Starting decklist in pictures. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the 8 mana slot... until I saw Violet Wurm! I played on my phone and the only thing I have is the final match on HSReplay which doesn't even show the win/loss totals. Oops. You can see the final decklist in the replay. It was not great.
No worries, in it for the fun, not the site gold. I'll try to create this deck in heroic if I get a chance. I think it could do well... I just got terrible choices in treasures (aside from Cannibalism) and bundles throughout. Think I went 4 or 5 wins, it was pretty poor.
Those changes to treasures are really needed so I'm happy to see them. I haven't played much in Duels! (or HS in general) because balance seemed pretty terrible. Getting the treasures noted here was a huge advantage. Builds without them had a massive, uphill battle.
Love the changes to HP Mage. I still love playing Spell Damage builds and HP builds. I think these changes will definitely boost the HP build in the format. Reckless Apprentice is such a powerful card and the combo with Wyrm Bolt can be a great swing turn. I'm excited to try it, especially with several of the most egregious balance issues being addressed with this update.
Also, Sick article Avalon: keep up the good work! ;)
I tried a few classes and did poorly overall, but it was definitely fun. 5 wins with a Questline Rogue (of all things! lol) was my best. The others were more minion heavy builds using Darkmoon Statue that weren't very good. However, I added him to my next non-challenge run with my favorite DH token build and it was quite effective there. Forced me to use a card... and realize it had potential elsewhere. :)
I definitely want to jump in early on the next challenge. Someone msg me if I don't show up!
Great article and many great posts. These questlines are simply too quick to complete, making them incredibly consistent and reliable. The Dr. 7 suggestion in the article is a very reasonable start. Those 80+% stats in wild make UTHunter look soft.
Questlines for Hunter, Warlock, and Mage are just too efficient and consistent in Wild. Each of those decks WILL close out the game by turn 9 at the latest Turn 6-8 are on possible quite easily, as well. They are all far to reliable. These nerfs do nothing to stop that, as I rarely see Stealer of Souls and the decks running giants are able to drop Molten Giant alongside the Flesh Giant.
A necessary change, as it was an auto-pick as a first bucket treasure. Even with this change, it may still be OP and need to be "Neutral minions you play..." or "in your hand" get the buff & discount to prevent token interaction.
I'm out for a while. Aggro vs Quests that are completed and then auto win by turn 6/7 just isn't fun.
The quests are even worse in wild. Hunter/Mage/Warlock over and over and ALL 3 cycle through their entire deck. It feels like a repeat of the busted decks that abused Gadgetzan Auctioneer.
I auto concede when Lock drops T1 quest in wild. Maybe enough of that will prompt faster action since they mentioned the high rate of similar concedes when nerfing priest a few months ago.
I appreciate the work the devs have put in, either way. Balance isn't an easy task and the process is so much better recently.
The Demon Seed needs to lose lifesteal. Warlock has too much life gain to make the self-pain matter much.
Either way, the meta doesn't feel good at all. When combo decks are closing out games prior to turn 8 it makes the deck choices binary and that's boring AF.
2 days in and I'm already out. lol. I keep facing the same 2 decks (QLock & QMage) and they are both completely stupid. Cycle through everything, discount everything, SD for mage and constant heals for lock while doing so. Neither need to reach turn 8, ever.
I suspect they'll see auto-concedes similar to what caused them to nerf priest a month ago.
It appears Garrote Rogue has entered the competition to beat Mage for position of best single player deck.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we get a hotfix nerf for both of those decks within a week. I don't think we've ever had a meta were combo decks are faster at killing you than the actual aggro decks.
At least garrote may actually be a bug because the bleeds for some reason works with spell damage.
I think so too because I read on reddit that JAlexander said that the bleeds don't work with Spell Damage since that interaction had been removed back when Hakkar came out...but apparently Rogue doesn't care about the rules.
Either way, I suspect that even without the bonus spell damage that deck still remains a festering cancer. It's just gonna draw through it's entire deck regardless and the spell damage shenanigans will help the burn spells in hand while Cloak of Shadows makes you practically invulnerable. Maybe Auctioneer should have been yeeted from the Core set altogether...
How awesome would it be if the dev team left it that way for class identity reasons? lol
Mage & Warlock quest are the two that seem really awful. Lock has too much built in healing. Mage has too much burn for the combination of +3 spell damage AND cost reduction (yet again we see how bad Incanter's Flow is) to be healthy.
Hunter's quest seems good but not totally busted but it's still early. Rogue's quest is really fun and quite solid, but also not broken. I've been playing Rogue in standard and love it. Thankfully it's good there, since I tried it in Duels and it was terrible.
I'm surprised I have not come across tons of token druid. I thought that would be a real pain in the ass with the tools that were added.
Duels runs did NOT get cancelled with the last set. Plus, Duels was offline earlier this week when they added the new cards, as well. (I couldn't start a new run just prior to the update.) I expect Duels will be handled the same way as last set - no cancelled run, no ticket.
Definitely needs support to be revealed in upcoming cards. A neutral heal for a hand-mage deck I've always tinkered with in wild is a welcome addition, though.
I had the same issue. Closing the game completely and relaunching did the trick.
Won with the deck below. Reduced cost on Illidari Inquisitor is fun stuff! I was paired against a warlock with some odd choices in their deck, though. Seems like a brawl that isn't going to go many rounds.
When duels first launched, I tried so hard to make From Golden Light not terrible. The only build that was consistently going to 6 or more wins was a divine shield build.
Starting decklist in pictures. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the 8 mana slot... until I saw Violet Wurm! I played on my phone and the only thing I have is the final match on HSReplay which doesn't even show the win/loss totals. Oops. You can see the final decklist in the replay. It was not great.
No worries, in it for the fun, not the site gold. I'll try to create this deck in heroic if I get a chance. I think it could do well... I just got terrible choices in treasures (aside from Cannibalism) and bundles throughout. Think I went 4 or 5 wins, it was pretty poor.
Those changes to treasures are really needed so I'm happy to see them. I haven't played much in Duels! (or HS in general) because balance seemed pretty terrible. Getting the treasures noted here was a huge advantage. Builds without them had a massive, uphill battle.
Love the changes to HP Mage. I still love playing Spell Damage builds and HP builds. I think these changes will definitely boost the HP build in the format. Reckless Apprentice is such a powerful card and the combo with Wyrm Bolt can be a great swing turn. I'm excited to try it, especially with several of the most egregious balance issues being addressed with this update.
Also, Sick article Avalon: keep up the good work! ;)
On the day the article was published, I jumped right in and built a modified version of my favorite Duels build, Token Demon Hunter.
I believe I'm 4-0 but haven't gone back to it since that day. :(
My mission tonight is to get back to the game, finish the run, get the screenshots uploaded, and submit an actual entry! Wish me luck.
I tried a few classes and did poorly overall, but it was definitely fun. 5 wins with a Questline Rogue (of all things! lol) was my best. The others were more minion heavy builds using Darkmoon Statue that weren't very good. However, I added him to my next non-challenge run with my favorite DH token build and it was quite effective there. Forced me to use a card... and realize it had potential elsewhere. :)
I definitely want to jump in early on the next challenge. Someone msg me if I don't show up!
Great article and many great posts. These questlines are simply too quick to complete, making them incredibly consistent and reliable. The Dr. 7 suggestion in the article is a very reasonable start. Those 80+% stats in wild make UTHunter look soft.
Questlines for Hunter, Warlock, and Mage are just too efficient and consistent in Wild. Each of those decks WILL close out the game by turn 9 at the latest Turn 6-8 are on possible quite easily, as well. They are all far to reliable. These nerfs do nothing to stop that, as I rarely see Stealer of Souls and the decks running giants are able to drop Molten Giant alongside the Flesh Giant.
A necessary change, as it was an auto-pick as a first bucket treasure. Even with this change, it may still be OP and need to be "Neutral minions you play..." or "in your hand" get the buff & discount to prevent token interaction.
Yep, I have been really busy and missed the original article, too. Definitely want to join in. Will look through the threads and take a crack at it.
I'm out for a while. Aggro vs Quests that are completed and then auto win by turn 6/7 just isn't fun.
The quests are even worse in wild. Hunter/Mage/Warlock over and over and ALL 3 cycle through their entire deck. It feels like a repeat of the busted decks that abused Gadgetzan Auctioneer.
I auto concede when Lock drops T1 quest in wild. Maybe enough of that will prompt faster action since they mentioned the high rate of similar concedes when nerfing priest a few months ago.
I appreciate the work the devs have put in, either way. Balance isn't an easy task and the process is so much better recently.
The Demon Seed needs to lose lifesteal. Warlock has too much life gain to make the self-pain matter much.
Either way, the meta doesn't feel good at all. When combo decks are closing out games prior to turn 8 it makes the deck choices binary and that's boring AF.
2 days in and I'm already out. lol. I keep facing the same 2 decks (QLock & QMage) and they are both completely stupid. Cycle through everything, discount everything, SD for mage and constant heals for lock while doing so. Neither need to reach turn 8, ever.
I suspect they'll see auto-concedes similar to what caused them to nerf priest a month ago.
How awesome would it be if the dev team left it that way for class identity reasons? lol
Mage & Warlock quest are the two that seem really awful. Lock has too much built in healing. Mage has too much burn for the combination of +3 spell damage AND cost reduction (yet again we see how bad Incanter's Flow is) to be healthy.
Hunter's quest seems good but not totally busted but it's still early. Rogue's quest is really fun and quite solid, but also not broken. I've been playing Rogue in standard and love it. Thankfully it's good there, since I tried it in Duels and it was terrible.
I'm surprised I have not come across tons of token druid. I thought that would be a real pain in the ass with the tools that were added.
Duels runs did NOT get cancelled with the last set. Plus, Duels was offline earlier this week when they added the new cards, as well. (I couldn't start a new run just prior to the update.) I expect Duels will be handled the same way as last set - no cancelled run, no ticket.
Lost to Omu, then won with Omu b/c it's nearly impossible to beat Omu. lol.... what a stupid design.
Definitely needs support to be revealed in upcoming cards. A neutral heal for a hand-mage deck I've always tinkered with in wild is a welcome addition, though.
Glad it worked. Il'gynoth was a throw in as the last card. While that would be a fun, memetastic way to win, a skull is a better choice, tbh. :)
Hmmm... will the flavor text and voice lines will be a nod Tina Turner's Private Dancer or to Elton John's Tiny Dancer? My money is on the former.
I'm your private mailbox dancer, a dancer for money
And any old music will do
I had the same issue. Closing the game completely and relaunching did the trick.
Won with the deck below. Reduced cost on Illidari Inquisitor is fun stuff! I was paired against a warlock with some odd choices in their deck, though. Seems like a brawl that isn't going to go many rounds.
Thanks! I love these articles.
When duels first launched, I tried so hard to make From Golden Light not terrible. The only build that was consistently going to 6 or more wins was a divine shield build.