This is the 2nd Riot game I've tried, and it's tough transitioning from Blizzard to Riot. Blizzard is light years ahead in terms of artistic design, smoothness of game play, and things like lore and humor.
Runeterra seems pretty good, but it is clunky compared to HS. New cards, so new synergies to explore. But the basic strategies carry over. There are burn decks, token decks, aggro decks, control, etc. I quickly threw a token deck together with buff spells and cheap minions, and it seems to be working fine.
I find it awesome that players are closing in on a competitive quest hunter. Still a lot of iteration to be done, but who would have guessed
I mean, you can throw 30 random hunter cards together right now and have a fairly competitive deck. I think the quest hunter is strong because Hunter is strong. Take the quest out of that deck, and it's still decent
The Druid quest is basically just another form of ramp. So yes, the first few turns are the same, but they were the same when you were hard mulliganing for Wild Growth, etc.
Definitely some similarities. The main difference is the quest is more reliable since you don't need to mulligan for anything, but ramp allowed for more power when it worked.
There are three quests that allow for zero flexibility in building:
Paladin: great reward, good deck, fun deck, but there's only one way to use this quest. Play all of the reborns and add mech deathrattles. There are really no other versions out there. And since they rarely re-use keywords, we might not get other reborns in the future to make the options more interesting.
Warlock: this deck was already built the moment the quest was printed. Plot twist is the only way. Unlike Paladin, though, this one doesn't really work. Also unlike Paladin, however, there is room for future development.
Druid: quest Druid is strong and may be fun, but there is no room for variety. Every quest Druid game plays out the same way. Leave mana for 4 turns, start playing the same bunch of choose ones. Even with more choose one options in the future, this deck is more or less set in stone. There's no way to aggro it, since you have to float mana early.
The other decks work/don't work to varying degree, but they all allow some flexibility in style. You can aim for aggro, midrange, or control with most of them. Priest can only be control, but there are various approaches. Shaman is the ultimate example of flexibility. There are 1,000 battlecry minions in the game, so you have nearly infinitely many combos to play around with.
There are 4 quests that can regularly, easily be completed very early in the game: Shaman, Druid, Paladin, and Rogue. Warrior can sometimes be completed early. Warlock, Hunter, Mage, and Priest all necessarily take a while.
There are 3 quests that are in meta decks - Shaman, Paladin, and Druid.
Shaman in the only quest that is flexible, easy to complete, and good. Some of the other quests check of 2 of the 3 boxes.
What quests have the most potential in future expansions?
Shaman will always be good.
Warlock needs more plot twist synergies.
Hunter has an amazing collection of cards right now and still can't get the quest to work. It's probably not ever happening.
Rogue can complete easily with quality cards, but the reward is weird. The immunity doesn't matter much for aggro, and the damage is too low for control. Rogue would need more weapon synergy cards for this to work.
Mage has tons of cheap spells already. Maybe the reward just isn't worth it.
Warrior...who knows? It's a fine reward, but there aren't ways to build weapon centered Warrior decks right now. It's not fast enough for aggro, and for control, you'd rather have Dr Boom's hero power.
Paladin will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add some variety in reborn minions.
Priest has plenty of potential to improve. Any control support will help this quest.
Druid will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add something ridiculous in the choose one options.
Since I'm not a hard-core ladder climber, my view might not mean much to a lot of people,
That should make your view more valuable. The vast majority of Hearthstone players are not ladder climbers.
The original post puts all cards into two categories - overpowered or trash. If a card is a part of a top tier deck, it's overpowered. If not, it's trash. I, on the other hand, find plenty of middle ground. Even though Gloop Sprayer is not currently in a tier 1 deck, I use it in my ramp beast deck, and it's great. I use Mulchmuncher in my token Druid, and I like it. So, no, these buffs were not a failure at all. They were fun, and fun is why I play the game.
What makes a deck hard? I guess the learning curve for some decks is a bit longer than others, but anyone can learn any deck reasonably quickly. Just play it a bit.
If my win/loss odds are almost entirely dependent on my draw and almost entirely independent of anything my opponent does, I have a non-interactive deck. I think the original Quest Rogue is a good example.
It's crazy to think back on decks that were overpowered a few years ago and realize how laughable they would be now. Big minions used to have some value. Now they only have value if you can multiply them, resurrect them, and re-stock them. A card like Oondasta would have been strong once, but now all it does is give you one free big minion. If it's not at least two big free minions, why even bother?
Beast Druid: Run big beasts, try to combo Untamed Beastmaster with the card that draws a beast and doubles its health. Combo archmage with Witching Hour to bring beasts back.
This is the 2nd Riot game I've tried, and it's tough transitioning from Blizzard to Riot. Blizzard is light years ahead in terms of artistic design, smoothness of game play, and things like lore and humor.
Runeterra seems pretty good, but it is clunky compared to HS. New cards, so new synergies to explore. But the basic strategies carry over. There are burn decks, token decks, aggro decks, control, etc. I quickly threw a token deck together with buff spells and cheap minions, and it seems to be working fine.
It's rare that I see a decklist that needs a guide. It's usually pretty clear from the list what the intent is and how to play it.
I mean, you can throw 30 random hunter cards together right now and have a fairly competitive deck. I think the quest hunter is strong because Hunter is strong. Take the quest out of that deck, and it's still decent
Definitely some similarities. The main difference is the quest is more reliable since you don't need to mulligan for anything, but ramp allowed for more power when it worked.
Here are a few breakdowns on the new quests:
There are three quests that allow for zero flexibility in building:
Paladin: great reward, good deck, fun deck, but there's only one way to use this quest. Play all of the reborns and add mech deathrattles. There are really no other versions out there. And since they rarely re-use keywords, we might not get other reborns in the future to make the options more interesting.
Warlock: this deck was already built the moment the quest was printed. Plot twist is the only way. Unlike Paladin, though, this one doesn't really work. Also unlike Paladin, however, there is room for future development.
Druid: quest Druid is strong and may be fun, but there is no room for variety. Every quest Druid game plays out the same way. Leave mana for 4 turns, start playing the same bunch of choose ones. Even with more choose one options in the future, this deck is more or less set in stone. There's no way to aggro it, since you have to float mana early.
The other decks work/don't work to varying degree, but they all allow some flexibility in style. You can aim for aggro, midrange, or control with most of them. Priest can only be control, but there are various approaches. Shaman is the ultimate example of flexibility. There are 1,000 battlecry minions in the game, so you have nearly infinitely many combos to play around with.
There are 4 quests that can regularly, easily be completed very early in the game: Shaman, Druid, Paladin, and Rogue. Warrior can sometimes be completed early. Warlock, Hunter, Mage, and Priest all necessarily take a while.
There are 3 quests that are in meta decks - Shaman, Paladin, and Druid.
Shaman in the only quest that is flexible, easy to complete, and good. Some of the other quests check of 2 of the 3 boxes.
What quests have the most potential in future expansions?
Shaman will always be good.
Warlock needs more plot twist synergies.
Hunter has an amazing collection of cards right now and still can't get the quest to work. It's probably not ever happening.
Rogue can complete easily with quality cards, but the reward is weird. The immunity doesn't matter much for aggro, and the damage is too low for control. Rogue would need more weapon synergy cards for this to work.
Mage has tons of cheap spells already. Maybe the reward just isn't worth it.
Warrior...who knows? It's a fine reward, but there aren't ways to build weapon centered Warrior decks right now. It's not fast enough for aggro, and for control, you'd rather have Dr Boom's hero power.
Paladin will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add some variety in reborn minions.
Priest has plenty of potential to improve. Any control support will help this quest.
Druid will probably be exactly as good as it is right now unless they add something ridiculous in the choose one options.
I don't see this as very different from a new card that breaks the game and stays on for half a year, which will always be a part of this game.
That should make your view more valuable. The vast majority of Hearthstone players are not ladder climbers.
The original post puts all cards into two categories - overpowered or trash. If a card is a part of a top tier deck, it's overpowered. If not, it's trash. I, on the other hand, find plenty of middle ground. Even though Gloop Sprayer is not currently in a tier 1 deck, I use it in my ramp beast deck, and it's great. I use Mulchmuncher in my token Druid, and I like it. So, no, these buffs were not a failure at all. They were fun, and fun is why I play the game.
Take that, bomb warrior!
https://hsreplay.net/replay/pLHq2JndWKvjh2Qd79kHFb
What makes a deck hard? I guess the learning curve for some decks is a bit longer than others, but anyone can learn any deck reasonably quickly. Just play it a bit.
If my win/loss odds are almost entirely dependent on my draw and almost entirely independent of anything my opponent does, I have a non-interactive deck. I think the original Quest Rogue is a good example.
Don't these decks play very similarly? Play a minion, bounce it, play it, bounce it....stall until you have an unending supply of big, cheap minions.
It's crazy to think back on decks that were overpowered a few years ago and realize how laughable they would be now. Big minions used to have some value. Now they only have value if you can multiply them, resurrect them, and re-stock them. A card like Oondasta would have been strong once, but now all it does is give you one free big minion. If it's not at least two big free minions, why even bother?
So many mechs.
My fun decks right now:
Beast Druid: Run big beasts, try to combo Untamed Beastmaster with the card that draws a beast and doubles its health. Combo archmage with Witching Hour to bring beasts back.
Beast Warlock: Similar combos, but use Plot Twist with Untamed Beastmaster to buff lots of things.
Draw Hunter: Run 1-drops, the spirit of the lynx, the lynx and Arcane Fletcher for your draw engine. Zul'jin of course.
Burn Mage: just cram spells and spell damage into a deck with Antonidas.
Windfury Shaman: Put all the stealth into a deck with Zentimo, Windfury, and the guy who gives you mega-windfury. It's great fun when it works.
Snip-Snap is new, so any mech deck with that guy is probably fun for a while.