We've just been hit with a second wave of nerfs for Descent of Dragons, targeting some of the more prominent decks in the meta. Why not take this opportunity to dust off some cards before you dust them, and take one of these decks for a spin? Who knows, you might find a new favourite that still works pretty well after the nerfs.
Remember too that during the nerf period you can craft any of the nerfed cards 'for free', as you'll still receive a 100% refund for up to two weeks afterwards. So you can try out any of these decks by crafting any of the missing nerfed cards and seeing if they're still formidable, consequence free!
And don't worry; we'll make sure to remind you when the nerf refund is about to leave, so you don't accidentally forget.
Mighty Morphin' Meta Decklists
These decklists were featured in our most recent Standard Meta Report, so if you're looking to tear up the ladder for one last day, these are some good options.
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
Necrium Apothecary
Scion of Ruin
Ancharr
Fiendish Rites
Invocation of Frost and Dragon's Pack
Comments
I'm not sure how often it happens in standard, but I could probably count on one hand the number of times Dragonqueen Alexstrasza has generated a copy of herself for me in wild, and I use her in almost every deck I have. I doubt she is going anywhere any time soon.
Maybe that's the best part of the nerf. Until the dust refund period is over, everyone around the ladder (assuming you have the initial dust amount) can play the chosen nerf cards at no cost as long as you remember to dust it at the end. Sort of like a demo, or a try before buy.
Really hope one day blizzard simply allows us to try all the cards from a new expansion for a short period before things get back to normal. Might encourage more experimentation or, dare I say it, have some fun.
bad business model though, a lot of "revenue" comes through impulsive crafts. If you had access to all cards and decks you could easily figure out which ones are the best/most fun and therefore reduce your dust spending to a minimum which means you need less packs overall.
Not that I don't like the idea, but from a business standpoint this is unfeasible unless they start doubling down on selling cosmetics....which would probably come with other problems (such as balancing around classes to sell skins or something. I've seen League of Legends rot and decay, I don't want Hearthstone to go down the same way)
Blizzard actually tried this once, obviously not in the way as I mentioned. If I'm not mistaken, on the first week or second week of Rastakhan's they had a tavern brawl which gave us a fixed deck to play with. While it wasn't in any way impressive, it did gave us an impression of how the cards, crucially the epics and legendaries, played. They did this with Witchwood too, again if I'm not mistaken.
So somewhat of a compromise in that you can't just build whatever you want. I was hoping this can continue in DoD so I can have a first hand experience on how easy/hard it is to actually make Waxadred a thing or if Valdris Felgorge is too slow a card.
I'm a little torn over your reasoning that impulsive crafts contributes to 'revenue'. Is there any average joe without an unlimited wallet that actually buys packs just to score dust? Maybe someone should start a thread to gauge how many people actually do these 'impulsive crafts'. I think I only got burned only once with Commander Rhyssa in the many years I've been playing.
you underestimate the power of peer pressure
also whales
Lol.
Crafting hype on day one between friends. Is this really a thing?
Whales gonna buy no matter what, so they don't count.
not so much friends, but rather community going "this is a safe craft, this is great fun, etc., etc."
sometimes it's really hard to wait 2 weeks to see which decks turn out worth crafting, especially when there's some cards that look incredibly fun to build around (I crafted Zzeraku pretty much on release for this reason, since I had no intention of waiting forever until someone maybe figured out the best Handlock build)
Once again, I have enough dust for it to not matter and I don't buy packs for money, but some people think differently.