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Hearthstone |OT3| Preparing for the Ball of Spiders Meta

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I just barely finished heroic BRM since I've had finals the last few weeks. Haven't been keeping up with the thread for a while. I'm a little late to the party here but what was the general consensus on it?

I thought the difficulty seemed less consistent than Naxx. A lot of the heroic bosses I one or two shotted. Then there were a handful that seemed stupid hard and I lost track how many times I had to try them. However, I didn't netdeck any of them and just worked them out myself.

I remember heroic Chromaggus giving me trouble though I've since forgotten why after dealing with Nefarian and Maloriak. Those two nearly drove me insane.
 
I just barely finished heroic BRM since I've had finals the last few weeks. Haven't been keeping up with the thread for a while. I'm a little late to the party here but what was the general consensus on it?

I thought the difficulty seemed less consistent than Naxx. A lot of the heroic bosses I one or two shotted. Then there were a handful that seemed stupid hard and I lost track how many times I had to try them. However, I didn't netdeck any of them and just worked them out myself.

I remember heroic Chromaggus giving me trouble though I've since forgotten why after dealing with Nefarian and Maloriak. Those two nearly drove me insane.

The first week was tops, but after that it was a bit more down than up in terms of quality. The main problem seems to be the AI just isn't up to scratch. With bugs like the KT/taunt problem and enemies that will often mill themselves... it just doesn't quite come together.

I agree Chromaggus was difficult (with the cards he gave you) but the rest fell pretty easily. Even without netdecking, the solutions were all pretty obvious. Mind you, it does help that most people can also put together whatever deck they like. I couldn't do that with Naxx.

As for the cards? Dragons pretty much suck because they are way too slow. The best deck is dragon paladin, but that just shows how bad they are, because the Paladin will dominate the early game and then let you back into it when they drop something like Chromaggus which does nothing.
 
Just got Gruul in a pack, it any good?

Nobody uses him. I can't remember the last time I saw him in a deck.


The first week was tops, but after that it was a bit more down than up in terms of quality. The main problem seems to be the AI just isn't up to scratch. With bugs like the KT/taunt problem and enemies that will often mill themselves... it just doesn't quite come together.

I agree Chromaggus was difficult (with the cards he gave you) but the rest fell pretty easily. Even without netdecking, the solutions were all pretty obvious. Mind you, it does help that most people can also put together whatever deck they like. I couldn't do that with Naxx.

As for the cards? Dragons pretty much suck because they are way too slow. The best deck is dragon paladin, but that just shows how bad they are, because the Paladin will dominate the early game and then let you back into it when they drop something like Chromaggus which does nothing.

I saw something about the KT/taunt bug as I was looking around at decks after I went through it all. So you drop a taunt and KT and they just keep bashing the taunt and KT rezzes them? Interesting. I think I only used KT on the second Nefarian fight for the transition to the third phase. After he wipes the board I'd just drop KT to rez my guys back.

I think I struggled with the first Nefarian fight and Maloriak because of the RNG involved. Nefarian could be a pain depending on which card Rag ends up giving you. I had trouble keeping up with all his drops the first few rounds. I tried a few different decks but then eventually beat him fairly quickly with a Control Warrior variation.

Maloriak was a pain when he drops those three 3/3s chargers on the first turn. Happened to me all the time. If there was an easy way to take those two out I didn't figure it out. I played around with a lot of different decks until I finally put something together that worked.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Nobody uses him. I can't remember the last time I saw him in a deck.




I saw something about the KT/taunt bug as I was looking around at decks after I went through it all. So you drop a taunt and KT and they just keep bashing the taunt and KT rezzes them? Interesting. I think I only used KT on the second Nefarian fight for the transition to the third phase. After he wipes the board I'd just drop KT to rez my guys back.

I think I struggled with the first Nefarian fight and Maloriak because of the RNG involved. Nefarian could be a pain depending on which card Rag ends up giving you. I had trouble keeping up with all his drops the first few rounds. I tried a few different decks but then eventually beat him fairly quickly with a Control Warrior variation.

Maloriak was a pain when he drops those three 3/3s chargers on the first turn. Happened to me all the time. If there was an easy way to take those two out I didn't figure it out. I played around with a lot of different decks until I finally put something together that worked.

If you have a taunt + kt they won't even attack the taunt, they will never attack again. Even if there's enough attack power to kill the taunt and KT, and even if they have lethal. The only thing that can happen is a board wipe if they have one.
 

Dahbomb

Member
Yeah BRM overall felt easier than Naxx. There's a lot of factors that could play into it but the main reason I think this is so is because the pool of cards was increased since Naxx came out thanks to GvG. I went back to play some Naxx with the GvG cards and it was much easier (like I had a much easier time taking on Saphiron and Patchwerk with cards like Snowchuggers and Tree of Life/Grove... oh and Dr Balanced).

The most difficult boss was Chromaggus. The cards he gave you were extremely punishing. I also thought the boss that restricted your mana usage to 1 and he himself had 2 mana to use was also fairly difficult and required a lot of RNG to beat.

However when it came down to it... all the bosses could be beaten with AI exploits and Kelthuzad + Taunt tactics. The AI is pretty awful and makes some really dumb decisions.

The Mage class challenge was really cool though.


As far as the cards themselves... I would say about 5-6 cards are impactful to the meta and high level constructed play, a few more are impactful for arena and the rest are either not good enough or just simply trash.

Here are the top 5 cards for constructed:


Emperor Thaurissan: Emperor has enabled combo decks to be even more powerful. This includes Freeze Mage, Combo Druid and Grim Patron decks. It's even very common in slower control decks. It's very commonly seen in many decks and it has impacted the play of Constructed play dramatically.

Grim Patron: A card that is responsible for the construction of an entire deck around it. This card would not be good if they hadn't fixed the Warsong Commander bug but they fixed that bug alongside releasing this card which is what enabled this card (if that bug remained Grim Patron would not be used). The deck that centers around this card is a very powerful combo deck that also uses Emperor and is very powerful in the meta currently.

Imp Gang Boss: An obscenely powerful card in Arena (I pretty much expect 2-3 Imp Gang Bosses in Arena from a Warlock past 5 wins) and also very powerful Constructed. This card brought Zoo back in full force. There isn't much to say about this card other than the fact that this card fills a very big hole in the Warlock arsenal which was the 3 drop.

Quick Shot: This card as expected was going to be used in every Hunter deck and it's used in every Hunter deck. It's a comeback card but it is more commonly used as an early game control to take out those pesky minions while protecting your minions so you can go face. Through the course of a game the impact of this card doesn't seem that high but when you trade your steps back to turn 2 and they coined out a Mech Warper and if you didn't have a Quick Shot in hand... well that could've been a completely different game for the Hunter. This card being available for Hunter keeps them competitive allowing them to handle the power creep that occurred with BRM.

Flamewaker: This card has given the extreme aggro/tempo non Mech Mage type decks the firepower it needed to push through and be pretty strong. This card is really annoying to deal with and is basically an instant must kill if it hits the board sort of like Warsong Commander for the Warrior. This card also handles aggro really well and can at times shut them out with some luck (and you will be facing a lot of annoying one health creatures thanks to zoo). Not strong against Grim Patrom deck but Flamewaker is a card that was strong enough to have its strengths properly utilized for good effect.


And the top 6 cards for Arena:

Dark Iron Skulker: Thank god this card is a Rare because otherwise you could've seen like 2-3 in every 5+ win Rogue deck in Arena. This card is simply amazing in Arena and many times can 2 for 1 or even 3 for 1. Just simply bonkers in Arena and I am shocked that this card doesn't see much play in Constructed. I guess it just doesn't fit in the couple of Rogue archetype decks available currently because Rogues either play the combo oriented Oil Rogue or the Mill Rogue... Dark Iron Skulker doesn't really fit in either decks.

Fireguard Destroyer: This would've been the 6th best card in Constructed and just narrowly missed it. This card has made Shaman a bit stronger in Constructed but the buff wasn't high enough to make them a very potent class outside of Mech Shaman. This card in Arena is just one tier shy of Fire Elemental tier (which is god tier in Arena). It is ridiculous in Arena and will very commonly go 2 for 1. High wins Shaman almost always have a couple of these in their decks and it's very common to see them on Arena because this is just an Uncommon card.

Imp Gang Boss: Already said enough about this card, it's excellent in Constructed and even better in Arena.

Volcanic Lumberer: This is usually a sub 8 mana big creature that Druid has access to now. It's basically an Ironbark that comes out earlier which makes him very hard to deal with

Druid of the Flame: Another big Druid card in Arena and this is an Uncommon. It's an overall very solid 3 mana body that can slow down the game so you can survive until the late game. The 5/2 version is also useful to push for damage in the late game. It's not as huge as Imp Gang Boss but it's still a very solid 3 drop card for the Druid in Arena although it's very underwhelming in Constructed.

Drakonid Crusher: I have already started to hate this card. I basically see this used in aggro decks where they just go face, face and face until they bring you down to 15 health and drop this down to finish the game with. In that regard it's often a MUCH BETTER Fel Reaver. In Arena this card is simply amazing. Thankfully it's a neutral card so everyone has access to it but it's the faster decks that benefit from this card the most as weird as it may sound.


Quick Shot is also beastly in Arena as is Demonwrath although the latter is a Rare so you see less of it.


Because of BRM the following things changed:

Constructed:

Warrior went up a lot. Tied for best class in the game currently, has two very strong decks in the meta.

Warlock is the class that is tied with Warrior or possibly even better. Has 2-3 very strong decks in the meta.

Hunter has stayed the same and are still in a very good position. Both Face and Midrange Hunter are cheap as fuck decks that scrub out wins by having openers or just way too much damage to the face. Still very common on Ladder and still commonly played in competitive Hearthstone.

Druid kinda stayed the same. On one hand they got Emperor Thaurissan which gives them earlier access to the Combo but on the other hand Grim Patron and Zoolock are bad matches for the Combo Druid. These two decks have prompted the return of Ramp Druid though to counter though so we will see how it shapes up.

Mage kinda stayed the same similar to Druid. They got buffed thanks to Emperor buffing Freeze Mage and Flamewaker buffing Aggro/Tempo Mage but Zoolock made Mech Mage irrelevant and Grim Patron really hurts Freeze Mage (which already loses terribly to Control Warrior which is more common now thanks to Grim Patron which Control Warrior beats).

No change to Rogue outside of them getting a very aggressive version of Mill Rogue. That deck is very annoying to play against it if they get the right cards but it's too inconsistent. Oil Rogue functions mostly the same, maybe some benefit with Emperor.

Shaman kinda got better thanks to Fireguard but it's still not enough. Priest and Paladin got a few dragon cards but they really didn't get much and are faltering behind.

Dragon decks aren't that strong yet. There just aren't enough strong dragon decks in the set. They are "good" but not scummy enough... most of the dragon cards are just too fair and balanced.

In Arena I would say the top 2 classes are still Mage and Paladin although they haven't gotten any better with BRM so that's good (Mage technically got worse thanks to that Flame card, Paladin got a bit better thanks to Solemn Vigil). Rogue, Druid and Warlock got big buffs so they moved up. Warrior actually went from being the worst class in Arena to being even worse because they got two shit tier Arena cards in their card pool.



TL;DR version: Just play Dr Balanced in your decks.
 

Danj

Member
early morning Hearthstone arena time, got just enough gold for another go - http://twitch.tv/danj2k if anyone's interested.

EDIT: sigh, that was even worse than yesterday. Got Mage again but got stuck with an awful deck with a terrible mana curve. Only managed 1-3.

EDIT 2: also, only got a pack and 35 dust as rewards, so no breaking even either. Here's the pack:

ZZPGh3i.jpg
 
Man, I forgot how amazing Bloodlust can be. Decided to randomly throw one into a deck and even without running a bunch of sticky minions it's won me a few games just from having a minion and a few totems up.
 

Haunted

Member
If you have a taunt + kt they won't even attack the taunt, they will never attack again. Even if there's enough attack power to kill the taunt and KT, and even if they have lethal. The only thing that can happen is a board wipe if they have one.
Or a targeted removal on KT directly, like polymorph. But there are bosses who don't run any of those, and they're fucked. :D
 
What's up with people waiting until the last second on their turns, delaying turns as long as possible? I don't mean the "why are you delaying the game" -BM waiting. I mean: I have 5 minions on board and 6 health. Mage has 0 cards, topdecks fireball... and waits until the very end of the rope before killing me. Hovering the card over board a few times. Also, when I start losing (but the game is not lost), 50% or so of opponents start delaying the turns as long as possible. More often than not I still win the game after the opponent starts the BM.

What's the point? I mean, it doesn't bother me, I'm watching videos while playing HS anyway. It just has become so common that it makes me wonder.
 

ViviOggi

Member
What's up with people waiting until the last second on their turns, delaying turns as long as possible? I don't mean the "why are you delaying the game" -BM waiting. I mean: I have 5 minions on board and 6 health. Mage has 0 cards, topdecks fireball... and waits until the very end of the rope before killing me. Hovering the card over board a few times. Also, when I start losing (but the game is not lost), 50% or so of opponents start delaying the turns as long as possible. More often than not I still win the game after the opponent starts the BM.

What's the point? I mean, it doesn't bother me, I'm watching videos while playing HS anyway. It just has become so common that it makes me wonder.
Some of it is bm but apparently people have started prolonging games hoping they're up against a mobile player who would eventually run out of time (or batteries?)
 

Danj

Member
Is there a deck that will let me gain a rank or two in Ranked mode before the end of the season? Currently rank 16. Assume I have no dust and no legendaries other than Naxx and BRM. I tried this deck but while it seemed to work great in Casual, when I tried it in Ranked I am just losing all the time.
 

caesar

Banned
somehow posted this in the wrong thread lol

My greatest RNG moment of all time

Thoughtstole Nefarian
He plays Jaraxxus
Nefarian gives me sacrificial pact
Free win lol
(For anybody that doesn't understand, sacrificial pact destroys any demon. Jaraxxus is a demon.)
This happened to me yesterday aswell!

I didnt even know there was an eu tourney, gratz to Vivi, mah boi. What a player
 

Xanathus

Member
Is there a deck that will let me gain a rank or two in Ranked mode before the end of the season? Currently rank 16. Assume I have no dust and no legendaries other than Naxx and BRM. I tried this deck but while it seemed to work great in Casual, when I tried it in Ranked I am just losing all the time.

Try this patron warrior deck? Only non Naxx/BRM legendary in it is Dr Boom which you can replace with something big.
http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/reynads-esl-s-2-w-4-patron-warrior/
 

Rapstah

Member
I'm 95% sure whoever runs the HTC tournament stream just made the same mistake I did yesterday with how you see the other player's hand in spectator mode. You need to have the other player invite you to spectate, but you could hear someone clicking the spectate button while the screen was blocked out and then the casters said there must be a bug in spectator mode.
 

Danj

Member
Try this patron warrior deck? Only non Naxx/BRM legendary in it is Dr Boom which you can replace with something big.
http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/reynads-esl-s-2-w-4-patron-warrior/

Interesting, but unfortunately I don't have any Armorsmith, Battle Rage, Frothing Berserker either.

I guess what I'm looking for is a deck that uses mainly basic cards plus Naxx and BRM cards. The amount of dust I have is so low that it basically counts as zero as far as this thread is concerned.
 

Raxus

Member
Interesting, but unfortunately I don't have any Armorsmith, Battle Rage, Frothing Berserker either.

I guess what I'm looking for is a deck that uses mainly basic cards plus Naxx and BRM cards. The amount of dust I have is so low that it basically counts as zero as far as this thread is concerned.

Add me if you are NA, Raxus #1252

I think I can offer some good advice.
 
So my last Arena run was interesting in that it was the first time my questioning of Hearth Arena's picks actually turned out really paying off..

I was given the choice of Hobgoblin, Clockwork Giant or Hungry Crab. HA wanted me to pick Hobgoblin despite my deck not having a single 1 attack creature and with 4 picks left. I instead went for the Clockwork Giant and it ended up winning me quite a few games (though costing me one) as putting out an 8/8 at turn 3-5 consistently was devastating. I had my concerns with that pick too as I wasn't sure the card could be actually be played given the way card drawing is limited which was what happened with 1 game.

Granted I only won 6 games but that's 2+ games above my current average right now so in my mind it was a success. I really hope I can get to that 6-8 average wins mark but just seems to far from where I'm currently at.

edit- What's a good rule of thumb in terms of how many quality minions you should have in your arena deck to play on curve?

I know 5-6 one to two drops (skewed heavily towards 2 drops) is a good rule of thumb (slightly less for certain classes) but what about the rest of the curve? I know 4 drops are fairly important but what about the rest?
 

_DrMario_

Member
Is EU server considered weaker then US server skill wise? Cause I've been leveling all my classes to lvl 10 playing ranked and I just hit rank 15. Using decks that aren't even at Trump's teachings decks level of quality...

And I'm not saying there's something special about what I did, just that I find it harder to reach rank 15 with my stacked decks on US then it was with these worst then basic decks on EU...

Please just tell me EU is weaker so I don't feel bad about spending so much money on buying card packs lol.
 

Danj

Member
Add me if you are NA, Raxus #1252

I think I can offer some good advice.

I'm EU unfortunately, Danj#2393.

Is EU server considered weaker then US server skill wise? Cause I've been leveling all my classes to lvl 10 playing ranked and I just hit rank 15. Using decks that aren't even at Trump's teachings decks level of quality...

And I'm not saying there's something special about what I did, just that I find it harder to reach rank 15 with my stacked decks on US then it was with these worst then basic decks on EU...

Please just tell me EU is weaker so I don't feel bad about spending so much money on buying card packs lol.

Can you get past rank 15 though? Because that's where I'm stuck at the moment.
 

jiiikoo

Banned
I'm loosing my mind with Dark Iron Arena on heroic. I just can't seem to beat it.

I don't have much cards, which I guess is the main problem. Tried looking at some decks on the net but I still can't beat him :(
 

_DrMario_

Member
I'm EU unfortunately, Danj#2393.



Can you get past rank 15 though? Because that's where I'm stuck at the moment.

I'm not sure if I'd be able to go further but I don't even have the BRM or Nax cards so maybe?

Unfortunately it's going to take me a couple of months to get the gold to buy those 2 adventures.
 
So, I just started 2 weeks ago and I haven't played much but I have 2 characters on lv. 10 now and 540 gold. I haven't created any decks on my own because I don't really know what to do.
Should I play in the arena or would this just be a waste of my gold?
 
So, I just started 2 weeks ago and I haven't played much but I have 2 characters on lv. 10 now and 540 gold. I haven't created any decks on my own because I don't really know what to do.
Should I play in the arena or would this just be a waste of my gold?

First Arena run is free so feel free but the general rule of thumb is that you need to be able to win 3 games to guarantee that you got value for the price of admission (it's possible to get 150 G worth of value with less wins) whereas 1 pack of cards is 100G. Also, Arena runs only give Goblins and Gnomes packs which is less valuable than classic packs if you just started building your collection.
 

ViviOggi

Member
Is EU server considered weaker then US server skill wise? Cause I've been leveling all my classes to lvl 10 playing ranked and I just hit rank 15. Using decks that aren't even at Trump's teachings decks level of quality...

And I'm not saying there's something special about what I did, just that I find it harder to reach rank 15 with my stacked decks on US then it was with these worst then basic decks on EU...

Please just tell me EU is weaker so I don't feel bad about spending so much money on buying card packs lol.
Nah that's bollocks. Think about during which phases of the season you've been playing as it's always all over the place right after the reset, now the current one is more than halfway through, so most better players have made their way up to the 5 to legend gauntlet. Timezones are another factor, if you're playing in the evenings US time you'll run into more casual players while it'll be around noon in EU where the players will generally be more dedicated and experienced.

Plus getting to rank 15 is done quickly thanks to streaking so you're also working with a rather limited sample size.
 

Biochet

Member
i'm cool with decks having +3 flamestrikes in arena but dropping dr gg and rag on curve is just fucking bullshit

how am i supposed to deal with this shit
 
Mirror entity gives the post-buff void terror, not a 3/3

themoreyouknow.gif
It'll give you everything the minion that's played has. For example, if a Paladin has Sword of Justice and summons a minion, the Mage should also get the +1/1 minion as well.

For a more extreme example, I saw a video where Trump was playing against a Shade burst Shaman. (They play a Shade, let it grow, then use Windfury to kill.) The guy had a 5/5 Shade or more, gave it Windfury, and then played a Faceless on it. Trump got the 5/5 Shade copy with Windfury from Mirror Enity.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
It'll give you everything the minion that's played has. For example, if a Paladin has Sword of Justice and summons a minion, the Mage should also get the +1/1 minion as well.

For a more extreme example, I saw a video where Trump was playing against a Shade burst Shaman. (They play a Shade, let it grow, then use Windfury to kill.) The guy had a 5/5 Shade or more, gave it Windfury, and then played a Faceless on it. Trump got the 5/5 Shade copy with Windfury from Mirror Enity.

That was Amaz, not Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10CJO0xp1bw
 

Danj

Member
Nah that's bollocks. Think about during which phases of the season you've been playing as it's always all over the place right after the reset, now the current one is more than halfway through, so most better players have made their way up to the 5 to legend gauntlet. Timezones are another factor, if you're playing in the evenings US time you'll run into more casual players while it'll be around noon in EU where the players will generally be more dedicated and experienced.

Plus getting to rank 15 is done quickly thanks to streaking so you're also working with a rather limited sample size.

So wait if I'm on EU, when is the best time to find easier opponents?
 
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