I agree with OP that it's not OP. BUT, I hate the deck. The quest is literally non-interactive because there is nothing the other player can do to stop it. Either you play aggro and get so far ahead by turn 5 that the quest is not enough, or you (most likely) lose. I get that druid is beatable once the quest is complete, but I feel like when I do beat post-quest druid, it's only because he didn't get his card draw or big heals, not because of anything I did anything to disrupt his deck.
I feel like Blizzard keeps saying they disfavor non-interactive game play, yet they keep producing decks like Quest Druid, and people defend it because its a T2 deck with a good but not great win rate. I don't really care that it's beatable, I care that it's not fun to play against.
I would say being able to put one single big minion on the board using a two card combo should not be a big deal, since chances of having it early are not that great, and by turn 4 you should be prepared for a big minion (mountain giant anyone?). So honestly I do not understand what's the fuzz about. I think it has to do with the general strength of the shaman quest deck.
I disagree completely. I can remember maybe a handful of time losing to quest shaman for a reason other than this combo. It makes the deck playable. Just look what's happened to Mage since Conjurer was nerfed. Top played to least played, just like that. This is not much different.
The problem is that even in the late game this combo is still good, so its that much crazier when it comes on turn 4-5. Compare that to a big Van Cleef which requires playing a whole bunch of cards (not just two) and is usually a waste of cards in the late game. Divine spirit > Inner fire has always been a problem and I will be shocked if one of those cards (probably divine spirit) is not sent to the HOF with next round of cards.
The only quest I'd say has some major potential and is being completely misused is Druid. I've built a "draw your whole deck" Jade Quest Druid and the amount of defense, removal and lategame power that deck has is insane. Never before have I had my Jades go over 20/20 in size in an actual competitive game, but with this deck, it happens all the time. Geist obviously completely annihilates the deck, so it can't get too popular, but seeing as most decks don't currently run it, Jade Druid has some serious surprise potential and can generate insane boards on the same turn it has spent 7 mana drawing (Overflow makes UI look like a joke). I think playing the deck as a token, board-flood version like it is in Standard is strictly incorrect. Being able to make your Jades 30 % bigger thanks to the Quest and having much more efficient card draw and removal in Nourish, Wrath, Raven Idol and Starfall seems to do the deck major favours and enable it to really tick.
This. I'm playing a (kind of meme) Reno-Yogg mage and went up against a quest druid yesterday. This happened (look at the size of his deck compared to mine, I'm at 7 or 8 fatigue at this point). Not sure how any control deck beats this without running Mecha'thun or DK Uther (or teching Geist.)
No idea how can anyone defend this combo, on this specific deck, beats me
Now it's also a staple in Murloc Shaman, which is quickly picking up in play %. That one is not even punishment against aggro, because the deck floods the board enough to play a cheap Mogu Fleshshaper early with just its own minions
Incorrect, playing it turn 3 means that there are already 4 minions, total. When you develop a minion or two to answer an early aggressive board, then your opponent drops Mogu Fleshshaperto punish you for it. That's the situation that feels bad. I am not calling for a nerf (see my previous post on this thread), but I get why this card is triggering.
It's made worse by the fact that Quest Shaman runs so many cheap minions. So even if you are not playing aggro, if you don't clean up all their lackeys by turn 3, then this is easily playable.
Was not ready. Had a deck full of murlocs, and he kept transforming mine into that guy that draws cards when murlocs die. He milled about 2/3 of my deck that way. By the time I got him down to 70 health, I was out of cards and he had like 30 some in his deck. Beat him pretty easy the next time since his heath carries over
I got ripped for saying this same thing in another thread. But yes, I 100% agree. I got killed by a turn 4 Tirion in two straight games. Feels bad. They also have that transform lackey that can do the same thing for 1 more mana, so its even easier to pull off.
Quest Shaman is probably one of the more overrated decks in the game right now. It is certainly good, but, as VS pointed out, it's not as good as its representation suggests it would be.
Quest Shaman should have been nerfed before, and now more than ever, it needs to be nerfed to high hell. Not because its hard to beat or because I have a bad win rate against it (I don't), but because:
It's almost 20% of decks at rank 1-5
The games are SO slow because the opponent is double discovering multiple times a turn and playing like a million lackeys every turn
Honestly, I think Mage is in a bad spot right now after the nerfs. It's less a problem with your deck specifically, as it is with the ceiling for Mage (or at least Highlander Mage) being too low compared to the rest of the meta.
I had more success with the standard version with Mountain Giant and Conjurer's Calling, because the giant becomes an early threat that requires the opponent to deal with immediately at the expense of their game plan, and can lead to snowball wins. The standard deck also has Archmage Antonidas and cheap freeze spells as an additional win condition. I felt your deck was a little too reliant on Pharos as a win condition. I've tried Pyroblast as win condition in a few decks (made a freeze mage with Naga and 2x Pyroblast that was fun, but not very good).
I was going to make a post yesterday about a change I wanted to see to discover that prevented discovering the card that triggered the discovery... so tired of Frightened Flunky being essentially an echo minion.
But then I saw this... which is a MUCH more drastic change to discover than even I was proposing. Personally, I always thought the class bonuses were a bad idea, and was surprised this change was not made back in Ungoro, where Stonehill Defender might as well have read: Choose One: Add a Tirion Fordring or Sunkeeper Tarim to your hand.
This is such a welcome change, and will go a long way toward bringing Warrior's power in line with other classes.
I gave this deck a go at rank 4-5, and went about 9-11 in 20 games. A lot of games where I drew nothing but big minions, and had nothing to stop aggro. I had much more success with the standard highlander Mage, but this was fun at least. Appreciate the deck and guide.
I think the shaman quest is too strong and the mage and warlock quests are too weak.
Really only because of lackeys and Sandstorm Elemental. The fact that there are two cheap lackey battlecry creators, and then each lackey is a 1-mana battlecry, it makes achieving the quest by turn 5-6 super easy, and then gives you insane value for nearly nothing after its complete.
What are the new op decks after the nerfs? I really like Singleton decks, mage reno still op? I want to craft singleton hunter (need only 2 legendaries), what do u guys think?
I'm also having fun with Lackey Zoolock, but I added a Mecha'thun combo to mine to help against those pesky control warriors (and other slower decks).
Honestly, a brawl where your deck is 30 Zephrys (highlander restriction removed of course) would be AMAZING. It would be like chess. Every game would start roughly the same, but as the turns went on, it would diverge more and more. Both players would be on completely even footing and every choice---from when to play Zephrys vs playing a perfect card to setting up board states to tease certain cards from Zephrys---would be huge. It would be the highest skill version of Hearthstone ever because Zephrys is highly manipulable compared to typical discover.
But... I suspect blizzard is lame and lazy, so it will probably be starting with a few hand. Yawn.
I agree with OP that it's not OP. BUT, I hate the deck. The quest is literally non-interactive because there is nothing the other player can do to stop it. Either you play aggro and get so far ahead by turn 5 that the quest is not enough, or you (most likely) lose. I get that druid is beatable once the quest is complete, but I feel like when I do beat post-quest druid, it's only because he didn't get his card draw or big heals, not because of anything I did anything to disrupt his deck.
I feel like Blizzard keeps saying they disfavor non-interactive game play, yet they keep producing decks like Quest Druid, and people defend it because its a T2 deck with a good but not great win rate. I don't really care that it's beatable, I care that it's not fun to play against.
Elise's joint Druid/Priest deck is garbage. No faith in her there. Why mix healing and armor? Makes no sense
I disagree completely. I can remember maybe a handful of time losing to quest shaman for a reason other than this combo. It makes the deck playable. Just look what's happened to Mage since Conjurer was nerfed. Top played to least played, just like that. This is not much different.
The problem is that even in the late game this combo is still good, so its that much crazier when it comes on turn 4-5. Compare that to a big Van Cleef which requires playing a whole bunch of cards (not just two) and is usually a waste of cards in the late game. Divine spirit > Inner fire has always been a problem and I will be shocked if one of those cards (probably divine spirit) is not sent to the HOF with next round of cards.
This. I'm playing a (kind of meme) Reno-Yogg mage and went up against a quest druid yesterday. This happened (look at the size of his deck compared to mine, I'm at 7 or 8 fatigue at this point). Not sure how any control deck beats this without running Mecha'thun or DK Uther (or teching Geist.)
Now it's also a staple in Murloc Shaman, which is quickly picking up in play %. That one is not even punishment against aggro, because the deck floods the board enough to play a cheap Mogu Fleshshaper early with just its own minions
It's made worse by the fact that Quest Shaman runs so many cheap minions. So even if you are not playing aggro, if you don't clean up all their lackeys by turn 3, then this is easily playable.
Was not ready. Had a deck full of murlocs, and he kept transforming mine into that guy that draws cards when murlocs die. He milled about 2/3 of my deck that way. By the time I got him down to 70 health, I was out of cards and he had like 30 some in his deck. Beat him pretty easy the next time since his heath carries over
I got ripped for saying this same thing in another thread. But yes, I 100% agree. I got killed by a turn 4 Tirion in two straight games. Feels bad. They also have that transform lackey that can do the same thing for 1 more mana, so its even easier to pull off.
I don't think you actually read my post
Quest Shaman should have been nerfed before, and now more than ever, it needs to be nerfed to high hell. Not because its hard to beat or because I have a bad win rate against it (I don't), but because:
It's really just not fun at all to play against, and made way worse by it being 1/5 games.
I'll go back to my original suggestion in my last thread... make it 1 mana, and only affect the next battelcry.
My opponent made all three wishes. I got just the first one. I still won. :)
Honestly, I think Mage is in a bad spot right now after the nerfs. It's less a problem with your deck specifically, as it is with the ceiling for Mage (or at least Highlander Mage) being too low compared to the rest of the meta.
I had more success with the standard version with Mountain Giant and Conjurer's Calling, because the giant becomes an early threat that requires the opponent to deal with immediately at the expense of their game plan, and can lead to snowball wins. The standard deck also has Archmage Antonidas and cheap freeze spells as an additional win condition. I felt your deck was a little too reliant on Pharos as a win condition. I've tried Pyroblast as win condition in a few decks (made a freeze mage with Naga and 2x Pyroblast that was fun, but not very good).
If you want to keep the dragons, I would suggest maybe cutting the Pyroblast and Naga, and adding in Mountain Giant and Conjurer's Calling. Conjurer's Calling also pairs well with Crowd Roaster (if you can get it to stick, harder now after the nerf). I had a dragon mage right after Conjurer's Calling came out that won a lot of games with that combo.
I was going to make a post yesterday about a change I wanted to see to discover that prevented discovering the card that triggered the discovery... so tired of Frightened Flunky being essentially an echo minion.
But then I saw this... which is a MUCH more drastic change to discover than even I was proposing. Personally, I always thought the class bonuses were a bad idea, and was surprised this change was not made back in Ungoro, where Stonehill Defender might as well have read: Choose One: Add a Tirion Fordring or Sunkeeper Tarim to your hand.
This is such a welcome change, and will go a long way toward bringing Warrior's power in line with other classes.
I gave this deck a go at rank 4-5, and went about 9-11 in 20 games. A lot of games where I drew nothing but big minions, and had nothing to stop aggro. I had much more success with the standard highlander Mage, but this was fun at least. Appreciate the deck and guide.
I made a yogg-themed deck in wild, so I had to add Servant of Yogg-Saron, even though it sucks
Really only because of lackeys and Sandstorm Elemental. The fact that there are two cheap lackey battlecry creators, and then each lackey is a 1-mana battlecry, it makes achieving the quest by turn 5-6 super easy, and then gives you insane value for nearly nothing after its complete.
Mindgames
I'm also having fun with Lackey Zoolock, but I added a Mecha'thun combo to mine to help against those pesky control warriors (and other slower decks).
Any time I play Zephrys the Great. The card is a bit of a misnomer... IT is the perfect card!
Honestly, a brawl where your deck is 30 Zephrys (highlander restriction removed of course) would be AMAZING. It would be like chess. Every game would start roughly the same, but as the turns went on, it would diverge more and more. Both players would be on completely even footing and every choice---from when to play Zephrys vs playing a perfect card to setting up board states to tease certain cards from Zephrys---would be huge. It would be the highest skill version of Hearthstone ever because Zephrys is highly manipulable compared to typical discover.
But... I suspect blizzard is lame and lazy, so it will probably be starting with a few hand. Yawn.