You have no idea how many Warlocks quit after Cataclysm, Bloodbloom or other OTK enabler spell goes off too early for their tastes, or get saved by someone's pocketed Hagatha's Scheme/Plague of Death/DOOM! cards. Actually used Brann with it one time against a Druid ... can't Malygos win if you ain't got spells.
So not only are you basing a deck's capabilities on a single game. You were also playing against an aggro deck that runs a quest for some reason.
Maybe that's why you don't get it.
Well, I just faced several aggro warriors NOT running quest today, and they actually did worse against wall priest than said quest guy. Will give some credit to one warrior starting off turn 2 with a 5/6 minion going into my face and later building a 12/4 Frothing Berzerker (but hey, thanks for putting up a 4-damage mech next to it for Mass Hysteria).
At least against Control Warrior, it's going to be who can outlast the other, rather than see how far aggro goes to quitting time if they can't get a win by turn 8.
My deck's Zephrys. Fireball for the finisher to win, as we both went face (boss building a wide board of 4/4s and 1/1s, me with a heavily buffed King Krush that lasted several turns and occasional sidekick minion.
Finley: Takes longer than it should, but pretty much easy unless you get bad sand RNG.
Brann: It would've been tough but Brann summoned a poisonous minion. Oh, and if you can steal stuff from Brann's hand, he's holding on to the Hunter Quest; unlikely you'll finish it in time.
Reno: If you took the scepter that turns 5+ mana minions to cost 5, you'll be rewarded here. Because that damn gatling gun shreds everything, but barely touches his own minions (once in a while).
Final Boss: Was at that point where you can win or lose and then Zephrys appears ... Be ready for a lot of annoying 4/4 minions.
Mage is MIA. I've seen a few decent performances but it's not as dominating.
Control Warrior is still valid, but Quest Paladin has made inroads this week with mage out of the picture and Quest Wall Priest can wear out warrior with the reborns and mass resurrections.
Don't get the aggro warrior is best warrior stuff; I played Wall Priest and the warrior quit, and I hadn't even dropped a single resurrect, Psychopomp or plague card. Just taunt after taunt, an all-but-one Mass Hysteria clear and a copied Reckless Mummy I seanced in a pinch. (Edit: I also recall it being a quest aggro warrior, maybe he burned his best stuff too early while I had over 20 health).
Wild: This week using highlander mage and warlock, I've won quite a bit using the "condom" cards of wild -- Dirty Rat, Unseen Saboteur (hilarious when it's a Mecha'thun Warlock opponent and you cataclysm their Mecha'thun-in-hand or spend that lone Bloodbloom) and good ol' Skulking Geist making short work of OTK and Quest Jade Druids. Pretty much the holy trinity of anti-OTK.
Aside from Un'Goro Quest Mage and Secret Mage, fear the Control Shaman decks going for their endless Shudderwock finisher.
Mistake: They play the first Coldlight Oracle, without copying it or jumping it repeatedly, while I can kill it with Hellfire. The next one? About second to last card in their deck, and they're at 5 health with out of cards penalty already clicking in. And they've burned all their vanishes, saps, healbots and I have a wall of minions up.
Good times, and I think everybody across the deck spectrum hates Mill Rogues. But Blizzard, we could use more tools to defang them other than just luck and their own overconfidence.
Later Game: Me: Quest Wall Priest.
Them: Murloc Paladin. HSReplay says I should've lost this, big time (only 28% winrate in some variations)
Mistake: Going all in while I can Mass Hysteria and Plague of Death multiple times to clear a full lineup. Or running their minions into consecutive Psychopomp that have spawned Zilliax with reborn (including one hero buffed to 6/5), giving me all my health back and killing his hand in the process.
Feels good, and you just shake your head on how pathetic simple-minded murloc decks look. They bust out Zephrys and I don't think he can just hand them a whole new deck and hand to fix the situation. I didn't even get to use the Fishflinger stuff he sent to me as a coup de grace. +3/+3 hero power and RNG gives me murlocs with synergy? Thanks for the extra ammo -- I'm not Big Priest relying on a few select minions in my rez pool, and besides, you forgot to kill the Psychopomps to ruin it for me earlier, genius.
Swarm aggro decks killed off my favorite archetype -- Thief Priest -- and bored me to death last year with evolve shaman and odd paladin, so anytime I see these decks humiliated, it's good.
Have to add I've seen CONTROL WARRIORS that DO NOT HAVE Dr. Boom Hero card. Folks, aside from Frost Lich Jaina going to wild (if that card had not, CW wouldn't be complained about for months), Dr. Boom pretty much brought back control warrior, not just all the mech toys. But I guess people need that 1,600 dust this week.
Each one of these warriors I've beaten. And I stop and think after the match, would the RNG delivery or armor helped them?
Beaten two with my variation of Quest/Wall Priest, another with a pre-nerf Control Warrior deck (still works fine) and Quest Shaman, all of which went to one or both players running out of cards.
Soothing moment of the week: Beating a Mill Rogue who badly gambled his first Coldlight Oracle, then found his next one at the bottom of his deck, with him having 5 health left vs. my Reno Lock at full with a lot of cards left. Then following it with a spanking of overconfident Paladin Murloc user who quickly burnt through his deck against my wall priest, and gave me all my health back via a pair of Psychopomp bringing back reborn-sporting Zilliax repeatedly, including one hero-powered buffed one. LESSON: DUST YOUR MURLOCS. You can make better decks with that dust. Murlocs limit your potential.
I've beat the Highlander Hunter with a variation of the wall priest listed, so yeah, it's a good pairing of rock vs. paper. I'm liking the stats I've seen on HSreplay on Quest Wall Priest against some other long-play decks like warrior and Cyclone Mage.
Subs to suggest:
Arcane Dynamo for more Mass Res or Plague of Death; the former is essential to beating Control or Bomb Warrior while the latter works against more problematic board makers like Conjurer's Mages or deathrattle-reliant paladins, and the big spell add extra oomph for a King Phaoris turn as well. Don't worry about the 3/4 that might get rezzed; you already have King Phaoris and friends as well as Psychopomps screwing up the pool, and your late-game hero power can turn small things into big threats.
High Inquisitor Whitemaneis situational and can be as dead as holding Archivist Elysiana in your opening hand for an entire game, but when you can mass rez a Convincing Infiltrator or reborn taunts that you just sacrificed in your turn as well as toss in a big body and possibly add a hero power buff to it or another card, it can break an opponent to concede. Also, nobody expects it because it's so rarely seen (or owned -- lucky me for landing a golden one; soooo pretttty).
Seance is worth having for [Hearthstone Card (Catarina Muerte) Not Found] getting a second act, Archmage Vargoth refilling your hand if you happen to have multiple minions up, or an opponent's valuable card like Archivist Elysiana or Siamat.
I don't get the nostalgia. The only thing I can think of those misty eyed over memory lane or those wanting ego trips on getting purple worded magic pants with locally sourced jerks put in a cat herd instead of random jerks from other servers put in a cat herd by the Raid Finder.
And most of the niceties added over the course of the game were big steps up if you felt like doing a dungeon at midnight or tried to have a life. I actually came back when I learned of transmog; I didn't have to have my characters looking like clowns while raiding.
Have fun finding the people for certain Dungeon or Raid X no one wants to do in a few weeks.
/WoW guilds and accomplishments are the Internet equivalent of bowling teams and scores. Nobody will care in decade or two.
//how long till Wrath of the Lich King-era servers are demanded because WoW Classic got boring?
Zilliax is the current era's Azure Drake and Stonehill Defender (remember that card in almost every deck?).
Ultraflexible.
But not OP on its own, quite easy to remove and gives a heal or brief taunt (or in some cases a boost to a minion). It was statted just right
And he's not making the meta stale like Genn/Baku.
Now if Control Warrior landed Zilliax like mad in Dr. Boom's hero power or kept landing on them in minion generation, or some other major shenanigans ... yeah, Zilliax would be sent to Nerfhalla.
But so far in a year, nothing other than he shows up in almost every deck (including some priest ones) and he'll probably be given a memorable send off when April comes.
My opponent was using a renounce warlock deck. So things got weird from the start.
Especially when both sides busted out Archbishop Benedictus. Multiple times. Don't ask how. I'm amazed the game didn't end in a draw for going on too long.
I don't care about net-decking. It's going to happen and it's necessity. I work in media; keep a large number of people talking about a game and sharing ideas about it, you keep it alive and generating revenue, as well as hopefully keeping the guys in charge of it in touch with what is going on with their product. The game needs forums like this and stats sites to keep fanbase interest; fans exchange ideas, for better or for worse, decks get copied by the masses, with varying levels of individuals tweaking them, for better or for worse. Necessary good and evil.
Best game of the SoU era I've had? Me using this thief priest deck by someone here on the site vs. a Renounce Warlock in wild. We don't get good, unpredictable clown fiestas anymore. That was fun. Different. Engaging. And this was at Rank 9, not 20. More power to Renounce Warlock guy busting that out.
/tip for Quest Wall-style priests: consider Arcane Dynamo, especially if King Phaoris is in the deck. Adds more spice and an extra mass rez was what broke Control Warrior opponents.
I'm getting sick of smorc, aggro and hunters decks. I go to wild, see (then crush) another boring-ass Odd Paladin.
The Hearthstone Gods decide to bless me with watching someone else for a pack of cards for the daily quest, so yeah, let's take a break and maybe there's something different ...
Friend of mine is using bomb hunter vs. a homebrew control paladin (Lay on Hands seen). I start rooting for the other guy, who rallies back with a buffed Crystalsmith Kangor and has bombtard hunter quit.
Another friend is in hunter vs. hunter and I'm rooting for server crash. Friend somehow loses to secret hunter before he can get his Zul'jin buffed twinspell beast factory up and running. Yawn.
Am I the only one logging in spectator mode and then rooting against the friend? Seriously, do you ever log into a friend's game and then go, "Your deck sucks, I'm rooting for the other guy now."
PR stunt that had more effort than the nerfs, so far. Please don't underwhelm when the nerfs are announced.
Proud to say I've been spouting the mana-cost cheat nerf Kripp recently suggested to Mountain Giant/Conjurer's Calling for MONTHS. If it's a 4-mana drop, get 4-mana minions. Keeps the RNG nature of the card legit, instead of being fixed dice rolls that consistently land in the small pool of big minions. And it would keep mountain giant for handlock, if it gets to be viable again. But yeah, it's probably more work than the coding guys want to do than "change mana cost of Conjurer's Calling."
/when the hell did priests' arms get on the nerf radar?
//Hunter is overdue for nerfs btw; they're all I'm seeing instead of these warriors people claim are ruining their day. Wouldn't mind the warriors anyway -- Blizzard stats e-mailed to me from last month: I beat warrior 92%. And I play different types of control decks. Yeah yeah, meta changed, all that, but allegedly, Control Warrior hasn't changed in most people's eyes. (Taunts and extra full board clears give it some chance vs. mage, priest and King Phaoris shenanigans).
For some of the new quests, it is win-more too. Best example is priest, if you can survive aggro, you can tire down a Control Warrior if played smartly, and it's got strong enough removal to go against Conjurer's Mages. Same with Paladin; if you can weather a storm while dropping meager reborns, eventually you get a very sticky conundrum that only loses to polymorph or silence. But if you made it that far, you're likely already set to win against most decks. Priest repeatedly getting the reborn healing taunt or Sandhoof makes Shudderwock decks relying on THE BIG TURN fall flat.
I use a similar deck, but use Unseen Saboteur instead of Dirty Rat.
You have no idea how many Warlocks quit after Cataclysm, Bloodbloom or other OTK enabler spell goes off too early for their tastes, or get saved by someone's pocketed Hagatha's Scheme/Plague of Death/DOOM! cards. Actually used Brann with it one time against a Druid ... can't Malygos win if you ain't got spells.
Well, I just faced several aggro warriors NOT running quest today, and they actually did worse against wall priest than said quest guy. Will give some credit to one warrior starting off turn 2 with a 5/6 minion going into my face and later building a 12/4 Frothing Berzerker (but hey, thanks for putting up a 4-damage mech next to it for Mass Hysteria).
At least against Control Warrior, it's going to be who can outlast the other, rather than see how far aggro goes to quitting time if they can't get a win by turn 8.
My deck's Zephrys. Fireball for the finisher to win, as we both went face (boss building a wide board of 4/4s and 1/1s, me with a heavily buffed King Krush that lasted several turns and occasional sidekick minion.
Opening: Easy but lengthy (30 health).
Finley: Takes longer than it should, but pretty much easy unless you get bad sand RNG.
Brann: It would've been tough but Brann summoned a poisonous minion. Oh, and if you can steal stuff from Brann's hand, he's holding on to the Hunter Quest; unlikely you'll finish it in time.
Reno: If you took the scepter that turns 5+ mana minions to cost 5, you'll be rewarded here. Because that damn gatling gun shreds everything, but barely touches his own minions (once in a while).
Final Boss: Was at that point where you can win or lose and then Zephrys appears ... Be ready for a lot of annoying 4/4 minions.
It's all hunter in standard. Or murlocs.
Mage is MIA. I've seen a few decent performances but it's not as dominating.
Control Warrior is still valid, but Quest Paladin has made inroads this week with mage out of the picture and Quest Wall Priest can wear out warrior with the reborns and mass resurrections.
Don't get the aggro warrior is best warrior stuff; I played Wall Priest and the warrior quit, and I hadn't even dropped a single resurrect, Psychopomp or plague card. Just taunt after taunt, an all-but-one Mass Hysteria clear and a copied Reckless Mummy I seanced in a pinch. (Edit: I also recall it being a quest aggro warrior, maybe he burned his best stuff too early while I had over 20 health).
Wild: This week using highlander mage and warlock, I've won quite a bit using the "condom" cards of wild -- Dirty Rat, Unseen Saboteur (hilarious when it's a Mecha'thun Warlock opponent and you cataclysm their Mecha'thun-in-hand or spend that lone Bloodbloom) and good ol' Skulking Geist making short work of OTK and Quest Jade Druids. Pretty much the holy trinity of anti-OTK.
Aside from Un'Goro Quest Mage and Secret Mage, fear the Control Shaman decks going for their endless Shudderwock finisher.
And there's still too many hunters.
Game 1 of the night:
Me: Reno Lock (Wild).
Them: Mill Rogue.
Mistake: They play the first Coldlight Oracle, without copying it or jumping it repeatedly, while I can kill it with Hellfire. The next one? About second to last card in their deck, and they're at 5 health with out of cards penalty already clicking in. And they've burned all their vanishes, saps, healbots and I have a wall of minions up.
Good times, and I think everybody across the deck spectrum hates Mill Rogues. But Blizzard, we could use more tools to defang them other than just luck and their own overconfidence.
Later Game:
Me: Quest Wall Priest.
Them: Murloc Paladin. HSReplay says I should've lost this, big time (only 28% winrate in some variations)
Mistake: Going all in while I can Mass Hysteria and Plague of Death multiple times to clear a full lineup. Or running their minions into consecutive Psychopomp that have spawned Zilliax with reborn (including one hero buffed to 6/5), giving me all my health back and killing his hand in the process.
Feels good, and you just shake your head on how pathetic simple-minded murloc decks look. They bust out Zephrys and I don't think he can just hand them a whole new deck and hand to fix the situation. I didn't even get to use the Fishflinger stuff he sent to me as a coup de grace. +3/+3 hero power and RNG gives me murlocs with synergy? Thanks for the extra ammo -- I'm not Big Priest relying on a few select minions in my rez pool, and besides, you forgot to kill the Psychopomps to ruin it for me earlier, genius.
Swarm aggro decks killed off my favorite archetype -- Thief Priest -- and bored me to death last year with evolve shaman and odd paladin, so anytime I see these decks humiliated, it's good.
Have to add I've seen CONTROL WARRIORS that DO NOT HAVE Dr. Boom Hero card. Folks, aside from Frost Lich Jaina going to wild (if that card had not, CW wouldn't be complained about for months), Dr. Boom pretty much brought back control warrior, not just all the mech toys. But I guess people need that 1,600 dust this week.
Each one of these warriors I've beaten. And I stop and think after the match, would the RNG delivery or armor helped them?
Beaten two with my variation of Quest/Wall Priest, another with a pre-nerf Control Warrior deck (still works fine) and Quest Shaman, all of which went to one or both players running out of cards.
Soothing moment of the week: Beating a Mill Rogue who badly gambled his first Coldlight Oracle, then found his next one at the bottom of his deck, with him having 5 health left vs. my Reno Lock at full with a lot of cards left. Then following it with a spanking of overconfident Paladin Murloc user who quickly burnt through his deck against my wall priest, and gave me all my health back via a pair of Psychopomp bringing back reborn-sporting Zilliax repeatedly, including one hero-powered buffed one. LESSON: DUST YOUR MURLOCS. You can make better decks with that dust. Murlocs limit your potential.
Seen in Standard:
Too Much Hunters
Murlocs
A couple of Bomb Warriors
Quest Shaman
Rogue, once in a while
Seen in Wild:
Un'Goro Quest Mages
Secret Mages
More Goddamn Hunters
Murlocs
Highlander Decks from the Kazakus Trio
Mill Rogues
I've beat the Highlander Hunter with a variation of the wall priest listed, so yeah, it's a good pairing of rock vs. paper. I'm liking the stats I've seen on HSreplay on Quest Wall Priest against some other long-play decks like warrior and Cyclone Mage.
Subs to suggest:
Arcane Dynamo for more Mass Res or Plague of Death; the former is essential to beating Control or Bomb Warrior while the latter works against more problematic board makers like Conjurer's Mages or deathrattle-reliant paladins, and the big spell add extra oomph for a King Phaoris turn as well. Don't worry about the 3/4 that might get rezzed; you already have King Phaoris and friends as well as Psychopomps screwing up the pool, and your late-game hero power can turn small things into big threats.
High Inquisitor Whitemaneis situational and can be as dead as holding Archivist Elysiana in your opening hand for an entire game, but when you can mass rez a Convincing Infiltrator or reborn taunts that you just sacrificed in your turn as well as toss in a big body and possibly add a hero power buff to it or another card, it can break an opponent to concede. Also, nobody expects it because it's so rarely seen (or owned -- lucky me for landing a golden one; soooo pretttty).
Seance is worth having for [Hearthstone Card (Catarina Muerte) Not Found] getting a second act, Archmage Vargoth refilling your hand if you happen to have multiple minions up, or an opponent's valuable card like Archivist Elysiana or Siamat.
I don't get the nostalgia. The only thing I can think of those misty eyed over memory lane or those wanting ego trips on getting purple worded magic pants with locally sourced jerks put in a cat herd instead of random jerks from other servers put in a cat herd by the Raid Finder.
And most of the niceties added over the course of the game were big steps up if you felt like doing a dungeon at midnight or tried to have a life. I actually came back when I learned of transmog; I didn't have to have my characters looking like clowns while raiding.
Have fun finding the people for certain Dungeon or Raid X no one wants to do in a few weeks.
/WoW guilds and accomplishments are the Internet equivalent of bowling teams and scores. Nobody will care in decade or two.
//how long till Wrath of the Lich King-era servers are demanded because WoW Classic got boring?
Zilliax is the current era's Azure Drake and Stonehill Defender (remember that card in almost every deck?).
Ultraflexible.
But not OP on its own, quite easy to remove and gives a heal or brief taunt (or in some cases a boost to a minion). It was statted just right
And he's not making the meta stale like Genn/Baku.
Now if Control Warrior landed Zilliax like mad in Dr. Boom's hero power or kept landing on them in minion generation, or some other major shenanigans ... yeah, Zilliax would be sent to Nerfhalla.
But so far in a year, nothing other than he shows up in almost every deck (including some priest ones) and he'll probably be given a memorable send off when April comes.
My opponent was using a renounce warlock deck. So things got weird from the start.
Especially when both sides busted out Archbishop Benedictus. Multiple times. Don't ask how. I'm amazed the game didn't end in a draw for going on too long.
I don't care about net-decking. It's going to happen and it's necessity. I work in media; keep a large number of people talking about a game and sharing ideas about it, you keep it alive and generating revenue, as well as hopefully keeping the guys in charge of it in touch with what is going on with their product. The game needs forums like this and stats sites to keep fanbase interest; fans exchange ideas, for better or for worse, decks get copied by the masses, with varying levels of individuals tweaking them, for better or for worse. Necessary good and evil.
Best game of the SoU era I've had? Me using this thief priest deck by someone here on the site vs. a Renounce Warlock in wild. We don't get good, unpredictable clown fiestas anymore. That was fun. Different. Engaging. And this was at Rank 9, not 20. More power to Renounce Warlock guy busting that out.
/tip for Quest Wall-style priests: consider Arcane Dynamo, especially if King Phaoris is in the deck. Adds more spice and an extra mass rez was what broke Control Warrior opponents.
So far this deck gave me the best matchup in wild, so far, in the SoU era.
But how many times do you run into a Renounce Warlock? Great clown fiestas are few and far between.
I'm getting sick of smorc, aggro and hunters decks. I go to wild, see (then crush) another boring-ass Odd Paladin.
The Hearthstone Gods decide to bless me with watching someone else for a pack of cards for the daily quest, so yeah, let's take a break and maybe there's something different ...
Friend of mine is using bomb hunter vs. a homebrew control paladin (Lay on Hands seen). I start rooting for the other guy, who rallies back with a buffed Crystalsmith Kangor and has bombtard hunter quit.
Another friend is in hunter vs. hunter and I'm rooting for server crash. Friend somehow loses to secret hunter before he can get his Zul'jin buffed twinspell beast factory up and running. Yawn.
Am I the only one logging in spectator mode and then rooting against the friend? Seriously, do you ever log into a friend's game and then go, "Your deck sucks, I'm rooting for the other guy now."
And here' s Hearthstone Mathematics on the same topic, along with plenty of other interesting stats.
Interesting bit: Some F2P players might have been burned by obtaining the single player package for Rise of Shadows, instead of saving up for Saviors.
PR stunt that had more effort than the nerfs, so far. Please don't underwhelm when the nerfs are announced.
Proud to say I've been spouting the mana-cost cheat nerf Kripp recently suggested to Mountain Giant/Conjurer's Calling for MONTHS. If it's a 4-mana drop, get 4-mana minions. Keeps the RNG nature of the card legit, instead of being fixed dice rolls that consistently land in the small pool of big minions. And it would keep mountain giant for handlock, if it gets to be viable again. But yeah, it's probably more work than the coding guys want to do than "change mana cost of Conjurer's Calling."
/when the hell did priests' arms get on the nerf radar?
//Hunter is overdue for nerfs btw; they're all I'm seeing instead of these warriors people claim are ruining their day. Wouldn't mind the warriors anyway -- Blizzard stats e-mailed to me from last month: I beat warrior 92%. And I play different types of control decks. Yeah yeah, meta changed, all that, but allegedly, Control Warrior hasn't changed in most people's eyes. (Taunts and extra full board clears give it some chance vs. mage, priest and King Phaoris shenanigans).
For some of the new quests, it is win-more too. Best example is priest, if you can survive aggro, you can tire down a Control Warrior if played smartly, and it's got strong enough removal to go against Conjurer's Mages. Same with Paladin; if you can weather a storm while dropping meager reborns, eventually you get a very sticky conundrum that only loses to polymorph or silence. But if you made it that far, you're likely already set to win against most decks. Priest repeatedly getting the reborn healing taunt or Sandhoof makes Shudderwock decks relying on THE BIG TURN fall flat.
I thought Shadowverse was the perverts' CCG of choice.
I am also shocked on Earthquake being listed as a loser card.
I can only think it's because of mage often having 8-health minions or paladin deathrattles being its flaw.