In my anecdotal experience of around 30 games, sure Amalgam is a strong card, but I RARELY go after it since almost always go full Beast Spawn (Pack Leader/Momma Bear, Hyena, and Infested Wolf/Rat Pack) and I've come in top 4 in 23 games, claimed 1st place in 7.
I think it's a "win plus" rather than a "win more." If you've got a weaker field then it can definitely help carry the load (especially with poison) but it isn't going to win the the game solo or really even help that much if you can put together a strong Beast or Mech Spawn set without it.
To me the main issue is that poison is a bit OP, since a single poison minion can bring down anything. I think the designers realized that, which is why there are only two poison cards in the game: (1) Maexxna (which does not see a ton of play because it is not easily buff-able) and (2) Toxfin, which only works on murlocs. I like the idea of only giving murlocs the option to grant any board member poison, but with Nightmare Amalgam, you can get a crazy buffed poison minion in any strategy. Amalgam is also the only card capable of receiving dragon buffs, which get more value from Zoobot and Menagerie Magician, and it can be used with magnetic cards. In my opinion, Amalgams are just too good and should be offered some other way apart from RNG, like maybe as a reward for leveling up or doing well early, or something else.
I know there are a ton of times when I get a triple and would rather have an amalgam than any of the three next-level cards I'm offered. Maybe always make Amalgam one of the three choices for a triple bonus and let player choose if they want it
I was actually excited about Battlegrounds, but having played it for a day I must agree with other players. Here is a quote I made in another thread in response to it:
So, having played early access battlegrounds, I wanted to share my thoughts. While overall a fun mode, there isn't enough dimensions to keep most players entrained past initial week in my opinion. Already in 1 day of playing I started seeing the same end-game patterns over and over. The main end-game strategies are very repetitive (I really hope the complexity of this mode increases to keep it enjoyable long-term):
1. Go all in on beasts: Get Mama Bear and beasts that spawn more beasts (i.e. Rat Pack) and a cleaver or 2 (Cave Hydra)
2: Go all in on mechs: Get Junkbot and mechs that spawn more mechs (magnetize them) and a cleaver or 2 (Foe Reaper 4000), sound familiar?
3: Go all in on demons: Get Wrathweaver and rotate a bunch of demons between rounds to buff him, eventually get Annihilan Battlemaster with ~200 health (optionally get Malganis temporarily so Wrathweaver stops hurting you)
4: Go all in on murlocs: Try to discover poison + divine shield from Gentle Megasaur for every minion on board, or give it manually to your murlocs through other battlecries.
Oh, and of course, regardless of which of the only 4 endgame strategies you pick, buff/max out your Nightmare Amalgam, giving it a ton of health, poison, divine shield, etc. and magnetizing anything you come in contact with.
In my opinion, the Co-Op mode (2 players fighting a rogue minion, similar to some Brawls - but more variety and ability to use the entire card sample space) would have been a more interesting addition. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying the mode, but I doubt I still will a week from now.
I disagree slightly. Due to RNG in re-rolls, going all in on a specific tribe is risky. When it works (which it usually does for at least 1/8 players), it is hard to beat, which is why you usually see one of the strategies you mentioned in the finals of the round. But more often, you can't roll the pieces you need and then it fails hard. The best strategy for always having a decent (top-four) finish is to mix tribes and strategically use buffs and selling minions to create a solid board. That strategy is pretty fun, because its always a little different and requires many tough choices.
I have noticed one disturbing trend though---which is that my finishing position, no matter what strategy I use, is usually wholly dependent on how many Nightmare Amalgams I'm offered in the game. If I get offered 1 or none, I'm almost always finishing at the bottom. If I get offered 4-5, I almost always finish at the top. I've started tracking (will post results after 50 runs or so) but so far after tracking for 10 runs its worked out exactly as I thought: More amalgams always equals better finish.
If that ends up true, it reduces the mode to rolling for 1 card, which is pretty terrible design.
I don't understand why people are too cowardly to "test" netdecks on ladder. You have nothing to lose at tiers 5, 10 and 15. Get to one of those tiers and play whatever you want. Leave casual to people who are playing casually.
Used a recent mage deck of Thijs (anti Shaman deck) to play some games yesterday evening, got me from 5 to 4 again. Probably will not get a lot higher since there is not enough time left. But its a solid deck that can win any matchup given reasonable draw.
Link to deck? Mage is next on my 500 list and looking to something to counter Shaman, since that's all I see these day
I preferred the original Uldum meta; almost every decent deck was playable. In the current meta, you can't out-tempo evolve effects (other than hoping they don't draw Evolve/Mutate in time), while if you're going for a more defensive strategy you need to be able to out-greed or OTK the N'Zoth decks. This leaves far fewer options for deck building.
Yep. The pre-Doom meta was pretty balanced/solid. They really mucked it up with this event, but luckily the old meta will be back soon.
It won't be until the next expansion that the wild cards swill leave.
I really hope its not until December. I can't see Blizzard letting another nearly two months go by where 1 DECK is being played in 20% of games, and one class at 35%. They've been more proactive with balance this year
I preferred the original Uldum meta; almost every decent deck was playable. In the current meta, you can't out-tempo evolve effects (other than hoping they don't draw Evolve/Mutate in time), while if you're going for a more defensive strategy you need to be able to out-greed or OTK the N'Zoth decks. This leaves far fewer options for deck building.
Yep. The pre-Doom meta was pretty balanced/solid. They really mucked it up with this event, but luckily the old meta will be back soon.
For some reason I torture myself and continue to try and hit legend each month despite the rewards being terrible and the suffering being exquisite.
I got there this month using Evolve Shaman. For a deck that's supposed to be Tier 1, I still found the climb challenging. Although that probably says more about me than the deck!
Not you mate. Even the best decks have around a 55% winrate. On average that means 166 games from rank 5 to legend.
I hover around rank 4-5 each month because I don't have the time or drive to go for legend (I got it once, that was enough). This month I gave up on ladder altogether and am enjoying arena for the first time in a while because Evolve Shaman is insufferable to play against.
Maybe we should be able to have a ban option before we queue? Where you can ban one class for instance. Just like those tournaments...but maybe that would be too OP for some decks which only have one bad matchup.
That sounds like a terrible idea. Imagine picking rock, banning scissors and then queuing into only paper players: would that be very exciting? Bad matchups are a part of the game. Without them you can't have a healthy meta.
That and any Shaman trying to play would sit in queue for 5 minutes since the vast majority of all players will ban Shaman (being played at 40%!!!!! at rank 1 right now
I'm done. I'm playing arena for the rest of the month. I've never had less fun on ladder. The Shaman BS is too much, and when the rest of games are against Secret Pally or N'Zoth Priest... I miss minion trading and strategy.
This could have been amazing... and almost was... but N'Zoth, the Corruptor and Mysterious Challenger have turned Standard into Wild Lite---i.e., first to draw degenerate combo wins. I think they went just a little too far. Without those two cards (and maybe something more playable for Warlock), it would have been pretty good.
I have been playing a lot of Warlock lately, and I keep thinking to myself "What if Warlock got Defile instead of Renounce Darkness?" Defile would have been a true game changer for Warlock, but alas...
This could have been amazing... and almost was... but N'Zoth, the Corruptor and Mysterious Challenger have turned Standard into Wild Lite---i.e., first to draw degenerate combo wins. I think they went just a little too far. Without those two cards (and maybe something more playable for Warlock), it would have been pretty good.
Been playing this with much success. Agreed on what others here have said. You need to wait to do anything (other than absolutely necessary removal and hand thinning to avoid overdraw) until you have discounts + Flamewaker. Most of my wins come with nearly all the damage on 1-2 turns. Most of the games I lost were because I just could not draw Flamewaker or Sorcerer's Apprentice. I think the winrate on HSreplay will go up once bad players stop playing the deck.
Well, it's only been a couple days, but so far pretty much all my matches have been against the same combo priest, highlander hunter etc. that I faced before
AH! I did not know about the Barnes/Y'Shaarj thing - so that explains it. Thanks for clearing that up!
I love a good RNG meme deck as much as the next guy (Burgle Rogue/Thief Priest are some of my favorite decks), but this was just too much - Renounce give you either a fantastically synergistic deck that allows for a steamroll (very rare) or you get a bunch of disjointed junk that gets you bodied (mostly this). I'll probably still kick it around between now and December, but man were my expectations way out off base with this one!
Yep. I played this deck a bunch when it was new. It was fun, and had a respectable (not great) win rate, but most of my wins came via Barnes>Y'shaarj. Similar to the spell hunter that was around at that time. I said in another thread that I was really puzzled Blizzard chose this card for the event because it is really not good and Warlock is already in a bad spot. Either Blizzard is clueless or there is some Renounce unicorn deck nobody has discovered yet.
I think he knew this happening was a possibility and he did it anyway, so that is on him. That is pretty noble of him.
I really don't like political talk mixing into sports/esports but I do agree with his cause and think Blizzards punishment was grossly severe. They essentially ended his HS career over it.
This is math. Lose an entire country's revenue, or lose a handful of others who are angered enough to stop playing. Maybe this will cost blizzard some sales, but better than losing China. Activision Blizzard is a public company with a duty to its shareholders to pursue the companies goals. I'm guessing profits is at the top of the goal list, and promoting free speech is not on the goal list.
Don't like it? Be one of those who stops playing. But you can't really blame Blizzard for making a pure business decision. That's what public companies do.
You can definitely blame blizzard for supporting human rights violation to protect their bottom line. I definitely didn't expect any better but there is nothing wrong with trashing them for this. People don't have to just accept that corporations are pro-profit and anti-human. Nothing directed specifically at you, nothing you really said is wrong but it's just terrible that this kind of behavior is completely normalized and the status quo
Well, I can't disagree with you. This is capitalism and its this system we live in and its enabled by the public. The difference between us and China is that the Chinese gov't can by fiat say "Do this, our you lose our entire country's player base," even though the Chinese citizens may not want it. Here, it would take a concerted effort of a large majority of the player base to threaten boycott before Blizzard would do anything, and let's face it, most Americans probably don't care much about one non-American player to stop playing a game they enjoy over it
This is math. Lose an entire country's revenue, or lose a handful of others who are angered enough to stop playing. Maybe this will cost blizzard some sales, but better than losing China. Activision Blizzard is a public company with a duty to its shareholders to pursue the companies goals. I'm guessing profits is at the top of the goal list, and promoting free speech is not on the goal list.
Don't like it? Be one of those who stops playing. But you can't really blame Blizzard for making a pure business decision. That's what public companies do.
To me the main issue is that poison is a bit OP, since a single poison minion can bring down anything. I think the designers realized that, which is why there are only two poison cards in the game: (1) Maexxna (which does not see a ton of play because it is not easily buff-able) and (2) Toxfin, which only works on murlocs. I like the idea of only giving murlocs the option to grant any board member poison, but with Nightmare Amalgam, you can get a crazy buffed poison minion in any strategy. Amalgam is also the only card capable of receiving dragon buffs, which get more value from Zoobot and Menagerie Magician, and it can be used with magnetic cards. In my opinion, Amalgams are just too good and should be offered some other way apart from RNG, like maybe as a reward for leveling up or doing well early, or something else.
I know there are a ton of times when I get a triple and would rather have an amalgam than any of the three next-level cards I'm offered. Maybe always make Amalgam one of the three choices for a triple bonus and let player choose if they want it
I disagree slightly. Due to RNG in re-rolls, going all in on a specific tribe is risky. When it works (which it usually does for at least 1/8 players), it is hard to beat, which is why you usually see one of the strategies you mentioned in the finals of the round. But more often, you can't roll the pieces you need and then it fails hard. The best strategy for always having a decent (top-four) finish is to mix tribes and strategically use buffs and selling minions to create a solid board. That strategy is pretty fun, because its always a little different and requires many tough choices.
I have noticed one disturbing trend though---which is that my finishing position, no matter what strategy I use, is usually wholly dependent on how many Nightmare Amalgams I'm offered in the game. If I get offered 1 or none, I'm almost always finishing at the bottom. If I get offered 4-5, I almost always finish at the top. I've started tracking (will post results after 50 runs or so) but so far after tracking for 10 runs its worked out exactly as I thought: More amalgams always equals better finish.
If that ends up true, it reduces the mode to rolling for 1 card, which is pretty terrible design.
I don't understand why people are too cowardly to "test" netdecks on ladder. You have nothing to lose at tiers 5, 10 and 15. Get to one of those tiers and play whatever you want. Leave casual to people who are playing casually.
How is it that warlock, already the worst class in the game, gets the worst of the 3 Galakronds revealed?
Link to deck? Mage is next on my 500 list and looking to something to counter Shaman, since that's all I see these day
I really hope its not until December. I can't see Blizzard letting another nearly two months go by where 1 DECK is being played in 20% of games, and one class at 35%. They've been more proactive with balance this year
Yep. The pre-Doom meta was pretty balanced/solid. They really mucked it up with this event, but luckily the old meta will be back soon.
Not you mate. Even the best decks have around a 55% winrate. On average that means 166 games from rank 5 to legend.
I hover around rank 4-5 each month because I don't have the time or drive to go for legend (I got it once, that was enough). This month I gave up on ladder altogether and am enjoying arena for the first time in a while because Evolve Shaman is insufferable to play against.
That and any Shaman trying to play would sit in queue for 5 minutes since the vast majority of all players will ban Shaman (being played at 40%!!!!! at rank 1 right now
I'm done. I'm playing arena for the rest of the month. I've never had less fun on ladder. The Shaman BS is too much, and when the rest of games are against Secret Pally or N'Zoth Priest... I miss minion trading and strategy.
YES. This
This could have been amazing... and almost was... but N'Zoth, the Corruptor and Mysterious Challenger have turned Standard into Wild Lite---i.e., first to draw degenerate combo wins. I think they went just a little too far. Without those two cards (and maybe something more playable for Warlock), it would have been pretty good.
Been playing this with much success. Agreed on what others here have said. You need to wait to do anything (other than absolutely necessary removal and hand thinning to avoid overdraw) until you have discounts + Flamewaker. Most of my wins come with nearly all the damage on 1-2 turns. Most of the games I lost were because I just could not draw Flamewaker or Sorcerer's Apprentice. I think the winrate on HSreplay will go up once bad players stop playing the deck.
Well, it's only been a couple days, but so far pretty much all my matches have been against the same combo priest, highlander hunter etc. that I faced before
Yep. I played this deck a bunch when it was new. It was fun, and had a respectable (not great) win rate, but most of my wins came via Barnes>Y'shaarj. Similar to the spell hunter that was around at that time. I said in another thread that I was really puzzled Blizzard chose this card for the event because it is really not good and Warlock is already in a bad spot. Either Blizzard is clueless or there is some Renounce unicorn deck nobody has discovered yet.
Wild is a dumpster fire and every game is a race to draw some broken combo.
Well, I can't disagree with you. This is capitalism and its this system we live in and its enabled by the public. The difference between us and China is that the Chinese gov't can by fiat say "Do this, our you lose our entire country's player base," even though the Chinese citizens may not want it. Here, it would take a concerted effort of a large majority of the player base to threaten boycott before Blizzard would do anything, and let's face it, most Americans probably don't care much about one non-American player to stop playing a game they enjoy over it
This is math. Lose an entire country's revenue, or lose a handful of others who are angered enough to stop playing. Maybe this will cost blizzard some sales, but better than losing China. Activision Blizzard is a public company with a duty to its shareholders to pursue the companies goals. I'm guessing profits is at the top of the goal list, and promoting free speech is not on the goal list.
Don't like it? Be one of those who stops playing. But you can't really blame Blizzard for making a pure business decision. That's what public companies do.
I think you missed that warlock (already the worst class standard) is getting an unplayable joke-meme card as one of its two.
Worked great. Thanks!