Hearthstone Players!

This is Kibler's model. I think he cut down to one Doctor because between the Applebaum's, Broodmothers, and Ziliax, a vanilla 8/8 who "just" heals you is cool when it happens, but kinda subpar, otherwise. I don't think there's any way to play the deck without Dorian, though. I keep seeing people asking him: "Replacement for Dorian?" There isn't one. If you take out Dorian, you're relying on one combo of two cards. If you don't draw them in time, you're kinda screwed. Dorian gives you another reason to Plot Twist, since you can at least get a 1/1 Taunt that heals you for 4 and so on.

I have won games by playing this as straight up Handlock, like if Morrigan grabs your Betrug and he gets removed, or simply by winning games without ever laying the combo down, like against that Paladin.

Seriously, I've been playing this game since the closed beta and this may be the funnest deck I've ever touched. I keep playing in Casual because I'm usually playing when I might have to run out the door, but I think I'm going to take it into ladder and see how far I get. I've played a dozen games with it and haven't lost yet.

hsreplay.net/replay/DydUuLZWP3Z2zZQCfPGDUa

This is standard Conjurer's Mage, although I've now seen the dragon version more than once. You can say I made a mistake on turn 5 by not just trading Giants and you're probably right. But I gambled on him not having the Conjurer's and lost (plus, I had the "Play 12 minions that cost 5 or more" quest and I wanted games to last longer.) Mages also don't have a good way to heal, so I wanted to get hits where I can. The first Twist was looking for Shadowflame, though, which was my second thought about not trading right away, as I could get rid of Giants and Conjurer's that way. Of course, I draw it the turn after it would've been useful.

hsreplay.net/replay/7tqG4UxY995qc7SNhnJYBE

This guy had the perfect big creature elimination draw, with both Spider Bombs and both Fireworks Techs. But the Giants are there to provide a threat. They're really not crucial to how the deck functions, so the fact that he wiped both of them and I subsequently cleared both boards with Hellfire is perfectly within expectations. What I wondered about was why he didn't Magnetize the first one to make board clears more difficult (He was a gold Hunter, so decent player, but perhaps not familiar with Mech Hunter.) I finally activated the Rat Trap on turn 9 with Sn1p-Sn4p. That card is so good. Let me set up a Safeguard to clear both and still not take damage. Didn't need to activate the second one. I played the Godfrey late because I kind of wanted him out of my hand/deck. He's perhaps the least useful of the minions. These guys probably think people are ready to concede when Zul'jin arrives. I usually think people are when Betrug does.

www.hearthpwn.com/news/6798-new-card-revealed-plague-of-murlocs

"OMG! Pleeeeeease play Murlocs!"

Cool card, though. Quite the answer to Conjurer's and big creature decks.

That's pretty devastating for all KINDS of decks. All the Mechs, all the cheated-out Giants, all the Walls that need multiple turns to win. It pollutes Deathrattle too. There's a lot to like and hate about this card.

Lost my first game with the Plot Twist deck. I played four today and didn't play Betrug a single time. In fact, in three of them, I didn't even see him. I did see Dorian all four games, though, and got off a couple Twists with him. Not quite as good as Betrug, but enough to convince one Rogue to concede on turn 7. The guy I lost to was Murloc Shaman (I think the "Shaman" part is redundant these days) and I kept clearing and clearing and clearing but couldn't stabilize. Right after the game, he friended me and said that he had the 80g quest, so we played another and I won that one by basically playing Control Warlock. Pretty cool.

I had one of those Murloc games too. I cleared and cleared and cleared and they got me in on turn 12 or 13 when they played their third Ghost Angler (two drawn, this was from the 2/3) to make five more Anglers, of which I could only kill two, so they top-decked Bloodlust and killed me at 15 life.

I find it hard to believe that's the desired outcome for that game from Blizzard. The rebuilds are just so over-the-top ridiculous. I get that rushdown is a gameplan, and I get there should be room to recover, but they lost the board like 8 times and it just didn't matter.

I'm glad you got a buddy out it though! I have friends that don't even speak my language because they wanted to yell at me or whatever. I just accept the friend request a couple days later after we've all forgotten what it was about.

Duped!

Tavern Brawl working for Quests has been a boon. I'll have a solid 7k by the time the next set launches.

Cool. I'll have something over 5.

When he first sent the friend request, I thought it was to complain about something, despite the fact that he'd just won. I think it was mostly about him wanting to see what my deck was actually supposed to do, because he had me on the ropes in the second game and asked exactly that. Then I locked everything down and started exploiting Dorian.

I've been grinding this entire season in Wild. I'm burnt out. I reached Rank 1 during the first week, then dropped to rank 2/3 for most of the past 2 weeks, and now I'm in rank 4. Getting to Legend is rough.

Thought you'd like this one, Jeb: hsreplay.net/replay/XXcWgXZAMHwagASNxhvjZ9

Clearly, he didn't get the best hand, but I thought it exemplified how Paladin Secrets can occasionally be good in the mid- to late game. Never Surrender and Matrix are decent then, but not always great. I was thinking about what 1-cost Secret could be good in the later game that wouldn't be OP. Thought briefly on a variation of Counterspell and Freezing Trap: Doesn't discard it like Counter, but instead kicks it back to your hand for an increase in cost. Wouldn't be game-breaking for things like Fireball which could just be recast, if not that turn then next, but might force people to try to "play around it" with smaller stuff before trying their big moves. Wouldn't be that effective with Twinspell, though, since then you'd have three shots at it, rather than just two.

kookoobah wrote: I've been grinding this entire season in Wild. I'm burnt out. I reached Rank 1 during the first week, then dropped to rank 2/3 for most of the past 2 weeks, and now I'm in rank 4. Getting to Legend is rough.

thats amazing, though. I am strictly Dad Legend material. I don’t have the killer instinct or, frankly, playing time, to get much past 5 in me. That’s a long time to go 55%.

I watched your game, @Jackwraith. I can’t believe they didn’t kill the Spirit on turn 7. “Oh, this thing that poops out 12 in stats every turn? I’ll let that slide for now. Gotta clear these 1/1s.” That’s how you beat them though. Hit them so hard they need to spend cards on your board and make Mountain Giant expensive. Risk there moves to a Sea Giant, but that is not always as tough as 12cc.

Yeah, I kinda wondered about that, too. Maybe he thought he had time to draw into something or expected that I wouldn't be churning out anything more than 1/1s after a couple Frost Novae? Dunno. I screwed up the distribution on one of the giants, too. My girlfriend was talking to me while I was playing, so I ended up wasting the 6/6 and another 4/4 to clear it, but I was still in total control of the board. Hidden Wisdom has been the (ahem) secret weapon of this deck, too. I only run one copy, but it shows up as the random fairly regularly and almost always pays off. The few games I've had it go off with Rhyssa in play have been hilarious. Again, it's horrible that they made her a 4/3. The card would be so much better as a 3/4, such that it might survive for a while despite the super-taunt. No Secret decks are defensive, so there's no situation where playing Taunts to protect her would be viable.

So, Uldum:

Druid- Quest isn't difficult, but it definitely lends itself toward midrange or control decks. It's brilliant with Crystal Merchant. The reward is solid (Loti becomes a 3-cost 4/6 Taunt/Rush/Poisonous/Stealth/Spell Damage minion; not bad.) I really like the concepts behind Bees! and Oasis Surger. Token didn't get much other than the Gnome, so I'm not sure what might be viable.

Hunter- Quest is better than the Un'Goro one, but not that much better. It's "summon", which means it works off Hounds and the new Swarm of Locusts, but even with the great quest reward, it doesn't seem like it will replace Mech Hunter and its variations. Wild Bloodstinger seems excellent, especially against "Big" decks. And Hunter's Pack is amazing. Raiding Party got nerfed because it was 3 cards for 3 mana and yet, here we are. On a personal note, Pressure Plate is going to suck for my Bet Twist deck.

Mage- I hate the Mage quest with every fiber of my being. It's not difficult to accomplish and going back to 8 mana Pyroblasts is just going to be awful. Both Epics are trash, unfortunately. But Flame Ward and the two Secret minions are quite solid. I don't think it's consistent enough to displace Conjurer's, though.

Paladin- The quest is misaligned, because it wants you to play trash minions in what needs to be a control deck in order to get use out of it (2/2 copies of larger minions.) You don't want trash minions in the early game and, given the stats of many of the Reborn minions, you don't want them at all. But it's the same pattern for the whole set. Paladin has been shoved toward healing, but that didn't work. So then it was dragons, but that didn't work. And then it was Secrets, but that didn't work, either. So now it's aggro minions and Murlocs... which have nothing to do with the quest. They said that expansions this year were going to be more coherent (i.e. carry themes from one to the next, rather than the tangential nature of last year (This week- Mechs! Next week- Trolls!) But that message apparently got to every class except Paladin. Pharaoh's Blessing looks interesting, but feels as disjointed as the rest of the set. And, of course, they got stuck with Sir Finley. I give it ~2 months before buffs arrive.

Priest- Priest got the pendulum swing! Rather than upgrade their base set, once again we have to do a Mean Streets boost. The quest is ridiculously easy and the reward is kind of insane. Amet is meh. Psychopomp is random. Grandmummy is killer if she comes back with the Deathrattle and I don't see why she wouldn't. Wretched Reclaimer is amazing. Sandhoof Waterbearer is what Healing Well should have been and Penance is the early removal that Priests have been (literally) dying for. Great set.

Rogue:-The quest is easy for current theft decks and they've added more, including the excellent Bazaar Mugger. The reward is a Fiery War Axe that doesn't damage your face. Everyone was complaining but I fail to see the problem. Anka is meh. Whirlkick Master is poor, but Shadow of Death is amazing, especially with Myra's. I think there are some decent tools here.

Shaman- The quest is OK. The reward is... questionable. Battlecries are about efficiency. Spending two mana cuts down on your efficiency in the late game. Like usual, it will swing wildly between amazingly effective and too expensive/useless. Vessina is interesting and, clearly, a lot of this is built up around horde/aggro decks, including totems, which also encourages people to maindeck Storm Bringer, which no one plays even after the buff because it's virtually impossible to maintain a board these days. Obviously, EVIL totem and Weaponized Wasp and Totemic Surge all support this approach. Maybe it works? I was wrong about Murlocs, based solely on the power of Underbelly Angler, so perhaps there's something here. I just wish Mogu had been 6 mana, instead of 7. Earthquake is amazing, despite the fact that, just like Hagatha, it clears your whole board, too.

Warlock- The quest is OK. The reward is godlike, but Plot Twist decks are very narrow and that's generally the only way to get this completed. Tekahn is potentially amazing, now that they included another way to get Lackeys. Expired Merchant is what discard always should have been. The damage yourself stuff still suffers from the lack of healing in Standard. Three cards were printed with self-damage stuff last year and no one touches them. Spirit Bomb is 1 mana for 4 damage to a minion and can't see play. Diseased Vulture and Riftcleaver seem vaguely viable, but without better ways to heal, I can't see it working. Not a lot of help to Zoo here, either.

Warrior- The quest will be fairly difficult and then summons 4/3s, which are bad. And, really? Taunt Warrior? Again? Bleah. None of this stuff seems capable of dislodging Dr. Boom, although Restless Mummy is excellent and I have to laugh at Plague of Wrath. Finally! A board clear for Warriors!

The high end neutral stuff is full of Timmies. But Colossus and Siamat have serious potential. There've been suggestions that Siamat is the new Ziliax, but the latter has Lifesteal and Magnetic and only costs 5, which makes him far more versatile. Body Wrapper is kind of amazing for things like Big Shaman... except that you don't want average stuff like that to be targeted by your Muckmorphers. Notice how Blatant Decoy is obviously a Mech but isn't part of the tribe? I guarantee you that was a "Dr. Boom is a bit too strong for this." Neferset Ritualist is a potential Zoo card and Khartut Defender is kind of awesome (and killer for Arena.) I can see Fishflinger going right into Murloc decks.

Seems like a decent set, barring the spastic chaos that is Paladin.

Yeah, I was totally wrong about the Shaman quest. It's insanely good. Unfortunately, I was totally right about the Paladin quest. I've tried three different Reborn decks. None of them are worth a damn. Reborn minions, by and large, suck. We could all see that most of them other than Khartut Defender and Colossus are fragile. So, I tried a mild aggro/midrange version with Mechs. Either I had Reborn in play and couldn't magnetize them or I never played enough Reborn and I had a weak mech deck. So, I switched to a control version, trying to exploit Da Undatakah, Eggs, and Immortal Prelate and continually making copies of him so he keeps coming out with the ability to produce cyber dinosaurs. This is where the weakness of Reborn really got exposed. I went full control: Consec, Equality, Wild Pyro, Shrink Ray, Truesilver. But I can't produce enough of a threat before other people complete their quests, which vastly outstrip mine. By the time I actually draw and play all the components, the game is long since lost, assuming that I actually get there, since mostly I just got beat down.

Then I tried to build more of a mid-rangey thing that even used Khartut. Again, most Reborn minions are just bad. They're vanilla guys who don't affect the game state and only occasionally have to be killed twice, because usually your opponent will just run past them to kill you.

Compounding all of this is that I actually spent dust on this stupid card. Back in Un'Goro, I pulled the Paladin quest from a pack, so experimenting with it didn't feel awful. I did eventually dust it because it was useless outside of one of Kibler's meme decks and never got better no matter how they tried to support it last year. But I could have used 1600 dust on something actually useful. Opened an even 70 packs (60 from gold, 3 free, 7 for $10, just to increase my odds.) I got 3 legendaries for classes that I don't play. I had to forge everything else and I'm still short Dark Pharaoh and two Vultures for my Zoo Lackey deck. So, needless to say, my Uldum experience so far has been pretty poor, outside of winning every game I've played with quest Shaman, because it's insane.

Went back to the drawing board and had some conversation on Reddit and came up with another formulation of the Paladin quest deck. Wrapped Golem has turned out to be kind of key, for as lame as that is. It's still not good, but at least it isn't abysmal like it was yesterday.

In contrast, Warlock is here to save the day again. I know the rest of you will be thrilled to know that Zoo is viable again. I'm still lacking a Tekahn, but I had enough dust to get the Vultures and went ahead and built it without the legendary.

### Steppenwolf
# Class: Warlock

# 2x (1) Beaming Sidekick
# 2x (1) Crystallizer
# 2x (1) Flame Imp
# 2x (1) Mecharoo
# 2x (1) Sinister Deal
# 2x (1) Spirit Bomb
# 2x (1) Voidwalker
# 2x (2) Dire Wolf Alpha
# 2x (2) EVIL Cable Rat
# 2x (2) EVIL Genius
# 2x (3) EVIL Recruiter
# 2x (3) Magic Carpet
# 2x (3) Neferset Thrasher
# 2x (3) Nethersoul Buster
# 2x (4) Diseased Vulture
#
AAECAf0GAA8w2QfCCPH3Aqr5Avb9Avr+ArSRA4idA7WfA/qkA/ukA/ykA4GlA/2nAwA=

It works like classic Zoo: Keep spewing out dudes and try to make good trades. My couple of games against Control Warrior and Conjurer's Mage were basically slaughterfests where they were on the back foot the whole time. The Neferset Thrashers are excellent and Sinister Deal being a Discover card is amazing; (almost) always the right Lackey at the right time. Plus, they all get the benefit of the Carpet when it's in play and can then all be targeted by EVIL Recruiter, which is amazing.