Hearthstone Players!

www.hearthpwn.com/cards/210775-sightless-watcher

Hey, look! Brainstorm! Only been asking for something like this since the beta. Too bad all DH decks are now 28 cards (it's in the Basic/Classic set), as this will be taking up two spots from now until the Hall of Fame.

Wow! This thread I started six years ago is still going strong!

Since I'm locked away without much in the way of gaming (barring the occasional TTS ventures), I decided to look back in on HS. I've still followed the game from a distance via Kibler and Chump, but I'm not really interested in spending another dime in Blizzard's direction, so that won't be happening. I don't have any dimes to spend, anyway. Thankfully, I had enough gold stashed away to pick up Galakrond's Awakening, which had a couple cards that were important to the deck I was interested in. And I had over 24K dust which, combined with the HoF bonuses and the stuff I scrapped, gave me pretty much everything I needed for new decks, since I still have everything from the prior year. I haven't scrapped anything from DH yet, since I'm still mildly intrigued with the class, but it resembles Rogue (A lot!), so I can't see it lasting very long. I've only played it for the opening quests/free stuff that require DH play.

Shaman: Got a lot of stuff that seems questionable, at first glance. Lady Vashj... eh. Lurker Below... eh. Obviously, it's great against swarm decks, but so is Lightning Storm, which you can get out three turns earlier and doesn't leave an atrociously-statted 6/3 on the board. Howevah, you remember my totem/Overload deck that seemed strangely viable? It's totally viable now.

# 2x (0) Totemic Might
# 2x (0) Totemic Surge
# 2x (1) Lightning Bolt
# 2x (1) Sludge Slurper
# 2x (1) Storm's Wrath
# 2x (1) Surging Tempest
# 2x (2) EVIL Totem
# 2x (2) Sandstorm Elemental
# 1x (3) Flametongue Totem
# 1x (3) Lava Burst
# 2x (3) Mana Tide Totem
# 2x (3) Marshspawn
# 2x (3) Serpentshrine Portal
# 2x (3) Totemic Reflection
# 1x (3) Unbound Elemental
# 2x (4) Splitting Axe
# 1x (4) Vessina
#
AAECAaoIBIYG4AbwB+alAw35A4EEvgbGmQOdowPPpQPapQP5pQO1rQO2rQPbuAOWuQOYuQMA

I'm not kidding. I'm undefeated with this stupid thing, having beaten aggro decks (Zoo, Hunter), Demon Hunter, and control decks (Mage, Paladin) with it. Totemic Reflection is insane. One of the best cards in the previous version was Splitting Axe. Totemic Reflection just makes that better. Also, no Bloodlust; typically because you don't need it. When you have a board full of 4/6s on turn 4 or 5, you're not really concerned about burst damage. However, there still is burst damage in the form of the Overload stuff. Marshspawn and Serpentshrine Portal, which seemed decent and good, respectively, are both arcing into "really good" territory. Especially the Portal. 3 damage to any target, plus a 3 drop plus Overload to activate Vessina and the Tempests and, occasionally, the Unbound? Yeah, sure. The Unbound is definitely the weakest part of the deck, but he takes a lot of abuse that leave totems on the board, usually to my opponent's detriment.

Zoo is still amazing, based on two cards that happen to be demons(!)

# 2x (0) Sacrificial Pact
# 2x (1) Fiendish Servant
# 2x (1) Flame Imp
# 2x (1) Guardian Augmerchant
# 2x (1) Soulbound Ashtongue
# 1x (1) Soulfire
# 2x (1) Voidwalker
# 2x (2) EVIL Genius
# 2x (2) Expired Merchant
# 2x (2) Imprisoned Scrap Imp
# 1x (2) Kanrethad Ebonlocke
# 2x (3) Darkglare
# 2x (3) Magic Carpet
# 2x (4) Diseased Vulture
# 2x (4) Nightshade Matron
# 2x (6) Hand of Gul'dan
#
AAECAf0GAs4H1rkDDjCjAcIIiJ0DtZ8D/aQDgaUDsLYDtbkDtrkDx7kDy7kD3r4D474DAA==

Why the '!'? Because Warlock cards and, thus, demons almost always have to suck because of Life Tap. That's changing now for neutral demons (and DH demons(!)) because of the new class, but Life Tap is still here. But you remember when everyone thought Expired Merchant was going to be godlike and then never appeared again? Hand of Gul'dan means you should be seeing it all the time, plus Nightshade Matron. The combo-riffic effects of both that sequence and Darkglare are insane. Tapping for "free" plus whatever comes off the Vulture? Using Soulbound Ashtongue to basically drop a second Darkglare for free and literally have more mana than you know what to do with? Totally feasible. But the real star of the show may be Imprisoned Scrap Imp. That point around turn 4 or 5 when you have a Carpet in play and suddenly drop a Rushing 6/4 Flame Imp and a 4/5 Voidwalker (plus getting mana back from Darkglare and/or something off the Vulture in the process? Pretty good turn!

I've built a Libram Paladin but it pretty much looks like all the other Libram Paladins. It seems viable. But it's Control Paladin and it's probably still better with (sigh...) Wild Pyromancer, especially when you can keep dropping free Wisdoms on it or wreck only your opponent with Justice. Eh. My version isn't using Pyro right now. We'll see how long it lasts.

If you just want something to screw around with and have the cards, I suggest this:

# 2x (0) Mutate
# 1x (1) Corrupt the Waters
# 1x (1) Rocket Augmerchant
# 2x (1) Sludge Slurper
# 2x (2) Bug Collector
# 2x (2) EVIL Cable Rat
# 2x (2) Explosive Evolution
# 2x (3) Bogstrok Clacker
# 2x (3) Desert Hare
# 2x (4) Hench-Clan Hag
# 1x (4) Sky Gen'ral Kragg
# 2x (4) Vivid Spores
# 2x (5) Boggspine Knuckles
# 2x (5) Faceless Corruptor
# 1x (7) Swampqueen Hagatha
# 2x (9) Mogu Fleshshaper
# 2x (10) Sea Giant
#
AAECAaoIBLmZA+GoA/O3A9++Aw3TAbSRA7SXA7+YA8aZA9SlA4upA9ipA4KxA6K2A9y4A924A+G4AwA=

Yes, it's Quest Shaman and, yes, it's Evolve stuff, which is always totally random and often totally stupid. But it's insanely fun and Explosive Evolution is the best Evolve card since, well, Evolve; not least because you can target opposing minions with it. They just dropped a Taunt when you have lethal on board? Evolve it.

The Shaman Evolve deck looks really fun, I watched Regiskilbin playing a version of it recently.

One of my favorite decks from the previous rotation was my janky as hell Highlander Quest Rogue, but with Tess's rotation that deck is effectively dead, so I crafted an Evocation for Spell Mage. I don't care if it's viable, it'll fulfill my clown fiesta RNG needs in Standard going forward.

I was also having a lot of fun with Galakrond Warrior but it's been gutted with the loss of Town Crier to tutor Scions or Devoted Maniacs, and the lack of Eternium Rover and Snip-Snap doesn't help, either. I've been seeing people trying to make a viable Warrior deck but they're kind of clumsy and fragile; relying on Risky Skippers and Armorsmiths to stay alive and/or clear, using Ancharr/Cache for draw, and Bloodsworn Mercenaries (and prayer) to try and either make minions stick or generate burst with Kor'krons. Warrior may not be very good until the next set comes out but I hope I'm wrong (it's only been a week, after all).

Libram Paladin looks okay but it seems rather unexciting, but at least it's not Resurrect Priest. Speaking of unexciting, I've also been playing a little Embiggen Druid, which is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. I'm not a fan of the play style but I have the cards for it and other than my impulsive crafting of Evocation, I'm waiting for the meta to settle a little more before I craft anything else.

Your Overload Shaman looks intriguing, too bad I dusted my Splitting Axe. I do have Vessina, however, and some dumpster-tier Wild epics I could dust...

Spell Mage has gotten me back to the ladder because it's a blast to play. It's reminds me of my old Yogg deck that was just built around keeping the board clear and doing a massive Yogg at the end, except this deck is a legit threat at all levels.

Back on my bulllllllshiiiiiiiitttttttt. Blizzard's six month ban is over. So I fired up HEARTHSTONE, got a pile of free stuff, and waded back in to see what I have missed. I haven't really kept up, honestly. I watched some streams here and there over the months, but all I noticed was Galakrond everywhere, which I don't really get; and Battlegrounds, which I also don't really get. Both of these seem to have faded somewhat and there looks to be a nice mix.

I tried out Demon Hunter. Looks very Zoo-like. I swapped out a couple of really bad cards from the default deck they gave me and went 13-0 to go from Bronze 10 to Silver 3. Lost in the mirror. That gave me a minute to switch to Rez Priest, which my build of basically hasn't changed IN SIX MONTHS. I see folks playing it, but without Quest? I am guessing they are using the free version you can be gifted? Because the deck is good, and the Quest makes it great. I won a couple with this, and lost to a Casino Mage that highrolled a couple or six times. Alas. I think Silver 3 is around where folks have collections and might just be bad players. I am seeing good cards in the opponents' decks, but they have empty hands and make odd choices.

Some Warlock was drawing cards, killing my minions with Sacrifice Demons (!), and ended up swinging pretty low, but recovered with Jaraxxus when they and I each only had 1 card in hand. Reader, my card was Harrison Jones.

Sac Pact has become a default card in most Warlock decks because of Demon Hunter. It's really useful against the Shivarras (6/7, deal 6 among all enemies at end of turn; don't remember what the other one does.) It's also helpful in Zoo because the current version is trying to stress self-damage (Darkglare, Vulture), which means that you're gladly playing more ways to beat yourself up other than just Life Tap. That, of course, is bad against the burst damage that DH can produce, so you have to try to eliminate some of their chip and get some healing. A 0-cost is nice for that, as opposed to the 6-cost Siphon Soul. Galakrond decks have also found use for it, since there's no end of useful targets, but once the DH craze has faded, it will probably disappear again.

I played a bit more with my Evo deck and decided it's just not good enough against DH. There are too many ways for them to clear your board with their own stuff, such that you don't have time to transform them into something (hopefully) better. Then you end up playing a bunch of vanilla 3/3s or desperately EEing totems. So I switched out the Rocket Augmerchant and the Sea Giants for a Lightning Storm and a couple Sandstorm Elementals. I don't like the Storm, since it's not a minion with a Battlecry, but it helps me to have targets to evolve. The Sea Giants were just a conceit. I was supposed to have a ton of guys in play to make them easy, but it was mostly my opponent who had tons of guys and I was playing them and getting run over. The Elementals help solve that and are also BC minions.

It looks like another round of nerfs are imminent. Bloodbloom and Open the Waygate for Wild; Albatross, Kael'thas, Felwing and Sac Pact in Standard. Regiskilbin made a video talking about the nerfs and I think he's right, that Albatross, Bloodbloom and Felwing will all cost more (but I also think adjusting Albatross's stats is also a likely option).

I'm most excited about Sac Pact being changed and after the developers hinted at wanting to see more Jaraxxus, it seems almost certain that it'll be changed to only target friendly minions. That's for the better and long overdue, IMO, because he's a Tirion-level class legendary: not quite as powerful as maybe he once was in this era of mana cheating and other bonkers effects but still certainly good enough to slot into a decklist as a substitute for other missing cards.

I have a terrible Phaoris Warlock deck (golden Phaoris, no less) where Phaoris is the only minion and you draw him with Dark Portal on Turn 4 to play him on Turn 5, with Plot Twist to shuffle him back in if you happen to draw him, and Dark Council to turn your hand full of spells into buffed demons soon after your Phaoris turn. It's pretty damned terrible, but I've been wondering about doing the same thing with Jaraxxus. My gut tells me this won't be that good since taking a 10+ HP haircut on Turn 5 seems like a bad idea when your opponent is likely to still have a lot of cards in their hand...

I wish I remembered more Highlander Quest Rogue moments, but most of them boil down to "and then I played this card he totally wasn't expecting!", which isn't very interesting. There are really only three that stick out. My top-tier moments are those where I got other class cards that synergized with each other. One such time I pulled a Vessina (your minions are +1 attack when you're overloaded) to play after Rain of Toads. The other was when I played Spirit of the Lynx (give summoned beasts +1/+1) and then Swarm of Locusts on my next turn to clear my opponent's board.

The only non-synergistic moment that I remember was when my Mage opponent and I were at 10 mana and I had 2-3 cards in hand and he had 1-2. He'd gotten me to 2 HP and I was dead in a couple of turns from his hero power alone, so I played EVIL Miscreant, looking for the spell Lackey to give me an out. I got the Lackey and played him, but all three choices were trash so I chose Call of the Void (1 mana, add a random Demon to your hand), which I then played to get Jaraxxus. Thankfully my opponent didn't top-deck a Frostbolt so I played him at 1 HP and coasted to victory.

I obviously don't have access to the stats, but I find the argument against Sac Pact because of Jaraxxus to be questionable. Yes, it's in most Warlock decks now because of Demon Hunter and, yes, it's ridiculous that a 0-cost basically forbids playing the class legendary, but that seems like a pretty narrow set of circumstances, since it's not like Sac Pact is a neutral spell available to everyone, which means your Jaraxxus is perfectly viable vs 9 of 10 classes. I think it IS a huge swing against DH, since the class is reliant upon demons for minions and removing a 10/6 with a 0-cost is quite the letdown after you've been waiting two turns for it to arrive. That seems like the more salient argument to me, except that it's still only one class out of 10 that gives you problems. It is, however, certainly against the original intent of the card, since it was supposed to be a self-sacrifice thing, like the rest of Warlock's theme. So, I'm fine with it, either way.

Had the Play 3 as Paladin (Priest or Rogue) today, so brought out the Libram deck. Like most people have been saying and like most non-OTK Paladin decks since the exile of Baku and Grenn, it just isn't that great. The most prominent feature of the deck is waiting; waiting to draw your discount guys to make your Librams really good, waiting to draw your Librams to make the deck function, etc. There's just not a moment when you feel like "My deck is doing THIS and it's fun!" Instead, you're playing your Aldors and kinda cooling your heels until late in the game where your opponent kinda gets ground down. It sounds like I'm describing a control deck and it kinda is. It's just not a very fun one, since your control pieces don't really function well independently, as most should in that genre. They're dependent on being played in a certain order, like a combo deck, which is bloody awful for a class that no longer has any decent form of draw except Hand of A'dal. I went 1-2, losing to Embiggen and Murloc Shaman (I actually had control in the late game, before he topdecked the 2nd Bloodlust (I'd already absorbed and healed back from the first one) for exact lethal.)

Then I went back to Toteload Shaman and beat Galakrond Warrior with two 6/8 Flametongue totems, one with Windfury. Totemic Reflection, man. That card is ber-ZERK-er.

Jackwraith wrote: ...since it's not like Sac Pact is a neutral spell available to everyone, which means your Jaraxxus is perfectly viable vs 9 of 10 classes. I think it IS a huge swing against DH, since the class is reliant upon demons for minions and removing a 10/6 with a 0-cost is quite the letdown after you've been waiting two turns for it to arrive.

Except Zephrys always offers Sac Pact against Jaraxxus, so why would a Warlock run such a slow card if it's an auto-loss against a Highlander deck? It's always been a dumb interaction, anyway, so I'm glad they're changing it now, regardless of the reason. Though I think, like you, the fact that it's such a big swing in DH matchups was probably the impetus for the change.

Ah. You're right. Forgot about Zephrys. I don't own him and haven't been playing in the time he was released, so I didn't think about that. I mean, it's still pretty narrow. Are you honestly waiting on Zephrys until your Warlock opponent for some reason becomes Jaraxxus? Probably not. But, yeah, playing him for the guaranteed win is bad. If they restrict it to just minions, it'd be fine, since DHs are still pretty strong against every other class. If they restrict it to friendly minions, the card is as dead as it was pre-Ashes. Whatevs. More dudes to slot into my Zoo deck.

Facing the omnipresent dilemma for my HS: Win or Have Fun. I can play Rez Priest and win, but it's pretty boring. Each game plays the same and I can feel the seething from the other end of the game. Having Fun means Hunter Build-a-Boar or Tempo Priest or other bad decks that are interesting and kind of bad. I'll keep plugging away. I have like 8k dust and 1000 gp so I need to figure out if I am buying anything.

I came to a conclusion after a few days back into it that I just can't do the hardcore competitive thing in HS anymore. I mean, I want to win so I'll play decks that win, but I'm also going to spend a lot of time playing decks that I just want to get to work. I'm veering farther away from Spike and more into Johnny; largely because I get WAY too aggravated with HS's random nature and/or RPS qualities if I do too much Spike. The dev team apparently did an AMA the other day and they said they're keeping an eye on Resurrect Priest because of its nature (the dreaded "unfun") and that's what I don't want to get involved with. I get too frustrated with bad draws and the lack of deck manipulation and basic choice in the game to take it that seriously anymore.

So, I've assembled two decks for each of my three classes. One is seriously competitive (Zoo, Toteload, Murlocs) and the other is "just seeing if it works" (Darkest Hour, Evo, Librams.) I still have 12K dust and am now back to 300 gold and don't plan to spend either on anything until the next expansion; hopefully working my way up to 50 or 60 packs. But I've also hopped on HotS for the first time in a couple years and had a good time just tooling around with people against the AI. I hit a level bonus which gave me some gems and even bought Anduin with them, so I have a totally new guy, in addition to all of the ones I already had. I played Chen this morning and had a blast. Even got a compliment from someone in our party who said he'd never seen someone move the panda that well. Again, it's just against the AI, but it was fun.

I think there's enough stress in our current situation that I'd just play for laughs, if I were you. Incidentally, that includes hopping on HotS and playing some together, if you were ever so inclined. The atmosphere is much more relaxed now that it's no longer an e-sport. Wonder if that's an indicator about Hearthstone...?

Hearthstone is definitely getting new players but no doubt they lose some of the old ones too. I think it was more fun to play before all these updates, it was more dynamic. Now everything is about having the best cards in the deck.

If by "dynamic", you mean "random", I totally disagree. Hearthstone around the era of GvG was more aggravating than anything else. I enjoy the meta right now because there's a lot of variety (once you get past the "all Demon Hunter, all the time" level) and there are some interesting themes among many of the classes. With so many good cards and possible decks, there are opportunities to win AND have fun in a lot more ways than you could in the past. The last thing I'd want is for what Boddicker ran into this morning to be the regular. He was dominating a game with Galakrond Warlock until his opponent got 15 random effects via Puzzle Box and Reno to turn it around. Not. Interested.