Since it starts at 1 damage, I think you'd need only 3 spells in hand (Deep Breath itself and 2 others) to match the damage of Fire Sale.
I do agree though that it doesn't look very good: Fire Sale being Tradeable is very useful, so I don't see Deep Breath replacing it, while I also don't think any deck would run this in addition to Fire Sale.
In theory the fact that this doesn't damage your own board could be useful, but if you care about your own board you probably won't have enough spells in your hand to power this, plus you wouldn't want to spend 5 mana on something that doesn't add a body to the board.
With 5 health and Frenzy, it's likely Whelp Bonker will draw at least one card or have the opponent spend a card on it (if they're Fireballing this, you're probably happy). However, you are also spending 3 mana and a deck slot on it and I'm not sure that is worth it.
Honorable Kill hasn't been all that easy to activate. At 2 or 3 attack you have some chance, but once you buff it to 4 and beyond it becomes increasingly unlikely to find a minion with the right amount of health to honorably kill. Acolyte of Pain was good with handbuff because you were likely to get at least 2 activations; I think it will be harder to achieve that with this card.
I think this would need Rush to be a playable card.
The weapon restriction isn't much of a limitation, as completing the first questline stage will draw a weapon. The Wild version plays more cheap pirates, so questline progression is quicker. Additionally there is N'Zoth's First Mate which provides a weapon even earlier and for less mana.
That the shots are random isn't a huge detractor either, since anything they hit in the early game is useful: minion hits enable trades, while face hits shorten the time the opponent has to present a counter-lethal. Since Wild has several free pirates (Patches the Pirate, Parachute Brigand), the Pirate Warrior is pretty much always ahead on board in the early game and Defias Cannoneer extends that by another turn.
While the card is stronger in Wild, it bothers me in Standard as well. If you don't deal with it quickly, the hits on board and on your life total will become a problem. Not all decks can deal with a 3-health minion efficiently, especially after their own minions being cleared by weapons and cannon shots, which means the Pirate Warrior gets to disrupt your turn for a very low cost.
Overall, the questline feels unfair because it rewards the Pirate Warrior for playing good cards, but I'm not sure why Cannoneer feels more unfair than other pirates. Maybe it has to do with him being the latest addition to the deck. Maybe it has to do with the time in the match that he appears on the board, when you think you can take over the board before the questline completes, but Cannoneer destroys those dreams. It's probably a combination of those: Standard Pirate Warrior used to have a strong start and a strong finish, but a weaker middle, and Cannoneer fixed that.
Rapid Fire is listed as a card buff, but it is of course a deck nerf for Odd Hunter. Which is a good thing, since that's one of the Wild decks that you run into way too often, along with Pirate Warrior.
I'm hoping Defias Cannoneer, which is also from the mini set, gets hit with the nerf bat.
I don't think Mr. Smite is likely to get nerfed this week, but he might still get nerfed later. And if he doesn't, he'll likely be playable in multiple future decks.
In what way doesn't it work? It should be fairly easy to complete the questline and there are various other synergies as well.
If you mean the deck is relatively weak compared to meta decks, then I agree, but the first paragraph of the guide already mentions that.
I've looked at several other decks that people build around Rise to the Occasion and they all came to a point where the way to improve the deck was to drop the questline. I wanted to see what would happen if you go all in on the questline by maximizing the chance of completing it by turn 5. I think this deck succeeds in that goal, but the outcome of the experiment is that the quest reward often isn't enough to carry you to victory with an almost empty hand and 1-drops as top-decks.
I'm only at 1200 honor right now. I haven't been playing much because the Wild meta is terrible and Mercenaries is eating up time. I guess I could play more Standard or stop grinding Mercenaries.
It doesn't help that the majority of my opponents is Alliance. If the rewards were equal, I'd have picked Horde, but Vanndar just fits my play style so much more better than Derk'Thar.
The weird thing is that deals for constructed have been getting better over time, with more packs and guaranteed legendaries, plus proper duplicate protection, but Mercenaries hasn't had a good deal since its introduction.
The main thing I'm concerned about is coins for maxed out mercenaries. Unless they either prevent those from spawning or introduce a way to recycle them, over time it will become harder and harder to get the coins for the mercenaries that you haven't maxed out yet.
While I agree that it's not completely useless, it isn't all that much work to get characters to level 30 by sticking them on the bench for a few days while you complete dailies. The real grind is getting coins and I'd be pleasantly surprised if The Training Grounds provides those.
I think this is a symptom of the underlying problem that it's really expensive to build a wide collection. Because every legendary matters, people will feel bad when they pull something from a pack that they could have gotten for free later.
What you're saying is exactly what I was getting at: the easiest way to nerf only the OwlTK deck is to make Owl not do face damage. If they take that route, will Phylactery still be a meta-relevant card or will it only be useful for memes? I do like meme decks, but I generally use legendaries that I already have rather than crafting them for a meme deck.
Freeze Shaman worked better than I expected against Quest Mage and Quest Hunter. A bit of armor can be enough to stay out of lethal range and you can summon a large enough board that the opponent cannot afford to send all their damage face. When they get their quest reward, you don't need to trade into it if you can keep freezing it until the end of the game.
There is still the question what Quest Warlock will do to the meta once it settles, but if that deck is oppressive I expect it to get nerfed again.
Since it starts at 1 damage, I think you'd need only 3 spells in hand (Deep Breath itself and 2 others) to match the damage of Fire Sale.
I do agree though that it doesn't look very good: Fire Sale being Tradeable is very useful, so I don't see Deep Breath replacing it, while I also don't think any deck would run this in addition to Fire Sale.
In theory the fact that this doesn't damage your own board could be useful, but if you care about your own board you probably won't have enough spells in your hand to power this, plus you wouldn't want to spend 5 mana on something that doesn't add a body to the board.
With 5 health and Frenzy, it's likely Whelp Bonker will draw at least one card or have the opponent spend a card on it (if they're Fireballing this, you're probably happy). However, you are also spending 3 mana and a deck slot on it and I'm not sure that is worth it.
Honorable Kill hasn't been all that easy to activate. At 2 or 3 attack you have some chance, but once you buff it to 4 and beyond it becomes increasingly unlikely to find a minion with the right amount of health to honorably kill. Acolyte of Pain was good with handbuff because you were likely to get at least 2 activations; I think it will be harder to achieve that with this card.
I think this would need Rush to be a playable card.
In-game it states that the Duels season ends in 3 days; is the client lying or did they push back the patch date?
The weapon restriction isn't much of a limitation, as completing the first questline stage will draw a weapon. The Wild version plays more cheap pirates, so questline progression is quicker. Additionally there is N'Zoth's First Mate which provides a weapon even earlier and for less mana.
That the shots are random isn't a huge detractor either, since anything they hit in the early game is useful: minion hits enable trades, while face hits shorten the time the opponent has to present a counter-lethal. Since Wild has several free pirates (Patches the Pirate, Parachute Brigand), the Pirate Warrior is pretty much always ahead on board in the early game and Defias Cannoneer extends that by another turn.
While the card is stronger in Wild, it bothers me in Standard as well. If you don't deal with it quickly, the hits on board and on your life total will become a problem. Not all decks can deal with a 3-health minion efficiently, especially after their own minions being cleared by weapons and cannon shots, which means the Pirate Warrior gets to disrupt your turn for a very low cost.
Overall, the questline feels unfair because it rewards the Pirate Warrior for playing good cards, but I'm not sure why Cannoneer feels more unfair than other pirates. Maybe it has to do with him being the latest addition to the deck. Maybe it has to do with the time in the match that he appears on the board, when you think you can take over the board before the questline completes, but Cannoneer destroys those dreams. It's probably a combination of those: Standard Pirate Warrior used to have a strong start and a strong finish, but a weaker middle, and Cannoneer fixed that.
Rapid Fire is listed as a card buff, but it is of course a deck nerf for Odd Hunter. Which is a good thing, since that's one of the Wild decks that you run into way too often, along with Pirate Warrior.
He doesn't need more money, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want more money.
For someone who would consider crafting Mr. Smite, he's worth 1600 dust, which is roughly the same value as 1600 gold.
I'm surprised Bobby Kotick is staying; this seems like such a good moment to let him leave.
I'm hoping Defias Cannoneer, which is also from the mini set, gets hit with the nerf bat.
I don't think Mr. Smite is likely to get nerfed this week, but he might still get nerfed later. And if he doesn't, he'll likely be playable in multiple future decks.
In what way doesn't it work? It should be fairly easy to complete the questline and there are various other synergies as well.
If you mean the deck is relatively weak compared to meta decks, then I agree, but the first paragraph of the guide already mentions that.
I've looked at several other decks that people build around Rise to the Occasion and they all came to a point where the way to improve the deck was to drop the questline. I wanted to see what would happen if you go all in on the questline by maximizing the chance of completing it by turn 5. I think this deck succeeds in that goal, but the outcome of the experiment is that the quest reward often isn't enough to carry you to victory with an almost empty hand and 1-drops as top-decks.
I'm only at 1200 honor right now. I haven't been playing much because the Wild meta is terrible and Mercenaries is eating up time. I guess I could play more Standard or stop grinding Mercenaries.
It doesn't help that the majority of my opponents is Alliance. If the rewards were equal, I'd have picked Horde, but Vanndar just fits my play style so much more better than Derk'Thar.
The weird thing is that deals for constructed have been getting better over time, with more packs and guaranteed legendaries, plus proper duplicate protection, but Mercenaries hasn't had a good deal since its introduction.
The main thing I'm concerned about is coins for maxed out mercenaries. Unless they either prevent those from spawning or introduce a way to recycle them, over time it will become harder and harder to get the coins for the mercenaries that you haven't maxed out yet.
While I agree that it's not completely useless, it isn't all that much work to get characters to level 30 by sticking them on the bench for a few days while you complete dailies. The real grind is getting coins and I'd be pleasantly surprised if The Training Grounds provides those.
This article states that they are disenchantable until January 11th.
I think this is a symptom of the underlying problem that it's really expensive to build a wide collection. Because every legendary matters, people will feel bad when they pull something from a pack that they could have gotten for free later.
I guess it can be used like Soul of the Forest in sacrifice decks, so it's probably good enough indeed.
Even though I have some dust in the bank, I'm always worried about dust costs because it's gone in no time when crafting legendaries.
What you're saying is exactly what I was getting at: the easiest way to nerf only the OwlTK deck is to make Owl not do face damage. If they take that route, will Phylactery still be a meta-relevant card or will it only be useful for memes? I do like meme decks, but I generally use legendaries that I already have rather than crafting them for a meme deck.
Regarding early crafting, Dreadlich Tamsin will probably be good in other decks, but if Humongous Owl gets nerfed will Tamsin's Phylactery still be good?
Freeze Shaman worked better than I expected against Quest Mage and Quest Hunter. A bit of armor can be enough to stay out of lethal range and you can summon a large enough board that the opponent cannot afford to send all their damage face. When they get their quest reward, you don't need to trade into it if you can keep freezing it until the end of the game.
There is still the question what Quest Warlock will do to the meta once it settles, but if that deck is oppressive I expect it to get nerfed again.