Hearthstone Players!

New game mode teased by Blizzard,

www.facebook.com/Hearthstone/posts/919623194747116

My guess is it's probably a tournament mode where you buy in for a set amount of gold and play constructed decks to try to win an automated tournament.

Almost certain that's what it is...because I think I may have glitched into seeing part of it. I pressed Play, as usual, and it went to the deck selection screen. But there was nothing in the slots, and at the top of the screen in plain white Hearthstone font text it said "Glue_Tournament_Mode" or something to that effect. I couldn't select anything and it just kind of froze up. We should know by the end of the week.

I pulled a gold Vol'jin over the weekend, so that got ground down into a not-gold Dr. Boom with the quickness. So far it has resulted in zero wins and about a zero percent increase in my wins rate.

Added some Axe Flingers to my Patron deck...that bastard is just sick now. Synergy is just oozing out of the deck all over the table.

Inner Rage x2
Execute x2
Whirlwind x2
Battle Rage
Rampage
Revenge x2
Slam x2
Cruel Taskmaster x2
Nerubian Egg x2
Unstable Ghoul x2
Acolyte of Pain
Frothing Berzerker
Warsong Commander
Death's Bite x2
Axe Flinger x2
Grim Patron x2
Gurubashi Berserker x2
Grommash Hellscream

Thinking about pulling the Battle Rage and possibly the Acolyte- card fatigue hasn't really been a problem. Getting an egg on the first turn and cracking it is pretty important, if that fails I really need the Ghouls out because it's the only Taunt/turtle card I have in there right now. But when this thing hits, it gets NASTY between the Flingers, the Patrons and the Warsong Commander. There is enough flexibility built in here so that you don't have to rely on the Patrons, I am winning games without them so that's a good sign.

The theme song for Face Hunters,

Tavern Brawl is announced

More details here .

Apparently, they're working on more deck slots, too..

Looks fun! Don't get the Wednesday-Sunday thing, but whatever. I guess that's peak time or something. I wonder what that tournament screen I saw was, I wish I had taken a picture of it.

I am bound and determined to make a Shaman deck work...WTF, that class. NOTHING I try gets any traction.

Shaman is the red-headed stepchild of Hearthstone. The Overload mechanic is just completely unwieldy for a game that moves as quickly as HS does. How many games are lost because you can't keep pace with your opponent and/or lack recovery cards that don't inhibit you on the following turn in which you'll again fall behind? Combine with the only RNG hero power in the game and it's just too hamstrung to be consistently viable. The experience of BRM made it blatantly obvious. Fireguard Destroyer is massively more powerful than any other Overload card in the game and has become a staple of many Shaman decks but Lava Shock, the "fix" for a central mechanic of the class, is utterly absent because it's inefficient and no one wants to play it while otherwise crippling their deck with cards that work against you in subsequent turns. It's why no Warlock player with any option will play Felguard. If Lava Shock had been 1 mana (like the other Shocks!) for 2 damage (like Smite!), it might have been played but Shaman already has such great early game removal that there's no way anyone would embrace the bad Overload mechanic to play it.

The most often played Overload card is Lightning Storm and that's only out of necessity, since Shaman lacks any other AoE. But Storm is hindered by the other problem: RNG. You don't dare use Storm on a Patron deck without a Wrath of Air totem in play and you only have a 25% chance of drawing one if you don't have another totem out. Every other class knows exactly what will happen when they spend their two mana. For Shaman, it's a crapshoot. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's useless. But other classes get to decide if spending their two mana will be useless. Shaman doesn't. It's going to need a lot more cards like Destroyer to make it competitive at the upper reaches. Of course, if you look at the latest ESL tournament lists, it's pretty obvious which classes are suffering. Out of 48 possible decks: 2 Shaman, 2 Rogues, 1 Priest.

34230
Thats why the channel says it is going to stop relying on Nielsen for daytime ratings later this year.

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Jackwraith wrote: Tavern Brawl is announced

They're calling it "Tavern Brawl" instead of "The Laboratory", but otherwise it sounds very similar to the game mode I suggested earlier ITT. Now we'll see if they implement anything close to any of the special rules I proposed.

To kill time between doing quests to buy packs I've been working my way through the Heroic Naxxramas bosses. My card inventory is still not where I want it to be so I'm a more dependent on RNG than I'd like to be, but I've done well....until Sapphiron. Holy crap he sucks. I've been banging my head against him for a while now; I've tried Warrior, Warlock, a Thaddius Mage deck, I couldn't get any of them to work. So yesterday I switched to a Mage fatigue deck and still got my clock cleaned so I put it down until this morning when I pulled an Arcane Golem. I added it to the deck and tried again with this:

Ice Lance - used with Frost Nova or Cone of Cold to hit N/DS/SS (Necroknights/Dancing Swords/Skeletal Smiths)
Flamecannon - for S/SK (Shades/Spectral Knights) when they're alone on the board
Frostbolt x2 - SS or revealed Shades
Bluegill Warrior x2 - I mulligan for this to take out the first Faerie Dragon, and the second is for supplementary damage on SK
Explosive Sheep - Non-freezing alternative to Blizzard, of which I have none. Used for clearing a horde of weenies or finishing off N/SK/S
Haunted Creeper x2 - Blizzard and Frostbolt bait and the Spectral Spiders' supplementary damage comes in handy.
Nerubian Egg - Because I only have one Arcane Golem. It's good Frostbolt and Blizzard bait, though.
Counterspell - Played after turn 5-7 to cancel one Pure Cold
Duplicate x2 - Used to copy Antique Healbot, and only Antique Healbot. Maybe it can be used on Explosive Sheep, but I'd be too timid to try.
Frost Nova x2 - Used to stall to lure more minions into a Flamestrike.
Ice Barrier x2 - It's better if it comes out early since Pure Cold and Frostbolt don't trigger it.
Vaporize - Best saved for a S/SK
Arcane Golem - For S/SK/N/DS
Wolfrider x2 - For Mana Wyrm, S, supplementary damage.
Cone of Cold - Another stall. Best used on a Necroknight along with a ping before a next-turn Flamestrike
Fireball x2 - For Necroknights.
Antique Healbot - Crucial for this build, if you can't Duplicate it you're probably screwed.
Reckless Rocketeer x2 - For SK/N
Flamestrike x2 - Board clear, preferably on Necroknights.
Pyroblast - Used to speed up the endgame when Sapphiron's taking Fatigue damage.

The first time I used this build Flamestrike came one turn to late so I died to Pure Cold before I could get my multiple Healbot's summoned in time. My second attempt - after quitting a couple times before I started with a Bluegill - was ridiculous. I got both of my Ice Barriers, Counterspell, Duplicate, Healbot, and both Flamestrikes in the top half of my deck, and I kept drawing a good mix of removals and freezes so I was never in any danger. Yes, I was playing a lot smarter (i.e., not wasting Flamecannon on the wrong target, making sure I had enough damage in my pocket to handle Necro/Spell Knights, freezing to lure out more minions for Flamestrike, etc.), but my draw was as good as I'd ever seen it. When Sapphiron succumbed to Fatigue I had 29 Health, 2 Armor, and an Antique Healbot in my hand.

Yes, my deck requires that you draw the key cards in a relatively timely fashion, but that's true of most of the Heroic bosses. My build is more flexible than it looks and as long as you're able to use Flamestrike efficiently you should be in good shape.

Now I just have Kel'Thuzad left and I'll have my card back.

Right. Your Laboratory idea was similar to Kripp's Challengestone tournament that he ran last month. That format only permitted creatures with odd attack values and spells with even mana costs. It was pretty cool. I'm betting that Tavern Brawl will be a lot like that. It compels people to earn/buy packs even more than constructed, which tends to fall into a pretty static meta determined by "good" cards, so it's fine for them to keep it free.

The problem, of course, is that constructed is still going to be pretty static over the summer and the rewards for that game mode are still not compelling unless you're determined to make legend or show that a deck actually works. Once I played a few games this season, I drifted pretty easily into Heroes.

@Seb: I beat Heroic KT with a Paladin Rushdown deck you should be able to build on the cheap. You need to save your Owls for Abomination, but other than that it's pretty self-explanatory.

Honestly, I love this Tavern Brawl thing. Anything that makes deckbuilding interesting is a huge plus in my book. I think Blizz recognizes what a mess Casual is--there's just no reason to play over there. The decks are just as rough as Ranked and in Ranked, you might, you know, rank. Why bother playing Casual at all? Its best use case is as farmland for golden portraits. I see Tavern Brawl as a way to get folks playing interesting decks built in some manner other than Arena.

• Arena: limited format, interesting decks, tight play.
• Ranked: open format, boring decks, tight play.
• Brawl: open format, interesting decks, loose play.
• Casual: open format, boring decks, loose play.

Tavern Brawl is ridiculous. Still not sure if it's ridiculous in a good way or bad, but it is ridiculous.

Yeah, really crazy.

I issued a serious beatdown with Ragnaros in my first match.

Highlight to me was watching the opponent fill his board (from empty) with 2/2 whelps. My very next play was my old pal Baron Geddon. I had to give the poor guy a big Firelord "SORRY" for that.

Then he played a spell that reset everything to its full health, forgetting that Ragnaros starts at 60, while Nefarian starts at 30 with 30 armor. Armor doesn't come back, and he was way behind on the board after Geddon wiped it clean.

After realizing his mistake, resignation was quick.

I have played five Brawls and been Rag every time. Won the first one stabilizing at 4 life for the last 5 turns as he failed to draw my death. Lost the other four in utter romps, out by turn 7. That five-mana headstart is fucking murder.

--edit--
Now nine Brawls in: 2-4 with Rag, and 3-0 with Nefarian--one of those was my opponent just immediately conceding. Playing as Ragnaros is harder than playing as Nefarian, and I guess some folks don't even want to bother? That's just sad.

I lost to Inner Fire.dec at rank 14 on the Ladder today. I killed his turn 4, 10/10 Deathlord, but he got me with his Turn 8 14/14 Loatheb. Must be nice drawing all your combo cards with 18 left in your deck.

At first glance I'd say that Nefarian not only has to start strong, but has to have good RNG with his spell-drawing hero power to win because he doesn't have enough removal. Nefarian got me down to 10 health and I was still able to stabilize and beat him down because, despite hammering on his hero power every turn, the RNG wasn't enough to compensate. The same thing happened to me when I played as Nefarian myself; I got Ragnaros down to 11 health but stalled out with a nearly empty hand and drawn spells that were good, but not good enough.

I only played once as Rag but concur with your assessment. He did wipe my board couple of times by dealing one of his minions attack to my whole board.... But then when it seemed bleakest I got that 20/20 MFer out and finished him in two turns. I was at 17 life.