That’s probably entirely dependent on whether you plan to run a highlander deck. Zephrys is probably more fun; Siamat is more flexible and can fit into a wider range of decks.
If you insist on Zephrys, one thing I’d recommend is not dropping him early. I see a lot of people playing him on turn 3, when there isn’t much of a board state for the AI to analyze, and you’re unlikely to get anything that will really swing the game. Moreover, playing him so soon signals to your opponent early that you’re running a highlander deck; if you have a perfect counter spell somewhere in your deck, once you burn it, your opponent knows you only have one copy.
I feel like the last paragraph was me arguing myself into advocating for Siamat.
Not a problem currently at least. There are enough quests in circulation right now that there aren’t many decks that can dedicate themselves to an aggro push in the early turns, and once you have the Blades in hand, those higher health Murlocs or Mechs aren’t quite so scary. (That’s the other reason I hold onto the Saps — to prevent mech stacking.)
What I’ve actually found is that because the quest is relatively easy to complete, and because I’ve dropped Blink Fox or the spawn of Pharaoh Cat (Kittens?) on the board to finish, by turn 4-5 *I’m* often the aggressor. It’s kind of what I like about the archetype; you’re control when facing control, but with enough pressure to keep the other guy on his heels.
It work fairly well, if you dont get screwed with the random cards too much :) Also it is important to keep Tess Greymane in mind when selecting cards via discover. That can help in a really huge way. For example, i could choose Hex or Execute, i thought about it and chose Execute. Later on i killed three huge taunts with Tess (among other things) thanks to the Execute when i repeatedly bounced her back. Had i chosen Hex, that would be a very different story.
Great advice, and maybe worth including in the guide if it isn't already super obvious.
As an update, I've had some success climbing with this. In contrast to the Tempo versions of Quest Rogue, I find that I lose steam less often, and have multiple times now stretched games against Control archetypes into fatigue, where we're both out of cards, but I'm still sitting at full health when it starts. (New Taunt Warrior! Fun!)
FWIW, I've swapped in Heistbaron Togwaggle and Siamat for some greater flexibility (replacing the Bone Wraiths) and continue to cling to 2x Sap like a child, both because of Conjuring Mage-related trauma and because with 3 guaranteed damage from face, I often need to just move something out of my way to take out a high priority minion (e.g. Vargoth, Keeper Stalladris).
Oh damn! Blade Flurry. That is actually such a cool idea. Holy hell, thinking about it now, that card might actually make a comeback!
Yeah, I've started taking Blade Flurry when it comes out of an Ethereal Lackey if I have the quest completed. Fan of Knives still has its uses, but now that Quest Druid has for the time being replaced Token Druid, you wind up with a lot more 3-health minion swarms than 1-health ones.
I cut it to focus more on staying alive long enough to get the Obelisk/Shadow of Death combo to work.
This I think is the tension of Obelisk Rogue or Mogu Cultist Rogue. While Rogue is the only class with enough tools to credibly pull off the necessary combos, you have to actually build a deck around all those tools, and you can't use them on other targets at any other point in the game. So "Shadow of Death" serves as a dead card in your hand until the moment is right, "Togwaggle's Scheme" would sit in your hand until the moment is right, etc.
But to the comment above, if this is the direction you're going, I think you're still better off running "Togwaggle's Scheme" over Augmented Elek. You only have the one shuffle card, "Shadow," and you'd have to split the mana cost of 1 Obelisk + Elek + Shadow over 2 separate turns. If the Elek is just going to sit in your hand, you'd get as much value from an upgraded "Togwaggle's Scheme" and then be able to pull off one whole set of actions for 10 mana.
One thing I actually appreciate about the "race to finish the quest" mechanic is what it has done to smooth the rhythms of play time. We knew all along that Blizzard aimed for quests to be completed in the mid-game rather than "finish and you win," as in the old model -- and as a result, I've found my matches to be slightly longer than in Rise of Shadows, with more diverse action in the early game, and fewer lopsided contests.
Particularly appreciated in some of the Quest design is how they seem to discourage the "brain dead" mechanics that most people found frustrating in the last expansion. With Druid in particular, it's almost impossible to token spam while also leaving unspent mana on the table.
Spent Day One tinkering with versions of Quest Rogue (Tess build vs. Tempo build) around Rank 8. First three opponents were Quest Druids. Then a Quest Hunter. And 80% of matches (and we’re talking 15-20+) thereafter were all Quest Shaman. Part of the appeal might just be the ease of completion: Lackeys all have battlecries, Questing Explorer has a battlecry, so just play the way you want to play and you’re done. Now whether or not it works out long term is a different story.
No, I disenchant every golden card, even if it's a legendary I want then I disenchant it and make the normal version.
But the conversion rate then is 1:1... so why bother? I mean, if you used the 1600 dust to craft a *different* legendary, I’d get it, but flipping a golden version into the exact same thing seems like a kind of arbitrary commitment to principal.
I do not understand...why would you craft a golden legendary to ensure your free one is the one you want? Why not then create the one you want directly? If you have the dust for it anyway...I must be missing something here.
I think you misunderstood. The order is:
1) get free ones; can’t avoid because it happens on login
2) craft the Golden you want
3) open preorder packs
The suggestion is to do Step 2 before Step 3 so that you don’t wind up getting a non-Golden version of the same legendary first.
It's probably because the existing Lackey keyword pulls from the same uncollectible pool, and all the Uldum cards are in the game data. Given that it's just six days, I don't blame Blizzard for not specifically excluding it.
Fast question: i havent bought the pre order bundle and i cant find the packs i want to buy in the shop, because there is only the bundle instead of the pack, i dont want to buy it, what do i do
As far as I know, you have to buy the bundle. That’s what this event is available for. Even if you were to buy individual packs, you’d be unlikely to have enough to assemble a single class deck, so the competitive component of the Brawl wouldn’t quite make sense, even if it is a pretext.
The only scenario I can think of where it might be better is if you're after a specific golden card and don't want to run the risk of getting a normal copy which would remove it from the pool.
That would be the exact scenario. I didn’t go through the trouble of getting my Rogue golden to sully her portrait with non-gold Ancient Blades.
Potentially weird question. I just went through the entire setup to verify that it works — but can someone confirm that this does NOT cover the Golden Legendaries you would have unlocked from pre-order, nor the quest everyone will supposedly pick up on release?
Depending on what my Goldens were, I was potentially planning on dusting one to craft another before opening packs; am I thus potentially better off waiting?
That’s probably entirely dependent on whether you plan to run a highlander deck. Zephrys is probably more fun; Siamat is more flexible and can fit into a wider range of decks.
If you insist on Zephrys, one thing I’d recommend is not dropping him early. I see a lot of people playing him on turn 3, when there isn’t much of a board state for the AI to analyze, and you’re unlikely to get anything that will really swing the game. Moreover, playing him so soon signals to your opponent early that you’re running a highlander deck; if you have a perfect counter spell somewhere in your deck, once you burn it, your opponent knows you only have one copy.
I feel like the last paragraph was me arguing myself into advocating for Siamat.
Not a problem currently at least. There are enough quests in circulation right now that there aren’t many decks that can dedicate themselves to an aggro push in the early turns, and once you have the Blades in hand, those higher health Murlocs or Mechs aren’t quite so scary. (That’s the other reason I hold onto the Saps — to prevent mech stacking.)
What I’ve actually found is that because the quest is relatively easy to complete, and because I’ve dropped Blink Fox or the spawn of Pharaoh Cat (Kittens?) on the board to finish, by turn 4-5 *I’m* often the aggressor. It’s kind of what I like about the archetype; you’re control when facing control, but with enough pressure to keep the other guy on his heels.
Great advice, and maybe worth including in the guide if it isn't already super obvious.
As an update, I've had some success climbing with this. In contrast to the Tempo versions of Quest Rogue, I find that I lose steam less often, and have multiple times now stretched games against Control archetypes into fatigue, where we're both out of cards, but I'm still sitting at full health when it starts. (New Taunt Warrior! Fun!)
FWIW, I've swapped in Heistbaron Togwaggle and Siamat for some greater flexibility (replacing the Bone Wraiths) and continue to cling to 2x Sap like a child, both because of Conjuring Mage-related trauma and because with 3 guaranteed damage from face, I often need to just move something out of my way to take out a high priority minion (e.g. Vargoth, Keeper Stalladris).
Yeah, I've started taking Blade Flurry when it comes out of an Ethereal Lackey if I have the quest completed. Fan of Knives still has its uses, but now that Quest Druid has for the time being replaced Token Druid, you wind up with a lot more 3-health minion swarms than 1-health ones.
Could be worse. The first time I faced it the 9th spell was Myra’s and the 10th spell was Sprint...
This I think is the tension of Obelisk Rogue or Mogu Cultist Rogue. While Rogue is the only class with enough tools to credibly pull off the necessary combos, you have to actually build a deck around all those tools, and you can't use them on other targets at any other point in the game. So "Shadow of Death" serves as a dead card in your hand until the moment is right, "Togwaggle's Scheme" would sit in your hand until the moment is right, etc.
But to the comment above, if this is the direction you're going, I think you're still better off running "Togwaggle's Scheme" over Augmented Elek. You only have the one shuffle card, "Shadow," and you'd have to split the mana cost of 1 Obelisk + Elek + Shadow over 2 separate turns. If the Elek is just going to sit in your hand, you'd get as much value from an upgraded "Togwaggle's Scheme" and then be able to pull off one whole set of actions for 10 mana.
One thing I actually appreciate about the "race to finish the quest" mechanic is what it has done to smooth the rhythms of play time. We knew all along that Blizzard aimed for quests to be completed in the mid-game rather than "finish and you win," as in the old model -- and as a result, I've found my matches to be slightly longer than in Rise of Shadows, with more diverse action in the early game, and fewer lopsided contests.
Particularly appreciated in some of the Quest design is how they seem to discourage the "brain dead" mechanics that most people found frustrating in the last expansion. With Druid in particular, it's almost impossible to token spam while also leaving unspent mana on the table.
I badly want this to work. It’s much more fun than the base Tempo version where you’re just bombing Lifedrinkers into Spirit of the Shark at the end.
Spent Day One tinkering with versions of Quest Rogue (Tess build vs. Tempo build) around Rank 8. First three opponents were Quest Druids. Then a Quest Hunter. And 80% of matches (and we’re talking 15-20+) thereafter were all Quest Shaman. Part of the appeal might just be the ease of completion: Lackeys all have battlecries, Questing Explorer has a battlecry, so just play the way you want to play and you’re done. Now whether or not it works out long term is a different story.
But the conversion rate then is 1:1... so why bother? I mean, if you used the 1600 dust to craft a *different* legendary, I’d get it, but flipping a golden version into the exact same thing seems like a kind of arbitrary commitment to principal.
I think you misunderstood. The order is:
1) get free ones; can’t avoid because it happens on login
2) craft the Golden you want
3) open preorder packs
The suggestion is to do Step 2 before Step 3 so that you don’t wind up getting a non-Golden version of the same legendary first.
You can have two in the same deck but only one can be active at a time.
So probably not worth doing.
Unless you’re playing into a “when drawn” effect and don’t really care.
^ This
As far as I know, you have to buy the bundle. That’s what this event is available for. Even if you were to buy individual packs, you’d be unlikely to have enough to assemble a single class deck, so the competitive component of the Brawl wouldn’t quite make sense, even if it is a pretext.
That would be the exact scenario. I didn’t go through the trouble of getting my Rogue golden to sully her portrait with non-gold Ancient Blades.
Thanks for confirming!
Potentially weird question. I just went through the entire setup to verify that it works — but can someone confirm that this does NOT cover the Golden Legendaries you would have unlocked from pre-order, nor the quest everyone will supposedly pick up on release?
Depending on what my Goldens were, I was potentially planning on dusting one to craft another before opening packs; am I thus potentially better off waiting?
Release the Hounds against a full board should count as 7, no? You could activate the quest the same turn Hounds is played for 21 damage.
Shadowstep, Spirit of the Shark, Daring Escape, etc. Rogue especially has the tools to get multiple uses out of each enabler.
It’s now even less surprising that they felt that they needed to get rid of Vanish