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Hearthstone Players!

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20 Aug 2018 14:30 - 20 Aug 2018 14:32 #280075 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic Hearthstone Players!
I stand corrected! Warlock is good in all flavors. I have been beating Control without issue, and I assumed this was the norm. I guess not. As noted, I just need to steal or Silence Rin and things will usually turn out fine. They don't really run heavy enough in Demons for me to be overly concerned even about DK Guld'an. A coupla 4/5s? Who cares? Back when this deck ran Doomguard I was in a much dicier spot.

I have been playing Warrior as well, but without the full commitment to Odd. Eventually something huge sticks and I beat them with it. Against a Druid today I played Lich King, they Naturalized, but I'd gotten Anti-Magic Shell. Off Omega Assembly I was able to get the 2/5 that makes dudes, the 1/3 that gives Armor, and the 2/1 that buffs Mechs (giving me a 3/6). My big turn was Warpath, Warpath, Anti-Magic Shell, Execute their Lich King. Just like you said, the rest of my game was Hero Power, Attack, Pass. They need to figure it out. I'm all good. (I was around 32, 34 with Armor, so even Maly wasn't super threatening).

Craziest game today was in Wild. I was a C'thun Rogue (don't judge), and against Even Shaman (judge a little). They kept making huge boards, as is their way, and I kept nibbling at the corners. Important play was Brann into Loatheb into Shadowstep-on-Brann. So I have a 1-cost Brann. I used this later at 6 life, looking at a PACKED board of a couple 5/5's, Aya, some Totems &c to play (discount) Brann into Coldlight Oracle (stop judging) into the fourth-card-drawn: Antique Healbot to put me at 22 and buy another turn. Here, the Even Shaman goofs and leaves Brann up, puts me back at 7 or whatever. I play C'Thun, who deals 38, clearing their board except for Aya's output, who's killed by the Healbot and Coldlight. Their board is gone, they're at 8, looking at 19/19 C'Thun and Brann. I killed them with 2x Disciple of C'Thun the next turn.

This made me think, and the kids and I discussed. What the absolutely must-be-killed-ASAP cards? These were our thoughts, but I want to hear yours:
1. Kel'Thuzad
1. Emperor Thaurissan
2. Brann Bronzebeard
2. The Lich King
2. Malygos
2. Ragnaros the Firelord
2. Prophet Velen
3. Fandral Staghelm
3. Gadgetzan Auctioneer
3. Archmage Antonidas
4. Sorcerer's Apprentice
4. Ysera
Last edit: 20 Aug 2018 14:32 by jeb.

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21 Aug 2018 03:09 - 21 Aug 2018 03:22 #280096 by MacDirk Diggler
That list you made is solid all time guys that gotta be killed on sight. Couple more you might remember... Flamewaker, Tunnel Trogg. But I will try for some current ones that are not quite at the level of those you mentioned. Following your numbering system...

5. Rotface
6. The Shaman 4/8 that does is same as auctioneer
6. The priest guy that discounts his minions and then kills them end of turn
7. Stargazer Luna in tempo mage deck
7. The mage one that gives spell power +2
8. Houndmaster Shaw.
9. Grumble and Shudderwock. Not crazy threat level, but you are sad if they get bounced because you didn’t kill them. Same goes for Keleseth
10. Sonya whatever the Rogue legendary.
10. Flappy bird
10. Questing Adventurer
10. Henchclan Thug!!!!!

Probably missed a few. But any of those can lose you the game if they stick a few turns.
Last edit: 21 Aug 2018 03:22 by MacDirk Diggler.
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21 Aug 2018 17:11 #280125 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic Hearthstone Players!
Man, Flappy Bird--excellent example. Anything can kill you if you leave it out long enough, but Flappy Bird can kill you real fast if you don't address it immediately. I was thinking about it like, "Would I spend the Coin and two cards to kill this creature?" That's a big investment. If Druid sneaks out an early Fandral, you know I am going to Coin, Slam, Execute that guy if I have to. I won't even think about it. Houndmaster Shaw? I might wait on that. Rush is solid, but it's not Charge. I think it depends what's going on for that one.

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26 Aug 2018 17:43 - 26 Aug 2018 19:17 #280425 by MacDirk Diggler
So rank 2, 5 stars at the moment. 6 wins from legend! Yikes. Jinxed myself. Edit. Made rank 1
Odd warrior still. But took out Dr. Boom and Omega assembly for quest and Tar Creepers. Dr Boom kinda sucks. In aggro match you are sad if you give up Tank Up and rely on rando mechs to save your bacon. In control they Skulking Geist your assembly and out value boom with Guldan or Jaina. And Rexxar makes too much stuff you can’t kill it all.

The quest solves all that. Rexxar is on a clock and 8 damage kills big zombeasts. Jaina and Guldan succumb because.... what is better than 8 damage for 2 mana?

Legend meta is totally stagnated into aggro vs control warrior vs Quest Rogue. Rock Paper Scissors. I guess I haven’t run into much combo/ q Rogue lately is why I am climbing well. Getting favorable against other odd warrior and any other control warrior, and all warlocks, all mages has been good for me. Running two ironbeaks and one MC tech for Rattle hunters but that has fallen off last few days.
Last edit: 26 Aug 2018 19:17 by MacDirk Diggler.
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27 Aug 2018 04:02 - 27 Aug 2018 04:07 #280437 by MacDirk Diggler
Still driving in the right direction. Had game against ChanmanV. The host of Value town podcast. Was odd Mirrror and really showed how/ why quest dominates Boom. He was runnin the exact deck I was using last week with Boom and Omega assembly. He could never put any pressure on me. I armor and completed quest fairly quickly with the echo 2/4 Taunt guys. All he can do is dump minions on the board that I clear with either minion trades or collider or Rag shot. When you are in quest mode and have collider equipped it’s just nasty.... if they play one minion it gets shot, two and you get collider value. He survived well enough to draw his deck. But by then he was down to less than 10life. Coup de grace blow was him dumping some anemic mechs on the board to hope RNjesus would spare his face. I flurried off the 28 armor I had remaining because he couldn’t touch me and 8 for 2 mana to the face. Easiest game of my life.

Dr Boom is dead!

But seriously. He is maybe in the conversation with Malfurion level power. The variable thing he does is unreliable and you only ever want to discover a mech or gain armor. The deal 1 to all enemies is just bad except against maybe Paladin.

3 more games and I get there
Last edit: 27 Aug 2018 04:07 by MacDirk Diggler.
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31 Aug 2018 15:39 #280859 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic Hearthstone Players!
I am having a blast in this weeks' Tavern Brawl. It's a Double Deathrattle Standard BYoD Battle. You cook up your own Standard Legal deck, but Deathrattles trigger twice. Most folks appear to have taken these routes:
  • Priest (with or without Quest), making piles of Devilsaurs and never dying
  • Hunter killing your face with piles of Goblin Bombs and Leper Gnomes
  • Rogue playing... stuff. I don't know what these Rogues are even doing, honestly. They are not playing The One True Way.
That One True Way is put multiple Malygosi into play and kill people with a 33-damage Petal.

I am only running three minions. Here's the decklist:
Minions
Lx Malygos
1x Elven Minstrel
1x Kobold Illusionist

Stall
2x Cheap Shot
1x Evasion
2x Eviscerate (honestly, hard to cast when I need to kill them, so I mostly use these on the board prior to OTK)
2x Sap
2x Vanish

Draw
2x Roll the Bones
2x Shiv
2x Fan of Knives
1x Sprint

Utility/Setup
2x Backstab
2x Preparation
2x Necrium Blade
1x Necrium Vial

Kill
2x Sinister Strike
2x Razorpetal Volley

The game plan is to stall, stall, stall until you get Illusionist and Maly in hand. Play the Illusionist, make its DR go off a bunch of times and throw spells at the opponent's face. Things to remember:
  • Illusionist + Necrium makes Malys, and then Backstab can kill Illusionist for more Malys.
  • Fan of Knives for 31 is hilarious if you have the luxury.
  • Amara can't save you from 46 points worth of Sinister Strikes.
  • You might not "go off" if both Mistrel AND Maly are in hand when you set up the Illusionist!
You can't leave the Illusionist on the board, obviously. You only get one shot, so it's happening around turn 8 or 9 given what you need to cast. I did have a turn 5 kill this AM. Opponent was Goblin Bomb Hunter and was laying it out. By the end of her turn 4, I was at 15 and looking at a 3/3, an Egg, and four 5/5 Devilsaurs. She was at 26 from a Knife hit and a Necrium Blade hit. My turn 5 was Illusionist, Necrium hit to 23, Backstab for 12 on Illusionist, Sinister Strike to 0. #KissesFingers

----

Also: keeping tabs on NappyD (MacDirk Diggler), who'se been at Rank 1 for a couple of days right before the end of the Season! Could be our first Legend level player (in the modern era, I'm sure some of you made it back in the Beta, &c)

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31 Aug 2018 22:45 #280895 by Jackwraith
Replied by Jackwraith on topic Hearthstone Players!
So, I think I've finally figured out what bugs me about the game so much that keeps me playing for a week or two when a new set comes out, but then drifting away until I barely play at all.

It's the constant Basic and Classic sets.

I've talked about this before in general when talking about the restriction on design space and deck innovation (Is any Druid AoE ever going to be as good as Swipe?) and Kibler's arguments about the same thing. I've also referred to it in specific when mentioning my favorite archetypes like Control Paladin and how I'd like to be able to play a deck that didn't include Pyro/Equality in every, single list.

But that's just it. I want to play Control Paladin but I want to play a new version of it. I looked at my current list (Mecha Eggs, Kangor's Army, Shrink Ray) and realized that it's the same fucking list with the aforementioned new tricks. It still has 2 Doomsayer, 2 Equality, 2 Pyromancer, 2 Consecration, and 2 Truesilver. Those 10 cards can never vary. You're automatically stuck with 1/3 of your deck spoken for from the beginning. And, of course, since Un'Goro, it's also always included 2 Stonehill and Tarim. So that's almost half the deck. Throw in Tirion and Uther and you have 15 cards left to play with. This one IS different because it uses both types of Eggs and Cube, but the spine of the deck is still the same. Their implicit assertion is that Control Paladin will always use Equality and Pyromancer. Full stop. If you want to play control with that class, those are the cards you're stuck with because they'll always be there available for it. But I don't want to play those cards anymore. I've been playing those cards for over 4 years now. And I look at the game and think: "I want to play these new decks!" But they're not new and never will be.
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01 Sep 2018 03:54 - 01 Sep 2018 04:15 #280902 by MacDirk Diggler


Finally made it. Last day went on nice 7-1 streak to cross the finish line. Was real close a week ago and lost the final boss match vs Odd Rogue that Blood Knight his own Argent squire and I could not kill if fast enough. Then I started playing poorly and losing favorables and the whole thing started going sideways. Then I realized everyone else was also playing Odd Warrior or targeting it with combo decks. So I said fuckit and ran Mechathun Priest for awhile.

Than deck has to be the worst deck to lose to at the moment. If you can get an early Wild Pyro and or Doomsayer and not take much damage before 6... Hemet.. scream off a couple of boards... then Thun their ass.. it can wreck anything except maybe Odd Rogue. So it was actually working. I had hopes to tell you I made legend trolling rank 1 with Mechathun. But its too inconsistent and I eventually went back to 2. So i went back to Odd Warrior and bore down for the final push... beating other Odd Warriors, Burn Mages, and Odd Rogues in 90 minute span to make legend. Odd Warrior was top win rate deck last week I think on HSreplay, so everybody started playing it.

The rewards are 4 golden cards (one was epic) and a legend cardback. Start this season at rank 4 is sweet. Now that I made it once the pressure is off. I don't need to play Odd Warrior anymore. I will be happy to be at the 5 plateau and just monkey around with fun decks.. I think. Its hard to not get competitive and squelch the desire to want to climb and prove I can swim upstream against the meta. I am actually thinking about re-crafting the Rogue Quest and relearn that deck.

@Jackwraith... I agree that the Evergreen cards limit design and make some archetypes stale. But on the other hand, there are more archetypes available than ever...in standard and certainly wild. You gotta mix it up more to make one of them not become tedious. I think eventually they will rotate classic... someday.
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Last edit: 01 Sep 2018 04:15 by MacDirk Diggler.
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01 Sep 2018 07:02 #280905 by Jackwraith
Replied by Jackwraith on topic Hearthstone Players!
Congrats, man! That's awesome. You worked hard at it and it paid off.
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01 Sep 2018 23:16 - 01 Sep 2018 23:19 #280952 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic Hearthstone Players!
www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/9b...larity_of_each_card/

37% of cards in Ranks 4-L are from the Basic and Classic sets. You could also see this as a democratizing force—those cards are available and rewarded to everyone. To have them be shitty seems like a bad move (compare to MtG's #th Edition sets, which were largely reviled and ignored.) There are about 1050 cards in Standard, and B&C make up 369 of them, so you'd expect to see them ~35% of the time, all else being equal. The outliers there are K&C (Should be 13%, but is 20%) and KotFT (should be 13%, is just 9%).

Congrats, MacDirk! Great job. Glad you feel you can rest on your laurels now and play some fun decks. As grinds go, HS is still pretty fun, but a grind is a grind. You got there!
Last edit: 01 Sep 2018 23:19 by jeb.

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02 Sep 2018 19:24 #280981 by Jackwraith
Replied by Jackwraith on topic Hearthstone Players!
Making them shitty is not what I want. I want them to be different. The reason that MTG began rotating the basic set was to both allow for design space ("We want to make an entire set out of artifacts! Oh. Hi, Disenchant...") and to create variety in deck designs. The omnipresence of certain cards (Equality, Swipe, Backstab, formerly FWA, etc.) and the utter lack of others (Who is ever going to play Eye for an Eye? Healing Touch? Assassin's Blade?) means that deck design remains static and in some ways inhibits the play of new players, since they'll essentially be stuck with certain cards that not only aren't optimal, but are downright awful.
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05 Sep 2018 11:41 - 05 Sep 2018 12:21 #281125 by SebastianBludd
Replied by SebastianBludd on topic Hearthstone Players!
OK, brainstorming time. Kibler's plan for revamping the Classic set is to periodically rotate cards in and out of Wild, so that was my starting point for this little exercise. I decided to see what I could come up with by replacing some of the Classic and Basic (because why not?) Paladin cards with cards from Wild. I ended up replacing 4 of the 10 Basic cards and all but 3 of the Classic cards, with the same ratios of rarities as before.

While Grimestreet Protector and Seal of Light aren't good, I think they would see more play than Guardian of Kings and Holy Light, respectively. The Classic set is where things get weird. Like Jackwraith, I also think seeing the same cards in Paladin decks diminishes my enthusiasm for playing the class so I really tried to shake things up. The biggest change I made was ditching Equality altogether. Since that neuters Paladin's two most reliable board clears, I replaced Avenging Wrath with Enter the Coliseum. The other big change was subbing Solemn Vigil for Divine Favor. DF is the brainless, aggro version of card draw so I took it out and replaced it with a card that requires the player to weigh the pros and cons of trades based on their hand size and board state.

The rest of my substitutions were a combination of having a smaller-number-than-expected of viable cards to choose from (i.e., Cobalt Guardian still sucks), as well as having my own personal favorites from expansions past (Keeper of Uldaman, Ivory Knight, etc.).



Edit: I had an epic Monster Hunt with Toki a few days ago. I've tried to beat it with her about a dozen times but I can never seem to make her work. On this latest attempt I had some janky collection of garbage that somehow synergized with my "+2 Health for all friendly characters at the end of your turn" and "start with an extra mana crystal" passives. One of my biggest problems with Toki has been card draw so I concentrated on drafting card-generating cards, and I took two Dr. Booms as well because of the extra mana crystal.

I hate Glynda Crowskin so it was uber-satisfying to keep killing her wisps for free until she ran out of cards and I could do the Hearthstone equivalent of pinning someone to the ground and raining blows upon their face. And then I faced Infinite Toki for the first time. I already knew she had a card that resets the game except for your health, so I concentrated on trying to beat her down quickly so she'd play the reset while I still had most of my health. Instead, she played Enhance-A-Matic (adds a random spell to your hand from each class), only to burn Alternate Timeline (start a new game but your opponent's health stays the same) on her next turn.

I already had the game in hand but then she went and played Dragoncaller Alanna to spawn 5 dragons. I had a Time Warp in hand from my completed Mage quest, a Mini Mage (4/1 for 4, Stealth, Spell Damage +1) and a Flamestrike, so I played Mini Mage -> Time Warp -> Flamestrike to clear her board. There was another sketchy moment when IT played her second Ice Block and a 30+ attack and health Clockwork Assistant, but I had enough health to sustain one attack (IT ended up trading, anyway) and kill her with fatigue on her next turn.
Last edit: 05 Sep 2018 12:21 by SebastianBludd.
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05 Sep 2018 13:13 #281131 by Jackwraith
Replied by Jackwraith on topic Hearthstone Players!
Nice work. Every time I looked down the list and thought "I don't know...", I stopped myself and thought: "No, this is exactly right. It clears out what has been standard and allows room for new cards." Take Divine Favor. I hate that card, because it punishes your opponent for playing smart. But it is the only really viable card draw for aggro Paladin because it's still low cost and rewards you for dumping your hand. Solemn Vigil costing two more and losing your minions is antithetical... but that just allows them to create a new draw card for aggro. That's the point.

Why is Equality still present with Shrink Ray? They both do basically the same thing, except that the latter allows you to activate your eggs (This is the only viable Paladin control deck at the moment. I tried Blackguard again. It still sucks.) In fact, Paladin control is still so subpar that I'm using Pyromancer and BOTH Equality and Shrink Ray (and Consecration!) to do board clears. But phasing out Equality means they're basically forced to address that issue and Paladin players have two more slots open in their decklists to do something else.

I appreciate that you included my beloved Coghammer, although with both that and Rallying Blade joining Truesilver, there's a possibility of a flooded field when it comes to weapon design. And Seal of Light is the perfect replacement for Holy Light. It still heals, but it allows you to do something active at the same time. How can that not be considered an improvement to the game, no matter what the player's level of experience?

I'd honestly be in favor of simply removing Paladin as a Secret class in the same way that Rogue became one. It's never been in theme (How do the paragons of truth, light, and nobility employ secrets?) and making them cost 1 just means that you never want to play them because they'll almost always suck unless they're Noble Sacrifice. The only time anyone has actually wanted to play any of them has been with one of the most OP cards ever printed (Stop asking questions!) and the best Paladin Secret ever printed: Avenge. I saw someone trying Autdefense Matrix and Bolvar the other day. Yeah, I'd love to finally do a functional DShield deck, too. I just felt sorry for him.
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05 Sep 2018 18:43 #281157 by SebastianBludd
Replied by SebastianBludd on topic Hearthstone Players!

Jackwraith wrote: I'd honestly be in favor of simply removing Paladin as a Secret class in the same way that Rogue became one. It's never been in theme (How do the paragons of truth, light, and nobility employ secrets?) and making them cost 1 just means that you never want to play them because they'll almost always suck unless they're Noble Sacrifice. The only time anyone has actually wanted to play any of them has been with one of the most OP cards ever printed (Stop asking questions!) and the best Paladin Secret ever printed: Avenge. I saw someone trying Autdefense Matrix and Bolvar the other day. Yeah, I'd love to finally do a functional DShield deck, too. I just felt sorry for him.


That a good point about Paladin Secrets and, since there's only two of them on my list and one of them is the slightly-less-useless-than-Humility Sacred Trial, I think they could be safely omitted completely. I avoided including Avenge simply for how OP it is, and DShield Pally seems like a non-starter (barring some OP cards being made to push it a la Tunnel Trog-era Shaman for Overload) so I didn't even bother with DShield stuff of any kind.

I also agree about Rallying Blade congesting the Paladin weapon pool, plus there's little DShield stuff to proc it so it could be removed as well.

Jackwraith wrote: But phasing out Equality means they're basically forced to address that issue and Paladin players have two more slots open in their decklists to do something else.


I tried to address the lack of Equality with both Keeper of Uldaman and Enter the Coliseum since I was striving for the set to have some sort of internal logic in lieu of having any future Paladin and/or neutral designs in the pipe to balance against. And your point about forcing Team 5 to address the lack of Equality is well-taken, which is why I thought KoU and EtC were close enough as far as a Basic & Standard set rotation goes, with the rest of the slack design space being taken up by neutrals.
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06 Sep 2018 12:39 #281186 by Jackwraith
Replied by Jackwraith on topic Hearthstone Players!
BTW, I watched a couple great games by your oldest son last night. (He said he was on your account because you have more cards.) He was playing Secret Hunter vs. Odd Paladin. The Pallie was putting him under some degree of pressure by testing for traps and then following up with the usual constant stream of Dudes. But your son was handling it well and made a couple good trades into a Level Up. But he had two enhanced Dudes left and then played ItJ and hit the button again, so suddenly there's a full board... and your son topdecks Rexxar at 6 mana. Instant concede. I laughed my ass off.

He followed up with a Treant deck. That's the one deck that makes me miss playing Druid. He was against another combo Druid of some kind. I thought it might have been Malygos, but she (Lily) got to fatigue and he never hit the floor. She did have to play Alex to save herself, because your son kept up the constant pressure. She also played Floop's at one point, but didn't get a whole lot out of it. The reason I suspected Malygos was the presence of Moonfire; both of which had to be used on treants, along with both Swipes. I didn't even realize the Mulcher was a Rush minion until he dropped it for 4 and it ate Alex. She has 5 cards left, all in her hand, and he still had a board full of trees. It was awesome.
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