I should probably know this already, but could you share what match-ups you've been having the most trouble with or anything else about your experience with the deck? (e.g. if any cards have felt dead in your hand on a regular basis)
The decks looks pretty solid but, at first glance, I could see you having issues with really aggressive decks early and then card draw late. And, like Majere, I'm wondering if you've had trouble closing out games/have enough burst potential from hand. The cards that look a little atypical are Golden Scarab and Pit Crocolisk. I'm also wondering if you need the Savannah Highmane with 2x Unleash the Beast in there too.
I liked the 3 potential replacements that were already suggested (1x Timber Wolf, 1x Tundra Rhino, and/or 1x Kill Command) and would add Headhunter's Hatchet, Hench-Clan Hogsteed, Dire Wolf Alpha, Lifedrinker, and Tracking to the list of things to consider (would've suggested Master's Call but I'm guessing that'd already be in there if you had a 2nd copy). Also, depending on the pocket meta you're facing, there're always cheap things like Ironbeak Owl and Freezing Trap you can tech in.
But just so I make sure I understand, does the combo require killing off an Oblivitron (so you can trigger it via Nine Lives) and then playing it again so you can activate it with Play Dead? But then it looks like a TTK as you need Oblivitron to stick for a turn so you can drop Necromechanic (4) + Nine Lives (3) + Play Dead (1) + Hero Power the next turn. Am I reading things correctly?
If you can drop the Galvanizers on your Mechwarpers and at least 1 Clockwork Automaton, the warpers would be 0-cost and you could get the Automaton down to 1-cost (or zero if you get another Galvanizer/Warper via Stitched Tracker or Zola). Then if you're able to Jepetto the Faceless Manipulators or the remaining Automaton you could play the remaining one of those three at its normal cost and still have enough mana left over to hero power. Though in retrospect this may be more difficult than the Oblivitron strategy ;D
Sounds doable! That's a deck idea to experiment with.. Careful with mechwarpers though- board space could be an issue.
The current one was inspired by a friend opening Oblivitron and saying it's useless though so that's where I'm heading rn..
Good find on galvanizers- they'd make things way easier.
Stitched Strackers are good way to get more automatons.. unreliable but good for curve..
Jepetto hitting the Oblivitron would be the dream but we need an alternative path.
Ahh, I hear ya, I try to complete my Hunter collection each expansion and Oblivitron is by far the legendary I've gotten the least use out of in recent memory :(
In thinking about your original combo, I just wanted to throw out Carnivorous Cube as another way to get copies of Automaton or as a way to improve your chances of getting Oblivitron to stick for a turn. Corpse Widow is also another possibility for reducing the cost of Oblivitron and it synergizes nicely with the Cube too (both as a cube target and as a cost reduction for cubing Oblivitron - can drop all 3 on Turn 10 if you're able to discount Oblivitron with 2 Galvanizers earlier).
Good luck with the build and let us know if you settle on something fun!
But just so I make sure I understand, does the combo require killing off an Oblivitron (so you can trigger it via Nine Lives) and then playing it again so you can activate it with Play Dead? But then it looks like a TTK as you need Oblivitron to stick for a turn so you can drop Necromechanic (4) + Nine Lives (3) + Play Dead (1) + Hero Power the next turn. Am I reading things correctly?
If you can drop the Galvanizers on your Mechwarpers and at least 1 Clockwork Automaton, the warpers would be 0-cost and you could get the Automaton down to 1-cost (or zero if you get another Galvanizer/Warper via Stitched Tracker or Zola). Then if you're able to Jepetto the Faceless Manipulators or the remaining Automaton you could play the remaining one of those three at its normal cost and still have enough mana left over to hero power. Though in retrospect this may be more difficult than the Oblivitron strategy ;D
I can't seem to finish the final boss anybody got any luck with it?
I picked the treasure that gives your minions a passive plus 1/1 and then went all-in on the Token strategy which seemed to work well. However, I got lucky before the final boss as my 2nd treasure was the Robes that reduce your cards by half (but you can only play 2 per turn). Wispering Woods plus Power of the Wild into 2x Blessing of the Ancients burns down the boss before he gets going.
I agree with everything that's been said above, but wanted to play devil's advocate a bit. I should start by reiterating that I think both of those cards are good enough that they should NOT be dusted, at least until Rank 20, and in general you should play for a few months trying out all the classes before dusting/crafting stuff (and if you have some friends with bigger collections you can always borrow their decks while Dueling to try out new cards).
However, the one point I wanted to raise is that I think there's a meaningful difference between the best dusting decision in your first year of playing when you have a limited collection, and dusting later on once you're more resource secure (like most of the folks on forums). In particular, if crafting a card that fits your playstyle is going to result in you playing the game more (thereby completing more quests, getting more gold from wins, etc.) and increases the odds that you stick with the game long-term, then I think it can be a good decision.
Early on I dusted some leggos that didn't seem fun and/or were part of classes/playstyles that didn't appeal to me, and I'd say about 10-15% of those decisions I regretted later on. However, I only regretted those decisions much further in the future when I had a bigger collection and new cards were released so I still don't consider most of those mistakes. We focus on regret when we're thinking about a build we can't play because we dusted a few cards awhile back, but you also need to keep in mind all the fun and wins you had with the cards you crafted instead (and hopefully still use). So I think it's really a matter of how much risk/regret you're willing to tolerate and how much you value present vs. future enjoyment (and whether you stick with games or switch around).
I believe there are currently 33 legendaries in the Standard classic set (a couple were Hall of Famed), and let's assume you keep both of these legendaries. If you open say The Beast, Millhouse Manastorm, or Gruul next, and you do some research confirming that they've been pretty terrible for awhile, there's a little more than a 3% chance that the next legendary you unpack will be that same card again (6.5% in the next 2, 10% in the next 3 (roughly 60 Classic packs later)). Whether that risk is tolerable is a personal preference, though the risk is probably a little higher when you factor in the chance that it becomes stronger in a future meta. To complete the analysis you'd also want to factor in the "opportunity cost" of replacing your new legendary with something you craft, i.e. how much better is(are) the card(s) you'd craft instead of The Beast, and how much resources will it take to get that(those) card(s)?
Obviously, working through that thought process is difficult/time consuming/prone to bias, so it's often better to follow simple heuristics like, "Don't dust anything", "Don't dust if you're still unpacking cards from the set", etc.
Then there is Hunter, which to be fair, the only deck that I can play with that class is the Deathrattle Hunter. I'm a combo player and occasionally dabble with aggro. I have the Mech Hunter, but I hate playing it. Anyone that plays these classes and/or the quests, please let me know if they are worth crafting or if there are other cards that work better
If you hate Mech Hunter, you'll probably hate the mech/beast versions of Quest Hunter that go face, face, and more face. However, I've been having fun with a Control-style Secret Quest in Standard and I think you could make it pretty spicy for Wild with the addition of all the extra secrets, Cloaked Huntress, Professor Putricide, Lesser Emerald Spellstone, Mad Scientist, and of course Yogg ;D
And this week's Firebat selection is TheNiddo's Quest Warrior which he described as, "Bombs punish decks digging for answers/provide you with another win con. Quest gives you more gas against controlly decks. Mulligan quest when needed."
Playing a lot of weapons doesn't sound like the most fun, but if I have the quest (unsure) I'll definitely give this a shot for the memes. One thing I'll probably try is to remove some of the actual weapons in favor of Upgrade!, Weapons Project, and Harrison Jones. In this build I may go with a standard Control Warrior and resolve myself to always mulligan the Quest unless I draw perfectly. Not sure really, this is pretty unknown terrority for me so I'll probably make some bad decisions like trying a pirate build as well ;D
Finally have a little time off so let's catch-up on all things Deck Doctor!
I was missing too many pieces from the Octosari Druid, but I tested out the Questlander Shammy and it was indeed a lot of fun. I found it to be more challenging than expected as you frequently run into hand size issues late in the game once you're doubling up on Zephrys wishes. I didn't have the most success with it (went from R15 to R13 and got stuck there), but that was almost certainly due to my misplays. I will say that bouncing Zephrys more than once (especially with Shudderwock in waiting) was usually overkill so I think the better strategy is to double up on cards and just play the standard Quest deck. The changes I settled on were very similar to the ones Nightcrawler suggested upon first viewing the deck, haha. Ended up with:
-1 Mutate (tried out the Mogu Fleshaper inclusion but it felt too inconsistent) -1 Baleful Banker -1 Earthen Might -1 Brightwing (pains me how bad this card feels to play because I really wanted to like it) -1 Farseer -1 Weaponized Wasp -1 Witchwood Piper -1 Swampqueen Hagatha (another one that I really wanted to like because I unpacked a golden copy, but it always feels underwhelming given the tempo loss)
+1 Blazing Invocation +1 Far Sight +1 Lightning Storm (probably the weakest inclusion) +1 MCT (felt fantastic with the double battlecry) +1 Chief Inspector (was facing a lot of Secret Hunters at the time) +1 Seaforium Bomber (liked the potential for Highlander disruption after Quest completion/with the extra bomb from Shudderwock, but I didn't get to play it too often so I'm not sure if it was a good inclusion) +1 Zilliax +1 Walking Fountain
It's a few weeks old, but I ended up stealing some ideas from this episode of Omni/Stone which I thought was pretty entertaining overall:
And I doubt you need this, but I found Firebat's breakdown of Warrior (pre-nerf) pretty cool too:
Challenge #12 - A Questing Highlander Shaman (NFS) -
This week's NFS challenge is to build a Highlander Quest Shaman starting with MegaACE's submission!
He describes the decks as, "Fun zephyrs shaman deck, you draw zephyrs with sandbinder, double its battlecry, bounce zephyrs back to your hand with barista lychen, bog slosher, shuffle more into your deck with banker, play infinte zephyrs with double battlecry!"
I picked this deck because it looked like a lot of fun, but there were a ton of submissions this week so we could easily do a few challenges if folks are NightCrawler's interested.
The obvious appeal is getting to play [Hearthstone Card (Zephyrs) Not Found] a bunch with Youthful Brewmaster, Bog Slosher, and Barista Lynchen (and then even more once you complete the quest or play Shudderwock). There's also a lot of Elemental synergy and a couple ways to randomly get more Sandbinders if you go Zephyrs + Baleful Banker early.
A couple cards feel forced for the battlecry synergy (e.g. Earthen Ring Farseer instead of say Zilliax), but I'm looking forward to trying this greedy bastard out! :D
Firebat selected Felzak's Token Octosari Druid for this week and I think I finally have my reason to craft the "Octodad" :) (I feel like Octosari should be the build around concept this week because Token Druid's been around awhile and there might be a fun Octo'thun deck or something like that out there too)
I'm not a Druid master by any means (didn't even know Beast Druid was the most popular non-Token build!), but Crystal Power seems weak and only having 4 spells costing 5+ with 2x Anubisath Defender & 2x Garden Gnome seems iffy too. I also feel like I never see Force of Nature played. However, I have no idea what I want to include...maybe some of the new cards like Serpent Egg and Infested Goblin? We'll see!
I liked your thoughts on the Dragon Hunter deck and had a similar impression about it looking strong. It was pretty fun to play and Faerie Dragon (+ Twilight Drake) stood out as feeling better than I expected (though Wyrmguard felt as bad as I expected, haha).
Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of Bomb Warriors and found the combo to be harder to pull off than I'd thought. There was only 1 Tracking, which made sense given that it could constrain your Zul'jin timing, and none of the combo pieces could be tutored otherwise (Emeriss, Leeroy, Faceless/Alex).
I ended up going down the Jepetto path, as is tradition, but wanted to try something other than an OP minion pool + spells + Zul'jin build. I ended up going full battlecry package + Lynchen for the value game (and to have a chance at an extra silence against Mech Hunter/Pally). The deck turned out to be pretty terrible against anything other than Warrior, and it wasn't even that good against Warrior, haha ;D
Hey Majere, I don't know if you're still working on this deck, but we took a crack at building something similar in another thread which may give you some food-for-thought! In particular, Deck Doctor Challenge #5 (about halfway down the page) featured this starting deck which the author said got him from Rank 5 to 3:
It too aims to have fun with Spirit of the Dead + Bwonsamdi, but instead builds around Magic Carpet and a Divine Spirit + Inner Fire package.
NightCrawler and I didn't have the greatest success with our creations, but it's a really fun archetype and some of the stuff we tried may spark a different idea for you! For example, if you do stay with a deathrattle heavy package I found Reckless Experimenter pretty spicy for late game Spirit of the Dead combos. What I always wanted to pull off was a Turn 9 play an 0/3, a 4/6, and a 2/2 that dies, summons a 7/7 , and shuffles a 1-cost copy of itself back into your deck...and then next turn you magnetize ten 1-cost SN1P-SN4Ps into that bad boy for 20 extra damage (pics or it didn't happen!).
This week's NFS challenge will be based on danny's Dragon Control Hunter!
Dragon Hunter is one of my favorite archetypes and I always respect a man trying to include an Emeriss finish (especially after Bright-Eyed Scout rotated). I also like that he's trying to use Carrion Drake :D
I haven't had a chance to watch the last couple weeks so I'll update with thoughts later, but here are the latest Firebat challenges!
Challenge #8 - Rezz Priest (FS) -
Author describes the deck as, "Big priest like deck in standard, using cloning gallery and death rattles to have big swing turns using mass resurrect."
Work has been rough and I've fallen behind, but the Deck Doctor challenge must still shine!
Sorry for the delay dear friends (i.e. NightCrawler, haha) but we have new episodes to talk about!
First off, I was digging the Mage deck you posted and it made me wish we had a mode where the full collection was available so you could test out cards to see if you wanted to craft them (although, in my case, I'm 4 legendaries off and can't make the deck yet regardless). You could put whatever restrictions you wanted on it and I'd probably still be interested; e.g., you only play against shitty bots, you can't earn any xp/gold/quest progress, you can only play ____ per day/week/rotation (X games, X class(es), X sets, X cards, etc.). Anyway, that deck looked fun and I liked your point about certain archeypes which struggled early on actually being somewhat competitive in the current meta.
I was also sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations with the Druid decks :\ It's crazy that they literally nerfed the class into the ground, but there at least looks to be plenty of (meme) potential from some of the SoU cards :D Although I saw your warnings, I had to experience the frustration for myself and went down a Beast Druid path after seeing the Predatory Instincts + Witchwood Grizzly + Witching Hour combo in the Heal Dragon deck (also fit my limited collection, haha).
I got as far as the version below before becoming frustrated and never copied it over here. Mage was almost impossible and I wanted Naturalize back so badly both for Giant punishment and to mill those greedy bastards :P I thought the deck might be viable if you included a Gonk, the Raptor package or maybe went with more beasts overall to play on curve and spell buff, but I didn't have time to explore more.
Survivability and card draw is achieved via Pyromancer + Acolyte of Pain against aggro and Ferocious Howl against control.
Crystal Power acts as a cheap Pyromancer activator against aggro and a way to heal your buffed beasts against control (will typically save Stalladris to combo with Crystal Power against control for more healing).
Moonfire has similar synergy with Pyromancer and can be used to take down a giant if you're able to pull Ironhide Direhorn with Stampeding Roar.
Apologies if this was already posted somewhere, but I thought people might find the latest episode of Omni/Stone interesting as Dean Ayala was a guest:
I didn't take detailed notes or anything, but here are some points that stood out:
Before Dean, Mike Donais was the only designer doing play testing on the team
We know that they work on sets well in advanced, but Dean gave some numbers. Saviors of Uldum will be his 16th set but he implied he's currently working on the next 4 as well.
A lot of stuff on Team 5's design philosophy - concern with player experience at the beginning and end of games, concern with games feeling the same even with different cards, and wanting to enable decks that gently introduce you to the more complicated mechanics of the game (e.g. going from Murloc Shaman, to a C'thun deck, to Nomi Priest).
They didn't land on Death Knights until 9 weeks into Final Design! (18:45)
We may not be getting a way to discard duplicates from our singleton decks. This was only hinted at indirectly in the discussion about Bomb Warrior interactions in play testing, but I came away thinking that there won't be an initial counter to bombs. (convo happens soon after the 1 hour mark)
A lot of inside details on previous iterations of cards and how they balance the wow factor vs. pragmatic impact. For example, Brann at one point summoned two 5/5 beasts with rush due to fear about the Krush burst, but it was more exciting to summon Krush (naturally). And Reno had a set of special mage cards he was going to fire from his wand but they wanted something "more consistent" than something "flashy/memey".
I think we knew this already, but he confirmed that the team reads Reddit comments so posting suggestions there isn't just shouting into the void! (it's probably just shouting into a void)
This week's NFS challenge will be to make some type of off-meta Druid deck!
NightCrawler, my memory from the HearthPwn days was that you're a Druid fan so I wanted to get your feedback on which deck we should work on. Three caught my eye from the latest Deck Doctor Tweet.
The deck has a pretty specific gameplan - discount Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk and Faceless Manipulator with Jepetto Joybuzz and then drop Khadgar + Faceless into Jan'alai for 4x Ragnaros! However, Nick admits in his tweet that it could be improved by Pocket Galaxy if he had it, so let's see what we can do with our collections! (I don't have khadgar, jan'alai, or pocket galaxy so I'll probably pass on this one)
I should probably know this already, but could you share what match-ups you've been having the most trouble with or anything else about your experience with the deck? (e.g. if any cards have felt dead in your hand on a regular basis)
The decks looks pretty solid but, at first glance, I could see you having issues with really aggressive decks early and then card draw late. And, like Majere, I'm wondering if you've had trouble closing out games/have enough burst potential from hand. The cards that look a little atypical are Golden Scarab and Pit Crocolisk. I'm also wondering if you need the Savannah Highmane with 2x Unleash the Beast in there too.
I liked the 3 potential replacements that were already suggested (1x Timber Wolf, 1x Tundra Rhino, and/or 1x Kill Command) and would add Headhunter's Hatchet, Hench-Clan Hogsteed, Dire Wolf Alpha, Lifedrinker, and Tracking to the list of things to consider (would've suggested Master's Call but I'm guessing that'd already be in there if you had a 2nd copy). Also, depending on the pocket meta you're facing, there're always cheap things like Ironbeak Owl and Freezing Trap you can tech in.
Staying hunting my friend!
Ahh, I hear ya, I try to complete my Hunter collection each expansion and Oblivitron is by far the legendary I've gotten the least use out of in recent memory :(
A build I tried for a bit was to combine it with Flark's Boom-Zooka and a bunch of deathrattle mechs like Mechanical Whelp, Sneed's Old Shredder, Piloted Shredder, and Spider Bomb. However, the Boom-Zooka was just better when I opened the deck to all types of deathrattles or went with the big beast + Revenge of the Wild package.
In thinking about your original combo, I just wanted to throw out Carnivorous Cube as another way to get copies of Automaton or as a way to improve your chances of getting Oblivitron to stick for a turn. Corpse Widow is also another possibility for reducing the cost of Oblivitron and it synergizes nicely with the Cube too (both as a cube target and as a cost reduction for cubing Oblivitron - can drop all 3 on Turn 10 if you're able to discount Oblivitron with 2 Galvanizers earlier).
Good luck with the build and let us know if you settle on something fun!
Always enjoy seeing a Hunter OTK idea :)
But just so I make sure I understand, does the combo require killing off an Oblivitron (so you can trigger it via Nine Lives) and then playing it again so you can activate it with Play Dead? But then it looks like a TTK as you need Oblivitron to stick for a turn so you can drop Necromechanic (4) + Nine Lives (3) + Play Dead (1) + Hero Power the next turn. Am I reading things correctly?
My first instinct is to try building a Jepetto deck. For example, what if we ran 2x Galvanizer, 2x Mechwarper, 2x Stitched Tracker, and 2x Faceless Manipulator in addition to Jepetto, Ursatron, and maybe Thaurissan or Zola the Gorgon?
If you can drop the Galvanizers on your Mechwarpers and at least 1 Clockwork Automaton, the warpers would be 0-cost and you could get the Automaton down to 1-cost (or zero if you get another Galvanizer/Warper via Stitched Tracker or Zola). Then if you're able to Jepetto the Faceless Manipulators or the remaining Automaton you could play the remaining one of those three at its normal cost and still have enough mana left over to hero power. Though in retrospect this may be more difficult than the Oblivitron strategy ;D
I picked the treasure that gives your minions a passive plus 1/1 and then went all-in on the Token strategy which seemed to work well. However, I got lucky before the final boss as my 2nd treasure was the Robes that reduce your cards by half (but you can only play 2 per turn). Wispering Woods plus Power of the Wild into 2x Blessing of the Ancients burns down the boss before he gets going.
I agree with everything that's been said above, but wanted to play devil's advocate a bit. I should start by reiterating that I think both of those cards are good enough that they should NOT be dusted, at least until Rank 20, and in general you should play for a few months trying out all the classes before dusting/crafting stuff (and if you have some friends with bigger collections you can always borrow their decks while Dueling to try out new cards).
However, the one point I wanted to raise is that I think there's a meaningful difference between the best dusting decision in your first year of playing when you have a limited collection, and dusting later on once you're more resource secure (like most of the folks on forums). In particular, if crafting a card that fits your playstyle is going to result in you playing the game more (thereby completing more quests, getting more gold from wins, etc.) and increases the odds that you stick with the game long-term, then I think it can be a good decision.
Early on I dusted some leggos that didn't seem fun and/or were part of classes/playstyles that didn't appeal to me, and I'd say about 10-15% of those decisions I regretted later on. However, I only regretted those decisions much further in the future when I had a bigger collection and new cards were released so I still don't consider most of those mistakes. We focus on regret when we're thinking about a build we can't play because we dusted a few cards awhile back, but you also need to keep in mind all the fun and wins you had with the cards you crafted instead (and hopefully still use). So I think it's really a matter of how much risk/regret you're willing to tolerate and how much you value present vs. future enjoyment (and whether you stick with games or switch around).
I believe there are currently 33 legendaries in the Standard classic set (a couple were Hall of Famed), and let's assume you keep both of these legendaries. If you open say The Beast, Millhouse Manastorm, or Gruul next, and you do some research confirming that they've been pretty terrible for awhile, there's a little more than a 3% chance that the next legendary you unpack will be that same card again (6.5% in the next 2, 10% in the next 3 (roughly 60 Classic packs later)). Whether that risk is tolerable is a personal preference, though the risk is probably a little higher when you factor in the chance that it becomes stronger in a future meta. To complete the analysis you'd also want to factor in the "opportunity cost" of replacing your new legendary with something you craft, i.e. how much better is(are) the card(s) you'd craft instead of The Beast, and how much resources will it take to get that(those) card(s)?
Obviously, working through that thought process is difficult/time consuming/prone to bias, so it's often better to follow simple heuristics like, "Don't dust anything", "Don't dust if you're still unpacking cards from the set", etc.
If you hate Mech Hunter, you'll probably hate the mech/beast versions of Quest Hunter that go face, face, and more face. However, I've been having fun with a Control-style Secret Quest in Standard and I think you could make it pretty spicy for Wild with the addition of all the extra secrets, Cloaked Huntress, Professor Putricide, Lesser Emerald Spellstone, Mad Scientist, and of course Yogg ;D
Always enjoyed your decks over on HP, welcome to OOC!
Challenge #13 - Quest Warrior (FS) -
And this week's Firebat selection is TheNiddo's Quest Warrior which he described as, "Bombs punish decks digging for answers/provide you with another win con. Quest gives you more gas against controlly decks. Mulligan quest when needed."
Playing a lot of weapons doesn't sound like the most fun, but if I have the quest (unsure) I'll definitely give this a shot for the memes. One thing I'll probably try is to remove some of the actual weapons in favor of Upgrade!, Weapons Project, and Harrison Jones. In this build I may go with a standard Control Warrior and resolve myself to always mulligan the Quest unless I draw perfectly. Not sure really, this is pretty unknown terrority for me so I'll probably make some bad decisions like trying a pirate build as well ;D
I missed last week's Deck Doctor, but here's the Rezz Priest Firebat chose:
If you want to try it out the deck codes are:
Original: AAECAa0GBK8E1gqggAOYmwMN+wGhAuUE0wrXCoL3ApeHA+aIA5mbA6ylA6+lA7alA5mpAwA=
Doctored: AAECAa0GCKUJ7QXTpQPXCralA9YKrwSggAML0gqspQP3DPIM5QTl9wLSpQP2B/sMgvcCr6UDAA==
Finally have a little time off so let's catch-up on all things Deck Doctor!
I was missing too many pieces from the Octosari Druid, but I tested out the Questlander Shammy and it was indeed a lot of fun. I found it to be more challenging than expected as you frequently run into hand size issues late in the game once you're doubling up on Zephrys wishes. I didn't have the most success with it (went from R15 to R13 and got stuck there), but that was almost certainly due to my misplays. I will say that bouncing Zephrys more than once (especially with Shudderwock in waiting) was usually overkill so I think the better strategy is to double up on cards and just play the standard Quest deck. The changes I settled on were very similar to the ones Nightcrawler suggested upon first viewing the deck, haha. Ended up with:
-1 Mutate (tried out the Mogu Fleshaper inclusion but it felt too inconsistent)
-1 Baleful Banker
-1 Earthen Might
-1 Brightwing (pains me how bad this card feels to play because I really wanted to like it)
-1 Farseer
-1 Weaponized Wasp
-1 Witchwood Piper
-1 Swampqueen Hagatha (another one that I really wanted to like because I unpacked a golden copy, but it always feels underwhelming given the tempo loss)
+1 Blazing Invocation
+1 Far Sight
+1 Lightning Storm (probably the weakest inclusion)
+1 MCT (felt fantastic with the double battlecry)
+1 Chief Inspector (was facing a lot of Secret Hunters at the time)
+1 Seaforium Bomber (liked the potential for Highlander disruption after Quest completion/with the extra bomb from Shudderwock, but I didn't get to play it too often so I'm not sure if it was a good inclusion)
+1 Zilliax
+1 Walking Fountain
It's a few weeks old, but I ended up stealing some ideas from this episode of Omni/Stone which I thought was pretty entertaining overall:
And I doubt you need this, but I found Firebat's breakdown of Warrior (pre-nerf) pretty cool too:
Challenge #12 - A Questing Highlander Shaman (NFS) -
This week's NFS challenge is to build a Highlander Quest Shaman starting with MegaACE's submission!
He describes the decks as, "Fun zephyrs shaman deck, you draw zephyrs with sandbinder, double its battlecry, bounce zephyrs back to your hand with barista lychen, bog slosher, shuffle more into your deck with banker, play infinte zephyrs with double battlecry!"
I picked this deck because it looked like a lot of fun, but there were a ton of submissions this week so we could easily do a few challenges if folks are NightCrawler's interested.
The obvious appeal is getting to play [Hearthstone Card (Zephyrs) Not Found] a bunch with Youthful Brewmaster, Bog Slosher, and Barista Lynchen (and then even more once you complete the quest or play Shudderwock). There's also a lot of Elemental synergy and a couple ways to randomly get more Sandbinders if you go Zephyrs + Baleful Banker early.
A couple cards feel forced for the battlecry synergy (e.g. Earthen Ring Farseer instead of say Zilliax), but I'm looking forward to trying this greedy bastard out! :D
It's also time for our first challenge of SoU!
Challenge #11 - Octosari Druid (FS) -
Firebat selected Felzak's Token Octosari Druid for this week and I think I finally have my reason to craft the "Octodad" :) (I feel like Octosari should be the build around concept this week because Token Druid's been around awhile and there might be a fun Octo'thun deck or something like that out there too)
Felzak describes the deck as early token stuff to stay alive and then an Octosari into Wispering Woods + Soul of the Forest (into Savage Roar) lethal.
I'm not a Druid master by any means (didn't even know Beast Druid was the most popular non-Token build!), but Crystal Power seems weak and only having 4 spells costing 5+ with 2x Anubisath Defender & 2x Garden Gnome seems iffy too. I also feel like I never see Force of Nature played. However, I have no idea what I want to include...maybe some of the new cards like Serpent Egg and Infested Goblin? We'll see!
I liked your thoughts on the Dragon Hunter deck and had a similar impression about it looking strong. It was pretty fun to play and Faerie Dragon (+ Twilight Drake) stood out as feeling better than I expected (though Wyrmguard felt as bad as I expected, haha).
Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of Bomb Warriors and found the combo to be harder to pull off than I'd thought. There was only 1 Tracking, which made sense given that it could constrain your Zul'jin timing, and none of the combo pieces could be tutored otherwise (Emeriss, Leeroy, Faceless/Alex).
I ended up going down the Jepetto path, as is tradition, but wanted to try something other than an OP minion pool + spells + Zul'jin build. I ended up going full battlecry package + Lynchen for the value game (and to have a chance at an extra silence against Mech Hunter/Pally). The deck turned out to be pretty terrible against anything other than Warrior, and it wasn't even that good against Warrior, haha ;D
Hey Majere, I don't know if you're still working on this deck, but we took a crack at building something similar in another thread which may give you some food-for-thought! In particular, Deck Doctor Challenge #5 (about halfway down the page) featured this starting deck which the author said got him from Rank 5 to 3:
It too aims to have fun with Spirit of the Dead + Bwonsamdi, but instead builds around Magic Carpet and a Divine Spirit + Inner Fire package.
NightCrawler and I didn't have the greatest success with our creations, but it's a really fun archetype and some of the stuff we tried may spark a different idea for you! For example, if you do stay with a deathrattle heavy package I found Reckless Experimenter pretty spicy for late game Spirit of the Dead combos. What I always wanted to pull off was a Turn 9 play an 0/3, a 4/6, and a 2/2 that dies, summons a 7/7 , and shuffles a 1-cost copy of itself back into your deck...and then next turn you magnetize ten 1-cost SN1P-SN4Ps into that bad boy for 20 extra damage (pics or it didn't happen!).
Challenge #10 - Dragon Hunter (NFS) -
This week's NFS challenge will be based on danny's Dragon Control Hunter!
Dragon Hunter is one of my favorite archetypes and I always respect a man trying to include an Emeriss finish (especially after Bright-Eyed Scout rotated). I also like that he's trying to use Carrion Drake :D
I haven't had a chance to watch the last couple weeks so I'll update with thoughts later, but here are the latest Firebat challenges!
Challenge #8 - Rezz Priest (FS) -
Author describes the deck as, "Big priest like deck in standard, using cloning gallery and death rattles to have big swing turns using mass resurrect."
Challenge #9 - Deathrattle Rogue (FS) -
Author describes the deck as, "Mechrium Rogue. Necrium package + skaterbots to feed big deathrattles, and a ton of draw and removal to get you there."
Work has been rough and
I've fallen behind,
but the Deck Doctor challenge
must still shine!
Sorry for the delay dear friends (i.e. NightCrawler, haha) but we have new episodes to talk about!
First off, I was digging the Mage deck you posted and it made me wish we had a mode where the full collection was available so you could test out cards to see if you wanted to craft them (although, in my case, I'm 4 legendaries off and can't make the deck yet regardless). You could put whatever restrictions you wanted on it and I'd probably still be interested; e.g., you only play against shitty bots, you can't earn any xp/gold/quest progress, you can only play ____ per day/week/rotation (X games, X class(es), X sets, X cards, etc.). Anyway, that deck looked fun and I liked your point about certain archeypes which struggled early on actually being somewhat competitive in the current meta.
I was also sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations with the Druid decks :\ It's crazy that they literally nerfed the class into the ground, but there at least looks to be plenty of (meme) potential from some of the SoU cards :D Although I saw your warnings, I had to experience the frustration for myself and went down a Beast Druid path after seeing the Predatory Instincts + Witchwood Grizzly + Witching Hour combo in the Heal Dragon deck (also fit my limited collection, haha).
I got as far as the version below before becoming frustrated and never copied it over here. Mage was almost impossible and I wanted Naturalize back so badly both for Giant punishment and to mill those greedy bastards :P I thought the deck might be viable if you included a Gonk, the Raptor package or maybe went with more beasts overall to play on curve and spell buff, but I didn't have time to explore more.
Here's the rationale I posted on the deck page:
This deck prefers control matches so you can mulligan hard for Predatory Instincts in the hopes of dropping it on Turn 4 followed by a buffed Witchwood Grizzly on T5 or, ideally, Stampeding Roar into a buffed Ironhide Direhorn on T6. You can then drop Witching Hour if they kill off your buffed beast and starting on T8 you can combo this with Faceless Manipulator in the hopes of hitting a buffed or high health beast with Crazed Alchemist for some finishing damage.
In aggro match-ups you mulligan primarily for Doomsayer and Wild Pyromancer, but may also keep things like Wrath and Keeper Stalladris.
Survivability and card draw is achieved via Pyromancer + Acolyte of Pain against aggro and Ferocious Howl against control.
Crystal Power acts as a cheap Pyromancer activator against aggro and a way to heal your buffed beasts against control (will typically save Stalladris to combo with Crystal Power against control for more healing).
Moonfire has similar synergy with Pyromancer and can be used to take down a giant if you're able to pull Ironhide Direhorn with Stampeding Roar.
Apologies if this was already posted somewhere, but I thought people might find the latest episode of Omni/Stone interesting as Dean Ayala was a guest:
I didn't take detailed notes or anything, but here are some points that stood out:
Challenge #7 - TBD Druid (NFS) -
This week's NFS challenge will be to make some type of off-meta Druid deck!
NightCrawler, my memory from the HearthPwn days was that you're a Druid fan so I wanted to get your feedback on which deck we should work on. Three caught my eye from the latest Deck Doctor Tweet.
The screenshot for the Heal Dragon didn't show all the cards so I just uploaded it here for easier viewing:
Let me know if any of these look like fun challenges!
I ended up playing around with a deathrattle package of Reckless Experimenter + SN1P-SN4P, Mechanical Whelp, and Voodoo Doll but never landed on something that got to that perfect mix of draw and an actual finisher :(
Thankfully, it looks like Firebat posted a new video!
Challenge #6 - OTK Mage (FS) -
This week's FS challenge is to build an OTK Mage! We'll be using Nick's submission, a Ragnaros OTK, as the starting point:
The deck has a pretty specific gameplan - discount Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk and Faceless Manipulator with Jepetto Joybuzz and then drop Khadgar + Faceless into Jan'alai for 4x Ragnaros! However, Nick admits in his tweet that it could be improved by Pocket Galaxy if he had it, so let's see what we can do with our collections! (I don't have khadgar, jan'alai, or pocket galaxy so I'll probably pass on this one)