Hearthstone Players!

Stonecutter wrote: Weakening basic cards to fit the current meta is very, very bad, for two reasons. First, it has a huge impact on the game in both standard and wild, which further leads credence to the criticism that they don't actually care about Wild, which sucks. It also means that the power creep is going to be that much more drastic in the future to make up for the loss of utility.

This is actually opposite to the purpose of making these nerfs. When Basic or Classic cards are always superior, it actually limits design space, not only for alternatives (like weapons in the case of FWA) but other cards and strategies. When someone asked Brode a while back which cards limit design space, 5 cards came up: Stonetusk Boar, Innervate, Ice Block, Preparation, and Malygos. Only one of those saw the nerf bat this time for the most obvious of reasons: Dark Ritual is bad and always has been. For those that didn't play MTG, Dark Ritual was one of the notorious "1 for 3" spells from the original game. A couple of them (Giant Growth, Healing Salve) were never really concerns, since they either needed a target or affected a very malleable resource, respectively. One (Lightning Bolt) was phased out as too efficient for a long time (this is essentially FWA), one was banned immediately (Ancestral Recall) because it drew cards, and one lasted for over a decade in the game until Wizards realized that a) it was in every Black deck ever created because b) it was never bad to include whether you were playing aggro, control, or combo. It basically gave you a drastic leg up in the basic resource of the game: mana. In that way, it was inhibiting design space for Black cards with more powerful effects because it would allow those big cards to be played much earlier in the game. That is Innervate and it's part of why people have been objecting to Ultimate Infestation, since with Innervate and other ramp effects, you can get a 10 mana spell off on turn 5 or 6. Innervate is the constraint on design. I think UI and Plague have their own flaws, but what has brought them into focus isn't those flaws. It's Innervate.

Fiery War Axe is in a similar spot. It's in every Warrior deck ever made. In that respect, they might as well not bother to develop new Warrior weapons, because FWA will always take a slot from them because it's simply too efficient for what it does. It also inhibits design of smaller creatures in other decks because, when they play Warrior, those minions will never be able to serve their function. Who among us hasn't had a situation where we'd like to play a minion on turns 1 or 2 to have effect in turns 3 or 4, but don't because FWA will always be there? Now, with it costing three, there's a chance that early minions can be played and have an effect for a turn. But I think their concern about creating new weapons that will never get used is just as valid. It's a constraint on design. Why would you bother to create an early game weapon when FWA will always be better? They're just wasting resources and irritating players who will promptly declare that the new weapon is wasting an expansion card slot because FWA is better. Now that FWA is less appealing (believe me, every Control Warrior deck in the world will still play a 3 mana 3/2 weapon. Pirate Warrior might not, but excuse me while I cry a river for all the shitty aggro decks that used this card.), they can develop new weapons that will take its place. In that way, they avoid what otherwise probably would be power creep.

As for Warleader and Hex, yeah, OK. Hex has long been considered the best single-target removal spell in the game, so I get it, even though Shaman isn't huge right now. The fact that it removes a creature from resurrection effects (effectively a silence, in addition to removing a threat) means that it probably should cost more. Murloc decks have typically been about aggro, so making Warleader just about aggro seems right. I don't think one more mana for Plague is enough to resolve the basic problem with the card, i.e. it punishes aggro and Zoo decks for playing properly and it's often effectively game-winning, since they have no way of getting past it in time to stop whatever control/Jade mechanisms the Druid can employ. Getting your board wiped out by Flamestrike is something you can recover from if you didn't go all-in. Getting your board flat out stopped by Plague for several turns while the Druid turns the tables on your with Savage Roar just means that you shouldn't play aggro. It's a poor card and the one mana increase, combined with the nerf to Innervate, will probably rein it in, but it doesn't erase the fact that it's an awful card to begin with.

Here's a perfect example of Trump:

In his previous video, his "genius" Shaman Evolve deck, which fell on its face over a few games (he decided to put a serious late-game Jade spin into it, not realizing that the key to Evolve is gaining value(!) from otherwise innocuous targets, rather than putting out great cards and making them greater) lost its last game to an innovative Warrior DK deck. He decided he liked that deck and, because he's Trump, modified it to produce more "value". Part of his value assertion is the card he felt was the second-best one in the entire set, Forge of Souls. (Contrast that with the card he gave 1 star in his rating system: Defile, and you'll understand where some of Trump's anticipatory/deckbuilding skills are kind of skewed.) In the above video, he proceeds to fall on his face yet again, when he doesn't realize that all of the value that he's packed into the deck gives him a ton of cards (he overdraws several times) and enables him to make value trade, but entirely lacks a win condition if he doesn't have a loaded N'Zoth and/or doesn't happen to play N'Zoth...

Jesus, that's a travesty. If there was a game that was about achieving maximal value, Trump would win. HEARTHSTONE, unfortunately, is about reducing an opponent's life total to 0. Value can help, but it's not the only way to do that. This is Trump's limitation.

I saw someone playing Quest Rogue (!) high on ladder today. Won't that be great if it comes back? What a feeling.

I have been playing with Naga Giants in Wild. That's degenerate, and it will be everywhere as you climb and get to the folks with real collections. Naga Sea Witch reduces the starting costs of Giants to 5, and THEN reductions are applied (this change was in the recent patch notes). So, if Naga Sea Witch is in play:

• Mountain Giant costs 0 if you have 5 cards in hand.
• Clockwork Giant costs 0 if the opponent has 5 cards in hand.
• Molten Giant costs 0 if you have 25 or less life.
• Arcane Giant costs 0 if cast 5 spells.
• Sea Giant costs 0 if there are 4 other creatures (besides Sea Witch--and hey, just play some Giants for 0 first whydoncha).
• Snowfury Giant costs 0 if you spent 5 on Overload (I recommend Ancestral Knowledge, synergy with Mountain Giant).
• Frost Giant is still a piece of shit.

I've run into Quest Rogue a couple times recently when I was playing my Evolve deck. The most recent time was when he got the quest completed about the time I got Deathseer Thrall in play. It's all well and good that all of your minions are 5/5s. But if I can keep killing them one by one and then healing (evolving) all my guys, it's going to end poorly for you. It's still a decent deck, but I've never had problems with it, given the control decks that I prefer.

I read about the unannounced Naga change on Reddit and knew that giants would be a thing in Wild. Sounds kinda cool, but I've ramped down my ambition in HS so much that I don't even think about Wild. Or Arena, for that matter. I'm just fine with getting my Shaman/Paladin/Priest/Warlock decks to work for a few games and that's it.

Jackwraith wrote:

Stonecutter wrote: Weakening basic cards to fit the current meta is very, very bad, for two reasons. First, it has a huge impact on the game in both standard and wild, which further leads credence to the criticism that they don't actually care about Wild, which sucks. It also means that the power creep is going to be that much more drastic in the future to make up for the loss of utility.

This is actually opposite to the purpose of making these nerfs. When Basic or Classic cards are always superior, it actually limits design space, not only for alternatives (like weapons in the case of FWA) but other cards and strategies. When someone asked Brode a while back which cards limit design space, 5 cards came up: Stonetusk Boar, Innervate, Ice Block, Preparation, and Malygos. Only one of those saw the nerf bat this time for the most obvious of reasons: Dark Ritual is bad and always has been. For those that didn't play MTG, Dark Ritual was one of the notorious "1 for 3" spells from the original game. A couple of them (Giant Growth, Healing Salve) were never really concerns, since they either needed a target or affected a very malleable resource, respectively. One (Lightning Bolt) was phased out as too efficient for a long time (this is essentially FWA), one was banned immediately (Ancestral Recall) because it drew cards, and one lasted for over a decade in the game until Wizards realized that a) it was in every Black deck ever created because b) it was never bad to include whether you were playing aggro, control, or combo. It basically gave you a drastic leg up in the basic resource of the game: mana. In that way, it was inhibiting design space for Black cards with more powerful effects because it would allow those big cards to be played much earlier in the game. That is Innervate and it's part of why people have been objecting to Ultimate Infestation, since with Innervate and other ramp effects, you can get a 10 mana spell off on turn 5 or 6. Innervate is the constraint on design. I think UI and Plague have their own flaws, but what has brought them into focus isn't those flaws. It's Innervate.

Thank you for the long and well thought out reply (including the parts I snipped.)

On the whole, I don't disagree with you. I played magic from 94-99ish which was easily the worst time to play magic, as it was too late to get in on the early power cards, and far to early to get in on the game being fun and experimental and I understood then and now how ridiculous Dark Ritual was.

Now, that being said, I don't think it's quite apples to apples. My biggest problem, again, is that they're changing what a basic card does. If this was a classic common I'd be far less annoyed, but when I started playing hearthstone what drew me to the game most was "your class has 10 cards that are good to great and they're free, you can knock out 2/3rds of your deck and feel somewhat competitive." Obviously I'm long since past that but one of the FIRST things I noticed was innervate's ability to break the curve. For new players, that's gone, and it makes the F2P toolset weaker. I don't think that's a good thing. If this came with a corresponding buff to a druid basic card, that'd be great, or, if they decided to add another 3-5 basic cards for each class (either new cards, or existing cards that just become part of the standard kit)

Stonecutter wrote: If this was a classic common I'd be far less annoyed, but when I started playing hearthstone what drew me to the game most was "your class has 10 cards that are good to great and they're free, you can knock out 2/3rds of your deck and feel somewhat competitive." Obviously I'm long since past that but one of the FIRST things I noticed was innervate's ability to break the curve. For new players, that's gone, and it makes the F2P toolset weaker. I don't think that's a good thing. If this came with a corresponding buff to a druid basic card, that'd be great, or, if they decided to add another 3-5 basic cards for each class (either new cards, or existing cards that just become part of the standard kit)

Well, the jury is still out regarding how good/bad Innervate will be after the nerf since no one's played with it yet. Druid will still have their ramp - exclusively, after Counterfeit Coin rotates out - it just won't be as extreme.

I'm also fine with the FWA nerf. When people point out that FWA is "objectively worse" than Eaglehorn Bow and Rallying Blade they're not taking everything into consideration. FWA is a Basic card and you get it for free when you first start out and are leveling your Warrior, whereas Rallying Blade (which is going to rotate out, BTW) and Eaglehorn Bow are both rare cards that you have to pull from a pack or craft. When the dust is factored in then FWA's cost is probably more in line with Rallying Blade and Eaglehorn. My son started playing HS a few weeks ago, and after watching him slowly build his collection I was reminded of how, for new players, 100 dust for a rare is not an insignificant hurdle and it was a big deal when he pulled his first Eaglehorn Bow. And FWA and Truesilver are the two best Basic weapons so I don't think there's much risk in people not associating weapons with Paladins and Warriors.

As for what you said about them revamping the Basic set, I don't have high hopes. They're already reducing the power levels of auto-included Basic cards so I don't expect them to add better Basic cards that could cause the same problems that they're trying to stamp out with this round of nerfs. Team 5 would have to walk a tightrope where they calibrate the power level of the new/modified Basic cards such that they're worth running in constructed decks while not being strictly better than expansion cards. I don't think they've figured out how to do that yet, but I would be surprised if they haven't been considering it. That being said, I think the Basic set absolutely does need to be revamped so that some classes aren't entirely reliant on expansion cards to be competitive.

SebastianBludd wrote: I'm also fine with the FWA nerf. When people point out that FWA is "objectively worse" than Eaglehorn Bow and Rallying Blade they're not taking everything into consideration. FWA is a Basic card and you get it for free when you first start out and are leveling your Warrior, whereas Rallying Blade (which is going to rotate out, BTW) and Eaglehorn Bow are both rare cards that you have to pull from a pack or craft. When the dust is factored in then FWA's cost is probably more in line with Rallying Blade and Eaglehorn. My son started playing HS a few weeks ago, and after watching him slowly build his collection I was reminded of how, for new players, 100 dust for a rare is not an insignificant hurdle and it was a big deal when he pulled his first Eaglehorn Bow. And FWA and Truesilver are the two best Basic weapons so I don't think there's much risk in people not associating weapons with Paladins and Warriors.

As for what you said about them revamping the Basic set, I don't have high hopes. They're already reducing the power levels of auto-included Basic cards so I don't expect them to add better Basic cards that could cause the same problems that they're trying to stamp out with this round of nerfs. Team 5 would have to walk a tightrope where they calibrate the power level of the new/modified Basic cards such that they're worth running in constructed decks while not being strictly better than expansion cards. I don't think they've figured out how to do that yet, but I would be surprised if they haven't been considering it. That being said, I think the Basic set absolutely does need to be revamped so that some classes aren't entirely reliant on expansion cards to be competitive.

Yep. This is where I see things too. HearthStone is being developed for a HUGE group of people that represent all kinds of players. This was the issue that confronted Magic:The Gathering back in the very beginning of the game. Garfield didn't think the game would be played the way it was played--he thought Rares would be rare, like, you'd see them only every once in a while, and the Ante aspect of the game would move them around from time to time. No way would someone accumulate 4x Ancestral Recall, I mean, think of how much product you'd have to buy to... make... that...

And here we are. Blizzard is aware of history, but even they underestimated the uptake and excitement about HEARTHSTONE. They knew some folks would go crazy and buy everything, but would that be the norm? Hell no. Most folks would have 3 rando Epics and do their best. But with Reddit and HearthPwn and Icy Veins and HearthArena and the massive MASSIVE community supporting this product, they are stuck in the same spot. They need new folks to sign up and send them money. They need long time players to stay attached to currency and send them money. The problems long-term players have (I hate seeing this same deck month after month on the ladder) are not the same as the problems faced by new, less hardcore players (Which Rare should I craft?)

Yep. All three of you are exactly right and the collective answer to your accurate complaints is something that Brian Kibler said to Blizzard the first time they invited him out to see a new set and get his feedback: "You have to rotate the Basic/Classic set." That's literally the first thing he said to them in response to a "What do you think?" type of question. He said it because it's obvious in the same way it became obvious to Wizards. If you want Basic/Classic cards to be relevant but not so relevant that they become auto-includes and, thus, make new cards irrelevant, you have to rotate them. Hearthstone has done a remarkable job of attempting to ignore every lesson that MTG has demonstrated and finally acceding to all of them. This will be just the latest. It will be an even greater challenge because of the one thing you can't do that you still can in Magic: trade cards. Hearthstone's advantage over Magic is that the cost of entry isn't as daunting: You can assemble a decent deck with Basic/Classic cards and a scattering of new stuff and be competitive in the lower reaches of the ladder and in Casual. The fact that you get your ass whipped for a while is a measure of how much of a newb you are at the game, rather than your cards. I've seen people with hardcore decks fumble around and die (a recent game against Warlock where a Handlock-version of control with all the right cards made some awful choices is a great example) and I've seen decks that are nothing but Classic stuff do fine (getting stomped by a Beast Hunter that was nothing but Commons and a Savannah Highmane is another great example.) That doesn't happen in Magic.

But the flip side of that coin is that: That stuff happens in Hearthstone. What that means is that some cards in the Basic/Classic set are so good that they will never go out of style. Fiery War Axe was one of them. That's a situation that Blizzard doesn't want for both design and moneymaking reasons. Magic is not a F2P game. Hearthstone is, because their costs of production are lower. They don't have to print product that might not sell. They don't have to interact with the retail market that has to keep stuff on their shelves that might not sell. Thus, they can be F2P, knowing that they'll make bank on the players who are willing to spend money. But they know they won't make as much money if they keep making weapons that can never compare to Fiery War Axe. They also know that they won't make as much money if the competitive scene becomes completely dominated by one class or one deck that's at least partially oriented around one card. In the past it was Undertaker as the most notorious example. Now it's Innervate.

I'm not saying that any of your complaints (if you're making them) about how Blizzard is handling it are black-and-white "wrong". I'm not saying that they're "right". I am saying that it's a really tricky problem and the approach that they're taking in the case of Basic or Classic cards is probably healthier for the game in the long run, even if it seems as if they're making the entry for new players more difficult. What compounds all of this is, again, a "nature of the game" problem: You can't trade Hearthstone cards. That's something that does make Magic more accessible in one way, because even though it's not F2P, you can use cards you don't want as greater assets than simply dusting them for a very poor return in HS. I recently sacrificed virtually all of my cards for four classes, including Basic and Classic stuff I'd had since the 2nd week of the closed Beta, in order to keep playing four other classes that I like better. I wouldn't have had to be so draconian if I'd been able to trade a few of my White Rares (read: legendaries) for a bunch of Black and Blue commons and uncommons (read: rares and epics.) There's no way around that (yet), but I wouldn't be too surprised to see that change at some point in the future, if they think they can maintain the F2P model along with it.

And, just as an aside: Don't get me wrong. I LOVED Dark Ritual. LOVED. IT. I was a Black player from the very beginning. When I first saw the cards in 1993, the two thst caught my eye were Pestilence and Lord of the Pit. One of the greatest pieces of music ever written was the Hymn to Tourach. Let us all sing: "You lose two carrrrds!" But even I knew that Ritual was insane the first time I realized that I was always including four of them, without question, in any deck I made. Pestilence to Necropotence to Pox to Knights to a million variations thereof. What really brought it home was during Urza's Saga when I was running a Black control deck that used another ridiculous card: Yawgmoth's Will. It was a very common thing to Ritual into a Will and then cast that Ritual again along with three or four other things sitting in my graveyard. During the Black Summer, first turn Ritual into Necro and then Necroing for 4+ was virtually a win right there. It was demented and it needed to go. I'm a control player and always will be, but I ventured into aggro a few times. One of my all-time favorite decks was an Extended one from around that time, a common first turn of which was: "Swamp. Ritual. Priest of Gix. Priest of Gix. Black Knight. Carnophage. Go." (That's a 2/1, 2/1, 2/2 with first strike and prot White, and a 2/2. On the first turn. Pirate Warrior ain't shit.)

My opponent usually sat there and blinked before saying something like: "Uh... Forest. Go?" "Swamp. Bad Moon. Coming over for 12. Win now or don't win." Scoop. "Wanna play again?" I made top 4 at a PTQ with that deck until I ran into a Green monstrosity with Ernies and a couple bad draws and one bad Consult wrecked me. Urza block was insane... but so, so fun.

Hee hee! This deck is so stupid and yet I won three games with it in Casual when I got the Tiny Bubbles quest (Play 10 minions with Divine Shield.)

Argent Squire x 2
Righteous Protector x 2
Dark Conviction x 2
Desperate Stand x 2
Equality
Hydrologist x 2
Aldor Peacekeeper x 2
Blood Knight
Howling Commander x 2
Rallying Blade
Stonehill Defender x 2
Wickerflame Burnbristle
Chillblade Champion x 2
Consecration
Corpsetaker x 2
Light's Sorrow x 2
Bolvar, Fireblood
Sunkeeper Tarim
Tirion Fordring

I mean, yes, DShield makes your minions function like two of them, right? The enemy constantly has to kill them twice without an assload of AoE. Problem is, it's a midrange deck without much of a curve (it peaks, sharply, at 3) and you're constantly looking for answer cards that doesn't wreck all the "If Divine Shield, Then..." cards in your deck. Control player that I am, I was constantly wanting another Consecration to clear paths so that I didn't have to use my shields because I wanted to save them for Rallying Blade or Bolvar's dumb ass (such a horrible, slow, obvious target card.) But I muddled through. It was Casual but i ended up playing against an Elemental Shaman, a Jade Shaman, and a Jade Druid and winning them all. The latter even got off a UI against me. (I scrapped that card to make one of those stupid Light's Sorrows...)

The first game was an early concede on turn 7. He had a full hand, but I think he just wasn't interested in persisting against a deck full of taunts and shields. I don't blame him. The second game was great, though:

hsreplay.net/replay/cpZuWbJFuoFojvAwTwAJyN

I mulligan the riffraff and end up with an awful hand, except for trusty Howling Commando: a 2/2 for 3 who summons one other minion from your deck which could, of course, be Tirion and be a dead card for another 5 turns. Thankfully(?), Tirion was in my hand. He Idols (surprise!) and then Innervates out a Spirit, which was kind of aggressive. But his hand was as shitty as mine, so whatevs. I seriously considered Coining out the Corpsetaker, but figured I had enough in my hand not to sacrifice her to a couple vanilla minions. When I did drop the Corpsetaker on tempo, he spent his board and his whole turn 5 getting rid of her, so I considered that a win with my card advantage. On my turn 5, I figured I'd crafted the damn things, so I was going to use Light's Sorrow. He then Innervates out Arthas and I play Equality to remove him and the 2 attack on the Sorrow is overkill. Eh.

He plays Plague because he's an asshole Druid (not him, personally, just the Druid part) and here's where the sword gets a little better. I've already used my lone Equality, so now I'm going to clear with my lone Consecration. Topdecking Dark Conviction makes that almost smooth as glass, losing only the Protector. He used UI on my 3/3 Squire because he's an asshole Druid (Tangent: See, this is the perfect example of how this card is flawed. He's already 2 mana ahead of me. If he'd wanted to, he could have Innervated it on turn 7 (only one turn late!) and he used it, not to eliminate the dire threat of my 3/3 Squire, but to draw 5 cards and eliminate my card advantage. The damage that killed my only minion, the 5 armor, and the 5/5 he just put on the now empty board are all just side effects. But they're so impactful in almost every situation of every game, that using a 10 mana card to eliminate a 3/3 is a WISE DECISION. /tangent) My only response can be to play The Man and hope he wastes a lot of effort getting rid of him. He didn't, really, since he used Swipe on my face and then took 6 himself (3 of which was obviated by side effect armor) and then used his side effect 5/5 to kill Tirion and Lightbringer wipes out my 4/2 weapon. Oh, and he now had total card advantage over me, because I knew he'd drawn into more Jades and I was looking at a hand full of the bottom half of my deck. I mean, again, even the fucking 10 mana Kazakus potions only have two effects. What fucking idiot thought it was wise to give all four effects to the class that can play them four or five turns earlier than everyone else? And, of course, I drop two shield minions and don't want to play Rallying Blade because I have Lightbringer in hand. Argh.

All of that said, I did get redonkulous use out of Desperate Stand, so I just started going face, since I had to race him and knew that he'd spend a couple turns trying to get through the constantly resurrecting Wickerflame. I did clear the Jades so he didn't get good trades, but still took him down to 1 away from lethal with the guys I had on the board. Since my lone Consec was gone, all I needed was the other Chillblade and it was GG. But, yeah, Swipe. To the face again and my board is gone and Jade Idol utterly rebuilds his. I was kinda wondering if he thought that Fandral would do something special for Swipe, since he played him first. It's not a Choose One, man, in the ultimate indignity to asshole Druids. So I'm SOL and clearly stricken with Trump disease (still had the Coin on turn 12) and I draw Hydrologist. I toss out the frog, knowing there's nothing he can really do for me. And there's Eye for an Eye, the worst Secret in the whole game. I says to myself: "Self", I says, "if I make him nervous enough to want to close this out before I topdeck the mythical Paladin card that will do 6 damage to his face (Avenging Wrath don't work that way with 18 health on the board, I'm sorry to say), would he be willing to hit me with the big Jades first? I bet he would." So we do Eye for an Eye, make a dude, and hit his face, bringing him to within death of either of the Jades. He does the smart thing and tests for Get Down! with the smaller one while clearing my board. I bet he was thinking if the 6/6 hit the Sacrifice, he'd still clear the frog with Fandral and still get the thrill of hitting me with a War Golem. I mean, seriously, who plays Eye for an Eye? Funny as hell.

hsreplay.net/replay/2knnsbruSjSUBPPecFu6oL

The next game went almost as long (Aren't all games against Jade long ones?) So here's my thinking on the mulligan: I have a hand of 3s, but this deck wants to start faster than that. The shields give it endurance in the later game, but it lacks a finisher other than The Man. Without knowing my opponent's deck, I don't want to wait to turn 3 to let Commando draw me a Squire or Protector and I don't need a Stonehill until I need one. Wickerflame is a great tempo card, so I kept him. I got the Stonehill back (that happens way too often for a truly random redraw), but I got a Squire, too. So, much success.

Early turns didn't produce a lot, except for the Blood Imp he got from Portal, which turned out to be fairly aggravating. I drew into my Commando in perfect tempo, though. The Blood Imp spoils my trade after the Jade Claws and then I'm like: "Y'know, I haven't played a useful Blood Knight in years. So I'm putting down a turn 4 6/6 and we'll see what happens." What happened was he took out one Tar Creeper and then got Jade Lightninged. Eh. Meanwhile, his parade of little dudes is making me pine for my lone Consecration. Meanwhile meanwhile, Stonehill Defender gets me Tarim and The Man. (Tangent: Earlier today, Jeb and I were playing and speculated that they had tweaked the class card preference of Stonehill, since it seemed like a lot fewer legendaries had been appearing. This is what we call "RNG" and "small sample size." I think the class preference is still there. /tangent) And by the time I realized he was a full-on Elemental deck, that damn Blood Imp was making my long, lost Consec less and less useful. So I played Stupid Bolvar and, for some reason, decided to put Desperate Stand on him, instead of Wickerflame. Why? I don't remember.

The Shaman horde grew and I had nothing but Stupid Bolvar, so I just play The Man, relatively certain that a Bloodlust is coming and I'm going to get run down. But instead he just wipes out Tirion and ignores Stupid Bolvar. When I played the Hydrologist, I was really tempted to take Eye for an Eye again. Just because. But I made the wiser choice, knowing that the Hydrologist would doubtlessly be the recipient of the Getaway Kodo. I wonder what the interaction would have been between Kodo and Desperate Stand, though. Would I keep a 1/1 Stupid Bolvar in play and get a copy in my hand, too? Finally, my Consec arrives and I do the old control combo and clear his board back into his hand. (Spirit Echo is really an underused card, IMO. I use one in my Evolve deck and it's probably even more useful with the turn-based synergy of Elementals.) Suddenly, I'm in control. I have lethal on the board, even if he kills two of my minions.

Of course, he plays Kalimos for the massive heal. And then, Tarim arrived . I figured: Let him try to get through Tarim. I'm going face and taking him down to 6. And playing a Corpsetaker. The only thing that stops me now is the extremely common Lightning Storm and either a high roll on it across the board or rolling Wrath of Air totem and then him clearing my board with Kalimos and the Imp. So, you know, no chance at all. He doesn't have it.

Seriously, this deck is stupid. And expensive as shit if you don't have Tirion already. I can't see Bolvar ever being a truly useful card, barring some surge of Dshield madness in the next set. I mean, maybe he's useful in handbuff, but that deck needs an assload of draw in order to get the sequencing right, so most of the time you're going to need even more stuff between playing your Dshield guys at the right time and playing your buffing guys at the right time, which reduces any efficiency the deck would have. That said, it was fun to play, so I'll get in a few more games and see where it goes.

That's a party. It's like the Pre-built you can get from Blizzard in this week's Tavern Brawl. All DSes all over the place, all these weird synergies with losing them and gaining them. It's not a super good deck, but it's interesting to play because you have do a lot of math to figure out the best way forward with your pile of junk. I think the MOST fun TB deck is Priest though. You can end up doing some crazy clears with that deck and all it's bizarro interactions. I had one where I used Potion to steal the Warlock's Dinosaur Egg, used a Wild Pyro and SW:P to clear some 1/7 Taunt, putting a ping on a 6/6 Demon, and then Dragonfire Potioning to kill his board and get a 5/5. Sure. Good practice for folks that need to learn Wild Pyro tricks with Northshire and Circle of Healing too.

Really struggling with the game at the moment. I'm not enjoying any of the workable deck archetypes at all, and the mid-range appears to be essentially dead in the current meta. The only remaining one that appeals is the Royal Rogue (aka Elemental Rogue) but that needs two non-standard Legendaries I don't have so it's too much dust to drop just to try out something else I might not like.

I'm going to see out this nerf patch and we'll see how the meta swings. If it doesn't re-balance, I might be out at least until the next expansion.

It's extraordinary how the expansions can change things. I loved the Un'Goro meta, it was vibrant and varied and it felt like it was still evolving when Frozen Throne hit. Overnight, it's pretty much ruined the game for me.

Yeah, the DKs have kind of swooped in and dominated everything. There basically isn't a viable Warlock deck without Bloodreaver Gul'dan. I was commenting to Jeb yesterday that Quest decks other than Mage have disappeared overnight. The set did nothing to enhance the underused ones (Priest, Paladin, Druid, Warlock, Hunter) and instead, in the case of Druid and Paladin, reinforced older archetypes (Jade and Murlocs.) I like the trend towards control, because I'm a control player. But it's kind of strange how some classes are still utterly reliant on cards from two or three sets ago (Druid), while others ignore them completely (Warlock.) I think it's a transition between the release pattern of one big set plus adventures into three medium sets per year.

For my part, I'm playing more now than I have in a couple years, so I'm OK with it. But I can see where it would be a little jarring to suddenly have every class confined to a couple decks.

OK. Had to share this because this game was excellent: hsreplay.net/replay/7rkiJynjhNFViSdYX69yLa

Yes, that's me with Evolve vs. SebastianBludd's Survival of the Plantest.

Coincidentally, we both drew shit hands and mulliganned them completely and then drew almost-as-equally-shit hands. Although, at least he could start with a turn 1 Hallucination. He'll have to tell you what his other choices were, but I'm surprised that Avalanche turned out to be the best pick. If the other two were Finders Keepers and Drakkari Defender, I'll understand. First couple turns are nothing but frustration for both of us, until he Pods into two more Auctioneers. He commented then that his hand was awful and I replied that mine was, as well. Certainly there are better things to Pod, but there are certainly worse things, too, considering that I'd definitely be using as much of my removal and minions as possible to get rid of all three of them while they drew stuff to enable the plant.

Meanwhile, I am Totem Guy until Sherazin comes down. Then I get one of the worst but occasionally best results off a Portal that you can get, provided it stays alive. With a Flametongue down, I figure I'm doing 10 next turn if he has no removal (Ha! Little joke there.) And then he makes the best use of Avalanche the game may ever see. (Tangent: Jeebus, the Freeze Shaman cards are awful. Just awful! If you're starting a new archetype, don't you want to try to put out some good cards that will actually see use? Mage freeze effects come from an AoE that kills a lot of things, a 3/6 that lives after it freezes something, and a 2 mana delay spell that helps control and combo. Shaman gets an overcosted Murloc that does nothing for the rest of the tribe, a spell that makes your minion useless for a turn or an opponent's minion delayed for a turn while buffing it out of the range of most Shaman removal, and a weapon that's useless if you don't freeze things and also costs too much. Why would you ever do this, especially when you're concerned that the class lacks identity? "Shaman's new identity: Don't EVER play freeze!" /tangent.) To follow up, he activates the plant, clears my board, and swipes another good removal spell. I figure it's worth getting the Jade snowball (see what I did there?) rolling and put the plant back to sleep. 1st Auctioneer draws one card and I removed it and put a 2/2 and 5/5 on the board. Both of our hands are still mostly potential.

He executes a great combo to remove the Thing and wake up the plant. Unfortunately, he draws the worst Lotus card ever printed off the Swashburglar. I figured the Stonehill (off which I'll gladly take another 2 mana 5/5, thanks!) will eat an attack from the plant and I'll keep the Jadeball rolling to where it's actually becoming a bit of a threat. Stormcrack and the Slayer changes that thought. I'm not entirely sure about 5 to the face there. Yes, you take the plant down to 1 if you clear, but you also clear any threats from the board that I can exploit with another Flametongue. I'd most likely end up taking the 5 to the face, anyway, to clear the plant and my board would have nothing but the totem. I don't really like any of the choices off the second Stonehill, but I take the EE, since it's getting into the late game. As mentioned, I take the 5 to the face, but I had the option of using the 2/2 for something else. I'm still hoping for a Hex or Devolve that will just let me eliminate that threat of the plant for good and take a lot of the steam out of his deck.

Second Auctioneer doesn't do a whole lot and he unfortunately draws Moorabi off the second Burglar. Seriously, it's the day to steal shitty freeze cards. In complete contrast, my Master gets me the best freeze card in the game (it's like the game is playing us in theme) but my Devolve goes somewhat awry by giving him the Enforcer to buff whatever else comes out of his hand. My board now looks formidable until double Fan of Knives helps wreck it down to a wounded Master. The plant is active again and there's an Enforcer buffing 3 cards in his hand, but I need to remove the third(!) Auctioneer. Thankfully, I finally drew into an Evolve to go with the Gangster that's been sitting in my hand forever and I get a, um, solid result. I don't even care that I only have two cards in hand. I can win with what's on the board. But he proceeds to wreck my pretty picture once again and steal one of my Hexes that I still can't seem to find and now really kinda need with both the plant and an Arcane staring at me. I count up health, realized I need to sacrifice Hemet, and then go Krakatoa on that shit. That is precisely why I keep one Volcano in my Evolve decks.

And then I figure that, having used both Backstabs and both Eviscerates and with only 6 cards left, the Mana Tide might carry me through or will at least last long enough to bring our card situation back to even. He comments: "Here comes the pain. " and shows me the awful Shaman minions he stole; albeit, nicely buffed. And the totem drew Devolve. That one turns out just a bit better than the last one, since a 3-cost 2/2 is a pretty big step down from a 4-cost 5/7 and Finja does jack-all in a non-Murloc deck. Wouldn't have even helped if he'd had the misfortune to pull Brrloc off one of the Burglars. Of course, he did pull a Thing from Below and has enough damage on the board to guarantee that the only thing I'll get from my EE is the loss of 3 mana for a turn (Overload! So Awesome! 'click' Awesome! 'click' Awesome!) Stoneclaw totem means it's safe to put down the other Mana Tide, which finally draws me the Deathseer. He plays out his second-to-last big threat card in Edwin. I still haven't seen a Hex, despite having only 8 cards left in my deck.

Here's the Evolve question, if you're playing Master. Do you Master first to turn a 4-cost into a 6-cost when you Deathseer or do you Deathseer and then use the Master to change what you don't like? I do the latter, since it effectively does what my hero power would do, but still puts another 4/5 on the board. Certainly, a 6-cost might come with better stats than that, but I guess I also don't want to see the Master get something good, only to see it overwritten by the Deathseer battlecry. I'd rather affect that random element a bit more directly, rather than adding another card for a change that I'll have no control over, even though the evolve is for 1 more mana (2 higher, rather than 1.) I could easily be wrong about this, though.

The second Arcane appears and I do an OK job of isolating him, but I guess the horde of little bastards is enough to convince Sebastian that I'd just win by attrition after throwing most of them at the big things As it is, had I been in his shoes, I think I would have used the giant to kill the Flametongue, which would mean I'd have to throw my entire board at him to keep him from killing me in two or three turns. Of course, he would have been into fatigue by then and I could have gained off the Bloodworm in the meantime and with no telling what my hero power could transform one of the rabble into, so it probably would have been an uphill climb.

Regardless, it was a great game. Thanks, man. I'd love to hear your perspective on it and what other card options you had from the Discovers and so forth.

Here's the game from my perspective: https://hsreplay.net/replay/9GAZG4NgZj9rTczMSgVJGo

Jackwraith wrote: He'll have to tell you what his other choices were, but I'm surprised that Avalanche turned out to be the best pick. If the other two were Finders Keepers and Drakkari Defender, I'll understand.

My other two choices were Flametongue Totem and Kalimos. Kalimos seemed way too slow (and no synergy, to boot), and I wasn't willing to bet on a future board state where I'd be able to use the totem to make one or two value trades to swing the board. I figured that I'd have a chance to use Avalanche to take out a totem or two since Shaman is always pulling totem/Flametongue shenanigans around Turns 3-5.

Jackwraith wrote: Unfortunately, he draws the worst Lotus card ever printed off the Swashburglar.

That card was Lotus Illusionist. After I got Moorabi off the second Swashburglar my hand was two Auctioneers (6 mana each), the Lotus Illusionist (4 mana) and Moorabi (6 mana). That really slowed me down and after the second time Sherazin died I probably should have slowed down and played a tempo Auctioneer instead of rushing to resurrect Sherazin again, depleting my hand.

Jackwraith wrote: I'm not entirely sure about 5 to the face there. Yes, you take the plant down to 1 if you clear, but you also clear any threats from the board that I can exploit with another Flametongue.

Yeah, I wasn't sure about going face, either, but I was afraid of losing Sherazin to removal before he got a chance to do any damage, and there was no way to resurrect him anytime soon with the 6/6/4/6 cost cards in my hand.

Jackwraith wrote: And the totem drew Devolve. That one turns out just a bit better than the last one, since a 3-cost 2/2 is a pretty big step down from a 4-cost 5/7 and Finja does jack-all in a non-Murloc deck. Wouldn't have even helped if he'd had the misfortune to pull Brrloc off one of the Burglars. Of course, he did pull a Thing from Below and has enough damage on the board to guarantee that the only thing I'll get from my EE is the loss of 3 mana for a turn (Overload! So Awesome! 'click' Awesome! 'click' Awesome!) Stoneclaw totem means it's safe to put down the other Mana Tide, which finally draws me the Deathseer. He plays out his second-to-last big threat card in Edwin. I still haven't seen a Hex, despite having only 8 cards left in my deck.

That Devolve was a backbreaker for me, and when I played my second Hallucinate to get Thing from Below, my other choices were Snowfury Giant (really?) and Lotus Agents. I'd had enough of garbage RNG at this point and went with TfB, though I was really, really tempted to roll the dice on Agents and see if I could bullshit my way into a win via some Primordial Glyph-style RNG.

Jackwraith wrote: The second Arcane appears and I do an OK job of isolating him, but I guess the horde of little bastards is enough to convince Sebastian that I'd just win by attrition after throwing most of them at the big things As it is, had I been in his shoes, I think I would have used the giant to kill the Flametongue, which would mean I'd have to throw my entire board at him to keep him from killing me in two or three turns. Of course, he would have been into fatigue by then and I could have gained off the Bloodworm in the meantime and with no telling what my hero power could transform one of the rabble into, so it probably would have been an uphill climb.

My last two cards were Razorpetal Lasher and SI:7 Agent and I figured they wouldn't be enough for me to mount a comeback. And that's not even taking into consideration, as you mentioned, the healing from the Bloodworm and what you could do with your hero power. It was a good game, though, in spite of the squirrely RNG that kept trolling us.