Hey, man. It's not like I was walking around saying Val'anyr is great and Mauls are shit. (Was I? /checks, NO, in fact, I wrote: "...good and not easily matched in other decks play for play. Not to mention buffs you might get from your Unidentified Maul." HA) Paladin is just kind of bad. The early game rushdown is their best strategy, but their lategame cards are so good. You end up with this weird midrange pile. I feel like maximizing Val'anyr onto Leeeeroy must be worth doing though. That's 10 for 5.

I queued into Wild this AM by accident with Standard Big Spell Priest. My opponent was Quest Raza Priest and got Raza online, made a bunch if DRs, and had Amara in hand, but quit when I wrecked them with a well-timed Duskrider and kept getting free monsters from free Free From Amber off the Spellcaster guy. I had two Mind Controls in hand waiting for Amara, so it was all going to work out anyway.